by Vivian Wood
“Don't even start,” he says. “Seriously, I am in no mood. I can't even leave the castle because Isla’s new minder quit. She'd only been here for an hour but Isla has managed to drive her away.”
He picks up a cloth and angrily begins to polish the end of the rifle.
“Kaia is actually watching Isla right now. They seem to get along well.”
Keir looks up at me, sighing. “I don’t suppose she’s interested in moving in with us permanently, is she?”
My lips curve up in a small smile. “I don’t think so.”
He grunts. “You have got a good one there. Very maternal. When you two have your own kids, that will come in handy.”
I make a face at him.
“Christ,” I say. “First of all, we are not going to have any kids. And second of all, I think you need to get out of here for a while. While Kaia keeps Isla busy, I think we should go for a walk outside.”
Keir gives me a sharp look. “It's almost dark.”
“We are grown-ups. I think will be okay.”
“Should I go check on Isla before we leave?”
“Nope. Come on.” I turn to leave the room.
Keir follows me as I exit the castle through a small back door. Stepping outside into the growing twilight, I take a deep breath of air.
Keir moves past me, heading for the hills to our left. He seems to be quietly brooding, so I just keep my thoughts to myself as we hike the Scottish landscape. It's chillier than I anticipated as I climb the gently sloping hills, following Keir closely. The moon is already coming up as the sun is going down. Off to my right, the lake gently shimmers.
Keir climbs the hill and stops at the top. We both overlook the large lake that is now immediately below us, spread out like a puddle of blue ink. I come to stand beside him, crossing my arms and looking at him.
“So… how is business?” I ask. It’s not at all what I want to know. But I’ve known Keir for eight years and this is the only way that I know to begin a conversation with him.
Damn, I should’ve brought some whiskey.
He purses his lips. “It's still going pretty well. I haven't made that many wild stock purchases lately.” He scrunches up his face. “Actually, it's been a while since I even logged into the website to check my earnings. I am so preoccupied with Isla that everything else just seems…” He trails off.
After a minute, I take a deep breath. “Well, the good news for you is that you are already a billionaire. Although you wouldn't know it from your living situation. Why did you move back here with Isla?”
His lips quirk. “Glasgow was too much. There were too many… temptations. Not for me, for Mary.”
That gives me pause. “Mary?”
He gives me a long look. “My wife.”
I squint. “What does that mean exactly? What kind of temptations did the city offer?”
He puffs out his cheeks. “Before I met her, Mary spent a lot of time with a rough crowd. And it seems like for most of the Isla’s childhood, she had really gotten away from it. But in the last year, she was… erratic. I moved us all out here to give her space to recover or whatever it was she needed…” He pauses then shakes his head. “But then she started disappearing.”
My eyebrows rise. I look at Keir, my surprise evident. “What you mean, disappearing?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “I don't know. Drink. Drugs. Men. Or something like that. I really didn’t want to know the details.”
I let his words sink in for a minute. “She’s gone, I’m assuming.”
Keir nods and nudges some rocks with the toe of his boot. “I woke up one morning to find a note from her. It just said that she was sorry. No information or explanation.”
I nod slowly. “I’m assuming that you already paid a private investigator to look for Mary?”
He runs a hand through his short blonde hair. “Yep. I've spent a lot of money on private detectives. I even hired a financial investigator. But they still haven't turned anything up. She's a ghost. I suspect that she just vanished back into the same slums I found her in.”
I squint at him.
“So you have no idea where she is? There's no paper trail? No breadcrumbs leading you on a merry chase?”
He looks down and gives a discouraged sigh. “I don't know. I woke up six months ago and she had just vanished without a trace. It's not the first time that she is ever gone missing. But the longest she is ever stayed away was a week. It just feels different this time.”
He squints out across the lake.
“I’m not a parent. You know that. But can I give you some advice?”
He looks at me briefly, cock a brow. “What’s that?”
“Your daughter needs you. Or at least, she needs some stable adult in her life to tell her that it's going to be okay. Since I've been here, she's been a real wild child. And I think in large part that's because she doesn't have any rules.”
He scowls at me. “Of course she has rules. The more that I insist on the rules, the more wild she is. I'm telling you, there is no winning.”
“Have you to sat down together? Maybe talked about why her mom left and how it isn't her fault?”
I can't see his expression because he turns his head away, but when he speaks, his words are sharp. “This wasn't the plan. Mary and I had all sorts plans in place. And then she just up and disappeared.”
I exhale along stream of air. “I’m sorry, Keir. I really am.” I pause. “If you need to, you and Isla can move closer to us. Just for a little while until you figure out you next step.”
He looks defeated. “I can’t leave Mary. What if she tries to come back and I’m not here?”
Keir sounds broken. I don’t know what to say to that, or at least nothing helpful and not sarcastic. So I just give him a one armed hug. He allows it for a few seconds, then moves away.
“You’re a good friend for offering,” he says. He looks into the setting sun, his eyes mere slits. “When you and Kaia start having kids, you should have a better plan than the one that Mary and I had.”
