8
Lachlan
My entire body aches when I roll out of bed, but that’s nothing new. I always try to get a few hours of sleep in my actual bed before greeting the day; I do normally sleep through the night, but sleeping outside under the circumstances that I do isn’t exactly conducive for actual rest.
The sun is already high in the sky when I sit up from the bed in Rhona’s caretaker cottage, which I’m currently living in; my feet hang off the end a little, but the place is so small, I don’t know how I would get a bigger bed in here anyway. Besides, it’s free. Money might not be an issue for me, but with Granny’s old house having been sold, it’s not like there are better options in Greerloch even if I did want to throw money at the situation. Better to put up with the tiny bed to be closer to the property, given the reason that I’m here.
I scratch at my stomach as I shuffle over to the kitchenette, which is only a few feet from the corner of the cottage that serves as the bedroom, turning on the coffeepot so that I can get some much-needed caffeine in my system. In the six months since I arrived back in Greerloch, I have yet to find what I’m looking for. It would be easier if I could just ask Rhona, but with the likelihood that she most likely doesn’t know herself, given the secrecy of it all, I imagine it wouldn’t do anything but make her think I’m insane.
Lately, I’m starting to wonder if I am.
I hear something buzzing on the counter, and when I reach for the old cell phone I barely use, my mouth immediately turns down. I only keep this phone for her, really, but with every conversation, there seems to be only more distance between us. Still.
I swipe my thumb across the screen to answer, putting it on speaker as I fiddle with the coffeepot.
“Hello?”
“Hi,” a soft voice answers.
Silence rings for a beat.
I clear my throat. “How are you?”
“Okay,” my mother says. “I was just thinking about you.”
That’s rare.
I shake away the bitter thought, reminding myself that I’m not the only one who’s suffered from everything that’s befallen us.
“How’s Auntie?”
“She’s good,” Mum tells me. “And you? How are you gettin’ on?”
“All right,” I tell her. “Still working on the MacKay farm.”
“You know you don’t need to work. Not since your fath—” She cuts herself off, making a choked sound. Like even today it still hurts her to talk about him. “What made you want to do that anyhow?”
“Oh, just…missed Greerloch, I s’pose. Seemed wrong not to offer when they’re letting me stay in their groundskeeper cottage. Keeps me busy.”
In more ways than one, I think.
“You’re not…you know. Are you?”
I pause, my hand against the now-closed lid of the coffeepot. “I don’t follow.”
“You don’t really believe the stories, do you?”
“Those stories are kind of my life, so.”
She sighs. “I just don’t want you to be getting it in your head that there’s something out there, son. It’ll drive you mad.”
“Seems that could happen to me either way, aye? Might as well try.”
She goes quiet, no doubt thinking. I wrestle with whether or not to tell her—I can’t know if it will upset her or not, knowing.
Fuck it.
“The MacKays had a granddaughter show up out of the blue,” I say. “Apparently she’s Duncan’s girl.”
My mother sucks in a breath, but says nothing. I don’t know why that irritates me. What do I expect her to do—get excited?
“Maybe it means something else,” I tell her. “Maybe it means it’s not too late for—”
“Don’t,” she says softly. “Please.”
I sigh, scrubbing a hand down my face. “We can’t just never speak of him, Mum.”
“I can’t,” she practically whispers, and I can hear her shutting down.
“Well…I can’t not.”
More silence. It seems we are, once again, at an impasse.
“Stay away from that girl,” my mother says finally, her tone grave. “Please.”
I don’t tell her that’s literally impossible, given our proximity, but I imagine it would do no good anyway. After this call, she’ll use whatever newest coping mechanisms she’s been reading about to push this entire conversation from her mind anyhow.
“I have to go,” I answer. “Work to be done, you know.”
I hear her sniff on the other line, and my chest clenches with something like guilt. Which seems insane, given that she’s the one who left me.
“All right,” she says. “We’ll talk again soon, aye?”
No we won’t, I think, knowing her patterns.
“Aye,” I say instead.
“I love you, son.”
