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Zebedee had claimed the Scots had a talent for grief, but then, Zeb had claimed a lot of things—including an intention to live for 90 years at least.

Elias didn’t feel grief, so much as he endured a sense of déjà vu, of being again in Headmaster’s office, anticipating unforeseen joys, when instead disappointment and sorrow had lurked in the chapel. He followed Violet down the steps, the feeling in his gut akin to what he’d experienced 38,000 feet above miles of cold, pitiless ocean.

Queasy, resentful, frustrated. Trapped in a bad situation.

“Are eggs OK?” Violet asked.

“You needn’t cook for me,” Elias said. “I’ll collect my things and be gone. I’ll look for an agricultural buyer, Violet. I’m not making any promises.”

She was beautiful in the morning light, auburn hair rioting down her back, nothing but a simple cotton dress between Elias and his sweetest dreams.

And she was furious.

“Do you know Elias, in one five-year period, this country lost a space nearly the size of Maryland to development? By some estimates we lose nearly 10 acres of farmland every minute, a square mile every hour.”

Elias knew better than to argue—Violet was merely revving her engines on this topic. She retrieved a bowl of eggs from the fridge—not a package, a bowl that included both white and brown eggs.

“The developers don’t go fifty miles into the wilderness to turn some random hillside into a housing development,” she went on. “That would be too costly, of course. Instead, they snatch up the land close to the cities and towns, the land ripe for growing a crop of commuters who will only add to our carbon footprint, while they destroy our ability to produce food.”

She cracked eggs against the side of the bowl with a practiced expertise. “A farm takes generations to bring to full production, and once it’s been turned into a tot lot, agriculture will never get that land back. And don’t think the farmer can take his business out into the hills, either. What it costs to clear land and get it under cultivation is more than any farmer has in his back pocket.”

Out in the yard, a chicken yodeled, or whatever chickens did that woke everybody up.

“God dammit,” Violet said, glowering in the direction of the barn. “It’s not even 7 a.m.”

“Let me make breakfast,” Elias suggested. “You can see to the chickens, and I’ll get some food on the table.”

Violet’s expression suggested she didn’t trust him not to poison her, and that… that would make it easier to get on a plane in two weeks.

Ten days, at the most, possibly sooner.

“Don’t bring the dogs in until we’ve eaten,” Violet said, shoving the bowl of eggs at him. She slid on her ugly shoes and was out the door with a parting scowl.

Elias put together an omelet, toasted a few slices of last night’s ham and cheese bread, and put the last of the strawberries on the table on the back porch. He was tempted to look at his phone, but instead sat on the top step and waited for Violet to resume her rant.

She came stomping across the back yard, a few wisps of hay in her hair which Elias did his best to ignore.

“This looks good,” she said, taking the same chair she’d occupied last night. “If you sell your farm to a developer, I will hate it.”

“You will hate me, though I am not responsible for land use problems throughout the United States, Violet.”

She speared a forkful of eggs. “It’s happening all over the world, Elias. China has lost forty percent of its arable land while its population is increasing. Asians, who number in the billions, are also consuming more meat than ever before, and growing livestock takes a ton more resources—I can’t eat this.”

Elias could eat, because the alternative was stale energy bars and airplane peanuts. “I thought the American real estate economy was sluggish, and vacant houses were the blight of nearly every city.”

“I don’t know about the U.S. economy. I just know people would rather steal my farmland than gentrify some part of D.C. I won’t hate you.”

Magnanimous of her, when he hadn’t done anything wrong. “I won’t hate you either.”

Violet fell silent, which was worse than her ranting, and Elias’s breakfast lost its appeal. He’d been wrong about her.

She was not passionate about her chickens or sheep or seed catalogs—whatever a seed catalog was. She was enthusiastic about those things and in some regard, she enjoyed them.

About preservation of the American farm, she was evangelical. Passionate to the point of irrationality. People had to live somewhere, and America was a huge place.

“Pass the salt,” Violet said. “Please.”

“I put salt in the eggs,” Elias replied, reaching for the salt shaker, a plain white ceramic article in the center of the table. He knocked the salt over by accident, and out of habit, shook a bit into his right hand and pitched it over his left shoulder.  

 “What was that about?” Violet asked, taking the salt cellar from his hand.

“Spilling salt is bad luck, so you toss a pinch over your left shoulder, into the face of the devil who might lurk there.”

