Hope Everlastin' Book 4

by Mickee Madden

  Lachlan groaned and gestured for Winston to leave then drew Beth into his embrace and kissed her.

  * * *

  By dusk the drizzle had abated but dampness clung oppressively to the air. Laura was lost in her thoughts as she stood staring at the headstone bearing Lachlan's name. She could not shake from her mind Tessa's vicious words, or the hatred that had burst inside Laura like an atom bomb.

  What a fool she'd been to think she had come to terms with her past life. She couldn't tell Roan the disgust she felt for herself. Couldn't ask him why he had avoided her since leaving the library, because she knew why. As Robert, he had loved a monster, and she couldn't convince herself that a part of that vile woman didn't still exist in herself. It wasn't over. Not by far. The ache in her heart would stay with her for the rest of her life.

  With a cry of anguish, she rammed the bottom of one booted foot into the granite. It toppled on impact, causing muddy water to splash along the curvature at the top. If she thought the action would purge her, she was wrong. Self-loathing clamped onto her mind and squeezed unmercifully. She wept from fear of who and what she really was. From fear that the person she had always thought herself to be was just another lie.

  "Tis too chilly to be ou' wi’ou' a coat," said a gentle voice from behind her.

  She whirled and stared blearily through tears at a handsome young stranger, who proffered a double-knitted, navy blue sweater. His appearance disoriented her, and she stared at the article of clothing as if afraid it would leap out and devour her. The young man closed the distance. She didn't move, only tried to understand why he stepped around her and draped the wool over her shoulders. When he again stood in front of her, she found herself looking into the most beautiful turquoise eyes she had ever seen. She read compassion in their depths, and a small measure of curiosity.

  "I be Reith, ma'am."

  "Lachlan hired you," she stated in a husky tone.

  He nodded.

  Swallowing past the tightness in her throat, she started to look behind her at the fallen stone, but stopped herself.

  "The ground be loose from the rain," he said diplomatically. "I be sure the marker has toppled afore."

  "I kicked it." She didn't know why the words spilled past her lips, but she didn't regret telling the truth.

  "Aye, I saw. I canna imagine why a lovely womon would feel the need to come ou' in this chill and vent her pain on a cold slab o' granite, but I suggest, ma'am, ye dinna give it anither thought. I'll right it. No one need know ye were here."

  She couldn't stop herself from spilling the story of her former life, neither coloring her part in Lachlan's murder, nor softening the abject bitch she had been. The words poured from her as if siphoned from the well of her soul, her sobs hitching her voice now and then. The young man listened with no apparent shock or revulsion. He stood not in judgment of her, but as someone who somehow understood her torment. When at last she finished, she drew up one of the sweater sleeves and buried her face into the coarse yarn.

  It was minutes later before she felt spent of tears and self-pity, and timidly looked up to see if he was still there. He was, as calm and serene as a summer's morn, his expression kinder than she believed possible under the circumstances.

  Laura turned her back to him, but could not bring herself to look upon the headstones. "You must think me a raving lunatic," she said shakily.

  "No, ma'am. I think ye be a bonny womon wi' a great deal to work through."

  "Thank you," she said tremulously.

  "Ye be a Yank," he said with a hint of amusement. He sobered. "Tha' term isna disrespectful, is it?"

  "No. At least, I think it's cute. Americans are called far worse in other parts of the world."

  "Ma'am, may I ask how ye came to be here?"

  Sighing deeply, raggedly, she turned and offered him a small smile. "My brother lived in St. Ives, England. He died and his second wife—my three nephews' stepmother—couldn't handle them. I came not knowing she planned to abandon them."

  She gestured disparagingly. "Believe me, leaving them in my care was equivalent to abandonment! Anyway, due to other bizarre circumstances, we were on our way to the American Consulate in Edinburgh. I'd never driven in this country, or tackled a stick shift, so driving in winter conditions was an accident waiting to happen. I-ah, somehow came up the driveway here and crashed into the oak at the front of the property. Fate at its nastiest best, wouldn't you say?" Her voice trembled. "Every time I try to rationalize the chain of events that led me here, I feel as if a jackhammer is going off in my head."

