Must Love Kilts

by Angela Quarles

  The wail morphed into a low moan, and a voice emerged. “I aaaam the ghooost of Christmaaaaaas paaaaast.”

  Traci straightened and covered her mouth to stifle a snort. Oh, yes, that was Fiona all right. She recognized her attempt to sound male and menacing.

  The relief bobbed her knees for a sec, and a stupid-wide grin escaped. Traci edged through the door, knowing she could only be partially seen in the murky light. She raised her arms. “I aaaaam the ghooost of Christmaaaaas futurrrre,” she moaned.

  Fiona shrieked, and the nails-on-chalkboard sound reverberated along the stone walls. Ha. Now the residents would be even more terrified of coming here at this time.

  Unfortunately, her sister accompanied the shriek with a full pivot away from her and sprinted down the cobble-stoned courtyard and up a narrow stone incline.

  Shit.

  “Fiona!” she said in a loud, harsh whisper. But her sister couldn’t hear her over her own screeching. How could she not know it was her? She must be strung out with nerves.

  Damn it.

  Traci tore down the courtyard, the sheet fluttering behind. Thank God, she’d cut the sheet to reach only past her knees. Not so with her much shorter sister. She snagged on the sheet’s edge and sprawled onto the stone surface.

  Traci put on an extra burst of speed, leaped, and landed on top of Fiona.

  She was all frantic elbows and screams, and Traci clamped a hand over Fiona’s mouth. “It’s me, you idiot. Now hush, and let’s get out of here.”

  Her sister stilled, then slumped. To Traci’s complete surprise, she quietly sobbed. “I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe you found me.” She repeated “you’re here” over and over, gulping down breaths, until she managed to calm down.

  Traci crawled off her, grabbed her hand, and helped her stand. And was knocked backward by the force of Fiona’s hug.

  Traci stroked her sister’s gnarled hair and softly cooed. Both of them trembling. She pulled away and soaked in the sight of Fiona. Skinnier than she’d seen her last, and dark circles bruising the pale skin under her eyes. But otherwise, she looked whole.

  She’d done it. She’d found her sister. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. Oh God. Are you?”

  Traci nodded.

  Her sister began to shake. “Do you…do you have the calling card case?”

  Traci patted the pouch on her belt. “I do. But what happened to you?”

  “Never mind that now. I just want to get back home. Where it’s safe. And clean. And I can take a showeeeerrrrr.” The last word was a drawn-out sob.

  “Okay, okay. We’ll leave now.” Traci fished under the sheet and pulled open the pouch. She felt inside until her fingers closed around the cool contours of the silver case. “Come over here and hug me, okay? We don’t want to take any chances.”

  “Thank you. God. I was so scared. But I knew you’d find me.”

  “You did?” Pride made her voice wobble.

  “Yeah,” Fiona whispered. “I did.”

  Heart full with her sister’s faith in her, but also aching at leaving Iain, Traci whispered, “Hold on.” And she rubbed the case and made her wish.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  For all thy bold conspiracies.

  Thy head must pay the score ;

  Thy cheats and lies, thy box and dice.

  Will serve thy turn no more.

  “Lament for the Apprehending of Sir Thomas Armstrong,” Jacobite Reliques

  Two days later

  After several days of hard riding, Iain and his party arrived at Dundee’s camp in Struan. Early morning mist still clung to the ground and swirled about his feet as he wended his way through the encampment, intent on finding his uncle.

  For a reckoning was long past due.

  He’d lost Traci, but he for damn sure wasn’t going to lose himself again. A figure stepped out of a nearby tent and grasped his arm. Duncan and Gavin spread out to either side, backs stiff, but there was no cause for alarm.

  “Alasdair. Are ye well? I’d heard you’d come here.” Glengarry had hedged their clan’s bets in the dynastic fight by staying home and sending his son to represent the clan. Whichever way the rebellion went—win or lose—one of them would be on the winning side and so maintain the security of their clan and the people who depended on them.

  Alasdair raised a brow and glanced at the three of them in turn. “Aye. I was just informed of your arrival and of your late night flight from my father’s castle. You knew we intended for your wife to remain with the chief.”

