Men in Kilts

by Katie MacAlister

  I sniffed and dabbed at my nose. What the hell was she going on about? She certainly wasn’t any friend of ours, and she knew it.

  “What are you nattering about? Why would Kathie be needing your support?” I tsked to myself. Iain is an inherently curious person, a fact that Bridget knows and plays upon. If he would only ignore her, I’ve told him before, he wouldn’t play her game and she’d be left without a foot to stand on.

  “Why darling, I thought you’d have heard! It’s quite the latest on-dit in town.

  All untrue, of course, I would never question Kyla’s loyalty to you.” An ugly, ugly suspicion started to form in my mind.

  “Anyone who truly knows the pair of you knows just how malicious the rumors are, but you know how people think. No smoke without fire and such.

  And after all, comparisons are bound to be made to your first wife having an affair while she was married to you. It simply cannot be helped.” I felt my stomach drop to my feet. My chest grew tight, making it hard to get air into my lungs. She wasn’t about to do what I thought she was going to do, was she? And why couldn’t I say anything? Why couldn’t I leap on her and strangle her before she did? Why couldn’t I yell and scream at her that she was the one spreading lies about me? About us?

  “What are you trying to tell me, Bridget?” Iain’s voice had all the warmth of an Arctic winter.

  She cast a pitying glance at me. I swear there was triumph in those lovely cold eyes. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard—all untrue, of course—that Keiko’s having an affair with Graeham MacAskill? Her Gaelic teacher? The one she has been meeting with secretively for weeks behind your back? You do know, of course, that she still meets with him every week? Or has she told you that she’s through with the Gaelic lessons until winter?”

  She did it. Well, that didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. In fact, it didn’t hurt at all. I was too numb to feel any of her barbs thrust home. Numb was not necessarily a bad feeling. Numb was good. I enjoyed my numbness.

  Until I saw Iain’s face.

  It was true I had told Iain in April that I was stopping the Gaelic lessons. It was also true I had continued to meet with Graeham, but not for any amoral purposes. I was planning another Gaelic surprise, this time for Iain’s birthday. I wanted to write him a poem, a poem in Gaelic, one that would show him just how very much I loved him.

  As I stood there and let Bridget’s venomous voice pour over me, I couldn’t help but remember how difficult it had been for Iain to trust me completely, to rise above the scars Mary had left him. I had thought our few months of marriage had gone a long way toward erasing those scars, but I truly feared that Bridget would destroy what trust we had built.

  “You didn’t know?” Bridget asked Iain coyly. “Surely, darling, you’ve heard the talk in town. No? Well, of course it hurts me to be the one to pass it along, but I thought it best you knew what everyone was saying. Graeham, of course, says there isn’t any truth to the matter, but clearly he is trying to keep the knowledge from spreading, and as for your little Kyra here, it’s obvious there are some things she’s keeping from you, some things she has been lying to you about, and who knows what else she is hiding?”

  Iain just stared at her, his face a blank mask. I felt sicker than I’ve ever felt before. Graeham had betrayed me? I wasn’t overly fond of him, but I never imagined he’d be a party to something so vicious as spreading nasty rumors about me.

  Iain’s mask never cracked. “If you’re done carrying your tales, you’d best be on your way.”

  “But Iain, surely you don’t intend on turning a blind eye to your wife’s infidelities—”

  His scowl was truly something fierce to behold. I could see from where I stood that his hands had fisted, his knuckles white with the strain of keeping them from throttling Bridget. At least I hoped that’s who he wanted to throttle.

  “I’ll not be believing Kathie has dishonored me in any manner, and I won’t stand for you spreading such lies about her.”

  Bridget didn’t know when to give up. She put a scarlet-tipped claw on his arm.

  “Darling, if you would listen to Graeham—”

  “Good day to ye,” he snarled, and turned toward me. “Ye’d best be going up to the house now, lass.”

