“The bastard!”
“Aye, but he’s like too many of us, Dunc. He’s frightened of anything he doesn’t understand.”
Duncan felt the sting of Iain’s rebuke. “And you understand Mara? You really believe she can see the future like that old Margaret Henley, who decreed that you and Andrew and I had been born together for some great purpose and we shouldn’t be separated?”
“There’s magic in this place, Duncan. We both know it. There will always be things that happen here—and everywhere, for that matter—that we can’t understand. I don’t know what Mara sees, and I don’t know why. But I know her. I stood by her during her divorce, and I offered her that godforsaken bit of land because she needed isolation. She needed a place to build her confidence. I could give her that, and I did.”
“Did Fitzwilliams leave her destitute?”
“Oh, not at all. She has money. She lives the way she chooses to live. She’s building her self-respect with every stone of that cottage, with every hank of yarn she spins, with every plant in her garden and sheep in her steading.”
Iain didn’t let himself care about people easily. But he cared about Mara; that was obvious. Duncan knew he had to let the things Iain had said to him settle. There was just one more thing he had to know.
“What did you do to Fitzwilliams when he called Mara a freak?”
Iain smiled for the first time that night. “I threw him halfway across the room. It was a very nice restaurant. I’m afraid I quite spoiled a platter of roast duckling and a six-layer torte.”
CHAPTER 6
With his heart in his throat, Duncan watched April fling herself at Guiser, but before he could intervene, the dog methodically covered the little girl’s face with canine kisses.
“I suppose this proves she needs a pet,” he told Mara, who had come down the path in front of her cottage just after the dog.
“A wee kitty, perhaps. Imagine the havoc a dog with Guiser’s energy would wreak at your hotel.”
Duncan almost protested that the hotel didn’t belong to him. It belonged to his father, and he was only managing it until it could belong to someone else. But he supposed Mara was right. The Sinclair Hotel was his, as well as his sister’s, at least temporarily, even if that thought made him feel a thousand years old.
“One of my neighbors has a cat with kittens just old enough to give away. We could stop there on the way home this afternoon.” Mara was careful to be sure that April, still occupied with Guiser, didn’t overhear her.
“It would make a good birthday gift,” Duncan admitted.
“Then might I give one to her?”
He pretended to consider, but he used the seconds to study her. She was dressed in a green sweater and skirt as pale as the newest leaves of spring. Her hair was pulled back in a long braid that fell past her shoulder blades, and she wore a straw hat with a wide brim that shaded her face from the day’s rare and glorious sunshine. Perhaps he had known more beautiful women, women who understood fashion and artifice and made the most of both. But he had never known anyone whose beauty appealed to him more.
He shook his head. “I used to be in advertising. I had an account a couple of years ago that depended on finding the perfect model. I lost it because nobody I found could even come close to the image we were trying to promote. And here you are.”
She smiled. “You’re saying that it was someone like me you were looking for?”
“Exactly.”
“What was the product?”
“Fabric softener.”
Her smile widened. “Should I be flattered?”
He thought of the ad campaign that had come to nothing. Of acres of billowing clouds and a woman dancing just above them, as feather light and delicate as a fairy. “Flattered? I don’t know. I’ve never really understood the way women think. But you’d have made money.”
“I’ve never wanted to be rich.”
“Just happy?”
“Perhaps not even as grand a thing as that.”
“Can I have a kitten, Daddy? Please?” April jumped to her feet, pushing the fawning Guiser away. “Can Mara give me a kitten?”
Duncan raised a brow, and Mara shrugged. “I can no’ be blamed. Her hearing’s exceptional,” she said.
“If Mara is willing, I’m willing,” Duncan said.
“We’ll have to check with my neighbor first,” Mara warned. “No promises.”
“But you think she’ll let me have one?”
“Aye. I think it’s possible.”
Duncan watched April run toward the cottage with Guiser close at her heels. “Thank you for coming with us today,” he said. “I don’t know that I’d have been as charitable as you are, under the same circumstances.”
“What circumstances are those?”
He saw humor in her eyes. “I haven’t exactly been fair to you.”
“I think you must have your reasons.”
“And I’m still not sure how I feel about all this.”
“You’re sure, Duncan. You think I’m a wee bit daft. But you’re willing to overlook it. I take what I can get.”
He realized that had become his philosophy, too, at least as far as Mara MacTavish was concerned. He couldn’t dwell on her supposed gifts, because he found the idea so impossible. But he was beginning to think he might be able to wall away his doubts.
She was worth a little effort.
“I’ve packed a few extra treats. Let’s get them, then we can start our walk.”
He fell into step beside her. “We’re walking from here?”
“Along a sheep path. You might be surprised where sheep will go.”
There was a lilt to her voice that intrigued him. “You sound like you’re enjoying this already.”
“I’ve been looking forward to it.”
He read between the lines. She’d been looking forward to today because she had so little contact with people. And she loved children—he could see that in the way she treated April—but she seldom had a chance to be with them.