  "Ye be where ye should be."

  "Am I?" she whispered achingly.

  "We all come home."

  "Laura?"

  Reith turned and Laura's gaze shifted to Roan, who was coming to a stop alongside the new groundskeeper. The young man passed her a look of understanding, then said to Roan, "Ye be wha' she needs."

  Roan said nothing, but nodded. He watched Reith head across the field in the direction of the carriage house. When he was long out of hearing range, he shoved his hands in his pants pockets and met Laura's timid gaze.

  "I was gettin’ worried abou' you."

  She looked off to one side and clutched the sweater about her more tightly. "I wouldn't blame you if you wanted me to leave."

  "Why would I?"

  Her gaze cut to his. "How could Robbie ever love Tessa? She was—" She choked on emotion and had to draw in a breath before completing, "—so evil."

  "No, no' evil, love. She was desperate and afraid to live in poverty."

  "I saw the look on your face when I—she—was saying those awful things to Lachlan!"

  "Aye, I was shocked, but I understood, Laura." Stepping closer to her, he reached out and tenderly brushed the fingers of one hand against her left cheek. "Haven’t we done enough to punish ourselves? They're gone, lass. We're free to be just Laura and Roan, two people who love each ither, who have been blessed wi' the love and respect o' some verra exceptional friends."

  "We are blessed."

  "Aye, and it's time we started acting like the two people plannin’ the everlastin’ weddin’ o' their lives."

  "Wedding?" Warmth blossomed in her cheeks, and the gloom that had dulled her vibrant green irises, became lost beneath a glow of joyous expectation.

  "Wha' do you think o' a threesome?"

  "What?"

  "Lannie and Beth, Deliah and Winston—"

  "Roan and Laura," she interjected dreamily. "Wow."

  "It would be a helluva grand ceremony," he said, then placed a lingering kiss on her lips. When he lifted his head, he said in a low, raspy tone, "I want you for ma wife, Laura Bennett."

  "You got me," she laughed. "But may I say one thing?"

  "Sure."

  "The new groundskeeper...?"

  "Wha' abou' him?"

  "He's gorgeous."

  Roan jerked back. "He's a fairly nice-looking lad."

  "No, he's gorgeous. Almost too beautiful to be male."

  Roan scrinched up his face in disbelief. "Have I reason to be jealous?"

  Laura laughed. "Roan Ingliss, I like my men ruggedly handsome, as broad in the shoulders as a luxury liner, and having sexy brown eyes."

  "In case you haven’t notice," he said, grinning sheepishly, "ma eyes are brown."

  She flung herself into his arms and kissed him.

  Moments ago, she'd thought herself incapable of ever being happy again. Love was like that, though. When you least expected it, it peeked over the darkest horizon and promised a brighter day ahead.

  Chapter 7

  Taryn decided her only allies were Laura Bennett's three obnoxious nephews. They alone sought her company. Their endless chattering and questions gave her a real headache, but she tolerated them because she could be herself around them. They liked her bluntness, and thought her goofy when she refused to handle Wiggles, the household Doberman in the guise of a mouse.

  Nice.

  The women remained distant whene
ver she was in the same room. They watched her every move as if expecting her to steal the clothes off their backs.

  Nice.

  The men weren't much better. Considering their first encounter, Lachlan was surprisingly the most polite, although he was careful about how he answered her questions, which had nothing to do with his death or return. She didn't dare mention that subject. If any one of them thought she was there for an inside story, they would have her either thumbing her way back to the airport or strapped to a dunking stool over Loch Ken.

  Despite her dislike for lamb, she politely ate the roast dinner without a complaint. However, the gathering was fraught with burping contests among the boys. Taryn remained tense throughout the meal, questioning how the other adults could put up with the crudeness. Were the boys her responsibility, she would have sent them to their rooms without supper. Laura had only once told them to stop then laughed when Kevin released a liquid-sounding burp that made Taryn's stomach do a double flip-flop. Taryn suspected her hosts and hostesses were ignoring the antics because they knew it irked her.

  Nice.

