Carried Away

by Jill Barnett

  Eachann had known the weather was about to change. He had even passed up on those blueberry pies so he could get Fergus’s women safely back to shore, go to his children’s school, and return to the island before the fog rolled in. He’d said as much before he left.

  His brother had an uncanny ability to read the weather, something few of those who lived on the islands could do. Most of them, Calum included, lived with the weather in the same way as someone lived with a wild animal made into a pet. They lived with constant unpredictability.

  The weather here was an elusive thing. Hell, the fishermen who earned their living from the sea spoke of the moods of the weather, and every islander knew that when you lived on an island, the weather ruled what you could and could not do.

  Calum supposed there was some innate thing his brother was born with, an instinct, a special gift that made him see and know what others couldn’t. Eachann had a fey touch with animals as well. It served Eachann well with his horses. Calum had seen his brother look into the rolling wild eyes of a frightened horse and calm the rearing beast when nothing or no one else could.

  But Eachann’s gift wasn’t limited to horses. Calum had seen an eagle land on his brother’s huge outstretched arm as if the proud elusive bird were an ordinary sparrow lighting on a tree branch. He had seen him look a timber wolf in the eye and send it running away, and he could walk right up to a deer and in no time flat have the animal eating wildflowers from the palm of his huge hand.

  A loud crash suddenly rang through the house, followed by the sound of footsteps up the stone stairs. Calum turned just as the door flew open.

  Eachann stood there, his sleeping children in his strong arms. A curly blond head, Kirsty’s, rested against one shoulder and Graham’s spiky red head was on the other.

  “I need your help,” Eachann said.

  Calum tried to take Kirsty, but her arms were wrapped so tightly around her father’s neck that he had to pull them away first, then he took her, frowning at Eachann.

  “I’ll explain later. Help me get them in a bed.”

  “In your section of the house?”

  “Hell no.” Eachann walked out the door and headed down the west hallway toward the stairs that led to Calum’s section of the house.

  Their habits and the way the two of them lived were about as alike as the Scottish Highlands and the Sahara Desert. So to keep brotherly peace, they had long ago used the wisdom of Solomon and divided the home into two equal parts.

  Right down the middle. Half for Calum, who lived with tidiness, order, and discipline. Half for Eachann, who shoveled out his rooms less often than he mucked out his stable.

  “We’ll have to put them in one of your rooms.”

  They went into a small neat room off the hall in the west wing, where they each placed a child in a clean bed. Calum smoothed the covers over little Kirsty, who seemed to have grown a half a foot since he’d last seen her. He folded the sheet with a precise corner and tucked it under the mattress.

  She opened her sleepy eyes for a minute and looked at him. “Uncle Calum.” Then her drooping lids slipped shut and a small smile curled the corners of her mouth. “We’re home,” she whispered, and a second later she was fast asleep.

  He wondered how his brother would handle the children this time. Eachann had been unable to deal with them after the death of their mother, and even though both Fergus and Calum had tried to help, Eachann took the children to the mainland. When he returned, he said little to Calum, except that they needed to be in school, not running loose on the island.

  Before Calum could have another thought, Eachann was out the door and down the stairs two at a time.

  At the landing, he stopped and said, “Follow me.”

  “Why?” Calum called out, but his brother was already down the halls and going out the front doors.

  Calum followed him out into the fog, which was so thick he had to stop at the base of the front steps until Eachann’s voice drew him toward the road. “Where the hell are we going?”

  “You’ll see soon enough,” came a call through the mist.

  Calum followed the sound of Eachann’s voice, thinking as he walked almost blindly down the path that his brother’s children, especially Kirsty, were very much like their father. Eachann had always been restless and a little wild.

  While Calum played by the rules and did things in a safe and logical way, Eachann made his own rules. The brothers seldom agreed on how things should be done. Age, time, and respect had taught them to stand aside and let each other act in his own unique way. Although there were times over the years, if for nothing more than Calum’s sanity, when he couldn’t help but wish he and Eachann were more alike.

  A few moments later their boots made a hollow sound on the planked dock. In a thin wavering spot of mist he caught the looming shadow of Eachann as he hopped on the boat deck before the thick fog closed in again and his shape disappeared. “Come aboard, Calum. I need your help.”

  “Where the hell are you? I can’t see a bloody thing.”

  “Over here.” The sudden yellow glow from an oil lantern burned through the misty fog a few yards away.

  “Where is here?” Calum reached for the bulwark and pulled himself on board.

  “In the aft, next to the mackerel tank.”

  Calum felt his way along the deck, muttering to himself, “Mackerel? Since when did Eachann start fishing?”

  He joined his brother, who stood there completely silent, but grinning that same wicked grin he got whenever he had bested someone or something, like when Eachann won the caber toss at the annual games or the time he short-sheeted Calum’s neat bed.

  “I’ve brought something for you, brother. A gift.”

  Calum suspected this was another one of Eachann’s sick jokes. “A gift?”

  “Right in here is the answer to all our troubles of late. Something I decided we do need after all.” Eachann leaned down and lifted the latch cover.

  There was a muffled noise that sounded like a loud cawing sea gull trapped in the middle of a haystack.

