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“I know that, but…” I couldn’t bring myself to say I was eager to get back to my job so I could have a distraction from all of this—and not have to look at their concerned faces as I appeared to get on with things.
“He’s right, lass,” Morag added. “Caelan would want ye here, wi’ us.”
“But what about what I want?” I said, my temper rising.
Morag reached for my hand. “What do you want, lass?”
“My husband!” I cried, and covered my face with a hand when my composure cracked.
Morag’s arms were around my shoulders immediately. I knew they both understood, but what I didn’t know, was when he was coming back and that utterly killed me.
“That fucking bastard, Eric!” I exploded. “He did this, I know it! He did this.”
The silence coming from Harold and Morag was deafening. Eventually Morag merely whispered, “Aye.”
Then Harold said, “T’would seem the lad has never been able to move on.”
“Aye, the way he would linger at the castle after all the others had gone home.” Morag sat in her own chair again while I dabbed my eyes with a napkin. I eagerly awaited more. “Like a leech, wouldna let go. Something about him, something cold. He’d get this look in his eye, lass. If yer man didna give him the attention he so craved, aye, he’d wear something like frozen rage inside those wolverine eyes.”
I swallowed and looked to Harold. He nodded and said quietly, “He’s nae good, Flora.”
I ate some more of my dinner, then decided, “I’ve got to get rid of him. Or he’ll never leave us in peace. He found me here, he can find me anywhere.”
If the man thought that it was better for Caelan to be trapped in a war-torn country than at home safe with his wife and infant child, what did that say about him? It said he had a warped sense of what love was, that’s what.
“Aye, perhaps it’s time,” said Morag, one bushy eyebrow raised.
Harold raised two bushy eyebrows and smiled crookedly.
“Time for what?” I felt like there was some mystery here to be solved, the way they were giving each other a knowing look.
“For someone to take him doun,” she said.
“And you think that person is me?” I looked between them, seeking answers.
Harold sniffed. “Who else?”
I tossed and turned that night. Part of it was the fear of him coming back to slaughter us during the night. Another part of me was absorbing all I’d learnt and what it meant.
Eric would never leave us be. He’d helped us get rid of Sherry, for sure, but part of that was for his own sake. So he could keep Caelan safe from the woman.
For an hour or so I stood by Logan’s cot watching him sleep. We’d named him so because it was a strong name for a braw lad, but also because, Caelan’s mentor in the beginning had shared this same name. Logan McCarrick. He’d raised Caelan from a wee scrote, as my husband would say, to the machine he’d become. Then Logan tragically died while skiing in Canada—instantly promoting Caelan. An honour he’d reluctantly accepted.
My husband was out in the world, at that very moment, perhaps in a bunker beneath ground, or sleeping beneath the stars in a trench, maybe even some slightly more homely barracks.
I couldn’t stand knowing nothing about where he was, with whom and for what purpose, exactly. All I knew was that I had to have faith. He was no ordinary soldier and he could help those people in ways even I couldn’t comprehend—and I was married to him.
Why now, I thought? Why now? When I’d only just gone back to work and everything was fine. Why had this happened now? Or had Eric been waiting for the perfect opportunity? When Caelan and I were least expecting it.
Scary scenario: Eric never orchestrated this and all he’d said earlier was true.
Caelan would never be able to truly leave behind soldiering. It was in his blood, marrow, in the very fibre of his soul.
Whatever the truth was, I would find out.
I would go back to London and the snake would slither its way back into my life… eventually. Morag and Harold would have to accept they couldn’t help. This was my task and mine alone.
Chapter Eight