  “Iain!” Bridget and I both said at the same time. I started for Iain, to reassure him, to explain to him, but something Bridget said earlier suddenly snapped into place. I stopped in midstride, my mouth hanging open as I stared at her when she followed Iain around the truck. She knew Graeham! She obviously knew him quite well, something he had never mentioned to me. I wouldn’t doubt that her knowledge of him extended to the realm of intimate.

  Enlightenment flooded me as I stood there shivering in my scrungy chores coat. Anger and fury and pain puffed out of me with each frosty breath. After seven months, she’d finally slipped up and given us what we needed.

  “Bridget?”

  She turned with a look of vicious triumph on her too-perfect face. “Karmel?”

  “How did you know the disease the sheep were supposed to have was EAE?” She stilled for a moment, then made a fluttering gesture with her elegantly gloved hands. “Someone told me, no doubt. It was no secret. Everyone at the co-op was talking about it at the time.”

  Iain slowly stalked around the truck, his brow furrowed with suspicion as he held Bridget in his sights. “I heard the rumors as well, Bridget, and none of them ever mentioned EAE. They all said my sheep had a disease, but no one ever said it was EAE. The only people who knew about that were Kathie, Mark, and the vet, and none of them would be likely to be spreading untruths about.” Bridget started to look worried. A tiny kernel of pleasure glowed inside me at that look. She glanced at me, then back to Iain with a triumphant glint to her eye.

  “It must be your loving wife, darling. I believe, now that I think upon it, that Graeham MacAskill was the one who mentioned it to me, and surely he could have only learned the truth from her.”

  The scene in Graeham’s office replayed before my eyes. He had known about the EAE, he had mentioned it, but I was so worried about what was happening back home I didn’t pick up on what that meant. The bastard! He had been betraying me to Bridget as far back as February. Another piece of the puzzle slid into place. I blew out a long breath and looked up at Iain. His peaty brown eyes were black with anger.

  “You’re wrong, Bridget,” I told her, keeping my gaze fixed on my husband. He was, after all, the only one who mattered. “There was another person who could have told Graeham what the disease was the sheep were rumored to have.

  You could have told him. You could have told him when you put the Gutierrezia in the pasture for the sheep. You could have told him so he could help you spread rumors of illness even before the sheep were poisoned. You could have told him when you planned and plotted and finally thought of a way to strike back at Iain because he didn’t want either the abattoir or you. Oh, yes, you could have told him—Graeham, your contact on the council, the man who you had arranged to get you and Iain special zoning permissions so the abattoir could be built on Kin Aird—you could have told him at any time. Tell me, Bridget, just how much of a kickback did you promise Graeham if he helped you? How much did he take in order to try to ruin Iain?” She flinched at the last words, but held onto her spiteful smile. “Darling, you’re quite mad if you think I would do anything to harm Iain. As for Graeham, it’s true he is on the council, but he has nothing to gain from harming Iain.”

  “She’s not mad, Bridget. We’ve known it was you behind the attempt to harm me, but not had the proof. Until now. I’m dunking an investigation into MacAskill’s actions as a councilman would be very interesting.” Bridget stepped back under the influence of the cold look of anger he leveled at her. “Darling, she’s lying! She’ll go to any length to fool you, don’t you see that? She’s tried to come between us from the first moment she arrived, and now she has Graeham helping her! Iain, darling, don’t let her destroy all that we have toget
her—”

  She didn’t get any further before Iain completely lost his temper. I’d never seen him so furious, and honestly hope I never will again. Most of what he said to Bridget was profane, but the highlight was when he told her in no uncertain terms to leave, and that she’d be trespassing if she ever stepped foot on his farm again. He also made not-so-vague threats about what actions he’d take if she ever harmed me or his sheep again. I wanted to thank him for putting me first, but after assessing the look on his face, I felt it better to let him work off some of his ire on Bridget. And work it he did.

  “lain, you can’t believe—”

  “I believe you’re a spiteful, vicious bitch!”

  “I was only trying to help you!”

  “Help me?” His hair stood on end as he bellowed the words at her. “Help me?

  You poisoned my sheep to help me? You spread foul rumors about my wife to help me?”