I take a deep breath, releasing it slowly through my nostrils before replying, “I love you too.”
I listen as she disconnects the call, feeling a bit wearier than I did a moment ago. A common occurrence when talking to my mother. I try not to blame her for leaving, I really do—but when a mother tells an eight-year-old her running off to cope is “temporary” but then just…never comes back…Well. It’s enough to make anyone a little bitter, I think. Regardless of everything she’s been through.
Because haven’t I been through the same things?
After the coffee is made, and I’ve slipped into warmer clothes, I drop down onto one of the kitchen chairs at the small table by the window with a groan to read the paper while I sip from my cup. The window by the table is streaming with sunlight now, and I reach to brush open the aged white curtains to let the light in, wanting to feel the warmth of it while I prepare for the day. I try to push the conversation with my mother out of my mind, knowing that if I let it, it will consume my thoughts for the rest of the day.
But as it turns out, the universe is ready to provide a distraction, because a second later when I peer out the window, I am greeted by the sight of what I think is Rhona’s granddaughter wrestling a pitchfork from a bale of hay.
I lean onto the sill with my coffee in hand, smirking against the mug as I watch her quietly. She’s a good ways away near the barn, her pale face flushed red from exertion and her lips moving fervently with what I imagine are curses, given the way she’s tugging on the pitchfork so violently. She braces her booted (because it seems that sometime in the last week while I have been avoiding her, she’s managed to find a proper pair of wellies, even if they are a garish pink color) foot against the heavy bale, pulling at the wooden handle with all her might for several seconds before nearly falling backward on her arse. She’s not the most graceful woman I’ve ever met, despite what her long, lean body might suggest.
I would like to say that watching her doesn’t make me smile, but the quirk of my lips would make me a damned liar. I tell myself that I am laughing at her, which is a perfectly acceptable way to treat the enemy, which is a necessary distinction. I take another swig from my mug as she starts to pace back and forth in front of the hay, glaring at the pitchfork as if it’s personally offended her, and I suspect in a way, it has. The entire thing is even more hilarious given that I know she has no chance of pulling that fork out; I stabbed the thing in the bale myself just yesterday, and I have it on good authority that I am much stronger than her. Than most people, really. One of the few perks of being a Greer son.
I contemplate for a few minutes on whether or not I should rescue her while watching her toil on fruitlessly, knowing full well that I absolutely shouldn’t, but for some reason, having a slight desire to do so anyway. It’s because I like to see her angry expression, I think. That’s definitely it. It’s satisfying in a way that has nothing to do with how it makes her green eyes shine brighter. Nothing at all.
Boots on and decision made, I leave the peace of the cottage and trudge outside; the weather has been better this week, so the ground is relatively dry, but it’s still fairly chilly. Keyanna is still muttering to herself as I draw near her, so much so that she doesn’t notice me coming up behind her.
Not until I lean in close to murmur, “Having trouble, princess?”
I’m rewarded by her slim frame jolting a good meter into the air, a shrill sound squawking out of her that is not princess-like at all. She whips around and gives me her best glare, her cheeks a ruddy pink and her titian brows knitted tightly between her emerald eyes.
“Don’t scare me like that!”
“I didn’t do anything but walk over,” I tell her. “You didn’t hear me, I think. Too busy cursing the poor hay bale here.”
She shoots a disdainful look back toward the bale in question. “Rhona asked me to give Girdie some hay, and I am trying to be useful, but I can’t even get the stick out of it. How am I supposed to move it?”
There’s something almost admirable about her determination to win over her grandmother. If she were anyone else, I might even tell her that. As it is, I think I’ll keep it to myself.
“Hm.” I rub my fingers along the neat bristle of my bearded jaw, going for a ruminating look. “That is a puzzle, isn’t it?”
“Can you get it out?”
“Are you asking me for a favor? That’s a surprise.”
Her eyes narrow. “What’s surprising is I thought maybe you might not be a dick for once.”
“Now, that’s not fair,” I say with a mock-pout. “I haven’t seen hide nor hair of ya in days. What could I have done this week to wrong you?”
