Wedding the Highlander

by Janet Chapman

  Robbie’s arrival interrupted the tense silence. He ran into the kitchen on a blast of cold air, the door slamming loudly behind him.

  “Libby! We had a fire at school,” he said excitedly in greeting, rushing to tell her his news. “It was in the boys’ bathroom, and the whole school filled up with smoke, and we had to leave without getting our coats and stuff.”

  Almost without breaking stride, Robbie walked over to Katherine and scratched Timid on the head, giving Libby’s mother a huge grin. “She’ll purr if ya tickle her right here,” he instructed, guiding Katherine’s fingers to the back of Timid’s ear. “She likes ya,” he added with authority, his grin widening. “Are ya Libby’s mama? ’Cause if ya are, I’ll like ya, too.”

  “Then I guess I am,” her mother replied, her warm brown eyes dancing with amusement. “And you can call me Katherine.”

  Robbie thought about that, studying her for a good long time. “I think I’ll call ya Gram Katie,” he finally decided. “’Cause old people like it when I call them things like that.”

  He turned to face James, completely oblivious to Katherine’s horror. “Who are you?” he asked, lifting his young chin. “You better not have come here to take Libby back to California, ’cause she’s not leaving. We’re keeping her. She’s got kittens and chickens to look after, and she signed a lease with me. It’s a contract that’s…” He looked at Libby, suddenly uncertain. “What is it again?” he whispered.

  “Binding,” Libby whispered back, barely containing her amusement.

  Robbie looked at James again, his young features rather threatening. “Yeah. Her contract is binding, and she can’t leave for a year.”

  “Well, if you had checked her references, young man,” James said sharply, “you’d know she makes a habit of breaking her contracts.”

  “James,” Katherine snapped. “That’s enough.”

  “Aye,” Michael interjected. “It is. Come on, son. You and I have to go buy Libby a new bed.”

  “What’s wrong with her old bed?” Robbie asked, shooting one final glare at James before giving Libby his attention. “Is it lumpy?” he asked her. “Or does it sag in the middle? ’Cause we can put a board under it if it sags.”

  “It-it’s lumpy,” Libby said past her blush, keeping her gaze from coming into contact with Michael’s. “But I want a new headboard as well,” she added, speaking directly to Robbie and hoping Michael was listening.

  Why on earth did he have to bring up the subject of her bed now, in front of her mother and James? And dammit, she wanted to pick out her own bed.

  Robbie leaned up to speak to his father as he kept a guarded eye on James. “I don’t think we should leave right now, Papa,” he whispered. “That guy with Gram Katie might try to steal Libby from us. We gotta stay until he’s gone.”

  Of course, everyone heard Robbie, including the subject of his distrust. James sneered, looking at Libby. “The child has no more manners than your cats.”

  Libby had had enough as well. She pointed her knife-skewered apple at James and decided it was time to tell him what she thought of his own manners. But Robbie beat her to it. The boy rounded on the condescending man and took a step toward him.

  “I don’t need manners,” he told him, his young fists balled at his sides. “’Cause I’ve got right on my side. And might,” he added, taking another step closer.

  “Might?” James sputtered in disbelief, his face darkening with anger.

  Libby moved to step between them, but Michael took hold of her arm and silently shook his head, his eyes filled with delight and no small amount of fatherly pride.

  “It’s my papa’s might,” Robbie explained, his tone even, his glare filled with challenge. “He’s a warrior, and he steps over bigger men than you just to get to a fight.”

  As threats went, Libby couldn’t have come up with a better one herself. For a worldly, sophisticated doctor who was so much at home in an operating room or a board meeting, it seemed James didn’t have a clue how to respond to the boy’s challenge. He didn’t know how to deal with children, period. Which was why, instead of snapping back, he darted a worried look at Michael, pulled out his chair, and sat down.

  Katherine reached over, her smile poorly hidden, and patted his hand. “Why don’t you bring in my suitcase from the car?” she softly suggested. “Then head back to the hotel and register yourself back in for the night. Elizabeth and I will cook a nice dinner, and you can return at seven o’clock and eat with us.”

