Jack shook his head. “Do whatever you do but Belle and I aren’t moving back to The Point today.”
Angus threw his head back and hooted before looking at Jack. “Lad, you think we’ve been sitting back drinking whisky and chasing ghosty vibes? Belle’s protected. Cass has got her covered. Cass has got everyone covered. The whole house has so much protection it’d take a powerful coven to break through and, even for them, it’d take days.”
Jack was far from convinced but before he could share this with Angus, Angus spoke again.
“I know you don’t believe all I’m saying but believe this, I take my work seriously. My family, for generations, has been doing this work and we all take it seriously. We live it. We breathe it. It’s our legacy. In all my time doing this work I’ve no’ let anyone down and I’ll no’ start with you and I sure as hell will no’ let The Tiny Dynamo down.” He leaned in before he finished, saying, “Do you get me?”
He certainly sounded serious but Jack didn’t reply. He just held his stare.
Angus let it go and urged, “Talk to Belle about that night, Jack. We need to know what she saw and what she felt.”
“And, if there was some other…” he paused and then clipped out the word, “entity, what would you be looking for?”
“A cold draught is usually the way,” Angus answered. “It could feel like a slight breeze. It could be she saw her breath, like she was out in the chill air. Sometimes the ghosties appear full on, like Myrtle and Lewis like to do. Sometimes it’s just a feeling. Even if she just had a feeling she wasn’t alone, Cass and I need to know.”
Jack took a breath in through his nostrils and then he said what he couldn’t believe he had to say.
“I’ll talk to Belle.”
Angus smiled his demented smile. “Good lad.”
Then Jack continued to say what he couldn’t believe he had to say, “I need to get back to Belle but I’ll want a full briefing.”
Angus didn’t give the slightest indication of smugness. He just nodded and agreed, “Absolutely.”
Jack nodded back and then he and Angus started back to the morning room.
They didn’t make it.
They didn’t because they ran into Miles going the same direction.
“Miles,” Jack called, his voice curt and he watched his brother turn.
When Jack saw him, he noted there was something about Miles’s face, something Jack couldn’t quite read but whatever it was, it put Jack on edge and this only intensified when he heard Angus suck in breath behind him.
Miles rearranged his features and changed directions. Meeting Jack, Miles embraced his brother’s stiff frame.
“Jack, I’m so sorry,” Miles murmured, clapping him on the back while still embracing then releasing him and stepping away. “Elaine told me you and Belle were here. I thought I’d go –”
Jack cut him off, “Now’s not the time, Miles.”
Miles’s face grew tight then his eyes moved to Angus and they grew wide. “And who might you be?”
“The McPherson,” Angus announced, his booming voice, which Jack had noted in his short time with the Scot always had a warmth underlying it no matter if he was booming, hooting or telling you ridiculous facts about his job.
Now, Angus’s voice was stone cold.
“I’ll bet you are,” Miles muttered, humour in his tone and not nice humour.
“Miles –” Jack started and his brother’s eyes cut to him.
“I just want to see if Belle’s all right,” Miles stated.
“I’ll save you the trouble,” Jack told him bluntly. “She’s not. She fell down the stairs, sprained her wrist, gave herself a concussion, split open her temple which called for five stitches and she lost our child. One isn’t ‘all right’ when that happens.”
“Jack –” Miles began.
“Time, Miles,” Jack interrupted. “We need time.”
Miles’s face turned obstinate. “I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
Jack lost his patience, leaned toward his brother and clipped, “And I’m telling you the right thing is to give us… some f**king… time.”
Miles glared at Jack, shifted his glare to Angus then back to Jack and he said tersely, “Tell Belle she’s in my thoughts.”
“I’ll be certain to do that,” Jack lied.
Without another word, Miles walked away.
“Who, on the good God almighty’s earth, was that?” Angus asked, watching as Miles disappeared.
“My brother,” Jack replied.
“You’re not close?” Angus asked.
“Not even a little,” Jack answered.
Angus pursed his lips as if he was trying to stop himself from talking then he said softly, “Bad seed, lad.”
“You can say that again,” Jack muttered under his breath and then turned and led the way back to the morning room.
* * * * *
After Jack and Belle had coffee with the assemblage, Jack escorted Belle and Lila to the stables. As Lila forged ahead, Jack and Belle walked silently, hand in hand. It wasn’t, Jack was relieved to note, one of their recent tense silences. Instead, Belle seemed more at ease. He knew this because instead of holding her body stiffly away from his, she walked close, her fingers curved around his palm, her shoulder brushing his arm.
He helped her up to the loft the way he’d done it the first time they were in the stables together, coming up directly after her, his hands under hers on the rails, his frame protectively close to her body.
Once in the loft, Jack realised that Belle hadn’t protested their ascent. In fact, at the base of the ladder, she’d simply glanced at him, waiting for him to come to her, expecting him to take care of her.
Instead of celebrating this crowning achievement in one of the myriad ways he would have preferred, he controlled his urge and looked around the loft.
Jack saw that, since the last time he’d been there, Lila had been busy. She’d taken over the space, swept it clean, there was another table filled with paint tubes and brushes, a bean bag and some rugs and there were half a dozen canvasses tilted against the wall, all of them covered. An unfinished one sat on one of now three easels set up by the sliding doors. And there were snapshots of the view taken at different times of the day and through different weather tacked to the walls.
The unfinished painting was, Jack was fascinated to see, going to be part of her storm series and even unfinished it was already spectacular.