What Lies Between (18 page)

Weaning lambs hadn’t made it high on my research list, either.

Jim pointed to a set of holding pens and a livestock shelter near the road, their wood dry and gray from exposure. I pulled the Beast over, shut off the engine, and opened the door. Fervent, mournful calls between ewes and their lambs filled the air.

“We have several more lambs to separate.” Jim tossed me a pair of gloves.

The ewes got in a good couple of kicks to my shins and knocked me down at one point. I deserved it, taking their babies away, but in fairness it was my clumsiness that had landed me on the wrong side of the ewes rather than any intent on their part. Lying prone in muddy droppings surrounded by upset sheep running amok did not fit my idea of managing livestock.

Jim separated most of the remaining weaning lambs from their mothers, adding to the cacophony of ovine complainants. My contribution mostly involved slipping and sliding. It was a start.

Driving the Beast back without need of further instructions nearly inspired me to high-five Jim. The Beast and I had reached an agreement of sorts. I didn’t sheer off its side on the bushes and rock walls lining the roads, and it returned the respect by not killing its engine or leaving me stranded.

Eager to get to the house and soothe my sore, sleep-deprived body, I dropped Jim where he’d left his truck and sped back to the steading. Seven hours out in the glen and hills left me exhausted. And it was only one-thirty. I craved a long shower and a nap but needed to be at Maggie’s by three. Shutting off the Beast’s engine, I opened the door.

“I was hoping to see you today.”

Steel and resolve flooded my system at the sound of that voice, and I swung my body out of the driver’s seat with a fury. But the sight of Ben MacIver arrested my defiance and regret-laced longing coursed through me. Why couldn’t he have been born into a different family?

A dark turquoise t-shirt slipped across his muscles, making his hair look darker brown and lending his eyes the blue of a Caribbean bay, except they looked wrecked, a holiday gone bad. I could almost believe he was truly suffering.

Pushing past him toward the house, the last thing I expected was his grip on my arm, spinning me around before I could open its door.

“Don’t touch me,” I hissed.

“I need you to hear me out. It’s not what you think.”

“It’s not what I think? Are you serious? It can only be worse. Get your hands off me or—”

“Or what? What will you do, Ellie? Do you think avoiding me is going to make what you have to do easier? You don’t even know what I have to say or what my part in this is. My father was right—you are your own worst enemy.”

“How dare you? You and your family clearly will do whatever it takes to get Glenbroch. You knew exactly what you were doing when you tried to get inside my head. At least I didn’t let you into my bed.” My voice quieted. I refused to lose control of my emotions around him. “You played me.”

“No . . . maybe. I didn’t plan it. Meeting you that first day was accidental. I did—
do
—work at Glenbroch as a joiner. My father and Calum reached an agreement to have a MacIver working on the estate, keeping an eye on things. I didn’t intend to lie to you. Calum didn’t tell us anything about you or your arrival.”

His voice fell soft in the air, making me want to close my ears.

“When you told me who you were, aye, I should have told you about my relationship to Glenbroch or walked away. I couldn’t make myself do either one.”

You’re nothing to me . . . and I’m lying.

The hurt burning through the casing of my bones informed me Ben was anything but nothing to me. My eyes closed in frustration, but reopened with defiance.

“Your father learned the owner was a woman and demanded a meeting to pay me off and get me out of the way. Did you call your daddy from Skye?”

“Och no, Ellie. I did tell him on Monday morning first thing. He’d already heard and called for the meeting. I’ll admit I didn’t fight him on it and I didn’t tell him about you, specifically, or that you’d gone to Skye with me. My father and I would have argued for ages. I didn’t want to deal with it.”

Tempted to let my guard down in the face of his forthright confession, I swallowed the weakness back into its corner.

Once a fool, not twice.

“Let me get this straight. Your excuse is you’re afraid of your father. Be still my beating heart. If your overwhelming manliness isn’t enough, I’m supposed to believe greed and strategy had nothing to do with any of this. And your desire to get in my pants had nothing to do with your loyalty to Daddy. All of this disgusts me. And what part of ‘don’t touch me’ do you not comprehend? Let go of my arm.”

“Ellie, my father and I are not the same. I care about you. I wish you could believe that.”

