So Mara had been out since nightfall searching. For once Guiser had been little help. All day he had done the work of two dogs, and now he was determined to take his well-deserved rest. He had skulked beside her as she tramped her fields, lantern in hand, but he had shown no enthusiasm or initiative. Just as she’d been about to give up, she’d found the ewe with both lambs, encamped under a chestnut tree. Now they were safely penned with the rest of the flock, and she was ready for a warm, fragrant bath and a three-course supper prepared by a gourmet chef.
Except that warm, fragrant baths and gourmet meals were only memories from her past.
She was unfastening her cape to hang it on a peg beside the door when a knock sounded from the other side. She was startled. Guiser was asleep beside the fire, and he didn’t even thump his tail in response.
“Who’s there?” she called.
“It’s Duncan Sinclair.”
She was sorry she’d asked and confused that she hadn’t anticipated his arrival. She regretted the ancient Highland code that declared a welcome should be extended to strangers.
She opened the door and stepped back to let him in. There was light from the fire and the lantern she had hung on a hook in the rafter. She could see his face clearly enough to watch his expression change as he gazed around the room.
“Whatever you paid Iain for this cottage was too much,” he said bluntly.
“I did no’ pay Iain anything for this.”
He frowned. “Nothing was still too much.”
“I did no’ pay Iain anything for this.” She gestured to include the room. “I built the cottage myself. Stone by stone. I paid Iain for the land, and it was a fair price.”
“You built it?”
“Aye, and proud I am of it.”
He was silent. She knew what he saw. The cottage was small, divided into two rooms, what the Highlanders called a “but and ben” cottage. There were fireplaces at both ends, the one farthest away crowded with pots and kettles suspended from chains. She was inordinately proud of her fireplaces. She had studied and planned and sketched them a dozen times before laying the first stone. Never had she expected them to draw properly. But somehow they had.
“This is incredible,” he said at last.
“Why have you come, Duncan?”
He looked down at her. Her hair was plastered against her cheeks and lank against her neck. She was wearing the dark green cloak in which he had first encountered her. “You’ve been outside?” he asked.
“I have.” She finished removing her cloak and hung it on the peg. Her back was to him. “You sound as if you’re surprised by that. Crofters live outside, or at least once they did. A house was only for sleeping.”
“What were you doing out there? Where exactly were you?”
She faced him. “Is something the matter?”
“Were you down by the road?”
“As well as a hundred other places.”
“Were you down by the road just a little while ago?”
She saw what had been invisible to her at first. He was upset, as upset as a man like Duncan Sinclair ever got. Something had shaken his confidence.
She found that satisfying.
She turned away and crossed the room to pour water from a kettle into the wash basin on the hearth. She soaped and rinsed her hands, then took a cloth and soaked it in the water. She wiped the cloth across her forehead and cheeks and finished by wringing it out once more and wiping her neck. “I’m sorry, but I’m soaked to the skin and spattered with mud. I hope you dinna mind.”
“You don’t have running water, do you?”
“No. And I dinna have electricity or a telephone, which is why I could no’ phone you about April’s visit here. But I have a nice warm fire and two chairs beside it. You can join me over here for a cup of tea if you’d like.”
She didn’t watch to see what his decision would be. She shook tea leaves from a jar on her shelf into a brown ceramic teapot and poured the remaining hot water from the kettle into it. “I have some crumpets we can toast,” she said. “I have no’ eaten tonight, and I’m near starving.”
“Why haven’t you eaten?”
His voice sounded from right behind her. She never seemed to know exactly where he would be, and that was disconcerting. “I’ve been out looking for one of my ewes and her lambs. It’s been a long day.”
“And were you looking out by the road?”
“I told you, I’ve been all over.”
Duncan wondered if he was losing his mind. He looked at her and saw light in the shape of a woman. The figure he had seen was Mara’s size, with flowing hair and a long dress—or perhaps a cloak.
He lowered himself to one of the chairs; his legs were still surprisingly weak.
She took the other chair and drew it closer to the fire. Then she picked up a hairbrush from the fireplace ledge and held it up with a whimsical smile. “My hair dryer,” she explained. She began to pull it through her hair, holding the long locks out toward the fire. With each stroke it fell to her shoulders in fine clouds, like the angel hair on Duncan’s childhood Christmas trees. She brushed her hair for a long time in silence. “What happened on the road, Duncan?” she asked at last. “Did you have trouble getting up Bein Domhain in the fog?”
“I got up just fine. There was the small matter of a truck going down at the same time.”
Mara paused for a moment. “You do understand about our passing places, do you no’?”
“I understand perfectly. I’m not sure that the driver of the truck understood. If he’d driven any faster, he would have been airborne.”
“But you’re all right? You were no’ hurt?”
“No. I had pulled off the road to look at something.”
She resumed brushing her hair. “I’m glad of that. The drivers on this road are usually cautious. Maybe his brakes failed. You were fortunate that something caught your attention. What was it?”
