by L. L. Muir
“And your acquaintance, as well, Molly,” he dipped his head to the child. “Ye’re as fetching as yer mother with your bright eyes and bouncing curls. Just like hers, they are. How old are ye, lass? I’ll wager ye’re a great help and comfort to her.”
Molly beamed and Lainey could have kissed the brawny stranger.
People, especially other children, reacted in a myriad of ways when they saw Molly’s disability. Their curiosity, occasional pity, and too-often ridicule, ripped away irreparable chunks of Molly’s self-esteem. Some even pretended not to see her. Few ever gave her as much as a kind word.
Certainly not her father.
Lainey vowed she’d give this stranger a ride to anywhere and all the water he could swallow if he gave back even a little of what had been taken from Molly.
“I’m five and a half.” Molly announced proudly.
He nodded solemnly, not taking his eyes from her. “Auch, and so grown up, too. Yer da and mother must be busting-out proud of ye.”
Lainey searched his face for any sign of pretense and found none. Just the vague trace of melancholy she’d seen earlier.
“She’s a treasure, to be sure.” He spoke to Lainey, but his eyes were still only for Molly. “Do no’ take such a gift for granted.”
It was almost as if he were somewhere else, speaking of someone else entirely. Someone or something…personal.
Lainey shook her head, unsure how to respond. “Of course not.”
“I like your dress,” Molly stated, her eyebrows scrunched in a serious study of the stranger’s apparel. “When mama and me went to the store in town, I saw a girl with a skirt kinda like that but hers didn’t have that blanket thing on top.”
“Molly!” Lainey hissed.
“Tis a fine compliment, Molly, I thank ye.” He doffed his cap and gave Molly a regal bow.
Molly took a careful step forward and tucked her small hand in Duncan’s broad palm.
Lainey gasped, feeling completely out of her element. Molly had never attempted such a thing. Not even with Mark, she realized. Her heart grieved with the knowledge that a total stranger had shown more care and consideration for her daughter than her own father.
From the moment Mark had seen Molly’s deformity, he’d turned his back on her. How could she have been such a poor judge of character and how could she ever trust herself not to make a similar mistake again?
Molly stared up at the stranger with wide trusting eyes. “Do you want to meet my cat? Her name’s Patches. She’s fat as a toad ‘cause she’s having kittens soon. Five. Me and mamma have a …wager.” She smiled at her mother who’d been helping her learn the new word. “Mamma says four,” she continued. “Do you want to wager, Mr. Duncan? Come on, get in the truck” she tugged on his hand, “we still gotta milk the cow tonight, so Patches can have some cream.”
Duncan shifted his piercing gaze to Lainey, obviously waiting for her approval.
She nodded, praying she wouldn’t regret it. Something told her to trust Molly’s instincts. They’d certainly proven more reliable than her own.
Lainey reached out, automatically, to steady Molly on the uneven ground but pulled back at last minute and forced herself to move on. She owed Molly this moment of dignity and if a total stranger could give it to her, so could she.
Molly slid to the center of the truck’s bench seat as Duncan climbed in the passenger side and looked around like a kid on his first airplane ride.
“I’m sorry I can’t take you into town tonight,” Lainey began, giving Molly a pointed look as a reminder to buckle-up. She noticed Duncan’s momentary confusion as he mimicked Molly’s actions. “It’s forty miles in and forty back. We’re only five miles from home, and I’ve got stock to feed and chores to do before dark.”
She glanced up, expecting him to be anxious or annoyed at the delay but he seemed serene.
“The cell service out here is spotty, but we can try it on the rise above the house – sometimes it works there - if you want to call your family, or…someone. I’ve been meaning to get a booster to see if that would help.”
He appeared bewildered for a moment before flashing a compelling smile that softened his powerful look and made her think, just for a second, of different times.
“No need to fret, lass. The whole of my kin have been buried and gone a verra long time. “Tis just me. And the rest of the 79 o’course.”
“The seventy-nine?”
