But there was a less obvious answer. “In a way I gave it up because I didn’t have time for April,” he said.
“In a way?”
“When I divorced April’s mother, she told me I could have all the time with April that I wanted if I was willing to pay a small price.”
“A price?”
“Lisa traded sole custody of April for all my financial assets, including the agency. She took our net worth. I took our daughter.”
“You made the better bargain.”
Mara hadn’t even hesitated, although he knew she must have been shocked by his revelation. “I did,” he agreed. “And now April’s mine, and Lisa can never hurt her again.”
“Hurt her, Duncan?”
He debated whether to tell her a little about Lisa. If Mara was going to spend time with April, she needed to understand. “Lisa was worse than a failure as a mother. She foisted April off on anyone who would take her. I was working too hard, and for too long I didn’t know what was happening.”
Mara shifted so that her cheek was against his shirt and she could see his face. The intimacy of the position wasn’t lost on him. He wondered how it would feel to have her against him this way, cheek to bare skin. She too easily inspired those kinds of thoughts.
“But dinna a lot of people find that adjusting to a child takes time?” she asked. “Was your wife so unusual?”
“I wish it had been that simple. But Lisa never wanted to face the real world. When I met her, she was a struggling actress, a good one, but without the self-discipline or drive to succeed, so she married me. And after April’s birth, she found that the real world still wasn’t much fun, so she retreated into the New Age. I don’t think I’ll ever know everything she did. Some of it was harmless, even healthy, like meditation and yoga. But she quickly moved on to other things. For a while she was an astrologer and self-proclaimed psychic. She surrounded herself with crystals. She claimed to see auras. She talked endlessly about her past lives. At one point she believed she could teach herself to travel anywhere in the universe while she was lying on our bed, which she did for days at a time.”
“But dinna a lot of people search for answers? Perhaps her choices were no’ traditional ones, but do we all have to follow the same paths?”
“I told myself the same thing. And I shut my eyes to how obsessed she’d become with all of it, and how completely oblivious she was to April. After more than two years of floundering and searching, Lisa found her answer. She became the disciple of a man who preached brotherly love and psychic healing, along with total and complete obedience to his teachings. His church—if it could be called a church—was named the Temple of Knowledge and Joy, and I suppose those were the things Lisa was searching for. She began to spend all her time at indoctrination sessions. She sold all her jewelry and gave him the profits. She took huge chunks out of our savings and signed over a number of our investments. She’d always handled our personal finances, so I didn’t find out until it was too late.”
“So you divorced her and took April?”
He wished with all his heart that it had been that straightforward. “No. I left Lisa, but I let her keep April. I could see that Lisa’s behavior was unhealthy, but I couldn’t see what it was doing to our daughter. When it came time to decide custody, Lisa promised me she wasn’t involved with the Temple anymore, and I believed her. I really thought she loved April, and I didn’t believe she would do anything to hurt her. I worked so many hours each day that I just couldn’t see how I could care for April by myself.”
“Then you did what you thought was best.”
He was surprised that she sounded so certain. “Did I? When I visited April, she clung to me like she was drowning. I thought she just missed me, but that she would get used to our divorce the way I had gotten used to my own parents’ divorce when I was a child.”
“Those would be natural explanations.”
Or the explanations of a man too obsessed with his own importance to care enough about his own daughter. But Duncan didn’t add that part.
“After I left, Lisa went from leaving April with unsuitable people to leaving her alone. I went to visit April late one evening, and before I could even get the front door unlocked I heard screaming. Lisa hadn’t known I was coming, so she’d locked April in her bedroom and gone out. I finally quieted April and got her to sleep, then I waited for Lisa. She didn’t come back until early the next morning. When I confronted her, she claimed that someone from the Temple was supposed to have come over to stay with April, but she couldn’t give me a name. When April woke up, I took her into the office for the day. At four o’clock Lisa arrived with her attorney, demanded that I give April back, and the negotiations began. I’ve told you how they ended.”
“But could you no’ have gotten custody without giving up everything? Would your American courts no’ have preferred a healthy father to a mother with psychological problems?”
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t prove what I knew. When I found April alone that night I didn’t call anyone to come and help me verify Lisa’s neglect. I was too upset to think that far ahead. And none of Lisa’s neighbors would testify against her, because they were afraid some of her more dubious friends might retaliate. April was too young to be a reliable source of testimony. So I was told that either I could share custody of April with Lisa, or I could give Lisa whatever she demanded.”
“And that’s what you did.”
“I’d have paid a thousand times more to get her out of April’s life. I didn’t want my daughter alone with her for a minute. Now April never has to see Lisa again.”
Mara sat up. She stared down at Duncan. “You can no’ mean you deny April the chance to see her mother?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. That’s why we’re here. Lisa has a short attention span and very little desire to exert herself. She won’t follow us to Druidheachd. April’s safe here. And in a year, when the hotel’s sold, we’ll move somewhere else. By then Lisa will have forgotten she has a daughter.”
“Never.”
He sat up, too. “You don’t know her.”
