Only With a Highlander

by Janet Chapman

  Tom canted his head. “Oh, in about thirty-one years, give or take a few months. We’ll have lots of fun together, Grams,” he told her, then looked at Matt. “And you, Gramps, will have to persuade my mama to let you teach me to fly.”

  Matt smiled back, and Winter’s heart warmed at how he suddenly looked so relaxed. “Being forewarned, I could just avoid that problem by teaching her to fly first,” Matt drawled.

  “What in hell is going on in there!” they heard Daar shout through the granite. “We’re freezing our whiskers off out here!”

  Tom stepped up to the wall but turned toward them. “If you will, please?” he asked. He waved his hand when Matt reached for his pen. “You don’t need anything but your strength of conviction to summon your powers from now on,” he told them, looking over to include Winter and giving her a wink. “Gentle convictions,” he added. He looked back at Matt as he reached into his cassock pocket. “Oh, I almost forgot, this is for you,” he said, handing Matt a tiny piece of jewelry. “When you dug up Mathe Macalpin’s sword, you missed Fiona’s locket. She had buried it there the day you left, hoping you’d eventually come back to claim your destiny.”

  “But she was only a child then,” Matt whispered, reaching for the locket with a trembling hand, then holding it in his palm as he stared down at it. He looked back up at Tom. “She was what…twelve?”

  “She was a guardian,” Tom told him. “And she’s been watching over you for all this time.”

  “But how? I never saw her again after I ran away from home. I would have at least sensed Fiona if she were near.”

  “Do you not remember a large golden hawk perched nearby through the long day and night you lay dying in that field?” Tom asked softly. He smiled. “And she was with you countless other times, you’ll realize, once you think about it. When you didn’t want to go on but something made you anyway, know that it was Fiona who pulled you up by the bootstraps. And she’s been there for Kenzie for all these centuries. No matter what animal your brother became, Fiona mothered him each time.”

  Winter looked at the locket in Matt’s hand and watched him close his fist over it and raise it to his lips. She squeezed his hand, using her free hand to brush away her tears of overwhelming joy.

  “Winter!” Daar hollered again as they heard him pound his cane on the granite wall. “It’s dark and cold out here! Let us in!”

  Matt quickly tucked the locket in his pocket, squared his shoulders with a fortifying sigh, and gave a negligent flick of his wrist toward the wall. The entrance suddenly appeared again, along with several cold-looking faces glaring at them.

  “Come in. Come in,” Tom said, waving them forward. “I think you’ll find it much warmer in here. Step closer, the walls won’t bite. Father Daar, come stand beside me. I’m sure Winter wants to have your blessing as well.”

  “And Matt. He wants your blessing, too, Father,” Winter said as she wiped away the last of her tears, even while having to tug on Matt’s hand to cut him off in mid-snort.

  But then Winter went utterly still when she spotted the tall, long-haired stranger dressed in the Gregor plaid when he stepped inside the cave at the back of the crowd. “Kenzie,” she whispered, squeezing Matt’s hand.

  But Matt had already spotted his brother. “Come, Kenzie,” he said, waving him forward. “Everyone, this is my brother, Kenzie Gregor.” He slapped Kenzie on the back—rather hard—and laughed. “He’s standing up as my best man.”

  “And Megan will stand up for me,” Winter said, searching for her sister. She finally saw Megan leaning against one of the walls, her eyes wide with awe, her mouth hanging open as she stared at Kenzie. “Heather, help Megan over here. It seems her wits have frozen from standing outside so long.”

  And finally, twenty-five minutes after the solstice, in her future cave-bedroom, Winter repeated her vows to Matheson Gregor for the third time. And the moment he took her in his strong, protective arms and kissed her with all the passion and hope of a promising future, Winter felt Tom’s mother stir inside her for the very first time.

  Letter from LakeWatch

  Dear Readers,

  I have found that sometimes Mother Nature simply refuses to be ignored, and that she’s not above screaming in our ears when she wants our attention. I was reminded of this early last fall, when I was writing my fifth Highlander book. A murder of crows (yes, that’s what they’re really called), nine to be exact, started screaming at me from the trees on my front lawn. One particular fellow (that I named Talking Tom) seemed to think it was his duty to sit outside my bedroom window and wake me up at 4:00 A.M., and he would caw, quite loudly and nonstop, until I got up, got dressed, and headed across the yard to my writing studio.

  It may have taken me the better part of three weeks, but I eventually realized that my crows wanted to be in my book. Or else the noisy buggers had been told I was a pushover, and they merely wanted free food.

  Now I don’t know many people who feed crows, but I can tell you that once you’ve started, you had better not stop with the handouts. Every morning that fall and through the winter, I would get up at the crack of dawn, get dressed in multiple layers, and head outside to arrange dinner scraps and little piles of dry cat food on the ground as I made my way to work.

  This seemed to appease my black-feathered friends, and actually proved entertaining. But that entertainment often came at the expense of my husband, who was enlisted to snowblow a circular path through the deepening drifts in the middle of our front lawn so I could continue to spread food scarps. When people asked Robbie why he was snowblowing his lawn, he would only mutter something about it being cheaper than a divorce.

  I got so crazy in fact, that I began devising elaborate menus. I begged for scraps from neighbors, I brought home doggy bags from restaurants, and I even purchased canned dog food, knowing my pets needed plenty of protein in sub-zero weather.

  Crows do not like canned dog food, I found out. They wouldn’t touch it. Heck, they took one sniff, looked toward the house, and started scolding. And they don’t like shrimp or carrots or overcooked broccoli. But they do like home cooking (smart birds). Beef stew was a winner, spaghetti and meatballs got scoffed up, and their favorite food turned out to be steak (Robbie and I ate the steak; they got to pick the bones).

  Despite my generosity, sometime in early December, my nine crows disappeared—right when I was shoulder-deep in my book. Suddenly, I was at a loss. I slept through the sunrises, and I awoke uncertain and directionless, unable to write. The noisy inspirations for my book—especially for one of my main characters, Talking Tom—had abandoned me.

  But one week later, quite literally out of the clear blue sky, three of my crows flew in off the frozen lake and landed in a tree overlooking their old feeding spot. The potbellied squirrels had eaten everything I’d put out, and my crows made such a ruckus that I rushed out to give them the leftover stew we were supposed to have for dinner that night.

  My crows were back! My book was saved! I immediately headed to my studio and started writing again. And now that you have read Only with a Highlander, and met Talking Tom, know that he truly does live—not only in my imagination, but in my dooryard.

  So what is Mother Nature trying to tell us when she demands our attention? For me, she’s saying listen to the universe, for that is where inspiration dwells. Sometimes I’ll hear only a whisper, or merely sense an unspoken urge, and sometimes I’ll be blasted with a deafening cacophony that demands I examine my direction and purpose.

  Do you ever stop and listen? What do you hear?

  Until later…keep reading!

 

 

 
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