I give him a long look. “Don’t let Kaia hear you saying that. She has brought up having my kids three times already since we’ve been together. I’m trying to figure out the gentlest way to tell her that I don’t think I should have any offspring.”
Keir glances at me, startled. “What? Why not?”
“I don’t like the idea that I would be totally responsible for a life. Until they’re like ten, they can’t survive without us. Like… what if something happens to Kaia and then it’s just me and a baby I don’t really want?” I screw up my face. “Besides, I know I’m fucked up. I don’t want to pass that down to a child.”
“Being a fuck up is not a genetic condition. Neither is being an asshole.” His lips twitch with a little dark humor.
“Hilarious. I offer for you to move close if you need family and you make a crack about my being an asshole.”
“You walked right into that one.” He blows out a breath. “Seriously though… Those are reasons not to want a family, sure. But have you asked Kaia why she wants to have kids? I bet her reasons are equally as good.”
I shoot him a glare. “Kaia and I just got together officially. Besides, she is barely old enough to vote. She has quite a career ahead of her in the ballet. She has more than enough things on her plate without bringing the idea of motherhood into the mix.”
He holds up his hands in surrender. “You’re the boss. I’m just playing devil’s advocate.”
I look down as the last rays of sunlight fall upon the surface of the lake, glinting brightly. “I’ll race you down to the lake.”
Keir’s eyes light up. “You’re on.”
We both launch ourselves down the hill and our serious conversation is soon forgotten.
18
“Isla!? Isla!”
From across the castle, I can hear Keir’s angry shout. It follows us faintly down the stonework hall. I turn around and glance behind me with a sigh. Calum is right behin
d me, shaking his head.
“Keir has his hands full with his daughter,” I tell Calum.
Calum nods and transfers the picnic basket into his other hand, taking mine and squeezing it tightly. “That he does. When we went out alone yesterday, I asked him about where her mother went. But I didn't get a good answer. I mean, Keir can't expect to just let his daughter run wild.”
We reached the front door just as Keir makes an aggravated sound from far away. This time I don't even stop. I just wrench open the front door and hold it open for Calum. He raises his brows a little bit as he walks through the doorway. I feel guilty about it, but that doesn't mean I don't sigh with relief when I am safely outside.
“That girl is a holy terror. Did I tell you that she went through all of my stuff? When I got up this morning, I caught her wearing that emerald necklace that you gave me. But she lied and insisted that it was hers.”
He glances at me sharply. “You didn't mention it, no. But it doesn't surprise me. She filled my shoes with shaving cream and locked me in a spare room when I was exploring the castle.”
“Oh, no.” I bite my lip, glancing back. “Keir is going have to do something about her.”
Calum grabs my hand and pulls me along. “That's Keir's problem. We're on vacation. We're not responsible for his daughter.”
I smirk a little at him. “She is cute though.”
He shoots me a dark look. “Yeah, if you don't mind her incessant pranks and her pouting anytime anyone tells her no. I'm telling you, that's the worst case scenario for a parent. I know you can't predict what temperament your child is going to have… But that's got to be one of the worst ones.”
“She is a challenge, that's for sure.”
I look up at the castle walls as we pass them, my eye drawn to the varying shades of gray. To my surprise, Calum leads me around the back of the castle. There I find a large lake spread out below the castle, placid and peaceful as you could want. There is a copse of trees only a few hundred feet away and it leads down to the perfect sandy beach.
Calum leads me down to a spot on the shore and lays down a blanket. I look at him, impressed. “Nice work. This is just about the most romantic spot that has ever existed.”
He sets the picnic basket down and smirks at me. “I’m glad that you think so. I wasn't sure how you would fare this far outside of the city.”
I roll my eyes and find a spot to sit.
He sits down beside me and opens the picnic basket, pulling out all kinds of goodies. Champagne, cheese, fruit, meat, and a few little slices of bread. I laugh as he pops the cork on the champagne, and it spills stick sweet wine everywhere. He grins and pours us each a plastic cup full of wine.
He peers at his cup. “I think I made a fundamental mistake by putting plastic cups in the picnic basket. If I could do it again, I would've insisted on champagne flutes.”
I cock a brow at him. “You're assuming that Keir has champagne flutes.”
He frowns but nods. “Yeah, that's true. Keir definitely has some weird stuff… But I don't see him drinking a lot of champagne. If I hadn't brought this bottle from New York, we would be high and dry.”
My lips tip upward and I hold my cup out to him. “Well, cheers.”
He holds his cup out but doesn't tap it against my just yet. “What are we toasting to?” he asks.
I squint off across the water, listening to the low lapping sound of the water rising and falling on the shore.
“I’m not sure,” I say. “But it does seem to me that we could toast over almost anything in our lives. I can't think of anything that isn't going my way right now.”
His lips quirk. “That's fair. Well, here's to everything in our lives continuing to go right.”
He clinks his glass against mine and I smile as I take a sip of the foamy champagne. I move over to his side of the blanket, monopolizing his space and resting my thigh against his leg. He doesn't say anything but he does take my free hand. He laces our fingers together. For a while, we just look out over the lake and sit in silence.