Violet set the salt down and rose, going to the steps and gazing across the yard at her barnyard. “I’ll wrap you up some food to take with you, Elias, but I think you’d better leave.”

“Because I throw salt over my shoulder?”

She nodded, and instincts honed on four continents—five now—told Elias she was crying. He stood behind her, wishing he was back in Scotland, and wishing he could give her the damned farm.

“Wait here,” she said, whirling past him.

Elias finished his breakfast, equal parts angry with Violet, and disgusted with himself. Nobody had lied, nobody had misrepresented, not on purpose anyway, and yet, feelings were hurt.

Feelings were badly hurt, and it felt as if that was his fault.

Violet emerged from the kitchen carrying Elias’s backpack, and a brown paper bag. “Some ham and cheese bread, a couple oranges, the leftover mousse,” she said. “I know you haven’t had a chance to get to the store.”

He was being run off the property, because the Chinese were eating beef. “Thank you. I don’t suppose you’d spare me a bottle of water?”

“I don’t have any bottled water. The plastics alone—”

Elias rummaged in the backpack and extracted a nearly empty refillable water bottle. “I haven’t any power across the way, and thus no water. If you’d fill this for me, I’d appreciate it.”

She took the water bottle without touching his fingers. “You don’t have power or water?”

Too late, Elias realized what dots her female mind was connecting. “You think I spent the evening with you because my own accommodations were wanting.”

Though to be honest, he’d come over here hoping to charge his phone, and…. well, hoping. Admitting that would hardly grant him a pardon from the disappointment in Violet’s eyes.

“You spent the night, Elias, not simply the evening. Try to sell the farm to somebody besides Max Maitland.” Violet’s voice was an arctic breeze on a summer morning. “He’s a scoundrel and he won’t pay you what the land is worth.”

She disappeared into the kitchen again and re-emerged with a full water bottle. “Before you sell to anybody, get a decent lawyer to explain the agricultural conservancy easement to you. Post your property now, or there will be perc tests in your front yard by Monday.” She shoved the water bottle at him. “Good-bye, Elias. Best of luck.”

Elias stashed the water in his pack, and ignored the urge to wrap his arms around Violet and babble useless apologies.

He was sorry, and he was selling the farm to whomever offered him fast cash for it.

“Good-bye, Violet. Take care.”

He walked around to the front yard, in the mood to kick something solid—perhaps his own backside. Perhaps Zebedee’s headstone.

Women liked Elias Brodie, and they knew what to expect from him—a good time, exactly as he’d said. Fond memories, good sex. Not the salvation of Damson Valley’s food production goals, for God’s sake. Not dreams come true.

The day would be scorching hot, of course, and when Elias’s one bottle of water ran out, he’d have to call Dunstan and Jane to put him up until a damned electrician could be located. Violet might turn him off her property, and Elias would retreat from the lists like a gentleman, but he’d be damned if he’d be banished from his own land.

He was comforting himself with similarly useless righteousness when a truly cheering thought popped into his head.

His best suit of traveling finery was hanging on the back of the door to Violet’s downstairs bathroom. At some point before leaving Damson Valley, Violet would probably return his clothing.

Or maybe… maybe he’d fetch it himself. 

“You lose,” Dunstan said. “Hand me that level.”

Jane passed over the level, which was like a yardstick with a tube in the middle of it, and in that tube was liquid containing an air bubble. When the air bubble sat in the exact middle of the tube, whatever the yardstick was sitting on was level.

All of which Jane had pretended to find fascinating when Dunstan had patiently explained it to her as they’d embarked on home renovations. Mostly, she found the sight of Dunstan in his work kilt fascinating.

“Which bet did I lose?” Jane asked, passing over the requisite tool.

“The laird texted me while you were cutting irises. Mind you, Elias didn’t call me. He texted me, asking that I call him at my convenience.”

Clearly that bit of consideration had struck Dunstan as imperiousness. In the courtroom, Jane saw guys going toe-to-toe with each other verbally every day, but this cousinly blend of affection and combativeness between Dunstan and Elias left her uneasy.

“You want me to return the call?” Jane asked, smoothing her hand along the mantel. Dunstan was creating what an interior decorator would call a great room, and Dunstan called a wee project. His farmhouse was a work in progress, formerly the bachelor abode of one hardworking lawyer and a shamelessly lazy cat.

Jane had moved in after the wedding and the house was undergoing a transformation.

