Highlander's Beloved 02 - A Highlander's Passion (4 page)

“Dinna.” She hoped he’d honor her plea.

The determined scowl he shot her made her retreat a step. When he set aside the painting, a large hole was revealed, rimmed with strands of her hair. He pounded his forehead against the wall above it a couple of times. “Fer Fook’s sake, Kenzie. Why?” He swung in her direction, his eyebrows dipped into a V and his eyes narrowed. “Why did ye stay with him? Why didna ye come to me? Ye ken I would have protected ye.”

“Because women who are abused live not only a life of fear and pain, but of shame too. We’re ashamed to admit the men we’ve tied ourselves to think so little of us. Often, they’ve played mental games with us until we think we’ve earned the beatings.” She shrugged. “Which only increases our shame. That’s why, when some of us are lucky enough to get out of the marriage, we stay alone. Alone and safe.”

He reached to grab her arm and she jerked away. “But things are different between us, Kenzie. We’ve known each other forever. We’ve been friends since kindergarten. I’ve always been here for ye.”

Och yeah, until ye met Miranda. She couldna have this conversation with him. Not now. Not ever. With a crying spell two heartbeats away, she stormed into her bedroom and yanked her suitcase off the shelf of her closet. Pushing back the little curtains she’d made to hide the drawer fronts Duncan had smashed, she removed her clothes and tossed them into the luggage. Tears burned the back of her throat. Bryce had his
damn
nerve, asking her why she didna run to him at the first sign of danger.

A curse slipped from his lips when he stepped into her bedroom to find her mattress on the floor, the headboard and frame long since damaged and thrown away. More holes punctuated the walls, like periods at the end of sentences.

“Kenzie.” He enveloped her in his arms and held her close, his hand cradling the back of her head. “What in God’s name have ye endured?” Pained astonishment now replaced the typical cocky humor one found in his dark eyes.

She shoved him away. “The last thing I want from ye is yer pity.”

He backed her to the wall and placed his arms over her head. “Och, luv,
ʼ
tis not pity.” He leaned in until their foreheads touched. “ ’Tis me shame for pushing ye away. A deep remorse I canna begin to measure.” His fingers forked into her curls, and he kissed her forehead. “By the time I started coming to me senses about how much love I carried in me heart fer ye, ye were already married to Duncan. Then anger took over. Me male ego was hellish bruised. I was bloody pissed ye could move onto another man so fukin’ fast.”

The change of expression in his eyes from pity to regret to anger was too much to bear. Her anger rose to meet his, tit fer tat. “Just what was I to do, Bryce Matheson, when I found out I was pregnant with yer child?”

His eyes widened and his jaw gaped.

“Aye, pregnant. A week after ye’d cast me aside, I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. So when Duncan started flirting with me, I told him I was carrying another man’s child. He claimed he wanted me so bad, he promised to marry me and raise the bairn as his.”

“Why didna ye tell me?”

She fisted her hands on her hips. “Why? When ye’d already told me ye loved the memory of yer dead wife more than ye could ever love me? What kind of life would we have had if I’d trapped ye with both a bairn and a woman ye didna want?”

He swung away, interlocking his fingers behind his head. “Bloody hell, what have I done?” On a pivot, he pinned her with a hard glare. “Me bairn. What happened to it?”

She turned, pressing her face against the wall. God, hadna she revealed enough?

“Kenzie? I asked ye a question—I damn well expect an honest answer. What happened to me bairn?”

“A couple weeks after I married Duncan, he went out fer a night of drinking with his buddies. He came home drunk, in a foul mood, and beat me until I miscarried. Then he threatened me life if I told what he’d done to me. Some days I wanted to die. Other days, I went through my routine…numb, empty, hopeless. Hell, I was too depressed to talk to ye or anyone. Yer bairn was all I had left of ye. And, aye, even after ye turned yer back on me, I still loved ye, simple fool that I was.” She laced her fingers over her abdomen. “Och, how I loved the bairn we’d created. To lose it cut me heart in two, and it seemed as if both halves shriveled and died.”

Bryce’s expression was an unholy blend of rage, astonishment, and vengeance. He opened his mouth once to speak, and nothing, but a pain-filled groan emerged.

She couldna bear to see him like this, and stepped toward the bed to close her suitcase. “A few months later, when I turned up pregnant once more, Duncan swore up and down it was yer child too and beat me again. By then, the cocaine he and a few of the other shifters used had control of his mind, making him incapable of comprehending reason.” Tears scalded her eyes, coming as fast as she wiped them away. She pivoted and raised her chin to face Bryce head-on. “So tell me, Romeo who canna commit to a live woman, which…which time was I to come running to ye?” Her tear-filled vision was too flooded to distinguish his features. “After the first miscarriage or…or the second? Because both times I was too damn numb to think or feel.”