  “She’s all wrong for you, Iain, wrong for you, and wrong for your farm. She doesn’t want you to be a success as I want you to—” He breathed in deeply, visibly struggling to maintain control. “Aye, yer right there. She doesna want me to rape ma land for a few pounds.” Bridget ground her teeth for a moment, men snarled, “I should have known it was a waste of time trying to reason with you. You’re so wrapped up with preserving your land you’d rather be poor the rest of your life than realize a profit. I pity you, I truly do, Iain. You don’t have nearly the intelligence I thought you had. Instead of being successful, you’d rather grub around on a nothing little sheep farm with a nothing little wife. You aren’t even worth the trouble it would take to explain how my actions were for your benefit. You are nothing, Iain, you always have been, and you always will be.”

  “It’s past time you were leavin‘,” Iain said wearily, rubbing the back of his neck and sending me an unreadable glance.

  Bridget’s jaw worked once or twice as if she was going to unload a bit more bile, but evidently she realized it would do her no good. She sent me a look that should have dropped me on the spot, and spun on her heel.

  Iain stood watching her drive off, saying nothing, his expression dark and brooding. I walked around to where I could face him. There was pain in those lovely brown eyes, pain that should never be there, pain that was put there by that soulless witch. I placed my hands on either side of his face.

  “Iain, what Bridget said earlier about me and Graeham…” I looked into his eyes and the anguish I saw there as a result of my lie to him made me sob. “Oh, god, Iain, she makes it sound so horrible, but it really wasn’t, I was just trying to… to surprise… you again.” I tried to swallow the huge lump in my throat.

  “I wanted to surprise you for your birthday with a poem, without crib notes, because you liked the wedding vows so much…”

  It was no use, I couldn’t go on, I couldn’t face him. The more I said, the more damning it sounded, even to my ears. Bridget had done it, she’d won. She’d destroyed everything, and I had helped her.

  I turned away and said the only other thing I could say. “You’re my love, my life, my heart and soul. I’m not Mary. I told you that before, and I’ll tell you as many times as you need me to say it. I’ll never betray you. Never.” His arms went around my waist and pulled me back against his hard chest. “I know you won’t, love.”

  I stopped sobbing at his words. Dear God, could it be that he believed me? I turned around in his arms to face him.

  “I didn’t have an affair with Graeham, Iain. I was just trying to learn enough to write a poem for you.”

  His jaw was tight, but his eyes had lost that flat, pained look and were the lovely warm eyes of my Iain again. “I know you didn’t, love. I never doubted you.”

  Oh, he might not realize he did, but I knew the shadow of doubt passed briefly over his mind. I wanted to vanquish that shadow, and there was only one way I knew how to do it. I took a step back from him.

  “Iain, a few minutes ago you asked me to trust you.” One eyebrow rose ever so slightly. “No, you didn’t come right out and ask me, you asked me. You asked me to trust that you were right about Bathsheepa. You asked me to trust that even though it’ll be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, you are right in this. You asked me to trust you despite my every instinct which screams to the contrary.” I took a deep breath and squeezed his hands. “And now I’m asking you to trust me.”

  “Ah, love, I do trust you, I always have.”

  “I know you do, and I know you have, but I also know there’s a little part of you that Mary hurt so badly that you’ve been afraid to let it go. But now you have to, Iain, because if you don’t, this’ll be the end of us.” He wrapped his arms around me again and kissed my forehead. “No, love, it won’t be. You’re just a bit emotional at the moment.”

  “Iain, I know what I’m talking about. You say you trust me, and I think for the most part you do, but if there’s the tiniest bit of doubt in you, it’ll just grow and grow and eventually consume the trust, and then we’ll be left with nothing.”

  He didn’t say anything, just held me for the longest time. I didn’t know what Mark was doing, probably hiding out in the bam waiting for the emotional storm front to pass by.

  I told Iain that leaving Bathsheepa would be the hardest thing that I would ever do. I lied. Walking away from Iain that morning was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Unlike me, notorious for wearing her heart on her sleeve, Iain had to have time to work through emotional issues. I knew he couldn’t do it with me clinging to him, so I walked back to the house.