She surprised him when she continued. “I’ve been looking forward to knowing you better.”
“Have you?”
“Aye. I dinna think you’re the dour, humorless, judgmental and arrogant skellum that you pretend to be.”
She’d said it with such charm, he couldn’t feel insulted. “I’m relieved. I think.”
“Dinna fash yourself, Duncan. I think you’re a sensitive man who feels things so deeply he does no’ know what to do about them. So he tries no’ to feel them.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Well, I suppose I will have had a wheen happy hours just pretending you’re a better man than you are.”
He laughed, and she laughed, too. He couldn’t remember suffering such ferocious criticism so gladly. He felt rebuked and forgiven, and he realized, for the first time, that he had needed her forgiveness. He didn’t examine it too closely; he was just glad to get it.
The door to the cottage stood open, and April had already gone inside. Duncan followed Mara through the doorway. He crossed the threshold and stopped, examining her handiwork as she and April gathered containers from the kitchen and put them in a canvas backpack like the one firmly in place on his own back.
With sunlight streaming through the doorway and windows, he could see the details that he had ignored on his last visit. The cottage was simple, almost primitive in its construction, but everything had been put together with craftsmanship and an eye for detail and beauty. The rafters were hand-hewn hardwood. He imagined they had once graced a barn or stable. Bunches of dried herbs and flowers hung from them in colorful, lacy disarray. Without peat smoldering in the fireplace, he could smell their subtle perfume.
The walls were a patchwork quilt of shapes. The stones had been assembled so expertly that they seemed to form pictures. He imagined that on a cold winter night, they provided hours of entertainment and fantasy.
Almost everything in the cottage had been handcrafted, an
d possibly a great deal of it had been crafted by Mara herself. The furniture was simple, certainly not as crude as might have been found in the but and ben houses of old crofting settlements, but chosen with utility and modest elegance in mind. The walnut table in the kitchen shone from a century of careful polishing. Hand-thrown pottery of subtle hues adorned it, along with a bouquet of golden daffodils and grape hyacinth. The bed loomed large not more than three yards from him. It was high off the stone floor, a wide wooden rectangle with what looked to be a comfortable mattress. He found himself staring at it, imagining Mara asleep there at night, surrounded by the fragrance of smoldering peat and drying herbs, her long blond hair flowing over the pastel pillowcases.
“Do you approve, Duncan?”
She had asked the question humorously, a woman who’d caught a man with more on his mind than decor, but he sensed she really wanted to know. Did he approve of everything she’d accomplished? And did he approve of her?
“It’s extraordinary. You’re extraordinary for living here.”
“There’s still much to be done. It has no’ been easy, nor will it be. But it’s mine.”
“And you’ve done it all by yourself?”
“Could you see me lifting those timbers for the roof alone?”
“No. I can’t see you hauling stones, either.”
“Well, the stones I did. There was a settlement here once, and stones aplenty for the taking when I began to build. Sometimes late at night I like to imagine the lives of the people who lived among them.”
“You hauled the stones and set them in place?”
“The stones are not as large as you might think. These walls are a double thickness. Did you know?”
“Double?”
April was busy with Guiser again. Mara beckoned Duncan to the doorway. “If this frame were gone you could see how it’s done. There are two rows of stones, filled in with earth and whatever was handy. It was a natural way to insulate against wind and cold. My house is snug in the coldest winter.”
“Is that how the old houses were built?”
“It was. I tried, as best I could, to do everything the same way.”
“Why?”
“I’ve always been interested in history. My ancestors lived not more than fifty miles from Druidheachd before the Clearances, and probably had a croft much like this one. I had an auntie who knew our family history, and she used to tell me stories.” She paused.
He could almost see her editing what she would say next. “What did she tell you?”
She looked away. “This and that. But I always found the stories of life in the Highlands fascinating.”
“I find stories of the Romans fascinating, but I’ve never built my own amphitheatre or hired gladiators to entertain at my parties.”
“Will you promise no’ to laugh?”
“Scout’s honor.”
She didn’t look convinced. “When I’ve finished what I’ve set out to do, I’d like to bring schoolchildren here to teach them the old ways. No’ because all the old ways are better, mind you, but because we are sometimes in danger of forgetting where we came from and what we once knew.”
“What would you teach?”
“A bit of everything. Caring for animals, the spinning and dying of yarn, construction methods, gardening and preserving food, the old customs and beliefs.”
“It sounds ambitious.”
“It is ambitious. I won’t be ready for a year or two, and then only just the smallest number of children could come for a week in the summer. But it would be a beginning, would it no’?”
“I think it’s a fine idea.”
“But would you send April?”
He started to say that this was not April’s heritage and therefore there was little need for this in her life, but even as the words formed, he realized how false they were. He was descended from crofters himself. And not just from his Druidheachd-born father. His mother had been a fifth generation American, but a branch of her ancestors, like a multitude of Scots, had been transported to the United States against their will in the early 1800s. The Clearances had rid the mountains of the troublesome, clannish Highlanders and made them safe for the sheep of wealthy Englishmen. And when that tragic time had finally ended, there had been more Scots living outside their own country than within its borders.