“Where have you been?” She crosses her arms and cocks her head, and the way she asks the question…
A grin splits across my face. “Did you miss me, Key? Were you looking for me?”
“Absolutely not,” she scoffs. Her cheeks are still pink, and she averts her eyes with a scowl. “But you work here, don’t you? How come I never see you, you know, working?”
“I’m what you might call…part-time help,” I tell her. “I have other dealings to handle than just Rhona’s cows.”
She cocks a brow. “Well, isn’t that mysterious of you.”
“Nothing mysterious about it, princess,” I say sweetly. “Between you and your dear cousin, I reckon I can afford to cut back on my hours a bit, yeah?”
She huffs out a breath. “Are you ever going to stop calling me that?”
“I will when it stops making you blush,” I counter immediately.
Her mouth gapes and her eyes widen, and her shocked expression fills me with such an intense satisfaction, it feels like a win somehow, and underneath that…Well. I don’t analyze the feeling underneath all that.
“You don’t make me blush,” she practically hisses. “You’re—you’re just—you’re infuriating! That’s what you are.”
“Aye, aye, so I’ve been told.” I tilt my head toward the pitchfork still lodged in the hay. “You want me to get that out for you or not?”
“I…” She looks like she’d rather eat sand than ask for my help, and I find I like watching her squirm. She’s just…very fun to annoy. I consider her irritation partial restitution from the MacKay clan. “If you don’t mind,” she says finally, in a very tight tone.
“Don’t mind at all,” I answer cheerily. “As long as you say please.”
Her flush is immediate, and her mouth opens with what was surely supposed to be a curse or a barb, but then she glances at the pitchfork again, and then back toward the house, and I know she’s considering what might be the lesser of two evils—asking for help from me, or from one of her estranged family members.
She takes a deep breath, not even looking at me when she mutters, “Please.”
“What was that?” I cup my hand to my ear. “I didn’t quite hear you.”
“I said please,” she grinds out a little louder.
There’s no good reason for me to feel so satisfied by her acquiescence, but watching her pert mouth begrudgingly offer up the word sends a tiny thrill swooping through my stomach.
“Ah, now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
I reach around her and grab the handle of the pitchfork with one hand, giving it a swift tug and watching her mouth fall open when it gives way with ease. She stares at it for a good number of seconds when I offer it to her with that same look that says it might be her new worst enemy, finally snatching it away.
“Thank you,” she mumbles before I even have a chance to goad her for it. Pity.
“Just trying to be a good person,” I tell her seriously.
She rolls her eyes, and the action is almost…cute on her.
Cute?
I recoil at my own thoughts.
Definitely not cute.
“I don’t know why it had to be cows,” she mutters under her breath, more to herself than anything.
“I knew you were afraid of them.”
“They’re very…” She glances at Bethie, who is several paces away and lazily chewing on a wad of grass. “Big.”
I consider that. The highland cows are massive animals; their thick fur makes them seem even bulkier than they are, and their horns might look menacing if you didn’t know what giant puppies they are.
“They’re harmless,” I assure her.
She casts another wary look in Bethie’s direction. “That’s what they want you to think.”
“You’re really scared of the cows?”
“I’m not scared,” she insists. “But before this trip, I barely left New York. I’m not exactly an expert on bovine creatures. They’re…a new experience.”
“Ah, they’re practically big weans themselves.” I give a short whistle between my teeth, and Bethie’s head perks up to notice me before she slowly starts to trot over. “Wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Don’t call it over!”
I give her a gentle push between her shoulder blades. “Now, you can’t work on the farm and be scared of the livestock. It just won’t do. Come on now, I’ll show you they’re harmless.”
“I don’t think—fuck.”
She jumps back when Bethie sidles up right beside her, still chewing slowly as she regards our new farmhand with a bored look. The cow’s eyes blink slowly, and her tongue dips out to lick at her own snout before she resumes her chewing.
“Now, the trick is not to show any fear,” I tell Key seriously. I’m already forming a solid plan to scare the shite out of her. Shouldn’t be too hard to get Bethie to rear up with a well-timed smack on her arse. Maybe it will put the wee princess MacKay on hers. “You don’t want them to come after you with their horns.”
