CHAPTER 3

CALLUM MCKAY HAD FOUND HOPE in an unlikely saviour—eighty-nine-year-old Betty McLeod. The cuboid-shaped woman, with her signature hairnet, but no hair, and tartan tent dresses, was the scourge of the Highlands. She had the personality of a rabid hyena and the moral compass of a campaigning politician. But for some reason, in spite of her failings, or maybe because of them, Lake Benson had practically adopted her. He called her his pet Hobbit; she called him son. As far as Callum knew, Lake had been the only person on the planet Betty wasn’t out to mess with—until him.

Callum wasn’t sure what he’d done to acquire her interest in his life, but it seemed there was no getting rid of her. And heaven knew he’d tried. She’d come with Lake on one of the days he’d visited to check up on Callum, when he’d first moved into his grandfather’s old house in Scotland. She’d barrelled through the door, cackling like a witch when he told her to go to hell. Then she’d taken a look around, and said, “Son, it looks like I’m already there. This place is a pigsty. Make me a cup of tea. Lake’s got the cake. Then tell me why you’re trying to kill yourself and what I can do to help.” From the evil glint in her eye, Callum was pretty sure she meant help to end his life and not help to stop him.

For some reason, Callum had made the tea. He now had weekly phone calls from Betty, where she told him he was being an arse and discussed euthanasia methods with him. As far as therapy went, it was probably enough to get them both committed.

“Why the hell didn’t you answer the phone earlier?” Betty said by way of hello when Callum picked it up this time.

“I was busy.” For once, he hadn’t been busy staring at his gun and wondering if this was the day he was going to put the barrel in his mouth and pull the trigger.

“Doing what?” Her aged croak of a voice was like sandpaper on his eardrums.

“None of your bloody business.”

She laughed, and Callum shook his head.

“Did it involve some self-pleasure?” she said. “If it did, film it next time and send it to me. I need to make the most of the years I have left.”

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Pansy arse.”

“What do you want?”

Callum caught sight of movement through the kitchen window. Someone was coming down his drive. A very familiar someone. His heart began to beat faster at the sight of Isobel Sinclair. She’d been delivering his groceries for months now, but he’d rarely seen her. It had been a deliberate move on his part, forced by self-preservation. Everything about Isobel called to him, making him want to drag the curvy woman into his lair and spend a few hours forgetting his life with her body. And that was something he couldn’t let happen. He’d learned the hard way that he was better off alone.

“I’m phoning to see if you’re dead,” Betty said, dragging his attention back to her. “Still with us, I see.”

“Why do you sound disappointed?”

“We’ve already established that I think you’re a big pansy arse for even thinking about offing yourself. I’ve been through a helluva lot more in my lifetime than you have, and I’m still standing. You need to suck it up and get on with the life you’ve been given.”

Aye, so she’d told him. On numerous occasions. Callum wondered yet again why he bothered to pick up the phone when she called. “What have you endured that’s worse than having both your legs blown off?” He should have kept his mouth shut. It was an amateur mistake. One he’d only made because he was distracted by the woman walking towards his house.

“You don’t know loss and agony until you’ve had a hysterectomy, son. Don’t even get me started on what a double mastectomy feels like.”

“No,” Callum said. “Let’s not get you started.”

He was still dazed from the visit when she’d offered to flash her boobless chest at him, in order to show him it was still possible to live a good life with missing body parts. Or as she had said, “So you’ll see that you can still be sexy when there’s stuff missing. Being boobless hasn’t slowed me down any. Ask the vicar.” Then she’d given him a toothless grin—because she’d lost her teeth in Lake’s car. It had taken the two men working together to get her under control. Callum was still traumatised just thinking about it.

“I need to go,” Callum said, his eyes on Isobel as she let herself through his gate. There were no groceries in her hands. This wasn’t a delivery. Immediately, every instinct he had went on alert and he noted every detail about her.

She was paler than usual, and her dark hair, tied in a twist, was nowhere as neat as she normally kept it. She looked around furtively, as though afraid someone was watching.

Or she was afraid of him.

“Are you going to shoot yourself? Is that why you need to go?” Betty asked.

“Not today, Satan, not today.”

