Lights.
A flash of headlights hit her head on, and a car barreled at her around a second bend. She jerked to the right before she remembered she was supposed to be on the left—not that there was much of a left or right; the road scarcely offered room for a single car. Anna yanked the wheel over and caught a bump—a rock or wretched log—and, flustered, missed the brake and jammed the accelerator.
Her car shot toward the loch. Adrenaline tightened Anna’s chest. She fought a skid. The car fishtailed and finally slid to a stop some twenty feet off the road.
Hands strangling the wheel, Anna sat gulping air and wondering how deep the water in the loch was in front of her—and whether her rental insurance would have covered submersion through stupidity. On the bright side, if she’d drowned herself, at least she’d have been out of her misery.
Which was not a cheerful thought. Hadn’t she promised herself that she’d be more optimistic?
Forcing her lips into a smile and the car into reverse, she mashed the gas. Mud and grass spat from beneath the tires, and she turned to look back over her shoulder. It was only then that she noticed the tall, muscled figure approaching behind her.
The man jumped aside, swearing. Anna didn’t hear him, but she didn’t need to. By the glow of her taillights, the gesture and the facial expression that marred what was otherwise a handsome face were clear enough. To remove all doubt, he pounded a fist against the driver’s window as he stooped beside it.
Anna fumbled with the power controls.
He’d stopped knocking by the time the glass slid down, but his hand still hovered in the air. He stared at her, his blue eyes narrowed beneath wiry dark hair, as if she’d shocked him.
Anna felt just as stunned. With the sunset behind his shoulders, he shimmered, all gold and gleaming around the edges, like a hopeful memory. The impression vanished the moment she blinked, but then disbelief set in. Because she recognized him. Throughout most of their teenage years, her sister Katharine’s bedroom had been plastered with posters of his face, and Katharine had obsessed over every bit of tabloid speculation when he’d disappeared after the accident that had killed his wife.
“Aren’t you Gregor Mark?” Anna barely managed to keep the surprised squeak out of her voice.
“The hell I am,” he snapped in an accent decidedly more Scottish than Gregor Mark’s cut-glass British accent, “and what do you think you’re doing, driving like an idiot on this road? Or off the road, to be exact. My daughter’s in the car. You could have killed us both.”
Anna winced at the tone of his voice and at her own stupidity. “I’m sorry. It was the sheep—”
“The bloody sheep are part of the reason it’s daft to drive that fast through here.”
Daft? Hold on. Even the sheep had practically laughed at how slowly she’d been driving. Why was it that no one gave her the benefit of the doubt lately, not for a single second? Not Mike, not her boss, not even her own darn mother. Yes, she’d made mistakes, but was it necessary for everyone to overreact?
“I wasn’t even close to speeding,” she said through gritted teeth, “and I already told you I was sorry, so you don’t have to yell—”
“You think this is yelling?”
“I can hear perfectly well that it is, so go back to your daughter, and let me get my car back on the road.”
“Best of bloody luck to you if you want to try. You’ll only dig yourself in deeper.” The man straightened and shook his head. A muscle ticked in his cheek. “Look, sorry, but since you’ve already managed to splatter me in mud, I’d be grateful if you’d at least wait until I’m out of range before you try again. Meanwhile, I’ll go phone for someone to come and dig you out.”
The dark mud had blended into the dull green waxed jacket he wore open over a well-tailored white shirt and jeans, but it stood out on the lighter clothing. Anna hardly had time to register the mess before he’d turned away to stalk off on long, angry legs.
Even the way he crossed the boggy ground made her think of how Gregor Mark had used to stride across a movie screen, claiming the landscape and every inch of attention. Not that the resemblance was perfect. His Rudeness’s hair was shorter and darker, not Gregor Mark’s famous windblown style, and Gregor had always been clean-shaven or with a light scruff of five o’clock shadow. His Rudeness’d also had more of a chiseled-out-of-rock sharpness to his features. Of course, who knew what Gregor Mark would look like now? Even though his blockbuster films were still all over the television, the newest were a decade old. His disappearance had simply frozen him in time.
