Catch Me If You Can

by Donna Kauffman

  CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

  Donna Kauffman

  If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Scotland

  All Tag Morgan wants to do is help settle his father's estate so he can get back to properly cataloguing his Mayan ruins. So he's caught quite off guard to discover that A) his father had holdings in Scotland and B) the property now belongs to Tag. Leafing through his father's correspondence with the property's overseer, one Maura Ramsey, yields even more surprises. His father's letters reveal a warmer, kinder man—nothing like the harsh, cold disciplinarian Tag remembers. Surely it has to do with Maura, whose writing is filled with a dry wit and an infectious charm that keeps Tag reading all night. By the time the sun rises, Tag knows he's going to Scotland to find this woman who has so thoroughly captivated him.

  Traveling alone through the Scottish highlands with an old car and an even older map, the man who dissects other cultures for a living is completely out of his element in this one. Eccentric locals. Bone-chilling weather. Lethal-strength ale. Scary sheep. It's a lot to take in. More unsettling is Maura Ramsey, the woman with the sparkling blue eyes and the even sparkier temperament… a woman who'll fight to keep the land for her tenants… and who ignites passions Tag didn't even know he had. Once he gets a taste, Tag only wants more. And if he does, he'll have to let go of the past and embrace the future with everything he's got… especially his heart.

  Chapter 1

  When he looked around the room, what he remembered most were the beatings. Maybe it was the fatigue. Maybe it was the confusion still messing with his head.

  Taggart Morgan II leaned back in the well-worn leather chair and rubbed his tired eyes, closing them against the view of his father’s home office. The floor-to-ceiling shelves stocked with leather-bound law books, the thick, polished oak desk with its always precisely arranged blotter, letter opener and Cross pen set. The hard wooden chair he’d been made to sit in while he received the daily lecture that always preceded the sound of his father’s thin leather belt, slipping through the loops of his pants. He could hear his voice as clearly now as he had seventeen years before.

  I went to law school, passed the bar, fought my way up. I showed this town what a Morgan is made of. Just because we’re descended from, trash doesn’t mean we have to be trash. You'll show them, too, if I have to beat the smart into you.

  CRACK!

  When a Morgan wants something, he grabs it. That’s the mark I’m making here. And that’s the mark I’ll make on you, if I have to whip it into you. I’ll accept nothing less from you. You come home with that class election won and your head held high for all to see, or you’ll pray to God you’d listened for once in your godforsaken, pansy-ass life. And if the belt doesn’t do the trick, perhaps this will leave an impression.

  Tag flinched away from the memory of his father’s palm, connecting so hard to the side of his head, he’d gone sprawling to the floor. But by letting one memory slip through, it was as though he’d unleashed the demons of hell. His father’s violent tirades echoed inside his head, and around the room itself, as clearly as if the man himself were here and striding up and down in front of this very desk. One after the other, the memories assaulted him, moments of his life he’d long since packed away, suffocated by sheer will and determination. And yet it took only the breath of a single memory to resuscitate each and every one to their full, fire-breathing glory.

  How many judges are there in Marshall County? Two. And your old man is one of them. And now my oldest son is telling me he wants to make a living digging in the goddamn dirt? I’m paying for your college education and I’ll decide where you, go and what you major in.

  SMACK!

  Obviously you’re more of a fucking idiot than I thought if this is the best life plan you can muster.

  Tag absently lifted his hand to his face, as if he could still feel the imprint of the back of his father’s hand, the blood trickling down where the heavy school ring he always wore had split open his cheek.

  Jesus fucking Christ, you can’t even manage to be half the man I am! If I hadn’t walked you through life, you’d be an even bigger pussy than you already are. But fine. Embarrass me, embarrass the town, embarrass the family. Your mother is probably looking down from the heavens right now, crying over the waste of space you’re taking up. So you want to forge your own path, well today is the day you’re going to begin it. When you walk out that office door, you’d better damn sight keep on walking. Don’t pass go, don’t collect your things, and don’t let the door hit your sorry ass on the way out.

