The Highlanders: A Smitten Historical Romance Collection

by J'nell Ciesielski

  “Looks like you were in quite a scuffle,” the man said, squinting at Callan’s face.

  “What? Oh, nay, ’twasna a scuffle. ’Twas an accident up in the woods.”

  The minister nodded. “I see. Which lumber outfit are you with?” He must have thought Callan an idiot when he was unable to form a coherent answer. Because just at that moment, the blond lass glanced back over her shoulder and favored the bashful Scotsman with a shy smile.

  He lived on the memory of that smile all through the noon meal with Lars, and through the long days of chopping, felling, and hauling timber in the woods once the boss deemed him fully recovered. Because at the end of that week, dangling before him like a carrot before a pack mule there’d be another trip to town, another church service, and another chance of being favored with that smile.

  Funny. I didn’t think loggers went to church.

  That thought popped into Rose’s mind as she helped her sister peel potatoes for Sunday dinner, but she opted not to voice it and thus open the door to another of Daisy’s screeds. But she didn’t have to, because Daisy introduced the topic herself, in a roundabout way.

  “I noticed there was a stranger in church today,” Daisy said. “That man who practically toppled you over after the service. I wonder who he was.”

  Rose blinked. How could her sister not know? Maybe she hadn’t gotten a good look at his banged-up face. Or maybe he appeared different in his church clothes. Either way, Rose wasn’t about to clue her in. Instead she said, “We ought to have introduced ourselves. I was so startled, I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  After a brief pause, Daisy said, “You’re right. We should always make an effort to greet visitors to our church. I suppose we were caught off guard.” She shrugged. “Well, I’m sure Pastor Nolan took care of it.” As though welcoming strangers was a chore to be sloughed off to others.

  “He was rather nice-looking, though, wasn’t he?”

  “I suppose so, but he had no wife with him,” Daisy sniffed. “He was probably a traveling salesman or such, passing through on the railroad. I give the fellow credit for going to church, but I doubt we’ll be seeing much of him.”

  Rose wiped the paring knife with a cloth and studied her sister. “Have you heard that the Pinkerton Agency is hiring lady detectives? Perhaps you should apply.”

  Daisy’s forehead creased. “Me? Why?”

  Rose sweetened her tone. “Because, apparently, you’re able to tell everything about a person before you’ve so much as been introduced. The Pinkertons could use a person with that level of skill.”

  Daisy’s face colored. “I’m only trying to make sure you meet the right sort of people while you’re here. The sort of men who shop in Robert’s store, for instance,” she said as her husband walked into the room. “Right, Robert?”

  “Right.” Robert offered his usual affirmative response to any suggestion his wife made. “What are we talking about?”

  “Introducing Rose to suitable young men. Surely you must have some nice young, single customers at your haberdashery.”

  “All my best customers are suitable,” he said. “Suit-able. Get it?”

  Rose giggled, but Daisy cast a withering look.

  “Will dinner be ready soon? I’m famished.” He snatched a carrot stick from the relish tray.

  “Five minutes,” Daisy said, administering a gentle slap to his thieving hand.

  Rose set a basket of rolls on the table. “As I’ve told you, Daisy, I’m not in the market for a beau. At any rate, if no students sign up for music lessons, I won’t be staying in Sandpoint long enough for it to matter. I’ll have to move to a bigger town where I can earn a living.”

  “Not on your own, you won’t,” Daisy said. “You can either live here with Robert and me or go back to Chicago and live with Mother and Father. Those are your options.”

  “I won’t go back to Chicago. Not as long as Jeremy still lives there, which likely will be forever.” She filled the water glasses from a white hobnail pitcher. “But if I can’t teach music, I’ll be wasting my education. All those years at the conservatory, and for what? So I can fade away in some backwater town?”

  “So you can marry a good man and rear lovely children and teach music to them,” Daisy declared. “Now come sit down, you two, before dinner gets cold.”

  The following Saturday, when several of his crew descended into town for a rowdy night out, Callan joined them for the ride down. He claimed the same cot near the window in the room he shared with Lars. If the neighbor chanced to play the Victrola again, he’d be in a good spot to hear it.