  “Nay.” He paused to marshal his thoughts, and he kept his eyes and voice steady. “You and your father were part of a deception meant to discredit me in the eyes of your father, our chief.” He quickly filled him in on his uncle’s machinations, as well as his failings as chieftain. Especially the most damning for a chieftain—his stinginess.

  “He is not what your father was.”

  Duncan and Gavin grunted their assent, and Iain shook his head. “That, he is not. If you’ll excuse me, I’m on my way now to confront him.”

  Alasdair’s eyes gleamed. “This I must see.”

  Iain grunted and strode to his uncle’s tent, pent-up resentment and the promise of confrontation fueling his strides. His uncle’s tent came into view at the next turn. Most of the men slept in the open—only the chiefs and the minor chieftains like his uncle had such shelter.

  “I’d have a word with you, uncle,” he said loud enough to penetrate within and to carry to those nearby.

  A rustle of cloth came from within, and shortly his uncle threw back the flap of his tent and straightened. His eyes shifted to take in those gathered around, but they never landed on his. “Well, if it isn’t my incompetent nephew. Where’s that wife of yours?”

  “She was never a threat, and you know it.” He kept his stance loose but ready.

  “How can a lackwit such as yourself determine such a matter?”

  He refused to take the bait. “Know this, mine uncle. After this rebellion, when we have time to speak without the distraction of war, we will come to an understanding. Your aspersions and manipulations, I will no longer tolerate. Your actions show you to be weak-willed if you need to lower me in the eyes of others in order to raise yourself.”

  His uncle’s eyes narrowed, and again they darted around, but he only rolled his lips inward and raised his chin. It wasn’t lost on his uncle that Alasdair, Duncan, and Gavin stood nearby, witnesses.

  Alasdair crossed his arms. “My father—your chief—will not be pleased to hear that he was not dealt with honestly. If you have an issue with your men, you deal with it. Do not use him to do your dirty work.”

  Iain began to turn. By turning his back, yet keeping his senses heightened, he’d allow his uncle to prove his assessment wrong. Prove his uncle would not take the coward’s route and stab him in the back.

  From the corner of his eye, Iain caught the quick movement as his uncle lunged forward with his dirk. His uncle was a weak man.

  Iain spun and knocked the deadly knife from his grip with a quick, sharp blow. He grabbed his uncle’s wrist and whirled him around until his uncle’s arm pressed high against his back. At the same instant, his own dirk was at his uncle’s neck.

  “Do not test me again.” He shoved his uncle away, who landed on his knees with a grunt.

  Iain curled his lip and turned his back on his uncle in a show of strength. He marched through the parting crowd, and Duncan and Gavin closed ranks beside him.

  The crowd stopped parting, and before him loomed an imposing man. By the wealth of his clothes and its Lowlander styling, combined with the air of authority he exuded, it could be only one man: Dundee.

  As a true sprig of the noble trees of both Bruce and Stewart, Dundee was well-formed and formidable. He stood now, erect and tall, like a venerable oak, commanding the attention and respect of all the men he sheltered.

  “My thanks to you for avoiding bloodshed,” he said in tolerable Gàid
hlig. In some ironic twist fate enjoys betimes, the Highlanders were led by a Lowlander—Dundee—while the government forces were led by a Highlander—Mackay. “You have just arrived, I’ve been informed. Will you and your leading men join me? For I wish to apprise you of how our situation currently stands and my expectations of your men.”

  Iain bowed his head. “Of course, my lord.”

  Traci shoved her design sketchbook and pens into her leather satchel and ducked out of her office on the top floor of a modest-looking stone building in the heart of the hip, tech district of London.

  Her ploy to avoid introspection? A big, fat fail. She’d come back only to face another week left of her vacation. So she’d begged to return to work, and her boss had snatched at the chance to have her help in the final round of testing Team B’s game.

  Which had ended just now.

  “Take the rest of your holiday,” her boss had ordered.

  Now she had six days to rattle around in.