“The best lads a man could ever march to battle with. Brave warriors, to the last.”
Lainey turned the truck around in the road and started home. Was Duncan a veteran? Maybe his clothing represented some kind of honor-guard or could his attire and odd behavior be the result of P.T.S.D? If so, maybe taking him home wasn’t such a great idea.
“What outfit were you with?” She tried to make the question light. Just normal conversation between two strangers - and a vulnerable child.
“Outfit?” he asked, his attention focused on the road skimming by outside his window. “Auch.” He turned to her. “My regiment, ye mean. ‘Twas Clanranald I was with at Culloden.”
Lainey heard the pride in his voice and sensed his focus drift to another time.
“On the front line, we were. Advancing from the left wing. The lads fell like chaff in the wind amid the grapeshot. Those of us that could, kept going, stumbling over our own, leaving them to bleed and die on the muddy moor like swatted flies. We kept pressing forward and fighting ‘till we’d all felt the cannon, bullet or blade and found our place in the mud. I heard tales of some escaping but I didna see it myself.”
She’d been about to stop him, worried about what effect his story might have on Molly, but his voice resonated with such deep sorrow she couldn’t form a response, and before she could distract him, he’d slipped into a melancholy silence on his own.
Molly laid her chubby hand atop his large one and leaned into him.
Duncan gave her a little smile and turned his hand palm up to enclose hers. “Doona fash, wee Molly. Tis no’ a treasure more dear than a fine group o’ lads willing to die beside ye.”
Despite the haunting poignancy in his voice, Lainey wanted to ask more, like what he meant by “feeling the blade”, and the use of “grapeshot”, but decided not to in front of Molly who had suddenly launched into a torrent of chatter about her horned toad that had died, along with the need to recite the names of the rest of her critters, especially Patches and her expected kittens. Molly’s entire attention was focused on the stranger who seemed as engrossed in her story as she was in telling it.
Lainey listened in amazement. Where had her shy, almost backward child disappeared to and who was this talkative, vivacious little girl sitting beside her? What was it about this man that stripped away Molly’s reserve to such a degree?
Lainey shook her head at her own bizarre behavior. Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined taking a total stranger to her home, yet here she was bumping along a dusty road, doing just that. And the oddest part of all was that she felt unusually comfortable doing so.
She smiled to herself. Wouldn’t Mark be surprised? Furious of course, but more shocked. He’d accused her too many times of being a stubborn uptight, overprotective throwback from some stuffy Victorian ancestor, to believe her capable of bringing home a stray hunk-of-a-man she’d picked up on the street. Well, backcountry road, but…whatever.
“There’s a bunkhouse you can stay in tonight, Duncan,” she offered. “It has a bathroom and kitchenette but since we haven’t had any hands out here for some time, it’s not stocked. You’ll be eating with us until I can get you into town.”
She glanced over in time to see the puzzled look on his face, as if it took a moment to decipher what she’s said. “Is that okay?”
His dazzling smile was as quick as the wink that brought a surprising blush to her face. “I dinna ken the last time I even inhaled the scent of food, no’ to mention tasting some. ‘Twill be my pleasure to share yer meal and a bed.”<
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Lainey’s mouth opened and closed, unsure how to respond to his words or her reaction to them.
Before she could form an opinion, they topped the rise sheltering her home and outbuildings. She heard Molly’s gasp just as she hit the brakes and skidded to a stop.
When the dust cleared enough to see, she couldn’t believe what lay before her. Her heart sank as her anger rose. Horses and cattle milled freely in the yard and tromped through her prized garden. Both the garden and corral fences had been pulled down. Broken fence posts and wire lay in jumbled masses on the ground. Through her shock, she breathed a sigh of relief that an animal hadn’t gotten tangled in them.
The pretty picket fence around her house looked like scattered white toothpicks. Both barn doors hung open at crazy angles, but the worst sight was the windmill. The metal blades were bent at impossible angles. The gearbox and crankshaft lay on the ground in shambles. It would be a long time before it pumped water again. Thank God for the pond beyond, that would save her stock until she could manage repairs.
