Highlander's Sweet Promises

by Tarah Scott

Mara bit her lip, searched for the right words. “He’s not dead. He’s very much alive and in better health than he’s been in years. Such good health, he’s coming here next week for the memorial cairn’s unveiling ceremony.”

  “But that’s a reason for gladness,” he said, looking puzzled.

  Mara swallowed, still not believing what she was about to say. “The trip will be his honeymoon. He’s recently married.”

  “All the more reason to celebrate.” Alex grinned. “Or is there something you’re no’ telling me? Are you afraid he willnae like me?”

  She almost choked. “He’ll worship the ground you walk on.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I can’t stand his wife,” Mara admitted, glancing aside. “She’s a soured-up old shrew. The kind of female you’d probably call a long-nosed tongue-wagger.”

  She looked back at him. “Maybe even worse.”

  He laughed. “Then we’ll ready a welcome sure to sweeten her,” he declared, sweeping her off her feet in a bone-crushing hug. “I’ve waited too many centuries for happiness to let it be marred by one ill-tempered woman.”

  Mara had to agree.

  Even if she hadn’t waited a fraction as long.

  It’d still taken the whole of a lifetime to find her one true love. Looking at him now, feeling his arms strong and tight around her, his sweet, golden warmth surrounding her, she knew without doubt that she was blessed.

  Life could hardly get any better.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Could life get any worse?

  A three-hour arrival delay for any transatlantic flight certainly qualified in the worst-things-that-could-happen category. A delayed overseas flight with Euphemia Ross onboard was a recipe for disaster.

  That her father seemed to have chosen the busiest day of the year to land at Glasgow International Airport didn’t help matters.

  His arrival would cause a stir whether ten or hundreds of people milled about the smallish airport’s none too large arrival area.

  Hugh McDougall of One Cairn Avenue wasn’t just flying to Scotland for the first time, after all.

  He was going home.

  To the Auld Hameland.

  As he’ d repeatedly emphasized by phone every day of the preceding week. His emails and texts about the great homecoming were too many to count.

  Mara glanced at Malcolm the Red, felt a shivery twinge of déjà vu.

  Had it really been only a few short months since he’d startled her by plucking her carry-on out of her hands outside the Oban rail station?

  Amazingly, it had. And then, as now, she couldn’t help but smile at the sight of him.

  Well gifted with Highland courtesy and patience, the strapping young man stood with his hands clasped in front of him, his red cheeks glowing as always, and his even brighter red hair gleaming in the airport’s stark, artificial lighting.

  He turned to her then, looking quite unfazed for having wasted most of the fine summer morning in the crowded arrival hall. “Shall I fetch you another cup of tea?” he asked, his dimpled smile hard to resist. “But it willnae be much longer now.”

  Mara shook her head. “Thank you, but no.”

  If she drank any more lukewarm Scottish tea, she’d find herself in the loo just when her dad and the shrew strode out of Customs and Immigration.

  Malcolm the Red was much too nice to deserve such a fate.

  Not sure she was ready for it herself, she leaned back against an unmanned tourist information counter and closed her eyes.

  “A right shame your Alex couldn’t come with you,” Malcolm allowed, joining her.

  Mara’s eyes popped back open.

  “But I dinnae blame him wanting to stay downbye,” Malcolm added, making himself at home against the counter. “He’ll want to be certain everything is done proper at Ravenscraig.”

  Mara smoothed her skirt, deliberately avoiding the young man’s eyes.

  Without doubt, Alex would be in the thick of things back at Ravenscraig. Elbow to elbow with old Murdoch, tripping over Dottie and Scottie, and flustering Prudentia, as they all readied what Mara secretly thought of the Great Reception.

  But that wasn’t the reason he hadn’t joined them on the drive south to Glasgow.

  Alex was simply not yet keen on riding in cars.

  Not that she’d share his reservations with Malcolm. “I don’t mind that he didn’t come,” she said, speaking truthfully. Remembering how many appeals Alex had made to his Maker the one time she’d persuaded him to ride into Oban with her. “There’ll be plenty of time later for him to-”

  She got no further, cut off by a great stir and commotion near the arrival screen. A hullaballoo that could mean only one thing she realized, surprised by the sudden hot swelling in her throat.