  “Look for yourself.” Eachann handed him the lantern.

  Calum held the lamp low over the holding tank and cast a glance inside. He stared down at what looked like some kind of monster—a huge lump. A wet bundle of rich silk and white skin, of four flailing arms and a kicking foot here and there.

  It took a moment to see the lump wasn’t a loch monster, but two gagged, sopping wet women dressed in expensive silk evening gowns and wrapped up tightly in an ancient mackerel net. They were wiggling and elbowing one another, each fighting to try to sit upright.

  Calum swore graphically and looked at Eachann. “Women? You brought more women?”

  “Aye.” Eachann leaned against the railing with his arms crossed. “Not just more women, but something better.” He nodded at the women. “Those are our brides.”

  Chapter 13

  To one who, journeying through the night and fog,

  Is mired neck-deep in an unwelcoming bog,

  Experience, like rising of the dawn,

  Reveals the path that he should not have gone.

  —Ambrose Bierce

  The brunette came up fighting. The moment she was released her gag flew left. “You stupid idiot!”

  Her fist flew right.

  Calum stepped back, even though she was aiming for Eachann’s grinning face.

  “Now George . . . ” Eachann caught her fist easily in one hand. “You claimed you wanted a husband.”

  “Not you, you lummox!” She tried to kick him.

  He jerked her against him, then bent, and an instant later he’d flung her over one shoulder the same way he would a sack of his horses’ oats.

  She shrieked like a banshee.

  Calum winced. The woman was louder than those hellish honking geese that lived by the pond. He watched Eachann clamp one arm over her struggling legs. She pinched his back and grabbed at the back of his shirt. His brother swatted her on the butt. The
re was utter silence for one second, then just as Eachann grinned triumphantly, she arched upward, grabbed his hair in a fist and yanked, shrieking in outrage.

  She scared the hell out of Calum. He suddenly remembered the existence of the other woman and whipped his head back around, half expecting her to be waiting and to come at him screeching and clawing.

  She lay there perfectly still, the net tangled in her legs and her hands knotted against her stomach. He couldn’t see her face because her long damp blond hair covered it. He took a second to adjust his glasses.

  The girl still didn’t move.

  Calum shifted the lantern closer. “Is she dead?”

  His brother didn’t answer because he was trying to get the gag back on the shrieking brunette whom he had pinned to his chest with one arm while he struggled with the gag. She stomped on his feet the whole time and threw wild punches that Eachann kept ducking.

  “Eachann. This one’s not moving.”

  The brunette turned toward Calum with a furious look. “She’s seasick, you moron!”

  Eachann stuffed the gag back in her open mouth and pinned her knotted fists behind her with one hand.

  Calum stood there like someone watching an ambush from a hillside. He didn’t know whether to get involved or stay clear of the whole thing.

  Eachann was laughing as he struggled with the woman, which made Calum want to punch him. This wasn’t funny. It was reckless and foolish and . . . and was pure trouble.

  The blonde moaned.

  He spun back around.

  “That one’s yours,” came his brother’s voice from behind him.

  “The bloody hell she is!” Calum turned again, but his brother had disappeared into the thick mist with the other woman gagged and slung over his shoulder again.

  “Eachann!” he shouted. “Dammit! Come back here!”

  “Sorry! I’ve got my hands full with George!” Then Eachann grunted as if he’d taken a hard punch.

  “I don’t want a wife!” Calum hollered, standing there, a lantern in one hand, while he shook his fist at the empty fog.

  The woman moaned again and he spun back. He stared down at her, watching her the way a dog eyed a cornered cat—fully expecting her to strike out at him any second.

  But she just lay there, curled into a pitiful ball. She looked as if she weren’t capable of moving or screaming or fighting back.

  After a minute of nothing but watching her, he shifted and realized that standing there was stupid. She was barely half his size. He waited a second more, then lowered himself into the hold, keeping his eyes and the light from the lantern on her the whole time.

  He bent down, quickly pulled the hair back from her face, stared at her, then untied the gag.

  All she did was mutter, “Sick . . . so sick. Please . . . ”

  For the first time in a few years, he wanted to punch Eachann for his foolishness. Stealing women like reivers of old stole cattle, like some feuding clan stole food to eat and women to handfast, like . . . oh hell! Like some sick practical joke.

  Yet he knew his wild brother for the defiant and stubborn man that he was. Calum figured that Eachann was half hoping his antics would give credence to all that tall talk the mainlanders made about mad island Scots.

  Calum glanced down at the woman.

  She looked cold and drained and ill. He cursed and bent down and picked her up. She went completely limp, her arms and legs flopping down like a wilting flower whose petals were unable to withstand the spray of the sea. Her skin so pale it looked like the mist, white and soft and fragile, as if it would vanish into nothingness if the wind touched it.

  Something about her seemed familiar. He stared down at her trying to understand what it was. She was helpless. Completely. There was a neediness about her. Like he’d felt in Kirsty tonight. Yet in this young woman the neediness was different. When Kirsty wouldn’t let go of Eachann it was as if holding on to him was important. This weak lass curled against him the way a wounded animal cowers against a tree, half in hiding and half for protection.

