The Legend Mackinnon

by Donna Kauffman

  Cailean pulled into the lot and looked up the steep incline behind the cemetery. He’d have had to come from that direction, she thought, but she couldn’t see how. Even the sheep weren’t up this high. There were no obvious tracks or trails and with no knowledge of the area, mounting even a cursory climb alone would be foolish, even dangerous.

  Blowing out a sigh of disappointment, she grabbed her notebook. She’d come all this way, she wasn’t going back without some tangible progress.

  She began near the gate and started listing the family names and birth and death dates. After several pages, she decided to change her tactics and began listing the information by dates first, rather than cross reference later. She wasn’t surprised to discover that Lachlan was the only burial in the twentieth century.

  Cailean found herself drawn deeper into MacKinnon history. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it—wary? Especially when she considered that this was a MacKinnon cemetery and she was a Claren. To that end, she’d avoided physical contact with any headstones for the first two hours.

  Then she came across the tiny stone for one Sarah MacKinnon, born 1868, died 1870. She found herself brushing her fingers gently over the stone face before she realized what she’d done. No visions assaulted her, but a strange melancholy had. Poor wee babe, she found herself thinking as she made note of the dates and those of her parents. Both of them had died young. She couldn’t help but wonder what the wife’s maiden name had been. She didn’t want to know, yet in some corner of her heart she feared she already did.

  She began crisscrossing her way back and forth through the stones, working from the latest dates back to the earliest. The stones were positioned in concentric oval loops, with a worn stone path circling the entire pattern. The open center appeared to have been a small garden at one time, judging by the pitted stone bench and bare scrabble of ground surrounding it. What an unforgiving place to be buried in, she thought, but then, this area was an entirely unforgiving place to have lived as well.

  Cailean sat down on the stone bench, wondering if those who had sat here before her had appreciated the isolation and solitude of this remote place, or felt abandoned by it.

  She had spent her adult life looking upon burial grounds as work, a place to be examined as a source of potential information to the lives and culture of those buried beneath. She’d never related to burial grounds personally. She’d been too young to remember anything of her parents’ deaths, and when Adele Trent, the woman who’d raised her, had died, Cailean had been on a remote dig in northern Africa and had missed the funeral by the time word reached her. She’d been to the grave, but had never been able to connect the cold marble stone to the woman buried beneath it, or to herself.

  So why did she feel such a strong sense of connection thousands of miles away from the land of her own birth?

  She walked over to Lachlan’s headstone and stared at the words etched there. “You stirred up something that should have been left alone, Lachlan Claren.” She stepped closer. “I was doing just fine until you dragged me into it. And I’m damn sure I don’t want to care.”

  “Now there is a sentiment I can relate to.”

  Cailean gasped and whirled around. Her night visitor sat on the stone bench she’d just vacated.

  “This is a private conversation,” she said.

  He was wearing the same duster he’d had on earlier, but his head was uncovered. Dry now, his hair was still dark and unruly. In the sunlight his face was still unholy. That was the word that came to mind when she tried to describe the unusual beauty of him. It made no sense. His features were every bit as harsh as the landscape he seemed to arise from, all sharp angles and slashes. He should have looked angry, hard, defiant, anything but beautiful.

  But he was beautiful. Enough to make her stare. If there was anger in him, or defiance, or any emotion at all, he kept it cloaked. He simply … was. The word came to her again. Unholy.

  Cailean resisted a shiver. “Why are you here?”

  “You called me here,” he said simply, when there was nothing remotely simple about any of this.

  She did shiver now. She had come here looking for him, so there was no reason to feel so defensive, so intruded upon. So scared. But she was.

  “And how do you figure that? I am not lost, nor am I stuck, and, as you can see, there is not a cloud in the sky.”

  “I didna say you required my assistance, lass, merely that your presence called tae me. Commanded me actually.”

  He said that last part as if it bemused him. He shook his head slightly and stood.

  Taller than average. And the shoulder cloak was not enough to make him seem so broad if he wasn’t naturally so. He took a step toward her and she reacted viscerally. He moved with an innate grace to even the smallest of movements. How did a man appear so smooth and unthreatening and strike such a soul-deep terror into her at the same time?

  “Stop right there,” she said, damning the quiver in her voice, one she had no doubt he’d picked up. She let out a slow breath. “You’re a Scot?”

  “Aye.”

  “I didn’t notice your accent before.”

  “It comes and goes.”

  “As do you,” she responded.

  His lips twitched ever so slightly. “Aye, that is also true. One of the benefits of land ownership, a man can come and go on it as he wishes without drawing questions.”

  “You own this land?”

  “In all ways that matter. No man can own the earth. At best he can lay claim to it for a time.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “It is the only one I have to offer you.”

  “You own this cemetery as well, then?”

  “It exists within the land I claim. I am its caretaker I suppose.” His lips did more than twitch then, though there was no humor in it. “Laird of the dead, that would be me.” He shook his head, an hollow laugh carrying softly over the ground. “Just when you think there are no more ironies left in life.”