  Tag could still see the veins bulging in his father’s forehead, the alarming red flush that enflamed his face and neck, as he ordered his firstborn to leave home with nothing but the clothes on his back. As if he were the one making the bigger sacrifice.

  And you better damn well never look back. From this moment forward, I have only three sons. You are dead to me.

  Eyes squeezed shut, Tag’s heart pounded just as it had back then. His hands shook as he fisted them, humiliation and blinding fury pulsing through him as clearly as if it had just happened all over again. And he hated himself for the weakness, for allowing his past to punish him all over again. He fought back instinctively, much as he had back then and for years afterward. With rigid and unswerving diligence, he’d buried his reaction, his emotions. Back then, it was because he’d known that any reaction, any at all, would only make his father go harder on him. And now… because there was no one left to lash out at but himself.

  He abruptly shoved himself away from the desk. Breathing heavily, it took every last shred of his control to keep from sweeping his arm across the desk, sending every perfectly placed article flying onto the carefully chosen antique woven rug. Just as it had taken every ounce of the man he was becoming to walk calmly through that door seventeen years ago, shoulders square, gaze firmly forward.

  Because from the moment he’d claimed his emancipation, terrified, relieved, exhilarated, and heartbroken, his father had been dead to him, too.

  Tag braced his hands on the edge of the desk, dipping his chin, willing his heart rate to slow as he shut out the words, shut out the past, going instead to that place deeper inside himself, a place no one ever penetrated. The physical scars had healed many years ago, And until this moment, he’d have sworn the emotional ones had, too. Out of sight, out of mind. That had been his motto when he’d left Rogues Hollow. And, until he’d been summoned back upon learning of his father’s death, it had worked quite well for him.

  Dead to me.

  “Yeah, well, now it’s just official,” he muttered. “For both of us.” He straightened slowly, grunting at the muscles that had stiffened from sitting hunched over the desk. Midnight had long since come and gone. He’d lost track of time, as he often did when something of interest caught his attention. His single-minded focus and tenacity were a boon in his chosen field of anthropology. Tonight? He wasn’t so sure. He stared down at the sheaf of material his father’s close friend, Mick Templeton, had dropped off earlier today in a surprising visit.

  Mick had been a newly minted councilman the last time Tag had seen him. But he’d risen through the ranks since then to become mayor, a position he’d held close to ten years now. Along with that position had come a friendship with Justice Taggart Morgan Sr. And given the nature of the bombshell Mick had dropped on him today, it was a friendship that was a great deal closer than the surface social contacts his father lived to cultivate and loved to parade in front of everyone.

  According to Mick, no one else in Highland Springs, or all of Marshall County for that matter, had known about this. Not Taggart’s lawyers, not his associates, or his other acquaintances. He’d even hidden the funds he’d used to finance the thing under a dumm
y corporation so Frances York, his longtime accountant and reigning town busybody, didn’t know. That alone was a feat he could hardly believe. But even more surprising, given the nature of the news, was that the Ramsay and Sinclair families, who, along with the Morgans, owned the valley property known as Rogues Hollow, were also unaware of Taggart’s late-in-life acquisition.

  He’d only confided in Mick.

  And now, by his father’s specific request, his oldest son, Tag.

  Who still could not fathom what sort of bizarre mind-fuck his father hoped to achieve with the final arrangements he’d made. And now this bullshit. It had been almost a month ago, just a few days past Christmas, since the formal reading of the will. The day their father’s lawyer had very calmly announced that Taggart James Morgan, Sr. had left the entire Morgan share of Rogues Hollow, and every scrap of the estate that went with it, to his oldest son and heir. Tag could recall with stunning clarity how the news had literally sucked the breath out of everyone in the room.