“You said that I should have Glenbroch, but you didn’t do a thing to stand up for that. I don’t trust someone who talks a good game but doesn’t do anything; I can’t respect a person like that. Your daddy tells you what to do, and that means I can trust you as far as I can trust him, which is not at all.”

The burn had at last caught hold and had filled my entire system. I could feel my eyes blazing. Time to pound the stake home. “And you’re wrong. You are the same. Like father, like son. And both of you disgust me.”

His face blanched and his grip loosened.

I shook my arm free, slammed the heavy door to the house, and locked it behind me. I took the stairs in my quarters two at a time, determined to wash the feel of him from my skin, but I couldn’t resist the urge to watch from a window.

He trudged back toward the steading, shoulders slumped. I had hit him where it hurt.

Eye for an eye, heart for a heart.

Having barely had time to eat and shower before heading to Maggie’s, and hating to be late, I pushed my speed as much as I dared on the narrow road. A cluster of trees blocked the turn into Maggie’s drive, making it hard to see until I was right on it. I turned abruptly and the car riding my tail laid on its horn as it swerved around the Beast and sped off. Where could someone be going in such a rush?

Pushing open the gate, I followed a winding stone path through a tangled mass of flowers to the front door of the house. With its white-painted, pebbled exterior and thatched roof, Maggie’s cottage might have been plucked from a child’s tale. It had me at first glance.

“I caught sight of the car behind you. That was Bethanne Ferguson. Driving like she has somewhere to be in a hurry.” Maggie stood at the door clucking her tongue as she ushered me inside.

“For a minute there I thought I was back in the city.” I jammed the heels of my wellies in the boot jack she pointed to, pulled them off, and stood them by the door next to an impressive collection of tall rubber boots.

“She tends to drive like that, but if she was heading south, she’s probably taking the road round the head of the glen. Can’t imagine what she’d be doing out here otherwise.”

“Hope she doesn’t kill anybody with her driving; I’m sure if she’s on Glenbroch business, I’m responsible,” I said, shedding my coat, hanging it on one of the hooks laden with jackets in the mudroom, then following Maggie into the kitchen.

“That you are.” Maggie handed me a steaming mug of tea topped off with milk. “From my ain ‘coos,’ ” she added, tilting her head toward the pitcher of milk on the counter.

“Thanks.” I breathed in its warmth and stirred the milk into the tea. “I may need to have a chat with her.”

“Be careful with that one, hen. She gets twisted sideways in the blink of an eye. Someone smashed the car windows of a girl Ben MacIver was seeing back when they were younger. We were sure Bethanne had done it, but she wouldn’t own up, and then the girl—what was her name?—anyway, she dropped the matter, seemed scared. Kind of makes you wonder.” She shrugged, crinkled her brow. “I think Bethanne might be truly mad.”

“You may be right. I got a bad feeling when I met her.”

“Your instincts are worth paying heed to. I wouldnae trust her.”

“Noted. Now, to the business of marketing Glenbroch.” I touched Maggie’s arm. “I want to thank you for being willing to help me. Your local knowledge as a business owner is just what I need.”

“No worries. Let’s get started.” Maggie pursed her lips and surveyed her prep work. “We have a gey wheen o’ things to get done.”

Maggie’s know-how had created an inn and pub “fair cracking with business” as she described it. Not only did she offer me her expertise, fresh paper covered the long table, which held maps of Scotland and the West Highlands, spiral-bound notebooks, pens, and pads of sticky notes. I plugged in my laptop and connected to Maggie’s wireless internet. Learning how to run the estate in the short time I had loomed so large, not to mention the challenges of bringing the renovation in on budget and filling the bookings, that it seemed nearly insurmountable. I had to remember I wasn’t alone this time.

“Let’s look at what you have to dae and walk through the issues with each one. Sound good?” Maggie asked.

“That’s exactly where I think we should start.”

“Can I ask you first—did you go away to Skye with Ben?” Her tone was nonjudgmental but bore an edge that warned me only the straight truth would do.

My chest and face warmed with embarrassment. How could I admit I’d gallivanted around the Highlands with Ben MacIver? I hadn’t known who he was at the time, true enough, but Maggie could well leave me on my own if she learned I was fool enough to cavort with the enemy. Time to own up.

