What Lies Between (21 page)

Was she talking about the same Gerard I had met? My father?

“It’s nice to meet someone who knew him.”

It was clear where Ben’s unusual eyes came from. The memory of a blue-moon night fluttered through my mind. She misread the pained expression that passed across my face and followed my distant gaze to the vehicle.

“Oh, don’t worry. The Argocat looks strange but will take us through pretty much anything. John used it for stalking, but he hardly takes it out anymore. Always too busy finding somebody’s business to get himself in the middle of.”

Anna opened the passenger door. A border collie sat in the center of the bench seat. “Ellie, meet my Jazz. He is the best around. You’ll get to see him work today.”

I climbed in beside the collie. “Nice to meet you, Jazz.” The two brown points over his eyes—nearly eyebrows—made him look pensive. His black and white coat gleamed in the sunlight, long and smooth, his neck was bushy, perfect for scrunching up into a big doggy hug, which I gave him enthusiastically. He licked my cheek in return.

Anna clambered into the driver’s seat, fired up the Cat (as I decided was a befitting name for her strange vehicle), and turned to the collie. “Let’s go and find some sheep, shall we, Jazz?”

He barked a crisp response.

“He’s ready.”

“I’ll follow your lead. I don’t know what I’m doing yet,” I admitted.

“Of course you don’t. You’ve barely unpacked.” She leaned around Jazz and patted my arm. “Dinnae fash yersel. Not to worry, I mean. Have to watch my words.” She smiled. “Wouldn’t expect you to know how to wrangle sheep but you’ll be much better at it by the end of the day.”

Jazz laid his paws and head on my leg. I scratched his ears as Anna drove in silence. They were homey—this woman, this dog. Yet her family was the reason everything my father left me was at risk.

“Anna, did you know my grandparents, Angus and Helen?”

“Yes, quite well.” She glanced over at me. “Come for tea on an afternoon when it’s too dreich to be outside for long—there will be plenty of those here—and we can talk about your grandparents.”

My expression brightened. “Yes, I’ll do that.”

Anna parked the moonwalker close to a flock of sheep near the burn that ran along the bottom of a hill a few miles from the house. She hopped out and Jazz followed, not taking his eyes off her.

“Let’s go have a look there and see if any of those happen to be yours,” she said.

Anna moved closer to the group of sheep, who kept their eyes on the collie. Jazz flanked the other side of the flock, slinking back and forth, keeping them bunched up.

“Ellie, I can see a couple of Glenbroch ewes amongst these. I’ll have Jazz separate them. Let’s get the trailer ready first.”

I helped her pull a ramp out of the back of the vehicle. We settled one end on the ground and the other on the open back of the trailer.

With whistles and soft voice commands, she instructed Jazz in what she wanted. The collie crouched low on the ground, creeping closer to the sheep. He stared at Anna, then leaped up, turned sharply right, left, and then straight at the flock. The sheep moved in unison, stopped abruptly, and watched him, waiting to see what he would do next. A few of the ewes complained bitterly about his interference in their day.

Jazz ignored them. Staring the flock down, he responded to Anna’s nearly imperceptible commands. The collie achieved what didn’t look possible, separating a single sheep from a bawling, bumbling flock. Several minutes later, he had settled both Glenbroch ewes in the back of the enclosed trailer.

Leaning on the Cat, I hunted for the words, or the courage, to ask the question. A compliment, genuine, came out instead. “Anna, that was remarkable. I still can’t believe how Jazz managed it. I’m fascinated by the whole process—your relationship with him, what you say to him, the whistles you use—all of it.”

“Would you like to learn how to work with him? It would be useful to you here,” Anna said, ruffling Jazz’s long hair.

“Are you serious?” It was if Anna had plucked my unspoken request from my mind.

She beamed, her pride in Jazz evident. “Why don’t we plan to go out and work together with him, say once a week? What do you think?”

The grin spreading over my face widened. “I would love that.”

Anna’s nurturing warmth was an irresistible haven amidst all the challenges I faced. How could someone like her be married to someone as vile as John MacIver? Calum thought I was wrong about John. Having met Anna, I wanted to be.

