Finding Fraser

by kc dyer

  I looked up into the lightening sky. “Do you think the sun will rise over it this morning?”

  He leaned against the rock. “Maybe, though I’m fair certain it marks the midsummer sun, somehow. Or—it might be the moon.”

  “The moon was out the night I saw the ghost warrior, but I didn’t really notice where it rose. Too busy chasing phantoms.”

  Jack cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Ah—yeah. About that night …”

  He folded his arms across his chest and stared somewhere into the distance over my left shoulder. I looked at him expectantly.

  “I believe I have a confession to make,” he said, at last.

  I pushed my glasses firmly up my nose, but it didn’t really help me read his expression any better. So I just waited.

  “I think it’s possible—I’m not totally sure, mind—but it’s slightly possible … thatImighthavebeenyourghost,” he blurted.

  “Pardon?”

  He shot an anguished look at me. “I didn’t actually put it together for quite a while, but one night when I was reading over your back blog posts …”

  “You read over my back blog posts?” I interrupted. I felt so completely thrown by the direction the whole conversation had taken, I grabbed onto what I could. “I don’t think even Genesie does that, and I’m pretty sure she’s cyber-stalking me.”

  He shrugged. “Hey, I’m only one of your followers. In my case it’s—well, maybe just a bit more literal.”

  I thought about how grateful I had been to see him at the Wallace Monument. “Okay, never mind. You were saying …?”

  He took a deep breath. “Well, I was at a cairn one night in March—the one near Culloden. It was late. I always go late to avoid having to deal with the tourists, same as with Ainslie Castle. So, I think it may have been me you saw. I know I left as soon as I heard voices.”

  I leaned back against the cool silvery rock and felt a little shiver tingle up my spine at the thought of that night. “But why—why were you there?”

  He crouched beside me, staring into the circle of stones, silent for a long moment. In the distance I heard the cry of a bird, clear against the dawn sky. He looked up then.

  “A golden eagle,” he said, and turned round to search out the source. “There!”

  When it became clear I couldn’t see anything, he stepped behind me and turned my shoulders. His arm reached around me, pointing high above the woods behind the center of the circle. “Right there—can you see her?”

  And I could. The eagle glided high on the morning wind and then stalled abruptly and shot downwards. I lost sight of her against the trees.

  “Breakfast for the wee ones,” he said, with a smile of satisfaction. “Full Scottish breakfast, if I’m not mistaken.”

  With the eagle gone, he stepped away, and I shivered again as the warmth of him against my back disappeared. But he’d crossed his arms and leaned against the stone beside mine.

  “I was there to pray,” he said, abruptly. “Or rather, to find a spot where Wallace might pray. I’d taken him through the fighting and anger. The war years—the deep triumph at Stirling Bridge and the sorry rout the following year. He had been a man on top, but over time, it had all burned to ashes in the flames of politics and deception. I’d finished writing the book, but Rebecca wasn’t happy with it. I was …”

  “Just a minute,” I said. “Rebecca wasn’t happy with it?”

  He shrugged and smiled a little. “Aye. I’m so lucky to have her, y’know. She’s a tough critic, but she’s honest. Ye need that in an agent, aye?”

  I held up my hand again. “Wait a sec. Rebecca—is your agent? Not your girlfriend?”

  He laughed aloud. “Well, she’s sixty, and has been married herself for thirty-some years, so no, she’s not technically my girlfriend.”

  A warm glow that I could not attribute to the weather began to work its way through my body from somewhere south of my sternum. Jack had stopped telling his story, and was looking at me with a curious expression.

  “A—about that circle,” I said, not really caring any more at all.

  A gust of wind swirled Jack’s hair around. “Right. Well, I was reworking a scene not long before the end—or before the betrayal that led to the end, anyway—and somehow, I couldn’t find Wallace any more. I knew the fighter and the tactician, but I’d lost the man.”

