Secrets of the Highlander

by Janet Chapman

  Several other girls and boys came charging down the hallway with wooden swords, engaged in a fierce battle over a confused but definitely excited puppy. Jack scooped up one of the female combatants just as she was about to be flattened by an older kid catapulting off the end of the banister. He swung the toddler up against his chest and found himself face-to-face with beauty personified—wielding a sword as long as she was tall.

  “Poweeceman,” the girl said, patting the badge on his jacket. She used her sword, smacking him in his head, to point at the ongoing battle. “Save Puddles.”

  “You’ll probably need several pair of handcuffs in order to do that,” Camry said with a laugh, taking the girl from him. “Which one are you?” she asked the toddler.

  “I’m Peyton, Aunt Campy,” the girl said, putting her hands on her hips in disgust—her sword missing Jack only because he managed to duck.

  Camry laughed and set her down, then patted her bottom to send her on her way. “Go save Puddles yourself,” she instructed. “We MacKeage women fight our own battles, young lady.”

  The girl took off after the disappearing mob of young clansmen, her sword held over her head as she let out a battle cry that shook the rafters.

  Before Jack could say hello or ask where Megan was, Camry slipped her arm through his and dragged him into the chaos. “Come on, Jack. Let’s get you a drink.”

  Completely oblivious to the party going on outside her father’s office, Megan sat perfectly rigid, hugging herself in an attempt to still the tremors forming deep in her stomach. If she didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t feel, maybe she wouldn’t turn into a bottomless pit of anguish.

  “Who told you this?” she asked Carl Franks of Franks Investigations.

  “You said you wanted a thorough report,” Carl told her, shifting uncomfortably in his chair across the desk. “So I found the driver of the logging truck who hit them. I got his name off the accident report and found him living down in Edmonton, Alberta. He’s around seventy-five now, but he certainly remembered the accident. He never got behind the wheel of a rig after that day. I was surprised he was even willing to talk to me about it. It was obviously still painful for him.”

  Megan hugged herself tighter to stave off the tears welling up inside her. “And he told you Jack watched his family burn up? His mom and dad and brother?”

  Carl nodded. “Seems Mr. Stone had pulled his car onto the side of the road because his two boys were fighting in the backseat. The younger boy had punched the older one and given him a bloody nose, so the father gave the kid a time-out under a tree. The truck driver’s load of logs shifted when he came around the curve a bit too fast, and when he tried to get his rig under control, he ended up slamming into the back of the Stones’s car. He told me both vehicles burst into flames. That’s when he spotted this kid running out of the woods, and had to pull him away when the boy went to open the door of the mangled car.” Carl shook his head. “The driver figured they were dead, because there wasn’t much left of their vehicle and he couldn’t see any movement inside. But the boy fought him, kicking and screaming, and continued trying to get to his family. The kid burned his hands, and the driver eventually dragged him half a mile down the road, back around the curve so they couldn’t see the accident. He had to practically tie him down while they waited for another vehicle to come along.”

  Megan used her shirt sleeve to wipe the tears running down her cheeks. “And the accident report said the boy’s name was Coyote Stone?” she asked, her throat raw with emotion.

  Carl Franks stood up and grabbed the booklet he’d laid in front of her, then paced to the hearth, sticking a finger inside his collar to loosen his tie. He opened the neatly typed report, and leafed through the pages.

  “Coyote Stone was brought to Edmonton, and a social worker there changed his name to Jack in hopes it would help him get adopted. But the boy,” Carl said, looking up then quickly back at his report, “who was nine at the time, just up and disappeared from his foster home. They found him ten days later walking along a road that headed north.” He looked up again, shaking his head in wonder. “The kid had made it halfway to Medicine Lake. They put him in several more foster homes after that, but he ran away from all of them. There’s speculation that his great-grandfather helped him the last time. They never saw Jack Stone again until he was fifteen,” Carl said, no longer reading his report. “But when they placed him in a foster home that time, he disappeared again and didn’t turn up until I found a record of him having joined the Canadian military at age twenty.”

  Carl walked over and set the report back on the desk in front of her. “Everything’s in there, Miss MacKeage. I did exactly as you asked and was very thorough. The only thing I couldn’t discover is what Jack Stone did in the military. Those five years are classified information.” He started edging toward the door. “I’ll just send you a bill, okay? I’ll let myself out,” he said, going out the door.

  Megan stared at the report, no longer bothering to wipe the tears flowing down her face. Jack had never lied to her about his childhood; he’d merely left out the heart-wrenching details. She hugged her belly, suddenly deciding she would name their son Walker, after Coyote Stone’s older brother.

  What must go through a nine-year-old’s mind after witnessing something like that? Did he blame himself for their deaths, because his father had stopped to give him a time-out for fighting? Was that why he was a self-proclaimed pacifist?

  And those ten days he’d spent trying to get to his great-grandfather…how had he eaten? Where had he slept? He had to have hitched rides with people; who would pick up a nine-year-old kid and not call the police?

  There was a knock on the door just before it opened. “Some guy told me I’d find you in here,” Jack said, walking up to the desk. “Is there a reason you didn’t warn me about—Megan! What’s the matter?” he asked, rushing around the desk and hunching down in front of her. “You’re crying. Why? What did that man say to you?”

