by Willa Blair
“We have. That and more,” he added, his frown deepening. “At least I think so. It seemed so last night.”
She didn’t answer; her heart suddenly pounding at his implication. This wasn’t going to be easy, but she was determined to keep control of this conversation. “Friends tell each other the truth.”
“Usually.” Ian looked decidedly concerned now, his brows drawn together into a frown. “Lara, I—”
“But you’ve been keeping something from me for weeks. Perhaps as long as I’ve known you. I think it has something to do with why Angus didn’t hire you.”
Ian didn’t move, but he colored and a muscle in his jaw jumped. “Why would ye think that?”
Lara was perversely pleased to hear his accent suddenly thicken, a sure sign of his discomfort.
“Because it also has something to do with why our resident ghost obeyed you…and not me.”
Ian gave her a wan smile. “Halloween turned out to be—”
“Terrifying and…illuminating.” She felt torn. His purple knuckles told her he hadn’t come out of the fight entirely unscathed. She owed him thanks, and acknowledgement of the risk he’d taken for her and the twins. “I’m so grateful you were there to protect the twins—with a little help from Fergus—and to stop that man.” But he owed her answers. “Don’t you think we’ve been through enough together for you to come clean? How bad can it be?”
Ian blew out a sigh and leaned back. “Bad enough ye’ll want nay more to do with me. And to find someone else to finish the restoration.”
That accent. Lara’s chest suddenly hollowed out. “What? You can’t be serious.”
“Ye heard me, lass.” He crossed his arms.
She gripped her chair. “It’s why people call you Baron when they think I can’t hear, isn’t it?”
Ian stood and walked to a window. With his back to her, he stared silently out while his shoulders lifted and fell. “I tried to tell you last night, before we…got carried away. And then we were interrupted.” He turned suddenly to face her. “This morning, I…this is not how I wanted to tell you. I don’t want to hurt you, Lara.” He raked a hand through his hair. “What I haven’t told you will hurt. You’ll draw the wrong conclusion.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Trust me, I do. I thought about this a lot last night. It’s not what I thought I’d wind up saying, but it’s better for both of us if I leave things as they are. If you don’t see me again.” He glanced away from her, toward the wall of certificates behind his desk. “I’ll have my accountant draw up a bill for the plans and the work done so far. Caitlin will, as well. Another firm, and another appraiser, can complete the rest of the work. I already asked the constable to keep a patrol near the estate—or on it—to deter further treasure-hunters. I’ve done all I can do for you, Mrs. MacLaren. I’m sorry.”
Lara’s heart dropped into her shoes. What? Suddenly, he returned to calling her Mrs. MacLaren?
“Damn it, Ian, no.” She leaned toward him. “I don’t want anyone else. You have some sort of…connection…to Cairn Dubh. I’ve seen how much you care about it.”
“That doesn’t matter.” A muscle in Ian’s jaw jumped.
“It does. I think it’s the key to all of this. Besides…there is no one else.”
“There will be. Once I’m out of the way, you’ll receive plenty of bids. Good, reasonable bids.”
“No one would take the job but you.”
“Because I told them not to.”
“What? You kept others from bidding on the job? You’re scaring me, you know.” She fought for something to say to ease the tension. “Are you some sort of Scottish mafia don?” Lara saw one corner of his lip quirk up, just as quickly pulled back down.
“There is no such thing.”
“I didn’t think there was.” She spread her hands, palms up. “So what is this about? Are you angry with me? Have the twins gotten to be too much of a burden after last night? Or are you just determined to keep me in the dark? Whatever it is, I can take it. We can deal with it.”
Ian shook his head. “I ken what this will do to ye, and I never meant to hurt ye.” He walked to the door and opened it. “Go home, Lara, and make some calls.”