  Frustration clipped her steps as she marched down the gray marble hallway. She hadn’t felt fully seated in her body since she’d returned. Sure, she’d buried herself with work. But that no longer…satisfied. Had it ever? She mashed the elevator button and gripped her satchel. Glared at the slowly churning floor numbers above the door. It ticked to another floor. Annnnd stopped. She mashed the button again. “Come on, damn you.”

  She eyed the stair exit, her normal route—a way to keep her weight off—but perversely, she refused. She’d come back to technology, and that technology should deliver, dammit. She jabbed her thumb on the button in quick succession. She switched to her other thumb. Then both thumbs, one after the other, her satchel thumping against the wall as it dangled from her other fingers.

  She’d given up and turned for the stairs when the door dinged. “Stupid elevator.” She hurried inside and hit the ground floor button.

  A chipper electronic beat tweeted from the elevator’s speakers, interrupted by the low-pitched dong of each passing floor. Had she been kidding herself the entire time she’d been working here in London? She’d moved here to escape her family and to forge her own life, her own identity. And had found it. She thought. But really all she’d done was fill her life with work. And more work. And empty victories.

  Two days ago, when she’d gripped Fiona on the cobblestones of Urquhart Castle, her heart beating a no-no-no rhythm, she’d hoped that returning would purge her mind of Iain.

  Iain.

  Her throat closed up, and she swallowed.

  That hadn’t worked, had it?

  No.

  She craved him. Craved his voice. Craved his laughter. Craved the ease she felt around him. Geez, it had gotten so bad, that each night before bed, she pulled up their photograph, touched his cheek, and kissed him.

  She barked a laugh. God, she was pathetic. She covered her mouth and glanced at the security camera. The on-duty guy must think her crazy. She waved her fingers. The elevator dinged open, and she threaded her way through the lobby and out onto the clogged street.

  No, she hadn’t purged Iain from her thoughts. Even worse, she’d reverted to her old high school and college habit of analyzing every-friggin’-thing. Every interaction they’d shared, hoping to glean from it every shred of meaning.

  Yes. This was worse, worse than her craving, because the last time she’d analyzed like this was the last time she’d ever daydreamed about finding love.

  She stopped, and Londoners swirled past her.

  Well, shit. Now she knew what she’d do with the six days gaping before her. Time to hole up in her apartment and figure her life out. Finally.

  Stacks of history books lay sprawled around Traci in the living room of her London apartment. Day One of her Figure Shit Out Week, and she’d caved to curiosity. Near as she could tell, the rendezvous with Dundee that Iain and his clan had rushed off to led straight into a battle. The Battle of Killiecrankie.

  Iain’s clan had been on—she picked up her notes—the right flank, but not a single one of these books mentioned his name. Or Duncan’s. And that lack of info worked deeper and deeper into her, coiling into a nameless, helpless sense of foreboding. Apparently his sept wasn’t significant enough for their chieftains to make any listings. Did Iain ever become the chieftain?

  She threw down the last history book, which slithered across the precarious pile. She’d never been good at history or the research involved. But the more she read about the battle, the more her foreboding grew into a weird sense that she needed to do something. But what? Tomorrow, three hundred and something years ago, Iain and his clan had fought in that battle. Did he survive?

  When she’d first come back, she’d looked forward to Mr. Podbury arriving and taking the case away, and she’d wished she knew exactly when that’d be. But now, as the unease grew, she wasn’t so sure…

  Her apartment’s buzzer rang, and she lurched over and thumbed the speaker button. “Yes?”

  “It’s me,” came Fiona’s clear tones. “I have sushi. Can I come up?”

  Finally. Since their return, all she’d gotten out of her sister was that nothing bad had happened to her—she hadn’t been raped or beaten. But she’d been scared, and it had shaken her. She’d checked into a nearby hotel for the rest of her vacation. Traci had told her she could crash with her, but Fiona had mumbled something about needing alone time, and Traci hadn’t pressed.

  “Since you have sushi….” Traci teased and punched the button to unlock the street door.

  Her sister soon sprang into her apartment, her face more alive than Traci had seen it since they’d returned. Fiona set the to-go bags on the hall table. “You look like crap.”

