The first week of work after firing Bethanne passed quietly, and I began to look forward to going into the steading. Glenbroch was different without her around. I was feeling lighter and the thoughts of revenge had eased.
Ben had no choice but to let up on his protective watch. He had agreed to cover a week-long tour for Ewan, giving me much-needed time alone, but the tour had ended and he was due back before midnight.
I had just sat down to a cup of tea when Maggie called the cottage to tell me she’d read an internet news article about Jason. A reporter had interviewed him at a food show in Texas.
The reporter ran the story with added comments from a female employee of a restaurant near the show, who claimed Jason had promised her a thousand dollar tip if she would bring him the dessert tray privately. When she’d refused, he had started calling her names and harassing her. The woman told her manager who called Jason a cab and escorted him from the premises.
The reporter questioned if more should have been done; should charges have been filed rather than merely sending Jason back to his hotel? A pang of guilt struck my conscience. Should I have done more? I had only wanted Jason out of my life.
The article did prove he was back in the States, or had been three days ago. With Bethanne gone to Glasgow to take a job she’d found surprisingly fast, my grudging agreement with Ben not to be out in the dark alone was now overkill. Although to Ben’s point, if Bethanne had done what I suspected she had, Glasgow was only a few hours away. I hadn’t mentioned any more doubts or concerns to Ben about his father.
To celebrate my sense of freedom without Jason or Bethanne around, I headed to the steading for a workout on the treadmill. I missed my evening sessions—I could block everything out, listen to my music, and sweat out my frustration.
One of the crew had left a crane blocking the drive to the steading, forcing me to park at the house. The shorter walk down the hill suited me fine. It looked like it would rain soon and I was happy to get into the steading before it broke.
The troubles surrounding me dissipated as I zoned out on the treadmill, staring through the window into nothing. March days were short and even though it was only seven, it was already a deep black night.
By the time I completed my workout, the soft Scottish rain had become an Old Testament-worthy torrent. I pulled on my wellies and long waterproof, shut off the lights, and stepped outside to face the storm. The wind lashed the rain across my eyes and face. The dark sky kept dumping volumes, as if intent on filling the glen to its brim. I had the notion to wait until the rain let up before heading to the Land Rover, but it showed no signs of easing. And I was eager to get back to the cottage for a shower and hot food.
Keeping my head down, I pointed my flashlight just beyond my feet. I shivered as the chill turned icy on my sweat-dampened skin. A flash of light out of the corner of my eye caught my attention, but when I turned to look, nothing was there.
The rain pelted my face, blurring my vision, and I hurried my pace as much as possible with the little light I had. Water rushed and swirled in eddies around my feet, leaving me with little traction. I reached down to grip the tussocky earth—grateful for the thick clumps of grass—and crawled my way up the hill.
The screech of scraping metal pulled my attention from my ascent—until then I had only been able to hear the hammering of the rain on the building’s roof and muted pattering as it hit the ground.
A hulking object flew out of the dark, caught in my peripheral vision a mere second before it hit me, rolling me back down the hill, over a jutting rock. My body came to a stop a few yards from the door of the steading. A heavy, corrugated pipe, the type used in drainage projects, bounced over me, slamming into the side of the building.
Bethanne ordered those pipes.
Hearing more rumbling, I snugged up against the hill and covered my head with my hands. The metal pipes rolled one after the other, hitting the rock above my head and flying over. Others bounced past beside me, ending up at the bottom in a mishmash of a giant’s game of pick-up sticks.
I couldn’t decide whether to get up and run or lie still. Was it over? Whether Bethanne had come up from Glasgow or not, she had admitted John was in it with her. And I didn’t believe for a minute that what had happened was an accident due to the storm.
I drove back to the cottage, called the police, and gave my statement over the phone. They declined to come out in the storm since I was all right and safe in the cottage, instructing me to come in and sign a statement the next day.
Throwing on coal and kindling, I stoked the fire, then opened the cupboard and pulled out the bottle of Old Pulteney Maggie had given me for Christmas. It was one of the things I’d grabbed when I’d been allowed twenty minutes to retrieve personal items to tide me over before they closed off the house for repairs.
The sweet, buttery whisky smoothed the edges of the pain stabbing my muscles, loosened the stiffening in my joints. I gazed at the light dancing through the curvaceous bottle, staring at the beautiful old ship on its label until I could see it rising and falling on the Atlantic’s waves. Tired of all of this, I imagined getting on that ship and sailing away. Even if I could, where would I go? The faraway island of St. Kilda was the only place that came to mind.
I couldn’t indulge negative or defeatist thoughts. It didn’t matter if certain people didn’t want me here. I belonged at Glenbroch and needed to fight for it to the end.
The whisky heated a fury in me. It was time to do something about John MacIver. Anna was away at her sister’s in Wick and had taken Jazz with her. Ben’s text told me he was on the road back from Inverness. John would be in the main house alone. It was the perfect time. I didn’t know what I was going to do or what would happen, but I was determined to end this nightmare before I left his house.
John answered my knock, the change in his expression making it clear he had not expected me to be the cloaked, hooded person standing on his doorstep.