Bryce stormed into Creighton’s office at Matheson Lodge, slammed the door, and poured four fingers of Whyte & Mackay single malt whisky his brother kept in his private stock. After Kenzie’s confession, he was too damn angry to talk and too fukin’ hurt to eat. His chest constricted with a spiky steel band of agony so keen he could barely inhale his next breath. He’d lost a bairn. A bairn he’d known naught about. And there was nothing he loved more than being a da. Although he’d been barely nineteen when little Colleen was born, he’d taken to fatherhood like a bee to pollen.

Kenzie musta read his mood, for when he’d asked her if she was still hungry, she shook her head. Claimed she couldna eat a bite. Even so, he swung his truck through the Big Buns Drive-in and ordered them each a hamburger—his loaded, hers with cheese and pickles, the way he recalled she liked it. Neither was up for conversation but, to judge by her paleness, her confession had no doubt depleted her energies. He wanted her to have some nourishment. She nibbled at the edges of the sandwich while staring out of the passenger window.

When he’d braked for a traffic light, she whispered a question so faint he could barely discern her words. “Do ye hate me?”

“I could never hate ye.”

“Ye canna bear to look at me. Besides, I hate meself enough fer both of us.”

He glanced at her then, before easing through the crossroads. “Why?”

“I believed Duncan’s lies when he said he loved me. And I didna take good enough care of yer child.”

He eased the truck to the curb and shifted it into park. “If a man bigger than ye is beating on ye, how can ye possibly protect the bairn within? Duncan put on a lot of weight after he got out of the service. Neither ye nor the bairn stood a chance. So, believe me when I say I hold no ill feelings toward ye. I’m working through it all, trying to come to grips with what that monster did to ye and our child. And, indirectly, to me and Colleen. Ye know me daughter. Think how she would have spoiled our bairn, how she’d have worried over every cough and delighted over every first achievement.

“Nay, I do not hate ye, but I am beyond mad as bloody hell.
ʼ
Tis ye who should hate me. I shouldna have turned ye away, and I was a spineless bastard for what I said to ye that night.”

She nodded and swiped away tears. He unhooked her seat belt and lifted her onto his lap, where she sobbed against his chest. When her tears were spent, she pulled out of his embrace and silently slid to her side of the seat. He drove away from the curb and, in a show of comfort, reached to hold her hand, her cold fingers stiff in his.

Their ride to Effie’s was quiet and tense. Kenzie probably longed to be alone too. So, after he carried her meager belongings to her upstairs quarters at Iverson Hall, he promised her he’d see to her car in the morning. Then he drove like a madman for the lodge and marched straight for the liquor cabinet, where he coiled his trembling fingers around the decanter of whisky.

Bloody hell—his bear wanted out of the confines of its human body to run the hills, rampage through the forests to tear things apart.
Kill! Destroy!

Damn if Bryce wasna of a mind to let him do it. Sorrow, regret, and guilt warred with hate for Duncan.

Bryce tossed back the single-malt and hissed at the bite of whisky burning through his system. Tonight wasna a night for sipping. Nay,
ʼ
twas a night for getting shite-faced drunk.

That was our
bairn
! Ours! I shoulda killed him instead of breaking his fukin’ legs.

Months ago, when Kenzie had been beaten so badly to cause what he now kent was her second miscarriage, their cousin and policeman, Kendric, had called to tell Creighton, laird of their clan. Since Creighton held zero tolerance for domestic violence, the three brothers had shifted, and searched for Duncan in the Highlands. He’d gone to ground like the coward he was.

Aye, and we found the feckin’ weakling doin’ his drugs, didn’t we? Too late, though—he’d killed what was ours. Ours, dammit!

Bryce struggled to keep his bear under control. Anger and agony arced from his human soul to his bear’s. His duality was ripping him apart. Staying in human form was the shifter’s usual existence until the bear within grew angry or won the battle to come forth and take control. He reached back with his hand and yanked off Colleen’s masterpiece before he shifted and tore it to bits in the process. He kicked off his boots and jeans. Then he poured another glass of whisky.

The door to the office opened and the lock snicked closed.