If she could manage repairs. There wasn’t money in the budget for these kind of expenses. Even if there were, she couldn’t do the repairs herself and she already knew no one was willing to incur Mark’s wrath to work for her.
Could this possibly have been his idea? A twisted way to force her to sell? Would he actually go this far knowing what a physical and financial burden it would be? Surely he wouldn’t risk Molly’s wellbeing to this extent?
She couldn’t bear to even hear the answer whispered in her head.
Who could have known she’d be gone today, let alone how long her trip to town and back would take? This wasn’t done on a whim. It had taken planning and perfect timing.
The lace curtains she’d inherited from her mother blew through the shattered windows at the front of the house. Her flower beds, flanking the path to her porch, had been trampled by milling cattle and two of the porch rails leaned at worrisome angles.
“Mama,” Molly whispered, her voice breaking over the single word, underscoring the fear her wide eyes already revealed.
Lainey shut off the engine, grabbed her gun, and opened her door. “It’s going to be fine, Molly but you stay in the truck until I come for you. I mean it. Don’t you dare get out.”
“No, Mama, wait—-”
Lainey hated leaving her. Hated scaring her. But she had no idea what might be down there. Leaving her here had to be the safest choice. “This is just like all the times you play in the truck while we’re out checking the cows. Just lock the doors and sit by the steering wheel. You’ll be able to see me. If you get scared, honk the horn and keep honking it. I’ll be here in less than a minute.”
“Where are yer menfolk?” Duncan asked, his eyes on the devastation.
“There aren’t any,” Lainey stated sharply, checking the clip in her pistol.
Duncan was out of the truck in a shot and around to Lainey’s side. “Nay, lass. Stay with the bairn while I see if the blackguards are still afoot. ‘Tis a foul lot to have done this. If they’re still about, they’ll get the lesson in manners they’ve earned this day.”
“I will not!” Lainey’s chin came up. “This is my home. My family has been here for four generations. They defended this ranch and so will I.” She pushed past him, using the cedar trees on her left for cover as she made her way down the incline.
Half way down, she glanced across the road to the incongruous sight of a Highlander in tartan, moving stealthily down the hill.
CHAPTER THREE
Despite his fury over the deliberate destruction of Lainey’s property and the fear it put in Molly’s eyes, Duncan felt a stir of exhilaration at the mere thought of heading into battle once again. He might be moving down a hot dusty hill, dotted with brush and strange looking trees instead of crossing the broad muddy moor of Culloden alongside stalwart lads, but ‘twas battle still.
To his left, he glimpsed a flash of red curls moving through the trees. He hadn’t known the lass long, but she had her fair share of courage, if not the good sense to stay safe for the sake of her bairn.
He automatically reached for the handle of his broadsword and grasped naught but empty leather.
Blast ye, Soncerae, did ye no’ think a weapon might be useful in the fulfilling of my bargain? No’ even a wee dirk?
For surely this be the brave deed he was sent to do. He’d roust out these blackguards, set them to repairing the damage they’d done, after a wee bit of comeuppance, and win his audience with the prince.
The taste of the long awaited reckoning was like ambrosia on his tongue, having been aged these two hundred and seventy years. The anguish of Culloden’s fallen surged through his veins, driven by the broken lives of all the families they’d left behind to scrabble for survival on their own.
‘Twas Charlie’s shoulders that should have born the grief and deprivation of his failings, no’ the families of those sacrificed.
By the stars, he’d no’ see that kind of struggle brought here, to this lass, by no fault of her own.
His habit of letting his mind dwell on the past wouldn’t help Lainey, or ease his own turmoil, today. He shook Culloden’s mists from his head and watched Lainey ease her way through a dozen head of wandering cattle toward the barn.
Smart lass, to use the beasts for cover.
Duncan crouched and ran for the house, slowing just long enough to grasp a white fence-picket with several exposed nails. An able Scotsman had to do with what was at hand.