  After supper, as dusk settled over the lively town and his mates headed for the tavern, he took a long solitary walk, hoping to catch a glimpse of the blond girl. No such luck. Maybe he’d see her at church the next day. At the general store, he bought a bag of licorice, then returned to Mrs. Donovan’s, stretched out on his cot, picked up a copy of Moby Dick that he’d borrowed from the camp library and began to read.

  Sure enough, along about eight thirty, the sweet notes of a violin wafted through the azure twilight. He closed Moby Dick and set it aside. This evening’s selection was a Brahms sonata. It wasn’t generated by a Victrola, after all, but by an actual violinist, for the musician stopped, repeated a short passage several times, then started over again from the beginning. The mysterious violinist was skilled and exacting, rehearsing difficult passages until they were flawless. Callan crossed his arms behind his head, closed his eyes, and let the gorgeous notes soak into his soul like a refreshing rain after a parched season of crude loggers’ ditties.

  After a short while, he sat up. This was stupid. He should just go over there and find out who was playing. Maybe he and the violinist could strike up an acquaintance. At the very least, they’d have in common their taste in music, which was not shared by anyone else in the logging camp or even in the town, as far as he could tell.

  But before he boldly knocked on some stranger’s door, he wanted to get an idea of what sort of person he’d be dealing with. He left the rooming house by the front porch and walked around to the side lawn. Scanning the building next door, he approached a single open, lighted window toward the back of the house where the music sounded the clearest.

  He pressed himself against the clapboard siding and leaned over to peer in the window. He had intended to just grab a quick glimpse of the player to determine whether man or woman, old or young, friendly- or intimidating-looking, before approaching the front door like a proper visitor. But in the same moment that the violinist’s identity registered in his startled brain, he stepped on the tail of a stray cat, which let out a bloodcurdling yowl, ricocheted off his shin, and sped into the night.

  The sonata screeched to a halt. A sharp female voice called, “Is someone out there?” Quick footsteps tapped across the wooden floor. A calico-clad arm pushed aside the lace curtain, and a lovely face framed by blond hair—the face he’d been watching for all day—appeared in the window.

  There was no use trying to run. Callan stood exposed in the gloom, a sheepish grin on his face.

  “Hello.”

  “You!” The girl’s voice rushed out in a mix of surprise and horror. “What are you doing, creeping around outside my window? Are you trying to see in? Are you some kind of peeping Tom?” Her pitch rose along with her indignation. She raised her violin as if ready to clobber him with it.

  “Nay!” Callan held up his hands. “Nay, lass, I wasna tryin to look in. Well, I was, but ’tis not what ye be thinkin.” His brogue thickened in his agitation.

  “What, then?” In the light of a nearby table lamp, a rosy color stained her cheeks. She liked to take his breath away, even more than she had in the church.

  “I—I was just—” A score of excuses scrolled through his mind, from collecting wildflowers to getting lost on the way home, each one lamer than the last.

  “Well?” She placed one hand on her hip. The other still gripped the neck of her violin, as if ready to use it as
a weapon, if needed.

  “Rose?” called a woman from the front of the house. “Who are you talking to in there?”

  The girl wheeled around. “No one, Daisy. Just—just scolding myself for messing up a passage. Mister Brahms is giving me trouble tonight.”

  Rose, thought Callan. Her name was Rose. And apparently, she was more clever about making up excuses on the spot than he was.

  “Yer name suits ye,” he said when she turned back to the window.

  “Does it now?” She didn’t sound impressed. “Are you drunk?”

  He chuckled in spite of himself. “Nay, lass. Sober as a lawman. And I’m sorry for givin ye a fright.”

  She regarded him coolly. “You’re Scottish.”

  “Am I now? Thank ye for tellin me.” He gave a little bow. “Aye, I come from a small town not far from Loch Lomond. Ye know the song?”

  She nodded.

  He gave a little bow. “Callan MacTavish, at yer service.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “So, Mr. MacTavish of Loch Lomond. How did you come to be lurking outside my window?”

