Jane laughed.
“There are a lot of us MacGregors,” Angus said, by way of a more reasonable explanation.
“Let’s get your hand cleaned up,” Murdoch motioned that she should go in.
Well, she’d followed the crazy train this far. Jane stepped into the reception hall. “You have been working hard on this place. The realtor made it sound like this place was falling down around his ears.” She looked around, vaguely recalling the room while having raced through it to get away from Iain. The house had sat empty for so long that she imagined it would have been covered with dust and cobwebs before they moved in. The woodwork looked as if it had been installed yesterday rather than over a hundred years ago. The marble staircase and oak banister were polished to a gleam, uncracked by time and abuse. The wide tread had a red carpet down the middle to create traction. Otherwise, the slick stone would have easily sent people to their death.
She stumbled to a stop in the doorway, hesitated, and then started to back away. Her eyes scanned the open railing of the second floor for the old woman.
“I found a wife!” Raibeart announced, stopping her retreat as he pulled her arm to bring her into the middle of the foyer. Someone closed the door behind her with a heavy thud. “And she’s not a bean nighe, she just smells like one!”
“Um?” Jane looked around, not seeing who he yelled to.
“Not again.” A woman’s voice chided from a door to her left. “Does this one know ya exist?”
“Aye, she knows, and she’s crazy about me,” Raibeart yelled. He grinned and winked at Jane. “Don’t listen to her, love. Those others meant nothing to me.”
“Oh, well, I—” Jane tried to answer.
“Come meet Shelly,” Murdoch said in the direction of the voice. “Shelly, this is my Cait.”
“It’s actually—” Jane started to correct her name.
A woman appeared through the doorway wearing a cashmere sweater set, tweed skirt, and pearls. She looked like something from a 1950s homemaker magazine with her blonde-brown hair pulled back—though she hardly looked old enough to remember being a housewife during the era. Heck, she hardly looked old enough to be a baby in that era. “By all the stars, put some clothes on!” Cait inhaled sharply. “What must the poor girl think of us?”
“She’s not been looking,” Murdoch defended. “She’s been that shade of red since we came across her in the woods.”
“We caught her stealing the water,” Raibeart added.
“She didn’t steal the water,” Angus corrected. “Raibeart got us lost again.”
“We scared the poor thing and she cut herself,” Murdoch went to his wife. “Would ya mind, my Cait?”
“Find your kilts!” Cait ordered. Then, in a more docile tone, she said, “Come, child, this way. Shield your eyes.”
Jane found herself obeying.
“Ya must forgive the old fools,” Cait said as she led Jane through the formal dining room to a library. A large window showcased the outside gardens. The woman gestured for Jane to take a seat in one of the oversized leather chairs in front of the fireplace. “Let me see the damage.”
“They seem harmless enough.” Jane sat and held out her palm. The blood had started to dry.
“It will be nothing at all to get that cleaned up.” Cait motioned that Jane should remain seated as she stepped out of the room and then back in. Wherever she’d gone couldn’t have been too far. “Oh, they’re harmless until they get into the ale. I think all that celebrating they did at the pub earlier with the townsfolk sparked the naked revolution ya were party to.”
“There are worse things in this world than streaking through the dark,” Jane said.
“That there are,” Cait agreed. She lifted Jane’s hand and began cleaning the wound. The woman had a gentle touch, so gentle Jane could barely feel it. Suddenly, Cait stopped as a tiny smudge of Jane’s blood touched her hand. She rubbed her finger over it as if to smear it away, and then studied Jane. “Right…”
“Excuse me?”
“Ya poor lassie. Ya know a thing or two about those others things, don’t ya?”
Jane curled her fingers and pulled her hand away. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Ya don’t have to be worried. Ya can tell me,” Cait said.
“I’m sorry. I’m confused. Tell you what?”
“Who ya really are.”
Jane furrowed her brow. Her accent was thick, so perhaps something was being lost in translation? “Who I am? I’m Jane. I’m a landscaper and I run a small nursery.”