  He didn’t know exactly what he’d been expecting, but probably something along the lines of a blistering lecture, followed by the grand announcement that their father had left the entire family heritage to the Sinclairs or Ramsays. A final harsh reality check that was supposed to teach them all something. Taggart Sr. would love nothing more than delivering a final set down. But Tag had known his father would never let the Morgan land escape Morgan ownership. He supposed he’d expected that the property would have gone to all four of them.

  Not that any of them had wanted the burden. All three of his brothers had left under somewhat similar circumstances. None had had any contact with their father since leaving this house. He’d told himself the day of the reading that if there was one positive in all this, it was that his younger brothers, Austin, Burke, and Jace, wouldn’t have to deal with any of it. They wouldn’t have to worry about what to do with their father’s personal effects, how to handle matters pertaining to the estate. Nor would they bear the burden of deciding what to do with a legacy that had been in Morgan hands for almost three hundred years: A legacy that should instill pride and a strong sense of stewardship in the last remaining Morgans, but because of one man, instead held only heartache and the echoes of memories better left forgotten.

  Nope. That thrill belonged to him and him alone.

  And to think that day he’d assumed it couldn’t get any worse.

  Apparently time away from the old man had dulled his instinct for self-preservation. Years spent living on dig sites, subsisting off of dried beef, overripe fruit, and water that most people wouldn’t bathe in, much less drink, hadn’t honed those skills a tenth of the percentage that one hour sitting in this well-appointed room would have. He could picture the look on his father’s face, that combination of smug disgust he so often wore, as he pointed out that very fact to his eldest son.

  Tag blocked that mental image as he stretched and shook the stiffness from his arms and legs. He carefully avoided looking down at the last piece of evidence that had come with this latest bombshell. The polished cherry-wood box Mick had dropped off, complete with tarnished skeleton key sticking out of the lock. Taunting him, begging him to turn it, to open the Pandora’s box that was his father’s secret other life. One quick twist, and he could have the answers to the fresh raft of questions that had haunted him since Mick had left hours before. Or, worse perhaps, he’d only end up with more questions.

  He had opened the accompanying leather-bound portfolio that held all the legal papers pertaining to his father’s startling late-in-life acquisition. A certain piece of property. In Scotland. But not just any property. His father owned a piece of Morgan heritage. The very heritage he’d spent his whole life trying to live down. The castle Ballantrae, and all that went with it. Including, apparently, a land manager, farm tenants, a slew of assorted sheep, and a huge pile of debt.

  What the papers didn’t explain was why in the hell his father would purchase, much less own and manage, the very castle and surrounding tenant-leased land that his much-scourged ancestor, Teague Morgan, along with his thieving cohorts, Dougal Ramsay and Iain Sinclair, had run from in the dark of the night three centuries earlier. Their ill-gotten gains strapped to their mounts as they headed hell bent for the coast and a neck-saving passage to the colonies.

  Mick said all the business details were in the leather portfolio. But all the personal details of his relationship with the tenants and villagers in general, and apparently one woman in particular, lay inside the cherry-wood box. No one on this side of the ocean had been privy to that part of his life. Not even Mick.

  Well, as far as Tag was concerned, it could stay private. Turning his back on the box, and the questionable treasure it held, he paced the length of the carpet, then turned suddenly and kicked the wooden chair across the room, where it clattered against the bookshelf, knocking loose several carefully shelved tomes. Fuck. He didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to give a shit. What he wanted was to be on the next plane headed south of the border. Back to the current dig, and the life he’d made for himself. Far, far away from the one he’d been born to.

  And yet the curiosity was eating him alive. Blame it on his nature, on his training, his very occupation. Had it been related to anyone other than his father, he’d have been inside that box within minutes of learning of its existence. But it was his father. And therefore nothing could be as it seemed. Nothing was ever that simple with Taggart Sr.

  And he refused to be drawn in.