  “I dinna mean to lurk. ’Tis just that I was sittin upstairs there”—he gestured toward the top story of the rooming house—“hearin the beautiful tunes ye were playin, and I couldna help myself. I had to see for myself who it was makin an instrument sing like that.”

  “Shh. My sister will hear you.” Her expression softened. In a slightly mollified tone, she continued. “Well, you can’t very well creep about in the lilacs like a common burglar.”

  His spirit lifted. “Are ye welcomin me inside, then?”

  “No. I can’t. Besides, it’s much too late for you to be calling.”

  “Perhaps I could call on ye tomorrow, then. I just want to hear ye play.” While not the entire truth, it wasn’t a complete lie either. He did want to hear her play. And he didn’t want to scare her off completely by suggesting anything more.

  A small crease appeared between her eyes. “I don’t think that will work, either. My sister, she … she doesn’t trust loggers.”

  “I’m not comin here as a logger,” he reasoned. “I’m here as a fellow music-lover.”

  “I don’t think that will make any difference.” Rose hesitated. Suddenly her expression cleared. “Unless …”

  “Unless what?” He was ready to climb the castle walls, to slay a fire-breathing dragon if he had to, if it meant getting to spend time in the company of this fetching lass.

  “Unless you sign up for music lessons.”

  “What?”

  “Shh!” She leaned forward over the sill. “If you sign up for music lessons, Daisy won’t think twice about letting you call on me. She’ll view it as a business arrangement.”

  “But I dinna need lessons. I just want to listen.”

  She straightened. “Lessons are the only way. Daisy will never agree otherwise to your calling on me.”

  While music lessons weren’t remotely what he had in mind, he heard himself agreeing. Anything to see her again.

  “Next Saturday, then,” she said. “After supper. Let’s say seven o’clock.” She turned her head as if listening for a sound. “My sister’s coming. Now shoo.”

  She withdrew from the window as suddenly as she’d appeared. He walked back to the boarding house on air, whistling Brahms.

  But later, as he climbed into bed, it was no longer Brahms he heard floating through the window, but the sweet, melancholy strains of “Loch Lomond.”

  Chapter 4

  THE NEXT DAY, CALLAN rose early and dressed in his Sunday suit with an eagerness inspired by much more than the prospect of a rousing hymn or bracing sermon. As he stood in front of the mirror, wielding a comb to tame an unruly cowlick, Lars stirred in bed.

  “Off to church again?” he rasped in a voice thick with sleep. “Man, we’re up before the sun six days a week. Why don’t you take the seventh off? Day of rest and all that.”

  “’Twould do ye a world of good to come with me,” Callan admonished. Lars grunted and rolled over, wrapping the blanket more tightly around himself.

  Callan hastened to the church where Rose was again seated with her sister and brother-in-law. He took a seat in the rear of the church so he could watch her. Once or twice he caught her glance, and she smiled. He planned to speak to her after the service. But the three of them hurried out before he could do more than tip his hat to her. Disappointed, he met up with his mates for a meal in a café. Over beef stew and biscuits, they encouraged him to join them on a fishing expedition out on Lake Pend Oreille before heading back up the mountain.

  “We’ve rented a boat for the afternoon. We aim to bring back plenty of salmon for Cook to fry for supper.”

  “Nay, thank ye,” Callan said. “Just leave me a pole and line. I’ll stick to fishin from here on the shore.”

  Lars looked at him as though he were daft. “Suit yourself, but you won’t catch much standin on the pier. The bitin’s better out in the middle of the lake.”

  “I prefer to stay here,” Callan said firmly. “That way if fishin fails to hold my interest, I can find some other way to pass the time.” He half-hoped that loitering around outside Rose’s house would somehow cause her to appear on the sidewalk and take a walk with him. On the other hand, such behavior might get him arrested as a masher and banished forever from her presence. It was probably safer to stick to fishing.