  I jammed my hands deeper into my pockets. “When you talk about the story, you get this inward look. It’s like you can see it all playing out inside your mind.”

  He grinned at me. “Well, that was the problem, y’see. Because I could see it all so clearly. Until the final days—his final days. Then it vanished. He was totally gone from me. I wrote it anyway, but when I handed in the final draft, Rebecca called me on it.”

  “Rebecca,” I said again, not even caring that I sounded like an idiot. “Rebecca, your agent.”

  He grinned at me. “Yes. Rebecca my agent called me on it. So I headed to the circle. It wouldn’t have been one Wallace would have found—I was too far north, writing near home, but it was of a similar look to those down south. The problem was all the damnable tourists, of course. So that’s why I left, in the end.”

  “Yeah —I hadn’t expected to find that bus there, either. Or Gerald, for that matter.”

  Jack raised an eyebrow. “Gerald?”

  I grinned at him. “Oh, just someone I met who was looking for his own Scottish warrior.”

  “Ah. Well, I’m sorry how that all turned out,” he said, quietly. “Or rather, for how unhappy it made you. I didn’t want to add to it.”

  “I’m okay,” I said, lightly. And as I said it, I knew it was true. “I have to go back to Chicago, but I think I really did find what I was looking for here, after all.”

  He leaned against the ancient stone. “And ye’ll be back someday, aye?”

  “I hope so.”

  “I do, too.” He smiled at me then, and brushed the sleeve of his coat. “Well, we’d best be off, before the Lothian and Borders Police start combing the countryside for ye.”

  “Just a minute,” I said, and in two strides I was in front of him with his jacket lapels in my hands. I believe I actually muffled his startled exclamation when the kiss began, but he got the idea pretty quickly. When I pulled away from him so we could both catch our breath, he clasped my hands in his.

  “Emma Sheridan, I did not see that coming,” he said, and his slow smile erased the worry he’d been wearing since we’d climbed the hillside.

  “I just wanted to see if it would be as nice as the last one,” I said.

  “And?”

  I thought a minute. “Well, you do taste a bit of Irn-Bru and—maybe peppermint? But it’s a surprisingly nice combination at this hour of the morning.”

  He kissed me again, then, perhaps to give me the opportunity to solidify my opinion, and the chill of the morning suddenly fell away. The eagle cried out in the distance once more, and a sliver of yellow daylight shone down and touched the top of the sunstone.

  “So, all this time, ye thought Rebecca was my girlfriend?”

  “Well, only since I determined you’re not wearing a ring. Before that I thought she was your wife.”

  He laughed a little, low in his throat. “No wife,” he said. “No girlfriend, either. Not for a while, anyway.” He brushed my hair away from my face, and tucked a loose strand behind my ear.

  “I have read the book, y’know.”

  “The book? OUTLANDER, you mean?”

  He nodded. “Twice, in fact. And just to be clear, I’m no Jamie Fraser.” He crinkled his eyes at me. “I’m not exactly a virgin, for starters.”

  I thought for a moment. “Well, as long as you bear no resemblance to Black Jack Randall either, I think I can live with that.”

  He clapped a hand over his heart. “Ye wound me, Emma. And I’ll have ye know, that man’s name is actually Jonathan.”

  “It is indeed. Jonathan Wolverton Randall, to be exact.”

 
; I grinned up at him, and using the flat of my hand, pushed him back against the mammoth stone. Holding him in place, I leaned back and ran my other hand down the front of his coat. “So, you know what She says about why women love men in kilts?”

  “She?”

  “Yes, She. With a capital ‘S’. As in Herself. Your lovely friend the author.”

  He smiled down at me. “Okay, I’ll bite. What does She say?”

  “She says it’s because we know in the back of our minds that you can have us up against the nearest wall in under a second.”

  He grinned, and spun me around so the cold stone pressed against my back. Undid the top button of my coat and kissed me under the line of my jaw.

  “I might have heard her tell that story,” he said, his lips warm on the skin of my neck.

