Page 78 of Edinburgh Escape
Instead, she adjusted her backpack on her shoulder, lifted her suitcase and smiled. “Thank you for everything, Cook. Tell everyone I love them.”
“Them or him?”
Maggie’s heart skipped several beats. “Goodbye, Cook. Thank you for everything,” She turned and left the manor.
The sun had just risen on the horizon as she made her way to the garage, hoping to find Alastair awake and able to take her to the Edinburgh airport. Once she got there, she’d have the airline change her ticket and find her a flight leaving that day, heading back to Eagle Rock, Montana, and the only home she’d ever known. A home empty of family. Her mother was gone. Her brothers would be here in Scotland, and the man she was falling in love with would be on his way to Zurich.
She had nothing to keep her in Montana. Now that she knew she had family in Scotland, she couldn’t bring herself to stay with the memory of Callum lingering everywhere she turned in the manor.
As she approached the garage, she called out softly, “Alastair?” She hoped she didn’t have to wake him, but she really wanted to leave before Callum woke. He’d rejected her the night before. She couldn’t go through that again. Her heart already hurt so much.
“Alastair,” she called out again.
“Ms. McKendrick,” a voice said behind her. “Can I help you?”
Maggie spun to face the tall, dark-haired man. “Yes, please. Could you give me a ride to the airport? I need to go back to the States sooner than I’d expected.” Because I foolishly fell in love with a man who doesn’t love me in return.
“Of course,” Alastair said. “Give me a minute to wash my hands. I was working with Bryce’s horse this morning.”
“Is he feeling better?”
“He is.” Alastair gave her a brief nod. “I’ll be back in a moment.” The man hurried away. A couple of minutes later, he returned, his hands still damp from having washed them. He held the back door of the big black car open. “I’ll get your suitcase,” he said.
“Thank you,” Maggie said, glad he would handle it. She slid into the back seat. Alastair closed the door, then carried her suitcase to the trunk and stowed it there.
Maggie sat in the back seat, her hands in her lap, her heart a sore, aching lump in her chest.
Alastair slid into the driver’s seat, started the car and drove out of the garage.
When they passed through the gate, Maggie made the mistake of looking back.
Was she making a mistake? Should she have tried harder to convince Callum that his PTSD wasn’t insurmountable, that she could love him no matter what?
As it was, he didn’t know that she’d gone from greatly attracted to the man to loving him so fast that her head was still spinning.
She was in love with him.
Maggie leaned forward and called out, “Alastair, turn around. I forgot something.” She forgot to tell Callum that she loved him. She was more than willing to work with him or wait for them to share a bed throughout the night as long as they could be together through the day and into the night when they were making love together.
Alastair didn’t slow or turn around.
Thinking he might not have heard her, she raised her voice a little louder. “Alastair, I need to go back to the manor. I forgot something very important.”
Still, Alastair didn’t slow, stop or turn around.
“Can you hear me?” she asked.
“Oh, I hear you,” Alastair drove out onto the highway and headed toward Edinburgh. “I just don’t choose to turn around.”
Maggie met Alastair’s dark eyes in the rearview mirror. “What do you mean, you don’t choose to turn around? Don’t you work for the Drummonds?”
Alastair snorted. “You think I don’t know why you came to Scotland and Drummond Estate? You want your share of the inheritance. You think a bastard child of Douglas Drummond is entitled to inherit an equal portion of his estate? You’re wrong. You read the journal. You know he was forced to put that wording into his will. His wife blackmailed him, or he never would have agreed to that wording. Each child of lord Drummond shall inherit equal shares of his estate.” Alastair laughed. “The old man knew that wording would destroy his heritage by diluting it across all the children he spawned should they discover their connection to the bastard.” Alastair shifted his gaze to the road ahead. “Drummond wanted his oldest son to take an interest in his estate, to follow in the old man’s footsteps. Ewan hated his father and never wanted to join the family business. He couldn’t wait to get as far away from the man as possible. What Lord Drummond didn’t know was that his oldest son never left—because his oldest son wasn’t Ewan.”
“Ewan isn’t his oldest son.” Maggie’s gut clenched. “You are.”
“Ding, ding, ding! Give the bright girl a prize.” Alastair met her gaze in the mirror again. “Ewan isn’t the oldest child of Douglas Drummond. I am. Like your mother, he raped mine, too. Only Lady E didn’t find my mother crying in the garden. My mother didn’t have Lady E stand up to Lord Drummond and demand he do right by the woman he raped. Because my mother loved my father, the man who raised me, so much, she didn’t want him to lose his job and didn’t want him to know what had happened, so she let my father believe I was his child.”
Alastair’s anger burned through his gaze into hers.
