What Lies Between (41 page)

I shook my head, unable to wrap my mind around the thought that he could mean what he had said. How could anyone mean something like that? My hands tightened, wanting to wrap around his neck.

“
You
are the one who should have died. The world would be a better place by far without you in it.”

He stared at me, sweat beading on his forehead and face. Finally, something I said unnerved him.

“Are you trying to think of a new threat or are you having second thoughts about killing me for a bunch of land?” I continued, bearing down on the advantage I’d gained.

His lips turned the color of a blanched almond. His mouth opened but no sound came out. I edged closer. “Listen, you can—” My words vanished abruptly. Something was wrong.

He clutched at my arm as he sank to the floor, his other hand flying to his chest. “Can’t breathe,” he rasped, “help me.”

I pulled out my phone and punched the emergency number, but my finger hovered over the call button. I couldn’t push it. Instinct told me he would die from whatever was happening to him, probably a heart attack. This was my chance. And I didn’t have to do anything except walk away.

John’s eyes widened as he divined my thoughts. A rush of shame coursed hot through me, mixing with a raging hatred for this horrible man. If I walked out the door, no one would even know I had been here. By morning, my troubles would be over.

He managed a contorted grin, choked out words. “More . . . like me than . . . my own son.” He grunted what he must have meant to be a laugh but turned into a suffocated cough. “Are you . . . going to finish . . . what your father . . .”

John’s words came slow, his breath not lasting more than one or two words. A dense mass of darkness rolled toward me from behind his face, the color of Gerard’s ashes. My body trembled, and I turned away. I didn’t want to see him, see his eyes looking at me. They were taunting me, as if he was waiting for me to walk out the door.

He wanted me to do it. To prove that I was less than him, that I was the weak, worthless bastard child of my father he had accused me of being. If I gave in and let whatever drove him overtake me, possess me, fuse itself to my cells, then John, Leland, and Jason would be my people. The thought made me nauseous.

I punched the
call
button and asked him, “Where do you keep the aspirin?”

“Kitchen,” John grunted, communicating from what must have been sheer determination.

I threw open cupboard doors while waiting for emergency services to answer—found the stash of medicine and vitamins—told them what I was going to do, got their approval, gave them the address. I poured an aspirin into my hand, nearly half the bottle falling onto the floor, and knelt beside him.

“Chew this and swallow.”

I grabbed a pillow from the sofa, lifted his head and laid it back on the pillow, returned to the kitchen for a glass of water, then dialed Ben’s number.

No answer. I left a message.

“I don’t . . . hate you,” he wheezed.

“Don’t talk. Just rest. They’re sending a first responder out from Kyle. Someone will be here soon.”

“I never tried to . . . hurt you. You . . . don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t understand. But now is not the time to talk about it.”

“It is time. May not be . . .” His eyes flickered with something I had never seen in his eyes before: fear.

“Okay,” I said quietly. I reached over and took his hand. I couldn’t help myself. Why couldn’t I be harder, tougher when it mattered? How could I feel any compassion for this man?

A smile softened John’s face, and he appeared to relax a little. “You said I’d regret . . . making you my enemy. My son finally . . . acted like a man . . . stood up to me for once.”

John’s eyes closed and he didn’t respond to my voice or nudges. I felt for his pulse—it was there, faint and slow. I began to panic about the time I’d wasted before calling an ambulance. How long had I hesitated?

The clatter of the front door broke into my thoughts. Ben appeared.

“I got your voice mail when I stopped at the pub . . . a good thing. I was able to grab their AED.”

“I called emergency services, but I need to call them back since he lost consciousness. They’re sending someone out from Kyle until the Broadford ambulance gets here.”

Ben knelt over his father, checking his pulse and breathing, as my shaking hands hit the emergency number again. I said something to the operator about Ben having the AED.

“We don’t have time to wait for emergency services.” Ben opened the automatic defibrillator and placed two pads on John’s chest. “The system says he needs a shock. Stay clear.”