  But she did survive dinner, and she did manage to keep her chin up when the women practically ignored her in the kitchen during the cleanup. Again she got the impression Deliah was the one she needed to avoid. She couldn't figure out what it was about the softly spoken woman that made her skin crawl, and she was usually quick to size up strangers' personalities. Their weaknesses. Their strengths.

  Not this one, though.

  Looking into the vibrant blue depths of Deliah's eyes reminded Taryn of a roller coaster ride. Scary. Thrilling. Dangerous. Although Deliah looked years younger than Beth, Laura, and herself, Taryn couldn't shake an inexplicable impression that the woman was the mother hen of the household. Everyone was so solicitous toward her and her "condition". Even the boys. Taryn found it sickening but kept her opinion to herself.

  Now, she was to endure yet another insult.

  After the boys were put to bed and Beth had fed the twins and returned downstairs, the adults gathered in the parlor. Taryn, of course, joined them. She was a night owl who usually slept until late morning, and was looking forward to some stimulating conversation with people closer to her own age. But no sooner had she sat on one of the high-back chairs, Roan approached her and told her there were plenty of books in the library to look over until their discussion was through.

  At first, Taryn could only stare at him in disbelief. Considering what she already knew about the residents under this roof, what else could be deemed secret?

  Being excluded was right up there with a slap. No, a punch. In the face.

  Nice.

  When Roan scowled at her, Taryn laughed. It was one of those caustic little laughs that always escaped her whenever her pride got nicked or she was taken by surprise. It was an automatic response, one she'd tried to curb for years. At least she didn't snort, as did Helen Tooley, her editor's secretary.

  "You want me to leave? Why?"

  Roan stared down at her through narrowed eyes, the scowl intact, his mouth set grimly and his hands on his hips. "Family business."

  She locked her teeth against a retort. He was baiting her, expecting her to storm out of the room in a snit. She refused to give him an excuse to demand she leave the estate before she was ready to split on her own.

  "Fine," she said, forcing lightness in her tone as she rose to her feet. She smiled into his face and offered a nonchalant shrug. "But I don't feel much like reading. Mind if I explore the house?"

  Roan glanced at the others. They didn't appear thrilled at the idea of her roaming the halls, but in the end they nodded their assent. Her brother explained which rooms were currently occupied, and she agreed to avoid them.

  She headed for the hall door, her step lively, her projected demeanor camouflaging the resentment fermenting in her gut. She closed the door behind her and took a moment to will back the tears pressing at the back of her eyes.

  Damn you, Roan! she silently cursed. You didn't have to humiliate me like that in front of the others!

  Her spine rigid, she climbed the stairs to the second floor. Her room was directly across from Roan and Laura's, its gold and red tones complimenting the French Provincial furnishings. It was a feminine room with lace doilies, a collection of etched perfume bottles and vases, and a massive wall tapestry depicting a French courtyard of a bygone century. The fireplace was her favorite, with its immaculate white rock and white cherub columns supporting a gold-veined marble mantel. The drapes were ruby-red velvet with lace sheers which gently flapped from the breeze coming through the partially opened windows. It was cool in the room, almost chilly, but she preferred fresh air.

  She'd left both suitcases opened on the canopy bed. As yet, she hadn't hung up or put away any of her belongings in the drawers. She was superstitious by nature, another flaw she couldn't pluck from her faceted personality. As long as she was prepared to leave at a moment's notice, it wouldn't happen. She'd long ago determined her life was governed not by a god or the planets according to astrology, but by the dictates of Murphy's Law—what could go wrong, would. At least she had the moxie to think her way around obstacles. And a sense of humor, which few people would agree she had. But of course she did.

  Determination and a thick hide were necessary in her line of work, and if she didn't view the world as one big, revolving joke she would have capitulated years ago to her parents' unrelenting pressure to marry and have a horde of kids.

  "One man and noisy brats ain’t my style," she said in a singsong manner, and removed a flashlight from the bottom of the largest suitcase. She tested it and, satisfied the wide beam would see her through her exploring, she headed for the attic door on the third floor.

