Magic of Winter

by Martina Boone

  That was the year Mairi MacFarlane had told her there was no Santa Claus.

  Not wanting to believe Mairi but at the same time afraid not to believe her, Cait had snuck back downstairs after Mum had put her to bed on Christmas Eve. She’d planned to hide behind the sofa in the sitting room, determined to see for herself who it was that brought the gifts. But it had been Mum who’d caught Cait, and instead of sending her straight to back up to bed, she’d let Cait come to the kitchen and help with the cake, creaming the butter and sugar and orange zest and beating in the flour, adding the sultanas, currants, cherries, raisins, and almonds until the dough fairly bristled with them. Whiskey had been the last ingredient, a tablespoon for the cake, one for the cook, and one for Cait, which had finally sent Cait back off to bed with her stomach pleasantly warm and a sense of having done something wonderfully grown up and secret.

  That had become a tradition from then on, her and Mum, the two of them making the cake together once everyone else was sleeping. Eventually, Cait had been allowed to do more and more to help, but it had remained the cake that mattered most.

  Mum and Robbie’d had their own traditions, too. Traditions that didn’t include Cait. Mum had been like that, determined to be fair to everyone and a stickler for precedent. Once something wonderful happened once, it became enshrined forever.

  Thinking back on it now, though, Cait couldn’t help wondering whether that illicit little bit of whiskey that had made her feel so grown up and secret and pleasantly warm hadn’t helped to make it easier to drink with Brice and Brando. Easier to fail to see—until it had all gone a bit too far—that that feeling needed to come from what they did rather than what they drank.

  With Brice sleeping downstairs, she went up to bed alone, deeply aware of him a floor below her, also alone. For all the closeness that had developed between them these past days, all the wrongs that had been set right, she couldn’t help feeling unsettled. They were still unsettled. They’d said all the right things to each other.

  Except for one.

  She slept fitfully, then got up in the morning still feeling a little groggy. Brice was up already, working on his laptop. “Didn’t you sleep?” he asked. “You were up awfully late.”

  “And you’re up terribly early.”

  He closed the laptop, set it aside, and pulled her closer. “I have a new car to find for a client, and I’ll need to hire extra help to get it done. But listen.” He picked up a plain manila file that lay on the cushion beside him and held it out to her. “I found this when I needed to use the printer. I couldn’t help reading some of the stories you’d transcribed.”

  Cait took the file and opened it to find the photographs of the women of the glen that she had gathered so far. She had clipped each one to the story she’d been told about the woman in the photo, which she’d carefully typed out and printed.

  “Do you know that these stories are wonderful?” Brice asked. “Not just the stories themselves, but the way you’ve told them? The way you’ve described the women and how they spoke, the way you’ve added in the bigger context of how that fits into the history of the glen. It is a history of the glen, Cait. A brilliant history, shown from a perspective that no one has ever seen. At least I don’t think it’s been done.”

  “That’s what I was hoping. Do you think I could write it as a book and sell it?”

  “Do I think you could write a book?” Brice’s bruised eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled. “I think you could write a dozen books, but this one isn’t just saleable, it’s important.”

  Warmth bloomed in Cait’s chest as the acknowledgement settled in. Someone needed to write the stories the women of the glen had entrusted to her. And why couldn’t it be her? Not that she had needed Brice’s permission, but still, she’d scarcely dared to admit to herself how much she wanted to do this. She’d trained as a journalist. Staying here in the glen didn’t mean she couldn’t write—it gave her the freedom to write what she wanted to explore. If Brice thought the idea was as interesting as she did, maybe other people might think so, too. A history of the Scottish Highlands from the perspective of its female heroes. Its everyday heroes.

  “You’re wonderful,” she said, leaning down to kiss Brice on the lips. “Have I ever told you that?”

  “Not often enough,” he answered, smiling the smile that crinkled his eyes and burrowed straight into her heart. “Feel free to tell me anytime.”