  She looked at Robbie. “Does that sound acceptable to you, young man? You have my word we won’t try to steal Elizabeth away from you tonight.”

  Robbie shot an uncertain look at his father, frowned at Michael’s nod, and looked back at Katherine. “That sounds okay, I guess. And her name is Libby, not Elizabeth,” he told her.

  “It’s Dr. Elizabeth Hart,” James interjected, attempting to salvage some of his dignity. “She’s a very important surgeon back in California.”

  Libby winced, darting her own uncertain look at Michael when Robbie gasped and spun around to face her.

  “You’re not a doctor!” he shouted. “Ya make jewelry.”

  Libby tossed the apple and the knife onto the counter and took the angry boy by the shoulders. “I do make jewelry,” she told him gently. “But I’m also a doctor, Robbie. I operate on people who have been in terrible accidents.”

  He pulled away from her, stepping back and balling his hands into fists again. “Ya can’t be,” he whispered desperately. “Ya need a hospital to do operations, and we don’t have one. You’ll leave!” he shouted, spinning around and running out the door as quickly and as loudly as he’d come through it.

  Libby ran after him, but Michael caught her before she could step off the porch.

  “I have to go to him,” she said, struggling to get free. “I have to explain.”

  “Nay,” Michael said softly, turning her to face him. “He’ll not listen to ya right now.”

  “But I have to make him understand.”

  “He’ll calm down once I tell him you’re not leaving.”

  “And just why are you so sure I’m not?”

  He pulled her into his arm, lifting her chin to look at him. He smiled and squeezed her until she squeaked.

  “Because I’ve decided not to let you,” he said, kissing her on the end on the nose and then setting her away.

  He stepped off the porch and swaggered toward his truck and Robbie, without looking back.

  “Michael!”

  He stopped at his truck door and looked at her.

  “I want a nice bed, with a fancy headboard and footboard.”

  The grin he shot her was filled with pure arrogance. “I can’t promise ya fancy,” he said, sending shivers up her spine. “But I can promise ya it will be large and solid.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “What did Robbie mean,you make jewelry?” Katherine asked as she ran water in the sink and started peeling the potatoes.

  They had just gotten back from town and unloaded the groceries and were busy preparing dinner. Libby looked up from sliding the huge roast into the oven and gave her mother a sheepish smile.

  “I work with glass. I make pendants and earrings and bracelets.”

  Katherine stopped peeling. “Those are your creations? The little birds and plants you wear?”

  “You mean the ones all your friends have been trying to buy?” Libby asked, nodding. “Yeah. I made them.”

  “But how…where did you learn that? No, wait. My mother, right?” Katherine said with a sigh, shaking her head and turning back to her chore. “I should have guessed when you refused to give my friends the name of the artist.” She looked at Libby with dawning awareness. “The wood thrush you gave me for Christmas two years ago? You made it.”

  Libby nodded again, went to the fridge, and got out the carrots. “And the ivy leaf tie tack I gave Dad five years ago. I made that, too,” she confessed, coming to stand beside her mother at the sink
.

  “But they’re beautiful,” Katherine exclaimed. “No, wait. I didn’t mean for that to sound like it did. Of course, they’re beautiful, if you made them. You’ve always been good with your hands.”

  “Thank you.”

  Katherine stopped peeling again and stared at her.

  “That’s why you’re such a good surgeon, Elizabeth. You’re so damned good you make it seem like magic. Please don’t give up your career. What happened in your operating room was a mistake.”

  “It wasn’t a mistake, Mom.” Libby took the potato and the knife away from her mother and led her over to the table, gently pushing her into one of the chairs. She sat opposite her and looked directly into Katherine’s concerned brown eyes.

  “Grammy Bea wasn’t just making it up, Mom, and I think you know it. And you know that Aunt Sylvia could heal people, but all these years you’ve been denying it because you were afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Not afraidof what butfor whom,” Libby told her. “You were afraid for me, weren’t you? You didn’t want me to have this gift because you knew how deeply it would affect me. I healed Esther Brown, Mom, and it was a miracle.”