  It was time.

  Forget the Cairn Avenue shrew.

  After sixty-nine endless-seeming years of longing and yearning, Hugh McDougall had finally arrived in the land of his ancestors.

  There, bekilted and moony-eyed, in the crush of the passengers pouring into the arrival hall. A soppy smile on his face and a chieftain’s eagle feather bobbing from the blue tam-o’-shanter perched jauntily on his head.

  He pushed a trolley piled high with bulging, tartan-patterned luggage and seemed oblivious to both the pinched-face scowl of the miniscule woman crowding his side and the drop-jawed gawking of the teeming throng.

  “Your da?” Malcolm glanced at her.

  Mara nodded, speechless.

  The tops of her ears were burning and she was quite sure that if she had a mirror to hand, she’d see that they’d turned bright red.

  “Looks like he’s right pleased to be here,” Malcolm said, starting forward.

  But he only went two paces before turning round and grabbing Mara’s hand, pulling her along with him. “Come, lass,” he said, squeezing her fingers. “Dinnae fash yourself o’er what others might be thinking. The brightness o’ your da’s eyes is all that matters.”

  Mara agreed, suddenly finding herself blinking back the brightness in her own eyes as her father spotted them and a broad grin spread across his tear-dampened face.

  “Mara!” he cried, snatching off his bonnet and waving it in the air. “My little girl!”

  “Dad!” Mara let go of Malcolm’s hand and elbowed a way through the jostling passengers. “It’s so wonderful to see you,” she said when she reached him.

  She threw her arms around him and hugged him tight, vaguely aware of Malcolm clapping a welcoming hand on his shoulder. Her heart swelling, she gave him a smacking kiss, no longer caring who in the terminal might wish to stop and stare at them.

  “This is Malcolm, a friend,” she said, glancing at his way as she introduced him. “He was kind enough to drive me here. Alex is busy at Ravenscraig, but is looking forward to meeting you.”

  Hugh McDougall thrust his hand towards the younger man. “By haggis, if you don’t remind me of myself in younger years,” he enthused, pumping Malcolm’s hand. “Back when I had a bit more brawn to fill my kilts!”

  Turning to Mara, he added, “As for your young man, I’ve brought him something special – two whole boxes of saltwater taffy from the Jersey shore and a bag of Lancaster County soft pretzels.”

  Mara smiled, well aware of just who would be eating the most of both.

  The treats were Hugh McDougall’s favorites.

  “Oh, Dad,” she said, her voice thick. “It is good to have you here. And you look great!”

  “Don’t I now?” He beamed, swiped an age-spotted hand across his cheek. “Bought a new kilt just for you. And” – he looked down and plucked at his full-sleeved shirt – “this here’s a Jacobite shirt! Just like our forebears wore at Culloden.”

  “If you’d changed into a T-shirt to sleep in on the plane as I’d suggested, it wouldn’t be so wrinkled.” The tiny dark-haired woman at his side sniffed and reached small hands to fuss at the shirt. “My tartan sash has nary a crease.”

 
; And it didn’t.

  Looking impeccable as always, the Cairn Avenue shrew’s ladies dress sash of Clan Ross tartan was draped stylishly over her right shoulder with neither a wrinkle or speck of lint visible anywhere.

  “Euphemia – welcome to Scotland,” Mara blurted before her tongue refused to greet the woman. “Congratulations on your marriage. I wish you both every happiness.”

  The shrew gave her a tight little smile. “Our honeymoon would have had a more auspicious start had security in Newark not caused us such a long delay.”

  “But you’re here now and the day is bonnie,” Malcolm put in, taking charge of the overburdened trolley and guiding them out into the sunshine.

  “I expected to see mist,” Euphemia said, sounding peeved. “Mist and castles.”

  “Och, you’ll see plenty of both,” Malcolm promised, flashing her a broad smile. “Dinnae you worry about that.”

  “I hope so.” Euphemia cast a skeptical glance at the cloudless sky.

  Malcolm winked at her, all charm. “If you’d like to stop for tea along the way, I know just the place guaranteed to give you a good glimpse of some real Highland mist.”

