“We hope. Remember, the meeting isn’t till later today.”
Tag waved his hand. “Formality. They’re lucky to have you and they know it. With your college playing history and the fact that you’re a hometown boy? You’re a shoo-in.”
Jace didn’t bother to argue the point. “Go on.”
“Zan is also starting up the business with her mom, so you two have a lot going on, but it’s all just beginning.” Tag took a steadying breath, not realizing until just then how much he hoped Jace would agree with this plan he’d worked out. He might not have a personal desire to stay connected to this place, but he did respect the history attached to it. And he’d like to think that the four young men who’d had a place in it, no matter how brief, had to count for something, too. “So, I happen to own this big old house with absolutely no in tendons of living in it.” He rubbed his thumbs on the mug, uncomfortable with the flash of sentimentality, unwilling to label it as such. He was merely being practical.
Jace’s eyes widened. “You want me and Zan to move in? Here?” He blew out a sigh, then rocked his chair forward so the legs hit the floor with a loud thump. “I don’t know, TJ.,” he said, using the nickname Tag heard so rarely, as only his brothers and those in Highland Springs used it. Kept things less confusing growing up, with him and his father having the same name. Still, it felt kind of nice hearing it again.
Jace looked around the room, and Tag wondered what memories it held for him. He’d already been gone by the time Jace was a teenager.
“It’s been hard enough bunking out here the past couple of weeks. I’m not sure—”
“The thing is,” Tag broke in, wanting—no, needing—to have this said. “I don’t want to sell it. Not because I’m attached to it, but because our ancestors are. This house, well, this land anyway, along with our third of the Hollow property, is a legacy to all the Morgans before us.”
“Such as they were,” Jace said with a wry smile.
Tag matched his brother’s expression. “Yes, well, wastrels and bastards though some of them may have been, it’s the unbroken chain I’m most interested in keeping intact.” He leaned forward. “I dig up history for a living. And while I’m in no hurry to relive my own, I’m not in any rush to sell it off, either.” He pushed on, not letting Jace speak. “I could give a shit about the house. Raze it to the ground if you want, build a new one, for the two of you. In fact, maybe that’s exactly what you should do. Say what you will about the old man, but he knew how to make money. And as I have no need for it, you might as well use it to start over here.” He thought briefly about the documents waiting for his signature, the ones that could continue funneling some of that private stash overseas. If he were so inclined. He didn’t want to think about that at the moment. Family came first. The Hollow came second. Everything else was a distant third. A castle and caretaker an ocean away felt pretty distant to him at the moment.
“I don’t know, man.” Jace gripped his mug, then shoved it away, once again looking around the room. “It’s not just the house. The whole property has history. Some of it mine.”
“Not all of it bad,” Tag pointed out.
He nodded, agreeing. “True. I just…”
“You came back home for a reason. Of the four of us, you’re the one who wants to make your mark here.”
“Nothing is going to change our father’s history here,” Jace reminded him. “Not in my lifetime anyway. Or the impact he’s had on the town, good and bad. I can’t wipe that memory clean, from my mind or theirs.”
“I didn’t expect you to. But maybe you’ll set the standard for the Rogues Hollow Morgans of our generation, and hopefully the next.”
“What about you? What do you want?”
“Hell, I don’t know. I only know I don’t want to be the Morgan that dissolves what three hundred years of previous Morgans fought to preserve.” He sighed, shoved his chair back. “I could lease the place, the land, like the Sinclairs have done. But I don’t want to do that, either. I don’t need that hassle. Neither do you. And somehow it seems worse to let the place sit here and rot. Like we’re giving in to the festering wounds of the last thirty-odd years, letting him kill whatever’s left, with no hope of resurrection.”