  “You’re a funny duck,” Lars said, but he didn’t argue. As Callan watched the small steamer pull away from the dock with his friends aboard, he felt a tug of regret. In fact, he used to love fishing. He’d passed many a sweet afternoon catching lake trout as a lad in Scotland. But that had been a long time ago. These days no promise of fish—not even a bounty of fresh salmon to give them all a break from the endless pork and beans—could entice him to climb in that boat and venture out onto the deep, dark water.

  “What’s the hurry?” Rose asked as Daisy and Robert hustled her out of the church. She’d hoped to talk to the tall man with the sandy hair, but her sister refused to linger. “Can’t we stay a few minutes and visit with people?”

  “We must get home.” Daisy sounded harried. “We have a guest coming for Sunday dinner.”

  “Who?”

  “An acquaintance of Robert’s named Miles Godfrey. He’s an attorney for the railroad.”

  By the description, Rose expected to meet a portly, gray-haired man of distinction, but he turned out to be no older than Robert, although his gaunt frame, spectacles perched on a long thin nose, and formal demeanor gave him the air of a much older man. He brought to Rose’s mind an illustration of Ichabod Crane from her childhood copy of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, an awkwardly built gentleman, receding of both hairline and chin.

  “Mr. Godfrey enjoys music like you do, Rose,” Daisy said when she introduced them, her voice weighting the fact with significance. “I thought after dinner you might play something for us.”

  The man’s eyes lit up behind his spectacles. “I’d be delighted to hear you play.”

  Rose nodded politely. She didn’t particularly enjoy performing on command, but entertaining a guest was the least she could do to repay her sister’s hospitality.

  During dinner she found that Mr. Godfrey did indeed know a lot about music—so much so that he totally dominated the conversation with his strong opinions, declaring ragtime “odious,” Debussy “of questionable taste” and Bartok “a talentless hack.” He also had much to say, none of it positive, about the new strain of music bubbling northward up the Mississippi from New Orleans.

  “It’s called ‘jass,’” he explained, “or, as some say, ‘jazz.’” He curled his lip as if detecting a foul odor.

  “I’ve not heard it yet,” Rose admitted, “but I’m curious about it. A professor at the conservatory was going to share with the class a recording made by a man named Jelly Roll Morton, but I—I left school before getting to hear it.” What else had she missed out on by leaving the conservatory?

  Mr. Godfr
ey scrutinized her through his spectacles. “Think of a brass band gone berserk, all trying to play at once, and not even the same song,” was his lofty pronouncement. “Just a lot of noise.”

  If Daisy had hoped that a shared interest in music would spark an “understanding” between Rose and Mr. Godfrey, she was mistaken. Not to mention he possessed none of the rugged appeal of a certain sandy-haired, square-jawed lumberjack. Even so, after dinner, she kept her promise to play for their guest. She set up her music stand in the front parlor and took a seat, then played a series of short melodies. When she’d finished, the assembled group sat dumbfounded.

  “Goodness, Rose,” Daisy said. “I’ve not heard you play those pieces before. Why, they sounded positively … gypsy-like.” Her face contorted as though she were having trouble deciding whether she approved or not.

  “That was splendid, Rose,” Robert said, and Rose cast a grateful smile at the effort, her brother-in-law being a man of few words.

  “Magnificent, Miss Marchmont,” Mr. Godfrey exulted, his eyes aglow behind his spectacles. “Such technique! Such exquisite tone! You must tell me who wrote that mysterious, haunting composition.”

  Rose attempted, but not very hard, to keep the smugness out of her voice. “Bartok.”

  At the end of the evening, Mr. Godfrey prepared to take his leave. “Thank you for a delightful afternoon.” He turned to Daisy. “Dinner was delicious. You are most kind.”

  “Not at all. You must come again.” She retrieved his hat from the rack.

  “Glad you could join us, Godfrey,” Robert said heartily, pumping the guest’s hand.

  Mr. Godfrey turned to Rose and took her reluctant hand in his damp one. “Miss Marchmont, there will be a concert of the visiting Seattle Symphony on Saturday next in Coeur d’Alene. I would be most honored if you would accompany me.”

  “Oh, thank you, Mr. Godfrey,” Rose said, “but I regret I have another engagement on Saturday.”