Lara tried to stand, but her legs wouldn’t support her, and she landed back on her fanny in the chair. She’d never foreseen challenging Ian resulting in this. He’d suddenly become a cold, distant stranger, as if they’d never met and the past months had never happened. Last night had never happened. Whatever he was hiding had to be huge to make him this defensive. She looked around the office, then forced herself to her feet, went to the wall of certificates and studied them. She could feel Ian’s scowl boring into her back, but she ignored him. Unless he picked her up and carried her out, she wasn’t leaving his office. Not yet. Not until she figured something out.
She read every official-looking document, even puzzling her way through some Latin inscriptions, thanks to a year of study in high school she’d always thought a waste of time—until now. She found nothing. Not a clue in the lot.
“It’s a bit late to be so interested in my qualifications,” Ian intoned behind her.
Refusing to admit defeat, Lara gave him the same hard stare she used on the twins. “You might as well tell me. You started to last night, so tell me now. I won’t give up asking. You know I won’t.” She waited for a response, arms crossed and jaw clenched.
Ian just watched her, like a mouse watching a cat.
She threw her hands out wide. “Would you rather I hear it from someone else?” she demanded, at wit’s end. “Someone in this town will eventually slip up and tell me what’s going on. If not you or Caitlin, then Rollo or Becky or…”
He closed the door. It felt like a victory, albeit a small one. Lara wanted to cheer, but had a strong feeling Ian wasn’t going to give her anything to cheer about.
“Sit down,” he told her. Not an invitation this time.
She stood her ground and gave him her most intimidating stare, daring him to try to make her.
He studied her for another long minute, then spoke. “I should have told you right away. But Angus had already turned me down, and I think he did because of it.”
“I knew it!”
“And there was so much I wanted to learn.”
“About Cairn Dubh.”
“Aye. At first.” He crossed his arms. “Then about ye and the bairns. Ye gave me a second chance. Ye became…I looked forward to seeing ye, every day. I was miserable on the days I had nay reason to go out there.”
There was that accent again.
“I’m glad,” she told him, forcing as much warmth into her voice as she could, even though her throat tightened and her hands shook. “Not that you were miserable. That you wanted to be with us. I wanted you there, too. I still do.” She clenched her hands into fists at her sides.
“I dinna ken…I don’t know,” he amended with a sigh, “how to tell ye, so I’ll just say it.” He spread his hands. “’Tis probably the reason yer husband refused to hire me. People call me Baron because ’tis said an ancestor of mine was the last Baron Macaulay in the local branch of the family. If the title still existed, and if the story is true, it would be mine. Cairn Dubh is my ancestral home.”
“Paterson…”
“A sept of the clan and a name taken by the Culloden survivors from this area. Jacobites, all, and from what I’ve seen, some of the things we found in the hidden rooms likely will confirm the connection.”
She moved to the chair and sat, suddenly a bit light-headed.
Ian continued talking. “Someone sealed up those rooms to protect the clan’s heritage. My heritage.” He waved a hand. “They spread the rumor that wing of the house wasn’t safe. Rollo is probably right. I imagine they buried poor Fergus there hoping his ghost would keep thieves and others out. I’m sure they expected to come back one day, but never got the chance. After Culloden, so many suspected Jacobites were hunted down and killed…or at best
, exiled.”
Lara’s hand lifted to her throat. “That’s horrible. I’m so sorry. But that means…all the contents, the whole estate, belongs to you.”
“Nay, it all belongs to you. Legally. I have no claim on it. None at all.”
She shook her head, confused. “But the legend says the ghost obeys the laird. Fergus obeyed you, not me.”
“Ye noticed that.”
“I did.” Lara crossed her arms. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but when he popped into the library, he came to you. And later, when I told him to guard the twins, not the sack the robber dropped, he looked to you. You told him to go to the stairs, and he did.”
“Well, the village government is not as agreeable as the ghost. It doesn’t obey the laird.”
She ignored his attempt at humor. No wonder Ian was so reluctant to talk to her. No wonder he seemed to turn both hot and cold.
