by Jill Barnett
Within seconds the skirls of a bagpipe filled the air and the men followed the piper as he walked down the dock. Except for the lilting notes of the bagpipe, there was not a sound. Even the gulls had grown silent, as if they understood the solemn ceremony of this moment.
Her gaze followed Calum. She could not have looked away if she had tried to. The men stopped at the base of the gangplank and the piper’s song rose high and higher, then stopped, the notes floating in the air for only a second.
Cheers erupted in waves from the ship and bonnets flew high in the air. The noise went on for a long time, minutes that stretched on seemingly forever. When the cheering finally stopped, Amy realized she was crying.
She felt Calum’s gaze shift up to where she stood still gripping the railing. She smiled and gave him a short wave. Then another pipe began, this one coming from the deck of the ship, and the Highlanders walked down the gangplank, everything they owned tied into small bundles or slung over their backs.
She had heard people claim the sound of the bagpipes could tear your heart out, and it would have, but her heart was already gone. It belonged to the man who stood on that dock dressed in a red plaid and kilt, a tall and noble Scotsman with hair as black as sin.
Chapter 42
Whilst in her prime and bloom of years,
Fair Celia trips the rope,
Alternately she moves our fears,
Alternately our hope.
But when she sinks, or rises higher,
Or graceful does advance,
We know not what we most admire,
the dancer, or the dance.
—Anonymous
Calum found Amy in the meeting hall, a huge barn of a room near the wharf, where most of the work was done. He didn’t call out her name or make his way through the crowd to stand at her side. But he stood there watching her as he had been for too many days and far too many nights.
He’d never seen a lass work so hard. One minute she was handing out clothing or checking the fit of a winter coat on a small boy. The next she was serving food to a line of hungry people that wrapped around the building two times.
He’d seen her peel potatoes, wash plates, fold blankets, and help a young mother feed her fussy two-year-old twins. He’d seen her try to speak Gaelic until she had everyone around her laughing. She would claim the language was just beyond her.
He knew it wasn’t. He knew she was smarter than that. But he also saw what she had, that the emigrants who spoke little English had laughed with her and her antics had made them more willing to try to speak.
He’d seen her walk through the hall late at night, picking her way through all the people who had bedded down on mats on the floor. She was still handing out blankets because she was so afraid one person might go without. She had learned quickly that many were too shy to ask for something they needed and many were afraid to ask because they could only do so in Gaelic.
Everything she did, she did with sweet smiles and a burst of energy that made him tired just watching her. He had never known anyone like Amy. Granted he’d seldom taken the time to know a woman, but he was glad he’d taken the time to know her.
He respected her, and respect was something he didn’t give easily. Even men had a hard time earning Calum’s respect. He was a tough critic. Eachann claimed it was because he wanted the rest of the world to be as meticulous as he was and that he got angry when they weren’t.
He didn’t know if that were true, but he did know Amy was someone he wanted to understand and he didn’t care that she wasn’t exactly like he was. She wasn’t slow and methodical, clinging to a routine. Watching her was like watching a dragonfly flitting from flower to flower. It was like trying to hold a waterfall in the palm of your hand or trying to capture the wind.
Now she was about twenty feet away from him, standing in a crowd of women. He could see her frown and could tell she was listening so intently to those women to try to understand their feeble attempts at English.
He’d seen her do that since the very first day. And when she didn’t understand what they were saying, she found someone to translate or she took the time to figure out what they wanted.
Her hair wasn’t brushed. It was in a tangled and loose blond braid that hung down her back. Damp curls had slipped out and hung around her face. He watched her swipe them out of the way while she listened and folded blankets at the same time. Her face was damp with sweat and her dress was wilted and wrinkled and had some child’s supper dribbled all over it.
“So how long are you going to wait?” Angus MacDonald clapped him on the shoulder.
“Wait for what?”
Angus nodded at Amy. “The lass. How long are you going to stand around here all moonfaced before you marry the girl.”
“Moon-faced?” He almost choked on the word.
Angus laughed. “Aye. You ought to have a look at yourself, Calum. Robbie and Dugald have bets going to see how long you last. Robbie claimed you’ve been trailing her like a bloodhound for the last two days.”
Moonfaced?
Angus looked at him, then shook his head. “I know what’s ailing you. And you might want to take an older man’s advice. Put yourself out of your misery and just take the girl right to Reverend Munro. It’s easier than fighting it, lad.” Then Angus walked away.
Moonfaced . . . trailing her like a bloodhound? Marry her?
He stood there feeling as if the windows in the room were suddenly growing smaller. He looked around him, but he didn’t see anything. It was as if his eyes weren’t working. He shook his head and then ran a hand through his hair. He looked back to the group where Amy had been standing, but she wasn’t there.
