: Chapter 18

Max

Throwing a punch, I put all my power into my arm, aiming for the man’s head.

Missed. Fuck.

My pulse raced. I wheeled around, regaining my balance. Where was he? Someone rushed me, and I dodged, clenching my fist for another try. Had to protect them.

But my fingers wouldn’t comply. I couldn’t fight. Faces crowded in, leering, hating.

“Dada!” Evie yelled.

I spun around, trying to find her. Trying to find Lia. In a gap between the bodies, someone carried Evie away. The lights went out. Everything turned black.

Some kind of grunt escaped me, and I forced myself awake, coming to with a rush of breath.

Ah fuck, it was just a dream.

I rubbed my eyes, willing my heart to chill. Christ, I rarely dreamed, but that had felt so real.

Lia and Evie had been taken.

I hadn’t been able to reach them.

A moan had me jerking up on the sofa. Stone walls surrounded me with tall windows looking out onto a black night. Where the hell was I?

Recognition came fast. Lia’s apartment in the castle. I’d fallen asleep here after…

The moan, now anguished, reached me again, and I jumped up and padded through to the bedroom. I knocked on the closed door.

“Lia? Are ye okay?”

No reply came.

Then a tiny voice spoke. “Ba.”

I swung the door open. In the yellow glow of her nightlight, Evie stood in her cot, holding the bar. She looked between me and her ma. On the bed, Lia wrenched to and fro in her quilt, deep in the grips of a nightmare.

“Ba,” Evie demanded again and banged a hand down.

“Okay, okay,” I told her and entered the room, closing the door behind me.

I stooped to kiss her head for reassurance then sat next to Lia. “Sweetheart, it’s Max. You’re just dreaming.”

Her features contorted, but she didn’t wake. I placed a hand on her arm and rubbed softly. “Hey, everything is all right. You’re safe. Just a bad dream.”

Lia twisted, curling around me on the edge of the bed. Ah shite. The moment I stood, she’d fall off.

The lass clearly needed a hug, though.

I carefully rearranged her to face the centre of the bed, then turned back to Evie. “I’m going to give her a cuddle so she sleeps. Now ye lie yourself down and get some rest. Dinna fash about your ma. I’ve got her.”

To my surprise, the little lass plopped straight down onto the mattress, her pyjama-clad backside in the air and her arms a pillow for her wee head. Apparently content that I had this under control.

I gazed for a moment then twisted back at Lia’s whimper. She hadn’t woken, and I boosted to the top of the bed.

“Gonna hug ye,” I informed her, then settled into the pillows and brought her into my arms.

She curved around me, her leg over mine and her fist gripping my shirt.

Earlier, she’d kissed me, and I’d given up all my darkest secrets about how badly I wanted her.

It had all been real, but every part of it came with a warning.

Once, she’d rejected me. I’d carried the scars for the longest time. Starting anything with her now would be asking for trouble. She’d leave, again, and soon—she’d said four days only for this trip, then off to the States. I wasn’t sure how much heart I had left to be broken.

I was also pretty certain I couldn’t resist her.

In a mix of pain and strange happiness, I stroked her hair.

Eventually, Lia’s breathing regulated. Her grip on my t-shirt released, and she slept peacefully. A peek at the cot showed me a slumbering Evie.

I closed my eyes and tried to control the dangerous thoughts on how much I liked this.

How natural. Fucking perfect. How…

“Ba, ba, ba!” Evie’s little voice roused me, hours later, and with light streaming around the curtains.

Still clinging to me, Lia woke. “Oh my God. Max?”

“Sorry, I didnae mean to sleep over. Ye were having a bad dream. Evie was awake.”

She rolled away and palmed her forehead. “I remember you coming in. I couldn’t wake.” Wriggling up, she put her arms out to help Evie from the cot. “What I was more surprised at was, didn’t you hear? She’s talking.”

Our tiny daughter scrambled over her mother to sit between us. She beamed, no doubt as surprised as me at the three of us being in bed together.

I brushed her red curls back from her forehead and gave her a stern look. “Now, how many times do I have to tell ye, it’s Da. Try again.”

She grinned bigger.

“Da, da, dada,” I tried, then I switched attention to Lia, her hair messed from sleep. “Doesnae like to be commanded, then.”

“If she’s stubborn, that’s got to be from you. I’m a pushover.”