“What’s wrong, brother? Yer bear has ours upset, ready to burst forth. We’ve both had to lower our telepathic shields so they canna hear yers raging. Could ye lower yers so Paisley canna hear him either?” Creighton’s hand clasped Bryce’s shoulder. “What has ye in such pain?”

“Shouldna ye be with yer wife?” Aye, a man should spend evenings with his wife. If Kenzie were his, he’d be with her right now, in their quarters, talking to her, wooing her, and—bloody hell. He tossed back some more Whyte & Mackay.

“Paisley, Effie, and Mum are discussing breast pumps.” Creighton shuddered. “I had no idea.” He poured two fingers of whisky for himself and for Ronan. “I ken about breast feeding. I just had no clue you could pump…” He shook his head. “Me God, ye can freeze the stuff. What if Cook Edweena comes in to work, bleary-eyed, some morning after being out most of the night drinking with the girls and chasing down men?” He tossed back the amber liquid. “Christ, the thought curdles me gut. And pardon the feckin’ pun.”

“I’ll buy a small freezer for the bairn’s milk. One with a lock on it,” Ronan chimed in with one of his typical reasonable answers. He slouched onto the large stone hearth. “Come, Bryce, sit and tell us what has ye torn to shreds. Remember how Da used to place us in a row on these ancient stones and stare us down when he figured we’d done something wrong?”

Bryce poured another four fingers of whisky. “I’m too agitated to sit.”

“And if ye keep pouring Scotch down yer throat ye will be too bloody drunk to stand in yer red plaid boxers.” Creighton, the eldest of the three brothers, pointed to the hearth. “Sit yer arse down and talk.” The oldest sat, making room for his youngest sibling between him and Ronan.

Bryce’s arse had no sooner hit the stones than he was up and pacing the den. “Funny ye should mention breast pumps.” He was blessed with brothers he could discuss anything with.

“Bloody hell!” Ronan slapped his forehead. “He’s gotten someone pregnant.”

“Nay!” Bryce whirled, and the room did a little spin itself. “I
had
a woman pregnant.” He jabbed his thumb against his bare chest. “
Me
woman! Neither one of us knew it, but when I broke things off with Kenzie, she was carrying me bairn.”

Creighton, the tallest, stood. “What happened?” Danger dripped from his short question. As an expectant father and an indulgent uncle, the laird had a soft spot for children. “Did she tell ye when she found out?”

“Nay.” Bryce shook his head. “She has her pride as all good Scots do. I’d told her I couldna love her as much as I did the memory of Miranda. Me stupidity tore her to the core of her being.”

Ronan stood and walked toward the alcohol cabinet. He topped off all three of their glasses before he placed the decanter within the cupboard and turned the key, slipping it into the pocket of his jeans, a silent signal the drinking for the night had stopped.

“So her pride kept her from revealing the news to ye?” Creighton’s thick eyebrows rose. “Women can be stubborn as hell; I’m only finding that out meself. Did she try to pass the bairn off as Duncan’s?”

Bryce drained what little tipple remained. “Nay. Ye ken Kenzie canna lie. When Duncan showed interest in her, she told him she was pregnant.” He waved an open hand through the air. “Och, he was a charmer, he was. Promised to love the child as if it were his. Then two weeks after their wedding, he got drunk and beat it from her.” Bryce hurled the empty tumbler against the paneled wall. The shattering of glass echoed about the room.

“Me bairn! Motherfucker killed me bairn! He beat Kenzie until she hemorrhaged.”

Both brothers muttered long, deadly curses before encircling him in a hug of muscle and brawn for a couple minutes to offer comfort. Finally they separated.

“So, she’s had two bairns taken from her through violence?” Ronan ran his fingers through his long hair as he sat on the corner of Creighton’s massive desk. “My God, who supported her emotionally after all that? If Bryce didna know, did anyone? Did she endure it all alone?” Ronan glanced at Bryce with compassion. “Can she have any more children?”

“The doctors dinna think so, or so she confessed after she told me of the abuse she’d endured at that feckin’ bastard’s hands. I’d taken her to her apartment to help move her to Effie’s. I couldna figure out why she didna want me to come in.” He turned his back to his brothers and with his hands fisted against the wall, shook his head. “
ʼ
Twas a depressing sight, her place was. She barely had any furniture, but there were pictures she’d painted hung at the oddest of places. When I took one down, I found a hole. A fist-sized hole. After I’d revealed all the evidence of the fighting and demanded to know why she never came to me fer help, she told me the entirety of it all.”

Creighton pivoted toward Ronan. “Text Mum. Tell her to quietly excuse herself and come here.”

