smiled then, almost shyly, and then turned and ducked into her room. Ewan released a pent-up sigh and shook his head at his own stupidity. He found his own room, fortuitously located right across the hall from hers, then let himself inside. Single bed, floral wallpaper, local prints. Lacy curtains covered the windows and a door opened to the en suite bath. Though he hadn’t planned on doing any checking in, he pulled his cell phone from his backpack and called Cam, his younger brother.
Predictably, he was busy—a tour bus of happy murder mystery party goers were en route to the castle and a stalking party had just left for a two-day hunt—but also predictably, Cam always had time for a chat.
“I didn’t expect to hear from you,” his brother said. “I take it the road of enlightenment hasn’t been too illuminating?”
Ewan chuckled. “Something like that, yes.”
“Keep wandering, big brother. It’ll come together for you. And if what comes together for you doesn’t coincide with Dad’s plans, then so be it. Sometimes you have to fight for what’s important.”
Cam knew all about that, Ewan thought. He’d certainly bucked the status quo when he’d gone against their father’s wishes and bought his estate. But Cam had always been like that—fearless, always ready for a challenge and never afraid to face life head-on.
“What makes you so sure that he doesn’t think you’ll come through for him?” Ewan asked. “Don’t think that he has given up on the idea,” he warned him.
Cam chuckled darkly. “He might as well,” he said. “I know where I belong and it’s here at Castle MacKinnon.”
He envied him that knowledge, Ewan thought with an inward sigh.
“Alec is dead set against taking over the company as well,” Cam said.
“Even if Dad let him do it from a boat?” Ewan teased. His youngest brother had an affinity for the water that bordered on the mystical. He’d been obsessed with floating things from the time he was a little kid and had studied with one of Scotland’s premiere boat builders. He was happiest, they all knew, when he was on the seas, looking at a horizon. Hell, even when he came home he was taking the skiff out on the loch in front of the house within half an hour of being there. His soul would shrivel up and die if he had to take over for their father.
“Genevieve called me yesterday,” Cam said. “She’s losing patience. Dad told her that when one of us stepped up to do our duty he’d stop relying on her so much.”
Ouch. He could see where his sister, who’d been their father’s shadow since she was old enough to walk, would have a problem with that.
“For such a smart man, he’s been unforgivably stupid, don’t you think?” Cam remarked. “Genevieve is the obvious best choice. Why can’t he see it?”
“Who knows?” Ewan said. “Mom’s going to have to say something, I think.”
“She doesn’t want to interfere and says that it’s better if Dad works it out on his own.”
“But he’s not working it out.”
“When the three of us refuse, he’ll have no other choice, right?” He hated forcing his father’s hand like that because it made him feel ungrateful when, in truth, he wasn’t. He just wanted to do his own thing, that was all.
Of course, his argument would be better if he actually had his own thing.
Instead of coming up with a viable job in the company, what he really wanted was to go to Haiti and help the earthquake victims. According to the article he’d recently read about the need, there were more than fifty-five thousand people still living in tents. He had no idea what he would do—what he could do even—but he was able and willing to do whatever was needed. There was honor in that purpose, a sense of satisfaction from knowing that whatever he did was going to make a difference. Was that too much to ask?
After catching up on a few more things and promising to call when he reached Fort William, Ewan disconnected. He made quick work of unpacking his bag, washed up and made the return trek back downstairs to the parlor.
He was taking his first sip of hot tea when Gemma entered the room. She’d exchanged her boots for pink bunny slippers and had taken her hair out of the ponytail she’d worn all day. Long fawn-colored curls—the exact shade of tablet candy, his favorite, naturally—tumbled over her shoulders and down her back. She’d washed her face, making her nose and cheeks shiny in the firelight. He didn’t know what was more endearing, that glowing button nose, or the slippers.
“Better?” he asked, feeling unaccountably nervous. This woman did something to him, affected him on a cellular level.
She settled into the chair opposite him and selected a meat pie from the tray. “Immensely,” she said, taking a bite. She groaned with delight.
She had the sexiest mouth, Ewan noted. Full and bow-shaped, the lower lip considerably plumper than the upper. She had a bit of pastry stuck in the corner and he watched with rapt attention as her pink tongue darted out and captured the errant bit. He knew she didn’t mean it as a sexy gesture, but that didn’t keep his blood from heating all the same. The nagging sense of awareness that had plagued him since again setting eyes on her had quadrupled in the past hour, pushing an already irrational attraction into especially dangerous territory.
Ewan was well acquainted with sexual desire and every nuance that entailed. What he wasn’t used to was wanting someone with this level of intensity. The combination of the virulent attraction and the warm, melting sensation in his chest when he looked at this particular female was, in a word, terrifying.
If this desire didn’t begin to wane soon then he might just self-combust.
“Is something wrong?” she asked. “You look a little strange.”
True enough, he imagined. He certainly felt strange. “I’m fine,” he said, expelling a heavy breath through a grim smile. He helped himself to a piece of bread.
“So I take it you’re going to continue on to Fort William?” He knew the answer, of course, but needed a conversational opener.
Chewing thoughtfully, she nodded. “Of course. Jeffrey was here for company, but my goal hasn’t changed. This is a rite of passage,” she said. “Both my mother and grandmother have made the walk.” She frowned. “I thought I’d mentioned—”
He nodded. “You did,” he said.
“I’ve come to a bit of a crossroads in my life,” she admitted, another scowl wrinkling her brow. “One path is clearly marked and utterly unfulfilling.”
That sounded eerily familiar, Ewan thought. He took a sip of tea. “And the other path?”
She smiled and let go a whooshing sigh. “That one is completely dark,” she said, laughing. “In fact, I’m not even sure there’s a path there. More like a goat trail.”
He chuckled, sensing a kinship he hadn’t expected. He knew the West Highland Way was a lot of things to a lot of different people, but what were the chances of him finding someone as interesting with the same reason as himself for making the journey? Call it coincidence or fate, he’d been right when he’d thought there was a reason for them meeting.