Unable to help herself, Anna watched the stranger until he’d reached the silver Audi station wagon that stood with its driver’s door open and dome lights shining. From the passenger side of the car, a small pale face strained to look around him in Anna’s direction, but the man swung himself onto the seat, slammed the door, and drove away.
Anna threw her own door open. Beneath her feet, the grass was torn, and cold mud squelched into her loafers while she slogged around to check her wheels. It didn’t help that His Rudeness had been right: the rear tires had burrowed down three inches. That wasn’t insurmountable. If she was careful, she might still be able to ease the car out and get back onto the road without having to subject herself to additional humiliation. She’d had enough of that for one day, one week—one lifetime, for that matter—hadn’t she? The universe couldn’t be this cruel.
Except, it could. Back in the car, she alternated between forward and reverse, but the harder she tried to rock the Chevy out of the mud, the deeper the wheels dug in. That left her the choice of searching for a tow truck to pull her out in the dark, or abandoning the car there and hiking the last mile to the house with her suitcase and carry-on bag. The thought of trudging that distance, when all she wanted to do was flop into a comfortable bed, made her want to scream.
Head buried in her hands, she almost missed the first flash of headlights on the road. By the time she looked up, more lights had pierced the darkness and cars were pulling up onto the grass behind her, doors slamming as people got out. Then a man in a kilt—an actual kilt—black military-style tactical boots, and a well-worn leather jacket strode up, grinning. His mop of wavy chin-length hair fell deeply auburn across his forehead, and his cheekbones were as sharp as knives above a white flash of teeth.
Anna wondered whether she’d hit her head on the steering wheel and was, in fact, hallucinating or dreaming, or whatever it was one did when one was unconscious. Or was Scotland naturally full of gorgeous men? Which would figure, because a man of any kind was the very last thing she needed.
The new arrival reached her window and leaned down, grinning more broadly. “You’ve gotten yourself into a wee pickle, haven’t you?” he said in a Scottish burr even lovelier than her Aunt Elspeth’s. “Himself phoned the house, and your aunt rang me, and here I am to help—along with half the village. I was down at the pub, mind, so you’ll have quite the welcoming party here in a minute.”
“Himself?” Anna blinked at him.
“Connal MacGregor. The laird—the one you ran off the road.”
“I ran him off the road? That’s rich since I’m the one sitting here in the muck—also he was rude.”
“Well, he would be, wouldn’t he, with you coming to help with the festival?” The man laughed, a deep rumble in his chest. “I’m Brando, by the way. We’ve all been expecting you.” He glanced behind him to where an ever-larger crowd was emerging from their cars. “Elspeth’s that excited about your visit. She’s talked of nothing else since the moment you agreed to come; she’s missed you so much these past few years.”
Anna swallowed an automatic twinge of guilt. Between Mike and her workload, she’d missed going home the last three Christmas holidays, and it had been ages since she’d seen Elspeth. Still, she pushed the guilt aside. She’d earned enough of that on her own lately without dwelling on things beyond her control. It was time for a New Year’s resolution, even if it was two days before
April Fools’ Day. No more gratuitous guilt.
The oddly-named Brando wasn’t waiting for her to acknowledge what he’d said. He’d turned to shout instructions to the people straggling toward them while simultaneously warding off a huge golden retriever who lunged at him with muddy paws and an ecstatic bark. Then a sturdy middle-aged woman in a dull-green sweater and her more handsome husband came to haul the dog away, and a man in a Royal Mail truck started rounding up the sheep along the road. A little gnome-like man with merry blue eyes gave Anna a shy tip of his cap before he sloshed through the churned-up mud to attach a chain from the back of her car to the back of Brando’s Land Rover.
Still more people arrived, and in the resulting slurry of introductions and car-extricating activity, Anna had little opportunity for guilt or even embarrassment. With their smiles and a bit of gentle teasing, the villagers of Balwhither managed to make her laugh at the situation and feel genuinely welcome.
Disaster-to-Disaster Delivery
Many miles away
there’s a shadow on the door
of a cottage on the shore
of a dark Scottish lake.