  To Mara’s surprise, the shrew smiled.

  “I’d love to stop for tea,” she said, hooking her arm through her husband’s. “So long as we don’t arrive at the castle too late. Hugh needs his sleep. He wearies easily.”

  But it was Mara who was soon wearying as they made their way north on the A-82, a narrow and winding ribbon-wide bit of road and one of Scotland’s most scenic routes into the heart of the Highlands.

  Proving it, the sparkling waters of Loch Lomond shimmered through the trees to their right and the wooded, sheep-dotted slopes rising so steeply on their left could’ve been straight out of Rob Roy.

  But the only thing catching anyone’s attention were Euphemia’s repeated shrieks and exclamations of doom each time they had a close encounter with an RV or tour coach that happened to hurtle at them from the opposite direction.

  “I don’t believe this!” she shrilled, clapping her hands over her eyes as they squeezed past yet another superwide recreational vehicle. “And they’re all going so fast.”

  “Ah, well, that’s no bad thing,” Malcolm owned, his eye on the road. “See you, we’re almost nigh to Crianlarich where we’ll turn west to Oban, and up just ahead is our tea stop, the Reiver’s Inn.”

  But when they pulled into the popular inn’s car park a few minutes later, Euphemia eyed the place and frowned.

  The Reiver’s Inn seemed to glare right back at her.

  A three-storied pile of old stone and a colorful past, the somewhat tumbledown droving inn hugged the road, a scatter of empty picnic tables stretched along its front and a rise of great, moody hills looming to its rear.

  Mist-hung hills.

  Just as Malcolm had promised.

  “Look, Phemie! There’s your mist,” Hugh McDougall cried, pointing to where tendrils of drifting gray mist hung down the hillside. Highland mist just for you.”

  “Those are rain clouds if ever I saw one,” his wife quipped, hardly looking. “And if this place isn’t haunted, Philadelphia doesn’t have the Liberty Bell,” she added, brushing at her tartan sash. “I’m not sure I want to go in there.”

  “Och, I ne’er drive past without stopping here and I’ve yet to see any spirits save the kind served in dram glasses,” Malcolm assured her, opening the inn’s door. “Though there’s surely some that do call the place haunted. Most tourists like the idea.”

  “Not this one.” The shrew shivered, set her mouth in hard, tight line.

  “Oh, come, Phemie, you know there’s no such thing as ghosts.” Hugh McDougall took her hand, patting it. “We’ll just have a quick look inside. Only long enough for your tea.”

  “They have kilted servers and give you shortbread with the tea,” Mara put in, trying to be nice.

  “Shortbread is fattening,” Euphemia sniffed, peering into the inn’s main taproom, a dark-paneled, low-ceilinged pub that reeked of ale, peat smoke, and dogs. “I doubt they can serve tea good enough to get me in there.”

  Shuddering, she cast one last contemptuous look into the smoky little room.

  “This entrance hall is even worse.” She folded her arms, glaring round at the clutter of discarded, broken furniture shoved into the corners, the many stag’s heads on the walls. “No, I don’t want tea here. They probably don’t serve it with ice cubes anyway.”

  “Ice cubes?” Malcolm’s brow furrowed. “I thought you meant regular tea.”

  “Hot tea?” Euphemia looked at him. “No, I wanted a tall glass of iced tea with lemon, and now I just want to leave,” she said, turning toward the door so quickly she almost collided with a moth-eaten standing bear. “I am sure Ravenscraig will suit me better.”

  “But, Phemie, this place is like peeking into the past.” Her husband tried to stop her. “Just look at those smoke-blackened hearth stones. You know each one would have a tale if only they could speak.” Hugh McDougall threw a longing glance at the glowing peat fire on the far side of the dark little pub. “You drink hot tea, too. Come on, five minutes.”

  But the Cairn Avenue shrew was already out the door.

  “I’m sure you’ll be able to do plenty of past-peeping at your daughter’s castle,” she called over her shoulder. “I won’t stay anywhere that smells of smoke and dogs and looks like it might have ghosts.”

  Mara slid a glance at Malcolm as they crossed the car park, but his face showed no sign that he’d guessed the true nature of Alex and his reenactor friends.