“Lisa sounds incapable of caring for a child, that’s certain. But I can no’ believe it’s best for April never to see her own mother again. Does she no’ miss her, Duncan? Does she no’ ask about her?”
April didn’t ask about her mother. Not anymore. She was more sensitive to nuance than any child should have to be. And Duncan knew that his clipped, evasive answers to the questions she had asked had been a warning that Lisa wasn’t to be discussed.
Mara was still waiting for an answer. He could feel anger rising inside him. “Lisa will never put her hands on my daughter again. She doesn’t deserve to be April’s mother. She abandoned her and neglected her. My little girl still has nightmares about being left alone. I can’t believe you think a woman like that should have any part in April’s life.”
Mara stared at him. Then she shook her head. “Duncan, when will you forgive yourself for no’ being a better father?”
“How dare you pretend you can read my mind!”
She shook her head slowly, sadly. “It’s no’ your mind I’m reading but your heart. And I have no special powers to help me. Your guilt is visible to anyone who cares enough to look behind your anger.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Her voice grew softer. “Am I wrong? Or are you no’ distressed that you did no’ protect April from so much sadness? Are you no’ consumed with guilt that you worked so hard you had little time for her and ignored the signals that she was suffering? I think you’re afraid that you and Lisa are more alike than anyone knows. And you can no’ forgive her, because you can no’ forgive yourself.”
“Maybe you’re not pretending to have psychic powers. But what gives you the right to psychoanalyze me?”
“I have no right, but I have no secrets, either. I’ve lived too many years pretending I have no thoughts or feelings about anything. I’ll live that w
ay no longer.”
He wanted to stay angry. He didn’t want this woman to understand him so well, better, perhaps, than he understood himself. But he was a fair man. At his very core he was fair—if nothing else.
She rose, as if to leave.
He rose, too, and took her arm. She looked down at his hand, then up at his face. He dropped his hand. “Don’t go,” he said. “I’m sorry I spoiled the afternoon. I shouldn’t have dumped all my problems on you.”
“You’ll have to decide now if we’re going to be friends or just acquaintances. Friends sometimes have to dump their problems—and sometimes have to endure suggestions on how to solve them.”
He heard April’s laughter from the grove of trees just beyond them. The same grove of trees where this woman had somehow—and improbably—entered his life. He wondered how he could have ignored what was now so obvious. He hadn’t asked Mara to come today because of April. That had been a part of it, but there had been more behind his invitation. He had wanted to get to know her better, not to protect his daughter but to risk a part of himself.
By asking Mara to come today he had opened a door. She was giving him a chance to close it again, or open it wider. But there could be no compromise.
He took a step toward her. “I don’t endure suggestions well. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hear what you said.”
“And I’m sorry I was so blunt. But I’ve wasted too much of my life saying what other people wanted to hear.”
“I appreciate honesty. Just not when it’s applied to my life.”
She smiled and put her hand on his. “Shall we walk down to the loch?”
The door was neither open nor closed. But it was still ajar. He felt her fingers brushing his skin. Her hand was soft, despite its calluses. He could almost feel reassurance flow through her fingertips, reassurance and a curious kind of strength. He didn’t want to feel anything. And he didn’t want to smile at her.
But he did, and he covered her hand.
“You’re a far different man when you smile,” she said. “I can almost understand why I’m wasting this beautiful day with you when I could be cutting peats or mucking out the byre.”
She whistled for Guiser; he shouted for April to join them. And somehow, as they started down the path to the loch, their hands continued to touch.
CHAPTER 7
Mara watched April blow out the candles on an absurdly large birthday cake. Frances had designed the two layers to look like a spring bonnet covered with pink frosting roses and lemon peel daisies. Happy Birthday April was spelled out on the wide ribbon of frosting that circled the crown.
At first April had refused to let her father cut the cake. Frances herself had been forced to step in to convince the little girl that it was for eating as well as for looking at. Now, in the spirit of the occasion, April was smiling happily and basking in the attention of her guests, but particularly the three men surrounding her.
They were an odd mix, the three men of midnight. Mara had heard the story of their unusual births and the evolving legend that went with it. But she thought that more unusual—and interesting—than their births was their unique friendship.
Three more diverse men didn’t exist, yet they were united in their devotion to each other and, now, to Duncan’s daughter.
Andrew seemed the easiest to know, although Mara knew him the least. He was open and forthright, consistently good-humored and warmhearted. He was a tall, brawny man, with a strong man’s knowledge of his own power, so he conscientiously schooled himself to be gentle. There was a temper there that he kept under tight control, and possibly a vulnerable heart that only a few people had ever taken note of. She had liked Andrew MacDougall on sight because she had known instinctively that she would never have anything to fear from him.
On the surface, at least, she knew Iain the best. He was unfailingly well mannered and solicitous, a man of considerable charm and personal appeal. But under Iain’s cultured exterior was a darker specter. He was haunted by his past and his future, a man who lived only for the moment because he had no faith in anything else. He never talked about his past, and she had never been able to glimpse his destiny. Her gift—or her curse—could not be manipulated. There was far more she couldn’t see than she could. The real Iain was almost as much a mystery to her as Duncan was.