  “In that case, I’ll tell you again once I’ve brought you a cup of tea.”

  By the time she’d brewed a pot and taken it in for him, though, he was deeply immersed on the laptop again. She dropped a kiss on the top of his head and went back to the kitchen, where she softly hummed Christmas carols to herself as she started her belated Christmas morning breakfast.

  She was flipping the pancakes on the stove some fifteen minutes later, when the door swung open and her father limped through. Droplets of butter jumped in the pan around the creamy batter, and on the back burner the bacon had begun to sizzle, its aroma an invitation.

  Her father stopped and sniffed the air. “Are you cooking what I think you’re cooking?”

  “I am if you think I’m making Christmas morning pancakes. Since we missed Christmas day altogether, I decided we’re going to celebrate today. We’ll have Christmas morning, followed by Christmas dinner, and then we’ll all go to the bonfire together tonight.”

  Her father grunted and his lips tightened. “Why would I want to go stand out in the cold for hours on end? I’m too old for all that nonsense.”

  “You’ll go because we’re all going,” Cait said, glaring at him sternly. “Because it’s the end of the year and a chance to put old baggage behind us. Because it’s tradition, and I’m asking you to do it. For me.”

  “Bah!” He grunted again, then braced his cane against the wall and hobbled slowly to the counter where the teapot was still steaming. Watching him, Cait was reminded of what she’d thought each time she’d watched Brice trying to do the simplest task these past few days, each time she’d seen how frustrated his own helplessness made him. It must have been nearly impossible for her father here all alone with his broken ankle.

  It was a miracle she hadn’t lost him, then. As awful as he’d been to everyone, it was a miracle that Brice had managed to make certain he’d been all right. Which was just one more thing Brice had done for her. One thing among the many.

  Leaving the pancakes for a moment, she went to the refrigerator and got the milk out and set it on the counter for her father. But he was staring absently down into his cup.

  “Brice is still asleep, I take it?” he asked.

  “He’s working already.”

  “He’s always working—or asleep,” her father said, sounding surly. “I can’t even go in there to watch the telly. House is too bloody small for the three of us.”

  “He’s told you it’s fine to go in and watch.”

  “Can’t relax with him there, though. Can I?” Donald shifted and leaned against the counter.

  “We can all stay here together, or all go stay at Brice’s. One or the other, because I can’t be going back and forth all day. And there used to be four of us here.”

  “That was family.”

  “You’ll need to get used to Brice being family, too.”

  “Saying so won’t make that true.” Her father gave her a sharp, hard look. “Anyway, you’ll see. The fact he’s making an effort now doesn’t mean he won’t go back to the same lad he always was. But suit yourself if you’re determined to throw your life away. I don’t need a nursemaid.”

  “You will once you’ve had surgery.”

  “I’ll not be letting them cut off my leg!” He set the cup down with a thud. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

  Cait smiled to hide the disappointment. “Shame. You’ll be missing out, if so.”

  He gave a suspicious sniff. “Missing out on what?”

  “Wait and you might find out,” Cait said, though sh
e couldn’t help wondering herself how long he would have to wait. Brice had told her about what he’d seen in the loch at Beltane, but that had been the end of the discussion. Maybe she was more old-fashioned than she’d thought, but it turned out there was still at least one topic she didn’t feel willing to bring up again herself.

  Thinking, these past few days, about what Brice had seen in the loch, she’d had a different perspective as she’d flipped through the photographs she wanted to hang on the tree. She had been so focused on the memories that proved her mum’s life hadn’t been wasted, it had never occurred to her thinking about how Robbie’s death had changed her father. All the things that had ended for him with Robbie gone, and the things he probably thought he would never have again. Someone to carry on his name, his family, his traditions. Someone to whom he could pass along the things his father had passed to him.

  He’d always been so proud of Robbie.

  She flipped the last of the pancakes out onto the platter and turned off the burner beneath the pan. The bacon was done, too, so she pressed it between a pair of paper towels to mop up the excess grease, and then she used her mother’s old trick of sprinkling a dusting of sugar over the top to add a little sweetness.