  Without looking back at either him or Bathsheepa.

  You probably won’t be surprised to learn that Iain justified my faith in him a thousand-fold. When he came back from taking the lambs to market, he told me he had sold all but her. Bathsheepa he took to a different dealer and sold as breeding stock. I’m sure he got next to nothing for her—the reason he wasn’t keeping her was because her mother was not producing good stock—but the fact that he did that for me went a long way to easing the sorrow of losing her. I took back everything I’d ever said about him not being one for romantic gestures—selling Bathsheepa as breeding stock was the most romantic expression of his faith and trust, and of his love, that I could ever imagine.

  Despite that, I had a feeling dungs would take longer to resolve themselves in his mind.

  “You don’t really believe I had an affair, do you?” I asked him later that night We were snuggled up on the couch, but neither of us was reading.

  “No, love, I don’t I’ve told you that.”

  I looked into those lovely peaty brown eyes with the gold and black flecks, and I saw love shining out at me. But there was also a shadow still lingering around the edges. I had done what I could to banish the shadow, but it would take time to fully eliminate it.

  “You know what my mother would say,” I said, trying to broach a subject I knew he’d object to.

  Iain groaned. “I’ve not the slightest idea, although I haven’t a doubt that it would involve horses ovaries.”

  I tickled his ear.

  “Probably. But she’d also say that you’re a control freak and you need to lighten up a little.”

  He looked astounded. “A control freak? Are you calling me a control freak? Is that what you’re thinking?”

  “No, I’m not but Mom would. She’d see this niggling little worry you have deep inside you as a desire to keep in absolute control of your life.” Iain looked at me like I was nuts. I probably was, but I had a feeling that this trust issue went a bit deeper than the whole Graeham thing. He knew me well enough to know I’d never go browsing elsewhere, so it had to be something even deeper that was disturbing him. I figured I’d use my mother as a scapegoat and do a wee bit of probing.

  “Well, love, she’d be wrong. I’ve no desire to be in absolute control of anything. I never have, and if that’s what you’re thinking, you’re wrong as well.”

  I tickled his jaw.

  “Mom would say that to trust someone wit
h your life, you have to give up a bit of control. After all, that’s what the trust is—faith that the other person will take care of you, will not harm you, will do right by you, forever.” He looked disbelieving. This heartened me. I had a feeling I was on the right track.

  “Mom would point out that the real issue that’s bothering you has its basis in the fact that you’ve been alone so long, and been self-sufficient so long, so naturally you don’t want to let go of any control now.”

  “I’ve told you, nothing is bothering me. I’m not worried about losing control over anyone or anything.”

  “Maybe not, but you haven’t seen the shadow, and I have.”

  “You’re seeing shadows now, are you love?”

  I let that go. His body language was making it clear I had pushed him about as far as he was going to go.

  “What my mother doesn’t know, and I do, is just how much Mary hurt you when she left you. I know you had to be even stronger then, especially when she tried to take the boys away from you later.”

  He reached for his book. I was making him uncomfortable with talk of Mary, but I thought it was time to take a good long look at the scars Mary had left, and see how bad they really were.

  “I think it’s all tied in together, Iain. I think you’re a person who protects his very gentle heart with a seemingly impenetrable wall of self-sufficiency. The foundation of that wall is control, and now I believe deep down inside you, your wall-maker is panicking because you’ve weakened the foundation by trusting me with your love, and he doesn’t want you to weaken it any more. It’s self-preservation at its most basic form.”

  “I think you’re a bit daft, love. You’re seeing things that don’t exist I’m not worried about control or self-preservation.” He opened his book, as clear a signal he was ending the conversation as if he’d stood up and yelled it out.

  I stopped talking and leaned into him, tickling his Adam’s apple, pleased with him, pleased with life. He was starting to open up to me, slowly, to be true, but at least he had learned he could bare his emotions without reprisal. We would be faced with many challenges in life, not the least of which was resting beneath my heart, but we’d face them together.