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Family was the most mixed of mixed blessings. Elias held Violet loosely in deference to the heat, but the sheer misery of her admission—to him, her virtual adversary—made him want to howl.

“Violet Hughes,” he said softly, directly at her ear, “if I were to choose one person on the face of the earth who could not be coerced into behaving contrary to her principles, it’s you. Perhaps your mother was having a bad moment and needs a placatory visit.”

Violet eased away and picked up the hamper. “I should not be dumping my woes on you.”

Elias collected his pack and followed her beneath a tall row of trees to a stream flowing over pale rocks. The opposite bank was covered with ferns that gave way to woods, while on the near side the bank was grassy.

“This is lovely,” he said, as Violet opened the hamper and extracted an old quilt. The material was a faded blue and white patchwork—the same colors as the Scottish saltire, as it happened.

“Later in the season, the bugs can be a problem, especially at dusk, but for today, this is perfect. I come here when I’m too dirty to take a shower. Ever been skinny dipping?”

Despite grinding fatigue, myriad aches, and stinging blisters, some of Elias’s exhaustion fell away. “I’m familiar with the concept, though the lochs in Scotland tend to be quite chilly.”

Violet sat on the blanket and unlaced her boots. “I’ll go for a swim first. If I start with the cold beer, I’m often asleep before I know it on a day like this. I do enjoy hard work, but I enjoy getting clean too.”

Cold beer? Elias peered into the hamper and on top of a folded towel, saw the answer to unspoken prayers. 

“Do I understand this libation is available for consumption?”

Violet yanked off both boots and set them in the grass beside the blanket. “You are hilarious, Elias Brodie. Yes, you may have a beer. Sandwiches are on the bottom. Last one in the water is a rotten egg, and I can tell you, from personal and regrettable experience, you do not want to be a rotten egg.”

She stood and pulled her T-shirt over her head, then shucked out of her jeans. She wore a two-piece bathing suit, deep pink, on the modest side, but still…

Violet Hughes in a bathing suit was another answer to unspoken prayers.

“The deepest water is in the center,” she said, striding to the bank. “There’s soap tucked inside the towel, if you’re so inclined.”

Elias was inclined to watch Violet when she was driving a tractor, ranting about preserving farm land, or scolding her cat. To see her nearly naked, the perfect blend of curves, muscles and, hollows…

He forgot the beer, he forgot he was filthy, he forgot ravenous hunger, he forgot—well, he didn’t forget his castle. Instead he pictured Violet there, looking just like this. Eager, determined, happily anticipating a simple pleasure.

She waded in, shivered, splashed water on her arms and belly, and grinned at him over her shoulder.

“You can swim, right?”

The last time he’d gone swimming had been in Italy, and he’d mostly been obliging his hostess’s desire to add him to her collection of poolside decorations.

“I’m competent in the water,” he said, pulling his T-shirt off. He turned it right-side out, and shook it hard. Boots, socks, and jeans followed, until he was wearing only wrinkled cotton boxers. He found the soap—not lavender, rosemary maybe, and peppermint—and crossed to the stream.

“Water’s damned cold,” Violet said, wading out. “Mind you don’t get a cramp.”

A cramp was the least of Elias’s worries. “Is it deep enough to dive?”

“Eight feet or so in the middle,” Violet said, pushing off in a breaststroke. “Holy bejesus, this stream gets colder every year.”

Elias scaled a likely rock, positioned the soap within reach, and dove for the center of the stream. The shock was ghastly and invigorating, a welcome torment to blistered hands, lacerated arms, and sore everything.

The water was also cold enough to thwart nascent arousal—some.

“Shall I use the soap first?” Elias asked. “You seem content to paddle about.”

“I like to swim. Go ahead and get clean.”

The water was too cold to truly enjoy for any length of time, so Elias scrubbed off, passed Violet the soap, and left her to her ablutions. By the time Violet climbed out, Elias was in a T-shirt and board shorts, and half a beer had met its fate. The moment was lovely, but like all lovely moments, it would pass. 

