: Chapter 13

Max

Throughout the late afternoon and early evening, I lived in a domestic bubble. Lia and I ate dinner together while Evie munched on carrot sticks, her own pasta devoured in minutes. Then we sorted through the selection of toys I’d brought over, including some of my own from childhood. Soon, the bairn started yawning.

“Bath then bed, I think,” Lia decided. “It was a long day of travelling.”

I stood, hearing my cue to leave. “I haven’t thanked ye for coming here.”

Lia’s gaze settled on me, and a buzz of energy followed.

Over the past week, with the help of Gabe and one or two others, I’d brought my own bed and furniture over, reconstructing it in the castle apartment. Then I’d borrowed what I didn’t own. The baby equipment was the easy part—amongst my cousins living on the estate, babies and spare kit were plentiful.

It had given me a sense of purpose around sharing my news. Not just ‘surprise, I have daughter’, but ‘I need to furnish a home so she can visit’.

They’d practically fallen over themselves to offer help.

It was still sparse. I’d had no time to pretty it up.

“Tomorrow,” I added fast, “I can spend some time getting this place more to your liking. I’ve never done this, but I know it isn’t what you’re used to. The living room needs a lamp. More toys, for sure.”

Lia’s eyebrows dove together. Against her chest, Evie snuggled in.

She didn’t know, and I couldn’t tell her, but they made the most perfect picture. I wished I could take out my phone and capture the moment.

“You don’t have to go, unless there’s somewhere else you want to be. And the apartment is perfect.” She gestured to Evie. “Do bath time with us. She loves the water. It’s so much fun.”

“Ye sure ye don’t want me gone?”

“I’m sure.”

Together, we got a small bath going. On my grocery run, I’d bought bubble bath, and Lia gave me the nod to pour some in. Soon we had one wet and slippery toddler splashing around and clapping her hands in the bubbles. Her ma was right, this was fun.

Yet the yawns kept coming, so Lia called time and bundled Evie in a towel then carried her to the bed.

“Can you grab a nappy and sleep suit? I put them at the end of the cot.”

I found what Lia had asked for and went to hand them over. But she backed up a step.

“Go ahead. Get her ready for bed.”

I swallowed my surprise. “Okay, but I’ve never changed a nappy before. Tell me what to do.”

With Lia’s quiet guidance, I dried the bairn and manoeuvred the nappy into place.

“That good?” I checked the fit.

“Maybe a tiny bit tighter so it doesn’t budge when she wriggles around in her sleep.”

I adjusted the straps then took up the bunny-print sleep suit and pulled it over Evie’s pink limbs. All the while, the little girl watched me, a smile forming as I closed the popper nearest to her chin.

A rush of warmth flooded my heart.

“You’re so beautiful,” I said to her.

She was. From her bright auburn curls down to her wee toenails, Evie was exquisite.

At my side, Lia took a swift inhale. “She is.”

For a long second, she held my eye contact.

A moment played out between us. We’d made this child together. No matter the circumstances and confusion surrounding the event, Evie was a perfect combination of us.

Then Lia blinked and tore her focus back to the bairn. “Do you want to pick her up for a hug? I’ll need to walk her around to get her to sleep.”

Carefully, I bought Evie into my arms and held her to me. “Goodnight,” I whispered.

The raw emotion that followed shook me up.

Reluctantly, I handed her over to her ma then settled a shoulder against the doorframe. I wasn’t sure if Evie would drop off with me watching, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave.

Lia made slow circuits of the darkened room, gently rubbing Evie’s back while she sang something in a low and sweet voice. In thirty seconds, Evie’s eyes closed.

Only then, while Lia laid her in the cot, did I make my way back to the lounge. Lia would probably need rest herself, but I’d wait to say goodbye.

Too many thoughts crowded my brain. Though Evie was tiny, this was the smallest I’d ever know her to be. I’d missed over a year of her life. Most of her firsts.

A whole different timeline had played out while I was oblivious.

Some other guy had been the one bathing her. Feeding her. Loving her.

Being there for both of them.

I’d vowed to myself not to be a jerk to Lia on this visit, yet a savage rush of jealousy over Lincoln consumed me. The man she’d settled down with. Chose so soon after telling me she didn’t want a relationship.

I’d wanted her so badly. The severed edges of that still hurt.

And Christ, but somehow, I was horny, too.

I didn’t want that, but small glimpses of Lia lit me up. Her pretty face, her sweet floral scent. Chemistry had been building all evening.

On soft footsteps, Lia entered the lounge, her fair hair still damp from where Evie had splashed her, and her cheeks pink. “Thank you for staying. She loved that. I did, too.”

My blood rushed. “How long has Lincoln been in Evie’s life?”

“She hadn’t even been born when he and I met. I need to talk to you about him.”

She gestured for me to sit on the couch, but I remained standing, my arms folded.

Lia waited for a beat, then continued. “Linc was employed by my dad when I was pregnant and sick in hospital. He’s a professional childcare expert, trained in a nanny college in England.”

Then they fell in love while he worked for the family.

“How does that work, does he live with ye and travel wherever your da goes?”

“Yep. He lives and travels with us because he’s paid to do so. But that’s the extent of it.” She lowered her gaze. “He isn’t my boyfriend. I told you that because it was the easiest explanation at the time.”

Not her boyfriend. Not her boyfriend.

Lia said something else, but the ringing in my ears blocked it out.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m going,” I managed.

Before either of us could say another word, I strode into the kitchen, stepped in my shoes, and left the apartment.

Lia’s confession had stirred something within me.

I was hard. I wanted to drop to my knees in front of her and kiss her.

So did the only thing I could and walked away.