For some reason he needed to see her, right then. He just needed to look at her. So he could understand what was happening. He didn’t think he could talk right now. But he needed to see her.
He scanned the room and walked through the crowd. But nowhere in the huge room did he see her smile or her long blond braid. Nowhere did he hear her laughing.
He crossed to the door with determined strides. He passed Robbie MacDonald, who called his name, but Calum didn’t stop. He shoved open the door and someone made a howling noise like a hound baying at the moon.
It was Robbie, but Calum didn’t stop. He’d blacken MacDonald’s damned eyes later. After he found Amy.
He walked down the wharf, asking if anyone had seen her. Then he moved past the opposite end of the hall, where an open field of freshly mown grass had become the place for the children to play and run wild and free after being cooped up for a month in a ship.
And that was where he found her . . . or at least he spotted her head.
It was bobbing up and down in a large crowd of little girls. He moved closer, trying to figure out what she was doing.
Her head and her braid flew up and then down, up, then down.
When he was about ten feet away he could see her clearly. She was skipping rope and singing some silly rhyme about fleas and knees and the number of peas in trees.
The MacDonalds were right. He was trailing her like a hound. He shoved his hands in his pockets and stood there, half relieved and half scared of what he was feeling for her.
Calum had never really needed someone in his life or felt he needed someone, especially a woman. He had thought marriage was not for him. He had been so used to living alone, being the bachelor for so long, that his loneliness had become part of his routine.
And because that was what he was used to, he was reluctant to change it. There was safety in his scheduled routine. He had thought he liked his life exactly as it was.
When things in his world became strained or didn’t meet his expectations, he would fight and struggle to keep everything the same—detailed, structured, and meticulous, as if by making everything orderly that would fix what was really wrong, which was that he was alone, and deep down inside he didn’t want to be.
But when he listened to that laughter, when he saw her playing with the childr
en and jumping rope in time to some nonsensical rhyme, with her braid bouncing up and down and her skirts halfway up her calves, he just didn’t care.
Because with Amy he had no routine, there was no way it was supposed to be. This whole thing was foreign to him because for the first time in his life he was in love.
Chapter 43
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
—Edward Lear
On the notes of a fiddle and pipe, laughter rode out of the meeting hall and into the cool night air. Inside there was a celebration. The next day the Highlanders would leave to go to new settlements inland and new farms far from the coast, some as far as Canadian borders.
They laughed and sang and rejoiced. They toasted their benefactors with cider and beer and cried over the friends they had found at a time when their lives had seemed most bleak.
Amy watched the dancing, the reels and jigs, and listened to the lively music. She had never been happier than this last week. She supposed it should have been strange to her to feel this way. She been to a hundred or more parties and balls, had been to every kind of social event known to society. And there had been some real doozies.
She had been to birthday parties for thoroughbred horses. She’d been to opera openings and art parties and parties just because someone wanted to serve strawberries and champagne. She had been to grand balls where a duchess was guest of honor and another where an Austrian prince danced with her. His principality needed money desperately.
But she had never had as much fun or felt as if she belonged in a celebration more than she did in this room with these people.
She tipped her head back and twirled an ankle to the beat of the dance, her eyes closed as she caught the refrain and hummed it over and over. Something brushed her hand and she opened her eyes. She was looking up into Calum’s grinning face.
The next thing she knew he had pulled her into the circle of dancers, his arm around her waist as he twirled her round and round until she was laughing so hard she could barely keep time to the music.
He swung her around again, then led her down the line of clapping dancers, only instead of taking their places at the end of the line, he danced her right outside onto the boardwalk and kept on twirling her down past the docks.
“Calum!” She gasped as he swung her around until she was dizzy. She had to grab handfuls of his shirt to keep her balance.
“Don’t you worry now, Amy-my-lass. I’ve got you.”
And he did. His hands were on her waist and she felt a small thrill in the pit of her stomach, the same thrill she got whenever he touched her.
She laughed and took a deep breath, her hand pressed to her chest. “You’ve worn me out, Calum MacLachlan.”
“I doubt anything could wear you out. I get tired just watching you.”
“I love this. I really do. I’ve never felt so much a part of something before.”
He leaned against a willow tree, reached up, and broke off a twig. “It makes the world look like a different place after you’ve seen it through the eyes of these people.”
“They are wonderful.”
He was looking at her as if he wanted to say something very badly.
She cocked her head. “What is it?”
He didn’t respond right away, just tossed the twig into the river and moved over to the river’s edge and stood there looking out at the water with his hands shoved into his pockets.
She walked over to stand beside him, then sat down in the damp grass that edged the riverbank.
The moonlight made the water sparkle like silver glass and the music and the laughter flowed out over them the same way the slight breeze did. She looked up at him and watched that breeze ruffle his hair.