  There was a formula, her mum had always said, to making a man do what needed doing. It involved sweetening him up and greasing the path, and a little sugar on the bacon took care of both.

  Cait hadn’t had much time to spend with her father these past few days. There’d been too much running back and forth, but she’d been leaving him plenty of food and chores to do here and there as well. As much as he’d grumbled, she could see a change in him already. More color in his face, more energy in his step. Even his eyes were brighter. Now if she could only find a way to broach the subject of the baby again with Brice, if they could find a way to tell her father together, then maybe they could tip the scales for him and finally make him want to fight.

  Hoping that wasn’t wishful thinking on her part, she set the bacon on a second platter, put both on the table, and pulled the chair out for her father to sit. Then she went out to the sitting room to tell Brice it was time to eat.

  Gifts

  “Do not be afraid; our fate

  Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.”

  Dante Alighieri

  Inferno

  Christmas Day at Cait’s house had always been full of laughter; Brice remembered that. Aye, Donald Fletcher had glowered and sulked on every other occasion that he’d been forced to endure Brice’s company, the same as he was glowering and sulking now, but Morag used to dig her elbow into her husband’s ribs, pop a bit of cake or something sweet into his mouth, and speak a few words too softly for anyone else to hear. Though that hadn’t improved Donald’s disposition noticeably, it had at least been enough to keep Donald from booting Brice from the house.

  Brice’s own home had never had much in the way of Christmas joy, even before his mother had gone off and left him behind. For a few years after that, Brando’s mum had taken him in, but that hadn’t been much of a happy house, either. Brando’s dad and Brice’s father had been cut from the self-same cloth, mean as the devil when they’d been drinking. And for both of them, the time between drinks had shortened year by year. Brando and Brice had run wild together, each of them pretending they didn’t mind. Pretending they were stronger than they were. Maybe that’s what had made the cow-tipping seem like a lark when Brice had seen it done while he’d been watching the telly one night after his dad had drunk himself to sleep. The ultimate test of strength. Only why tip a cow? That hadn’t seemed very sporting to Brice, so he and Brando had snuck into Davy Grigg’s pasture in the dead of night and tried to push over Davy’s prize Highland bull.

  Turned out, bulls didn’t sleep so soundly.

  And mothers, at least Brando’s mum, would defend their children more than they would defend themselves.

  Brando’d come home from the hospital with his arm in a cast, and his father had started by adding to the bruises on his face. Brando’s mother decided that was the final straw. She put herself between Brando and his father, and it was her own marriage that had broken after that.

  Afterwards, the story that Brando’s sister Janet tried to put out was that they’d been to Edinburgh to see a marriage counselor. The truth was, driving back in the rain after seeing the solicitor about divorcing, they’d had an accident and both had been killed. Janet, many years older, had stepped in to take care of Brando, but she had blamed Brice for everything that happened. He’d never been welcome in the house again. Had it not been for Cait and her mother, he would have spent every Christmas after that in a cold cottage eating tinned beans and haggis and watching his father drink himself into an early grave.

  Spending Christmas Day with the Fletchers had meant more than Brice had ever admitted to anyone. He’d never been there to open presents, though. And he was ashamed to remember how little thought he used to put into the gifts he’d brought for Cait and her family when Morag was kind enough to invite him for dinner.

  He intended to change that in the future.

  For the moment, though, there wasn’t much he could do about presents. Cait had only sprung the idea of celebrating a belated Christmas on him the previous night. Which wasn’t to say he hadn’t managed to hide a surprise for her beneath the tree, along with the one he’d put together for her and Donald both.

  Walking ahead of Brice, Cait swept into the sitting room and took up a position beside the tree while Donald limped in more slowly leaning on his cane. Brice’s own progress was even slower. With his arm still in the sling to immobilize his right shoulder, he could only use a crutch on the left arm, which was the opposite of what he needed. It made navigating awkward to say the least.