Wallace remained a feline monument to noblesse oblige, with Wallace in charge of the nobility, and his humans in charge of tending to all obligations.

Dunstan set the level on the mantel, a handsome span of oak at which he’d been cursing and crooning for most of the weekend.

“I’ll call himself when this blasted mantel… by God, it’s level. You are married to a genius, Mrs. Cromarty. The damned thing only needed a day or two to settle. This room will be done by Independence Day, see if it isn’t.”

The morning was lovely—a mild Sunday leaning toward summer, and Jane’s mood was lovelier. Before marrying Dunstan the previous winter, she’d spent most of her Sundays in the office, wrangling legal files, plotting litigation strategy. 

Now, she lost bets with her husband, and rejoiced.

“What do you suppose Elias wants?” Jane asked, taking a sip of lemonade. Dunstan had sawdust in his dark hair, a tool belt slung around his work kilt, and whatever Elias wanted, Jane wanted an hour up in bed with her husband more.

She’d expected desire to ebb after holy matrimony, particularly when she and Dunstan also shared a law practice. Never had a highly competitive attorney been so glad to be so wrong.

“Whatever Elias wants,” Dunstan replied, “he might have left a message, or simply used the telephone in the conventional manner. He dials, I pick up, communication ensues.”

Jane held the lemonade up to Dunstan’s lips, and he sipped. He watched Jane over the rim of the glass, his blue eyes sending a particularly husbandly message.

“Are ye pining for a nap, wee Jane?”

“Stop it with the burr, Dunstan Cromarty. Is it possible Elias’s phone doesn’t work right here?”

Dunstan took one more gander at the level, as if the mantel might have moved while he’d flirted with his wife.

“Elias likes functional equipment. He’s a mechanical sort, and his phone wouldn’t have the audacity to cut out on him simply because he’s nipped off a few thousand miles from home. Shall we put some flowers in here? Give the room a few airs?”

The plank floor had yet to be stained, but the walls had been painted a soft green that went well with the woodwork. The room still needed rugs, a few comfy reading chairs, and the little touches, but the couch was well cushioned, and pictures of family adorned the walls and the piano.

Did Dunstan want to spruce up the room because for the first time in years, family was in town?

“I have enough irises to fill every vase we own,” Jane said, ruffling the sawdust from Dunstan’s hair. “Call your cousin, Dunstan.”

What sort of family relations required that Dunstan pick his cousin up at the airport, swing by the house for introductions, then dump said cousin at some neglected farmhouse five miles away?

Dunstan left off admiring his mantel. “Elias is a bit imperious, if you must know. He was never quite one of the cousins, he was always off at a polo camp in Italy as a boy, or apprenticing in some obscure trade. We were never really sure what Elias Brodie was doing, other than riding on Zebedee’s coattails.”

This vibe had come rolling off Dunstan the day he’d received the email announcing Elias’s impending visit. Dunstan had been quietly ecstatic that a member of the family was finally coming to see Damson Valley, and even more quietly resentful that a business transaction rather than familial fondness had inspired the travel. Elias had sent along two bottles of what was apparently very good whisky to the wedding celebration, but he’d failed to attend.

He apparently regularly failed to attend family gatherings.

And yet, Jane had liked Elias. Had liked how tightly he’d hugged Dunstan on sight, despite Dunstan’s inherent reserve. Had liked how Elias had not wanted to impose on “newlyweds,” had liked how he’d carried his own bag, and presented Dunstan with yet another excellent bottle of whisky.

Dunstan’s phone rang, and he stared at the screen. “His lordship again.”

Jane snatched the phone and swiped into the call. “Jane here. Hello, Elias.”

“Jane? Well, yes, of course Jane. I’m sorry to be a bother but is Dunstan there?”

“He’s nose down with power tools in his hand. I’m temporarily widowed. Can we kidnap you for dinner?”

Dunstan’s brows rose. Jane stuck her tongue out at him. He fluttered the hem of his kilt, but the tool belt prevented him from displaying anything truly interesting.

“Well, yes,” Elias said. “I’d enjoy that, in fact, if it wouldn’t be any trouble.”

Something was wrong. Jane could hear it in Elias’s voice, the way she could hear prevarication from a squirrely witness.

“I’ll come get you around 5:30. The master builder will be lounging in the tub with a beer by then, and we mustn’t begrudge him a chance to relax. Pack up your suitcase while you’re at it. I’ve changed the sheets in the guestroom and they are calling your name.”