John’s body jerked in response to the paddles’ current. But he was the color of dirty chalk and unresponsive . . . helpless. John MacIver was only a man after all. And I might have just killed him.

24

The first few hours after John’s heart attack proved nearly unbearable. I flipflopped back and forth in what I wanted: Glenbroch or for John to live. Realizing that I loathed him enough to wish him dead turned my stomach. I didn’t like who I would have to become to be comfortable doing whatever it took.

When I received word that John would recover, more of the truth revealed itself. Relief flooded me. The merciless capability I thought I had, I didn’t. The past lay too heavy on me to try to get by with the kind of dark things others did to me. Still, sometimes I wished I didn’t have to feel so much . . . 

No doubt John would be all business regardless of his close call with death and near-death ramblings. I stubbornly held onto a faint hope that I might get some kind of reprieve as the April deadline loomed.

But no last-minute save arrived, and soon John had recovered enough to start the process of buying out my stake in Glenbroch, prompting the phone call from my accountant that I’d been warned would come at some point before nightfall.

I hiked into the broch to wait. In its safety, alone, was how I wanted to hear what she would tell me.

“Just say it.” Waiting hampered my mind worse than hearing whatever the news would be. “Just tell it to me straight,” I urged at Katherine’s hesitation.

“Technically, John MacIver can count the expenses for the repairs against the estate’s books since Jason is now saying the money he spent on it was a loan. Mr. MacIver made it clear it is his intention to do exactly that. I calculated the numbers taking the loan amount into account, and it’s impossible to meet the requirements of the agreement in these last few days of March. I am truly sorry. I wanted you to keep your home and business, but Mr. MacIver is exercising his buyout option.”

“When can he take possession?”

“You’ll want to check with Calum, but my understanding is it will be as soon as he writes a cheque after the official end of the agreement period. I believe he intends to do that next week, on the actual first of April. You don’t have much time to get your things together and vacate Glenbroch, but you don’t have to leave until the transaction is complete. That won’t be until John’s cheque is received and verified by Calum and the bank. Until that moment, Glenbroch is still yours.”

“Thanks, Katherine. I appreciate everything you’ve done. You’ve been a great support to me. I’ll talk to you later this week.”

Staring at the sky from the broch’s second floor rim, I indulged a feeling of regret for dialing emergency services on John’s behalf. The uncomfortable truth was that I wished I had walked out the door that night. No one would have known I had been there. And surely Anna and Ben wouldn’t take Glenbroch from me if John wasn’t in the picture.

Why couldn’t I be more self-preserving? When it came down to it I couldn’t do what I had to do, couldn’t stomach it I guess, and now I had lost.

I couldn’t muster up revenge fantasies. What poured out of me instead were dreams: my children running in the gardens, guests celebrating their Christmases at Glenbroch with my family, and me growing old here on this land.

My heart was too shattered to feel hate or want revenge. I couldn’t even sustain a feeling of anger. Bereft, bleak as the skinned hilltops stripped of their trees, I lay there, no strength to move.

The peaks’ lack of forest growth testified to the long-lasting effect of human decisions and failures. After all these years of MacKinnons finding a way to survive here, history would testify that Ellie Jameson lost Glenbroch to John MacIver, and my management marked the end of the MacKinnons on this land.

Even though the children running in Glenbroch’s gardens were imagined, I had lost their heritage and the loss struck me sharp and hard, slicing through my tiny piece of hope.

My eyes closed in exhaustion. I didn’t fight it, not caring how long I stayed in the broch. For now this was still my land, and in spite of all that had happened, it was the safest place I’d known since I was a little girl.

Ben worked away at the repairs with the crew, determined to get Glenbroch opened by the first of April. It looked like he would pull it off, but it was too late, at least for me. He knew this—everyone did—but he kept working night and day, possessed. The MacIvers would lose momentum and potential growth if the first season didn’t start strong, I mused when my mood turned particularly sour. But then the better part of me would rally and I would again tell the truth to myself.