The pretty lass’s lips curved and, in a heady rush, I fought the urge to lean in and kiss her like she had done to me last night.

From the floor, my phone vibrated. I groaned and stretched to retrieve it. “Surely it’s naw that time already. I have training with the mountain rescue team this morning. Gabe, a friend I need to introduce ye to, is flying for the first time. But it cannae be nine yet.”

The message on my screen was something else.

Lia hugged Evie. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s a call out. Rare to get one first thing on a sunny morning and after a mild night. Usually it’s bad weather and when the night’s drawing in. I’d better go.” I jumped from the bed. Then I hesitated, because leaving this scene was too hard.

“Stay,” I asked Lia. Or maybe ordered. Aye, perhaps I was the stubborn one. “You’re meant to be leaving soon, aye? Stay for longer. I’ll talk to Callum about this place. I have to go back to work this afternoon, but I’ll find things for ye to do. People to hang out with so ye won’t get lonely.” Urgency crept into my voice. “I need more time with Evie.”

Or both of them. But saying that was too dangerous.

Lia glanced down and took a deep breath.

I stiffened myself for the rejection. The denial coming.

“Yes.” She brought her gaze back to me.

“Yes? You’ll stay?”

“We can stay. Evie needs you, too, and… I want to. Plus, I definitely don’t want to go home right now. If I see my dad, I’ll lose my head and I want more information before I talk to him. If you want us to stay, then we’ll be right here.”

I stooped and kissed her.

Just a short but hard press of my mouth to hers. My grin followed it, and I forced myself to not repeat the action, instead giving Evie a quick snuggle.

“I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to Cait about seeing ye. Or my parents, if ye prefer.”

“No need. I have a date today already.”

A… My brain seized up. “A what?”

Lia giggled. “A playdate with Effie and the kids. You should see your face.”

Well, fuck. On that note, masking my extreme and instant jealousy, I left them and got myself on the road.

At the aircraft hangar where the mountain rescue operations centre was located, Lochie and Gabe stood around a map, already in jumpsuits. With Gabe still living in Maddock’s place, they were neighbours.

A team of men and women busied around. I kitted up and joined our leader at the map. With typical efficiency, Lochie gave the briefing. A man in his eighties had been hill walking yesterday. His wife had gone to bed early, feeling unwell, and woken to find him not returned. She’d alerted their daughter who called us.

“He’s an experienced hiker and knows the area, but I’ve taken into account his age and the overnight exposure,” Lochie explained. “In all likelihood, we’ll find him walking off the hill himself, but better safe than sorry. Gabe, considering ye planned to take to the air as part of today’s training, go ahead and power up the heli. Gordain will escort ye.” He gestured to my uncle, the original head of the service and a pilot. Gordain had given over responsibility of the mountain rescue team to Lochie and the helicopter hire service to Maddock in order to focus on his latest business—close protection. Kind, considerate, and typically making plans to help one or the other of us, Uncle G was always around for advice when any of us needed it.

I hadn’t spoken to him directly about being a father, but my family all now knew.

Lochie continued. “Max, ye go with them, too. There’s no need for rapid response today as we have no known position of a casualty, so you’ll do better scoping from the air.”

He gave us a target search area—the hills to the east of Glenshee, with wide open plateaus and a panorama of Munro peaks—and we sprinted to the heli.

By all rights, there wasn’t the urgency, but I was filled with energy. It burst from me.

Gabe got us skyward, and I settled in for the trip, unable to keep my grin from forming.

“Max, I meant to congratulate ye in person,” Gordain said through the headphones. “I spoke to your da, and he told me all about your bairn. Evie, aye?”

“That’s her, and her ma’s Lia.” A bolt of joy sank through me. Christ, Lia was on my mind so badly.

“Ye need to throw a baby shower,” Gordain stated. “Your da suggested it. All the lasses have one. It’s a good way to get all the kit and advice ye need. No need to skip that because yours is a year old.”

“Fourteen months, she’s just turned now,” I mumbled half to myself. “I like the idea. Lia will get to meet everyone. She doesnae have much family, so I want her to know mine.”

Gordain tilted his head. “Evie, do ye mean?”

I hadn’t, but I nodded anyway.

My uncle gave me an amused once-over, the countryside speeding by below us. “Lia is going to the parents’ meet-up this morning, so I heard. Viola is taking Baby G. She’s excited to meet our newest member of the clan.”

