Heart in the Highlands by Heidi Kimball
Chapter Ten
Time stood still. Callum stood still, unable to move at all, his mind thrashing about in a way that kept his body captive. One night . . . He hadn’t thought . . . How . . . how could he have a daughter? He tugged at his neckcloth and tried to swallow, his throat clawing to open and take in air.
“She’s mine,” he said finally. It was not a question.
“She’s mine,” Katie returned, her tone defensive.
His eyes met hers, asking, pleading for an answer.
“She’s yours,” Katie said, her voice a whisper, like fragile glass.
Callum turned away from where he’d watched Charlotte disappear. His daughter. He took a step toward Katie, and though he had no right to accuse her, he couldn’t keep the anguish from his voice. “Why didnae ye tell me?” He was so upset, so overwrought, that his words began to roll with his thick Scottish brogue.
She bristled, her blue eyes glittering. “And would you have come back for her?”
A damning silence ensued.
He moved to stand in front of her, a strange pressure growing inside him, a kind of panic—how many precious instances like the one he’d just witnessed had he missed? “I told ye I made a mistake. I should have come back, child or no.” He shook his head. “But ye should have told me.”
The room held a deathly quiet, both of them staring at the floor as if it might provide the answers they desperately sought. “Ye were not planning to tell me, even now,” he said. “Ye’d have let me walk out the door without ever knowing.”
“You didn’t deserve to know about her. To know her.” Her words held no apology. She lifted her gaze and rubbed her hands up and down her arms.
“All these years, you kept her from me as a punishment for my leaving?”
Katie avoided his question. “I’d have told you if it had been a son—an heir.” She glanced down. “But since it was a girl, I thought—”
Callum reared back a little. “If ye think I’d value a daughter less than a son, ye do not know me at all.”
“I cannot think such a fault is my own.” She raised her chin. “How dare you come here and accuse me of not knowing you? You made a choice all those years ago, and because of that choice, my own husband is a stranger to me.”
Her words cut him, and he ran a hand through his hair. “Ye are right. The fault is none but my own.” From that cut, guilt began to flow, spilling out rapidly and growing so deep he began to sink under the weight of it. And like a drowning man Callum grasped at anything he could. “Was she born . . . here? Were ye well”—he gulped—“looked after?”
She turned away, rubbing her finger along the worn velvet on the back ridge of the sofa. “I came here after my grandfather died.” Her voice went quiet and lost some of its edge. “I had Harriet and Archie. I’d have been lost without them.”
“I was sorry tae hear about your grandfather. I ken he was your only family.”
“He was. Until Charlotte.” Her jaw tightened.
The unspoken truth hung in the air, as real and oppressive as the humidity in the Caribbean: Callum was her family, her husband, at least according to the vows he’d spoken, yet he’d not acted as a husband ought. He’d not provided comfort and security, he’d not loved and cherished her, and he’d certainly not been a father to the child Katie had borne him.
It hit him like a splash of icy seawater—all that might have been his, all that he’d given up in the name of punishing his father, all that he’d given up because of his cowardice. The pain was so keen, his chest so tight, he struggled to keep his feet.
He had no right to ask Katie for forgiveness. No right to ask if she’d be willing to try again. Indeed, he had no right to ask her to accompany him back to Scotland.
The vision of a loving family that had occupied his dreams and hopes stood before him, yet impossibly out of reach. Instead he was an outsider, with hardly a hope of being allowed in. A longing more powerful than anything he had ever known swept over him. And Callum knew, with absolute certainty, what he wanted.
He wanted Katie. He wanted Charlotte. He wanted the three of them to be a family. He wanted that long-ago vision to be real.
When he was finally able to speak, he raised his eyes to Katie’s, his words earnest. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. Anything. I’ll make things right between us. I swear it.”
Kate stood there for a full minute, mind swirling round and round like it had these past weeks since she’d received warning of Callum’s pending arrival, the difference being that it was decidedly more difficult to order her thoughts when his smoky-gray eyes were locked on hers, ponderous, heavy, and rather mesmerizing.
She looked away. “I don’t know if there is anything to be done. You are a stranger to us. To Charlotte. Bringing you back into our lives now . . . it seems . . .” She shook her head. “Impossible.”
“Please. I cannae do nothing.” He took a long stride closer, a stride with resolve, a determination that almost frightened her. “Ye are my wife.” He glanced toward the door, and his voice became a harsh whisper. “She is my daughter. It is my duty to see the two of ye cared for. Even if . . . especially if I have failed in the past. I’ve been a fool, but I swear to ye: give me another chance and I’ll not disappoint ye again.”
Kate’s heart gave an irregular beat.
For so long she’d imagined this moment—the cutting remarks she would make, the casual indifference she would show, the way she would make Callum suffer. All those years ago, he’d shattered her heart. She would repay in kind.
And she would never, never allow him a second chance to hurt her.
The scene from a few minutes before played through her mind. Charlotte staring at Callum, wide-eyed with joy as he’d helped her find her cat. The adoring look he’d given Charlotte in return. Kate wanted to hate Callum—did hate him—but her daughter knew nothing of her bitterness.
For a beat, Kate’s anger receded. The righteous indignation she’d held close all of these years was swept back. And the truth, hidden under all those layers of resentment, slowly came to light. It was not only Kate’s heart at stake but something much greater—Charlotte. Her well-being. Her happiness. Her chance for a future.
Whatever decision Kate made, she would not make it lightly. And she would not make it now, under Callum’s heavy scrutiny. But there was something she needed to understand.
She turned back and raised her gaze to Callum’s. He didn’t seem to have any intention of rushing her. “Are you saying you’ll not exercise your rights as a husband and father and force us to come with you if I do not wish to go?”
Callum remained quiet, thinking. “I shall ask and not demand. Ye shall come willingly or not at all.” His Adam’s apple shifted as he swallowed. “But please believe me when I say that I want—nay, need—Charlotte in my life. I do not wish tae be separated from my daughter even one more day.” His voice came close to breaking.
Kate’s traitorous heart twisted sharply, as if she’d hoped he might admit that he needed her too. Foolish, irrational thought.
She’d not be moved by his plea. He had taken four and a half years to come; he could wait a few days longer. “I do not wish to make a hasty decision for Charlotte or myself. I need several days to think. If you return on Friday morning, you shall have my answer then,” she said with an air of dismissal.
The faint lines around his mouth tightened. But to his credit, he gave a nod. “What time does Charlotte usually arise in the morning?”
Kate cocked her head in question. “On most mornings she is awake by seven,” she replied slowly.
“Then, ye can be assured of my prompt arrival on Friday at half past six.” And with a quick bow, he turned and went out.