The house was dim, shadowed by the broad porch that skirted it. A grand place, it seemed, compared to his home cottage of stone and bracken, but no’ as snug of a winter, he’d wager.
No’ a sound came from within the house. The door stood slightly ajar and he pushed it full open with the tip of his board, waiting the space of a few breaths for signs of an ambush. Naught moved but his own beating heart.
Ducking quickly inside, he made a hasty search of the rooms, not daring to take the time to ken all the unfamiliar sights in case Lainey found trouble in the barn.
He discovered her standing outside. Her hand, still holding the gun, hung at her side as she gazed at the ruin around her.
“They’re gone,” she said as Duncan approached. “But it must have taken some time to accomplish all of this.”
Duncan pointed to the building beside the barn. “What about—”
“The bunkhouse? No. No one there either.” She turned a worried look on him. “Molly and I might have passed them on the main road before we turned off. What if we’d met them, alone, on our road? It’s so remote…” She shook her head. “I thought this might be Mark’s handiwork, but I can’t believe he’d go this far. Whoever it was obviously came here with a plan to… Molly!” she gasped, turning toward the hill. “What if—”
“Dinna fash. I’ll fetch her.” Duncan called over his shoulder, already running for the lorry.
His own concern for Molly drove him up the hill using every ounce of the newfound strength in his legs. The thought that Molly might have been the target strangled the breath from his lungs. He didna ken how he’d become so instantly and utterly attached to the bairn, he only knew he could no’ endure the loss of her.
No’ again.
His heart lurched when he found the lorry empty and he struggled against the white hot panic skittering up his spine.
It had been one thing to exist in his ghostly state with anguish, even hatred, driving his burning need for vengeance these past centuries, but to feel every raw emotion manifested in the flesh again, surging through him with every pulse of his blood, was nearly his undoing. The burden of a body still felt too new. It took all his power to contain the heady mixture of instant affection for the bairn and the fear that he’d lost her before he’d even known her.
“Molly!” He yelled, not bothering to mask the fright in his voice. “Molly, where are ye?”
Images of his own Molly, all those years ago, clouded his vision. Eleven, he’d been, and
tasked to mind his wee sister. “Just a bit of a dunk in the loch,” he’d wheedled. “Da and ma won’t be back ‘til this eve. We’ve time.”
Her stricken face and her cloud of curls sinking below the water still haunted him. Even now, in his dreams, he continued to dive, searching and swimming, screaming her name. Back then, a fisherman had pulled him, shaking and spent, from the water. In his dreams, no one comes. He’s fated to dive, swim, and search for her, forever.
He’d no’ be seeing the same look on Lainey’s face he’d put on own his mother’s.
“Dun-can?” Molly’s broken sob came from behind a tree. “I’m scared.”
He dropped his chin to his chest and tried to breathe. “Thank ye, God,” he whispered.
“Dinna fash, Lassie.” He put all the boldness and confidence in his voice he could muster as he crossed the distance between them, dropped to a knee before her and thumbed away her tears. “All is well, but I’ll confess ye gave me a fright when I couldna’ find ye.”
Her little arms curled tightly around his neck as she buried her face in his shoulder. A sigh of relief escaped him and he closed his arms protectively around her, pressing his face into her soft curls.
“Let’s be home, then,” he whispered as he picked her up and headed back down the hill.
~
Lainey was half way up the incline when she saw them coming. Her sob of relief caught on a hitched breath as the wobble in her legs threatened to drop her. When she’d heard Duncan yell for Molly, her world turned upside down. She’d run as fast as she could, terrified of what she’d find at the top.
The destruction behind her could be replaced. Fence posts and wire. Wood and nails. A bucket of paint. The child Duncan carried in his arms was her world, her reason for drawing breath. Nothing mattered without Molly.
She could see how tightly Molly’s arms clenched Duncan’s neck as they approached, her face buried against him.
For the life of her, she couldn’t remember a time when Molly had done that with Mark, or he with her.