She had finished her hair, and she set down the brush before he answered.
“It was just a shrub caught in a stray moonbeam or the truck’s lights. There’s a full moon out tonight, even if the fog’s nearly obscured it.”
“I’ll get the crumpets.”
Duncan watched Mara busy herself beside the fire. She wore a long sweater of heathery green and violet, and a dark wool skirt that fell past the tops of her boots. She moved with an uncommon grace, and under different circumstances it might have been a pleasure to watch her. But the world wasn’t the same place it had been before his brush with death. He was too wrought up to appreciate her feminine allure.
“Fergus Grant died last night,” he said. “Did you know?”
There was just a slight pause in her movements, so slight he might not have noticed it if he hadn’t been watching so carefully. “Aye.” She reached for a tin and removed the cover. She put crumpets on two crockery plates before she turned. “The neighbors have organized to take food to Mrs. Grant.”
“You don’t seem surprised, Mara. The rest of us thought he was improving.”
She didn’t reply.
“The moon was full last night,” he said.
“I’m well aware of the cycles of the moon.”
“You said Fergus would die at the full moon. And you were right.”
“Aye. And I’m wishing I’d been wrong.” She turned to look at him. “And I’m wishing I had never spoken of it to you.”
“But you did.”
“I did.” She sat down again, placing a tray with a crock of butter and the two plates of crumpets in front of him. She reached for two long-handled forks hanging from a hook embedded in the fireplace mortar. She handed one to him.
He took it without a word.
She speared her crumpet and held it in front of the flames, just close enough to heat it. “So what do you think, Duncan? Am I simply unstable, as you said the last time you were here? Or is there more at work than meets the eye?”
“How did you know Fergus would die? And
how did you know when? Do you have medical training?”
“I have medical training. But do you know a university anywhere in the world that can teach a student to name the hour of a patient’s death? Because, if you do, I would be properly grateful. Then I would know there’s a scientific explanation for what I’ve been able to do since I was a child.”
“And that is?”
She didn’t answer.
He wanted to scoff. He wanted to leave. But the world was no longer exactly the place it had been. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
“Can you listen with an open mind?” She pulled the crumpet toward her to inspect it. Then she glanced at him before she thrust it back to the fire again.
He didn’t know if his mind was open. He had witnessed the effects of New Age philosophy up close, had watched it destroy his marriage and nearly his daughter. He had always been a skeptical man. In the past three years he had moved far beyond skeptical.
But Mara was not Lisa.
He watched her at the fire. Mara had none of Lisa’s nervous, almost manic energy. She didn’t seek reassurance. There was a quiet self-possession in everything she did. And she had built this cottage, this extraordinary re-creation of an old Scottish croft. She lived in it by herself under conditions most people would find grueling, at best. And she was proud of everything she’d accomplished.
He didn’t want to be intrigued by Mara MacTavish; he didn’t want to be intrigued by any woman, particularly not one with roots here in the Highlands. He only planned to stay in Druidheachd until he could fix up the Sinclair Hotel and make a decent profit on it when he sold it. Then he was going to take April faraway and start a new life and a new business.
He did not want to be intrigued by Mara MacTavish, but he was.
“No, my mind’s not open.” He reached for a crumpet and speared it on his fork. “I’m not even sure anymore that an open mind is an asset. I’ve seen too many minds that were so open every rational thought drained right out of them.”
“You’ve been hurt.”
“Is mind reading one of your talents, too?”
“No more than anyone’s. But hurt’s audible in every word you speak. Was it April’s mother who hurt you?”
“I don’t want to talk about me.”
“Do you ever?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Do you ever share any part of yourself? I’m no’ a mind reader, but I’d guess that almost everyone you’ve ever counted on has failed you. And that’s part of the reason you’ve given up believing in the things you can no’ see. I’m no’ even sure you believe in the things that you can.”
“How did you know that Fergus was going to die yesterday? Or was it simply a guess? Because that’s what I think. A lucky—”
“Unlucky for Fergus.” She faced him.
He shrugged. “Unlucky guess.”
“Do you truly want to know?”
He started to say yes, then reconsidered. There was more to her question than what appeared on the surface. She was gently pointing out that he was asking for more than a simple explanation. He was asking for a part of her.
“Are you going to tell me the truth?” he asked.
“I’ve never learned to lie.”
Did he want to know about her? Because he realized in that moment that he already knew something that he hadn’t wanted to know. Mara MacTavish was sincere. She might be misguided, but she had none of Lisa’s deceit. She wouldn’t twist the truth to make her own life easier. And whether he liked her explanation or not would be of no importance to her. She could only tell him what she believed to be true.
He leaned forward. “You believe that you have second sight, don’t you? That’s what this is all about.”
She reached over and pushed his fork away from the fire. “I dinna know what I have, Duncan. Labeling it only makes it easier for other people to accept or condemn. But I’ve never understood it, myself. I only know that far too often I can see the future.” She smiled sadly. “And most of the time, the news is no’ very good.”
