Page 18 of Highlander Unraveled
Was it a trap?
Had she let Steven in?
I pressed my hand to the wall, bracing myself, and trying to draw an even breath. My feet were glued to the floor. I wasn’t taking another step. I turned around, prepared to leave. To just walk out, even without the purse full of money that Mrs. Lamb had given me, which was upstairs where I’d left it.
Maybe somehow I could find a way to contact my Aunt Sheila back in the States. That was if she was still alive, or not on a bender. She’d never been reliable a day in my life. Why did I think now, when I’d need her most, that she would be?
I frowned. Didn’t matter. I was going.
As soon as my palm touched the doorknob, Mrs. MacDonald called out, “Emma, dear, is that ye?”
I bit my lip hard enough to wince. Dammit. I turned the handle, prepared to make a run for it.
“Emma?”
I turned around, stiff and slow, to see Mrs. MacDonald and an older gentleman standing right behind me in the archway toward the kitchen.
“Where are ye going?” Mrs. MacDonald asked, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel, her expression concerned.
The man beside her had a full head of graying hair. His face was clean-shaven; wrinkles lined his eyes and mouth. He wore a dark suit, navy blue or gray. I couldn’t tell in the light. He looked like a businessman, but not one of those I’d seen Steven meet with when we’d vacationed in Scotland.
I didn’t recognize the man from anywhere, and yet, the way he looked at me, was as if he knew who I was.
Perhaps he was a friend of Mrs. MacDonald’s that she’d called to keep her company while I napped. Maybe she’d told him about me, and that was why he looked at me so familiarly.
“I need some air,” I managed to say.
“There’s a lovely patio in the back,” Mrs. MacDonald said, hooking her thumb over her shoulder. “More private.”
Concealed is what she meant. No one, including Steven, would see me, and that must mean the man with her was a good friend—else why would she suggest it and he be nodding his agreement?
“All right, “I said, walking toward them, and they backed up to allow me to pass. But I stopped halfway down the corridor, and eyed the man. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
He grinned, gazing at me knowingly. “Apologies for not introducing myself earlier. I’m Shona and Moira’s guardian, Albert McAlister.”
“Guardian?” I winged a brow, keeping myself still though I wanted to take a step backward. “They are well past the age in which they need a guardian.”
Who was this guy? How had he convinced Mrs. MacDonald to let him in? The old woman gazed at him, nodding. What the hell? Had he somehow drugged her?
Albert McAlister chuckled. “Not that type of guardian. I was appointed to keep watch over them and their estate when they were children. I have continued to do so in their adulthood. I’m their solicitor.”
“Ah.” A lawyer, a financier. I didn’t completely understand, and the way he glanced at me, I was certain he had some questions—such as, where were Moira and Shona?
I cleared my throat, hoping we could just move past that part. “If you’ll excuse me,” I said, walking past them and out the sliding glass door at the rear of the house.
Mr. McAlister gave me a look that said we weren’t finished, and I didn’t doubt it. I was just glad he didn’t follow me outside.
The cool blast of autumn evening air felt marvelous on my skin, which had gone from cold to hot upon seeing the man with Mrs. MacDonald.
I moved out to the small grassy area of the yard. The plants in the rear were also drooping, as had the ones in the front. If McAlister was the one to have taken care of the inside of the house, as it seemed someone had, then he’d also been the one to let the front and back go to crap.
I don’t know why I found that to be so offensive. Maybe it was because Moira and Shona both had amazing skills with plants. And didn’t they own an herbal shop here? Shona took such pride with the gardens at Gealach. I think she’d be heartbroken if she saw the state of things in her own backyard.
The air suddenly felt too constrictive. I turned around and went back inside. The need to yell or scream or stomp orsomethingburned within me.
I stared Mr. McAlister right in the eye, Mistress of Castle Gealach taking front and center to all the miserable shit I’d been put through in the past dozen hours. I stabbed my finger toward him, then at the glass door.
“If you are supposed to take care of their estate, you’ve done a poor job of keeping up with their property.”