“You waited until my back was turned to change your clothes,” Violet said, appropriating a sip of his beer. “Not like I haven’t seen the goods before, Elias.”

Elias passed her the towel. “You’re getting gooseflesh, and I’m opening another beer. You’re angry with me, remember? You should also be angry with your mother.”

Elias was angry with Violet’s mother. Violet did not need betrayal from the only parent she had left. Not now.

She wrapped the towel around her shoulders, and fortunately for Elias, it was a large towel.

 “Mama has her reasons. Husband number three isn’t much help. He’s the protective sort.”

In defense of his ability to argue coherently, Elias settled on the blanket, beyond touching range.

“Woe to any man who develops protective fancies where his womenfolk are concerned,” he said, fishing for the sandwiches. “My first fiancée explained that commandment to me a month before the wedding.”

The three p’s, she’d termed it. Protective, paternalistic, and philanthropic. Any one of them was troublesome, but a prospective spouse who’d turned out to be three for three… Maria had had plans for the Brodie wealth that did not include looking after Elias’s extended family, or donating regularly to any charities. She’d been equally clear that paying the nonrefundable wedding expenses didn’t interest her either.

Violet cracked open the second beer. “You’ve had more than one fiancée?”

“Only two. The second numbers among my friends. Would you like a sandwich?” Ham and cheese on sourdough with yellow mustard—food for the gods, in Elias’s present mood.

Violet’s expression suggested passing mention of former fiancées—plural—had not gone unremarked.

“I’ll take a half,” she said, coming down beside him. “The water felt divine.”

They ate in relative quiet, though not silence. The water lapped over the rocks, a sheep occasionally bleated from the direction of the barn, some small creature scurried through the ferns on the opposite bank.

“What will you do about your mother?” Elias asked, when he’d demolished both halves of his sandwich.

“Husband number three is protective of Mama, but that’s a polite way to say he’s protective of her money. I detect his guiding hand agitating her worries regarding the farm.”

 “Can you negotiate a buyout?”

Violet tossed a bit of her bread crust into the bushes. “For the squirrels. I hadn’t thought about a buy-out, because I’m so busy trying not to show a profit so the tax man doesn’t put me out of business, not that there’s been much profit lately.”

“I’m descended from one of the few Scottish families to claim some wealth,” he said, around a mouthful of sandwich. “The blood of a hundred generations of accountants flows in my veins. Here’s how you structure the buy-out. You make sure title passes to you as quickly and completely as possible, so that in effect, your mother is holding a private mortgage with the land as security. She escapes liability, you gain ownership. Have you a competent attorney?”

“Yes, when I can afford him. I do send him business from my blog, too.”

Elias’s second fiancée had become quite the blogger. “You make your mother pay the legal fees as part of the closing on the transaction. Does husband number three expect to inherit her portion of the farm?”

Violet chewed the last of her sandwich. “He’s five years younger than she is, and takes care of himself, but I don’t like to think… Elias, I don’t know. He’s more or less a stranger to me. He seems devoted to Mama, but a little charm can hide a lot of self-interest.”

Elias crushed his empty beer can and pitched it back into the hamper. Violet’s observation had not been casual.

“Would it help if I apologized, Violet?”

“For?”

“For selling my property. Every time you look out your front window and see a development where fields were, your heart will break all over again.” Just as Elias’s heart broke to see the mortar crumbling from the castle walls, the lichens working their insidious damage year by year, the grounds left to errant sheep and nesting birds.

Fatigue hit him on a beer-assisted wave. Everything ached, from his blistered palms, to his sunburned arms, to his lower back.

To his heart. The lovely moment was over.

“You have a castle to save,” Violet said, “or an earldom, or a legacy of some sort. I want to hate you, and I might yet see my way clear to a burning resentment, but my family has been on this property for five generations. I think about turning my back on this, and I can’t, which means I can’t judge you too harshly for defending your castle. This is my home. What I do here matters…”

That Violet could be left in peace on her farm mattered to Elias, too, which was damned inconvenient. They’d spent a night together, and in a week or so, Elias would return to Scotland, there to stay for a good long while.