  The dam holding back her emotions exploded, and Megan threw herself into Jack’s arms with a wailed sob and clung to him fiercely.

  “Megan! What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked, holding her tightly. “Tell me what’s wrong!”

  “M-my answer’s yes, Jack,” she said between sobs. “Yes, I’ll marry you. Tomorrow, if you want. Or right now. W-we’ll find Father Daar and get married tonight.”

  “And this is making you cry?” he asked with a chuckle, trying to lean away to look in her eyes. But when she wouldn’t stop clinging, he sighed softly and just held her, her head tucked under his chin as he gently swayed them in a rocking motion. “Okay, then,” he whispered into her hair. “We’ll get married first thing tomorrow morning.” He tried once more to see her face, this time succeeding. “What brought this on all of a sudden? And why is your decision to marry me making you cry?”

  Megan tried to regain her composure; she really, truly tried. But when she pictured the man in front of her as a little boy watching…“You watched your family die!” she wailed, burying her face in his shirt again.

  He went perfectly still. “What are you talking about?” he whispered tightly. “What’s going on?”

  “I kn-know the whole story,” she sobbed. “About the accident, and how you tried to save them. The truck driver even told Frank how he dragged you down the road to get you away from—Oh God, it must have been horrible!”

  Jack took hold of her shoulders and forcibly set her away from him. Megan shuddered, blinking through her tears, and saw him pick up the report sitting on the desk. He silently thumbed through it, his face completely void of expression. “You sent someone to Medicine Lake to investigate me?” he asked ever so softly, stopping at one particular page for several seconds, then moving on. He finally brought his gaze back to her. “You couldn’t have just asked me?”

  His eyes were distant, and Megan felt a cold, bottomless fissure open between them.

  “No, wait, I forgot. You don’t believe anyt
hing I tell you.” He tossed the report down on the desk, the soft sound making Megan flinch. “I just remembered I have stuff to do tomorrow,” he told her. “So I guess the wedding’s off. Not that I’m in a hurry to hitch myself to a woman who doesn’t trust me—much less one who’s marrying me out of pity.”

  He turned and headed for the door.

  “Jack, wait!” Megan cried, grabbing the report and running over to the hearth, where she tossed it onto the glowing embers. “I haven’t even read it. I don’t need to anymore!”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, quietly closing the door behind him.

  Megan chased after him but he was already down the hall, and she had to wrestle her way through a mob of children before she finally reached the front door just as it was closing. She wrenched it open and ran onto the bridge spanning the rippling brook below. “Jack! Wait! Please wait!” she pleaded.

  He stopped at the end of the bridge and turned to face her.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t trust you when you first came here, so I hired someone to check out your story. But I trust you now, Jack. I burned the report because I trust you.”

  “Really? Enough to tell me what the favor is you’re doing for Kenzie?” he asked, his emotionless voice carrying across the expanse between them.

  “Please don’t ask me that,” she pleaded, stepping toward him, her hand outstretched. “I-I gave him my word.”

  “And your little ride to Bear Mountain last night with your sister?” he asked. “Did you promise not to tell me about that, either?”

  She took a step back, bumping into the door.

  “I’m chief of police, sweetheart. You don’t think I’d hear about a TarStone Resort snowcat roaming through town in the wee hours of the morning? So where’d you and Camry go until six this morning?”

  Silence spanned the distance between them.

  “I see,” he said finally. “Funny how trust can be selective.” He touched his fingers to his forehead in a brief salute. “I’ll see you around town.”

  At that, he turned and walked off into the night.

  Megan watched until he disappeared into the shadows, then went back inside, running past the people heading to the dining room as her mother carried in the cake. She ran up the stairs to her childhood bedroom, threw herself down on her bed, and stared up at the ceiling, unable even to cry.

  She’d hurt Jack badly. She’d seen it in his eyes and heard it in his voice, and feared he was so wounded, he might never be able to forgive her.

  The door opened and her mother walked in, quietly lay down on the bed beside her, and also stared up at the ceiling in silence.

  “I’ve really done it this time, Mama,” Megan whispered into the moon-softened darkness. “I think I broke his heart tonight.” She turned her head toward her mother. “Will I be able to mend it, the way he did mine?”

  “I don’t know, baby. Women are more resilient than men are in matters of the heart, because hope is the very fabric of our being. If it wasn’t, the human race would have died out several hundred generations ago, since we wouldn’t have brought children into a world wrought with war, hunger, pain, and heartache.” Grace looked over and smiled sadly. “But men…men aren’t as lucky. For them, everything seems to be cut and dried. Black and white. All or nothing.”

  “I told Jack I trusted him, but when he asked me about Kenzie and the dragon, I couldn’t tell him.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I promised I wouldn’t.”

  “And your promise to Kenzie is more important than your love for Jack?”

  Megan rolled onto her side and propped herself up on one elbow to face her mother. “Are you saying I should have broken my promise?”

  “I’m saying that you shouldn’t have given your promise to Kenzie to begin with. He asked you for a favor, and that you keep it between yourselves, but you were under no obligation to go along with his terms. You could have told Kenzie that Jack came first in your life.”