“What?” Key’s eyes widen. “You said they were harmless!”
“As long as you don’t spook ’em,” I say, completely full of it. These cows wouldn’t trample a blade of grass unless they had a mind to eat it. “Now, approach her real gentle like, and give her your hand.”
“My hand?”
“Aye. You want to let her smell you. That way she gets your scent. Let her know you’re her friend.”
Key clenches and unclenches her fist slowly, her hand trembling a bit when she extends it toward Bethie. She looks utterly serious as she stares down the aging old cow, her fingers unwinding one by one and shaking slightly when she brings them near Bethie’s snout. She looks so serious, in fact, that I start to feel a bit guilty over my idea to scare her.
“That’s good,” I tell her quietly, telling myself I am just positioning myself closer to Bethie’s rump when I circle around to Key’s other side. “That’s really good.” I don’t know what possesses me to curl my fingers under her elbow—am I distracting her before I give her a scare? Then why are my fingers sliding down to circle her wrist? Her hand is so much more delicate than mine, and I can’t help but notice how well it fits in my grasp. “Just hold it steady now. Let her come to you.”
Any second now, I’m going to give Bethie a slap. Any second now, I’m going to have Keyanna squealing in terror and then surely cursing my name after. It’ll be satisfying, I remind myself.
But then her green eyes flick up to meet mine, looking so wide and guileless that I damned near forget the whole prank. “She won’t bite?”
“I…” I try to remember what I was doing, let alone what I’d planned to say, momentarily taken aback by the clenching sensation in my chest when those viridescent eyes meet mine. “No,” I say finally, clearing my throat when it sounds too rough. “She won’t bite.”
Bethie chooses that moment to nudge Key’s hand, sniffing at it gently as if looking for a treat before giving it a heavy lick. The resulting peal of laughter that falls from Key’s mouth is probably the most unattractive sound I’ve ever heard—her laugh is high-pitched and more of a shriek than a laugh really—so why do I want to make her do it again?
I release Keyanna immediately, taking a step back from her if for no other reason than to get a handle on my own thoughts. This entire interaction is too friendly for my liking; if there is one thing I have no wish to be, it’s friends with a MacKay. Even one as amusing as this one.
“There,” I say evenly, keeping my expression flat. “See? You were just being daft.”
The mirth in her features evaporates, replaced by a disgruntled frown. “Just when I thought you might not be a total asshole.”
“That’s what you get for thinking, I reckon,” I say blithely.
She rolls her eyes. “Are you this insufferable with everyone or just me?”
“S’pose you’re just special,” I answer with a smirk. I watch as she drags the pitchfork upright, her eyes darting warily between it and the hay. I cock my head, suddenly curious. “Why are you taking this so seriously anyway?”
Her brow lifts. “What do you mean?”
“Why agree to help with the farm? It’s not like you’re invested in it, and with Rhona acting like she’s counting the days until you piss off back to America…I don’t get why you’re out here sweating to try and impress her.”
“I’m not trying to impress her,” she grumbles.
Now my brow lifts. “Are you not?”
“Ugh.” She tosses the pitchfork to the ground, frowning. “I don’t know. Maybe. I figure it can’t hurt.”
“Seems like a lot of effort for only a wee bit of reward.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” she sighs, her eyes immediately widening when she realizes what she’s said. “I mean—why do you care anyway?”
I study the rigid way she holds herself; her spine is straight and her shoulders are damn near up to her ears, and the tension she carries seems to radiate from her in waves, giving away the truth of things, that for whatever reason, she’s determined to make this asinine venture of hers work. Again, I can’t help but think that it’s almost admirable. Almost.
“I don’t care,” I tell her, the words sounding not quite right even as I say them. “I’m just curious why you would care so much about a relative stranger liking you is all.”
She runs her fingers through the wild mass of red curls, her lips turning down as a sharp exhale escapes her nostrils. Like this, with the morning sun kissing her skin, her freckles seem to almost sparkle like tiny flecks of gold.
