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“Och, yer all good lads. But I agree that yer twin is as fine a man as ye could ever hope to meet.”
Grant’s throat went suddenly tight. “I appreciate your support. But the fact remains that Kathleen wants a different sort of life than marriage with the likes of me.”
Angus kept his focus on Graeme. “It’s because of what happened with yer dad. Our Grant has never gotten over the guilt, ye ken.”
For an awful moment, Grant’s brain seemed to freeze. “That’s . . . that’s ridiculous,” he finally said. “It has nothing to do with our father.”
“No, Grandda’s right,” said Graeme. “You’ve carried this guilt much too long, old boy.”
When Grant responded with a grimace, his brother fetched the whisky decanter and refilled their glasses.
“Ye never told us exactly what happened that day, son,” Angus quietly said.
The old bitterness leached up, like a deadly poison. “What for? You all know.”
“What happened to our father, but not to you,” Graeme pointed out.
The instinct to retreat behind an indifferent façade resurfaced. Grant had never been able to talk about that night, not even to Nick or to Graeme. Both had tried more than once to pry it out of him. But every time, a door in his head had slammed shut, keeping the memories safely locked up.
He realized now he’d been lying to himself, because those memories were always lurking below the surface, whispering awful things that were impossible to forget.
His grandfather’s hand came to rest on his arm. “Time to let it out, son.”
“Aye, that,” Graeme quietly said.
“Och,” Grant gruffly replied, “you’ll never stop pestering me if I don’t, will you?”
“We’ll never stop loving ye, lad,” Angus said. “Ye can be certain of that.”
“Bloody pests.” Then he took a deep breath. “All right, then. We were coming up on Kade’s second birthday, you remember?”
Angus sighed. “Aye, that was a bad time. Yer da was strugglin’.”
“He was drinking himself to death,” Graeme said in a grim tone. “He never even noticed the rest of us were grieving, too.”
When their mother died a few days after Kade was born, felled by childbed fever, the effect was catastrophic. The children were left devastated and bewildered, and their father had never recovered from the blow. If not for Nick and Angus, the family would have fallen entirely to pieces.
Angus grimaced. “The laird should have been there for ye. Instead he let his grief and anger poison everything for everybody.”
“Not me,” Grant softly said. “I was his favorite.”
Graeme nodded. “You were the one bright spot in his life. Thank God for you.”
“It was rather a mixed blessing,” Grant replied.
“Aye, but a blessing nonetheless,” Angus said. “Ye were always a guid boy, with yer kind, sunny ways. And ye brought that sunshine into your da’s life.”
Grant had always possessed a knack for handling his father. Even when Da was in his blackest moods, Grant could usually get a smile out of him or convince him to put aside his whisky glass. They’d go riding, his father on Big Red, an enormous roan, and Grant on Geordie, his Highland pony. Out where water and sky met Kinglas lands, his father’s mood would lift.
“It was a hell of a burden to put on a little boy’s shoulders, though,” Graeme sharply said. “We were only nine when our father died.”
“I know, son,” Angus said. “But your da was lost. He couldna see a way out.”
“He had his children,” Graeme argued. “We would have helped him. Instead, he piled it all on poor Grant.”
“For all the good it did,” Grant said. “I still wasn’t able to save him.”
And that failure would stay with him for the rest of his days.