Sometimes, life was unfair, sad, and lonely. He’d learned that as an eleven-year-old boy, the lesson held true two decades later.

“So come up with that buy-out plan,” Elias said. “You will sleep better if you know your farm is in your hands, regardless of what transpires across the road.” Elias would sleep better as well. Because he’d had enough of problems, worries, and woes, he passed Violet the second half of her sandwich and put a question to her. “What is this blog you write?”

“How can I work up a burning resentment when you know exactly when to change the subject?”

Elias closed his eyes, and felt again the sense of plunging loss that had assailed him as a boy. Zebedee hadn’t sugarcoated anything, orphaned was orphaned. The only thing worse might have been to be orphaned and lied to.

“Violet, I’m meeting with Maxwell Maitland on Wednesday.”

Violet tossed the entire half of the sandwich into the bushes. “Dang it, Elias. One burning resentment, coming right up. That’s fast work.”

“If Maitland intimidates you, he must be formidable, so why not start with him?”

The rest of her beer watered the good earth of Damson Valley. She shook the can, hard, so it was empty to the last drop.

“Keep it up, Elias, and that resentment might yet blossom into loathing. Maitland doesn’t intimidate me, he scares the holy living peedywaddles out of me. He won’t settle for half your farm. His backers love him, because he thinks big and plays hardball. He’ll want the whole property, his own little fiefdom, with fire control ponds that look like they were landscaped for five-star golf courses, maybe even a supermarket, bank branch, and drug store.”

The trifecta of high traffic magnets, right across the road from Violet’s chickens.

“Violet, I’m sorry.”

She fired her empty beer can into the hamper. “Yes, Elias Brodie, you are sorry indeed. Let’s get back to the house.”

She ignored his hand when he tried to help her up, and when he gathered up his effects, she shook the hell out of the old quilt before stuffing it into the hamper. Violet also drove them back to the house in silence, while Elias resisted the urge to check his phone.

No email or text would have arrived from Scotland making everything all better, no codicil to Zebedee’s will would pop up revealing some huge buried trust.

And yet, the silence tore at him. “If I’d told you earlier that I was meeting with Maitland, you would not have allowed me to stack those wagons of hay.” 

“I would have managed, Elias. I always manage.”

Alone. She always managed alone. “I didn’t lie to you, Violet. I won’t ever lie to you.”

The truck bumped along, across a trio of lush fields temporarily enjoying a manicured, tidy appearance. Elias did take out his phone, but he used it to take a photo, the mountains green and stately behind rolling fields and hardwood hedgerows. 

“Why take a picture?” Violet asked, as she pulled into her driveway.

Self-torment, of course. “I have good memories of this place, and it’s beautiful. Why wouldn’t I take a photo?”

She cut the engine, and Elias waited—for a rant, a curse, an explosion.

“I’m trying to find you an agricultural buyer, Elias. My attorney knows everybody in the valley—he was born and raised on a farm not two miles west of here. It might take subdividing, might take a consortium. If there’s a buyer out there anywhere in the four-state area, James will find them.”

Oh, not this. Not her dogged persistence turned on his problems too.

“Violet, I’ve had news from Scotland.”

The keys remained in the ignition, and she apparently didn’t intend to remove them. Country people took that risk—left the keys in the vehicle, so they wouldn’t get lost.

“Not good news,” she said.

“Not convenient news.” Awful news, really. “My cousin Jeannie has taken on management of the renovation project. She’s a single mum, very organized, and she needed work. She contacted the master mason I’d apprenticed under years ago, a man who’s worked on more castles than there are hay bales in that barn. I’d told Jeannie to start gathering estimates. Nick was surprised to hear from her.”

“Drop the other shoe, Elias. Your idea of not lying hasn’t gone very well on this end.”

