What Lies Between (3 page)

“Eleanor married James in 1895. She was twenty-four and he was twenty-two. They would be your great-great-grandparents.”

I searched their faces for a shared feature but only saw a general resemblance, enough to conclude that it was possible we were related.

My glance fell on a grand piano in the corner of the room. I wanted to place my hands on its keys and see if I could remember any tunes. I’d only had one year of lessons before my parents died, but I could probably still peck out a tune or two.

Before I could sit down and give it a try, my attention was drawn away by the landscape visible through the large windows. The room’s octagonal shape extended beyond the main wall of the house, giving the room an expansive view down the glen. The gardens to the rear were well maintained and tall trees edged the sides of the grounds, with a few close to the house. The builder must not have wanted to cut down those trees and formed the patio around them instead.

“I’ll get the rest of your bags and bring them in. Your quarters are off to your right from the front receiving hall.”

“Thank you.” I barely said the words out loud, enraptured with my surroundings. Excited to see my living quarters, I took the doorway leading from the entry into the hall to the right. The hallway was lined with a long bench seat flanked by bookcases. I paused, scanning the carefully arranged shelves—travel books, thrillers, biographies, classics.

“No porn,” I murmured with a half smile.

A cough sounded behind me. Calum stood there with my bags in his hands, his brows raised and a smile barely held in check.

He
had
heard me . . .

I didn’t want to tell this man who had worked with my father that Gerard had kept a stash of skin mags piled on top of a grand piano in his Oklahoma house. I didn’t care for the stuff and remembered thinking at the time that the piano, with only its glossy white legs showing underneath its cover, displayed more modesty than the magazine covers.

But not explaining meant Calum might think I had a thing for porn. No graceful option here. I stared at him, expressionless.

“This fabric is beautiful,” I said.

Seeing his face creased in a quizzical expression, I ran my fingers along the window seat’s cloth cushion, upholstered in sun-washed green linen. “I just love linen.” Diversionary and true, but insincere. No clue why my words came out sounding like a bad imitation of a Southern belle, which I definitely wasn’t. “And green is my favorite color.”

“Aye, this window seat is a wonderful place to catch the sun, when there’s sun to be caught.” Calum’s mouth quivered, again restraining a grin or an outright laugh.

I stared at him, wondering why I’d lied about my favorite color being green. In a college photography class the question had come up about whether black and white were colors. Citing additive color theory, the professor contended that black is not a color but is the absence of color, and light. Conversely, all the colors are found in light—without light, the eye can’t perceive color. He had taken us outside to show us how light reflected back to its source. Clouds lit by the sun from the side appeared white just as they would if seen above from a plane. A cloud directly blocking the sun appeared gray.

Two things struck me: Light is a powerful force. And our eyes don’t always see things the way they truly are. I became fascinated with how the world appeared when light was present or absent and how it affected people’s perceptions. And it impressed me that, just like light, white held all the colors in the spectrum. Buy one, get them all. Could there be a more logical choice for my favorite color?

I shook off the thoughts of the past that ran rampant through my mind since I’d learned of my father’s death. In spite of my excitement to be at Glenbroch, I had to fight to keep my attention in the present. “Not to be impatient, but I’d like to see more of the house.”

“Of course.”

Eagerness to see my own space barely restrained me from wandering off as I followed him past more doors, thankfully closed.

He made a slight turn and paused in front of a door. “Your quarters.” He bowed and pushed open the door with a large measure of drama. “I’ll leave you to yourself and fetch the rest of your bags.”

“Thank you, kind sir.” I curtsied and stepped over the threshold. My eyes instantly turned upward to the ceiling, at least twelve feet high. A thick, dark beam ran through its center, from which hung a massive candelabrum with a large ring of candle holders and a smaller, lower ring of electric lights—depending on one’s mood, I imagined.

I made my way around the room, touching everything: the buttery-yellow loveseat nestled in a window-seated bay, the plum mohair chaise cozied in a reading corner, a duo of espresso and cream toile English-style chairs and a tufted leather ottoman settled in front of the fireplace. I loved home decor and had a voracious appetite for decorating magazines. The room could be a cover story.