  And it turned out—he had.

  Much, much later, as we walked down the hill from the circle, I decided that my blog audience would just have to do without the full story of the discovery—at last—of my own Craigh na Dun.

  Channeling Claire…

  Somewhere in the Highlands of Scotland

  10:00 am, September 14

  As this leg of my journey ends, I think what I have taken most from this trip has been the importance of friends.

  And perhaps the discovery that sometimes Highland Warriors wield pens, not swords.

  I may have begun this journey with the sole objective of finding my own Fraser, but I am much happier that the person I found, instead, was my own inner Claire.

  I ‘ll be back soon…

  - ES

  Comments: 0

  To: emmasheridan@gmail.com

  From: SophiaSheridan@angstandarg*t.com

  September 14

  Hi Emma,

  It was with great relief we received your email noting your arrival details. I’ve arranged to get the time off, so Paul and I will be there to meet you.

  By the way, I received the strangest email from a friend who works at a publishing firm in New York. Apparently they’d like to speak to you about a blog-to-book deal. I have no idea what that means, but if it’s a chance to earn a few dollars, I hope you do the sensible thing and take them up on it!

  Sophia

  Reporting in to the police station at the Edinburgh airport was unnerving. We pulled up to the terminal and Jack pointed to the small sign.

  “It’s just over there. Don’t worry about a thing. I just need to sort out my ticket, and then I’ll meet you on the other side of the security gates.”

  I got out of the car and walked around to the driver’s side. Jack rolled down his window. “Listen—it may take them a bit to run the paperwork. Hold on …”

  He rustled around in his computer bag, pulled out a book and handed it through the window. “Somethin’ to do while ye wait,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  I tucked it into my pack beside the copy of OUTLANDER, but it didn’t really make me feel any better. The kiss he gave me before I stepped inside the door marked with the stark POLICE sign helped quite a bit more.

  In the end, the visit to check in with the police was entirely anti-climactic. After assigning me to a chair, they left me sitting outside the office door for almost an hour before calling me in. While I was waiting, I paid out one of my last pound coins to use the airport wifi to make the blog post and read my email, but that only took a moment or two. I was grateful for the copy of Jack’s book, as it at least gave me something to think about other than my imminent arrest.

  I skipped right through the entire first couple of chapters and headed straight for what Mrs. McCarthy would call the juicy bits. When the police did call me, I’m pretty sure they had to say my name twice.

  It was a good book.

  Inside, I handed over my letter, which they stamped with great formality, and tucked into my passport.

  The policeman on duty shot me a quizzical glance. “Yer not even a full month overstay, it says here,” he said, reading off his screen.

  “Yes—it was more of a mix-up than anything. I don’t know why everyone got so upset.”

  He shrugged, and then peered at his screen before looking up at me.

  “‘Pears you’ve got yerself an enemy, Miss. Says here you were reported—by anonymous call. Full description of yeh, too. It’s uncanny …”

  “Anonymous call…” I repeated slowly.

  “Well, I wouldn’t worry about it, Miss. They’ll not bother to flag this. It prolly won’t even show up if you try to return to the UK.”

  I thought of Sophia’s note. “Oh, I’m coming back,” I said.

  “Let’s get ye through to yer plane, then, aye?”

  He swung open the door into the terminal, and I walked through.

  After signing off with the police, I hurried toward the security gates and spotted Jack almost immediately. He was still on my side of the gates; craning to look through the crowds. My stomach clenched a little at the sight of him, still wearing his kilt from the festivities at the Games. I thought about our brief trip to the circle on the hillside, and immediately felt my face suffuse with heat.

  I hate being such an easy blusher.

  As I walked up, he turned and caught sight of me. His look of anxiety was swept away by a relieved smile. “Oh, thank god. I thought I’d missed ye.”

  “You could always have found me on the other side of security. You know my gate, right?”

  “That I do. Since it is mine, as well.”

