Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 109368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
But then …
A creaking sound brought my head up as a draft of cool air hit me. I gaped in shock.
The wall beside the light had opened.
Opened like a freaking door.
I straightened, a million questions and thoughts running through my head.
Of course, curiosity got the better of me, and I found myself pushing the wall open farther. The movement hit sensors and light spilled into the secret room.
Ramsay had a secret … war room?
I stepped into it, my breathing heavy as my heart raced.
There was a bank of three computers that suddenly lit up with images of forestry, coastline, and the clearing outside. Sucking in a breath, I moved toward them, my gaze bouncing between the screens that had split views.
Of Stòr.
There were cameras all over the island.
There were even cameras at the little white house with the dock. Ramsay had told me it was the home the previous owner built, but Ramsay only used it as storage and it had a bed, in case anyone needed to use it. There was a camera inside that building and outside it facing the water.
A terrible thought crossed my mind, and I scanned the cameras for the inside of this house.
There were none.
Only cameras on the outside. I could see Cammie and Greig at the pickup truck.
Relieved to discover he hadn’t been filming me inside his home without permission, I stepped back to take in the walls.
They were covered. With weapons.
Different kinds of handguns and rifles. Knives.
More weapons than any one man needed.
This was … this was the kind of room a man who was running from serious shit kept.
Is this … is this what he’d been hiding from me? Literally.
The sound of the front door slamming had me skittering out of the secret room. I instinctively pushed the light back into position and the wall closed.
I studied the mastery of the woodwork, the way the wall paneling masked the line of the door, and I knew Ramsay built this himself.
Footsteps had me quickly reaching for my perfume bottle. I’d just dumped it into the shopping bag when Cammie appeared in the bedroom doorway. “Are you done?”
“Yeah.”
Her gaze swept the room, and I knew something cheeky flirted on her tongue by the quirk of her lips. Then she saw my expression and whatever she was going to say died. Instead, she asked, “Are you okay?”
Still reeling from the shock of the secret room, I covered whatever was on my expression with a half-truth. “Just … memories. Let’s go. Okay?”
“Sure. Greig and I got the dresser in the truck.”
“Already? By yourselves?”
“We’re strong.” She shrugged and I could see her looking around the house as we walked out. “McRae has a shit ton of books.”
“He inherited them from his parents.”
“He told you that?” she asked, surprised.
“Yeah. He had his moments, you know.” I stepped outside and waited for her to clear the doorway. Locking it, I then put the key back where I’d found it. “Let’s go before the tide changes.”
Cammie slid her arm around my shoulders, hugging me into her side. “You’re amazing, Tierney Silver. A total badass. And he doesn’t deserve you.”
Her words rang in my head as we reached the truck and I saw the Welsh dresser in the bed. Ramsay had stained it with a clear finish like I’d wanted. It was beautiful. I placed the bag of my stuff in the bed too since there wasn’t much room in the cab.
And he doesn’t deserve you.
I turned back to look at the house, thinking of where I’d found my stuff.
Thinking of the hidden room that spoke of a man who led a secret life that was frankly a little scary.
And he doesn’t deserve you.
Is that what Ramsay thought too?
Was that why he’d broken us?
If that was true, it hurt worse than anything.
Because I knew it was impossible to love someone who didn’t really love themselves.
Any kernel of hope I’d been clinging to, a hope of some miraculous reconciliation … it withered and died with that realization.
37. Ramsay
The urge to get on the ferry to Glenvulin was strong. Somehow, however, I forced myself to get on the stage for our midday gig in Portree on the Isle of Skye.
We were booked again to perform that night in Broadford before traveling back home the next day.
I had to get through an entire twenty-four hours without giving in to the need to race back to Leth Sholas to make sure Silver didn’t give me away.
Only instinct kept me on Skye.
The instinctual belief that Silver wouldn’t betray my secret.
When the truck had approached my house, the app on my phone went off to alert me. I knew, of course, it was Cammie because I’d reluctantly given her the keys to my workshop to collect the dresser she couldn’t bloody wait another day for.
Then my app alerted me because my front door had been breached.