“I can call a cab, if there are any that serve the area.”

“We’re not like Scotland,” Jane said. “Virtually no public transportation here outside of town, so brace yourself for a dose of getting to know me. My charm is subtle, but I’ll grow on you. See you soon!”

Dunstan accepted the phone back after Jane had ended the call. “Your charms are about as subtle as a freight train on a downhill incline, Jane Evangeline. Are you up to something?”

“I’m up to lasagna with garlic bread, and maybe Italian cream cake for dessert. Do we have any decent wine?”

Dunstan took up a broom that had been leaning against the mantel and went after the sawdust on the hearth bricks.

“You’re getting out the wine for Elias? His tastes are somewhat refined, I’m guessing.”

“We usually have wine with dinner on weekends. Something is amiss with your cousin, and he’s family. Either tell me what you’re strutting and pawing about, or put it aside, Dunstan. None of your family has been here to see you since Zeb came through a few years back, and yet you were perfectly friendly with them this winter. Elias can’t help it that his parents died.”

Dunstan was by nature thorough in all he did, but the sawdust was in a tidy pile, and he was still sweeping.

“Elias never talks about it. He was eleven. How could that not leave an impression on a boy?”

Dunstan was honestly bewildered by his cousin, in other words.

“You’ve been in this country for many years, Dunstan. Do you miss your cousins?”

“Terribly,” he said. “The whole time I was in law school, I was nearly ill with homesickness. Went home every chance I got, saved up all my pennies, and tried to entice every one of them into coming over here to go into practice with me.”

And yet, not a single cousin had gone into law, much less practicing in the New World.

“You never say you miss them. I’m your wife, and I’ve never heard you say you miss them. If you, a grown man with wickedly accomplished language skills, the courage of a lion, and the most loving wife in the world can’t admit you miss your family, why do you assume Elias’s silence is indifference on his part?”

Jane kissed her husband to soften the sting of her closing argument. “Elias is Scottish, you know. They can be proud, stubborn, and shy.”

“We’re also affectionate and loyal,” Dunstan said, unfastening his tool belt. “Are the irises in water?”

“Yes, and the meat’s in the fridge so Wallace can’t make off with it while we’re arguing about your cousin.”

In the next instant, Jane was scooped off her feet and cradled against Dunstan’s chest. “We’re no’ arguing, Jane, my love. We’re having a wee discussion, and it’s one I’d like to continue upstairs, if you’ve no objection.”

Jane kissed his cheek. “No objection, your honor. My husband truly is a genius.”

“I’d forgotten your neighbor is my egg lady,” Jane said as Elias hefted his suitcase into the back of the truck. From the porch, Bruno watched him with an inscrutably feline gaze that nevertheless conveyed a scold.

“I’ll be back,” Elias said to the cat, who commenced casually licking a front paw. “Why don’t you go home?”

“Dunstan does the same thing,” Jane said. “Talks to Wallace as if the damned cat had a mind that considers more than food, sleep, and random acts of mayhem. Do you mind if I stop over at Violet’s and get some eggs?”

Elias’s mind was full of dire emails from Jeannie, two rounds of missed calls with Niall Cromarty, a spreadsheet that promised ruin in the next year if the worst cases all lined up, and some incomprehensible websites pertaining to Maryland zoning laws.

“I’m sorry?” Elias said, as Jane gave Bruno a scratch. And where was the great litigating wonder of Clan Cromarty, that Elias was cast on Jane’s mercy for a ride?

“Eggs,” Jane said, rising and closing her hands in an egg shape. “I’m almost out of eggs. Violet Hughes sells eggs at the farmers market. May I stop next door and buy a few eggs?”

God, no. “Of course. I’ll wait here.” Elias flashed what Zebedee had called his Côte d’Azur smile. “The heat has left me not quite presentable for company.”

“Dunstan still isn’t too keen on our summers,” Jane said, hopping up into the truck and slamming the door. “Climb in, your lordship. I’ll get my eggs some other day.”

The truck had marvelous AC, but Elias wasn’t sure of the etiquette of adjusting AC in another person’s vehicle. He had learned not to rise to the “your lordship” bait when his cousins had started teasing him within weeks of his parents’ memorial service. Protocol meant Elias had not become a lord by title until Zebedee had died, though his cousins probably hadn’t grasped that as children.