  It took me a minute to catch on. “You’ve changed your flight?” I said, slowly.

  “Indeed I have.” He stepped into line behind me, and the guard waved us through to the scanning machine.

  “What about New York? The tour?” I put my backpack on the conveyor belt and automatically began unzipping it, when I remembered I had no laptop to pull out.

  Jack put his things on the conveyor belt after mine and followed me up to the metal detector.

  “Come through,” the woman said, so I did.

  The machine lit up like a Christmas tree, so they pulled out the scanning wand.

  “I’ve made a slight change,” he called, as he walked through in his stocking feet. Naturally, the lights did not blink even once. He’d replaced his shoes and put away his computer by the time they’d finished wanding and swabbing me for suspicious powders.

  “I don’t know why they always pick me,” I muttered, as we waited for my pack to be x-rayed. “I lead the most blameless life ever.”

  He grinned. “Perhaps ye always look guilty. And besides, it’s the blameless ones who carry the deepest secrets, aye?”

  That might well be true, I thought, as I collected my pack and swung it up onto my shoulder. We turned down the long hallway leading to the gates.

  “So, didja have a chance to begin the book?” he asked, with a certain casualness that rang utterly false.

  “No— no, too busy dealing with the cops…” I began, but I totally caved as his face crumpled in disappointment. “Of course I read it. William’s love interest seemed—ah …”

  “Human?” he asked, eagerly. “More realistic?”

  “Umm-hmm. And kinda—familiar.”

  His face creased a little as he tried to smother a smile. “Ah. You noticed, then.”

  I opened my mouth to reply when a collection of heated voices rose up behind us. As we turned to look, there was a sudden explosion of activity at the very security station we had just come through.

  Two guards—I couldn’t tell if they were policemen or not, had come marching down the other wing of the airport, escorting a handcuffed prisoner. One of the guards had his hand on the prisoner’s head as they ducked backwards through the security line, when the person shook free and ran right for us.

  There was no time to react, apart from registering that the person wore enormous, white plastic-framed sunglasses and had long, flowing blonde hair.

  “Susan?” I whispered, but not surprisingly, she didn’t stop to respond.

  It was a futi
le attempt, in the end, as she only managed three or four strides before the guard tackled her to the ground, essentially right at our feet.

  “Brutality!” she screeched, before landing a decent kick right under the guard’s kneecap with one five-inch platform shoe. “I’m goin’ to sue you cocksuckers, one and all. See if I don’t! This is fuckin’ police brutality! Is this the way you treat all your visitors?”

  Jack and I joined the throng of travelers who were backing away as quickly as possible from the scene. By this time, a second guard had arrived and was actually sitting right on top of Susan, trying to avoid her flailing feet long enough to zap-strap them together. In the end, the woman who had patted me down dropped her equipment and held Susan’s heels together long enough for the guard to truss her up like a turkey.

  As the final strap was tied, a large figure pushed through the security line.

  “I’m wi’ her,” he cried when the woman with the wand tried to stand in his way. “They’re arrestin’ mah fiancée!”

  “Hamish, Hamish—make them untie me,” Susan screeched.

  In the melee, several of her extensions had come away and were wrapped around various body parts of the guards, who were by this time struggling to get her upright. As both her hands and her feet were tightly bound, it seemed unclear to me why they were doing so, since there was no way she could walk on her own. But they pulled her to her feet, and Hamish stood beside her, helplessly collecting knotted strands of blonde hair from off the floor and the guard’s uniforms.

  “Look,” Hamish said earnestly, peering down into the very red face of one of the guards. “There mus’ be some mistake. We’re gettin’ married. I cannae leave without her! They’ll no’ let me stay in America!”

  A line of police officers moved silently through the security line behind Hamish.

  “Sir, I reckon you’d better come with us. This woman is Gail Lee Duncan, and she’s needed to assist our enquiries into a series of thefts from Berwick to Thirsk.”