Insatiable in a Kilt

by Anna Durand

  Evan went so stiff, his back ramrod straight, that I expected to see a steel rod jutting out of the top of his spine. "That is not possible."

  His mother nodded gravely, keeping her head down. "Evan, I'm sorry I've lied to you all these years. Please believe everything I did was to protect you."

  "Protect me?" he said with a flinty edge to his voice. "I have a right to know who my father is. You swore to me you had no idea where he was."

  "No, I always said you would never find him."

  A muscle twitched in his jaw, and I could see him grinding his teeth.

  His mother lifted her head, gazing at him with a pleading look in her eyes and tears gathering there. "Please let me explain. I love you, mo luran, and I would never have hurt you this way without a reason."

  Evan shot to his feet. Through clenched teeth, he snarled, "Tell me the truth. Now, Aileen."

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Evan

  I shouldn't have sounded so angry. I shouldn't have called my mother by her first name. No matter what I felt inside, I always kept my anger tempered on the outside. How was I meant to react to what my mother had confessed? Thirty years of thinking my father hadn't known about me, hadn't cared about me, ended right here in this room—and I wanted the goddamn truth. I deserved it, didn't I? My father had provided the largest single investment that made it possible for me to start my company.

  My father. He'd always been a ghost to me.

  Keely slipped her hand into mine, squeezing lightly to get my attention.

  I looked down at her, and the love and worry on her face doused my anger in an instant. She had never seen me this way. Only once before had I gotten this upset, and that instance had been with my mother too, on the day last year when I'd demanded she tell me something about my father. She'd refused.

  "Sit down," Keely said softly, tenderly. "Let your mother explain."

  I love you, mo luran, my mother had said. She'd never spoken those words before. We weren't the sorts to express our feelings that directly. I'd always believed my mother loved me, even when she refused to answer my questions. Looking at her this morning, with tears rolling down her cheeks, I knew I still believed it.

  Sighing, I dropped back onto the sofa.

  Keely rested her head against my shoulder and slipped her hand into mine, lacing our fingers.

  I wrapped my arm around her, taking more comfort from the warmth of her body than I'd ever taken from anyone else. I would never let anyone hurt her.

  Calmed by the woman in my arms, I spoke to my mother in a neutral tone. "I'm listening."

  She dug a tissue out of her pocket, sniffled, and dabbed at her eyes. "I met your father when I was eighteen. I'd begged my parents to let me go to Rome for a summer course in painting. I had wanted to be an artist when I was younger. Since I earned enough from a part-time job to pay for the trip myself, they let me go. I was eighteen after all and very levelheaded."

  I fought the urge to tell her to speed up the story. She needed to tell me in her own time, in her own way.

  Her eyes took on a dreamy softness, and her lips curled up at the corners. "I met him on my second day in Rome. We bumped into each other at an outdoor market. Samuel Drake was the best-looking man I'd ever seen, charming and clever, more attentive than any of the lads I had known at home. He was seven years older than me and had gone to Rome for his work on a temporary assignment for a few months. We became lovers, and by the summer's end we were engaged to be married."

  "Married?" I said, somehow staying calm. With Keely pressed against me, I couldn't hold on to anger for more than one second. One point two seconds at most.

  "Aye," my mother said. "We decided to fly to America before going to Scotland to tell my parents. Sam planned to quit his job and move to Ballachulish to be with me. His mother had passed away years earlier, and he didn't get along with his father, so he had no reason to stay in New Jersey. We were going to make a life together in Scotland, for us and our child."

  "Did your parents disapprove?" I couldn't imagine my kindly grandparents slamming their collective foot down and refusing to let my mother marry the man she loved.

  "No, they never found out about Sam."

  "Why not?"

  Keely elbowed me in the side, a silent command to be quiet and let my mother finish her story. I took a deep breath, exhaled it slowly, and waited.

  My mother wrung her hands, her gaze downcast again. "During our second week in New Jersey, I wasn't feeling well. Sam went out one night to buy dinner for us and get some medicine for me. He never made it back to me. He was arrested walking out of the grocery store."

  "Arrested?" I said. "My father was a criminal?"

  "No, Sam is a good man. It was a mistake. The police thought he resembled the police sketch of a man who had raped and murdered a woman. There had been a witness who saw the man running away. It was night, but the witness swore he could identify the murderer. The jury believed him."

  I sank back into the sofa, keeping my arm around Keely, feeling suddenly exhausted and numb. My father had been wrongfully imprisoned. If I had known all these years…What could I have done? Nothing. Other children might have harassed me even more if they knew my father was a convicted rapist and murderer.

  "We didn't have the money for a lawyer," my mother said. "Sam's father refused to help or even speak to him. I was ashamed to tell my parents the truth, so I said I was in America studying art when I was actually working as a waitress while we waited for Sam's trial. His court-appointed lawyer was very young and inexperienced. Sam was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole, and he was ordered to pay restitution to the victim's family. He had no money left after that."

  "You should talk to Rory. He might be able to—"

  "Let it be, Evan." She raised her head to look at me. "Your father will never be released. We both made peace with the situation a long time ago."

