“Ye will meet her, lad. Just be patient. Plus, if she doesn’t want ye in her life, ye have to respect that. I know ye want to make up for lost time wi’ her, but right now that energy will be better expended supporting Tamsin and her babe. And Ken.”
Hamish nodded.
A nephew and a niece.
Grandchildren. Great-grandchildren.
“Thank you for not holding my brother’s misdeeds against me,” Hamish said.
“Well, we can’t usually choose our blood but ye got a ready-made pack waitin’ to welcome ye.”
“I won’t let any of you down. I swear.”
“That’s all we ask, lad.”
Still, Hamish’s mind spun, reeled.
Among that tangled mass of emotions he also felt anger—no, rage. It seeped deep into every crevice of his soul.
He would gladly rip his brother’s head clean off his neck with his own bare hands if given the opportunity.
So much pain, so much grief, all because of one man’s inflated ego.
Hamish knew one thing—whatever he had to do, whatever was asked of him by the Targhees, he would gladly do it or die trying.
And he wouldn’t rest until Faegan was dead.
Chapter Two
Duncan - Back Then…
What do I truly believe? And what should I do as a father?
Duncan stood at the kitchen window and watched their three eldest daughters playing in the yard. When he thought about it, so many of the old woman’s predictions had already come to pass that he wasn’t sure it was wise to keep Charlie Bleacke in Idaho.
At least not until his youngest, a baby girl due in less than two weeks, was of an age she could make up her own mind.
A baby girl he’d already asked Louisa if they could name Chelsea, and she’d agreed.
Despite everything that had so far come to pass, Duncan hadn’t told anyone—not his mate Louisa, not Badger, and not Charlie Bleacke—about the brief conversation he’d had with the dying washerwoman that night so many years earlier, not long before he and Louisa departed for America.
Even when he hadn’t consciously thought about her words, her counsel silently lingered in the back of his mind, and he’d faithfully followed it.
I have to assign him elsewhere.
Which Duncan hated to do because the man was, next to Badger, one of his best men. Also a Prime Alpha, and someone Duncan could easily see himself handing the pack over to at some future point, once he was ready to sit back and relax and enjoy the fruits of their sometimes arduous labors. Badger had hinted several times that he didn’t want the job and would only take it if pressed into the role and absent any other suitable candidate.
Duncan didn’t dare leave a leadership void. The only responsible course was to make sure he had a replacement designated in case the unthinkable happened.
And he felt certain that person should be Charlie Bleacke.
The next afternoon, Duncan decided to talk to Badger about it.
“Whadya mean he can’t meet Chelsea?” Badger asked, looking appropriately and understandably confused.
Duncan stared into his glass, where the ice cube slowly dissolved into the bourbon. “You can’t tell anyone,” he said. “Not Charlie, not even Louisa.” He stared at Badger. “Pack Alpha business.”
Badger scowled. “Of course. Now, out wi’ it, man.”