  All he had to do to make it go away was sign one of the sets of papers on the desk. He could either sign away his rights to the property, or set up a trust with his father’s estate that would keep funneling money overseas. The lawyers, accountants, and land agents could take it from there. He would never have to give the matter another thought Why his father hadn’t made this decision, he had no idea. He’d certainly had the time. He’d known he was dying. Which meant he’d very specifically put this decision in Tag’s hands. Another reason not to open that box.

  He stared at the portfolio. A few quick scratches with his father’s beloved Cross pen and he could be one giant step closer to leaving this legal nightmare behind. Escaping for good the bucolic winter wonderland that was Rogues Hollow, all tucked up against the Blue Ridge mountains, smugly out of step with the ebb and flow of urban life.

  A few signatures on the dotted line, and he could be booking passage back to a distant land even more out of pace with the world. Back to the sweaty, torpid, bug-infested rainforests of the Yucatan. Back to mosquito netting and questionable drinking water. Back to piecing together the lives of families who had existed thousands of years ago.

  And mercifully escaping piecing together any more of his own.

  He heard the door from the garage open and had crossed the room and opened the office door before he realized his brother Jace wasn’t alone. The couple tumbled in the door, all pink cheeks and dusted with snow.

  Although he imagined with the heat sparking between the two, they could have rolled naked in the stuff and been perfectly comfortable. Given what he’d witnessed the past couple of weeks, he wouldn’t be surprised if they already had.

  Jace tugged Suzanna up against him, all stupid grin and oversized libido, not caring in the least who noticed. “Hey, T.J.,” he said, when he noticed his brother standing there.

  Tag wished he could remember a time in his life when he’d felt like that. “Sorry,” he said, moving to duck back into the study and leave them their privacy.

  “No problem. What in the hell are you still doing up anyway?” Jace looked at the grandfather clock that graced the long hallway connecting garage and office to the main rooms of the house. “It’s almost two.”

  “I could ask the same of you,” Tag said, trying to match a smile to the wry tone. He tipped his chin. “Evening, Zanna.”

  The pink in her cheeks deepened a bit, but her eyes flashed with fun. “Morning is more like it. And please forgive your baby brother. We had a flat tire
about down past Ramsay’s pond. The snow was blowing around too much to see to fix it. So we pushed it off the road and hiked our way back in.”

  Tag frowned. Zan and Jace had both grown up in the Hollow, so they both well knew the dangers of the winters here. “You should have called. I’d have come to get you.”

  “I guess we thought you’d be sleeping,” Jace said, brushing off Zanna’s coat, then his own.

  “So wake me up. It’s not like I have to be in the office at nine.”

  “Hey,” Jace shot back good-naturedly. “If that’s a dig at me, my meeting with Mr. Wayne and the athletic director isn’t until eleven.” He peeled his coat off. “Not all of us have the luxury of crawling around in the jungle for a living, Tarzan.”

  “Jace,” Zan gendy scolded. “He’s just worried about you.” She turned to Tag. “We’re sorry if we kept you up waiting, or worrying.”

  To be honest, he’d forgotten all about Jace being out. But then he wasn’t used to having to keep track of anyone but himself. Nor did he intend to start now. “I wasn’t. I was just… looking over some things.”

  Jace glanced up at his brother as he started helping Zan off with her coat. Tag must not have been as adept at masking his feelings as he’d thought, because Jace frowned and said, “What’s up? Frances said something about Templeton paying a visit out here today, but she didn’t know what it was about.” He glanced at Zan and grinned. “Which I know comes as a shock to us all.”

  She just laughed. “Yeah, Mom’s status as Grand Poobah of the Grapevine is in definite jeopardy.”

  If they only knew, Tag couldn’t help but think, wondering what Zan’s mom, aka the town busybody, would think when she found out the man whose books she’d been doing for the past quarter century had kept such a major investment from her.

  Jace laughed with Zan, then turned back to Tag. “Seeing as Mack is the mayor and a friend of Dad’s, I figured it was just a formal visit to pay his respects or something.” His smile faded as he caught Tag’s expression. “I’m guessing I was wrong.”