Hope Everlastin' Book 4 (41 page)

"Oh, darling," she purred,
"I plan to get even when she returns."

"Oh?"

"Nothing drastic. I
promise."

"I could track her," said
Reith.

"No doubt, but you have
business here, lad," said Lachlan.

"The gardenin’ isna verra
demandin’ right now, sir."

Lachlan grinned. "Aye, but
you need no' put mair distance atween you and yer wife. Wha' if she
comes o' a mind to see you, and ye're no' here? No. Tis ma mither's
belongin’s Taryn took, and somethin’ in ma mither's family she's
investigatin’. Roan and I are the logical ones to go efter
her."

"Wha' abou' me?" Winston
asked indignantly.

"Deliah needs you close
by," Lachlan said.

"I be a—"

"Weed, I know, lass," said
Lachlan, "but we dinna know if you'll have problems wi' the
pregnancy. Tis better Winston stay close."

"I agree," said
Laura.

Beth nodded.

"Okay." Winston sighed. He
cast Deliah a forlorn look. Realizing that she believed he was
disappointed to be stuck at home with her, he released a laugh and
kissed her on the tip of her nose. "I was joking."

"Were ye now?" she asked
suspiciously.

"Why is it you don't read
my mind when I want you to?"

She grinned mischievously.
"No fun when I have permission."

Beth whispered in Lachlan's
ear. When he nodded, she said, "Roan, Laura, would you mind if
Lachlan and I take the boys out for a picnic? A long picnic...say,
for three or four hours?"

Roan and Laura looked at
each other as if unable to believe what they'd heard.

"When?" Roan
asked.

"Now, if you like." Beth
winked at them. "Send the boys down to help make the sandwiches
then disappear to your room. Take a little time for
yourselves."

"Aye," Lachlan grinned.
"You've both been lookin’ a wee frazzled o' late. We'll make sure
ye're undisturbed."

A delicate blush rose in
Laura's cheeks, and excitement brightened the emerald green of her
eyes. "Are you sure you're up to handling five kids at
once?"

Roan gushed, "O' course
they can!" He sent Lachlan and Beth an eager look.
"Right?"

"No' to worry," assured
Lachlan.

"It will rain shortly,"
said Reith, and smiled at the fallen expressions. "The carriage
house loft would make a grand picnic retreat. Do the lads play
hide-n'-seek?"

"It's their favorite game,"
said Laura.

Reith humorously bowed at
the waist. "Then may I prevail to invite maself to this picnic. I
would enjoy playin’ wi' the lads."

"You're invited," said
Beth.

"I'll go and rearrange the
bales o' hay," said Reith. "Do ye need me to help bring anythin’ to
the carriage house?"

"We'll manage," said
Lachlan.

Reith went to his sister
and kissed her on the cheek. "Ye have a safe journey to Ayr wi' yer
Mr. Connery."

"Winston," Winston said.
"We'll be in-laws before long."

"Aye, sir. Just remember ye
have valuable cargo wi' ye in yer car."

"As if I could ever
forget," Winston said amicably. "Deliah, do you want to come into
town wi' me?"

"To make the call to Mr.
Grayson?"

He nodded.

"Aye, I would like to go.
Might we stop for sweets? I've a cravin’ I canna
ignore."

"Then stop, we shall. But
put shoes on."

She looked down at her bare
feet and lifted a pathetic expression for him to see. "Must I? They
make ma toes feel bro-ked."

Winston turned to the
others and shrugged flamboyantly. "Wha' can a mon do? Barefoot and
pregnant she wants to be, so who am I to argue?"

With a merry salute, Reith
headed into the hall. Before he reached the front doors, the sound
of the brass knocker being engaged echoed through the first floor.
Other more forceful raps followed before Reith opened to outer
doors to see who was on the other side.

A mantle of gloom fell over
those remaining in the parlor.

Lachlan, his expression one
of annoyance, remarked, "If the police have returned, I'll throw
maself from the tower!"

Winston stood at the
threshold to the hall. Voices carried his way. After several
moments he turned and delivered a dubious look to his friends. "We
have company."

"Who?" asked Beth, peeved.
"The police again?"

Winston shook his head as
the voices grew louder in their approach. "No. But you might wish
they were, though."

He stepped aside. Reith,
his face flushed and eyes offering a mute apology, led four people
into the room. Shocked silence prevailed for a time as two couples
in their sixties stood haughtily appraising the occupants of the
room.

"This is a fine hello,"
said one of the women. She was tall and slender with crisp hazel
eyes, short blond hair, and austere features. The man next to her
was two inches taller, portly around the middle, blue-eyed and
white-haired, and his cheeks rosy.

"Mother," Laura said
weakly, "Dad...what are you doing here?"

Before Lauren or William
Bennett could reply, Eilionoir Ingliss cut in. "Taryn called us, of
course, and told us about the wedding."

Roan inwardly fumed at his
sister's audacity. Utilizing all his willpower to appear outwardly
calm, he nodded to his parents and asked, "How do you come to know
Laura's parents?"

"I called them," Eilionoir
snipped, giving her salon-dyed, reddish-blond head a toss. "Taryn
supplied their number. I guess some good comes of her chosen
profession."

Laura went to her parents
and put an arm around each of their necks, while Roan stood in a
silent battle with his own. His mother looked a little older than
he remembered, but she was still a beautiful woman and obviously
still full of herself. His father, however, looked years older than
his actual age. His hair was gunmetal gray, and dark circles
underscored the bags beneath his amber eyes. His cheeks were
sunken, his face sickly and pale.

It occurred to Roan that
his mother had worked her husband nearly to his grave. Dugan had
always been a large man to Roan, but now he seemed shrunken and
barely Roan's own height.