“Anna’s not here.”
“I know. I’m here to see you.”
“Come back at a reasonable business hour.”
“No.” I brushed past him, shook off my dripping overcoat, and hung it on a peg in the mudroom off the entry, leaving my boots on. “I could have been killed out there tonight. Is that what you intended? Is that how far you’ll go?”
“Ms. Jameson, I have no idea what you’re blethering on about. Of course I don’t think you should be running Glenbroch. The estate needs experience at the helm. Now I didn’t much care for your father, but he was born and raised here and this was his family home. He didn’t make a terrible mess of managing the renovation and was flush enough to ensure he paid his people. More than I can say for you. But I have no idea what you’re talking about or how you think I tried to harm you tonight.”
“You and Bethanne are working together; she said as much. Was it her idea or yours to have those drainage pipes come crashing down on me tonight? I barely escaped. Did she pop up here from Glasgow or did you have somebody else do it?”
His eyes widened for a flash of a second, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I was onto his and Bethanne’s scheming or because he was genuinely surprised about the pipes. The hard lines in his face that had dissolved with his surprise quickly reappeared.
“I’ll have Glenbroch in a few months, be sure of that. I’m an investor who thinks long-term. Gerard’s lifestyle and the way he was going at the drink promised good odds that something would catch up with him. Glenbroch should have been mine. That’s the way Helen wanted it. When Gerard came back, he was already sick. It was a matter of time. Didn’t count on you, thought he’d managed to leave this world without a trace left behind him. But it’s not of consequence. My investment will pay off. If you want to sign over Glenbroch now, I’m sure your life will become much easier.”
I shook my head, unable to wrap my mind around the thought that he could mean what he had said. How could anyone mean something like that? My hands tightened, wanting to wrap
around his neck.
“You are the one who should have died. The world would be a better place by far without you in it.”
He stared at me, sweat beading on his forehead and face. Finally, something I said unnerved him.
“Are you trying to think of a new threat or are you having second thoughts about killing me for a bunch of land?” I continued, bearing down on the advantage I’d gained.
His lips turned the color of a blanched almond. His mouth opened but no sound came out. I edged closer. “Listen, you can—” My words vanished abruptly. Something was wrong.
He clutched at my arm as he sank to the floor, his other hand flying to his chest. “Can’t breathe,” he rasped, “help me.”
I pulled out my phone and punched the emergency number, but my finger hovered over the call button. I couldn’t push it. Instinct told me he would die from whatever was happening to him, probably a heart attack. This was my chance. And I didn’t have to do anything except walk away.
John’s eyes widened as he divined my thoughts. A rush of shame coursed hot through me, mixing with a raging hatred for this horrible man. If I walked out the door, no one would even know I had been here. By morning, my troubles would be over.
He managed a contorted grin, choked out words. “More . . . like me than . . . my own son.” He grunted what he must have meant to be a laugh but turned into a suffocated cough. “Are you . . . going to finish . . . what your father . . .”
John’s words came slow, his breath not lasting more than one or two words. A dense mass of darkness rolled toward me from behind his face, the color of Gerard’s ashes. My body trembled, and I turned away. I didn’t want to see him, see his eyes looking at me. They were taunting me, as if he was waiting for me to walk out the door.
He wanted me to do it. To prove that I was less than him, that I was the weak, worthless bastard child of my father he had accused me of being. If I gave in and let whatever drove him overtake me, possess me, fuse itself to my cells, then John, Leland, and Jason would be my people. The thought made me nauseous.
I punched the call button and asked him, “Where do you keep the aspirin?”
“Kitchen,” John grunted, communicating from what must have been sheer determination.
I threw open cupboard doors while waiting for emergency services to answer—found the stash of medicine and vitamins—told them what I was going to do, got their approval, gave them the address. I poured an aspirin into my hand, nearly half the bottle falling onto the floor, and knelt beside him.
“Chew this and swallow.”
I grabbed a pillow from the sofa, lifted his head and laid it back on the pillow, returned to the kitchen for a glass of water, then dialed Ben’s number.
No answer. I left a message.
“I don’t . . . hate you,” he wheezed.
“Don’t talk. Just rest. They’re sending a first responder out from Kyle. Someone will be here soon.”
“I never tried to . . . hurt you. You . . . don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t understand. But now is not the time to talk about it.”
“It is time. May not be . . .” His eyes flickered with something I had never seen in his eyes before: fear.
“Okay,” I said quietly. I reached over and took his hand. I couldn’t help myself. Why couldn’t I be harder, tougher when it mattered? How could I feel any compassion for this man?
A smile softened John’s face, and he appeared to relax a little. “You said I’d regret . . . making you my enemy. My son finally . . . acted like a man . . . stood up to me for once.”
John’s eyes closed and he didn’t respond to my voice or nudges. I felt for his pulse—it was there, faint and slow. I began to panic about the time I’d wasted before calling an ambulance. How long had I hesitated?
The clatter of the front door broke into my thoughts. Ben appeared.
“I got your voice mail when I stopped at the pub . . . a good thing. I was able to grab their AED.”