“And your parents?”
“No longer with us. My father was an engineer. I didn’t know my mother.”
“Lost her young?” Cait asked.
Jane nodded. That was a polite way of putting it.
“Ya don’t know about her?”
“She liked old things,” Jane said. She’d found a few of her mother’s belongings when she was a teenager. Nothing spectacular though. Her father had never wanted to talk about it. “Antiques.”
“Give me a moment.” Cait stood and again left the room. She took longer coming back, but when she did she carried two glasses. “Here, drink this fast. It’s an old family recipe to help keep away infections.”
Cait drank from her own glass as if to show it was harmless.
Jane obeyed. Hard liquor burned a trail down her throat to her stomach. For a second, she couldn’t breathe. She opened her mouth.
“That would be why I said fast.” Cait chuckled.
Jane managed to gasp, and the fire eased. She had no doubt the five-thousand percent liquor would kill any infection in its path. She gasped several more times.
“I can see by your palm this is not the first time ya have cut yourself.” Cait reached to take her hand again and traced one of the old scars. There was no judgment in her tone. Leaning over, she placed her nose close to Jane’s wrist. “Ya see death, don’t ya?”
“Are you a…” Jane furrowed her brow in confusion. Her head spun a little. “Are you a palm reader?”
“Something like that.” Cait traced another scar, appearing completely unconcerned with blood contamination as she concentrated on the lines.
“Is it bad?” Jane asked. She blinked heavily, mesmerized by Cait’s tracing finger. “It’s coming soon, isn’t it?”
“Ya know?” Cait looked up at her. Her blue eyes shone with a combination of concern and pity.
Jane nodded. “Yes. For years now. The doctors have run tests, but they don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Doctors?” Cait let go of her hand as if confused.
“Yes, because I’ve been sick since I was a preteen. The last three years were actually pretty good, so I can’t complain.”
“There are many times when medical doctors have no use,” Cait said after a long moment.
“I suppose,” Jane allowed, “although I’m very glad to have them in our society.”
Cait again grabbed her hand and said nothing as she finished cleaning and bandaging the wound. When she’d finished, she stood. She opened her mouth to speak when an excited shout interrupted them.
“And she’s not a bean nighe! She just smells like nature. I like it. We’re in love.”
“I swear, I did not encourage—” Jane explained.
“Oh, we know,” Cait put forth, hurrying for the dining room door. “He is going to wake the house.”
Jane followed. How could she not?
“Cait kidnaped her, but I don’t care that Shelly stole the water,” Raibeart was saying.
“Who cast the drunkard spell on Raibeart again?” a young woman with an English accent demanded.
The answer came by way of snickering laughter. “Don’t glare at me, Malina. He shouldn’t have gotten into my private liquor supply. I told ya someone was stealing my bottles of the good stuff.”
As they came back to the front hall, it was to find the stairs and second-floor railing filled with MacGregors in various states of sleepiness.
“There’s my Shelly!” Raibeart spread his arms wide as if he expected her to run to him.
“Jane?”
Her eyes found Iain on the second-floor landing. He wore a pair of plaid cotton pajama pants and nothing else. Taking the stairs barefoot, he came down to greet her.
“I thought ya said your name was Shelly,” Murdoch demanded.
“No, Raibeart called me a shellycoat,” Jane corrected.
Murdoch scratched his beard as if trying to remember if that is what had actually happened.
“Raibeart!” Cait scolded as if such a thing had been an insult.
“Wait a minute…” Raibeart demanded. “You’re the Jane? The one Iain is pining over?”
Jane bit her lip at the revelation and glanced at the floor, trying not to smile too widely.
“Uncle!” Iain scolded, looking shocked.
“This is her?” Malina asked. “Euann?”
“Yeah, she’s the one,” Euann answered, nodding and laughing at some secret joke.
“Well ya do have a crush, laddie,” Raibeart said. “Rory told us all about it. He said ya chased her out of the house like an inept schoolboy.”