He looked back down at her after a long silence; then he sat down next to her, his long legs drawn up and his forearms resting on them.
She was leaning back on her elbows and looking up at the night sky. “I don’t remember ever seeing a night like this. Look at all those stars up there twinkling down at us.”
“For some reason there are always more stars when you’re this close to the sea.”
“I wonder why that is?”
“I don’t know,” he replied.
“Did you ever wonder what those stars really are?”
“No.”
“Didn’t you ever look up when you were a boy and pretend they were something special?”
“No.”
She laughed. You were probably too busy cleaning something.”
He just looked at her.
“Try it now.”
“Try what?”
“Guess what the stars are.”
“Stars.”
“Please.”
“All right.” He was quiet for a long time. “I suppose I’ve always thought they were planets like the sun or the moon only smaller and farther away.”
“They could be. I think they’re lightning bugs that fly really high.”
He gave her an odd look and she laughed. “Go on. It’s your turn. Dream up something.”
He scowled up at the sky. “Running lights for ships that can fly to the moon.”
“Good!” She laughed again. “Or they could be cracks in Heaven.”
“I think, Amy-my-lass, that you and that furtive little mind of your can out-imagine anything I can come up with.”
“My ‘little’ mind?”
“Sorry, your huge brain.”
“You aren’t supposed to notice my brain. You’re supposed to notice my beauty.”
“Is that because according to Georgina I see better than I think?”
“Yes. It is. Oh! Look, Calum! See there. A shooting star! And there’s another! Two shooting stars.” She paused. “I wonder what that means. Two shooting stars in one moment.” She turned toward him. “It has to mean something, don’t you think?”
“Maybe it does.” He wasn’t looking at the stars. He was looking at her.
“What does it mean?”
He leaned forward. “Maybe it’s a way to tell me I should do this.” He leaned forward and kissed her, softly, quietly, as if this kiss was the most important kiss he’d ever given.
She slid her arms up and around his neck, let her fingers play in his hair. His arms pulled her against him and he rolled with her onto the grass.
His kiss was thorough and changed quickly from a tender kiss to a passionate one. He filled her mouth with his tongue and groaned when she scored her fingers through his hair and pressed her mouth closer to his.
The kiss went on forever. It made her dizzy and lightheaded and she was glad he held her so tightly. He pulled his mouth away but skimmed his lips across her cheeks and to her ear.
“You’re so sweet, Amy-my-lass, so sweet.”
“Oh, Calum, don’t stop kissing me. Please, kiss me again and don’t stop.”
His mouth was on hers the moment she asked and he pressed her deeply into the grass. She linked her arms around his neck and his hands moved from her back and shoulders down her ribs, then up to gently cup her breasts.
Chills raced down her whole body and she felt as if she were flying. She gasped into his mouth and then kissed him back the way he had kissed her.
He gave an aching moan in response. Long minutes later he broke off the kiss and laid his forehead on her shoulder. His breathing was rapid and it took him a long time to control it.
Finally he took a deep breath and threw back his head, staring up at the sky as if he needed to.
She traced the strained muscles in his neck with one slow finger. “So tell me what it means when there are two shooting stars.”
He looked down at her, moved his hands to cradle her face as he looked at her with such naked longing she wondered if it was really there or if it was just the starshine playing tricks on her because she wanted to see that look ther
e in those dark blue eyes of his.
“I know what it means, lass.”
“What?”
He smiled down at her. “When you see two shooting stars, over a river, on a fall night, that means, afterward, the first man you kiss will be your husband.”
“Husband?”
“Aye.”
“You’re teasing me, Calum.”
“No. I’m asking you to marry me.”
She stared up at him and thought she was going to do something really stupid like cry. “I’m going to cry.”
“Could you give me an answer first?”
“Yes.” Her voice was choked.
“Yes, you can give me an answer or, yes, you will marry me?”
“Both.” Then she buried her head in his neck.
“I love you, lass. And I’ll love you longer than there will be shooting stars in the sky.”
And when he kissed her again she looked way, way up in the sky, and thought that Georgina was wrong. Stars are there for wishes. She knew, because she’d just had one come true.
Chapter 44
When you get up in the morning,
Don’t ye blush with shame.
Remember your mother before ye,
Did the very same.
—Scottish bridal toast
Calum and Amy returned to the hall before too much time had passed and tried to enter as inconspicuously as possible. Calum took his glasses out of his pocket and put them back on, then walked her through the door, took her hand, and danced her across the room.
Slowly, one by one, the dancers moved aside and stood in a huge circle, clapping and laughing. Before long they were the only ones dancing. The whole room was standing in a circle and clapping in time to the music.