Sir Walter Scott
Despite the exhaustion that claimed her in waves, Anna put on a brave face while Brando towed her filthy green Chevy rental into the driveway at Breagh House. A sign at the edge of the road pointed visitors for the BREAGH HOUSE HIGHLANDS MUSEUM around to the side of the rambling Gothic-style construction that, sometime in the nineteenth century, had replaced the Murrays’ earlier home.
The museum was another overly-hopeful title. As Elspeth described it, the former ballroom of Breagh House now held an ever-rotating collection of Highland history and memorabilia, most of it acquired at bargain prices from local estate sales, or on eBay and various online sites, before receiving fanciful backstories that Elspeth changed whenever she got bored. Elspeth had no shame about that at all.
“It’s the stories people enjoy, not the rusting junk. Who cares about a sword? Tell them who owned it and whom he stabbed with it. A flask? Describe the man who sipped from it as he lay dying on the battlefield. Who drank from it before he bedded the lass who would become his wife? That’s what people want to know.”
Anna and her sisters, Margaret and Katharine, had always loved the museum stories whenever Elspeth came to visit. For the length of Elspeth’s stays, the whole family gravitated to the kitchen, and for once in the hectic and perpetually-dieting Cameron household, the smell of baking wafted from the oven. Everyone sat and laughed together. Even Anna’s mother would allow herself a sliver of Ecclefechan butter tart or Montrose cake along with a “wee dram” of the whiskey Elspeth had brought for Anna’s father. But inevitably Ailsa would remember herself again. Her face would stiffen and her voice go shrill while she lectured Elspeth on the evils of taking in unsuspecting tourists with her Highland flimflam.
Anna had never thought there was much harm in Elspeth’s stories. If the tourists came and had a good time, they’d gotten their money’s worth and helped Elspeth keep a roof on the family home.
That roof was more sizable than it had appeared in photos, Anna realized once Brando had stopped the Land Rover. Still, despite the almost ostentatious structure, the front floodlights provided a cheerful glow to the weathered gray stone, and the smell of woodsmoke curling out of the chimney promised a warming fire.
Brando flicked off the ignition. The front door of the house flew open and, backlit by the chandelier hanging from the foyer ceiling, Elspeth emerged onto the stoop. Leaning heavily on a walker, she waited in the doorway instead of coming to greet Anna with her usual energy and enthusiasm. The sight of her conjured up the best memories of Anna’s life.
Anna raced up the steps. Elspeth released one arm from the walker to tuck her into just the kind of hard, unconditional embrace Anna needed. The kind that didn’t care whether she was more or less pretty or dutiful than her sisters, whether she had a stain on her blouse, whether she didn’t smile on cue at beauty pageant judges as her mother instructed, no matter what they said or did to her, or whether she had a man or a job or a future.
“Aren’t you a sight, now?” Elspeth stood back and looked Anna over. “You have had a tough time of it, haven’t you? Poor love, but no matter. We’ll soon get you sorted. Are you hungry? You must be famished.”
“I stopped for a meat pasty in Callander. Mostly, I’m half-asleep.”
“Well, and no wonder. You’ll get a hot bath, a nice cuppa, and some scones to nibble on while you soak, then it’s straight off to bed with you. And no arguing. We can catch up in the morning. Plenty of time for all of that.”
Anna couldn’t help smiling. “I’m supposed to be taking care of you, remember?”
“The day Elspeth lets anyone take care of her, that’s a day I’d love to see.” His tread light and graceful for such a large man, Brando came up the stairs behind them, carrying Anna’s suitcase in one arm and her Keepall in the other. Pausing beside Elspeth, he shook his head at her and bent to kiss her cheek. “You’re not fooling anyone, old woman, you know that? You’d better hurry up and tell her before she susses it out herself.”
“Mmmh. Watch that ‘old’ business, Brando MacLaren. You’re not getting younger yourself.”
“Aye, and the rate I’m going, I’ll catch up with you before too long.”