Iain made a small noise.
“And ya…” Raibeart turned his attention to Jane. “Shelly Jane, ya can’t very well be dating two of us. Why didn’t ya tell me before breaking my heart? Lord of the Manor knows I can’t take a lassie from Iain. Poor man is hardly pretty to look at. It wouldn’t be a fair contest tempting ya away with my charms.”
Suddenly, all of then turned their attention upward and to the left in unison. Jane frowned, not hearing anything that warranted such a display. She swayed on her feet and took a deep breath as the fire liquor churned in her stomach.
“Iain,” Cait said in hushed tones. She motioned that he should come toward the dining room.
Iain nodded and took Jane by the elbow to usher her from the front hall. As she passed, Cait touched her cheek and whispered something. Before Jane could ask for a translation, Iain had pulled her from the foyer into the dining room. She heard talking behind them but couldn’t make out the foreign words.
“What’s going on?” Jane whispered.
“I’m trying to keep ya from running again.” Iain guided her toward a back door and out into the overgrown gardens.
“Running or being chased off again for being a—what did she call me?”
“It was rude of her. I’m sorry about that. My ma is a little ill right now. Her mind isn’t as it should be.” He didn’t repeat what his ma had said. “She’s normally a very lovely woman.”
“I’m sorry, it can’t be easy having a parent with dementia. When I was younger, I spent some time in the hospital. There was a lady with Alzheimer’s who was convinced I was her granddaughter, Marcy. Every time I was wheeled past Betty’s ward, she’d knock on the window and wave at me. It was nice having someone that excited to see me even if it wasn’t real.” Why was she talking about being sick? She shouldn’t be dumping personal information on him. She should be trying to keep a professional distance and not get fired.
“Who is to judge what’s real?”
“Her real granddaughter, I suppose.” And yet she kept talking as if she couldn’t stem the flow of words. “After a couple weeks, I saw Marcy visit, and she wasn’t young like me. Betty screamed at her and called her names, not recognizing her for who she was but as some co-worker no one else remembered. That’s when I realized what I, in my naivety, thought was cute and harmless was someone else’s pain. I guess my point is, I can’t be offended by your mother’s behavior. For all I know, I’m her grown up Marcy.”
“Thank ya for being so kind about it.” He caught a lock of her hair as it blew forward and caressed the strands before letting them go back into the breeze.
“I should go. I have a new customer’s landscape to plan tomorrow.” Jane gave a small laugh before looking around the dark gardens.
“I’m glad ya came back,” he said. “And that we had a chance to clear the air about my ma.”
“I didn’t have much of a choice. Someone had to keep the naked parade from reaching downtown. Sheriff Johnson is a stickler for the law.” Jane glanced at Iain’s chest and couldn’t help but thinking it was too bad he’d not been part of the naked run. That was something she’d like to have seen. “So, what did that woman mean when she said someone cast a spell on your uncle?”
“Oh, ah, Malina? She’s my sister.” He waved a hand of dismissal. She waited, but he didn’t answer her. When she opened her mouth to ask again, he stopped her. “I’m a little jealous that I wasn’t with them in the forest tonight. I didn’t know there were pretty women wandering around.”
“Apparently, I moonlight as a shellycoat,” Jane said.
“Do ya now?” Iain chuckled and stepped closer to her. She was all too aware of the heat coming off his body. Moonlight caressed his skin, turning it a shadowed blue. The memory of his kiss kept her where she was. “I don’t believe it. I think ya would make a better wood nymph than a shellycoat.”
“That is either very sweet or very strange,” she whispered.
“Go with sweet.” A half smile curled on his lips as he leaned in for a kiss.
She lifted her hand automatically, and he pressed his chest into it. The steady beat of his heart thumped against her fingers. With it came a drumming in her ears. Iain disappeared, and the garden lit with a bright light.
“Try to run, but do not fuss. We like it when you play with us.” The child spirits from earlier giggled.
“No,” Jane said. She couldn’t see the girls, but she felt them all around her.