  His smile had transformed the harsh lines of his face, making him look all the more like a fallen angel. His laugh had pulled at something inside her. She didn’t think she’d ever heard anything so achingly empty.

  An empty angel.

  She tried to ignore the growing sense of panic. He was important to her in some way and she wasn’t prepared for him to be anything to her, important or not.

  Are you merely walking among the dead, she wanted to know, or are you one of them yourself? “Are these your ancestors?”

  The question seemed to still something in him for the space of a second, but again, he answered smoothly. “Most. In one way or another, I suppose.”

  “You suppose?”

  “I don’t keep track of the comings and goings of each and every clan member who has the misfortune to be needing a burial.”

  “Well, from the looks of it, except for Lachlan, there haven’t been many ‘goings’ of late. In fact, it doesn’t appear anyone has been needing a burial in your family in some time.”

  “Your point being?”

  “Nothing. I just guess I assumed you’d know something of who was buried in a cemetery you’re responsible for, especially if it’s a family plot. I mean, you’ve had at least a hundred or so years to check them out.”

  He visibly stiffened at her last words.

  “Dead is dead,” was all he said. “What matter is it if I know their names or their relation to me? Their stones remain upright and the gate opens and shuts. Beyond that my responsibility to them is done.”

  Though his tone held only the barest edge and his posture was still relaxed, there was no denying his defensiveness. She felt it roll off of him in waves.

  “Have you lived out here long?”

  “Long enough.”

  Cailean swallowed her frustration. “If you don’t want to have a conversation, then why do you persist in showing up and beginning one with me?”

  “As I said, you—”

  “Summoned you, yes,
yes, I heard you. Well, now I summon you to leave, okay?” She turned around. “It was more productive talking to a dead man.”

  “Is that what you were doing out here the other day?” he asked quietly. “Talking to the dead?”

  She stilled. Had he been spying on her then? Had he seen—?

  She turned slowly back around. “It is customary to show respect when someone dies,” she said carefully.

  “You have an unusual way of paying your respects.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “In what way am I unusual?”

  “No flowers,” he said smoothly.

  She didn’t even blink. “I wouldn’t know where to purchase any. I felt it was most important just to be here.”

  “Why is that?” He took another step forward.

  Her heart was pounding and her skin dampened in a cold sweat. He will harm you. The words echoed in her mind. He is your guide.

  “Who are you that this dead man might need your words and your presence?” He took another step.

  Crazy, she thought, that’s who I am. Cailean locked her knees against the urge to step back. “I’m not here for him.”

  A smile ghosted across his lips. “In that you are quite right. The dead don’t care who stands over them.”

  “You don’t believe that the spirits of the dead somehow know who mourns them?”

  “I believe it makes no difference. They are gone and you are here. You can do nothing to alter their existence, whatever it may or may not be. The only reason for talking to the dead is because the living soul believes he or she will benefit from it somehow.”

  “What a cynical view you have of human kind, Mr.…?”

  There was the barest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “MacKinnon.”

  “I suppose I should have known that.” This was The Remote, the man she hoped would provide some answers to the questions she had about her great uncle. This was the guide, sent to help her find those answers.

  This was the empty angel who would haunt her. Harm her.

  “Perhaps the only thing the living hope to attain is comfort,” she said. “Is that such a bad thing to seek?”

  “Not bad perhaps,” he conceded. “Pathetic maybe. Foolhardy certainly.”

  Anger bubbled up through the fear. She didn’t even want to be here, much less be lectured on the selfishness of her actions! “The fact that you actually believe that explains why you live out in the middle of nowhere with several dozen sheep as your only comfort. Anything with a higher intellect would search for comfort elsewhere, perhaps from someone who isn’t too cold and harsh and full of himself to give it.”

  He seemed wholly unaffected by her outburst, which only served to further infuriate her. She blew out a harsh sigh. “Look. I’m sorry,” she said, though she was truthfully anything but. “I’m not usually given to emotional outbursts. It generally takes more than one opinionated cynic to provoke me into a display of temper.”

  He moved again, only this time he didn’t stop until he was standing a few feet from her. “I suppose I will have to work on that.”

  “It certainly wouldn’t hurt,” she responded evenly. “You might be surprised. You might actually make a friend or two.”

  “Oh, I’m no’ interested in makin’ friends, lass,” he said. The smile this time was a slow transformation, the impact even greater as he gradually, calculatingly unleashed its power. He closed the distance between them.

  Cailean was riveted to the spot. She couldn’t run. She could barely breathe. Swallowing was impossible.

  “I meant I’d have tae work on provoking ye,” he said, ever so softly. “I find yer ‘display of temper’ and yer ‘emotional outbursts’ quite entertaining.” He reached up and ran a single fingertip down along the side of her face. “And I have no’ been entertained in a verra, verra, long time.”

  EIGHTEEN

  “I’d prefer that you didn’t touch me.”

  “I’d prefer that I didn’t want to,” he replied easily, dropping his hand back to his side. “But then, many preferences of mine go unfulfilled. I’ll survive this one. I survive everything.”