“Good. Then can you finish that bowl you’re making and send it to me, so I can give it to Kirsty? I need something to bribe her with.”

That was enough to pull his attention away from Isobel. Just. How the hell did Betty know he was woodturning? His eyes scanned the room and he cursed under his breath. There was a tiny camera fixed in the corner of the room near the ceiling. Bloody Elle, she’d bugged him. Of course she had. He’d bet there were cameras all over the damn property, watching every damn move he made. The staff of Benson Security had no concept of personal boundaries.

“I’m going to kill them,” Callum muttered. Right after he found every bloody surveillance toy on his property.

“Can you do it after you’ve finished the bowl?”

“I can’t believe you lot have been watching me. What have you been doing? Sitting around, eating popcorn and monitoring the sad sack in Arness?”

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist. There’s no camera in the bathroom. I argued for one, but everybody kept saying that was an abuse of your privacy. They wouldn’t let me watch the night-time feed, either.” Betty’s voice turned wicked. “Is it true you sleep in the nude?”

Callum shuddered. He couldn’t even think of anything to say to that. As soon as the call ended, he was going to remove every damn camera and shove them up…

“Kirsty would like it,” Betty said, pulling his attention away from his plans. “She likes all that arty-farty crap. And she’s banned me from the security office, so I need to bribe my way back in. Can you send it to me this weekend? Before you kill yourself?”

Callum didn’t have the energy to follow Betty’s logic. Isobel was at his door, and his house was full of cameras, so that his ex-colleagues could spy on him. He sure as hell didn’t have the time to ask Betty what she’d done that was bad enough to get her banned from Benson Security’s Invertary office—she practically lived in her armchair in the corner of the reception area.

“I’m hanging up now,” Callum said as Isobel rang his doorbell.

“Don’t die before you finish the bowl,” Betty shouted, “and put a bow on it. Make it fancy before you send it. Kirsty’s in a foul mood, and a bow would definitely help.”

With a shake of his head, Callum ended the call. He had more on his mind than Betty’s pathetic attempt to pay off Lake Benson’s wife. It wasn’t going to work, anyway. Kirsty had grown up in Invertary. A deep distrust of Betty had been bred into her from birth.

Callum stared at the door as Isobel rang the bell again. If he opened it, he’d be opening himself up to whatever problem she obviously had. He didn’t do that anymore. He didn’t get involved with other people’s problems. And he sure as hell wasn’t someone who could help her.

Through the frosted glass, he saw her shift in place before she rapped the door with her knuckles. Callum broke out in a cold sweat. Part of him itched to pull open the door and offer his help. The rest of him knew that what little help he could offer wouldn’t be of much use.

Isobel knocked the door again, and this time, it was a much more timid tap, as though she was losing her confidence. Callum’s heart pounded. She would soon get fed up and go, taking her problems along with her. That was what he wanted. He rubbed his sweaty palms on his jeans. Aye, he definitely wanted her to take her problems elsewhere.

Through the window, he watched her step back, look at the door and chew at her bottom lip. She wrung her hands in front of her. All colour had gone from her face. Her usually pink cheeks were pale. Slowly, her eyes closed, and she nodded and turned, heading back down the path.

And just like that, something inside Callum, something he’d thought long dead, snapped into action.

“Damn it to hell!”

He shot a one-fingered salute at the camera and then lunged for the door.

Isobel turned away from the old house, torn between feeling relief and disappointment that the Arness Outlaw wasn’t home. It was probably for the best. She’d been going over what to say all the way to his house, which was a fair walk along the bluff from her place, and she still hadn’t come up with a way to casually mention the dead man in her freezer.

“What do you want?”

The sudden, terse words made Isobel squeak and trip over her own feet. She righted herself fast, and spun to find Callum McKay standing in his open doorway. And just like that, her mind emptied of all rational thought.

“Well?” The word rumbled out of him in a menacing growl.

Isobel looked up. And up. She almost had to crane her neck to look him in the eye. At just over five foot, Isobel was used to looking up at people. What she wasn’t used to, was feeling so incredibly vulnerable while she did it.

With his arms folded over his tight grey T-shirt, making his already oversized shoulders bulge, Callum looked like everything the villagers whispered about him—outlaw, bad boy, marauder, stealer of virtue…

“You going to talk, or just stare at me?” Even his voice was pure, rough whisky.