Jace looked at him, then suddenly his somber expression split into a bark of laughter. “Jesus, T. Talk about dark despair. I bet you’re a howl at parties, too.” He downed his coffee, then got up and rinsed his mug out in the sink before turning it upside down on the drain rack. He stayed there, though, hands braced on the counter, his back to his oldest brother. The silence spun out, then he took a deep breath, blew it out in one huff. “I’ll need to talk to Zan,” he said.
Even with his impassioned plea, the instant punch in the gut, of relief, surprised him. Why did he care so damn much? “Okay. That’s good. Great, actually. Thanks.” He said it calmly, matter-of-factly. When, in truth, his insides were a jangle of nerves and he was at a loss to explain why.
Jace turned. “When do you need to know?”
“What? Oh. I—I don’t know. I guess we’d need to sign some papers over. Talk to a lawyer.” He looked at Jace. “This isn’t a caretaker offer. If you do this, it will be your name on the deed. If nothing else, it will give you leverage with the bank for a loan if you ever need one, or if Zan does for her business. Dad’s pockets were flush, but not bottomless.” He didn’t glance around the room as Jace had. He didn’t have to. Fifty years could pass, a hundred, and he’d be able to picture every last inch of this house. Some more sharply defined than others. “In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think you should rebuild here, from the ground up.” He smiled at his youngest brother. “Hell, by the time the two of you get done arguing over wallpaper and carpeting, you’ll know for sure if you’re meant to stick it out together.”
“Very funny.” Then Jace shook his head. “But as far as the deed goes, we’ll all own it. You can put my name on the power of attorney papers, or whatever the hell, I don’t care. But I want the deed in all of our names. It’s our heritage, not just mine.” He looked up. “Or yours.”
Tag held his baby brother’s direct gaze with new respect. They were all men now, and despite, or maybe because of their childhood, none of them were afraid to make their voices heard. He stood, stuck out his hand across the table. “Deal. Although we’ll have to hunt down Burke and Austin to get their signatures. I’m sure they’ll go for it, though.”
Jace smiled. “I imagine they have fax machines in Milan. Tracking down Burke will be the harder part of the deal.” He rounded the table. “I guess I should break the news to Zan.”
“If she doesn’t want—”
Jace waved him silent. “She loves the Hollow as much as I do. Growing up on Ramsay’s plot makes her, in a way, as much a part of history here as any of us. That’s why we both came back here.” He grew serious. “You’re right, you know. Maybe part of that journey is to right some old wrongs. Put our own stamp on this place.” This time when he looked around, it was with an expression of interest, curiosity, a little anticipation… and a lot of responsibility.
“You’ll do a great job of it,” Tag told him, not wanting him to feel it as a burden, knowing he would anyway. “God knows, anything you two do will be an improvement ” He pulled Jace into a one-arm hug. “Thanks.” He knew he should say more. Wished he could.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Jace joked. But he hugged him back. “It’s the right thing to do. We’ll make it right.” Then, as neither of them were comfortable with prolonged displays of sentimentality, Jace pushed past his brother into the hall. He tossed a smile over his shoulder as he headed toward the stairs. “I’m thinking I know just the way to warm Zan up to this idea.”
“You might consider starting by bringing her a cup of coffee.”
Jace’s smile spread to a grin. “We won’t be needing any artificial stimulants, thanks. Perfect way to start a Sunday morning if you ask me.”
“Heathen.”
“Pag
an,” Jace shot back with an affectionate laugh.
Whereas Jace was every bit the tall, lanky, close-cropped jock he’d always been, Tag knew he was anything but. From the shaggy head of curly hair, to the permanent tan, to the string of teeth and bones he wore woven around his neck, and the tribal tattoos that dotted his body, Tag no more fit in with the fine folks of Marshall County than a Papuan aborigine would. But here, in Rogues Hollow, he was the aborigine. Directly descended from highwaymen and thieves, wanderers and settlers. And long before that, the Celts and the Druids. Even sixty-plus years of his father’s attempts to force a new history onto the Morgan name couldn’t stamp out the core genetics passed down through the ages.
