What Lies Between Read Free Page A

and most of the time I preferred it this way.
    Not this time.
    “It’s a bit daunting to come here, with no MacKinnons left, and to have to make the estate work—or worse, to be the one who loses it after it’s been in the family all these years.”
    I turned my face to the window hoping Calum wouldn’t notice the tears threatening my composure. Jet lag added to my strung out emotions.
    “From what you said it’s obvious Gerard didn’t believe I would stick around or that I could handle it. Doomed to fail before I started.” My jaw clenched to stave off the swirling rush of sadness, fear, and frustration threatening to pull me under. I had plenty of insecurities about the decision to come here and try to run this estate; I had wanted to turn around, tell Leland it had all been a prank, go to dinner with him and Jason Marks like a good girl, and celebrate my assignment to Jason’s account. Would that have been the smart decision? Probably. But not the decision I could live with.
    All these years I had clung to a thin slip of a dream, of hope, that I would once again be part of a family, would belong somewhere, would know where I had come from and who made up the blood that ran through my veins. If I couldn’t will myself to be brave and give that small bit of hope every chance, the outcome here would be my fault and no one else’s.
    Being brave didn’t come easy. Before my adoptive parents were killed, as young as I was, I had known they believed in me. That stuck with me when I was put in foster care, where no one thought I would make anything of my life—just another lost kid.
    No one is just another kid.
    I was five when I’d declared I would build a birdhouse and sketched it out. My dad, Patrick, took me to the store and helped me pick out the materials. With my simple drawing as a blueprint, he supervised the construction and gently guided me until I created something that looked like what I had drawn. Watching the birds light on my little house became one of my favorite pastimes.
    Three months later, Patrick and Alberta Jameson were dead, and I was alone in the world. From then on, I’d learned to survive no matter what life threw at me. 
    “Gerard didn’t know me at all,” I said, staring at the side of Calum’s face, my eyes narrowed in defiance. It didn’t matter what Gerard had thought; he hadn’t taken the time to know what I was made of.
    Calum kept his eyes on the road, and I turned back to the window. My anger softened as my eyes rested on MacKinnon land. Gerard had left me all he had in the world, no matter what his thoughts about it. The reasons didn’t matter.
    It frustrated me to feel this exposed and at the edge of my emotional control, to be up and down from one moment to the next. I shuddered at the thought that this phase of loss or grief, or whatever it was, might last any longer than it had already. Simply being here drove my thoughts and emotions in all directions. If I could just rest and get myself together . . .
    But each rotation of the tires poured another cup of anxiety over the top of my excitement. My hands ached from winding themselves around each other. The grandparents I wanted to meet and to know were long gone. They couldn’t help me do what I needed to do. Neither could Gerard or my parents. Once again, I had only myself.
    Breathe.
    I stuck my head out of the window, perched my chin on folded arms, and let the crisp air clear my head. Watching the sun play hide-and-seek through the branches of oak and birch hovering over the road calmed me even as the brisk breeze raised goose bumps on my skin. The winds here, contending with hills and trees and twisty, narrow glens sounded nothing like the uninhibited winds that blew across the Oklahoma plains.
    Calum interrupted my silent musing. “Those hills behind the house are used partly for sheep grazing but also for deer stalking, and grouse and pheasant shooting. Gerard’s man, Jim MacDougall, manages estate operations.