  “You perform miracles every day, Elizabeth.”

  “Not this kind of miracle,” Libby said, reaching out and folding Katherine’s hands inside hers. “This is the power to heal people without using my skills as a surgeon.”

  Katherine tried to pull away.

  Libby wouldn’t let go of her hands but squeezed them instead. “I felt her, Mom. I actually became part of Esther Brown. I felt her emotions and her determination to live.”

  “That’s impossible, Elizabeth,” Katherine whispered.

  “That…it’s just not…it just can’t happen like that.”

  “But why is it impossible? How many miracles have been documented throughout history? Why can’t Esther Brown’s unexplainable recovery be one of them?”

  Libby finally let her mother have her hands back, which Katherine immediately folded on her lap while she stared at the tablecloth. She finally looked up, her huge brown eyes swimming with worry.

  “I don’t want Bea to have been right all these years.”

  “Do you think I do?” Libby asked.

  Katherine reached out across the table to Libby. “But it might not even be you, Elizabeth. If it was a miracle, what makes you think you had anything to do with it?”

  “Because I did it again.”

  “What?”

  “I did it again, Mom. I was the attending physician for James’s patient that morning. Jamie Garcia is only six years old. He’d been hit by a car and was in a coma. But that afternoon, after what happened with Esther Brown, I went to his room, sat beside him, and prayed for him to wake up. And just like before, I felt his emotions, his fear, and his desperate struggle to get back to his parents. And he opened his eyes and smiled at me.”

  Katherine stared at her mutely. “So you ran,” she finally added softly. “Here. But why here?”

  “I don’t know why. I think the mountains had something to do with it. The distance. The reputation of stoically grounded New Englanders.” Libby suddenly smiled.

  “But mostly it was Robbie MacBain. There was a picture of him in the ad he’d posted on the Internet.” She shrugged.

  “There was just something about him…a wisdom that had nothing to do with his age. As if he holds the key to all the secrets of the universe. And I thought—no, I knew I had to come here.”

  Katherine smiled. “At least, that’s something I can understand after meeting him. He’s very self-contained for a twelve-year-old.”

  “Robbie’s eight.”

  “Eight?” Katherine gasped, leaning back in her chair.

  “He can’t be eight, Elizabeth. He’s too big.”

  “He’ll be nine in January.”

  Her mother fell silent again, standing up and going back to the sink to peel potatoes. Libby started setting the table for five people. She was sure that Michael and Robbie would end up eating with them.

  “What is James doing here?” Libby asked into the silence. “And why didn’t you call and tell me you were both coming?”

  Katherine shot her a frown. “I tried. Twice. But you didn’t answer, and you don’t have an answering machine hooked up.” She stopped peeling and turned to Libby. “I didn’t tell him where you were, Elizabeth. And I don’t know how he found you. But he came to my house and told me he’d tracked you to Maine and that he was coming after you.” Katherine shrugged. “So what else could I do? I threw some clothes into a suitcase and came with him.”

  She stopped Libby from setting the table and took hold of her shoulders. “I spent the entire flight here trying to convince him that Bea’s stories were not true. That there was a mix-up in your operating room and that his patient simply woke up on his own. Elizabeth, he can’t actually prove anything. If we just stick to our story, he’ll give up and go home. Tell him he can have the grant, and he’ll stop this…this witch hunt.”

  “Is that what you think this is?” Libby whispered. “A witch hunt?”

  Katherine squeezed her shoulders. “Of course not, dear. But James thinks it is. He grew up hearing Grammy Bea’s stories, too.”

  Libby found another knife and started peeling the carrots and tossed them into the pot with the potatoes. “Dammit,” she growled to herself. “I am not a witch.”

  Katherine quietly picked the carrots out and put them into their own pot before setting the potatoes on the stove to boil. “Tell me about Michael,” she said, pouring a glass of wine and sitting down at the table to drink it. “He’s very…ah…big. And rather proprietary toward you. Does he have a reason to be acting so possessive?”