“I called emergency services, but I need to call them back since he lost consciousness. They’re sending someone out from Kyle until the Broadford ambulance gets here.”
Ben knelt over his father, checking his pulse and breathing, as my shaking hands hit the emergency number again. I said something to the operator about Ben having the AED.
“We don’t have time to wait for emergency services.” Ben opened the automatic defibrillator and placed two pads on John’s chest. “The system says he needs a shock. Stay clear.”
John’s body jerked in response to the paddles’ current. But he was the color of dirty chalk and unresponsive . . . helpless. John MacIver was only a man after all. And I might have just killed him.
24
The first few hours after John’s heart attack proved nearly unbearable. I flipflopped back and forth in what I wanted: Glenbroch or for John to live. Realizing that I loathed him enough to wish him dead turned my stomach. I didn’t like who I would have to become to be comfortable doing whatever it took.
When I received word that John would recover, more of the truth revealed itself. Relief flooded me. The merciless capability I thought I had, I didn’t. The past lay too heavy on me to try to get by with the kind of dark things others did to me. Still, sometimes I wished I didn’t have to feel so much . . .
No doubt John would be all business regardless of his close call with death and near-death ramblings. I stubbornly held onto a faint hope that I might get some kind of reprieve as the April deadline loomed.
But no last-minute save arrived, and soon John had recovered enough to start the process of buying out my stake in Glenbroch, prompting the phone call from my accountant that I’d been warned would come at some point before nightfall.
I hiked into the broch to wait. In its safety, alone, was how I wanted to hear what she would tell me.
“Just say it.” Waiting hampered my mind worse than hearing whatever the news would be. “Just tell it to me straight,” I urged at Katherine’s hesitation.
“Technically, John MacIver can count the expenses for the repairs against the estate’s books since Jason is now saying the money he spent on it was a loan. Mr. MacIver made it clear it is his intention to do exactly that. I calculated the numbers taking the loan amount into account, and it’s impossible to meet the requirements of the agreement in these last few days of March. I am truly sorry. I wanted you to keep your home and business, but Mr. MacIver is exercising his buyout option.”
“When can he take possession?”
“You’ll want to check with Calum, but my understanding is it will be as soon as he writes a cheque after the official end of the agreement period. I believe he intends to do that next week, on the actual first of April. You don’t have much time to get your things together and vacate Glenbroch, but you don’t have to leave until the transaction is complete. That won’t be until John’s cheque is received and verified by Calum and the bank. Until that moment, Glenbroch is still yours.”
“Thanks, Katherine. I appreciate everything you’ve done. You’ve been a great support to me. I’ll talk to you later this week.”
Staring at the sky from the broch’s second floor rim, I indulged a feeling of regret for dialing emergency services on John’s behalf. The uncomfortable truth was that I wished I had walked out the door that night. No one would have known I had been there. And surely Anna and Ben wouldn’t take Glenbroch from me if John wasn’t in the picture.
Why couldn’t I be more self-preserving? When it came down to it I couldn’t do what I had to do, couldn’t stomach it I guess, and now I had lost.
I couldn’t muster up revenge fantasies. What poured out of me instead were dreams: my children running in the gardens, guests celebrating their Christmases at Glenbroch with my family, and me growing old here on this land.
My heart was too shattered to feel hate or want revenge. I couldn’t even sustain a feeling of anger. Bereft, bleak as the skinned hilltops stripped of their trees, I lay there, no stre
ngth to move.
The peaks’ lack of forest growth testified to the long-lasting effect of human decisions and failures. After all these years of MacKinnons finding a way to survive here, history would testify that Ellie Jameson lost Glenbroch to John MacIver, and my management marked the end of the MacKinnons on this land.
Even though the children running in Glenbroch’s gardens were imagined, I had lost their heritage and the loss struck me sharp and hard, slicing through my tiny piece of hope.
My eyes closed in exhaustion. I didn’t fight it, not caring how long I stayed in the broch. For now this was still my land, and in spite of all that had happened, it was the safest place I’d known since I was a little girl.
Ben worked away at the repairs with the crew, determined to get Glenbroch opened by the first of April. It looked like he would pull it off, but it was too late, at least for me. He knew this—everyone did—but he kept working night and day, possessed. The MacIvers would lose momentum and potential growth if the first season didn’t start strong, I mused when my mood turned particularly sour. But then the better part of me would rally and I would again tell the truth to myself.
He wasn’t doing it only for himself, and certainly not for his father. He was trying to keep his promise. And he would have Glenbroch good as new soon, probably better. Yet it was bittersweet to imagine. Glenbroch would be wonderful and it wouldn’t be mine.
I didn’t get in Ben’s way. A part of me was glad he was occupied from sunrise until after nightfall. It left me to myself. And I needed time to deal with the avalanche of change bearing down on me.
When I told Ian in one of our marketing calls that I’d lost Glenbroch, he turned around and offered me a job with his Aberdeen firm. Looking to represent more clients in the hospitality and organics arenas, tapping me to bring them on board and lead their accounts made sense to him. And it was a solid option if I wanted to stay in Scotland rather than return to the States. I told him I would think for a bit and get back to him soon.
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