He wasn’t doing it only for himself, and certainly not for his father. He was trying to keep his promise. And he would have Glenbroch good as new soon, probably better. Yet it was bittersweet to imagine. Glenbroch would be wonderful and it wouldn’t be mine.

I didn’t get in Ben’s way. A part of me was glad he was occupied from sunrise until after nightfall. It left me to myself. And I needed time to deal with the avalanche of change bearing down on me.

When I told Ian in one of our marketing calls that I’d lost Glenbroch, he turned around and offered me a job with his Aberdeen firm. Looking to represent more clients in the hospitality and organics arenas, tapping me to bring them on board and lead their accounts made sense to him. And it was a solid option if I wanted to stay in Scotland rather than return to the States. I told him I would think for a bit and get back to him soon.

Anna respected my desire not to talk about the repair work, her family, or the fact that I had lost Glenbroch during the trip to Inverness for our spa day. Since we had planned to go together at some point, I suggested we use the certificates while I was still the owner of Glenbroch. Once John took possession of the estate, I would be moving out of Ben’s cottage. I hadn’t figured out yet what I would do next or where I would go, but I knew I couldn’t stick around.

My muscles, still sore from tumbling down the hill, gained much-needed relief from the massage and pampering. Anna, who needed a recharge from nursing John, looked less burdened and more herself after the spa treatments. Afterward, she and I strolled along the path bordering the River Ness and crossed a footbridge to one of the two patches of land in its center. Chatting about whether Anna wanted to bring Jazz to a couple of the local Highland games for the sheep herding demonstration eased my preoccupation with Glenbroch. And strolling along the tiny island’s curving, tree-shaded path lightened the heavy weight in my heart enough to bring the occasional smile.

We sat down on one of the benches that looked to be carved from a solid block of wood. A fly fisherman cast and recast near the opposite bank, the city beyond him shielded from view by the curve of the river and the cluster of trees on its shore. It was a beautiful spring day, the air crisp, the sun strong and warm, the wind light. The rhythm of the fisherman’s movements slowed my breath and a strange calmness, a trust, began to wash over me. Somehow I’d get through what lay ahead even though I’d lost what mattered most to me. Or had I? Did Glenbroch matter most?

A niggling in my gut disturbed my peaceful moment. I needed to unburden myself. Yet spilling my secrets wasn’t something I’d been much inclined to do in my life. I’d done plenty of things I should have confessed to, but I’d felt no compulsion to do so until now.

I hoped my urge to talk would pass, but something in me wouldn’t stay quiet about what I had done.

“How is John?” I asked.

“He’ll be fine. Needs to change a few things in his lifestyle. In that way, what happened has had a positive effect. He’s been quiet these past few days, even for him.”

“I’m glad to hear he’s doing fine.”

Was I? Probably only to salve my guilty conscience. If he had died, I would have been at least partly responsible. How could I say what I should? It might ruin things between Anna and me, but I needed to get it out into the open.

“Anna, I need to tell you something.”

“Yes?” She was still watching the fisherman, whose casting had the cadence of a well-crafted poem.

“That night, with John.” I paused, then plunged ahead. “I didn’t call emergency services straight off. Everything I loved was threatened by this one man, and I thought if I just walked away . . .”

Anna turned toward me. “You had a terrible experience that night with those pipes. You could have been killed yourself. I can imagine what sent you over to see John that night. Rather than feeling guilty about his heart attack, you need to understand you came at the right time. You saved him.”

Her face was gentle. The grace she extended to me by her nature and her actions knocked a hole in the dam holding back anger and loss and all the other mixed up feelings I had about myself, Glenbroch, Gerard, John, and Ben.

“He would have had that heart attack alone, Ellie, and would have been gone before anyone found him. You see, he is here because you came to see him that night. You must let go of any other nonsense. You extended grace to John, wee girl. That’s what happened that night. You’ll see when the time comes the grace you extended will be there for you. When you give it away, it isn’t gone. It grows stronger inside you as well.”

Anna’s words ran deep into the wounds my heart had borne for as long as I could remember; I had no response.