  Libby dropped her head to concentrate on the carrots, hoping to hide her blush. “He might,” she muttered.

  There was a long silence from the table, then her mother asked, “He raised Robbie all by himself?”

  “Yes. With the help of Grace MacKeage, Robbie’s aunt.”

  “Elizabeth, look at me.”

  Slowly, reluctantly, Libby turned to face her, lifting her chin as she fought to keep her blush from spreading.

  Katherine gave her a warm, motherly smile. “You can’t possibly get involved with him, Elizabeth,” she said gently. “Not now.”

  “I tried not to, but it happened anyway.”

  “Are you sure you’re not just trying to distract yourself?”

  Libby sighed. “No. Maybe. Oh, dammit, I don’t know. Michael is…he’s…”

  “All man?” her mother finished. “With more testosterone than is probably healthy? Elizabeth, do you know what you’re getting yourself into? Getting involved with a man like Michael MacBain will be all-consuming. I figured that out within ten minutes of meeting him. Are you willing to give up your career for him?”

  “Why do I have to? I can be a doctor in Maine just as well as in California.”

  “You really want to live here? You’ll have to if you fall in love with him. Michael doesn’t strike me as someone willing to compromise on certain things.”

  Libby couldn’t contain her grin. “Like tonight’s sleeping arrangements?”

  Katherine shook her head. “I swear, if I hadn’t suggested that James check back into the hotel, Michael would have, and not quite as diplomatically. You don’t find him a bit…oh…a bit domineering?”

  “Domineering?” Libby repeated. “He’s old-fashioned, maybe, but he’s not really a chest-beating caveman. He’s actually quite civilized—most of the time.”

  “He’s overwhelming.”

  “He said he won’t ever get married,” Libby softly confessed, continuing to disclose the mess she’d gotten herself into. “Not that I’m even thinking about marriage,” she quickly clarified, probably to reassure herself more than her mother. “Michael and Robbie can live in their house, and I will be nothing more than a good neighbor.”

  Bright lights came through the kitchen window, and the sou
nd of several vehicles pulling up to the house quickly followed. Libby walked to the door, and Katherine leaned over the sink to look outside.

  Michael’s truck was turning to back up to the porch stairs, its cargo bay filled with what looked like a very large—and very solid—bed.

  Robbie jumped out, came running up onto the porch, and threw himself into Libby’s arms. The impact nearly knocked her off her feet as she wrapped her arms around him and attempted to keep them both upright.

  “I’m sorry I yelled and ran out,” he said into her shoulder, squeezing her so tightly he finished pushing all the air from her lungs. “Papa promised me ya won’t leave. Not ever.”

  “Oh, he did, did he?” Libby whispered, kissing his head.

  “Then I guess it’s settled.”

  “Aye,” he thickly agreed, looking up. “And he said if we act real civilized, maybe Gram Katie will want to stay, too.”

  Libby ruffled his hair and moved them both out of the way when Michael stepped onto the porch carrying a huge and heavy-looking headboard. She gasped, not because Michael winked at her as he walked past but because the headboard was taller than she was.

  She ran after him into the bedroom and slid to a halt when he leaned it up against one of the walls. And she stared, wide-eyed and opened-mouthed, at her new bed.

  It was absolutely stunning.

  The end posts looked to be solid oak that nearly reached the ceiling. Oak cross members held the posts a good five feet apart, forming a thick frame that surrounded a well-defined, large bull moose cut out of thick steel. The oak was stained a warm honey brown, and the moose was painted black. It was walking through a forest of fir trees painted a crisp green, also cut from steel, with larger trees behind it and smaller ones near its hooves.

  Libby lifted amazed eyes to Michael. “It-it’s beautiful,” she whispered. She ran one finger over the antlers of the moose, shaking her head in disbelief. “It’s absolutely beautiful.” She looked back up at Michael. “Where did you get it?”

  “That’s my secret. Do ya like it, lass? It’s not fancy.”

  “It’s beautiful,” she repeated, unable to think of a better description. “I love it. Is it really mine?” she asked, running her hand over the smooth oak and tracing several of the trees with her fingers.