CHAPTER 5
“And you’ve been able to see the future since you were a child? You’re telling me that you always walk around knowing what’s going to happen next?”
Mara took the toasting fork from Duncan’s hands and removed his crumpet. She buttered it and set it on a plate. “I’d be a rich and famous woman if everything in the future were that clear. Just think what I could do on your Wall Street.”
He took the plate from her hands. His fingers brushed hers, and their eyes met. Hers were steady, the pale green of a fountain of light that had probably saved his life. Disturbed, he looked away. “Then what do you see?”
“Much more than I want to.”
She rose to pour the tea, and she handed him a cup. She sat back down, clutching her own to her chest, as if for warmth. He realized she was shivering. “I was still a young child when I realized that what was simple for me was impossible for others. At first my parents excused the things I said as the ramblings of childhood. But when I was four, I told them a neighbor had been in an accident. My mum thought I’d overheard someone talking, and she went next door to see if she could be a help. Nowt had happened, of course, and she was terribly embarrassed that I’d lied. But the next day, the accident took place just as I’d seen it. I was too young to know the difference between what I saw in my head and what I saw with my eyes. And to a child, past, present and future are very much the same.”
Everything Mara said was an affront to Duncan, but he couldn’t fault her sincerity. Clearly she believed her story was true. “What did your parents do then?”
“I frightened them and still do. They’re good people. My father is an elder in our kirk. But he and my mother are very sure they have all the right answers, and their answers dinna include a daughter who can see things before they happen. They told our minister what I’d said, and he told them such talk came from the devil. I was punished and told I must stop lying. It took me a while to understand. I became afraid to tell them anything, because I wasn’t always sure if what I was relating was something that had happened or something that was going to. If I made a mistake, I was punished, and the punishments got harsher each time.”
She stopped to sip her tea. Duncan didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to feel compassion for the child Mara had been, because compassion implied belief in her story. But he felt compassion anyway. And anger at the insensitive people who had raised her.
“By the time I was in school, I’d learned to keep everything to myself, but I’d lost all confidence. I barely spoke, and when I did, I stuttered. I was sent away to school because I was an embarassment. The school had a rigid curriculum and uncompromising rules of conduct. If anything, I grew quieter. By then I’d learned to ignore my visions of the future, even to doubt they were real.”
“But obviously something happened to make you change your mind,” Duncan said.
She picked up her crumpet and buttered it. She finished every crumb, and still she didn’t speak. He watched her stare into the smoky peat fire, and he thought that she was reliving those years, remembering how it had felt to be an outcast. He could almost feel her pain. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He didn’t want to feel this connection to her.
Finally she wiped her hands and faced him again. “When I was old enough to think about a career, I decided to choose medicine. I wanted to be a nurse. I suppose the way I’d grown up made me want to reach out to other people who were suffering. I even thought that if I tried to help people, I might stop imagining that I knew their futures. I enrolled at a school in Edinburgh, and at first, when I was just taking classes, I thought I’d made the right decision. I discovered that I learned quickly in a relaxed environment, and that the world was a far more interesting place than I’d been led to believe. But then I began to work with the sick. Just a little at first, then more often as my studies lent themselves to it. And that’s when I found out that afte
r one encounter with a patient, no matter how brief, I could tell if that patient was going to live or die.”
Duncan set his cup on the hearth. Mara had engaged his sympathy, but now sympathy disappeared. “One encounter?”
“Aye. I know how it sounds, Duncan. I can no’ make it sound any different.”
“You’re saying that you only had to walk in a room and you knew if a patient was going to die?”
“No, it was worse than that. I’d never lived in a large city before. Suddenly I was surrounded by people. One day late in my second term it was as if a floodgate opened. I could no’ walk down the street without being assaulted by impressions of the people around me. This man was going to die the next month. This man was going to lose a loved one. This woman had a son in a foreign country with a grave illness that had no’ yet been diagnosed. I took to staying in my room whenever I could. I went out at night, when the streets were less likely to be crowded. I chose my friends carefully, only associating with people whose futures seemed out of my reach.”
“This is increasingly difficult to believe.”
She smiled sadly. “I know.”
“What happened then?”
“One day I considered taking my own life.” The words were matter-of-fact. “And on that day, I realized I had two choices. I could accept myself and my ability and try to use it for the benefit of others, or I could end my life. Because the third choice, trying to pretend I was someone I was no’, was slowly driving me insane.”
Duncan wondered what he could say. On the face of it, she’d made a good decision. But to tell her so was the same as admitting her story could be credible. And her story was preposterous. As he had so many other times in their short but emotionally charged relationship, he said nothing.
“I started to take stock of what I knew. There were some things I could do nowt about. If a patient had a fatal illness, I did no’ have the skills to intervene, and often it was clear to me that no one had the necessary skills. That person was going to die whatever I said or did. Like poor Fergus. But sometimes I sensed a situation that I could affect.”
Men of Midnight Complete Collection Page 6