  By the time he reached Cait, she had already started to separate the gifts into piles, and her face was lit with anticipation. That was another thing he loved about her, her moods were as changeable as the clouds that caught themselves on the tops of the high Munros that stood brooding among the smaller Highland braes around the glen.

  He settled himself on the end of the sofa where she directed him, while Donald took the other end. She set a stack of gifts in front of him, but he was busy watching for the moment when she would find the two he had hidden himself beneath the tree.

  She pulled them out and straightened. “What’s this?” she asked, looking at him. “Are these from you?”

  “Open the bigger one first,” he said, even gladder now that he had made the effort to rummage in the kitchen for a container large enough to throw her off the scent. In turn, he’d wrapped that with the paper he had hidden beneath the sofa while the two of them were wrapping the other gifts.

  Cait studied him a long moment, puzzled. But her eyes gleamed, and he could see she was happy to have something to unwrap. Slowly, she eased the tape off the middle of the package, and then one end and the other. Neatly. Too neatly. He needed to see her reaction when she finally had it open.

  But finding a plastic food storage box containing a stack of folded paper towels, her obvious confusion only grew. She pried the lid off, took out the paper towels, and went to set the container down.

  “Careful,” Brice said.

  The ring dropped out onto the floor, bounced once, and then lay on the carpet near her feet.

  She stared at it.

  Brice picked his crutch up, stood, and came back over to her. “Unfortunately, I can’t pick that up for you, and I can’t get down on one knee. But I can tell you that when I look back on my life, every good moment has been good because you were there beside me. You make me want to spend every day of the rest of my life finding ways to make you happy. You make me forget myself enough so that I can look around and see the things that are so much more important. You show me how beautiful the world is because you’re in it. Marry me, Cait. I don’t deserve you, but I swear to you I will spend every minute that I am breathing making sure I never let you down.”

  Her hand had flo
wn up to cover her mouth, and her eyes had grown full and moist. He’d hoped he knew her answer—dared to hope—but suddenly standing here, his stomach churned and his palms grew slick. What if she wasn’t ready for this yet? What if he’d asked too soon? Or used the wrong words?

  The doubt started to make him dizzy, but then she stepped forward and kissed him, her lips soft and her thumbs pressing lightly on either side of his mouth. He breathed in the scent of her: warm, spicy Christmas pancakes, honey vanilla shampoo, the new perfume whose name he didn’t know but whose scent had become familiar.

  “Is that a yes?” he breathed against her hair as she drew back.

  “Yes, please,” she said. “I thought you’d never get around to asking.” And turning to her father, she arched her eyebrows and added, “See? Didn’t I tell you he was family?”

  Donald sat with his arms folded, but not in a dissatisfied way. More self-protective, Brice decided. Then he wondered, if he ever lost Cait, how he would feel if he saw two lovers happy together. The thought froze his breath to ice inside his lungs.

  He turned back to Cait. “Would you do me a favor, love? Put that ring back on your finger where it belongs, and then give your father the other package.”

  She studied him again from beneath long, dark lashes, then she bent and retrieved the ring she’d taken off fifteen months before, the diamond still smaller than she deserved but surrounded by even smaller diamonds in a way that managed to give the appearance of something larger. She brushed it with her fingertip and, smiling, handed it to him gently. His heart swelled and quickened as he slid it back on her finger and brought it to his lips. They stood a long moment only looking at each other. He would never tire of looking at her.

  “You two going to stand there all day?” Donald asked from the couch, his voice gruff, though whether with impatience or some gentler emotion, Brice couldn’t tell. “Or are you going to give me that package?”

  Cait laughed, and Brice mentally shook himself, feeling warm with relief and joy. Cait walked the small, flat package over to her father, and Donald tore it open in a single quick motion as far removed from his daughter’s careful approach as it was possible to get. But he stared at the painted salt dough frame and the photograph that Brice had glued inside it with his brow furrowed. “What’s this, then?”