He deserved that, mostly. “Nick Aiken is the best, and he’s already under contract to start the major repairs. Seems Zebedee had signed a contract, paid an advance, and approved a crew and schedule. By the end of this week, my castle will be swarming with certified master craftsmen, and every one of them will expect to be paid handsomely and regularly for their labors.”

She opened the truck door, and the dogs bounded off the porch. “You want sympathy, Elias?”

He wanted to kick something, wanted the damned world to cut them a break, wanted to hold Violet and make wild promises to her and even wilder love.

“I want you to have the truth, though my timing in that regard seems ever to be wanting.”

The dogs must have sensed the mood, and rather than capering around Violet’s feet when she climbed out of the truck, they both sat, panting and silent, in the grass.

“I have a blog to write. Thank you for your help with the hay, but in the future…”

“Right. Back to Scotland with me, soonest. I’m working on it.” He got out of the truck, and started down the driveway, but Violet’s voice halted him.

“I’m sorry, too, Elias. Good-bye and take care. Best of luck with your castle.” She slipped into the house, the dogs trotting at her heels.  

Dunstan stared at his laptop screen, Gaelic curses dancing through his head. A fine way to start a Tuesday at home, exercising rusty language skills.

“That expression does not bode well for somebody,” Jane said. “Is Aaron Glover giving you fits on the Holmes case?”

“Mr. Glover’s client is pure as the freshly fallen snow on Christmas morning in Bethlehem,” Dunstan replied, “while my client—at least in Mrs. Holmes’s eyes—is a lying, cheating scoundrel who has hidden what assets he hasn’t squandered. But no, this email isn’t from Glover, it’s from Jeannie.”

Jane set aside her book—she was a diehard print reader—and scooted out of the recliner to peer over Dunstan’s shoulder. They were in the study, Dunstan’s favorite room of the house after the bedroom. Two desks rescued from the law library’s rummage sale sat face to face by the windows. A fieldstone fireplace with a small woodstove took up the opposite wall. Braided rugs covered the hardwood floors and in the far corner sat the recliner in which Dunstan had spent too many hours of his bachelorhood.

Jane had added the touches—a fern by the window, a blue and green afghan on the recliner, antique apothecary jars on the mantel full of dried lavender, statice, and eucalyptus leaves. A single iris graced an aquamarine antique glass bottle beside her computer.

Jane had transformed Dunstan’s house from a campsite with wifi and a resident cat to a home.

“Did Jeannie send any pictures of Henry?” Jane asked.

Wee Henry was less than a year old, and as the youngest Cromarty—for now—he enjoyed great popularity among the extended family.

“Not this time. She’s checking on Elias.”

“Remind me not to cross that woman,” Jane said, draping an arm around Dunstan’s shoulders. “That is some intuition, if it works at this distance.”

“What are you reading, wee Jane?” Dunstan had dipped into some of her fiction, and gained insight into why Jane was an avid reader.

“A Carolyn Brown.” She slid around and straddled Dunstan’s lap. “I’m in a cowboy mood.”

“Cowboys are a fine American cultural icon,” Dunstan replied, wrapping his arms around his wife. They had the house to themselves. Elias was off meeting with an electrician, and Tuesday was the day Dunstan and Jane either worked at home, or at least scheduled no client appointments if they had to go into the office.

The courthouse sometimes interfered with that schedule, but even two or three Tuesdays a month at home had made a difference to Dunstan’s outlook on life. Marriage had given both him and Jane the motivation to do something other than work and rest enough to work some more.

Then too, marriage had introduced such a steady flow of pure affection into Dunstan’s days, he pitied the single man he’d been for so long.

Jane cuddled close, a lovely lapful of wife, best friend, legal partner, and lover. “Elias is in trouble.”

Elias was trouble. Since boyhood, Elias had been the cousin who hadn’t fit in, though it was hardly his fault. Every other child had arrived to family gatherings with siblings, parents, a dog or two. Elias had been delivered by a driver, when he’d attended at all.

“Elias will sort out the Brodie finances,” Dunstan said. “He’s well qualified to handle the load he’s carrying.” Elias was the only person Dunstan knew personally who had a PhD in economics, in fact. 