"Son," Dugan said with a
terse nod, "you're looking well."

Roan could barely detect
any hint of Scottish in their voices. It left a chilling void in
his heart, and he tensed despite his efforts to the contrary. They
were strangers to him. Dim memories, most of which were not
pleasant. In his father's eyes, he could do no right, and his
mother had never had an ounce of patience with him. That they would
assume he wanted them to attend his wedding irked him.

His mind drifted into a
daze. One moment he was wondering how to convince them to leave,
the next he realized everyone but Deliah and Winston was sitting at
the dining room table. Pots of tea and coffee were being served by
Lachlan and Beth, and the boys were uncharacteristically waiting
for permission to dive into the sandwiches stacked on two platters
on both ends of the table.

He was surprised to find
himself seated at the head of the table. Laura was to his right,
her parents to her right. To his immediate left was his mother.
Next to her was his father. She was staring at him with a familiar
look of disapproval. His father was avoiding looking at him at
all.

Laura's parents, on the
other hand, were cheerful although exhausted from the trip. Beth,
he noticed, was quietly observing the guests, and he suspected she
was wishing she had family to attend the wedding.

"Must we suffer that mouse
staring at us from the cage?" Eilionoir snipped. "And what is a
cage doing on such a fine sideboard?"

Since she was staring at
Roan, no one answered, and he was lost in his thoughts.

"You're as rude as ever,"
his mother commented, a cup held with both hands, poised inches
from her enhanced lips. "Roan? Did you hear me?"

He nodded
dispassionately.

"Taryn failed to tell us
you were marrying a woman with three children."

The room fell silent as
Roan shifted a dark warning look at his mother. "They're Laura's
nephews."

Eilionoir smiled thinly
across the table at Laura. "Are they in your charge,
dear?"

Laura passed Roan a worried
glance before answering, "Yes. My brother died and their
stepmother—"

"Abandoned us," interjected
Kevin with a smile. "Good thing, too, cause she wasn't right for
us. We belong with Aunt Laura and Uncle Roan."

"Charming boy," said
Eilionoir, her tone implying quite the opposite. Her gaze met her
son's. "Are you able to support a ready-made family?"

The question came as
Lachlan seated himself at the opposite end of the table. "The mon
is wealthy enough!" he boasted for Roan's sake. "This estate is
his."

"You don't say?" Eilionoir
murmured.

"Actually, it belongs to
Lannie," said Roan with a deadpan look fixed on Lachlan. "He's been
gracious enough to share it wi' us."

"Gracious, ma eye," Lachlan
blustered, grinning broadly, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "Tis
yers."

Roan flagged a dismissing
hand, and sighed with annoyance as he looked at his parents. "Dinna
worry yerself abou' how I'll take care o'
ma
family."

"Roan, I couldn't be
happier with my Laura's choice," said Lauren happily, and gave her
daughter's hand a loving squeeze atop the table. "And I know Jack
approves of you as a father for his sons."

"Grandma," piped up Kahl,
"will you tell us about our daddy, later?"

"It would be my pleasure,
Kevin."

"I'm Kahl."

Lauren blushed, and her
husband chuckled. "We're suffering jet lag," he told the boys
collectively. "Be patient. We'll get the names straight, soon
enough."

The boys passed skeptical
glances amongst themselves.

"I'm sure you do approve of
Roan marrying your daughter," said Eilionoir to Lauren, her cold
tone raising Roan's hackles. "There aren't many men who would take
on a woman with three boys."

"Mither,
shut up."

She stiffened and shot him
a horrified look. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"Roan," Laura pleaded
softly.

"Dinna mistake her rudeness
for jet lag, Laura," he said, clenching his hands on the table top.
"She doesna have a maternal bone in her body."

"That's enough!" his father
warned.

"No, Dad, it isna, by far.
This is
ma
home,
now, and these people ma friends and family. I willna stand for yer
wife puttin’ down Laura, the lads, or anyone else I love." He
glared into his mother's cold stare. "For as long as ye're under
this roof, you will conduct yourself like a lady. Tis bad enough
you didn't wait for an invitation."

"Has one been mailed?" she
asked curtly.

Roan shook his head. "I
didna want you here. But now tha' you are, ye're welcome to stay
for the weddin’."

"You make it sound like a
privilege," she retorted.

"Hardly, mither," he wryly
cut her off. He gulped down some of the chilled water in his glass
then heaved a breath to quiet the anger stirring inside him. "If I
recall, I sent you an invite for ma first weddin’."

"We were away on a business
trip," his father said defensively.

Roan nodded. "And where we
you both when Adaina and our son were buried? Anither business
trip? I know Aunt Aggie called you. But I guess it wasna important
enough for you to return to Scotland."

"We're here now," his
mother clipped.

"Why?" he asked
softly.

Eilionoir glanced at her
husband then lifted her chin and met her son's probing gaze. "Taryn
begged us to be here for you. That's why."

Lachlan was about to get to
his feet when he felt something move at the nape of his neck. He
reached to scratch the annoyance but stopped when he realized what
was causing the sensation.

"Tell me, Mr. and Mrs.
Ingliss," Lachlan said, "have you no idea wha' a grand son you have
in Roan?" He scowled when they silently looked down the table at
him. "Weel, I'll tell you!"

"Lannie—"

"Roan, be quiet," Lachlan
said wearily, still scowling. "Do you know who I am?" he asked
Roan's parents, and went on before they could reply. "I'm the
Lachlan Baird, the
same
Lachlan Baird who Robbie and Tessa Ingliss murdered and walled
up in the tower."

Eilionoir stiffly rose to
her feet and gestured for her husband to follow her example. "I'm
too tired to listen to this nonsense. Roan, you know where our room
is. Let us know when you're up to acting civil."