“I would send April,” he said. “It might be her only chance to know something about her history.”
“Why? She’ll be taught it in school.”
“We won’t be here long. Just long enough to put the hotel on its feet and sell it. Then we’ll be moving on.”
“I did no’ know.”
“I think I owe it to April to raise her somewhere more cosmopolitan,” he said dryly.
“Do you now?”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“There are things to learn everywhere. She’ll learn things in Druidheachd she’d never learn in New York or London and vice versa. Who’s to say which is more valuable?”
“I say.”
She smiled. “And so you should, like a good father.”
He wanted to protest. He wasn’t a good father. He had been an abysmal failure when April most needed him. But Duncan never talked about his failures—or his successes.
“Can we go?” April asked, coming to join them. Guiser wagged his tail as if to repeat the question.
“Aye, I think it’s time,” Mara said. “Do we have everything?”
“I hope so. I feel like I’m carrying half of Scotland on my back.”
She laughed. April and Guiser scampered through the doorway, and Mara followed. Duncan was the last out. “Shouldn’t I lock the door?” he called after them.
Mara turned, and the sunlight wasn’t nearly as bright as the expression on her face. “Silly mannie. We trust each other here. We dinna have to lock our doors. I suppose that’s just one of those things you will no’ be learning in New York.”
* * *
The spot Mara had chosen for their picnic was the meadow where Duncan had first encountered her at winter’s end. Duncan hadn’t been aware that it was so close to her house, because by the road, it would have been a twisting and treacherous drive. But by foot, along a trail blazed over the centuries by flocks of cloven hooves, the meadow and the small loch that he had been headed toward that day were only a pleasant hike.
They stopped for everything. April wanted to examine every rock, every sprouting wildflower, every clump of fern or heather. She threw fallen twigs for Guiser and collected shining pieces of agate to set on the windowsill of her room.
It was after noon when they reached the meadow. A profusion of violets and cowslips greeted them. The tall grass seemed to turn a deeper green as Duncan watched, stretching toward the cloudless sky and rippling in gratitude.
“It’s a rare and perfect day,” Mara said. “The sun is out for your birthday, April. It’s God’s own present.”
“The sun doesn’t shine here much, does it?”
“I’m afraid no’.”
“So when it does, you notice it. Like now. I never noticed it at home, because it was always there.”
“Then you like this better?”
April considered. “No. But it makes a good present.”
Duncan and Mara laughed together. “Just tell me one thing,” Mara said, after April scampered off. “With a bonny name like April, why is her birthday in May?”
“She made a late arrival, a whole month late. She was supposed to be born in April,” he said.
“And you liked the name so you could no’ bear to change it?”
“My ex-wife never let anything as unimportant as reality stop her from doing whatever she wanted,” Duncan said.
They chose a spot not far from where Duncan had seen the light show that had led him to Geordie Smith. Duncan cleared away the largest stones and spread a thin blanket on the ground. In a companionable silence he and Mara unpacked their backpacks, while April and Guiser searched unsuccessfully
for the season’s first forget-me-nots.
Frances Gunn had outdone herself in honor of April’s birthday. There were tiny sandwiches of smoked salmon and cucumber, and more of a tangy local cheese garnished with the tart watercress that grew along a small burn near the hotel. There were apples saved over the winter in Frances’s fruit cellar and freshly baked oatcake studded with plump raisins.
Mara had added raspberry jam made with berries from her own garden and scones she had baked that morning, along with thick cream from Bluebell, her best milk cow. Mara and Duncan drank fragrant tea from one thermos, and April finished two glasses of fresh, sweet milk from another.
Duncan stretched out with a backpack as a pillow after a determined April and Guiser went off to search for forget-me-nots again. “Bluebell is a health hazard.”
Mara stretched out beside him. “I’ll have you know she’s been examined and vaccinated, and she’s a very proper cow, as cows go.”
Duncan didn’t think about his next move. He reached for her, repositioning her so that her head was pillowed on his well-satiated belly. “So you can watch April, too,” he explained. “It takes two to keep a good eye on her.”
“Guiser will watch over her.”
Duncan felt an urge to stroke Mara’s hair. Her braid lay across his chest, and he wondered if it was as silky as it appeared. He wondered what she would do if he touched her in such an intimate way. He wondered what he would do.
He kept his hands by his side and chose a safe subject. “Bluebell’s a health hazard because her milk is so rich. I can feel my arteries clogging.”
“When you lived in Los Angeles, did you nibble on lettuce leaves and have your own personal trainer?”
“I was always too busy. The only way I got to the gym was if a client was there and wanted my company.”
“You said you were in advertising.”
“I had my own agency.”
“And did you give it up because you had so little time for anything else?”
The obvious answer was no. Duncan had thrived on hard work. His adrenaline had soared higher and higher with each success. There had been nothing else in his life that had come close to the exhilaration of winning a new account.
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