A question bubbles up from my chest to my lips. “Am I just content right now? Is that what I'm feeling?”
Calum arches an eyebrow at me. “Maybe. Have you never been happy with your life before?”
I blush a little and slowly shake my head. “I don't think that I have, no.”
He looks thoughtful. “I guess I haven't ever felt that way either.” He casts his gaze over me and sips his wine. “I just feel calm. Is that how you feel?”
I lean my back against his chest and sigh. “Yeah. I guess things are just going well with us. Plus things at the ballet company are going well… My mom is finally out of my dad's house…” I wrinkle my nose. “The only thing I can even complain about is eating too many bagels and putting on weight from that. That's a pretty minor complaint.”
I can feel the reverberation of him chuckling through his chest. “You could stand to gain a couple of pounds, okay? I am as sensitive as any other dancer about weight, but I have noticed in the past that you were…”
He trails off and squints. I turn around and look at him, my lips pressing into a thin line.
“Be very careful what you are about to say.”
He shrugs a shoulder and sets his glass down, caressing my shoulder. “When you first moved into my apartment, I just thought that you were thin as a rail. That's all.
I exhale through my nose and roll my eyes. Turning back around to look out over the water, I shrug my shoulders. “What can I say? I got really into running while we were apart.”
Calum brushes my hair away from my shoulder and places a kiss just at the spot where my shoulder and my neck meet. I shiver, always responsive to every little touch from him.
“We are not apart now, are we?” he murmurs.
My lips curve upward. “No, we’re definitely not.”
He places another kiss next to the first one. Then he stills for a moment. I hear him take a deep breath.
“This is getting pretty serious, isn't it?”
I'm a little taken aback by his question. I turn my head so that I can see his face.
“Our relationship?” I clarify.
He nods, his expression somber.
“Well… It's the most serious relationship I've ever been in. But then again, I've never lived with anybody. I've never been in love before. I've never done any of the things that we do on a regular basis. It's all new. It feels intense.” I frown a little. “But maybe it's supposed to feel intense?”
His hand drops down to my knee and he lazily explores the skin he finds there. “It has never been like this with anybody else that I've been with. I think that is unique to us.”
I purse my lips and scrunch my face up. “Still. It feels good. It definitely feels better to be together than to be apart.”
His lips find the curve of my neck again. He whispers against my skin. “It does.”
I shudder at that. I wonder if it will always feel this way. “This intense. This wonderful.”
“God, I hope so.” His lips pause against my skin. “I don't know. I would imagine that we will have our ups and downs. But I can say for sure that I love you. I want to be with you. And I can't imagine feeling differently than I do now.”
My skin suddenly breaks out into goose flesh. “Yeah?”
Instead of answering, he turns my head so that he can kiss my lips. It feels so good and so right, just being with him here, right now. I don't know for sure what the future holds or what kind of challenges we might face. But I do know that with Calum by my side, I feel more than ready for whatever life brings.
19
We've barely touched down in New York city when I get the call from Lucas.
Picking up the phone call while I am hurrying Kaia into the back of my limo, I answer. “Hello?”
I hear him draw a long breath before he answers. “Calum, I'm calling you from the hospital. Anita died this morning in her sleep.”
I slow my footsteps to a halt, p
ausing with a hand on the open back door of the limo. My heart squeezes uncomfortably in my chest. I don't say anything right away but my brain is abuzz.
Lucas pushes on, sounding frazzled. “Hello? Calum, you gotta say something so that I know that you heard me.”
I clear my throat. “Yeah, I heard you. That's… sad, I guess.”
I hear him heave a sigh. “It's been a long time coming. I don't suppose that you want to see her or anything, right?”
That gets my heart rate going faster. “No thanks, brother. Do you need me to do anything?”
“No. I wanted to make sure that you knew. Also to ask if you knew of any family she might have had. Otherwise, I think I'll skip the ceremony and the funeral and just have her cremated…”
I exhale. Then I slide into the back seat next to Kaia, closing the back door. I clear my throat, looking over to my girlfriend’s preoccupied face. She’s looking down at her phone, wholly absorbed.
“Calum?” Lucas prompts me again.
“Yeah. Uh, Anita had some family in California, I think. You might want call them and see about where you should bury her.”
Kaia’s brow puckers and she looks up, vaguely concerned.
“I’m all over it. Don't worry about it,” Lucas assures me.
I glance at Kaia, my brows knitting. “Well, thanks for letting me know I guess.”
“No problem. I should get going. I have a ton of people to talk to today.”
He hangs up rather abruptly and I frown as I slide the phone into my pocket. The limo pulls away from the curb and I sigh heavily.
“That was Lucas. He called to tell me that Anita died.”
Kaia is eyebrows rise. “Who?”
I realize suddenly that I haven't been keeping Kaia abreast of the Anita situation. As a matter of fact, I kept it very quiet. I frown.
“The woman that took us in after my mother passed away.” I pause, licking my lips and glancing out the window. “She was also my first sexual encounter.”