12

Autumn arrived in the Highlands with an explosion of color. Practically overnight the fading greens of late summer transformed into showy fall foliage lining the road along the loch shore. The coffee brown of dying heather and faded apricot of feathery bracken muted the hills. Without their vibrant green foliage, the white-spotted trunks of the birches looked like they’d aged overnight.

The month of September had passed without further sabotage and daily life had calmed and quieted. I enjoyed the comfort of my work routine and the respite from the problems I’d had. My mind occupied itself with marketing, building relationships with suppliers, and the physical demands of the farm work on the estate.

Over the past week, Henry and I had herded the flocks down off the fells for the breeding that would produce next spring’s lambs. Each day I looked in on the weaned lambs from last spring. Henry patiently explained how he selected the ones to keep for breeding or for Glenbroch’s larder, and which to send to the market in Stirling. I would learn to make these decisions but was glad that this year they weren’t mine.

Anna brought Jazz out to help herd and I practiced with him on my own a couple of times. Dixie and I became more comfortable around each other and I came to enjoy taking her out on chores alongside Henry, who drove his own quad.

If I wasn’t with Henry learning livestock management, I worked on increasing Glenbroch’s visibility, building relationships with travel planners and influencers, and meeting with Maggie or Ian’s Aberdeen marketing team. Although Ryan had given me dire warnings of how off schedule the renovation would be after the inspector debacle, he worked tirelessly to get a crew back on site and make up time. His capable management eased my worry and left me much-needed energy for sales and marketing.

I looked forward to seeing Maggie each week for our sessions. Besides bringing her high energy and knowledge, she made a point of bringing a batch of Pete’s fresh baked scones. Although I didn’t get around much, and so couldn’t confirm the validity of my opinion, I would vouch that Pete, Maggie’s chef and right hand, made the best scones in Ross-shire. (I liked to call it simply the shire; every time I remembered I lived in a shire a goofy smile would take over my face and I got a little giddy.)

Topped with homemade jam and clotted cream, Pete’s scones were unbeatable. If I thought I could steal him away from Maggie to work at Glenbroch . . . but that wasn’t going to happen. Pete’s loyalties belonged utterly to Maggie. And my relationship with Maggie was far more important to me than trying to steal her chef. Besides, she had a chef in mind for Glenbroch.

Getting out and working on the estate had become the best part of my day. Who would have thought I’d enjoy the hard physical work of the estate so much? Still, I welcomed the breaks when they came. The couple of trips to Aberdeen to meet with the marketing team were long, but the picturesque drive across the country was well worth it, and the journey made a nice change in my routine. Both times I’d gone over I’d stayed the night, giving me much needed downtime and a chance to do some shopping and see a movie. I appreciated a city much more now that I didn’t have to live in one.

The marketing team proved to be sharp and insightful, and with Jim and Maggie’s help, bookings began to fill the first season’s calendar. Once the initial flurry of getting the plan organized and off the ground was over, most of my meetings with the Aberdeen team would be by phone or video call as we headed into winter. I might not need to make a trip over to the big city again before spring.

Jim and I had decided to install a shearing operation in the old barn so we wouldn’t have to transport the sheep elsewhere. The twenty-minute trip out to the barn took me along a road shrouded by trees most of the way. It was a beautiful drive—one I was happy to have to myself. Leaves dropped onto the road as if poured from a bucket, warning me that fall would pass as quickly as it had come.

The old barn stood alone at the edge of a field. Only a few stones remained, nearly buried amidst the ferns and tall, sundried bracken, to prove a little home had also existed once. The building had housed people, probably a family, likely MacKinnons. Centuries of history lay in the fields of the estate, but there had been no time to explore after my first couple of days here.

I wiggled my key into the barn door’s lock, nearly breaking it off.

Note to self—buy a replacement lock.

The thought that people locked barns more often than houses made me chuckle. Opening the barn’s sliding metal door turned into yet another struggle. I shoved my weight against it and then tried to pull from the other edge of the door, but it scarcely budged. I didn’t care to be found waiting for the guys to show up to open the door. I strained against the metal until it gave a deep groan and screeched a few inches along its track. I had nearly wedged my body into the narrow gap for leverage when a motorcycle roared around the curve of the road. The rider parked, clicked off the engine, swung himself off the bike, and pulled off his helmet.