“If you choose to stay with him,” one said.
“We can keep him in the end,” the other finished.
“No?” Iain asked. The bright light instantly went away. He took a step back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to presume. I—”
“I have to go.” She kept her hand lifted as she backed away.
“Jane—”
“Goodnight, Mr. MacGregor. I’ll have some ideas put together for you tomorrow after the farmers market.”
“Jane, wait—”
Jane ran from the garden to the side yard, taking the long way home to avoid the forest.
Chapter 9
“You are a hard woman to track down.” Sean lifted a tomato from the market table and bounced it in his hand. There was no place she could run. “If I didn’t know better, I would say you were avoiding me.”
Jane had seen Sean coming long before he parked along the side of the country road. His shiny black car with silver trim didn’t fit into Green Vallis, just as its owner didn’t fit into her life. Her stepbrother was charming and beautiful with the attitude of a rock star facing his crowd.
Sean turned his tomato-filled hand and pointed at her to punctuate his words. “You’re not trying to avoid me, are you?”
She glanced at his car, wondering how expensive it was. “No. I have a lot of work commitments. Bills don’t pay themselves.”
He followed her eyes. “Yes. It’s too bad your inheritance went to paying off your father’s estate.”
The statement was sadly laughable. The last time she checked, Dana’s spa vacations had not been part of paying off her father’s estate. It didn’t matter now. Dana was dead. The past was the past. If she made life completely uninteresting, Sean would become bored and move on.
“What will it take to get you to join me for dinner?” Sean continued. “It was your idea after all.”
Jane started to speak, but a nearby figure caught her attention. She had never thought she’d be so grateful to see Mrs. Callister. The woman absentmindedly put produce into her basket while staring up at Sean. With each second, the woman inched closer to the man.
“Making a sauce?” Jane asked the busybody.
It took a moment for the realization to dawn on Mrs. Callister. She glanced at her basket full of tomatoes and frowned as if she hadn’t realized what she was doing. She set it down a
nd pushed it toward the wooden crates Jane had on the table. “I can never stress enough the importance of setting a nice display even if it’s just vegetables.” She made a show of rearranging a few tomatoes, setting them on the table around the crates in a haphazard fashion.
“So true,” Sean said.
“Fruit,” Jane mumbled.
“Excuse me?” Mrs. Callister frowned at her.
“Scientifically speaking, tomatoes are a fruit because they are ripened ovaries with seeds.” Jane reached for the tomato decorations and placed them back into the crates. Of course, if Mrs. Callister had called them fruit, she would have argued that culinarily speaking chefs recognized it as a vegetable because it was used for savory dishes. The ole busybody shut her mouth. Jane took the small victory…well, until Sean took it away from her.
“My apologies, Jane, but I agree with this lovely lady here. They are legally vegetables,” Sean said, smiling his charming smile at Mrs. Callister. “The Supreme Court ruled on the matter at the end of the nineteenth century.”
“I heard that,” Mrs. Callister said, clearly lying. She gave Jane a superior look. “Which is why I always say vegetable. Without law, we’d be uncivilized barbarians.”
“Excuse me.” Jane walked away to help other customers. Let Mrs. Callister and Sean start their little twisted self-loving romance. She didn’t have to watch it unfold.
When she glanced back around, Sean was handing Mrs. Callister the basket full of tomatoes without taking payment for them. The woman beamed as she hurried away with Jane’s merchandise. “Thank you, young man. Such fine manners.”
“Hey, what, no, wait,” Jane finished her transaction with the customer and made a move to stop the thievery. The last thing she wanted was for Mrs. Callister to think she was getting freebies from Jane’s business.
“Ah, let her be, Jane, they’re only tomatoes. I told her I’d take care of the bill.” Sean bit into the vegetable-fruit he held. “Mm, these are good. You should be a farmer.” Before she could answer, he winked at her. “I’ll pick you up tonight at six. Wear something—” he gestured at her old jeans and T-shirt, “—not this.”
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