I don’t even realize I’m fixated on this until she says quietly, “They’re all I have left, you know?”
She doesn’t look at me as she says it, but I can hear the vulnerability in her voice. I very much doubt she means to appear that way in front of me of all people, but given that her shoulders are sloping now as an air of defeat settles over them like a heavy cloak—I also suspect that she might be desperate for any sort of connection. I distantly think to myself how alone she must feel, here in a new land with a family whose matriarch acts as if she’s not wanted.
“Aye,” I answer softly, a strange, heavy weight in my chest. “I know what that’s like.”
Her eyes flick to mine. “You do?”
Something like hope shines in those green depths, and I don’t like the way her looking at me makes me feel. Keyanna MacKay is not someone to be friendly with, and I should know better. It’s that thought that has me tearing my gaze from hers, clearing my throat as I shrug.
“Aye, well. You’d best be getting to that hay if you’re to have any hope of finishing before breakfast. If the cows get too hungry, they might just bite after all.”
The soft expression she’d been wearing evaporates, replaced by her familiar scowl. I tell myself it’s a good thing. It’s safer, her scowling at me. I’m not sure how to deal with anything more than that. She opens her mouth as if she might call me out for the blatant brush-off, but eventually, she just shakes her head and reaches down to grab the pitchfork again.
She turns on her heel, dragging it behind her, moving right past the hay bale toward the barn in a tizzy. Her shoulders are hunched up high again nearly to her ears, and even from here, I can see the red hue of the shell of them, no doubt a color that is all over her face. I watch her go for a moment, reminding myself that I have no reason to go after her.
Thankfully, I have other things to attend to that can keep me from changing my mind.
The attic is cold when I climb up the old pull-down stairs, the one lone lightbulb casting an eerie glow over the wide space. I was deathly quiet as I made my way through the house to the second story; Rhona and Finlay have already left to go into town, and Brodie usually spends most of his days doing…whatever he does. Anything to keep him from having to help around the farm. I begrudgingly think to myself that at least Keyanna isn’t as useless as her eejit cousin.
Not that it matters.
I know that I’m betraying Rhona’s trust right now, but with the arrival of Keyanna, I find myself running out of options. Especially since I don’t know what her presence will mean for me. Also, I can’t get Blair’s words out of my head—about Rhona knowing something. Rhona has been good to me, all things considered, far better than any other MacKay has ever been to a Greer, but she is still a MacKay, which means I can’t let myself trust her. Not completely. Not that the thought keeps me from feeling guilt at having nicked the key to the attic while I was chatting Rhona up in her kitchen the other day.
I’ve known where it is for weeks after seeing her return it to a drawer after using it, but I’ve been able to convince myself not to resort to such measures before this. After months of finding no answers, however, I am not too proud to admit that I’m getting desperate. I recall the night before, even press at the bruises on my ribs that I know will be gone before tomorrow but will still ache with something that isn’t just physical long after, and remember why I’m here at all. What I have to lose. What I’ve already lost.
Rhona’s attic is full of old trunks and dusty boxes—and just looking at it from the landing, I know there is too much up here to go through in one afternoon. It will take weeks to riffle through it all, and that’s not counting the fact that I will have to do so quietly and in secret, lest Rhona’s good graces run out should she catch me going behind her back.
I reach for the nearest box and flip it open, frowning when I’m met with dusty baby clothes. The box beneath it yields much of the same, with the exception of a small framed photo wedged between the folded clothes. I almost toss the box aside without looking, but for some reason, my curiosity has me pulling it out, and my eyes meet with the smiling, younger face of Keyanna’s father. He can’t be out of his teens yet in this photo, his hair the same shade as Key’s and his smile like hers too. He has the same slightly noticeable bunny teeth that she has, so slight one might miss it if they weren’t paying attention, and I would like to say that looking at the photo doesn’t make me recall the strange sensations in my chest upon seeing that same smile in his daughter, but I would be lying.
I shake my head and move to put the picture back.
I have bigger things to worry about.