Viola was Gordain’s daughter and Baby G his grandson. I had no idea how Lia had been invited to hang out with a group of my family, but a deep wave of satisfaction rolled through me.

I wanted her to like it. To fit in.

I also wanted to talk about Lia, but on the same note, I wasn’t sure what I’d be asking. Instead, I changed direction to the other matter dogging me.

“Have ye ever heard about an institution of some kind up near Skye? For boys in trouble? Maybe with criminal records.”

Gordain tapped his chin. “A young offenders type of place? Nothing like that in the islands that I know of. Why?”

I gave him the short version of meeting Struan then the run-in with the aggressive man who claimed to own him.

My uncle’s frown turned to a glower. “He got in your face? Sounds like some kind of arsehole on a power trip. Who’d put a man like that in charge of young lads in need?”

“My thoughts, too. If I didnae have Lia and Evie with me, I’d have gone after him.”

Gordain kept his gaze on me. “Ye have a bad feeling about the man.”

“Him, Struan, the whole of it. If this home is meant to be helping kids, why would Struan be out there basically begging for help? I remember my da once saying that all behaviour is communication. Like with kids having a meltdown, they need regulation and cannae do it themselves. When I spoke to Struan, he was hanging on my every word. He’s all anger on the surface and desperation to connect underneath.”

“Let me ask around,” Gordain said. “I’ll see what I can find out. Otherwise, there’s only one thing else to try.”

“What’s that?”

“Fly up there and hunt them down.”

With that in my head, we neared our search zone and got to work.

An hour passed with little to show for it. We took sweeps northwards, scoping fresh sets of morning walkers but finding none alone. Nor had the man called home or answered his phone.

Gordain talked Gabe through the search protocol, and I scanned the stark countryside.

We had a picture of the man, but as yet, hadn’t even seen his car.

Lia needed her own car. I did, too.

“What would ye do next, Max?” Gordain asked.

I blinked my attention back into the heli’s cabin. “My guess is we’ve got the search area wrong. No car, no way he’s here.”

Gordain nodded and radioed in a wider sweep. It was barely eight-thirty, but car parks would get busier in the next hour.

A few miles west of the original target, we struck gold. Through my scope, I spotted our target.

“Gabe, bring her around,” I asked. “Look. A green Skoda, aye? Sitting pretty by the side of the road.”

“Can ye see the numberplate?”

I read out the partial plate I could make out.

“Got him,” Gordain confirmed. “And we have our starting point.”

“Radioing it in.” I made the report, adrenaline pumping.

“Excellent work,” Lochie came back. “If he’s parked at Auchavan, he’s walking Monega Hill. Anyone got an alternative suggestion?”

Voices of agreement returned.

“Casey and Lennox, check over the car, the rest of ye, reroute.” He divided up the ground between the teams and set us on a new circuit.

Now, the real search could begin. Unlike with our last call out, this one was going to burn up the excess energy I had. Make use of the muscles that screamed for exertion.

Help me stop obsessing over Lia.

I’d head to work for the afternoon and, by evening, be able to see her without needing to paw at her.

We thundered through the sky, and I grinned, ready to use my skills.

Then a radio report cut through my good mood.

Casey came on the line. “We’re at the car now. Er, the gentleman is asleep on the back seat.”

After a pause, Lochie spoke. “Can ye wake him to confirm identity?”

Inside the heli’s cab, the three of us exchanged incredulous looks.

Casey replied. “He’s awake and confused, but it’s him. Seems like he found his way back to the car park in the middle of the night then fell asleep.”

Another pause, and her voice came back strained. “He didn’t want to text his wife because it was late, and the text tone might’ve worried her. He says he’s fine to drive home, and he’s kind of cranky that we’re here looking for him. He wants us to stop making a fuss and leave him alone.”

As a rule, we didn’t judge the people we went out to save, but unwarranted annoyance spread through me.

Lochie muttered something then, more clearly, instructed Casey and Lennox to attempt a medical checkup. The rest of us, he stood down.

“Heading for home.” Gabe swung the heli in an arc and put the nose down in the direction of the estate.

I dragged my hand over my face. “Fuck it.”

Gordain chuckled. “Any particular reason ye wanted that man to be in greater danger than taking a car nap?”

Checking myself, I flipped him the bird, and my uncle laughed more.

I was fucked, and it needed reining in, fast.

Back at the hangar, we changed from our jumpsuits and waited on Lochie for the short debrief. Once that was done, Gabe and I headed outside.

