“Aye. I’ve missed ye, Cait. And Graham said ye were living all alone out here. It’s no’ safe for ye. Another soldier was found killed. Thankfully, on Graham land, but too close to Campbell’s boundary for my satisfaction.”
Good Lord, would this ever stop? The men in her life were driving her mad with their worry, and where did all of them come from? For years the only men in her life had been Black Cat and the patients she treated.
“Do ye know anything about the killings?” she asked. He was a wily old man, always had been, and she was certain he hadn’t changed. She also wouldn’t put it past him to either know something about the killings or have been a part of them. When MacGregor hated, he hated with everything inside of him, and he very much hated the English.
“I don’t hold with killing innocent soldiers, even if I hate the English.”
“But ye’ll burn a Campbell off his land even if he’s innocent.”
“Ain’t never seen an innocent Campbell. Except ye, of course. And my intention was never to burn Campbell off his land. Just irritate him some.”
Oh, he’d irritated Iain, all right. “Would ye even tell me if ye knew who was doing the killing?” she asked.
“More than likely no’. But I’m tellin’ the truth in this.”
“Forgive me if I don’t believe ye.”
“I like the cynicism. Ye’re a true MacGregor.”
“Years ago ye told me I was no longer a MacGregor.”
“A man can have regrets. I find the older I get, the more regrets I have.”
“Am I one of yer regrets?” she asked quietly, disturbed that his answer meant so much to her even years later.
“Ye are, lass. I’ll admit only to ye that I regretted my words the minute ye walked out that door with the bastard John Campbell.”
“So why didn’t ye call me back?”
“Pure stubbornness and hatred. Yer grandmother was angry at me till the day she died.”
A spasm of grief passed through her at the mention of her grandmother, who was as opposite to Wallace MacGregor as a body could get. Cait had wondered, especially over the past eight years, how the woman had put up with the difficult man.
“She never forgave me.” He blinked, turned his face away, and took a deep breath. “I have to go. Just wanted to see where ye were living these days.” He turned back to her. “I’ve heard rumors ye’ve taken up with the Campbell.”
“Ye can’t always believe everything ye hear,” she said, neither confirming nor denying the accusation, for it was an accusation.
He grabbed his horse’s reins but hesitated. “Don’t take up with him. He’s a strange one. A lover of the English if there ever was one. Heard tell that King George hisself wanted to marry one of his whelps off on Campbell.”
The man would believe any bad rumor about a Campbell but couldn’t see the truth before his eyes. “I heard ye agreed to lay off yer feud with him,” she said, ignoring the last statement because it was so outlandish.
“For now.” His tone turned hard, and she suppressed a shiver. She knew as well as anyone not to trust him, especially when it came to the Campbells. “Stay away from him, Cait. He’s the worst sort of traitor.”
“Ye lost the privilege of telling me what to do a long time ago, MacGregor.”
He pointed his finger at her, and she steeled herself for his wrath but it didn’t come. “Ye’re insolent,” he said with a waver to his voice. “But then ye always were. Ye got that from the Grahams.”
She pressed her lips together, for this was an old argument. The Grahams blamed her worst traits on the MacGregors, and the MacGregors blamed her worst traits on the Grahams.
“Did ye come all the way out here to tell me to stay away from Campbell?”
“Aye. Nay.” He mounted his horse with a little more difficulty than he used to. He looked down on her. “Don’t be like me, lass,” he said softly.
“Stubborn?”
“Aye. A stubborn, old, lonely man.”
Chapter 24