  “Well, gee, thanks.”

  “Have you not been sleeping well?”

  Traci stomped into her galley kitchen and pulled down two plates rather than reply. She tossed the utensils onto the dining table. “All I have is water. Want some?”

  “What? No bubbly? Not even vitamin water?”

  Traci shrugged. “Haven’t had a chance to shop much since we got back. Work’s been keeping me busy.” She settled at the table, and Fiona joined her. They divvied up the sushi rolls and chowed down in silence.

  Fiona wiped her mouth after polishing off a third roll. “Work’s been keeping you busy, or you’ve been letting it keep you busy?”

  Traci glared. “Same thing.”

  “No. It’s not.” Fiona tossed her napkin down. “Come on. You’ve been this way ever since we got back. I’m not an idiot. It’s Iain, isn’t it?”

  She stiffened. “I haven’t told you anything about Iain.”

  A cat-caught-the-cream grin broke across Fiona’s face, and she bounced once in her seat. “Ha. I knew it. Outside of mentioning that you’d run across him, and that he’d helped you, no, you haven’t. But it was the way you skirted around that topic…”

  Traci set down her chopsticks and shoved away her plate, a half-eaten tiger roll listing pathetically. She couldn’t…she couldn’t talk about this. Not with Fiona. They’d never been that close.

  Ready to tell her to mind her own business, she lifted her gaze. Caught a note of vulnerability there. And just a touch of daring. As if it was not only important for Traci to share, but also that Fiona was nervous about pushing, knowing it was new bonding territory as not-so-close sisters. Traci’s heart ached a bit at that.

  “Okay. Yes. We…we got a little involved.”

  Excitement and relief animated Fiona’s face. “Spill, sister. That was one hunky highlander in a kilt.”

  Traci laughed. “You’re still convinced of all that, are you?”

  “Yes.” She held out her hand, palm open. “And you owe me a hundred bucks.”

  The worry she’d held inside loosened. “So you really are okay? You weren’t just telling me that?”

  Fiona sighed and looked at a point over Traci’s shoulder. “Yes. The men who took me were rough-looking, I won’t lie, and I really thought this was it—I’m going to be raped and l
eft for dead.” She pulled her hand back and returned her gaze to Traci’s. “But they didn’t hurt me. Their Gaelic was rougher than what I’d learned. And the chief they brought me to made me nervous, so, as soon as I could escape, I did.” She waved her hand.

  “What happened after that?”

  Fiona looked to the side. “Not much. I was scared to death and really, really hungry by the time I reached Urquhart Castle. But I didn’t want to run into trouble inside, so I stayed hidden in their old hall, which had a collapsed roof, and took up the gruagach business. Didn’t think they’d appreciate a free loader. I stockpiled food and stole some silver, which I’d planned to sell at the next village on my way back to the inn. Always go back to the beginning, right?”

  Traci chuckled. “Right.”

  Fiona popped another bite of sushi into her mouth and chewed, keeping her gaze fixed on Traci. She swallowed. “Anyway, enough about me.” She pointed her chopsticks at Traci. “Spill.”

  So Traci did. And, in doing so, found a strange catharsis.

  About an hour later, Traci and Fiona settled on plushy cushions around Traci’s glass coffee table, eating the chocolate torte Fiona had brought for dessert. Early afternoon sun streaked through the lone window in her flat.

  “So, yeah. Iain…” Fiona licked chocolate frosting off her finger and pointed it at Traci. “What are you going to do about that?”

  Traci eased her fork into her slice. “What do you mean?”

  Fiona’s spoon clattered onto the table, and she glared at her. Hard.

  “What?” Traci adjusted her cushion, not looking at her sister.

  “Are you serious? That’s it? You’re not going back?” Her voice rose with each question.

  A strange mixture of horror and elation crashed through Traci, and she inhaled deeply. The new sensation mingled with the restlessness and foreboding that had set up shop ever since she learned the battle would be tomorrow in his time. All she could manage was a strangled, “Go back?”

  “Yes. Go back. You’re not normally this dense.”