Someone had put on a fire in the massive stone fireplace with its rough-hewn mantle; its heat bathed me in a cozy welcome. I warmed my hands, which weren’t cold from the temperature but from the surge and fall of adrenaline in my body over the past several hours.

Thick cotton wrapped itself around sounds and thoughts; the physical faded as if I were watching someone else’s life through a gauzy curtain. I guess in a way this was true. Gerard had meant these quarters to be his own and obviously hadn’t planned on dying. It was hard to get hold of the fact that I was here in his stead. The sting of a wayward ember jerked me from the strange experiences induced by my dazed and exhausted state and I resumed my exploration.

French doors beckoned me into a conservatory with a comfy sofa and its own wood-burning stove. The upper walls were windowed on three sides, allowing me to gaze on the Highland hills beyond. I could see this becoming my favorite room. 

A pair of tall, forest green rubber boots tucked under a long bench was visible in an adjacent mudroom. Were they my father’s?

Rustling from the living room told me Calum had come back with the rest of my bags. Staying my curiosity for the moment, I returned and settled into one of the chairs opposite him.

“The private quarters take up both floors on this end,” Calum said. “You should feel secluded from the rest of the house and any guests staying here. You shouldn’t feel too cramped. Carolyn Drummond, a local woman, comes in once every two weeks to keep the house tidy.”

I was a bit dazzled, probably would be for days if not weeks. I hadn’t expected anything this lovely, but a faint melancholy cast a shadow. Grateful, yes, but being here in the MacKinnon family home, in the midst of my father’s renovation, left me with a clearer ache for him. My surroundings reminded me he had been real, and I had never gotten the chance to know him at all.

“The boots in the mudroom, whose are they?” I asked.

Calum’s eyes lit up. “Yours.”

“Mine? Why would I have boots here?”

“Mr. Epstein asked me to pick up a few supplies for you, the boots and food—things you would need around here straight away.”

Of course it would have been Stan Epstein, my father’s estate attorney back in Oklahoma, who had called the shots and issued instructions for what was to happen here with me.

“The boots are lovely. I appreciate the thought.” And I did, but a barb of disappointment poked a hole in my gratitude. The idea had flitted through my mind that if they weren’t my father’s, perhaps he had chosen them just for me. A silly thought, but still . . .

“Is everything all right, then?” Calum asked.

I shook off the wash of sadness. I needed to accept the situation: the chance to know my father had passed. But the longings that snuck up on me were hard to control. Now I wished I’d made closer friendships with people. I wanted someone to share this experience with. Chelsea, a former colleague, was the person closest to me, but she still only knew what I let her know, which wasn’t much. I needed to try to make friends here, let people in. Not easy.

“Everything’s perfect.”

“Great. Feel free to wander about. There is food for your dinner in the fridge. You’ll find basic supplies and towels in the loo. Will you need anything else, do you think?”

“No, can’t think of anything. Thank you, Calum.”

“I’ll head back to Inverness. I’m only about two hours away. Don’t hesitate to call—I can be here quickly if needed. You can use the house phone in your kitchen until you get a mobile. I’ve left you a folder with my contact details, the layout of the house, a map, and a history of the property. There’s internet information and instructions on how to use the television in there too, and keys to the Land Rover Gerard kept here. It’s a manual.”

I returned his smile. “Thanks for picking me up in Edinburgh and organizing all of this.”

Calum shrugged, shoved his hands into his coat pockets, and looked down at the floor. “No bother. The Land Rover is parked at the steading, out behind the house.”

Seeing the crinkle of my brow, he continued, “For horses and carriages, but now it’s sheltered parking and a meeting centre. It has a small gym for guests, and for you, of course.” He glanced around as if running through a mental checklist. “Right. I’ll be back out on Monday. Don’t think about business until then. That gives you five days to catch up with your rest and explore. Getting to know the area will set you up best for the work ahead.”

