“I miss me sister. Too much time has passed since I have seen her. She resides in a private cottage on the grounds of Cameron Castle and has done so ever since her husband passed away. She has invited me to live with her, and I shall. She says they have a talented healer in their territory. I suspect she will have me feeling better in due time. Ye doona need me to run the keep, and I will be but a three day journey from ye all. While I am ill and, until I have grandchildren that need spoiling, I doona see a reason to stay here tending over ye three boys like ye are all too young to tend for yerselves, and I doona wish for any of ye to tend over me.”
Baodan hadn’t realized he held his breath until he exhaled, softening his resolve as he moved to sit by his mother once again. His worry for her expressed itself through frustration, and he knew she didn’t deserve such treatment from him. “I appreciate yer confidence in us Mother, but we all still depend on ye much more than we realize. I know that I willna change yer mind, though I canna say that I think it a good idea. At the verra least, I will travel with ye and see ye safely settled.”
His mother spoke quickly, too quickly, and it only served to increase his suspicions. “No. Eoghanan has already agreed to travel with me. There is no need for both of ye to leave here.”
He ignored her, facing Eoghanan. “I canna imagine yer reasons for convincing her to do this, but I’ll be damned if I let ye take her there. I doona trust ye, especially no with the women I love.”
He expected his brother to react angrily, to show some form of self-defense. He’d not directly addressed Eoghanan in months. Instead, the look of pain in his brother’s eyes made him feel guilty for his hasty words. Baodan knew he placed more blame on Eoghanan than was fair but, try as he might, he couldn’t stop the resentment he felt toward him.
“I’m sorry that ye doona trust me, brother, for there is no one in the world that I trust more than ye. If ye wish to accompany Mother, then I shall remain here with Niall, but doona ever again suggest that I would harm her. No matter what ye blame me for, surely ye know I wouldna do that.”
Baodan cast his eyes downward, ashamed and guilty. “Aye, o’ course ye wouldna. Still, I will be the one to see her safely to the Camerons.”
Eoghanan stood, speaking with his back toward the rest of the table as he exited the room. “As ye wish. I’m retiring for the evening. I’ll come down in the morning to bid ye both farewell before ye leave.”
Once Eoghanan left, Baodan faced Niall whose dark hair hung loosely in his face, covering his dark eyes. He knew Niall expected what he meant to ask him. “Can I count on ye to stay here and run things while I am away? To keep an eye on Eoghanan?”
“Aye, ye know that I will.”
“There is no need for ye to watch Eoghanan. Ye have punished him for too long.” His mother’s words shocked him nearly as much as her sudden decision to leave their home.
He wouldn’t allow himself to speak angrily to her, but he couldn’t sit there while she defended him. “Why doona ye go up to yer bedchamber? I will send someone to help ye gather yer belongings. I need to be out of doors.”
Not giving her a chance to respond, Baodan moved quickly from the room. It was a beautiful night, and he wished to sit out by the pond, to stare in it with hopes that its rippling surface would help some of his bitterness drift away.
* * *
Baodan kicked off his boots as he reached the water’s edge, grinning as one of the leather footings splashed into the water. Perhaps, part of him had kicked it into the water on purpose. It was a pleasant summer evening, hot for Scotland. Although it was never good to have a wet shoe, it gave him the perfect excuse to go for a swim.
He glanced around to ensure that he wouldn’t be revealing himself to any castle maids or female servants and, finding the pond and surrounding area empty, swiftly stripped down and dove into the chilly water.
The water proved a balm to his skin and soul, instantly relieving his flustered spirit and angry mind. He reached the shoe quickly, throwing it onto the shore to begin the slow process of drying before diving beneath the water’s surface once more.
He swam as if racing, moving his arms in and out of the water, bobbing his head up and down as fast as he could manage. With each gasp of breath he pushed himself harder, each stroke of his arms helping to push away his worries and resentment of things past and present. He was in his element, his favorite place in the world, and only when his fingers and toes were wrinkled and freezing from being too long in the water did he feel most at peace in the world.
He found it now, as all worries washed away with each stroke. Dreamlike described the joy he felt as he pushed himself forward in the water, eyes closed to what lay before him.
The dream ended abruptly as he kicked himself forward and the corner of a rock tore its way into his flesh. He knew the pond well, but he’d gotten carried away, forgetting all about the patch of rocks that lay beneath the surface of the pond’s center.
He knew it bled, the sting of the water’s touch told him that much. Breathing between gritted teeth, he stroked his way back to the shore, crawling out onto the grass to check his injured foot. It wasn’t a bad cut and would heal quickly although it would be sore for at least a few days.
Baodan leaned back onto his elbows and stared out across the black pond, only lit by the full moon hanging high above him. He was a good swimmer. Good thing too. If he hadn’t been, it was likely that Blaire Conall would have drowned the day he found her unconscious in the freezing ocean only a little over a year ago.
Thoughts of that day drifted away as he laughed softly to himself, thinking of his throbbing foot. His life seemed to be much like his unexpected cut. The times when things seemed most peaceful everything usually fell apart.