  Her brows furrowed as she detected the slight sarcasm he’d injected in that last part. Sharp, he thought. And too beguiling for her own good. She was no classic beauty. Her long hair was by far her best asset, he decided. Her green eyes were too widely set and her mouth too wide and lips too thin. He supposed the high cheekbones were what lent her face its character, along with a jaw that was entirely too rigid. What exactly had called to him to touch her he could not say.

  And yet, one touch, he discovered, was not going to be enough. And he wasn’t at all certain that she hadn’t been as affected as he by their fleeting first connection.

  “Who are you?” he asked, reminding himself that down the path of curiosity lay pain and eventual heartache, especially where a woman was involved. Always where a woman was involved. But by Christ those eyes of hers called to a man. Hell, a century had passed since he’d done something this foolish.

  “My name is Cailean,” she said at last, and grudgingly enough that he knew it to be the truth.

  “I am John,” he said. “But I am known as Rory.”

  He had no idea what had possessed him to tack on that last part. It had been so long since he’d spoken it, the name had felt odd on his lips.

  But that was nothing compared to the reaction it struck in her. She went pale as white linen flapping in a cold breeze. “I’ve been known to irritate some, but hardly to the point where the mere mention of my name strikes terror into the soul.”

  His rare attempt at humor failed miserably. He should never have come back here. “Yer starin’ at me as if ye seen a ghostie,” he grumbled.

  “Have I?” she whispered.

  It took a second for her question to sink in. When it did, he laughed. It felt surprisingly good, so he laughed again.

  “I’ll take that as a no?”

  Oh, she was a good one for arching that fine brow, she was. He decided he rather liked her when she was riled up. Far better than he’d liked seeing her pale and frightened. That made his insides react in ways he’d long ago learned would only bring him misery.

  “I am mortal,” he assured her. He found himself wanting to trace her lower lip, wanting to compare its softness to that of her cheek. “Irritatingly, eternally mortal.”

  “The alternative isn’t all that great, you know.”

  “No, I wouldn’t know.”

  Concern flooded those damnable eyes and he cursed his loose tongue. What was it about her that made him reckless?

  “Has your life been so horrible that you’d rather it end?”

  “I am not sure what it is I want.” That wasn’t entirely true. He knew what he wanted, at least in part. He understood all too well the stirring in his blood, the hunger beginning to rise in him. He had thought that particular need had been permanently vanquished long ago. Apparently he was wrong.

  There was still one woman on earth who could rouse him.

  He should have stayed in the hills with his sheep.

  “I can’t believe you want death,” she said.

  “You have no idea.”

  He would have walked away then, back to his mountain, back to his sheep, back to his sanctuary. He would have, if she hadn’t touched him.

  She took hold of his arm. Perhaps she’d sensed that he was about to leave, about to run.

  “Wait,” she said.

  Her grasp was firm and strong. Surprisingly so in one so slender. He looked into her eyes and found another surprise. Resolve.

  “Now you suddenly prefer my company?”

  A small smile quirked her lips, enchanting him in ways he didn’t at all appreciate. “Someone once told me that many preferences go unfulfilled. I’ll survive this one.”

  Damned if his own lips didn’t twitch. She chose that moment to let him go. He immediately mourned the broken link.

  “Did you know that you’re practically a legend to the lo
cal townspeople?”

  He had to work at concealing his reaction. Legend, was he? He took a moment to scan the empty horizon, then looked back to her. “I’m hardly local to anywhere. I doubt anyone knows of my existence.”

  “Tell that to the regulars at Tally’s pub in Portree.”

  “Portree? That’s hours from here.”

  She shrugged, obviously enjoying this. “Ever since you took on crazy Tommy’s sheep and drove them into these mountains your reputation has taken on mythic proportions.”

  He frowned, not at all happy with this bit of information. “What reputation? I don’t even know them, nor they me.” He heard his voice begin to rise and worked to even it out. Damn it all but this is what he got for interfering! “And what do they care about Thomas Walpole’s sheep for God’s sake? No one cared about the man when he was alive.”

  He took a steadying breath. Maybe it was best she had interfered. Better to know exactly what the folks were saying about him. He wasn’t ready to leave here, but leave he would if he must. An unexpected pang squeezed at his heart. Dear God, what was becoming of him?

  “Why did Tommy leave them to you?”

  “Thomas was an interesting man, if a bit misunderstood. I met him while out wandering.” And had found an unexpected kindred soul. Not a friend exactly, Thomas was too eccentric to allow that. But the man loved to spout his ideas, and Rory had all the time in the world to listen. “He said I needed a trade and taught me about sheep. When he passed on, they became mine.” Whether he’d wanted the wee beasties or not. But he’d had nothing better to do. Perhaps Thomas had been wiser than he’d known. He snapped out of the reverie. “What else do they know of me?”

  “Nothing much actually. The tales are more folk legend than truth. You’re like a cross between Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. They call you The Remote.”

  “What nonsense is that? And why in hell do they care? I dinna bother them and I ask for nothing but solitude.”

  “You took Crazy Tommy’s sheep and left his land behind. Then you herded them up here into the Quiraing, where no man survives. It spawned a tale or two in the pubs. You know how that goes.”