Elspeth raised both eyebrows at him. It was a look Anna had seen her mother direct at people a million times, but Elspeth’s eyes sparkled with humor and gave the expression a different meaning. Intrigued, Anna studied her aunt’s face, which was so similar to her own mother’s countenance, but at the same time so very different. Where a facelift and years of expensive skincare had left Ailsa’s skin unlined beneath black hair she touched up twice a month like clockwork at the most expensive salon in town, Elspeth appeared a decade older, her chin-length curls left to gray attractively, and her complexion weathered by laughter and sun and wind. Even now, deep lines scored the corners of her eyes as she let Brando pass into the foyer.
“Thanks for bringing our girl home in one piece,” she said.
“What do you want me to do with the car?” Brando set Anna’s baggage down at the bottom of the wide, carpeted steps and glanced from Elspeth to Anna and back again. “No point unhooking if you’d like me to take it back for you. I’m heading to Edinburgh in the morning, so it’d be no trouble, and she’ll have your Volvo to use in the meantime.”
A bit of strain lifted off Anna’s wallet, and she gave him a grateful nod. “If you really wouldn’t mind . . .”
“Brando’s always the first person to be there when you need anything. Before you know you need it, half the time,” Elspeth said, directing a fond smile at him and patting his arm as he slipped out past her. “Not half-bad to look at either, is he?”
“Enough flattery now, you.” Kilt fanning out around his knees, Brando turned to wave good-bye then waded down the front steps without seeing Anna’s reddened face. “I’ll try to come back by tomorrow afternoon,” he called over his shoulder. “That light on the far side of the house has gone out again, and you’ll want to start thinking ’bout security if we’re going to get more visitors.” He strode down and jumped into the Land Rover to drive away down the circular drive with Anna’s rental car still chained up behind him.
“Lovely man.” Elspeth cleared her throat and turned to go back into the house. “You could do worse, you know. Although at this rate, I’m afraid we’ll never manage to get him married off. Even Duncan at the inn has given up trying to find a woman for him. There was a time when Davy the postman had the whole glen laying bets on a different girl each week, but we’ve all gotten tired of losing money.”
“Sorry. Not interested,” Anna said firmly, trailing Elspeth inside. “I’m leaving in a month, and he doesn’t seem like he’d transplant very well. Everything except his name seems very Scottish.”
“Aye, isn’t that the truth? His mother watched On the Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire a dozen time
s too many, and now he’s stuck with it. Don’t let the kilt fool you, though. Brando’s only been wearing it since he moved back from London. Swears it’s more comfortable, a lot of men do, but I suspect it started off for the tourists as much as for any other reason. Now you take your bags up to the bedroom—third door on the left—and then come down to get your tea. The kitchen’ll be that direction.” Elspeth gestured toward the right.
Anna looked around. The whole house gave the impression of belonging in a different time, and she had the odd sense that it was reaching out to welcome her, folding her inside itself. The intricate wood of the hardwood parquet gleamed beneath the chandelier that spilled cascades of color across a Victorian stained glass window on the landing, and the carved staircase with thick, square newel posts spoke of solidness and security. Warm yellow light shone down the corridor from the kitchen.
Anna couldn’t help thinking her mother must have loved John Cameron very much, at least at first, to give up all this for a modern faux-chateau in Indian Hill on the outskirts of Cincinnati. But she’d long ago given up despairing about her parents. If they wanted to spend their time arguing with each other, that was their business.
The thought of their polite fights led her back to the rude man with the Audi, and partway up the staircase she paused and turned. “Who was the man who called you to say I’d run off the road, Aunt Elspeth? The one who looks like Gregor Mark. Brando said he was rude because I was coming to help with the festival.”
“Did he now?” Elspeth looked away. “Brando ought to keep his tongue in his head.”
“But who is he? And why does he object to the festival?”
Elspeth pursed her lips. “Connal MacGregor. He lives down at Inverlochlarig, the big house at the end of the loch there, though he owns half the glen. The Sighting and the bonfire are both on his property, and he’s none too happy about us making the festival bigger.”
Lake of Destiny Page 2