Page 35 of One Forbidden Kiss with the Laird (The Cinderella Shepherd Sisters #2)

Today, though, his emotions were too overwhelming to get any sort of clarity.

He walked briskly until he came out at the top of the hill, the bank falling away sharply in front of him to give a clear view of the sparkling water.

This was his home, his land. His mother had always joked that if you cut him open you would find the soil of the Highlands all the way through him.

In the years of his exile—for it had felt like an exile, a punishment for not being able to save his ancestral lands—he had longed for the sweet air of the mountains and the cool waters of the lochs.

When he had first set foot back on Scottish soil he had felt as though a piece of himself had been restored.

As he stood looking out over the shimmering waters of the loch he felt something new, a longing that was not solely focused on his ancestral lands. There was an emptiness in his heart that he had never felt before when up here.

‘I can’t do this without her,’ he murmured to himself. Whatever happened, whatever the future held, he did not want to be facing it without Selina.

Yet he knew he would never forgive himself if he put his own needs and desires above those of the people relying on him. Surely the right decision was one that benefited the most people. He needed to save the people of Ballachulish from…

His thought trailed off as his mind fixed on one word.

Save . As it circled again and again round his mind he felt it didn’t sound quite right.

The people who lived and worked on the tenant farms and rented houses from Sir William looked to him for leadership, but they had never asked him to save them.

It was something his mother had tried to gently point out time and again over the years.

He did not need to be their saviour. They were people with complex lives.

Yes, he could make things better for them by regaining control of the land and being a fair landlord, but they had never asked him to save them.

Callum leaned forward, resting his hands on his thighs and sucking in great gulps of air.

He felt suddenly sick, looking back at his actions over the years in a new light.

The light that everyone else must view things in.

He saw himself as a young man, barely more than a boy, grieving the father he had a complicated relationship with, struggling to come to terms with the mountain of debt his inheritance was under.

The decision he’d made that day, to sell the estate, had been inescapable, but even now more than a decade on he still felt a pang of guilt every time he thought of it.

Of course, there had been no other option.

It was either sell or let the creditors come and seize what they wanted.

At least by selling he had been able to provide his mother with her little cottage, a home to call her own while he sought his fortune in Canada.

Even his years in Canada had been plagued by guilt.

Every moment of every day he had carried the faces of the people of Ballachulish, the men and women whom he felt a great responsibility for.

He had pored over every letter, desperate for news, blaming himself when a family had to move away or were struck by some tragedy.

His focus on making enough money to start the process of buying back some of the land he had lost had been all-consuming and now Callum wondered if it was completely healthy.

Since his return to Scotland, and his negotiations with Sir William, he had felt there was a sliver of hope.

The possibility that he might regain what he had lost had been addictive and he had barrelled down the proposed path without really thinking.

For once his overriding emotion had not been guilt, but hope, and it was much better than the alternative.

In his mind he saw a way to redeem himself, to redeem his family.

Callum straightened and wondered what would happen if he let go of the guilt completely.

If he accepted his father was the one solely responsible for losing the estate, that as a lad of eighteen there was absolutely nothing he could have done differently.

It lifted that sense of duty, that sense of responsibility.

Perhaps this was what his mother meant when she had told him not to let his pride ruin everything.

He blamed himself for the misery of everyone in Ballachulish and as such he wanted to be the only person to solve the issue. Instead of reaching out and asking for help, he had held the problem close, determined that he would be the one to resolve everything.

If he conceded he was not responsible for the selling of the Thomson family estate, he could consider things more rationally.

Instead of being honour-bound to regain every last parcel of land he had lost, he could focus on really helping those most in need.

Although it would be nice to get back Taigh Blath, he did not need it.

He would be happy in a little cottage in the village, just as long as he had Selina by his side.

Selina . He had messed everything up there. He loved her and she loved him, but despite that she was still planning on leaving. She had seen well before him that his obsession with restoring his family’s lands was going to destroy anything they could share.

Callum breathed deeply, taking in large lungfuls of the fresh air.

He crouched down and dug his fingers into the dirt, taking a great handful of it, picking it up and then turning his palm over and letting the dirt run through his fingers.

He repeated the action a few times, trying to ground himself, to connect his body with the land he loved dearly.

‘You’ve been a pig-headed fool,’ he murmured to himself.

An idea was beginning to form, a way forward that would take compromise, but would allow him to be happy.

Rising up, he looked once more at the view.

First he needed to see Selina, to explain everything to her, to grovel for not being the man she had needed a few hours earlier.

This last year she had been rejected by her father, kept close enough to control, but shown no real affection.

No wonder she had decided to push Callum away.

He should have declared his undying love for her loud and clear for everyone to hear, not asked her to wait with uncertainty while he tried to arrange everything to his advantage.

She deserved more. She deserved to be somebody’s everything.

‘My everything,’ Callum said.

He just hoped she would forgive him.