  Blessedly, neither did her father or the shrew when, about two hours later, they drove through Ravenscraig’s massive gatehouse and Alex’s stalwarts came into view.

  They lined the drive, standing proud in their plaids and mail.

  Excepting a few that Mara knew especially well, even she was hard-pressed to say who was a ghostie and who was a flesh-and-blood Highlander.

  “Now there’s your past-peeping.” Euphemia leaned forward to poke her husband’s shoulder. “They must’ve robbed a museum or paid a fortune to have such authentic costumes made.”

  Mara bit back the urge to tell her just how real most of the gear was.

  Especially the swords.

  Not that she really cared whether she frightened Euphemia Ross or not. The look of awe on her father’s face was well worth suffering the woman.

  “By golly!” her dad exclaimed then, rolling down his window. “Will you look at that wild-eyed devil over there on the left? The big burly one with the great red beard. If he doesn’t look like he stepped out of a history book, I’ll eat my tam-o’-shanter!”

  Mara smiled. “That’s Bran of Barra,” she was glad to supply. “He’s one of Alex’s closest friends and a genuine Hebridean chieftain.”

  “I can sure see that,” her father said, his eyes almost popping out of his head.

  “And over there on that rise, the tall piper with his plaid lifting in the breeze, that’s Alex.” Mara waved at him, her heart catching when he flashed her a grin and started playing “Highland Laddie.”

  “Piping is just one of Alex’s talents,” she added, glancing back at her dad. “I hope you’ll like him.”

  “Like him?” Her dad slapped his knee. “Any young man who wears a kilt, pipes, and puts such a twinkle in my little girl’s eye, is a young man I’d be proud to call son.”

  Mara felt happiness tighten and burn her throat, sting the backs of her eyes.

  Swallowing hard, she fought the sensations before the first tear could fall. She wasn’t going to get emotional in front of Euphemia Ross. She just hoped her dad would still feel the same about Alex if ever their secret leaked out.

  Not the she intended to let that happen.

  With so many guests, ghosties, and friends attending the welcome reception planned for the evening, if Alex did start to fade at some point during the celebrations, enough of his men would be on hand to shield him from view until the
fading spell passed.

  There’d been at least a dozen such incidents in the last week, but Mara refused to think about them.

  Leastways not tonight, on the eve of the memorial cairn’s unveiling ceremony.

  A traditional Highland ceilidh with all the bells and whistles.

  And, she hoped, no unexpected surprises.

  ***

  A hope that lasted until the evening’s entertainments of music, singing, and storytelling were in full swing and she spied her father’s teeny tartan-swathed wife heading her way. High color stained Euphemia’s cheeks and her lips were pursed so tightly she looked like she’d just bit into a persimmon.

  Even worse, a likewise tartan-sashed Prudentia sailed along in her wake.

  Neither Mara’s dad, nor Alex, nor even Murdoch was anywhere close by. All three men were presently making gentlemanly across the vastness of the jam-packed great hall. Resplendent in their dress kilts and silver-buttoned Prince Charlie jackets, they stood before the hearth fire, sipping drams and having a blether. And, from the looks of it, eating her dad’s brought-along soft pretzels.

  And the shrew was bearing down on her.

  Mara straightened, waiting.

  It didn’t take long.

  “I can’t spend a night beneath this roof,” Euphemia announced, drawing up in front of her. “Everything smells musty and old and-”

  “Ravenscraig is old.” Mara took a sip of her single malt, Royal Brackla, then placed the dram glass on a plaid-covered trestle table. “There are some here who might be offended if you call the place musty.”

  She looked at Prudentia. “Wouldn’t you say Ailsa and Agnes do an excellent job keeping up the castle?”

  The cook had the grace to look chagrined, but she recovered as quickly.

  “She means the dog smell.” Prudentia sent a pointed look to where Dottie, Scottie, and Ben were making hopeful rounds, begging tidbits and savories from guests. “That, and all the ornate ancestral portraits everywhere.”

  Euphemia nodded. “They’re downright creepy.” She glanced at a particularly large one hanging above the great hall’s enormous hearth. “I’m certain I saw one of a nasty-looking chieftain whose eyes followed me when I walked past.”