  I couldn't help thinking back on my childhood, remembering the children who had tormented me and called me an alien and all the times I'd wondered who my father was. A secret agent had been at the top of my wish list. But no, my father was a convicted murderer.

  An innocent convicted murderer.

  Thinking about the past brought up another question and a possibility I had never considered because I had no reason to think it was possible. "Your annual holidays abroad. Have you been visiting my father in prison all these years?"

  She nodded. "Sam told me not to do it. For the first three years, he wouldn't see me. He finally realized I would keep coming back no matter what, and he gave in. I wished I could visit him more often, but once a year was all I could afford."

  "Why have you never told me any of this? I'm thirty years old, Ma, not a bairn. You could have told me a long time ago, should have told me."

  "I know. I'm so sorry, gràidh, but Sam insisted you should never know." She blew her nose delicately. "He didn't want you to be the son of a murderer. I wanted us to get married even after he was in prison, but Sam wouldn't hear of it. He wanted both you and me to have a normal life untainted by what happened to him. I've told him all about you through the years, showed him pictures and videos. He knows what you've accomplished, and he's very proud of his son."

  Proud. My father. The ghost who'd haunted me all my life was a real, living man. He knew me, but I knew only his name and I hadn't known that much until a moment ago. How should I respond to these revelations? How should I feel?

  I rolled my gaze toward Keely. How would she feel about being with the son of a murderer who had committed crimes of his own? She deserved better than the melodrama my life had become.

  She touched my cheek, smiling with a tenderness that stabbed a pain through my heart.

  "There's more," my mother said. "About the money. Sam's mother died when he was young, and his father passed away seven years ago. Sam inherited all his father's assets, but he refused to touch it. When you started your company�
�" She wrung her hands harder, then tucked them under her thighs. "With Sam's permission, I gave you the full amount of the inheritance, three-quarters of a million pounds, to help your company get a good start. I found a broker who would let me give you the money anonymously as an angel investor. I didn't care about owning a part of the company, but the broker insisted that legally I had to accept shares in exchange."

  I searched my mother's face, speechless and unable to move a single muscle. Who was this woman? I'd thought I knew her, but she seemed like a stranger. My mother had made it possible for me to create the company I'd dreamed of having. She owned five percent of Evanescent.

  "Did your broker offer me four hundred thousand pounds later on?"

  "No. There wasn't any more money to give." My mother fidgeted in her seat. "I know I've kept too many secrets from you. I understand if you can't have me in your life anymore."

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. She stood and wiped away the tears with her tissue.

  I hadn't seen my mother in eighteen months until I brought Keely home to meet her. Why shouldn't she expect I'd cut her out of my life after hearing the truth? I'd stayed away because of an argument. Today, she had answered all my questions.

  She took a step toward the door.

  This was the woman who had raised me. She'd looked out for me all my life and kept secrets only to protect me.

  I heaved myself up off the sofa, crossing the distance to my mother in two steps. I grasped her shoulders to stop her from walking out the door. "Ma, you are in my life. I've been a selfish fool, refusing to speak to you for so long. You've taken care of me all my life and done what was best for me even though I couldn't see that's what you were doing."

  She had protected me the best way she knew how to do it. I believed that. My childhood would've been rough even if I'd known my father, even if he hadn't been serving a life sentence, because I was different from other children. I'd always been different, and I always would be. Keely loved me for that. So did my mother.

  I took her hands in mine. "It's all right. I understand why you never told me about my father."

  She bowed her head, her tears dripping onto my hands. "You are a good man, and I am so proud of you."

  To hear my mother say that, it robbed me of words. How could I thank her for everything she'd done for me? I couldn't. She had looked after me, and I had harassed her for not telling me everything I wanted to know. What a selfish bastard I'd been.

  I peered over my shoulder at Keely.

  She smiled, her eyes glistening with emotion.

  "Would you like to meet him?" my mother asked.

  I swung my attention back to her. "What?"

  "You should meet your father, Evan. It's time."

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Keely

  I sat up straight on the sofa in the sitting room with Evan slouching into the cushions next to me, both of us listening while his cousin Rory and Rory's wife Emery explained what had been found. They'd sent their twins to Lachlan and Erica's house. Aileen was helping Malina babysit her infant brother elsewhere in the house. Four days had gone by since everything turned upside down, since the MacTaggart family had convened to help us and Evan's mother had dropped her bombshell. Ever since Aileen's suggestion that he should meet his father, Evan had said not one word about the offer or about his father. Whenever I asked, he avoided answering.

  "We were able to narrow our search," Rory said, "once we knew the original angel investor had nothing to do with the blackmail. We hired an investigator and tapped into our connections in government. Em took another route."

  He looked at his wife.

  "My friend Sabri got in touch with his connections," Emery said, "and all of us worked together to sort out the mystery of the text messages. Turns out these baddies aren't as badass as they think. They sent the text messages via an anonymous email account. They weren't super clever about it, though. We were able to hack into the email account and find the IP address of the person who signed up for it."