“I’m not a mumma’s boy, dammit.” As the youngest, Bryce and his mum did share a special bond. At times, it embarrassed him.

“Nay, but we are a family. When one of us hurts, we all hurt.” Creighton checked his watch. “It’s time to take Effie home and get me wife to bed. I’ll check in when we get back. I ken how ye hurt. I’d be no different if I were in yer spot. I’d be outta me fukin’ mind with hate.” He clapped a hand on Bryce’s back. “Ye still want Kenzie?”

“Aye.” There was no doubt in his mind.

“Then go get her, man. Make her part of the family.” Creighton was big on family, but then, they all were.
ʼ
Twas how they were raised. They’d been mere lads when their da died, but och how he’d doted on them during the short time he’d lived.

Creighton had just passed the age of ten when he’d assumed his duties as head of the family, pushing his younger brothers around and telling them what to do—and, drowning in the fear of their grief, both Bryce and Ronan had clung to Creighton like a paternal lifeline. Now, as adults, over the past few years, they worked together to renovate this drafty ancient castle into a viable lodge.

The huge, stone building sitting on the edge of granite cliffs overlooking Mathe Bay retained the keep and battlements built in the 1200s. According to Mathe clan lore, nearly a century later the great hall and minstrels’ gallery were built. Every century or so, more rooms were added. To the Mathe clan, the structure meant permanence, fer the Vikings had tried several times to vanquish them from the land and to destroy it. To the Matheson brothers, it was home, and even as they’d planned the renovations, careful consideration was used to keep the guest quarters separate from theirs.

Creighton, with his hotel management degree, saw to the business end of things. Ronan took care of internal maintenance of the lodge—heating, plumbing, and the like. Bryce, who loved the outdoors, kept the grounds and the moat in what everyone considered beautiful condition. He also oversaw care of the stock. Their horses were among the finest. Mum handled online reservations and managed the household help. Fer many families, working and living together wouldna work, but fer them it did. Some things in their favor were their love of teasing and their banding together when one of them needed help. Or support. Like Bryce did tonight.

“Kenzie’s not so fond of me right now. She’s got me ranked among snakes and pond scum, so she does.”

Creighton grunted. “I ken she might be holding a grudge, but I’ve also seen how ye can charm the ladies.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Besides, ye’ve got us. Getting her to fall in love with ye again will be a family venture.”

Ronan shuffled his feet and looked Creighton in the eye. “I dinna ken ye can make a woman fall in love with someone. Do ye remember the love potion Una made for yer feckin’ balls and how the gnats bit the hell outta big daddy and the twins? Paisley didna take too kindly to yer trying to manipulate her feelings, if I recall correctly.”

Creighton’s eyebrows nearly lowered to cover his brown eyes. “Kiss me Scottish arse.”

A soft rapping sounded at the door and he hurried to unlock it to let in their mum. “I’ll be back after Paisley and I take Effie home. And there’ll be no more mention of love potions in this house.” He stormed out.

“Well, what in heaven’s name has him wound up?” Their mum glanced at her two remaining sons and zeroed in on Bryce. She crossed the room and cupped his cheek. “Youngest, what troubles ye? I havna seen such pain in yer eyes since we lost Miranda. And ye reek of whisky.” She reared back like a snake ready to attack. “Have ye been into the tipple again?” She pointed toward him. “Stripped out of your clothes when ye ken we’ve got guests here from London and southern Italy. Do ye plan to make a spectacle of yerself, parading half-naked through the lodge, drunk, and singing bawdy songs?”

“Mum.” Ronan’s gentle tone captured her attention. “Ye’ve got things all wrong. Bryce’s bear needs to shift. Bryce, the man, needs the numbness only alcohol can bring. Aye, what I say is true.” He glanced at Bryce. “Would ye rather I left ye to tell her in private?”

“Nay. Stay.” He leaned against the edge of the desk and crossed his arms and stocking feet. Slowly he told his mum about the bairn, halting at times when the pain in his heart tore apart his words.

She didna say a thing, although a phenomenon Bryce had seen only a couple times in his life occurred. A beet red blush began at her collarbone and slowly crept upward until it reached her graying red hair. When he finally finished the telling of the whole wretched mess, he wiped cheeks he didna realize had moistened. His bear moaned with grief as if he were dying of it.

Quiet filled the office for well over a minute, while his mum blinked and repeatedly ran her hands down the front of her red floral skirt, her fingers making pleats with each pass. “Someone pour me a stiff drink, and none of your piddling two fingers, either. I want a whole glassful.”