Had there really been no one else for him to invite to Blane and Cassie’s wedding? Or had Ian done it to get under her skin, knowing how emotionally fraught a wedding could be? Up to that point, their relationship had been strictly business. Well, not strictly. She’d started to develop feelings for him, and had begun to imagine him doing the same. She’d been a fool.
And the time with the kids…was that all fake, too? Dreading his answer to the next logical question, but needing to know, she took a breath. “So your interest in me—all of what happened in the library last night—was meant to seduce me into what? Marrying you so you could regain the rights to your heritage?”
“Nay, of course not.” Ian clenched his fists. “I care…but, it’s not like that. My interest in you has nothing to do with Cairn Dubh.”
Who was he kidding? She curled her fingers into her palms, mirroring his action, his tension. “It seems very much like that to me.”
Ian spread his hands. “I told you that you would draw the wrong conclusion.”
Lara stiffened. “What other conclusion do you expect me to draw? You have a stake in the estate I own, in the things we found in the hidden rooms, their history if not their value. In the States, we call what you’ve been doing a long con.” She gripped the arms of her chair. “If you are planning to defend yourself, you’d better get started.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Very well then, Mrs. MacLaren, let me be clear. My only interest in Cairn Dubh is to see it preserved and protected.”
The frost in Ian’s voice infuriated Lara to the point angry tears threatened behind her eyes. She fought them back. Mrs. MacLaren, again? No way would she give him the satisfaction of collapsing into tears. “Your only interest? Hardly. And as for preserved and protected? What the hell do you think I’ve been doing? Yes, originally, it was Angus’s dream, but I’m still here, and not back in California, because it became mine, too.”
Ian’s eyes widened.
“So, I’m just a means to an end,” she goaded. He’d forced her to fight, so she would. Not just for her home, but for the love she thought they shared but hadn’t, so far, admitted to each other. Yet his claim to the property, his secrecy, made her wonder if he truly meant anything he’d said, anything that had happened between them, up to now.
She’d always believed he’d been honest with her. She’d been wrong.
He gave her a long look. “I don’t give a damn who owns the estate as long as they have the resources required to take care of it, to keep the place from falling down on anyone, to do the maintenance, and to pay the taxes. As long as it exists, maybe someday, some Paterson or Macaulay will have the resources to reclaim it.”
“And what we found? What about all that?”
“That was…unexpected.” He looked away for a long minute. “Hoped for, but unexpected.”
Well, arguing with him didn’t seem to be getting her anywhere. Would a threat to leave Scotland and return to California break through his bullshit? Or should she appeal to the connection between them?
“It’s the reason you became an architect in the first place, isn’t it? Because you hoped to be the one to restore the estate. To find answers there about your history. Your heritage. And you have been doing that, so why would you give up now?”
When he didn’t answer, she raked a hand through her hair. “Ian, you know I have feeli…I care.” She clenched her fists. “This isn’t just business between us anymore.”
How had they gotten so mixed up?
“Aye, it is. Business. It has to be.” He moved closer and sank into his seat opposite her. Leaning forward, he added, “My feelings for ye, and for the bairns, have always been honest, but,” he added, holding up a hand to forestall her objection, “if ye believe I want ye only for the sake of my heritage and not for yourself and the twins, then as I said a few minutes ago, I must withdraw from the contract. I canna see how to prove myself to you any other way. Ye can find someone else to finish the work. I’ll no’ stand in yer way. Ye willna have to see me at all.”
So he was interested in her, but not enough to fight for her. He’d rather fall on his sword, sacrifice what they had to prove a point. Apparently, she’d been wrong. He seemed all too eager to throw away everything she’d thought they felt for each other, no matter the risk to his heritage. To convince her he meant what he said?
“You have to do better than that.”
Ian didn’t say a word. Maybe his jaw was too tight to let him speak. His expression looked frozen, the skin over his cheekbones stiff and pale, his lips compressed so far as to be almost invisible.
Lara stood. This time her knees supported her. Her backbone rigid, she crossed the office to the door and put her hand on the knob.
