Chapter 6
SIX
WHAT WE’VE ALWAYS DONE
Taylor
In my teenage years, stuck in boarding school, I’d been an impulsive girl. Leaping from grand idea to new plan. Chasing boys. Pushing the limits of the school’s rules. Always craving the things I couldn’t have and imagining the time when I’d be able to tear the world apart to get them.
I’d been so close to freedom.
Then Charity’s illness had struck.
Everything had changed. At eighteen, I had been poised to take over the world, finally out of my parents’ control, then bam. The news hit me like a missile, exploding my dreams.
I’d made bad choices then, that was for sure.
I’d nearly lost the friendship of the woman sitting opposite me now, Ella, my best friend, but we’d healed. She knew everything. I’d told her years ago, and she understood. Ella’s own family had been torn apart by tragedy, and she knew the importance of making good what you had.
Tonight, after she’d waited hours for my delayed flight, I’d told her about my engagement.
She’d simply hugged me. And this time I’d resisted the urge to burst into tears.
With Terence driving, I’d visited the Hamptons care home where Charity, my aunt, lived. I’d spent three days at her side, learning about her routine, meeting her carers and seeing the changes from my last visit.
I’d had to do it.
To remind myself why I had put myself forward as a human sacrifice. To remind myself why I wouldn’t consider other options. Then I’d travelled to Scotland with Charity’s words in my head, needing the hug of a friend.
It was evening by the time we’d got back to the Cairngorms and the castle Ella owned with her husband. He’d eaten with us but had otherwise left us to catch up.
I liked Gordain, but I didn’t think he thought much of me. He’d certainly looked at me oddly before he’d left.
“I told Charity about getting engaged,” I said to Ella.
“What did she think? I assume you didn’t tell her you were doing it for her.”
I shuddered. “God, no. I can’t even imagine what she’d do if she knew. No, she had another idea. Do you remember when she last came to visit? We were about fourteen.”
Ella pushed her fingers into her hair, shaking out her black curls from a clip. “I do. She took us out. It’s hard to forget days like that when we were the only girls who no one came to see.”
A painful pressure built in my chest. “She knew she was ill then. But she never told me. She made a decision to travel as much as she could, and visiting England was part of it. Visiting me because she knew she’d never be able to again.”
My friend picked up the wine bottle and waggled it. I held out my glass, and she topped me up.
“I want to follow in her steps. She gifted me her diary, so I’m going to make a bucket list. Then I’m going to do all of those things before I get engaged. After that, I won’t be able to use the bathroom without an interested party attending.”
Ella raised her eyebrows. “I’m flattered to be first on your list.” Then she paused. “Or maybe I’m second. Do you plan on seeing Wasp?”
“Yes.” The word dropped out of my mouth and hung in the air. “I’ve told myself that it’s to apologise for throwing myself at him—”
“But it isn’t,” Ella finished for me then flexed a toe towards the musical-note-patterned rug in front of the couch.
Her study was set up as a musician’s Aladdin’s Cave, with bookshelves lined with music, her precious violin that her husband bought for her on a stand.
Then on the walls were family pictures; her brother, James, and his wife, Beth, plus their son and daughter. Then Gordain with his brothers.
I stared at William in the frame. In the picture, all four men wore kilts. Kilts! Dressed for a wedding. The effect was devastating. “I want a night with him. Or a few days. Or a week. I want to bury myself in someone good and honest and just forget.”
“You’ll end up hurt.”
“I know.”
“Both of you.”
I opened and closed my mouth. “Not if we are upfront. He knows about the arrangement with Theo. If he’s up for this then we’ll set boundaries. We’ve been doing this for years and we’ve both walked away unscathed in the past.”
Whether my friend agreed with this or not, she didn’t say.
Instead, she moved to her desk and woke her laptop, gazing at the screen.
“I’m waiting on an email, sorry. There’s a posse of musicians staying here over the next week.
We’re recording a piece for a film score.
It’ll be noisy, and I’ll be distracted. You’re more than welcome to listen in, but it’ll get boring after a while. ”
“Then if I disappear off with William you won’t mind?”
She shook her head, her attention still on the screen. “I’d expect it. You know, it’s so weird to hear you call him William. Nobody else does.”
“Force of habit.” I cast my mind back to when I’d first heard of William McRae. “You told me your brother had met this family. These Highlanders who lived in this incredible place. You called him William then, before you knew his nickname.”
“That’s James’s influence. He doesn’t use nicknames.”
Inwardly, I winced. Ella’s brother was a no-go territory for me. And the rest of the McRae family. Ella and the twins were the only members who didn’t judge me.
My best friend fitted in here in a way I never could.
She tapped away at her laptop, making her arrangements for her busy and fulfilling life. Her career had taken off, and she produced music for movies and video games. I envied her that. I envied her everything.
“Can I borrow your car?” I leapt to my feet, energy flooding me.
Ella blinked. “Are you going to see Wasp? He isn’t at the castle.”
Right! He’d mentioned a house he was renovating. “Then can I borrow you, too? Can you take me to wherever he is?”