  “But he wasn’t really in my life at the time.”

  “And when he was? Did you tell Kenzie you could no longer keep his secret? That you’d either have to stop whatever your favor is, or tell Jack about it?”

  Megan threw herself onto her back again, blinking up at the ceiling. “I hadn’t thought about that. Kenzie dictated the terms of the favor, and I just blindly went along with it.” She frowned over at her mother. “I am such an easy mark. I want everyone to like me, and I can’t live with myself if they don’t. Look at how much I covered for Winter this past fall when she was fooling around with Matt.” She sighed and stared back up at the ceiling. “I can see now that my heart wasn’t anywhere near as broken as I let on when I came home. I knew deep down inside that Jack had sent me away for a good reason, but I still carried on like an idiot.” She looked at her mother again. “I was afraid everyone would think I was a failure for running home to my parents, pregnant and without a husband.”

  Grace laughed softly. “You did cry a lot.” She propped her head up on her hand and squeezed Megan’s arm. “But the only person who has to like you is the man you love, baby. If your heart belongs to Jack Stone, then he is your priority. He should have your unconditional trust, respect, and total devotion. And Jack strikes me as the sort of man who would return those qualities in spades, given the chance.”

  “He would,” Megan whispered. “So how do I fix it?”

  “You start by telling Kenzie you can no longer abide by the conditions of his favor, and that if he wants to continue whatever it is the two of you are doing down in the lab every day, then he has to let you tell Jack. If not, then you can’t continue to help him.”

  “And the dragon?”

  “You stop pussyfooting around that damn thing and tell Jack everything you know about it.”

  “But that would be telling him about the magic. And the rule is, Daddy and Robbie have to tell him.”

  Grace gave Megan a motherly smile and patted her arm. “The day you gave away your heart, your responsibility to your father transferred to Jack. The men in this family might want to control every situation, but that doesn’t mean we have to let them.” She sighed. “I still say Walter wouldn’t have panicked if Elizabeth had been the one to tell him our family history. It’s much less intimidating for a man to hear something like that from the woman he loves instead of from his future father-in-law—especially when that happens to be Grey.”

  “But how do I tell Jack?”

  “With love, baby,” she said, patting her arm again. “And timing. You pick the proper time and place, preferably right after he’s eaten. Men are much more agreeable when their bellies are full.”

  Megan sighed. “Thanks, Mama. I think I get it now.”

  “Do you? Because it’s not as simple as walking up to Jack and reciting a laundry list of all your secrets. You not only have to trust him completely, you’re going to have to make him feel that he can trust you with his secrets.”

  Megan scrunched up her face at her mother. “And if he won’t tell me his secrets?”

  “Then it’s not really love, is it? That’s how your heart knows it’s the real thing,” Grace said, slipping a strand of Megan’s hair behind her ear. “Along with trust, devotion, and respect, you also need intimacy between you. Those are the four cornerstones your love should stand on.”

  “Like you and Daddy. Do you think Jack and I will have what the two of you have thirty-four years from now?”

  “Yes,” Grace said, rolling off the bed and standing up. “Why don’t you stay here tonight, rather than going back to your house? You and Camry must be tired from your ride up Bear Mountain last night.”

  Megan sat up with a snort. “How does everyone know about that?” Her eyes widened in alarm. “Does Daddy know?”

  “Does it matter?” Grace asked, walking to the door. “It’s not your father you must answer to now, but Jack.” She arched one eyebrow when Megan opened her mouth to protest. “Are you about to tell me you wouldn�
��t mind if Jack snuck off in the middle of the night without telling you?”

  “Of course I’d mind.”

  Grace nodded. “You’re not seeking permission like a child, Megan—you’re discussing something you feel strongly about. There’s a huge difference between the two, and it goes a long way to creating an equal and honest relationship.”

  “I get it. Truly. Go back to the party before the cake’s all gone.”

  “You’ll be okay?”

  “I’ll be just peachy,” she said, lying back down and folding her hands over her belly with a smile. “Walker and I are going to lie here and figure out how we’re going to explain the magic to Jack.”

  “Walker?”

  “I’m having a boy, and we’re naming him after Jack’s brother, Walker.”

  Grace rushed back to the bed and gave her a huge hug. “Congratulations! Your father is going to be so excited to have another grandson.”

  “Let’s not tell him just yet, okay? Or else he’ll spend the next three months trying to talk Jack into changing his last name to MacKeage.” She shook her head. “Just like he’s tried with every son-in-law who gave him a grandson.”

  Grace walked back to the door. “He almost got Walter to change his name,” she said with a laugh. “Until Elizabeth and I sat Walter down and explained that he wouldn’t be turned into a toad if he didn’t.” She opened the door. “Walker. I like that. Walker Stone.” She smiled. “Maybe Walker MacKeage Stone?”

  “Maybe. Though I’m leaning more toward Walker Coyote Stone,” Megan said, laughing at her mother’s puzzled look. “I’ll tell you why once I clear it with my future husband.”

  After all, her first obligation was to Jack.

  Chapter Twenty-four