“Are ye off to work?” he asked me.

“Aye. Want a lift anywhere?” Gabe had been here for a while now and had used a hire car for a week but returned it.

“I picked up a secondhand off-roader. It was delivered to Isobel’s garage yesterday for a tune-up.”

“Hop on my bike. I’ll take ye there now.”

Gabe jumped on the back of my Interceptor, gripping the bar at his back. The hangar and the garage were on the same side of the estate, but I took the longer route around Castle McRae. Not that I paid any attention to where the gang of my relatives and their kids met up, but it was a warm day, so chances were they’d be outdoors somewhere near the castle.

Sure enough, on the banks of the loch, a group congregated. I slowed the bike. At the edge of the shore, Lia held Evie’s hands while our daughter dipped her toes in the bright water. The little lass opened her mouth in a shriek I couldn’t hear and jumped, splashing.

Under the cover of my bike helmet, I grinned at the sight. But my attention leapt back to her ma.

In the warm sunlight, Lia’s hair shone gold. She laughed at something one of my cousins was saying, then turned, her gaze finding me.

When the road met the beach, I stopped the bike and killed the engine.

“Pit stop,” I informed Gabe as soon as my helmet was clear.

But the dark-haired man’s focus had already set on another lass there. Effie, sister to Brodie who lived on the estate. She carried Brodie’s daughter in her arms, his older girl clinging to her tight jeans. Their mother, Casey, had been out on the rescue, so Effie must be babysitting.

I left the bike and approached the group, Gabe a silent shadow behind me.

“Just passing and thought I’d say hi and introduce ye to Gabe.” I reached Lia and stooped to drop a kiss on Evie’s sun-warmed hair.

It would have been the most natural thing in the world to kiss Lia hello, too, but doing so under the interested gazes of my kin was only asking for trouble.

Lia gave a soft smile that almost stopped my heart. “Nice to meet you Gabe. Max, I’ve been getting to know your family. You have so many relatives.”

“No kidding. This isn’t half of it either.”

“I’m going to need a new journal to write down everyone’s names for next time I’m here.”

Next time? I should be relieved she was talking about that, but in a heartbeat, it all felt wrong.

I didn’t want her to leave.

Beside Lia, Effie tilted her head at Gabe. “Angel Gabriel. You’re back.”

The big man was slow to reply. “Aye, for a while.” He gestured to Callie, the toddler at Effie’s feet. “Your daughter has the look of ye.”

Something played out in his tone. It almost sounded like disappointment, or bitter acceptance.

A small, amused smile flirted with Effie’s expression. “Does she now?”

Well, this was interesting. I had no idea the two even knew each other.

Abruptly, Gabe turned and stomped away back to the bike.

I returned my gaze to Lia. “I’d better go. I’m working all afternoon but…”

I’d been about to say that I’d come by to see them at the castle apartment, but that felt dangerous. The single thing I knew for certain was I needed to be a good father to Evie. Which meant I couldn’t be at odds with her mother. Lia had loved and left me once already.

No matter how badly I wanted her, I shouldn’t go down that road again.

“Will ye come to dinner with my folks?” I invented instead.

Lia blinked then dipped her head. “I’d love to.”

Then I did the only thing I could and got the fuck away.

At Fitzroy Classics, Isobel had her head and shoulders inside a chunky Volkswagen 4×4. Beyond her, the Austin-Healey waited, already on a lift for me to continue work. I squinted at the car, seeing it in a different light.

Gabe made to join my boss, but I paused him. “Why did Effie call ye Angel Gabriel? And how do ye know her?”

He stared past me. “We met when I was here at Christmas.”

Then he shut his mouth, and his expression settled to a glower.

As long as I’d known him, Gabe had been even-tempered and competent, if a little mysterious with his past. I considered that his business, but I’d never seen him…sulk.

I took pity on the guy. “Ye know those kids are her nieces?”

His attention sprang back to me. “What?”

“Her brother’s bairns. Now tell me again how ye know each other.”

His dark eyebrows shot together. “It’s better if I don’t think about her.”

“What does that mean?”

“Gabe, this is pretty decent,” Isobel interrupted. “Nothing is screaming at me for an immediate repair. You did good.”

Gabe punched me in the arm then joined my boss in her engine inspection.

It looked like I wasn’t the only one screwed up over a lass.

Maybe neither of us had any luck.