Duncan. Mara covertly watched Duncan with his daughter. He was helping April gently guide a knife through the bonnet’s brim. When he was with his daughter his patience was infinite. He talked her through the destruction of the bonnet in low, supportive tones. Father and daughter were so much alike. April had her father’s gray eyes, and although her hair was lighter now, someday it would probably be the rich brown of Duncan’s. Like her father, she seldom smiled, but when she did, her solemn little face showed the promise of beauty.
When Duncan smiled… He was smiling now. Mara felt that smile blossom somewhere deep inside her. She had chosen a nun’s life, but she hadn’t a nun’s inclinations. She felt no shame at the immediate, almost visceral reaction she had experienced after her first meeting with Duncan. She had stood in a mist-shrouded meadow and looked down at the man kneeling beside Geordie Smith, and as Duncan felt Geordie for signs of life, she had imagined those same hands gliding over her body.
It hadn’t been a vision of the future. It had been lust, pure and simple.
Since then, her attraction to Duncan had grown. She didn’t understand it. She had never felt anything like it, not with her husband, not with other men she had known. It frightened her, not because she was afraid of her own sexuality, but because the sheer power of her response to Duncan could change her life. And she was only just beginning to believe that she had a life worth protecting.
“Mara gets the first piece.” April held out a plate with a huge slab of bonnet brim across it.
“I’m honored.” Mara reached for the plate. Her eyes caught Duncan’s. He wasn’t smiling now. Not exactly. Something else glimmered in the thunder-curtain gray.
“She’s thanking you for the puppies,” he said.
“The puppies were no’ my doing.”
As if in protest, one of the three tiny hounds in the basket under the table began to howl.
“I said a wee kitty,” Mara reminded him. “Never did I say a word about puppies.”
“But there were no kitties left, were there, Mara? Just a basketful of puppies.”
A basketful of puppies about to see their final hours on earth. A basketful of puppies with dubious lineage and no genetic guarantee that they would ever hunt or herd. A basketful of unredeemably ugly puppies with soulful eyes and lolling pink tongues and a master whose patience had run out.
“I understand the puppies were all born at midnight,” she said, “and that their destinies are intertwined.”
Andrew’s laugh roared over the puppy’s howls. “Then we should each have one, should we no’, Iain and Duncan and me? It’s only fitting.”
“I get to choose first,” April said. “And I don’t know which one I want.”
“Iain?” Duncan asked. His gaze never left Mara’s. “Would you leave a poor puppy without a home?”
“Gladly.” Iain glanced down at April and saw her distress. He lifted his eyes in resignation. “Gladly will I take one.”
“Then it’s settled,” Mara said. “And easily at that.”
“But I don’t know which one I want!” April said again.
Duncan patted her shoulder. “You have until tomorrow afternoon to choose, then we’ll take the others to Uncle Iain and Uncle Andrew.”
April seemed satisfied. “Can they sleep in my room?”
Frances made a noise deep in her throat.
“It’s all right,” Duncan told her. “I’ll clean up after them.”
“And it’s well you plan to, because I’m the one the maids will complain to tomorrow if the wee hellhounds make a mess!”
Andrew lifted the howling puppy from the basket and soothed him, while a mollified April pa
ssed out cake to the rest of her guests. Jessie, Frances’s daughter-in-law, and her husband Roger had come for the celebration, along with her daughter Lolly and another of April’s classmates. Members of the hotel staff came and went over the next half hour to have their slice of cake and pass along small gifts to April.
By the time everyone had gone home, there was no cake left, but there were a pile of presents, three snoozing puppies and one exhausted little girl in a pink nightgown.
“It’s time for bed, Springtime,” Duncan said, lifting April into his arms.
Mara gathered the last of the plates to take into the kitchen. “I should be going, too,” she said. “Guiser will think I’ve left him forever.” She was glad she’d insisted on bringing her own car so that Duncan wouldn’t have to leave April.
“Will you read me a story first?” April stretched out her arms to Mara.
Mara looked to Duncan to provide her with an excuse. “She’d really like it,” he said.
She was surprised he had encouraged April. “Well, if you’re certain.”
“I’ll trade you.” He strolled toward her with April. She set down the dishes and held out her arms. April wound her arms around her neck. For a moment Mara stood quietly and held her. She’d seldom been so physically close to a child, because she had always been afraid that such intimate contact would trigger a vision of the future.
April’s small form nestled against her only triggered a yearning for the things Mara had never had. She rested her cheek against April’s hair. “Shall you choose a story, or shall I?”
“Will you read me Duncan and the Fairies?”
Mara turned to Duncan for permission. He shrugged. “Aye, I’ll read it to you,” she said.
In April’s room Mara set the little girl at the foot of the bed. Duncan had followed them as far as the doorway with the basket of sleeping puppies. He set the basket down and returned with newspaper to spread around it, although he didn’t look optimistic about the chances of puppy success. “I’ve got to run downstairs to take care of a few things,” he said. “Do you mind?”
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