He’d always taken some comfort in that.
Jace took the stairs two at a time, and Tag took additional comfort in the fact that the Morgan future was, for now, in good hands.
His bemused smile faded as he turned back and looked the opposite way down the main hall, to the office door. And, he supposed, that left him to be the keeper of the Morgan past.
Chapter 3
Tag poured himself another cup of coffee, then headed into the office and flipped the key on the cherrywood box before he could think too long on it. This wasn’t about digging up the artifacts of his father’s life. That would happen as a by-product, he knew. Just as he knew that any attempt to categorize whatever he uncovered in the same careful, deliberate way he would any other excavation would be woefully unsuccessful. He’d simply have to deal with that.
He flipped open the lid and lifted out a small card that lay on top of stacks of letters and other items that were obscured from immediate view. His gaze fell on the handwritten words scrawled across the card, in what he still recognized as his father’s hand. With the first words, his body went rigid. This note was intended for him.
You claim you were born to dig. That your mark is to be made uncovering past truths rather than adjudicating new ones. So be it. Here is your chance to uncover a few of your own. Are you man enough for it?
Tag’s fingers tightened on the small card, curling the edges in. A taunt from beyond the grave. Now this was more like the man he’d known and lived to forget. Man enough. “You mean like leaving cryptic messages to be found after your death? When no one can question them? Or judge you?” You bastard, he thought, so what the hell kind of man does that make you, huh?
Tag crushed the card in his palm, then tossed it toward the waste can, not bothering to note if it went in or landed on the floor. His hands were on the lid of the box now, and he had every intention of slamming it shut. Serve his father right if he burned the whole damn thing, contents and all. “Man enough, my ass.”
So many years later and worlds apart, netherworlds now, his father could still tweak him to instant fury with one carefully worded note. But instead of heaving the trunk, Tag’s grip merely tightened on the open lid, as did the bands slowly constricting around his heart. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t communicated once in all this time. The asshole knew he wouldn’t react well to that taunt, would likely do exactly what he was currently contemplating, trash the trunk and its contents, unread.
Which begged the question: what did his father hope to gain by this? Because there was always a morality play, a lesson to be learned, a new reality to be embraced, where his father was concerned. Did he want his son to walk away from whatever this ridiculous clan land baron thing was all about, sight unseen? Hoping to lay one last eternal guilt trip on him? If so, he was going to be sorely disappointed. If Tag hadn’t felt guilty once since he’d walked out of here the last time, he wasn’t about to start now.
And if he wanted this property to continue getting his financial aid, well, he could have certainly entrusted his friend Mick to handle that for him. Which meant his father wanted him to take on handling this property personally, as he’d done. Of course, Tag could take care of that little bit of business in about two seconds if he wanted to. His gaze drifted to the folder containing the documents. All he had to do was sign on the dotted line, and one Maura Sinclair could claim continued stewardship, using his father’s monthly stipend however she saw fit.
Or, she could be out on her ass, the property put up for auction, or whatever the hell one did with a castle he wanted to sell.
On the surface, it would appear his father would want him to do the former, but for all he knew, Taggart Sr. simply hadn’t wanted to be the bad guy in this particular business arrangement. Not all that shocking, really. For all that his father had been a son of a bitch to his sons, to the townsfolk and those he was trying to impress, Taggart Morgan, Sr. could be quite the charming statesman. At least, his father had believed that of himself, perhaps had needed to believe it. After all, gaining the respect of everyone who had for so long cast a dark eye on the Morgans preceding him was what he’d spent his whole life chasing after.
Tag and his brothers knew those same people who bowed and scraped before the local judge, privately suspected what really went on back home, where no one was watching. He’d heard the whispers, seen the looks.
He shut that track down, looked down at the box. “So, what was Ballantrae,” he murmured. The sentimental purchase of a lonely man, aging alone and suddenly wanting to connect with his roots, or a monstrosity of a white elephant investment that he’d get the last laugh over pawning off on his unsuspecting son?