“Go ahead and crank the AC,” Jane said. “I always do, and I turn on the seat heater at the same time. Dunstan doesn’t get it. Maybe it’s a woman thing.”

Or a contrary American thing. “How well do you know Violet Hughes?”

Now where on earth had that question come from? Jane gave Elias a side-eye, confirming that his casual tone hadn’t fooled her.

“Not well enough that you should be worried,” she said, maneuvering the truck onto the road. “Violet’s a farmer, and they tend to be married to their land. I’m married to your cousin.”

Elias was jet-lagged, possibly coming down with a cold, and probably dehydrated. Subtlety was beyond him.

“I’m familiar with your marital status. If Dunstan were any more in love, he’d be singing maudlin ballads beneath your window.” Which was… sweet. Lovely. Wonderful, in fact.

“You jealous, Elias?”

What a question. Though Elias wasn’t entirely sure of the answer. “You don’t back down, do you?”

Jane patted his knee. “I’m a litigating buzzsaw, Elias Brodie, but you’re family, so I will back down if you tell me to. Dunstan will back down if I tell him to, too.”

Good God, she was a terror. “Where did Dunstan find you?”

“I found him in the law library on the opposite side of a stinky little marital misunderstanding which we managed to settle to the satisfaction of all concerned. I notice you put your suitcase in the back of the truck.”

The damned thing weighed a ton. “My accommodations, while splendidly bucolic, are somewhat lacking in amenities, and you did offer a guest room.”

Jane drove her husband’s truck with a natural feel for the engine, braking and accelerating smoothly, easing the vehicle down the road when others might have made a statement with their driving. Trucks like this were rare in Scotland, in part because gas prices were so much higher.

The air conditioning, the rumble of the engine, and the relief of being away from That Place eased some of Elias’s bad mood.

“Lacking amenities,” Jane said. “Did you have to use the two-seater?”

Elias had to think a moment to translate the term. “The electricity is in need of repair. Earls don’t use two-seaters.” Though he’d insulted the vines growing up one side of the barn. Tam O’Shanter’s witch could not have driven him back across the road to beg a favor from Violet.

“I won’t use an outhouse either. Spiders and I have an understanding. I see them, and Dunstan kills them.”

Violet wouldn’t kill a spider just for being a spider. She’d know what sort of spider it was, how it benefited the ecosystem, and how its life cycle unfolded.

“Dunstan has become an assassin for hire,” Elias said. Though wasn’t that pretty much how a lawyer expected to earn a living?

The houses were closer together as the route approached town, and church spires poked up into the summer sky at artistically irregular intervals. Though the terrain—a green valley spreading between low mountains—wasn’t that different from Perthshire or parts of Aberdeenshire, Elias was hit with a queasy sense of being far, far from home.

“Dunstan claims he’s killed the spiders,” Jane said. “I think he mostly takes them outside. Snakes know better than to come in the house.”

Did Violet’s dogs keep snakes away from the house? “You’re afraid of spiders?”

“I’m respectful of them, Elias. We have the black widow and brown recluse, as well as copperheads and rattlesnakes. A bite from any one of them calls for immediate medical intervention and around here, that means a half-hour drive into Frederick, at least. Then there’s poison oak, poison ivy, poison sumac, stinging nettles, deer ticks and dog ticks, both of which carry diseases, to say nothing of the lowly mosquito which can—”

“Enough, Jane. I’ll take my chances with Scotland’s 200 distilleries.”

But ye thundering gods, Jane’s recitation left Elias wanting to turn the truck around, so he could ask Violet how she dealt with all those hazards. Scotland had no venomous spiders that Elias knew of, and no venomous snakes. As for those disease-bearing insects…

Only a mad woman would farm in this climate. Or a mad man, and Elias had no intention of misplacing his sanity any time soon. Misplacing it again.

“We take precautions,” Jane said, “and no place is completely safe. What’s it like, being an earl?”

Castles were safe. Castles stood for centuries against wars, weather, and wanton pillaging. Elias wasn’t sure what force of nature could withstand Jane’s cross-examination.

“Being an earl is like being a person,” Elias said, “except other people ask you a lot of irrelevant questions. I have only been an earl for a short time, though, so feel free to check back with me as I muddle along. What do you know of a man named Maxwell Maitland?”