What was Ben doing here? I ignored him and kept working on the door.

“Need some help?” he asked.

“It’s stubborn, but I can manage.” I retrieved a hammer from the Beast and banged on the door’s edge.

Ben yelled over the hammer’s loud clanging. “Jim mentioned meeting you and Henry to clean out the barn for shearing instead of using Henry’s place. I said I’d muck in and lend a hand.”

My brows knitted together. “I can’t imagine why we would need your help.”

Ben grabbed the hammer mid-swing and leaned in, too close. “Let me try. Step back.”

I didn’t move. “I can manage.”

“Aye, I know you can. But we don’t have all day, now do we?”

Narrowing my eyes in disgust and frustration, I stepped away. He was right. I couldn’t budge it any further.

Ben grunted, sweat breaking out on his face as he heaved his body against the door’s edge. Watching him struggle gave me a measure of satisfaction. Whether it was the biker vibe or watching a man break a sweat from hard work, for a moment I forgot he was Ben MacIver. He was a fine-looking man after all.

He caught me smiling at my wayward thoughts and shot me a grumpy look. “Since you find it so funny, why don’t you have a go at it again?”

I shrugged, relaxing my face in my best attempt at a bored expression, even though it amused me to stand and watch. “Better you break a sweat than me.”

Jim’s truck appeared, rescuing me from my wandering thoughts. He and Henry stepped out and then Bethanne. I had not expected to see her and forced a smile, trying to clear the disappointment from my face. Working together at the house was proving more than enough of a challenge.

Bethanne ignored me and approached Ben. “Well, fancy seeing you here. Won’t be such a bad day after all.”

She set her eyes on me, sweeping a glare up and down, condescension replacing her attempt at sultriness. “I spoke too soon.”

My eyes met Jim’s. He gave a faint shake of his head, a reminder of his advice that echoed Calum’s—I couldn’t afford to buy out her contract right now.

Leave her alone until you get Glenbroch open and running; fend off the MacIvers and then you can deal with her contract and sort out a way to make her position redundant
, Jim had said.

Redundant was a word made for Bethanne Ferguson. If ever I could prove she’d cut the gate, I could break her contract. But I couldn’t prove any of my suspicions . . . yet.

Sauntering over to Henry, I looped my arm through his. I was glad to have him present. I needed all the support I could summon to help me deal with the nutter throwing her nasty comments around and sidling up next to Ben.

”You tell us all what we need to do,” I told Henry. “You’re the expert.”

“It’ll not be too difficult. We’ll get it cleaned out and then set up two holding areas along with a paddock. With all of us here, we should be finishing the job well before dark.”

Henry joined Jim and Ben in unloading lumber from the truck’s bed.

“Okay, you heard Henry. Let’s knock this out,” I said, looking at Bethanne.

Bethanne and I both reached for the pitchfork in the back of Jim’s truck. I held the tool with a firm grasp and pushed the handle of a shovel toward her. “Henry will give you your instructions. Take this and go with him.”

She stood still, not releasing the pitchfork.

“Take the shovel and go to work, or walk back to the house and go home, without pay,” I said in a calm, level voice.

She shook her head, her eyes frigid. Her expression communicated she wasn’t done with me. I braced for the tension between Bethanne and me to set off an explosion.

Ben’s voice, coming from the barn, lifted above our dispute. “I don’t agree with how you’re planning to do this, Henry. We need to set up the pens at this wall.”

Henry gave a sharp laugh. It didn’t sound like he found anything funny. “I’ve worked out the plan. We’ll be sticking to it.”

“And how is it your property or your decision?” Ben asked, his voice losing its diplomacy.

“How is it yours, MacIver? Ellie will decide.”

“I have a financial interest and I’m telling you your plan doesn’t make sense. We need to put the pens against this wall,” Ben said.

“I don’t care how much money you have in this place. It’s not yours. Back off. We’re following my plan.”

Leaving Bethanne outside, I strode into the barn with the pitchfork in my hands and came to a stop between them. “What’s going on?”