  The boys had shown her the attic and the tower, earlier. Although the tower had given her the creeps when Kevin pointed out where Lachlan had been interred by her ancestor, the brief tour of the attic had made her heart rejoice.

  When she'd first begun delving into Ailbert's journals, she'd had no real interest in her family's history. She'd heard stories of Lachlan Baird since she was a child. Once, when she was not quite five, she had eavesdropped on a conversation between her mother and her Aunt Aggie. They had gone to Aunt Aggie's for one of their monthly visits. Usually, Taryn enjoyed her aunt's company—although Cousin Borgie was a bore and a bully—but that day Aggie was in a foul mood. She told Taryn's mother, her sister-in-law, she didn't know how much longer she could work for the laird. The "devil", Aggie called him again and again, as if to brand him a devil gave her perverse pleasure.

  Taryn had never disbelieved the stories of the ghost harassing her family, but she hadn't taken them all that seriously until this day. For nearly a year later, she had nightmares of a fiendish ghost making her scrub his floors and windows, his green misty body hovering over her as she worked herself to exhaustion.

  Moving to the U.S. had ended them, and she'd tucked all memory of him away in a dark niche in her subconscious.

  Her research had begun with the Ingliss clan and the Bairds relevant to her ancestry. Only one of Lachlan's full brothers had married and had children. Gavin, who had three sons of his own. In January, she'd had the good fortune to track down two of his living relatives. Margaret Cunningham and Collin Guin-James Baird. Brother and sister resided in Aberdeen, Margaret in the house where Lachlan had been born. At eighty-two, Margaret was a widow with no children, and a mind as sharp as a sword's edge.

  It amazed Taryn how Scottish families kept their histories alive through the telling of stories from one generation to the next. Margaret eagerly spoke of Ciarda and Guin, and all that had befallen the family since those turbulent years. If one could believe the old woman, Guin Baird had been a saint, beyond reproach. She never mentioned—nor did Taryn enlighten her to her own knowledge of—Guin’s part in Lachlan's death. Either Margaret didn't know, or chose not to expose that delightful bit of information.

  She also described Ciarda as a cold, distant woman w
ho preferred to be alone, who only left the house when she traveled to the Isle of Lewis to visit her father. According to Margaret, Ciarda displayed no love for her first three sons. Only Lachlan.

  Collin Guin-James Baird was three years younger than his sister. At one time he had shared the family home with Margaret, but confided to Taryn that she snored so loudly in her sleep, he could not escape the sound in any part of the house. He lived alone in a small cottage, a robust man with thick white hair and light brown eyes that nearly mirrored her own. He had never married but claimed to have had more than his share of women.

  To his knowledge, he had fathered no children. He spoke proudly of his Baird heritage, and talked greatly of Guin’s accomplishments in the early 1800's. When Taryn asked what he knew of Ciarda, he became sullen and resentful.

  "She was a witch," he'd said, his face contorted with contempt. "Her and the whole bloody pack tha' settled on the Isle o' Lewis. Aye, the whole lot o' 'em, evil. Old Lachlan was given his own ceremonial dirk, and you and me know bloody weel the kind o' ceremonies it was used for!"

  He went on to say how the family's scrapbook remained at the family house. Margaret hadn't mentioned it, but Collin explained that his sister's memory wasn't as clear as his own. To Taryn's delight, he went with her back to Margaret's, where he brought out three large, leather-bound books. He seated himself next to Taryn at the dining room table, and took her on a visual tour of the Baird history through diary excerpts, letters, newspaper articles, and photographs.

  A lot of the information Taryn found boring, but outwardly she remained enthused. The highlights were the articles written about Ciarda's and Lachlan's deaths. When they came to the latter, Collin slammed a fist on the oak table top and released a squeal of glee.

  "Fitting the bastard should die by tha' cursed dirk!" he'd exclaimed.

  He then pulled out a sketch of the dirk. It was one Lachlan, himself, had drawn sometime before he'd left for Europe with Millard Barluc, and it was easy to see why the Baird males at the time had thought the weapon evil. The sketch was detailed, especially the demonic-looking faces on the handle.