“Elias,” Jane said gently as they came to the first stop light. “I’m family. You can tell me to back the hell off, and I will. As for Max Maitland, he’s a real estate attorney who works for land developers. My real estate practice is limited mostly to residential loan settlements and quitclaim deeds, but I haven’t heard anything particularly bad about Max.”

None of the houses in this town were built with good old quarried granite, and the window boxes were all in want of flowers.

“You haven’t heard anything good about Maitland, either?”

“Developers always face resistance from the locals,” Jane said. “This is the longest light in town.”

Even the stop lights were different in America. They didn’t turn yellow between red and green, they simply flipped from stop to go without giving the driver any warning.

“Did you get any sleep last night?” Jane asked. “Dunstan says the jet lag isn’t so bad coming this direction, but I beg to differ. I was wrecked for three days, coming and going.”

“I slept adequately, thank you.”

Jane gave him a look that suggested she knew when a man was lying, then she smoothly accelerated into the intersection. Driving calmed Elias, especially driving well-maintained, powerful vehicles.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not used to the heat, and I’m a nervous passenger.” Then too, Jeannie’s emails had been nothing but bad news.

“So am I, but I trust Dunstan behind the wheel. I trust him pretty much everywhere. It’s a nice feeling. He trusts me too.”

“You are making a point,” Elias said. “I don’t claim to know you well, but I have a full complement of female cousins, and I was engaged twice. My every instinct suggests you are making a point.”

And his every instinct further insisted, he would not like the conclusion she was about to bludgeon him with.

“Dunstan and I got married in Scotland.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t available to attend,” Elias began, though he still had no clue what the woman was babbling about.

“You didn’t attend,” Jane went on, “because if you came to our wedding, you’d have to go to all of them, and the picnics, christenings, and graduations. I get that. I did maid of honor duty three times before I learned to say no.”

Elias hated saying no, but he hated more the idea that feelings would be hurt if he said no some of the time, and yes the rest. Zebedee had warned him about that, at least.

“I gave my cousin Jeannie away—Zeb was off at some polo association conference in Argentina—and I knew in my bones that bastard she married would make her miserable.”

“And you haven’t been to a wedding since,” Jane said. “Dunstan and I could have gotten married here, where my family is. I was the bride, and traditionally, the wedding is the bride’s shindig. We got married in Scotland, and half the de Lucas in Maryland came over. There are a lot of de Lucas.”

Elias’s mental lightbulb came on with all the glare of an interrogation lamp. “Dunstan’s family would not have come here, not in any significant numbers.” They might have if Zebedee had bought them all tickets, which was the sort of thing he’d done regularly.

More’s the pity.

“Dunstan has been in Maryland pretty much his whole adult life, Elias, and you and Zeb are the only ones to come see him. The planes fly both ways.”

Jane took a left, and soon the truck was again rolling by pastures, hay fields, and greening stands of wheat. Corn was barely sprouted, and the foliage along the mountaintops was still gauzy emerald, much as it would have been in Scotland.

Homesickness assailed Elias again, and also worry. Violet Hughes lived in the rural valley alone, working around livestock and heavy equipment all day, out in all kinds of weather. Elias resented the worry even as he knew it was justified.

Violet needed help, and Elias knew how that felt. 

“I hope I haven’t spoken out of turn,” Jane said, as she drove along the winding lane that led to Dunstan’s property. “Dunstan and I are glad to have you as our guest, and I think he was honestly a little puzzled that you’d want to stay somewhere else.”

“I didn’t want to crowd you. I’ll explain that to Dunstan.” Again.

“We have tons of room,” Jane said. “And we have AC, heather ale, and bug spray. If you need anything—from lawyering, to spider extermination, to fresh shortbread—we’re your family.” She’d made that point several times now, and still Elias wasn’t sure what she was getting at.

They tooled along in silence, across a valley that to appearances was lovely, despite its spiders, snakes, and noxious plants.

“Dunstan wants to get this right.” Jane didn’t need to explain what this was. Family was family in any language. 

“Dunstan is lucky to have married you,” Elias said, and yet, that was a platitude, and the moment called for something more honest. “What I meant was, I want to get this right too.”

Jane offered him a brilliant, benevolent smile. She’d make a formidable adversary, and she was a wonderful addition to the family.

And yet, as Elias left the cool comfort of the truck for the hot afternoon, his thoughts were focused on Violet Hughes. She’d be making hay tomorrow in this awful heat, and Elias had offered to help her. A Brodie always kept his word, no matter how inconvenient that might be for the lady involved.