“Yes. He never mentioned he was an investor, not that I would have known to ask. I thought he was a joiner. He never corrected me.”

Her eyes narrowed. I forced mine to return her steady gaze in kind.

“It’s no surprise he didn’t tell you, but don’t feel too bad,” Maggie said. “The MacIver charm is well known. Ben’s father, John, is a dour, hard man, but there was a time he was near impossible to resist.” Her tone softened. “Whatever happened gave you a fire in your belly. Let it work for you, Ellie. Pay no mind to regret or revenge. Those two will swallow you like a python taking a boar, to be sure. Eventually you’ll be gone, absorbed into the cells of the snake.”

My stomach pitched with the thought of a massive snake’s fangs and mouth clamping tight on my flesh, its powerful muscles sucking me into its body.

My words came out hoarse but I managed a weak smile. “Don’t worry, Maggie. Your vivid imagery is an effective warning. I’ll watch myself.”

“Good. Job well done, then.” She smiled, and her emerald eyes sparkled with vibrant energy.

It was easy to imagine men working hard to win her attention in her younger years. Right now, actually. She was a force of nature. On the other hand, I couldn’t work up an image of John MacIver as a charmer. I’d succumbed to Ben’s wiles, though, and he would probably end up like John—greedy and riddled with bitterness—and look nothing like he did now.

“I wrote about revenge, had this character who got eaten by a snake in one of my stories,” Maggie tossed out.

“What do you mean, one of your stories?”

“Where else would I put all the tales and confessions I hear from these people coming through the inn? You’d think I was a priest.” She shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe the things they tell a barmaid.”

“You’re more than a barmaid. You own the pub and the inn.”

“Nothing wrong with being a barmaid, Ellie. That’s where I started, and I hope I’ll be pouring drinks and listening to people’s stories until they carry me out feet first.” She eyed me for a moment. “You know, the Highlands are full of artists. We’re nae the numpties people from other parts think we are. I say, let them think it; maybe they won’t come up here spoiling our beautiful land then, will they? We have plenty of visitors who are respectful—don’t need the other kind.”

My mind began musing on how Glenbroch could showcase local artists’ work. “How many of these stories do you have?”

“I think there are about fourteen up there now.”

“Up where?” I asked.

“In my writing attic. Up at the top of the inn.”

What secret creative sparks and dreams lie inside people?

Sitting back, arms folded over my chest, I looked her up and down. “Maggie MacGregor, you are full of surprises. You ever going to let me read some of those?”

Maggie’s eyes filled with mischief. “Tell you what. You beat the MacIvers, you can read them all.”

“I hope I can pull it off.”

“Bird by bird, Ellie.”

“Huh?”

“One booking at a time. One day at a time of managing expenses. That’s how you’ll get this done.”

I shook my head, still not understanding how the advice related to birds.

“Anne Lamott. She’s an author. Wrote a book on writing. There’s always a point in writing my stories when everything feels impossible. What needs doing is overwhelming, eh? Lamott says to see a story in smaller parts, one bird at a time instead of a huge flock. What I’m saying is the road to winning Glenbroch is one day, one booking at a time, do you see?”

“Okay, that makes sense,” I agreed. “Sounds more manageable put that way, simple, almost like I can do it.”

“Exactly. Because you can.”

In spite of her warnings, I didn’t want to stop at winning. I wanted her to help me find a way to crush John MacIver, and his son while I was at it.

“I think Ben and John might be each other’s weakness. John wields a fair amount of power in the family, or at least over Ben, and he’s aggressive about it from things Ben said. How can we use them against each other?”

She cocked her brow. “You’re serious about taking them down. Right, okay. John’s a tricky one. Impossible to please. Never got the sense he was proud of Ben or thought he would do much.” She looked lost in thought as she tapped her hand against her lips. Shaking her head as if to clear her mind, she said, “Let’s put Ben and John aside and look at what we have to do. Forget about that for now.”

I pulled out the copy of the agreement.

“This restricts you from discounting rooms. Tough terms.” Maggie rocked back in her chair. “What was Gerard thinking?”