by M. L. Briers
Honestly, sometimes I had to wonder if our community was still stuck back in the day when the animals lived inside the house during the harsh weather.
“Just the lass I was looking for,” he said, and I cringed inwardly as I shook off his hands like a wet dog shaking off the rain.
“Why? Did you nae get a good enough inspection of my goodies the last time I ran into you?” I sounded shrew-like, and that was alright with me.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jack grumbled.
His eyebrows tried to meet over his nose like a couple of furry caterpillars trying to headbutt each other in a Glaswegian kiss, and he grumbled something deep within his chest that I couldn’t understand – man-speak – just before my mother made an appearance at the doorway to the kitchen.
“Detective, isn’t it?” she asked. She already knew – deviousness ran in our very blood.
I took the opportunity to grumble back. Perfect when he couldn’t interrogate me as to what I’d said, but he got the gist of it alright. I could tell by the way that his eyebrows did the dance of two caterpillars mating.
“Aye, that’s right. Detective Jack Mackie,” he offered back.
I know it was childish, but I repeated it on a hiss of a whisper, sneering at him, as his eyes flicked down to look at me along that perfect nose, and he managed to look me in the eye and not at my chest that time.
“Can I get you something? Tea, coffee, a wee nip? It’s cold tonight,” Mother asked, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at her while the girlies-stalker wasn’t looking at me.
“That’s kind of you to ask, but no, thanks.”
Hmm, Detective boobie-watcher was being professional and nice to my mother. He must have wanted something.
I craned my head on my neck to see where his eyes were aimed at my mother – her chest was practically heaving and spilling out of her shirt. She’d never dressed conservatively in her life.
Jack shot me a look, and I drew up sharply, snapping to attention and looking him right in the eyes, and I was determined to hold his questioning gaze with a hard glare. He frowned, little furrows stretched out across his forehead, and I had the urge to zap him … and to run my fingertips over those lines to see just how they felt.
“What brings you out on a night like this?” My mother took his attention back to her, and I practically slouched into a coma position against the wall.
If my stupid heart wasn’t racing so much, then I might have even fallen asleep where I stood. It had been a long day, made longer by Gran’s insistence that we started training as matchmakers the moment that we’d come in from the pub.
She’d been waiting for us like a troll under a bridge. Moira certainly had a lot to answer for.
“I came to see Maggie for a quick…”
“Shag it!” Moira yelled from the open door to the basement where she was working with Gran, and I almost choked on my tongue as Jack stood open-mouthed with a nice bright red aura to his cheeks, not to mention all around his body.
“Well, far be it from me to get in the way of that then,” Mother said with a chuckle and a smirk.
She promptly turned on her heels and disappeared into the kitchen – devious, very devious – as Jack started to reach out a hand of explanation toward her. His mouth was still hanging open – it was kind of cute, and kind of funny, but, I still wanted to kill Moira for her inopportune outburst, not to mention stomp on his big feet.
“Would you close your mouth, someone else might want to catch a fly or two,” I said, turning and walking off into the living room on a snigger.
I heard his big feet thudding on the wooden floorboards behind me. He was following me like a stray puppy.
“I wanted to have a word with you about what happened earlier,” he rushed out, finding his deep manly tones once more.
“About your ogling my girlies?”
“About speaking out of turn.” We’d both spoken together.
“What?” he demanded, and I turned to find him looking more than shocked – more like … busted.
“My girlies,” I said, folding my arms and inadvertently pushing them up like they had scaffolding beneath them. His eyes flicked down, and he swallowed hard. “Aye, just like that, you numptie.”
Jack’s eyes snapped back to mine, and he swallowed again. “You sort of did just shove them right in my face, Maggie.” He gave a snort of a chuckle, and his nice eyes sparkled with laughter.
I hated that – that was irresistible, like chocolate cake.
“I did no such thing you, Muppet, and you’d do well to not smile at me with those eyes of yours, Detective,” I grumbled something else but kept it low in case Gran was about.
I didn’t need a stinging reminded of her magic against my backside to know that we didn’t swear inside the house. Outside was fine, for some strange reason, but inside – no.
“I have smiling eyes, do I now, Maggie?”
He looked smug, and sort of comfortable, almost like he belonged in my living room, in my house, or he thought he did. Well…
“That’s Miss McFae to you, Detective.”
I sounded just like Gran – heaven forbid. But it certainly pulled him up short. Jack snapped to attention, and he didn’t look quite so comfortable anymore.
“Miss McFae. Aye, you’re right,” he said with another frown, and I felt a pang of guilt shoot through me. “I came to ask you not to repeat what I said earlier about the case…”
“Me? I’m not in the gossip mill around here. You should be saying that to my cousin, Isla.”
“Which one was she?”
“The one who practically screeched Eureka from the rooftops when you confirmed her suspicions of something dastardly going on with old Mr. Croon’s case.”
I watched his whole body snap to attention like someone had shoved a cattle prod up his behind. Tempting.
“I did no such thing, and I’ll thank you not to repeat that,” he looked at me with accusing eyes – like I was the idiot that had got caught up in my girlies and let the big fat cat out of the bag.