After a childhood of deprivation, Ella and I never said no to the other. I knew that, and I abused our history all the same.
She slipped off her chair and grabbed her keys. “Let’s go.”
We exited Braithar Castle and climbed into Ella’s 4x4. She drove us into the night, plunging us into darkness. Before, when I’d visited her here, I’d always found the absolute blackness intimidating.
I didn’t now.
Everywhere else felt threatening, but the Highlands enveloped us like a blanket, soft and protective.
After twenty minutes of bumpy lanes and a climb over an open hillside, a long, stone building appeared in the headlights. A single window let out orange lamp light, immediately obscured by two bodies jostling to see who was coming.
My throat constricted.
A raucous laugh echoed as we neared.
“Ally stayed with Wasp. He knew you were here,” Ella explained.
“I should’ve called him. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You’ll work it out.” She brought the car to a halt and paused. “What else is on your bucket list? Had you thought past getting here and seeing us?”
“Not really.”
In the house, the lamplight moved, appearing again in a downstairs window.
“After Charity visited us at school, she went to see the Eiffel Tower in Paris, then the Leaning Tower in Pisa. She ticked off a whole host of amazing sites. Once William gets fed up with me, I make a start on her list.”
Ahead, the door to the house flung open. Two tall, almost identical men appeared in the frame, shielding their eyes from the headlights. William frowned, but his twin wore his typical wide grin.
A shiver took me. “What if this is a terrible idea?”
“What if it’s not?” Ella killed the headlights and opened her door, the car’s interior lights putting us on display.
“I knew it!” Ally howled, slapping his brother on the chest.
William didn’t say a word, but he approached the car, his twin disappearing inside the house. I hopped down, my legs suddenly wobbly, the cool night air slipping under my skirt.
“Hi,” I said as soon as he was close.
“Hello,” he replied.
“I…” No more words came.
We stood there, gazing at each other.
“Not like you to be tongue-tied,” he murmured.
That was a fact. The first time we met, I’d practically jumped on him, ordering him around, instantly attracted to the lanky teenager and needing the sort of comfort that could only be found in strong, eager male arms.
But this was so different.
He wasn’t a stranger, and he wasn’t quite a friend. I had no idea where to place William in my life.
At William’s back, Ally bounded from the house, shrugging a jacket onto his shoulders. “Els, drop me home, will ye?”
He slipped past his brother and lifted me from my feet, embracing me in a hard hug. “How ye doing, Tay? Nice of you to stop by.”
“All the better for being here,” I said into his shoulder. I loved Ally, I really did, but the wrong twin was holding me.
“Put her down,” William groused to his brother. “And go away.”
Ally laughed and set me back on my feet. “I knew this would all be for naught. See ye in the morning. We’ll be here early to get the roof on before ye leave. Don’t make us wait while ye find your clothes.”
“Goodnight, Ally,” William and I both said in unison.
“See you tomorrow, Ella. I won’t get in the way if you’re working,” I said to my friend.
She gave me a quick grin then swapped a meaningful glance with William. Ella loved her family deeply, including her brothers-in-law. But she loved me, too. Otherwise I had the feeling she wouldn’t have brought me here at all.
Then they were gone, leaving us alone in the dark.
“Are you going somewhere tomorrow?” I asked. Ally had said he was leaving.
William gestured to the house, and I followed him inside. By the light of the single lamp—I guessed he hadn’t yet got power—I took in the open space. Stone walls. Big rooms. Irregular window and door openings. Charmingly rustic.
Under my feet, crumbling tiles made up the floor, and to my right, a new wooden staircase led up to a second floor. The left side was wide open and airy. I could imagine it being gorgeous when fitted out as a lounge, with tall windows giving views back down the hillside.
How like William, to be able to take something broken down and see past the decay to picture it as a thing of beauty.
“This place is incredible.”
“It’s cold. Come.” He started up the stairs, and I traipsed after him.
Like downstairs, the next floor hadn’t been divided up into rooms yet. In one corner, a little camp had been made with sleeping bags and a few beer bottles. I hadn’t noticed the chill until now, but I shivered.
William sat on one bag so I took the other. Warmth spread through my limbs, and my shiver turned bone deep.
“That one’s mine, but I’d rather I took Ally’s than you.” He raised a hand as if to touch me but dropped it again. “Why did ye come here?”
“I have a month of freedom.”
Emotion flickered in his otherwise carefully neutral expression. “You’re not engaged?”
“Not yet.”
Before, when William and I had found ourselves in each other’s company, one shared look would have been enough to have us sneaking away. Lust turned William into a different man, giving him a kind of dominance that weakened my knees. His usual calm exterior rippled, and raw energy flooded my way.
After he’d turned me down in New York, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see that same expression on his face again.
He raised his gaze, and his eyes flashed with heat. “Ye came here for me? To do what we’ve always done?”
It wasn’t quite the truth, but I dipped my head. Please, please let him not turn me down again.
“Then get on your feet and get downstairs, lass. If this is going to be our last time, we’re going to make it good.”
Thank God for that.