  He didn’t know what to do with her, so he held her even tighter against him as he got out of the holding tank. He straightened quickly and moved toward the dock.

  “Oh God . . . ” She clamped a hand to her head, which lolled over the edge of his shoulder. “Don’t move. Please.”

  He stopped, frozen in his tracks. Minutes ticked by with her saying nothing. He found himself listening to her breathing; it echoed the quiet lapping of the water against the dock pilings. The air was wet with the damp pine and sea taste of island fog.

  Her head drifted closer to his neck and he could smell the scent of light perfume like sweet honeysuckle mixed with the sharp tang of the sea. Around them, the mist was freezing and grew thicker and wetter the longer he stood there holding her; it began to seep into his clothes and hers, beading on his forehead and upper lip, and on her hair.

  “We cannot stay out here, lass.”

  All she did was rest wearily against his shoulder as if holding her head up was just too much for her.

  “I need to get you somewhere warm and dry.”

  She never opened her eyes, just murmured, “Slowly. Please walk slowly.”

  He was extra careful when he stepped down onto the dock. He tried to keep her in the same position without making any quick or jerking motions. He was walking down the dock when she opened her eyes and looked up at him.

  “I can’t fight you.” Her voice was so small he almost thought he had imagined hearing it. Her body was limp again as if she had given up.

  But he recognized the look in her eyes. It was fear. Pure unadulterated fear. She actually thought he would harm her. She knew she was powerless to do anything to stop him.

  From out of nowhere the sudden need to protect her hit him hard, as if a giant hand had just reached out and slapped him in the face.

  He stayed clear of women, except those he could meet on his own terms. The virtuous ones that Fergus brought chased him or scared the bloody hell out of him.

  But this woman wasn’t chasing him. She was afraid of him. That was a hard thing for him to comprehend. He had never inspired fear in a woman and couldn’t imagine it even now.

  He kept walking, his conscience and something personal eating at him, some tie or bond or elusive connection that was as strong as the bond he felt with his brother.

  To care for a woman? No. He’d long ago vowed that he was happy with things just as they were. No wife. No woman. No confusion. Just his own routine, no one else’s.

  She was staring up at him.

  “I need to get you inside.”

  She didn’t respond, but her body felt suddenly stiffer in his arms; the fright was still there in her wide eyes. He pulled her a little tighter against him, a small comfort he justified by then ignoring her for a minute or two.

  He could feel her watching him. Her breaths were quick and sharp, and he listened to them with the thought that they sounded like a woman in the midst of passion. A strong passion.

  He walked on in silence, silence that grew until it was more nerve-racking than noise. He took a deep breath and searched for something to say. “What’s your name, lass?”

  She didn’t respond. Not that he blamed her. But she continued to watch him, closely, seriously.

  He could feel her gaze on him almost as if her hand had touched his cheek. He stared straight ahead for a few more steps, then said gruffly, “I won’t hurt you.”

  Again she said nothing, and when he looked at her, her suspicious expression told him she still didn’t believe him.

  “I give you my word as the MacLachlan of MacLachlan.”

  She stared at him from curious but wary eyes as he walked along in the wet fog. The only sounds were those of the throbbing surf behind them, the crackle and crunch of his boots on the rocks that were scattered along the path, her short quiet breaths, and some pounding in his ears that felt suspiciously like his heart.

  “What is the MacLachlan of
MacLachlan?” Her voice was different when it didn’t have a moan to it. Quiet, curious, yet bright. Quite a contrast to the she-devil Eachann had slung over his shoulder.

  “I am the MacLachlan of MacLachlan. The last laird of the ancient clan of MacLachlan.”

  “You’re Scottish.”

  “Scots, lass. I’m Scots.”

  “The disappearing island,” she whispered, as if she thought she were in the arms of a ghost.

  “You’re not believing that rubbish, now are you? The island doesn’t disappear. It’s only the fog that makes it look so.”

  “No . . . no,” she said, but she didn’t sound certain. She was eyeing him again. “You don’t sound Scottish.” It was almost like she was saying, “You don’t look like a ghost.”

  “I’m Scots, not Scottish.”

  “You don’t sound like a Scot.”

  “I was born here, on the island, like my father and his father.” He turned left, at a spot where the fog thinned past the hemlock tree. Beneath his boots was the sound of gravel that covered the path near the front of the house.

  He felt her shiver. “The house is just ahead.”

  A familiar shadow Calum knew was home loomed before them in the mist, huge and dark and over two stories tall. He slowed as he approached the front steps.

  “If you believe you are truly a Scot, then why aren’t you living in Scotland?”

  He gave a bitter laugh as he opened the front door. “There’s a saying that a Scotsman is never at home unless he’s abroad.” He could see by her eyes that she didn’t understand. “Scotland is no longer the home of the Scots, lass.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because to us it’s true. Those who are there now are either Sassenach . . . English,” he explained, “or men who are more interested in the price of wool than the price of human pride and suffering. Tradition and obligation are not part of them. They might call themselves Scots, lass, but those men are no Scots.” He carried her inside, then kicked the door shut behind him with a loud bang.