Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
YOU WEAR YOUR HEART ON YOUR SLEEVE
Gordain
The heli’s rotors hacked through the sea air, driving us from the North Sea towards the Scottish mainland, and a band tightened around my chest the closer we got. Our route took us over Lossiemouth, my old RAF station.
We had to refuel before continuing south.
We were going to land at the base.
I’d had no say in the planning, being a passenger on this return flight, and since quitting the air force, I hadn’t seen any of my old colleagues. It was inevitable now. We were minutes out from landing, the runway lights, brilliant even in daytime, visible ahead.
On my phone, I exited the conversation with Ella I’d been rereading, and started a new one with Jordie, my old pilot buddy. You around?
Stranger! Where are you? came his immediate reply.
Landing at Lossie for fuel. ETA 10. Meet you in the pumps? I typed back. As a civilian, my movements would be limited. I’d stick with the heli and her crew.
Can’t wait, came the response, and I grinned at my phone then braced myself for landing.
Jordie jogged up before the blades stopped turning. He hauled me from the door and bellowed his welcome, thumping my spine.
He looked me over, poking a finger at my company jumpsuit. I did the same to him, instantly transported back to a time when he’d be meeting me from a mission and we’d be heading to the bar.
“It’s been too long,” I said, my words almost lost to the stiff breeze.
“Whose fault is that? You’ve been skimpy with your replies. I’d almost given up on you.” He grinned, his square jaw jutting out.
I grimaced. “Sorry.” It was true. I’d worked and worked, throwing myself into thinking about anything other than my lost career, my separation from my family, and of course, all things Ella.
“Whatever. You’re here now. You’ve got time for coffee,” Jordie decided, and he dragged me away with an arm around my shoulders. Just like old times.
Jordie dropped into the seat across from me in the airfield’s small office. Technically, I shouldn’t have been allowed in, but no one batted an eyelid. In fact, the more familiar faces I saw, and punches to the shoulder I received, the more at home I felt.
“Sucks what happened to you, McRae,” one new recruit called—I recognised him from training I’d given a year ago. “Hope you nail the bastard.”
I stared after him. I thought I’d be despised on the base. For letting down the uniform. For walking away.
“It’s perfect timing you coming this morning.” Jordie nudged a steaming mug across the table. “Big news. Wing Commander Phillips is under the cosh.”
I blinked. “What does that mean?”
“Top brass is investigating him. He’s suspended as of a few days ago. But to be honest with you, after the shit he’s rumoured to have pulled? That guy is outta here.”
“What is he accused of?”
“Embezzlement, awarding contracts to his family firm. You name it, they’re throwing it at him.”
I gaped. “But he’s a wing commander. Untouchable.”
“I bet he thought so, too.” Jordie grinned evilly. “The man is out of luck. You should post evidence for what happened to you. But you’ll have to hurry. The trial is in a couple of months, but they are compiling the case now.”
“Fuck.” I dragged my fingers through my hair. “I should. He forced me out. This was my life, and that fucker made me quit.”
“Would you come back, if you could? We miss you here.”
I swung my gaze to Jordie. Ella’s face flashed in front of my eyes, and I had the strangest thought of how much I’d miss her if I was sent away again on a tour. How much she’d hate it. We’d never see one another.
What was that about? We weren’t even together. I’d seen her once in months.
“I… I’m nae sure. It was my life, but it was all or nothing, ye ken? I’ve been out of it for so long. Life is different.”
Jordie blew on his coffee, the steam spiralling. His gaze turned speculative. “It’s hard when you’ve got someone at home waiting for you.”
“I bet.”
“How’s the better offer?”
I drew my eyebrows in. “The what?”
“The woman you threw me over for? You still seeing her?”
Ah. At the end of the summer, I’d turned down Jordie’s invite to go to his wife’s party. I’d done it for Ella. “No. I never was.”
The clock on the wall gave me ten minutes until I had to get back to the heli. Fuck it. Jordie had been in my shoes once. If anyone had experience in this arena, it was him.
“Your wife. She was young when you met her,” I stated.
“She was.” Jordie inclined his head. “How old is Ms Better Offer?”
“Eighteen. Her name is Ella.”
“You’re, what, four or five years older? I don’t see the problem.”
I hadn’t been prepared for this conversation but I pushed anyway. Ella’s last message informed me she was looking for someone to take on a date. And if I didn’t like it, I only had myself to blame.
I hated it. With everything in me.
Yet we still weren’t in the same place. If she decided against me, it’d scar me deep. Ella Fitzroy let loose in my head reaped all kinds of damage, and I hadn’t yet got over our last encounter. If any man was at risk from death by a woman-shaped distraction, it was me.