There was one way to find out.
He fingered the stack of letters, debating on how much more of Pandora’s box he wanted revealed. Just sign over the damn money, set up a trust, whatever the hell it took and be done with it. The who, what, where, when, and most especially why of it didn’t matter. His conscience would be clear. No one would be out of a job and the castle would remain in Morgan hands. That should satisfy everyone, right? And the hell with whether it was what his father wanted, or if it thwarted his final power play.
Which did nothing to explain why he sat in the chair, and, rather than pick up a pen and slide the folder containing the documents in front of him, he untied the band that held the letters together. They were sorted in order, with the newest being on top. He looked at the postmark, but had already deduced from the postage stamps that the letters had come from Scotland. The handwriting on the envelope was cramped, more a chicken scratch really, so it was with some surprise that he noted the name above the return address. Maura Sinclair. The caretaker. He wondered at that last name. Coincidence? Of course, Scotland was riddled with Sinclairs and Ramsays, and probably a fair share of Morgans. It could very well mean nothing. The top letter was postmarked this past October. Less than three months ago. About six weeks before his father had passed away.
The letter had been opened, so he surmised his father’s health had still been decent enough at that point to allow him to read. He didn’t want to think about that, hadn’t in fact, until now. He didn’t want to imagine his father as he must have looked, toward the end. Drawn, pale, wasted away to some degree, as he would have been from the months of chemo he’d gone through. The lawyers had referred to their father’s illness and passing in compassionate, sparing, but specific terms. Not one of his sons had asked them to elaborate.
He put that envelope aside, and flipped through the others. There were a dozen or so here, with another packet or two still in the box. On cursory glance through the rest, they appeared to have been sent on an average of once a month, the first one dating back about three years. About a month or two after Mick said he’d bought the property. All of them bore the same cramped script on the outside. It made him wonder about this Maura Sinclair. What the actual involvement was between her and his father. The writing was cramped, but not what he’d term spidery. So… was she young? Old? Married, widowed? That sparked another thought. Had this been some kind of long-distance love affair?
He glanced at the handsomely made box. It might explain the elaborate manner in which his father had preserved the letters. Or why he’d saved them at all. As an adult, Tag could understand, if he were given to w
anting to, why his father had chosen to grieve his young wife’s death in private. It didn’t explain why he’d shunted his children’s pain onto others, allowing family members from the Ramsays and Sinclairs to cook, clean, even take in the Morgan boys on this night or that, during the months immediately after her death.
One thing Tag had never questioned, however, was his father’s devotion to his late wife. In all the years after, his father had never so much as dated seriously, much less remarried. On the one hand, the cynical side of him said his father could simply have enjoyed the added emotional sway that being a widower brought with it. A man so devoted to his long-dead wife definitely played well with the locals. But Tag had been gone a long time, and they’d certainly never spoken of it before that. So what did he really know of it?
Did it bother him, thinking his father had been involved in some kind of grand passion with a woman in another country? No. He didn’t care what his father did, or with whom. In general, he didn’t believe in pining for things that could never be recovered, but rather living for today, for what treasure might be just around the corner.
His lips quirked. An odd sentiment, he supposed, for a man who immersed himself in the past as a matter of due course. Still, it was a tangible past he studied. That wasn’t the same as longing for what could never be.
He fingered the envelopes, and intended to put them aside, look through the remaining items in the box first Maybe he wouldn’t read them at all. Okay, who was he kidding? He was going to skim one or two, at the very least. His curiosity had been officially unleashed. If not about his father’s side of this secret life, then about the woman on the other side of it. The one who was still alive and well and living somewhere in Scotland. Was she pining? Had she merely lost her employer, or the love of her life? Did she know about his plans, to leave this burden to his son to decide upon? It had been several months. How was she managing without the money coming in every month?
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