Page 15 of Callum

Yes, Callum. Why not? Oh, you know…because she has a secret child, and I need her here so I can get to the bottom of it.

I spent the entire car ride to Bray Creek thinking about Rosalind and that damn baby. How could she keep it a secret from everyone? Was it even a secret from everyone, or was it just a secret from me? Why would it be a secret from me? Why wouldn’t my brothers tell me?

What else have I been kept on the outside of?

“If Rosalind is telling the truth, a fight is coming to our door, and we need to be prepared.”

Grant watches me for a long moment, his calm blue eyes scanning my face as if he can see through the lie. “Why would we need to keep her here for that? It isn’t as if she will stand and fight with us.”

“She has information they’re willing to kill to keep under wraps,” I shake my head, annoyed that I feel the need to keep the truth from my brother. “It might be beneficial to have that information in our pocket.”

Grant leans back to grab a crystal decanter of bourbon and two glasses from a drawer on the other side of the desk. “Drink with me, brother.”

I accept the proffered glass, taking a sip as my eyes dance around the room. Everything is precisely how I remember it, down to the dusty tomes on the shelf directly behind his desk. This room is so undeniably Grant MacAlister’s safe space that it brings a smile to my lips. “This place hasn’t changed at all.”

He huffs a laugh, taking a sip from his own glass. “I don’t fix what isn’t broken.”

“I remember,” I smile weakly around another sip of the dark liquid.

How did we end up here? There was a time when my brothers knew everything about my life, and I knew everything about theirs. I never would have thought they could keep a secret from me, much less something as big as Rosalind having a child.

Unless they don’t know? How could the GiGi’s have kept it a secret?

“You can ask me anything, Callum.”

“Did you ever fall in love?” It isn’t the question I want to ask, but it’s close enough to what I’ve been thinking that I hope Grant will accept it as the source of my turmoil.

The Father wants nothing more than for Grant to get a “Loyal” wife and give him grandsons. As the eldest son and heir, Grant is the only one the Father ever pressured to marry. The old bastard never gave a shit if his other sons carried on the MacAlister name. The problem has always been that Grant doesn’t want to marry someone who will bear his children and look good standing behind him. He wants someone to stand at his side.

Grant sighs, looking out the window toward the tree line beyond. His eyes dart across the forest, something shifting in his gaze that I can’t put my finger on. “I don’t have time for love. That hasn’t changed.”

“You don’t have the patience for love, more like.” I try for a joke to lighten the mood, and I’m glad to see Grant shake his head, a smile spreading across his face.

“Isn’t that the truth? You always were the lover of the two of us. The dreamer,” Grant’s eyes meet mine across the room, the weight of my time away palpable even from this distance.

He had been the first person I told about my Rosalind. I couldn’t have been more than sixteen, but I proudly proclaimed I had found the love of my life with all the confidence of a much older man. Grant had listened to me talk about her like I knew anything about love or the sacrifices that came with passion. At twenty-one, he was old enough to know how ridiculous I was being, but he didn’t say that to me. Grant didn’t shut down my dreams of more, even though he knew they were impossible.

He never stopped any of us from dreaming.

“We see where that got me.” Breaking our eye contact, I intentionally turn to browse the book titles along the wall behind me. “Besides, Maddock is the real dreamer.”

“Oh, yes,” Grant agrees, picking up the bourbon again to pour another glass for himself. He shakes the decanter in my direction, but I raise my glass to show it’s still half-full. “No one has bigger dreams than the Bear.”

“Except maybe his Cub.”

“She’s a hellion, isn’t she?” Pride beams from every inch of Grant’s face at the mention of our niece, Miles. One of the greatest joys of being back in Forest Falls has been getting to know my niece again. She was a baby when I left, barely a year old; now, she’s five and on the warpath at all times. Maddock said he found her up a tree last week with no idea how she got there, but he learned quickly enough when she climbed halfway down the old oak and leaped onto the roof. His description of her shimmying down the gutter had me laughing so hard that tears slipped from my eyes.

I wonder how old Rosalind’s baby is? Is it a boy or a girl? Can they walk? Talk? Shimmy up trees and jump off roofs? Is her baby a little demon like Miles?

Is her baby a MacAlister?

“Miles will make one hell of a MacAlister.”

I can’t help but agree, raising my glass again, this time in cheers to the future ruler of the MacAlister Family. Grant mimics my movement, taking another long sip from his glass before resting it on his chest. Something the Father refused to acknowledge was the fact that the firstborn MacAlister would go on to rule the Family, no matter what MacAlister they were born to—or their gender.

Something flickers across Grant’s face, his eyes locked on a section of the rug just beyond the end of his outstretched legs. “Ask me the real question, Callum.”

There’s no point in arguing that there isn’t another question in my head. Grant MacAlister is the ultimate human lie detector. I shouldn’t have tried to get anything past him in the first place.

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