“Because I’m not a casual dating kind of guy,” I said then swigged my scalding coffee, burning my mouth.
“You want commitment,” Jordie diagnosed. “Got it. I didn’t have that problem. On our third date, my wife told me I was the only man she’d ever want, and that we’d be getting married. I snapped a salute and asked her what kind of ring she wanted.”
I chuckled. “She knew her own mind.”
“Certainly did. Mine, too. I’ll give you one piece of advice. If you can’t do casual then tell her what you can do. She’ll either want it or she won’t.”
I heaved a sigh. “And if she won’t?”
Jordie leaned over and clapped me on my shoulder. “Then come back here and shoot up shit with us. It was good enough for you once, and if you plead your case, you might get the chance of another try.”
With the heli fuelled up, I said farewell to Jordie and readied to fly back to Manchester. I checked my phone before boarding. A message waited from Callum along with missed calls from him and the twins.
Come home. Meet the new bairns.
Then he sent a picture that had my jaw dropping. My older brother in a hospital gown with a tiny baby in the crook of each arm. Born this morning, came home this afternoon, he wrote. Braw, and wee, and with a pair of lungs on each you can’t imagine. Cannae wait to meet their uncle.
“I need to go,” I yelled to the pilot.
“Why? Is there a problem?” he asked.
I had the rest of the day off, so it wasn’t an issue for me to make my own way back, and Castle McRae was only an hour down into the Highlands.
“Two wee bundles of trouble.” I held up my phone, my mind already across the airfield, ready to beg, borrow or steal a car to get back to my family.
“Cute! Hop in. I’ll drop you off on the way,” he replied with a broad grin, and just like that, I was going home.
One scenic flight later, I paused at the castle’s heavy oak door with an aching heart. Months ago, I’d left the place feeling like the worst kind of letdown. I’d rebuilt some of that damaged pride but I’d missed my family more and more as the months passed. It was time to make changes.
I swung open the door and marched in.
Callum stomped across the great hall, meeting me halfway.
“Gordain!” He threw his arms around me, crushing me to him.
I did the same, smacking him hard on the back. “Congratulations,” I mumbled.
“Ah, ye should see them! Bonniest wee bairns you ever saw. The lass has the loudest yell.”
“One’s a girl?”
“Aye! A girl and a boy.”
I pushed off him and stared. Twins had existed in our family going back centuries, but always boys. A pair of twins was the reason the estate was split down the middle, carving up the land that Lachlan and Callum separately owned.
“No! We’ve never had that. It’s always been lads.”
“I know! Come meet them.”
Callum slung an arm over my shoulder and guided me across the great hall, filling me in on the grisly details of the birth. We jogged up the internal staircase and then up the narrow stairs to the solar. Inside, the older pair of twins sprawled on the couch, gazing into a cot.
“Hey, bro. Asleep,” Ally mouthed, pointing down. “Wake them, and Mathilda will kill us all.”
I tiptoed over and peered into the cot at the two smallest members of my family. God, they were adorable. Fair, fluffy down for hair, and scrunched-up faces.
“Lennox and Skye,” Callum said, gazing over my shoulder. “They’re more than happy to meet their oldest uncle.”
I parted my lips in surprise. Lennox was my middle name. “Well, hello, sweethearts,” I whispered to the sleeping bairns. “Aren’t you bonnie?”
Mathilda shuffled out of the bedroom, bundled up in a dressing gown and moving gingerly. I wrapped her in a hug.
“They’re perfect,” I said. “You did good.”
She immediately began to cry. “It’s perfect now you’re back. We heard the helicopter. Oh, Gordain. We’ve all missed you so much.”
“That’s the hormones talking,” Ally said softly. “She cried at me bringing her a glass of water.”
“Seriously, though.” Callum pulled his wife into his arms. She snuggled down, her face weary and her eyes closing, though her head remained cocked towards the cot. My brother raised his chin at me. “I’ve wanted ye home. It hasnae been the same.”
Mathilda elbowed him in the ribs.
“And I’m sorry,” Callum added. “I was an unhelpful fucker when ye left. I should have been a better brother.”
“Language,” Mathilda chided without opening her eyes. “Babies present.”
“They’re not even a day old! They cannae ken swears from anything else I’m saying,” he protested then laid a soft kiss on his wife’s head.
I choked, welling up, overwhelmed by the scene. It was time I confided in my family. About my problems with the RAF to start with. Then, in time, about Ella. I’d always acted alone, shouldering my problems, taking myself off to lick my wounds. Maybe that was my problem.
I didn’t want to be alone anymore.
Aquick phone call secured me the night off, and I spent the afternoon alternating between which bairn needed cuddles more.