  Whatever that meant. I didn't pretend to grasp the technical aspects of what Emery and her friends had done, any more than I could understand how Evan did what he did at his company.

  Though he sat beside me, he hadn't glanced in my direction since we came into the room. He'd barely spoken five complete sentences today, and that was an avalanche of words compared to the past few days. Every night and at least once every day we'd had sex. He seemed to need it for reasons beyond physical satisfaction or even stress reduction. He needed the closeness with me, and so I'd let him make love to me without speaking to me.

  "What does all this mean?" I asked Emery. "What did you find?"

  "The location they sent every text from. It was always the same place, so it must be their hangout or their lair of evildoing or whatever."

  "And that's where?"

  "Inverness."

  Evan bolted upright, his hands on his knees. "They've been in my city all this time?"

  "Yep," Emery said. "Once we cracked the email account, it was pretty simple to get the IP address. The geolocation for an IP address isn't exact, so I can't promise they're in the city itself, but it seems likely."

  I raised my hand like I was a dopey schoolgirl. I'd begun to feel like the class dunce since I was apparently the only one who didn't get the intricacies of computer speak. "How do you know all the texts came from Inverness? They started a year ago."

  "Evan saved them. Even the old ones."

  Of course he had. Evan might not have believed he would ever track down the culprits, but he was too smart to not save the evidence.

  "But we don't know exactly where these people are," I said.

  "We didn't yesterday," Rory answered. He held up a file folder. "Today, we do. I contacted Stephen Beckham at the Home Office and called in my last favor with him. He used his influence to get the address of the person who opened the anonymous email account."

  "What's our next—" I didn't get to finish my question.

  Evan leaped up and snatched the folder from Rory's hand. "Thank you for your help, but I will deal with this myself."

  Rory met Evan's gaze head-on, unflinching, evincing a calm and cool demeanor worthy of the man even his loved ones called a steely solicitor. "You have no idea what you might be walking into. Let's think about this first."

  "Done enough thinking."

  Evan whirled toward the door.

  Rory surged up from his chair and ripped the folder away from Evan. "You haven't asked the right question yet."

  "And what precisely is the right question?" Evan glared at his cousin, but Rory was unfazed.

  The solicitor tapped the file folder on his palm. "Who has a grudge against you?"

  "No one."

  Rory rolled his eyes. "Come off it, Evan. You aren't that naive."

  Evan's focus retreated from this room, from this place and time, and I could almost hear the engine of his mind revving up.

  "You are the only one," Rory said, "who can answer that question. Until you do, best not take off on a mission alone."

  I went to Evan, angling my face up to his. "You know, don't you? You figured it out a second ago."

  "So did you." He touched my face with his fingertips, but then pulled his hand away. "It can't be. He doesn't hate me this much."

  "Are you sure about that?"

  Rory waved the folder at us. "You both know, eh? Care to tell the rest of us who don't share your telepathic connection?"

  Evan ran a hand over his face. "It might be Ron Tulloch. He had tried to start up his own company but failed and wound up working for me. I never realized he was jealous of my success until recently." He groaned, shutting his eyes briefly. "Ron works in my accounting department, but he also studied computer science in college."

  Rory pulled his phone out of his pants pocket. "I'll ring my investigator and see what he can dig up on this Tulloch man."

  Evan held out his hand. "May I
have the file, please?"

  "If you promise not to do anything rash. We'll come up with a plan once we know more about Tulloch."

  "Do I ever behave rashly?"

  Rory studied Evan for a moment, then handed him the folder.

  Evan stalked out of the room.

  Oh, I didn't like this at all. He hadn't sworn not to do anything rash. He'd asked if he ever did behave that way. After spending four days with the MacTaggarts, I'd gotten to know them a little, so I knew Rory was smart enough to have noticed Evan's careful wording. None of us could stop Evan from doing something crazy if he got it into his head it was the right thing to do to protect his loved ones.

  "Don't worry," Rory said. "He'll wait until we have a plan."

  I wasn't so sure about that, but then, I knew Evan better than anyone else.

  "Thank you," I said. "For everything."

  "You're welcome." He nodded toward the door. "Best catch up to him. He needs support right now or perhaps to be shackled to the wall until this is over."

  I heeded Rory's advice and took off after Evan.

  He had turned left out of the sitting-room door, most likely headed for our room. I sprinted down the long hallway.

  Thick, strong arms seized me around the waist from behind.

  I swallowed a yelp.

  Evan pressed his mouth to my ear. "Where are you going?"

  "To find you."

  He slid a hand up to palm my breast. "I found you."

  "I'm glad you did."

  "Are you planning to shackle me to the wall?"

  His fingers massaged my breast, and I had trouble focusing on what he'd said. "Were you listening at the door after you left the room?"

  "Aye. How else will I know what you and Rory are plotting?"

  "I'm not plotting. But you haven't promised not to run off half-cocked and do something reckless."

  "Wasn't eavesdropping. I happened to overhear your conversation." He ground his hips into me, rubbing his erection against my back. "And I'm fully cocked at the moment."

  "Mm, I can tell."