Outside, the cool night air did nothing for my heat. I threw myself into the borrowed car and sped home. Both my parents stuck their heads into the hall when I swapped the keys for my motorbike ones.

“Did they get here okay?”

“Are they settled in?”

“Did Lia like the flat?”

They spoke over each other in their excitement.

I breathed through my nose, urgency building to do…something. “Here, settled, I’ll introduce ye tomorrow. Got to go.”

“Wait,” Da called. “Are you all right?”

“Naw really.”

He took me in, standing half in the front door and halfway to escape.

I gave up a truth. “It was hard. I’ve missed so much. Lia was great, and Evie’s perfect, but it was…”

“Overwhelming,” he finished for me.

In so many ways.

“It’ll get easier,” he promised. “We’re here however ye need us.”

I knew it without him saying, but it was nice to hear. With a swift hug for him, I hopped on my bike and sped away.

At Maddock and Rory’s cottage, I hammered on the door. Gabe pulled it open, still the sole occupant with my brother and his girlfriend away.

“Want to go out?” I asked.

He furrowed his brow. “Where?”

“I don’t know.” I entered and threw myself onto the couch, covering my eyes with my forearm.

“I take it today was difficult.”

“That complication I told ye about is still an issue.”

A pause followed, and Gabe’s voice moved to the armchair beside the couch. “With how ye feel about Lia?”

I glared at him. “Aye. I thought she was dating someone, but it’s naw the case. Now I know she’s single…”

“Sounds simpler to me.”

Except it wasn’t.

Then a strange memory hit me. On the first day she’d come here, at her car, she murmured something about me being the only person she’d slept with when I’d forcibly added Maddock to that list.

I’d assumed Lincoln to be a third on that list, but no.

Lia hadn’t had another boyfriend. She’d been sick, then raising my child, and in all that time, not looked elsewhere.

“I don’t want to want her,” I burst out.

“That’s a lie,” Gabe said with a grin.

Simultaneously, our phones burst to life. I jerked up, reading my screen as Gabe did the same with his.

A mountain rescue alert. Thank fuck, I had a purpose.

Conversation over, and with easy coordination, we left the cottage.

Outside, Lochie left the cottage next door and jumped into his car. “Gabe, ride with me.”

The two of them sped off, and I followed on my bike, buzzing past to reach the hangar ahead of them. In the operations room, we were the first to arrive, and I kitted up, greeting each of the newcomers who’d answered the call.

With sixteen of us assembled, Lochie gave us the briefing. An experienced hiker on a three-day challenge had injured herself on a mountain deep within the Cairngorms.

“It’s a clear night, and we have a precise location, but the complication is her position. She was ascending a cliff and is still on the ropes. She suspects she’s broken her wrist and cannae climb or lower herself.”

My pulse picked up. I was more than ready for a complex rescue.

“Max, ye and Gabe go on ahead as the advanced party. Ye know the drill. Lennox, Brodie…”

The briefing continued, but Gabe and I were already out the door. My role for the past couple of years had been to reach the casualty ahead of the body of the rescue team, with two objectives. Assess the scene from a rescue perspective to provide information back to base, and administer first aid. This week, Gabe had been assigned to work with me. Lochie had insisted he get the hours in on the hill in advance of switching to pilot mode.

In a mountain rescue 4X4, Gabe drove and I navigated, out of the estate and down past Coylumbridge, into the more sparsely populated interior of the Cairngorms. We took the winding mountain road then a gravel track to a car park popular with hillwalkers and climbers.

The journey did nothing to calm me.

Once there, we grabbed our backpacks and set out on foot. With our headlamps lighting the rocky track, we closed in on the map coordinates and our goal.

The rest of the team wouldn’t be far behind, but urgency still infected me. I could climb, well enough to reach the injured woman. It would help me burn up my waves of testosterone. Tire me out.

We cleared the tree line, striding out over an open mountain slope. Grey clouds scudded across the moon, reducing visibility down to the reach of our torches.

“Must be close,” Gabe said.

“Aye, the climbing route she took is right up ahead.”

I was so ready for this.

“Hello?” a voice called.

“We’re the mountain rescue service,” I hollered back. “Hold tight. We’re almost with ye.”

“I’m okay,” the voice replied, closer than I’d expected. “It was meant to be a nice sunset descent before I got into trouble. I’m down now, so sorry to bother you.”

We clambered over boulders, then my light picked out a figure at the base of the cliff. In a red jacket, and with her helmet off, the woman clutched her hand to her chest, blinking at us as we approached.

In professional mode, I closed in on her and sank to my haunches to check her over, instructing Gabe to report the change in status back to base.

No climbing was required. The lady had managed to save herself.

Inexplicable disappointment hit me.

The rest of the rescue went smoothly. The casualty declined painkillers and was content to wait for the rest of our party, allowing us to guide her down to safety. Under her own steam, she left the mountain, grateful and apologetic but ultimately safe.

I should have been satisfied.

This had been easy, where it could have been way more complex.

I’d been denied the chance to shed all the tension I carried.

Back at the hangar, Lochie gave a swift debrief, and we were done. Yet even though it was now closing in on midnight, the rest of the team lingered. Most of them watched me.

Lennox, the eldest of my cousins, took the initiative. “How did today go?”

For fuck’s sake. “Grand. Lia and the bairn are here.”

“If ye find yourself at a loose end, bring them by the house. Isobel and the kids would love to meet them.”

“Same,” Brodie added. The dark-haired man was married to my cousin, Blayne, and also to their wife, Casey. They had a two-year-old and a baby of six months.

I muttered my responses with vague promises of get-togethers, but how was I going to do any of this when I was a walking wreck?

I had to pull it together, or I was at risk of scaring away Lia for good.