It happened with his late wife, although only his family knew what had truly happened to her. Everyone else believed she’d fallen ill, taken quickly by a fast progressing illness. In Baodan’s mind, it wasn’t all that far from the truth.
They’d only just married, and he thought himself so in love with her that she occupied his every thought, but he couldn’t help but see the change in her shortly after they married. She grew dark and unhappy, miserable. She stopped speaking to him, and would hardly leave her bed. She waged battles within herself, and he knew of no way to help her.
During one of her darkest spells, he was forced to leave for a fortnight to help a man acquire a piece of land. He left her in Eoghanan’s care, and his brother swore to watch after her.
The night he returned to the castle, Baodan found her hanging out one of the castle windows. Eoghanan claimed to have fallen so ill he couldn’t move from his bed only hours before she killed herself.
Baodan lived with the guilt of not being able to save her always. He would not have let a sickness keep him from protecting her from the wickedness that invaded her mind.
Years later, the same had happened with his father’s death. Life had just begun to take on some sense of normalcy when the sudden death of his father sent him spiraling downward once again. Optimistic Baodan released himself of the hope of having the life he once dreamed of.
He did his best to remain kind, not to harden his heart against all of humanity, and in that he succeeded. He still found joy in his family, in running their home and land and people, still offered a helping hand when needed, but that was all the joy he allowed himself to feel. He took pleasure in the joy, security, and friendship he could bring to others but closed his heart from feeling all of that which others could bring to him. His hope had been broken too many times for him to allow it to creep back into his soul ever again.
He thought he found a person of similar mind and spirit in Blaire Conall. She was Blaire MacChristy when he rescued her from the freezing water, and the hurt in her eyes was enough to break his own heart. She was broken, defeated, and a reflection of what he’d been years ago. He wanted nothing more than to help her, to heal her heart with friendship rather than love.
For that reason, h
e proposed to her. Love was a horrible misery, one that he never intended to fall prey to ever again. He suspected that Blaire felt much the same way and, for two people who didn’t want love, perhaps friendship was best.
She accepted his proposal, and he found himself happy that he would spend the rest of his days with someone whom he could share mutual companionship and respect, free of heartbreak or hope.
In what seemed to be a pattern in his life, his newest, smaller dream ended as well. Hope still flickered within Blaire, and she was far luckier than him. Her heartbreak was healed when her love, Arran Conall, came back to her, suddenly free from the confines of his own marriage.
Baodan let her go willingly. He couldn’t begrudge her happiness if she could find it. If he were less broken, less hard and more lucky, he would gladly leap in the direction of love as Blaire had done.
Friendship was really all he’d offered her; friendship could remain although she was married to another, and so it had. He considered her to be his closest friend, a confidant when he had few. They wrote to each other often and, because she was married to his cousin, both families used the other’s home as a stopping point when traveling. It became a happy friendship and one of the things in his life he was most grateful for.
Thinking of Blaire, he stood. Keeping his left foot off of the ground he tried to shake away the remaining water from his body and feelings of self-pity from his mind before donning his clothing so that he could go inside.
He had much to be thankful for. He could almost hear Blaire’s voice telling him to quit his sulking and get on. His life would be what he made it, and he would fill it with kindness, friendship, and a pleasing lack of love.
* * *
Eoghanan glanced up from his writing desk to see his eldest brother staring into the pond outside his window. Baodan’s tall frame and broad shoulders intimidated everyone at first glance, but his brother had the kindest of hearts, and the bitterness Eoghanan knew Baodan held toward him didn’t suit his kind demeanor. If only Baodan knew the truth, perhaps years of pain would finally come to the end. For years he’d gladly carried his sister-in-law’s secret, but he could do so no longer.
He suspected it even on the night of her death, but not until their mother fell ill did he realize the whole truth of what occurred that tragic night. No illness prevented him from protecting her, but a poison. And now his mother exhibited the very same symptoms.
Baodan was too blinded by his need to lay blame for his wife’s downward spiral and tragic death to see the truth, but soon Eoghanan would have the proof he needed. Osla had not taken her own life that dark night so many years ago. Someone within the castle killed her, the same person who poisoned him to prevent him from saving her, and the same person who slowly poisoned their mother now.
All he needed to do was ensure his mother’s safety.
To gather proof of the unthinkable.
Niall’s secrets wouldn’t keep for long.
Chapter 3
Austin, TX
Present Day
As anticipated, sleep eluded me. I spent the night tossing and turning, glancing at the clock every five minutes hoping that it was nearly sunrise so that I could get up and start my day.
I was ready for it to be three o’clock so that I could get the hell out of this house, this state. Every inch of the city, a memory I’d just rather forget. When it was finally six a.m., I jumped out of bed, put on my workout clothes, and left for a good long run.
I ran without direction, hoping that it would clear my head and exhaust me enough that I would, at the very least, be able to sleep on the plane. I enjoyed running and ran as fast as my feet would carry me, logging at least six miles before I rounded the block leading back to the house.