“Trust me, you just confirmed what the gossips have been saying, and by opening time at my bistro tomorrow, it’ll have done the rounds and will get back to me.”
“That’s the trouble with these small Isle’s,” he grumbled.
“Small, is it?” I tossed my hands on my hips and eyed him like a snake about to strike. “Outlander.”
“I…” Jack’s mouth opened and closed, but for someone who appeared to have so much to say – he said nothing.
“I think it’s time you took your leave. Go to bed, detective, and…”
“Shag it!” Moira yelled out once more, and I wanted to collapse in on myself, but I held it together somehow. I did groan, inwardly.
“I’ll see myself out,” Jack grumbled, looking like a naughty schoolboy who had been caught up to no good. Which he had, but was I going to rub salt into those wounds?
Every chance I got.
I waited for the front door to bang shut, and then I stomped towards the stairs. I had to pull up short because there was Moira – with a gleam in her eye and a grin on her lips … it took everything I had within me not to push her down the damn staircase into our basement.
To make matters worse; she lowered her chin and growled like a snappy little Highland Terrier. “Woof, Deputy Dog.” She chuckled – I zapped – she squealed, and I felt much better.
CHAPTER EIGHT
~
Ross was standing with his shoulder propping up the wall at the front door of the shop at opening. It was the same almost every morning, unless he was sick, which wasn’t often because Highlanders were made of sturdy stuff. We had to be to withstand the weather, sometimes four seasons in one day, and all of them windy enough to blow the cobwebs off.
This morning he had company, and it was the first time in a long time that I wished it was Jamie, or even skinny Mary and her dropping knickers. But, alas, it was Detective Jack.
“Good morni
ng, Maggie.”
Ross gave me his usual greeting as he eyed Jack like the man might just have had a case of the plague, but then, so did I – not the plague, the eyeing thing. Ross mumbled something else, but I was distracted by Jack’s roving eyes.
“Huh?”
“I said; I hope you don’t kill the cookies today,” Ross offered, and snapped my attention back to him.
“I’ll kill you if you keep it up,” I warned him, flicking a look back at Jack and seeing that his eyes had narrowed as if in thought, and his brow was furrowed once more.
“Cursed by the evil eye,” Ross chuckled, and I stood aside to let him pass me in the doorway.
Getting in the man’s way when food was on offer was like deliberately going into the lion’s den at feeding time – not advisable by any sense of the word.
“Magic,” Jack muttered, and my heart leaped.
“Not another outlander that believes the fairies are out to do you harm,” I sniggered, but if only he knew the truth.
Anger a Skye faerie at your peril – that’s all I’m saying.
“You people put a lot of stock in magic around here,” Jack said, and it wasn’t a question.
“For the tourists, we do,” I lied, and for some strange reason, I felt guilty about it.
I turned on my heels and made a quick dash to the counter, not only because Ross was hungry, and I didn’t want him to start nibbling on the furniture, but I needed to get away from Jack.
Unfortunately, he followed me in.
“So, you don’t know anything about magic yourself?” Jack asked, and Ross bit off a chuckle.
“She’s the closest thing you’re going to get to an expert around here…”
He yelped with the pain of one of the large chopping blocks falling onto his fingertips. He shoved all four fingers in his mouth, and that was just the look I was going for.
Speaking out of turn, and to an outlander no less – pah!
“Really?” Jack’s eyes were back on me once more, and wouldn’t you know it; I felt guilty again. It must have been the fact that he was in the police or something.
“Not really,” I said as I shot Ross an evil glare for his loose tongue. “The usual?” I demanded, and Ross nodded his head, his fingers still stuck in his mouth.
I guess he wasn’t taking any chances.
“Only, I have something I’d like you to look at,” Jack said, and Ross shot him a sideways look, but it was Moira who had to dance up and down on that one as she walked out from the kitchen.
“She’s not a doctor; the clinic is down the road.” Moira pointed over his shoulder, and he offered her a teasing smile.
“I’m not going to ask what kind of clinic that would be.” Jack had learned his lesson.
“I think we both know, but if it’s red and itchy…” Moira teased back like she was bursting with excitement, and I took the opportunity to regard the ceiling as if it held all the answers and an escape route out of there. “What do you want with my sister?”
“Hello?” I snapped my death glare at her, but she ignored me, raising just one eyebrow at that.
“Just some routine inquiries,” Jack offered back.
“How routine?”
“Very routine,” Jack said.
“What inquiries?” Moira shot back, and Ross was doing a great impression of someone watching a tennis match.
“Some.”
“That’s not very helpful.” Moira offered him her best piercing stare.
“I think you’ve got things back to front, it’s not the detective that is supposed to be helpful with inquiries,” Jack offered back.
Obviously, the man was used to awkward women, and you couldn’t get any more awkward than Moira.
“And yet, you want my sister to be helpful, and help you with your inquiries when you’re being very unhelpful, and frankly, rude.” Moira planted her hands on hips, tipped her head to the left, and regarded him with another piercing stare.