Having all of Glenbroch to myself reinvigorated my excitement and energy. I struggled to take my time at the door, nodding at all the additional instructions and encouragement he kept offering and trying not to act too eager to be rid of him. As soon as the front door closed behind him, I raced to the mudroom and pulled on the rubber boots. I could still get in a quick walk around the grounds while a sliver of the sunny day remained. The inside of the house could wait.

Six chickens and a rooster watched me from a distance, squawking and clucking at my approach. I peered inside their coop.

Who took care of the birds?

I spotted a row of small, white-tented greenhouses and beside them dozens of neat rows of plants—a vegetable garden.

Calum had mentioned I would need to hire additional staff soon, including a chef. Not that I had a clue about how to hire a chef, but I liked good food. That would have to be enough of a starting point. Off to the right I spied the steading where Gerard’s old Land Rover was stored.

A rumble of thunder drew my attention to a swirl of dark clouds in the distance. I needed to hurry if I wanted to get to the top of the distant peak and take in the view before I lost the sun altogether. I followed a path leading from the back of the house and was happy to find it took me to the base of the hill. I made it only halfway up the steep climb before running out of breath. A jug of coffee would be handy to wake up my sleepy limbs, but in my giddy state I hadn’t even brought water. I trudged the rest of the way up on sheer willpower. Thankfully, the clouds were miles away.

Carved wooden sculptures, eight or ten feet tall, spiked the hill’s pinnacle. One was carved with a single face, another with symbols, a third stacked with faces like a totem pole—all pointing in different directions.
Odd.

I leaned against the curved back of a wooden bench anchored into the ground and surveyed the panoramic view. I could see Loch Moran and the narrow strip where it ended and it looked like another loch began.

A cold burst of wind skittered chill bumps across my limbs. The gray mass of clouds was moving faster and in my direction. It was time to get back to the house for some food and sleep. I chose a trail on the far side of the hill that looked like it might be an easier descent than the path I had taken on the way up. It brought me to a stone wall with a wooden stile, a sign bolted into one of its planks:

Please don’t worry the sheep.
Keep dogs on leash at all times.

I noted the warning, climbed over the stile, and followed the path over a gentle rise, surprising a flock of sheep—clearly the sheep I was not supposed to worry. The one closest to me leaped over its neighbor to get away, causing the others to run in all directions, jumping into and over each other.

All of this commotion startled me, stole away my footing. I landed hard on my rear, my body caught in a fast slide down the wet, steep incline. Try as I might, my hands couldn’t get hold of anything to break my descent. The stiff, scratchy weeds that evaded my grasp poked and scraped my body before I came to a stop against a bulging mess of rocks.

“God bless America!” I yelled, but the phrase I had been teaching myself to say in an attempt to retrain my indelicate language sounded plain ridiculous here. I needed to change it up, maybe to
Great Scot!
That sounded even more ridiculous.

Having thrown my hands down in a useless effort to break my fall, I tentatively inspected my palms. Damp sheep droppings the consistency of mashed peas were plastered against both. I couldn’t spot a single thatch of poop-free grass to rub off the mess. The soggy ground was soaking into my jeans and my legs were growing numb from the cold. I let fly another frustrated exclamation. And it wasn’t “God bless America.”

Whether due to the cursing or the American accent, the sheep took off running once more, bashing into each other until complete chaos ensued. Then the flock abruptly stopped, turned, and stared at me. I stared back, concerned at this sudden about-face. I had reason to be; a set of horns bobbed through the pack. A ram emerged, heading straight toward me, horns curled around its head into menacing points. Dealing with a situation like this had not come up in my research, and I was hardly prepared. I’d rather face a rattlesnake; at least then I would know what to do.

The ram plodded forward at a steady pace, not exactly charging yet but not leaving an opening to get past. All of the sheep faced me now in a burst of solidarity, blocking my downward escape. Would this Sheep King pursue me if I climbed back up the hill or would he be satisfied he’d proven his manhood and leave me alone?

I scrambled to my feet and turned to head back in the direction I had come, but a thick, foggy veil had draped the peak and was rapidly descending. Visibility wouldn’t last more than a few minutes. My first day and I had already managed to upset the locals and get stuck on a Highland hill with a storm coming—a storm I had thought was hours away.