“Rollo can remove any equipment you have left on site,” she said to the doorframe. “I don’t want you to upset the twins, so don’t go out there again.” Heart pounding hard enough to break, she opened the door and stepped through into the hallway.
Ian made no move to stop her.
She kept her eyes focused straight ahead, ignoring Ian’s receptionist’s cheery farewell as she passed her desk. She couldn’t think right now, not about what she might be losing in walking away from Ian, not about how to break the news to the twins, or how to fire Caitlin, and definitely not about how to find a new general contractor or a new appraiser.
She got into her car and sat, keys in hand, fingers numb. Snow had started to fall while Ian turned her world upside down. It covered her windshield in a lacy blanket of white, hiding her from passersby. As alone as she could be in the middle of town, she let her tears fall, too.
****
It took all the restraint he possessed not to go after her, to beg her to forgive him, to get down on his knees and promise anything she wanted. But Ian managed to close his office door quietly. Then he collapsed into the seat Lara vacated moments before, rubbing a hand over his sore midsection. By now, he expected some colorful bruises would be showing up, but he was fairly certain the robber hadn’t broken any ribs with the punches he’d landed. Lara would feel terrible about that. Or she would have, before he’d confessed.
Shite! He scrubbed both hands over his face then pounded a fist on the arm of the chair. What had he done? Could telling Lara the truth have gone any worse? She’d fought him for a few minutes to get him to open up. He’d been glad of that. Hopeful it meant she’d listen and understand why he’d delayed and delayed telling her. Until he’d confessed what he’d been hiding. After that, even after she said she cared, he’d been unable to make her understand. Why he’d hidden the truth, and why the only way he could prove to her that he wanted her was to walk away. But she’d been the one to walk away. Ian feared he’d never get her back. Her face had drawn tight, white lines appearing around the thin slash of her lips just before she strode, ramrod straight, to the door and told him she didn’t even want him to pick up his equipment. I don’t want you to upset the twins.
He didn’t want to upset them, either. Or their mother. But it was too late. Bollocks! Couldn’t she see what she and the twins meant to him? I
nstead, she’d turned to ice and marched out, furious and feeling betrayed because of what she thought was the reason for his interest in her. His attempts to seduce her. Exactly as he’d expected.
Couldn’t she understand he was trying to protect her, not to hurt her?
But he had hurt her. That was obvious. Quitting the restoration like this had seemed the only way to prove he wanted her for herself, not for what she owned. It wasn’t professional, and he was certain it felt personal to Lara.
But what else could he do? He got up and started pacing, from the door to the windows and back again.
She knew the truth now. And she’d walked out as cold and silent as the falling snow he could see through his office windows. She’d reacted exactly as he’d feared, assuming he only wanted to take advantage of her.
He’d get the paperwork drawn up to break the contract. And that would be that.
Except it wouldn’t. He couldn’t let Lara go. He had to find a way to win her back.
Ian’s intercom buzzed. Startled out of his brooding, he froze in his tracks, then went to the desk to answer it. “Yes, Lenore?” The steady sound of his voice surprised him.
“It’s Caitlin.”
“Thanks, I’ve got it.” He didn’t want to talk to anyone, but punched the button for the outside line anyway. “Caitlin?”
“I found the proof, Ian. Jacobites, as we expected. Several things with dates, the Macaulay plaid, swords with cranberries etched into the blades. And gold coins! Wait till you see!”
His heart plummeted into his belly and he sank into the chair behind his desk. “I may never get to. Lara was just here, demanding answers. I told her everything. She reacted…well, it wasn’t good. In fact, it was exactly what I expected. So I’m breaking the contract.”
“Have ye lost yer mind?” Caitlin’s screech made Ian hold the phone away from his ear.
“And my hearing. Wheesht!”
“Ye bloody arse. Get over here and take it all back. Crawl if ye must. The answers are here, and I canna continue this research without her permission. If ye’ve angered her, broken her trust, ye must come here and fix it.”