Isobel blinked a couple of times, trying to pull herself out of the daze he’d put her in. The cloak of danger hung heavily on him. He was a man who was used to being the strongest, meanest threat around. Isobel wasn’t sure if knowing that made her want to run from him or to him.

She licked her very dry lips and forced out some words. “You’re Callum McKay.”

She fought the urge to cringe. For an opening line, it wasn’t that impressive. But what else could she say? You’re the sexiest, most terrifying man I’ve ever met and I think I just ovulated from being in your presence. Oh, and by the way, there’s a dead man in my freezer.

His eyes narrowed, drawing her attention to the harsh planes of his face. He’d been chiselled out of granite, and the sculptor had been too intimidated by the result to polish him. Callum was all rough edges and solid power. And he was waiting for her to say something else.

“I’m Isobel Sinclair.”

He frowned. “I know that. What I don’t know is what you want.”

To be naked and at your mercy?

Isobel smacked her palm over her mouth, before she realised she hadn’t said the words aloud. Her face began to burn, and she actually considered running from Callum and taking her chances with the police.

She peeled her fingers from her mouth one at a time and tried to smile. She was pretty sure it only made her look more manic. Casual, she told herself, be casual. You can do this.

“So, I hear you were in the army?”

Oh, that was not the right thing to say. If Callum was scary before, he was downright terrifying now. Every muscle in his body turned to steel and his eyes became glacial.

“Where did you hear that?”

Isobel swallowed hard. “A-around.”

“And what’s it to you?”

Isobel took a step back and felt a bush poke into her rear. It hurt, but she didn’t step forward again. “J-just being friendly. Neighbourly. You’ve been here a few months and I-I thought I should welcome you…s-seeing as you’re here alone…and you…you know…don’t go out much.” Her face was burning up now, and with every tiny lie she told, her stutter got worse. In desperation, she reached for something to say that was truth. “I live along the bluff.” She pointed in the direction of her house. “On a clear day, I can see Ireland from my house.”

Kill me now!

Callum stared at her as though he was trying to figure out a puzzle. Isobel started to back up again before she remembered she was already in the bush. The silence became so heavy that it was hard to breathe.

“Did you see any conflict?” she blurted. “In the army, I mean. Y-you must have seen some interesting things. I’ve a-always been really i-interested in guns and other a-army stuff. Tanks! T-tanks are especially c-cool. And big. Tanks are big. And don’t have any w-windows. I-I’ve always w-wondered how the s-soldier could see to drive…w-without windows…in a tank…with tank-sized g-guns. You must know a lot about g-guns. A-and tanks. A-and…” she cast around for anything at all she could remember about the army. Anything! “And c-camouflage…” Honestly, it took all her self-control not to groan loudly and run away as fast as her legs could carry her.

Callum didn’t move, didn’t speak—he only watched her as she dug her hole deeper with every word.

“I-I hear there are d-different types of camouflage f-for different environments.”

He stared at her with that blank expression.

Isobel swallowed hard. “I-I had a pink camouflage dress o-once.”

Still blank.

“Not m-much use for p-pink in the army, though…” She forced a laugh, and it morphed into something quite hysterical that she had to work hard to stop. “So.” She cleared her throat. “I thought, maybe, y-you’d like to c-come to my house and h-have tea and talk about army s-stuff.” She looked at him hopefully. Desperately.

Callum’s chin jerked upwards as though she’d struck him. His cheeks coloured with what she knew was rage.

“You’re one of those women, then,” he said. “The kind that thinks combat is sexy. Do you get hot hearing battle stories? Are you hoping I’ll show you my scars? You’re out of luck, lady. I don’t sleep with army groupies. You want to get off with a soldier, look elsewhere.”

Isobel felt like she’d been slapped. “What? No!”

Callum shook his head. “Clear out before I lose my temper.” He turned his back on her.

Isobel rushed forward, but her top snagged in the bush, holding her back.

“It’s not like that. That’s not why I’m here.”

He strode into the house, ignoring her.

Isobel panicked and did what she always did under pressure: she blurted the truth.

“There’s a dead body in my freezer and I don’t know what to do with it!”