“I tend to think that we help those who help themselves,” Jack offered back.
What did that mean? I don’t think Moira got it either because she had that vacant expression on her face that she always got when somebody bettered her.
“Can I get my food?” Ross had pulled his fingers out of his mouth, and I wasn’t best pleased. I shot him a death glare, and he swallowed hard and retreated from the counter. “Obviously, when it’s ready.”
“Men,” Moira sighed. That was her next go-to when somebody got the better of her.
“Food?” I asked, and brought Jack’s attention back to me, my eyes and not my boobs.
“Coffee.”
“Sit.”
I pointed to a table that was on the other side of the room from where Ross had skulked back in his usual chair, eyeing me as if I’d done him wrong — which, of course, I had – but if he didn’t have such a big mouth there wouldn’t have been a problem, and I didn’t want the two of them sitting together either. Heaven knows what a detective could get Ross to admit.
“Fix Ross his breakfast,” I said to Moira who was hanging around like a bad smell in the air.
“So you can have some more time with deputy dog?” She offered back, but lucky for her, she had already turned on her heels and was walking into the kitchen.
While I made Jack his coffee, Ross was eyeing me as if I was a clown. He hated clowns, they terrified him, and that was a good thing in my book because it might just keep him quiet.
“Will you look at something for me?” Jack asked as a placed the coffee cup in front of him.
“What is it?”
“Something — to do with magic,” Jack said, and my heart hit my ribs once more.
“Why are you asking me?”
“The last time I was here there was talk.” He gave a small shrug of his big broad shoulders.
“There’s always talk. It’s an island, what do you expect?” I was trying to deflect.
“About you. About magic. About…” He paused for thought, and I jumped right in.
It was better that I knew what was being said than was left in the dark.
I could imagine what the talk was. Stupid gossip mill. “Satan worship — casting spells to lure hapless men into doing my bidding for me — animal sacrifice under a blood red moon…” I knew I was laying it on thick, but I felt like I needed to.
“Matchmaking,” Jack said and stopped me in my tracks. I blinked — twice.
“Huh?”
Who had he been talking to? Gran.
“It came up in conversation that I’m still single.” He stopped right there on that little tidbit as if he wanted to let that information sink in for a moment, but it wasn’t anything I didn’t already know – the gossip mill – and it wasn’t as if I cared one itsy little bit – anymore.
“Single. Oh.” I shrugged as if I couldn’t care less. Which, of course, I couldn’t, I kept telling myself that. I wasn’t a schoolgirl, and he wasn’t a crush. “Well, we don’t have to look too far to find the reason for that now, do we, sparky, hmm?”
I was deflecting again, and mentally jabbing a dagger into his heart, but, mainly deflecting.
“That’s…” Jack took a moment to think about it. Phew. “Anyway, I was told that there was a matchmaker on the island, and pointed in your direction.”
“Me?”
I did my best to snigger while I mentally tracked down every gossip on the island and whacked them over the head with a skillet. That was a big list, and I was very tired.
“You.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“That’s funny.”
“Hysterical.”
We eyed each other for a long moment, and it sort of felt like a hunter and a prey thing. Unfortunately, for me, I seemed to be the prey.
“I have to go do …”
I pointed a finger over my shoulder as my mind raced in ten billion different directions and I couldn’t think of one simple word. Not one, whereas, normally I was awash w
ith them.
“My breakfast,” Ross said.
Bless his little heart. I could have kissed him, and then disinfected my body, my mind, and my aura.
“Right — breakfast.”
I snapped my fingers and turned on my heels, thanking my lucky stars that Jack did not call me on it. Boobie-eyeing Muppet.
I offered Ross a small smile of thanks and a small grimace of guilt for his fingertips. Ross smiled back, although, it was a kind of nervous smile, but I could see his relief.
I’d been saved by the Neanderthal Highlander who was as protective of his own as any islander could be against an Outlander that asked one too many questions.
I can’t believe that the man had made me so tongue-tied that I couldn’t come up with one simple word, or my own name, let alone bat off his questions like a tennis pro.
What was the world coming to? Not Skye that was for sure.
CHAPTER NINE
~
I headed straight into the kitchen where Moira was busily cooking up a storm. I could feel my heart trying to escape my ribs, and the damn thing was pounding in my ears like a runaway drummer from a Highland band that had the English redcoats on his heels.
Not that our proud and noble men ran, no, they stood and fought for freedom – for as much good as it did them. But that too was another story for another time.
“Did we have a mini heatwave, and I didn’t notice?” Moira asked, alternating her gaze between the pans and my face.
“What? No…”
In mid-autumn, chance would be a fine thing – actually, most of the year round you would be hard-pressed to come up with a heatwave, and when the temperature did rise; it was still usually blowing a hooley – that’s fierce winds to the outlanders.
“You remember that summer that Eileen cursed you to be allergic to strawberries?”
“Of course I do,” I grumbled.
I loved strawberries and hated that everyone else in the family could tuck into them, and did, right under my nose, while I was left wanting and trying to figure out what had caused my sudden allergy. I should have known it would be one of my own devious, mischievous kin.