I stripped just inside the doorway of the house, anxious to get into a steaming hot shower. I showered in the guest bedroom, hoping that Brian and Leah had confined their activities to the master bedroom. It was a good thing Bri didn’t seem to have any intention of coming back here. I was sure she would want to burn every last sheet, wash cloth, blanket, and towel. I wanted to do the same myself but knew, with my luck, I would probably end up burning the entire house to the ground.
Sufficiently pink and warm from the hot water, I dressed in comfortable sweats for the plane and went about the business of packing the few items I thought necessary to bring. I didn’t have much here. Most of my belongings were in storage, and I didn’t want to go and collect them just for a trip.
Packed and ready to go by ten and not wanting to stay in the house a moment longer, I decided to go ahead and make my way to the airport. I didn’t want to pay for parking, especially considering I wasn’t sure how long I would be gone, so I called a taxi. It would be about a half hour wait before a driver could arrive, so I picked up my mess, locked up the house, and went to sit out on the front porch to wait for the cab.
It wasn’t surprising, but still seemed quite odd to me that Bri would leave me an entire house. I always thought that was something people only did after they died and, thank God, she hadn’t. I couldn’t make myself stay in the house, so once I found Bri I intended to try and talk her into taking it back. If she wouldn’t, I would simply sell it and use the money to re-stock my savings that had been painfully depleted due to the divorce.
The taxi driver arrived right on time, and I found myself at the airport, checked in and through security by noon. With three hours to kill, I decided to grab some lunch and maybe a drink, or two, or three, in the chain restaurant and bar located just down from my gate.
Eating alone is a strange thing. As I sat there munching on my plate of potato skins and sipping on a gargantuan margarita, I realized quite pathetically that I didn’t ever remember doing this before. How does someone make it to the age of twenty-eight without ever having eaten in a restaurant all alone?
I knew the answer, but it made me utterly ashamed of my lack of independence. Of all the things in the world, I was most terrified of being alone; just another of the reasons I’d allowed myself to so easily fall under Brian’s spell although I knew I didn’t love him. Jep Franks was the only man I’d truly ever loved and, if I was honest, still loved. I married another simply because I couldn’t stand the thought of being alone and didn’t expect love like that to find its way to me ever again.
Sitting there alone, staring at couples and groups of people come in and out of the restaurant, I thought of Bri and how opposite of me she truly was. It was a wonder that we ever became such good friends. She would revel in the aloneness, the happy solitude of sitting by herself watching others’ lives move around her. It made me feel alone and sad, wondering if others judged me for traveling alone. Did they think I was simply a runaway with no one to come along for the ride?
I always gave her such a hard time for spending so much time alone, but truth was, I envied her. Although she always had her lively yet flighty mother, she’d grown up just as alone as I. Instead of it making her dependent upon social interaction, she’d become strong and independent.
I’m not saying that I admired everything about Bri. Good grief, it was frustrating trying to get her to go out on a date. Men fawned over her, and she just simply never saw it. She was constantly oblivious to the glances and gawking eyes. Usually, I did the gawking. If I hadn’t always been tied to a man, I would’ve taken advantage of my singleness. While I did wish to follow Bri’s lead on the independence front, I had no intention of ending my gawking days.
The male species, the exception being Brian of course, was made to be admired and now that I had been released from the prison of being married to the dark, cloudy, negative force Brian became, I intended to do a lot of admiring.
* * *
With a fresh perspective and a much more upbeat attitude, part of which could be attributed to finishing off that second margarita, I paid my bill and went to freshen up a bit in the bathroom before finding a seat at my gate so that I could await boarding.
Although I wore sweats, I made a
n effort this morning, feeling the need to look as pretty as possible in the hopes that it would lift my spirits. That, and the aforesaid margaritas, seemed to do the trick, pleasing me with what I saw in the mirror. Apparently though, the woman standing next to me didn’t agree.
I saw her out of the corner of my eye, in skin tight cheetah print pants, high heels, and a deep v-cut that I couldn’t have pulled off in my wildest dreams. She busied herself by applying at least half a case of blush onto her already blushed cheeks. The oddest part of her ensemble were the cowboy boots that went halfway up her calf and the bright blue cowboy hat that balanced perilously on top of her rolling carry-on. She very much resembled a drag-queen that I saw once in a Las Vegas show, with the top of her hair pulled into a poof at least three inches high. I wasn’t altogether sure that she wasn’t and found myself glancing in between her legs in the mirror to see if the she/he had a special package tucked up and away.
I could tell nothing, the fabric too busy to reveal anything. I turned away to grab some paper towels before exiting the bathroom. I knew I should’ve felt guilty, or at the very least ashamed for staring at the woman’s crotch, but alcohol had blurred the edges slightly of what I felt appropriate. Then again, what did she expect from dressing that way?
I’d just finished drying my hands when her voice behind me caused me to jump out of my skin. Exceedingly female, very fake, and drenched in a thick Texas accent, I smiled at the wall. He was definitely a woman minus the “wo.” I’d lived in Texas all my life and had only heard a Texas accent that pronounced in the movies.
“Wait just a minute, sugar. I’d like to offer you some assistance.”
Morna's Legacy: Box Set #1 Page 50
