“Me as well,” Tate says.
Lachlan sobers. “So you’ve taken the leadership position full throttle?”
“Aye. Dad isn’t in a position to take it anymore.”
“Doesn’t stop him from having an opinion or two,” Mac mutters, and the rest of us nod in solidarity. Truth is, as the youngest of the sons, he gets more flack from Dad than the rest of us. But I want to change the subject.
“Why did you come, then, Lach?”
Lachlan puts his mug on the table and leans back in his chair. “Tully came to visit the last time he came to Scotland, no?”
I nod. “Aye, he did.” Tully is one of the older men of the McCarthy Clan, and he comes from time to time on an errand from Ballyhock as well.
“On his way home, he stopped by Inverness, wanted to get something at one of the shops for his McKenna. Saw something unusual.”
I sit up straighter, paying attention. Curious what this is.
“You’ve got a row with the Aitkens, don’t you?”
“Row’s a mild way to put it,” I mutter. “They’re the fucking bane of our existence. Rivals to the core.”
“Aye,” Tate mutters. “We fucked ‘em up anonymously recently, wanted them to have to watch their fucking backs.”
“Heard about that,” Lachlan says. “But Tully says he heard one of them talking about your family. Thought they were just talking rubbish to be arseholes, so he didn’t think anything of it until he heard about what happened here recently.”
I feel the skin prickle at the back of my neck, and bile rise in my throat.
“How so?”
Lachlan winces. “I feel like a bloody snitch, but I’d want to know if I were you, given how ruthless the damn Aitkens are.”
“What’d they say?”
“They totally fucking set up Paisley. Pretended there was a bloke interested in her, he was working for the Aitkens.” He goes on to explain how they used Paisley’s supposed “boyfriend” to fuck her up.
I growl, eager to get back into town. “We can pay those boys another visit, can’t we?” I ask Tate and Mac.
“We can bloody go now,” Mac says.
“I’ve got McCarthy men in Inverness on an errand right now, can have them investigate?” Lachlan offers.
“Aye. I’ll give you the address. If those fucking frat boys were a set up from the Aitkens as payback…”
Lachlan takes out his mobile and makes a call. “Tiernan, can you do our mates a favor, brother?”
We share the information with Tiernan McCarthy, one of the Clan’s most well-known fighters.
“Thanks, Tier.”
Lachlan hangs up his mobile and slides it into his pocket. I watch as Ailsa slides a little notebook into the front pocket of her apron, and scurries out the back door.
What the bloody hell is she up to?
“Be right back,” I tell the others, and I get to my feet to follow her. I enter the living room, but she’s gone. I look right, then left, and she’s bloody nowhere. How did she evaporate like that? She isn’t on the steps, or on the front stoop. She’s fucking gone.
“Tate,” I yell to the kitchen. He comes to the doorway, shaking his head.
“They’re gone, brother. Tiernan says the address we gave him is abandoned, looks like no one’s lived there in ages.”
It seems silly and foolish now to tell them I saw a furtive housekeeper write something down on a notepad. Surely she didn’t mean anything by it.
The back door opens and the girls come in, flushed from the cold. Cairstina’s eyes meet mine across the room. She’s looking at me curiously, her head tipped to the side like she does, but I’m a million miles away.
Something needs to happen, and it’s up to me.
* * *
Chapter Sixteen
Cairstina
Leith is troubled, I know it. The men are having a hushed conversation when we come in the house, and they quickly clam up when we enter the kitchen.
“Come here, doll,” Leith says, beckoning to me. He takes me beyond the kitchen to a quiet nook, alone.
I walk over to him, and he takes my hand. “What’d you do with that book you were reading?”
I text him.
I finished the first one and shelved it in the library. I’m on the second now.
He nods. “Good girl.”
Going to give it a read?
“Yes, actually,” he says soberly, and at first I think he’s joking, but I can tell he’s actually quite serious.
I cover my mouth in a silent giggle.
Maybe you’ll get some ideas?
He reaches over and gives me a teasing smack to the arse that makes my cheeks flame. I quickly admonish him in a text.
You can’t do that here! What if someone sees you?
He gives me a mock sober expression. “Then they’ll see what happens to cheeky lassies.”
I roll my eyes, which earns me another swift spank.
Well we don’t have time for you to turn me on.
That definitely gives me the upper hand in this conversation, for his eyes grow heated and I can tell he’s affected. He comes closer to me and reaches for my hair, winding it around his fingers as he drags my ear to his mouth.