Jane sat up and regarded Dunstan with a gaze more legal partner than lover. “Where do you suppose he spent Saturday night, Dunstan?”

“In a bed. His farmhouse is furnished.”

“You assume he stayed there even though the place has no electricity?”

Jane was regarded as one of the best trial attorneys in the jurisdiction, and Dunstan knew at some point, she could well be considered for a judgeship. She was twiddling the hair at Dunstan’s nape, while she angled around to a conclusion Dunstan could only guess at.

“The power often goes out around here,” he said, “as you well know. Elias could manage to sleep without the lights on.” And probably look like a fashion model while he did, poor bastard.  

“But no electricity means no water, no refrigeration, and he was on that property for more than 24-hours.”

Dunstan rose with Jane barnacled to his chest and settled in the recliner. “Dry camping is inconvenient, but Elias probably had a few necessities with him. He’s a seasoned traveler.” And for Elias, self-sufficiency was a commandment.

“I asked if I could buy some eggs while I was out that way, just to see how the witness would respond,” Jane said, getting comfortable against Dunstan’s side. They’d spent many an hour cuddling in this recliner, hours when Dunstan had wallowed in the sheer pleasure of proximity to his beloved.

His beloved had an agenda other than wallowing at the moment. Dunstan forced himself to pick up the thread of the discussion, something about…

“Eggs?”

“From chickens. Violet Hughes lives across the road from Elias’s farm. I get my eggs from her at the farmers market sometimes, and we took a birdwatching class together a couple years ago. One of my failed attempts to get out more. You smell good, like yard work—freshly cut grass and summer morning with a dash of manly-man.”

He’d mowed the grass before the day had grown too hot. “About the eggs?”

“I suspect Violet and Elias have taken notice of each other, Dunstan. Your cousin was mighty spruce for a guy who’d overnighted in a hot, dusty old farmhouse with no running water, and he most assuredly did not want me chatting Violet up while he was in the vicinity.”

Jane’s instincts were never to be dismissed. Not ever.

“Elias is something of a tom cat, Jane, though I suppose he can afford to be. He’s been engaged twice, and almost made it to the altar both times. The ladies seem to like him, at least for a short time.”

Jane rose up on her elbow to peer at Dunstan. “Do you like him?”

God help all husbands married to litigating attorneys. “I hardly know him, Jane. He was educated at boarding schools, and then I moved here. I suppose I like him, but it’s hard to respect a man who in the normal course is shagging the neighbor the same day he meets her.”

Jane patted his chest and tucked herself against his side. “You can take the Presbyterian out of Scotland, but he’ll still be a Scottish Presbyterian.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 “Your cousin lost both parents suddenly when he was eleven. He was cast into the care of an old guy who liked to live large and probably knew squat about kids. When Elias should have been kept close by his family he was sent off to some snooty school, or probably a progression of snooty schools. Two women dump him at the altar and then his closest family member dies.”

Jane scooted around while Dunstan felt an uneasy welling of shame.

“Instead of worrying about your cousin,” she went on, “you’re worried he might have lifted his kilt for a woman who’d probably welcome the diversion. That’s bullcrap, Dunstan. Elias is a good man in a tough situation, he’s family, and if he needs our help, we will help him.”

Oh, how he loved her. “You told him as much?”

“I tried to be subtle. He still looked like he wanted to jump out of the truck.”

“How fast were you going?”

Jane smacked him, then kissed his cheek. “I wish you could come with us to meet with Max Maitland tomorrow.”

So did Dunstan, for the sheer pleasure of watching Jane in her professional role. Then too, Jane’s scold bore consideration. Elias was a good man, and he was facing worse problems than even he knew.

“I wish I could come along as well,” Dunstan said. “Alas for me, Mr. Glover and I have a date in Courtroom Three. Pistols, swords, violins, and drumrolls. Mr. and Mrs. Holmes have paid good money to bludgeon each other in the halls of justice, and counsel must provide zealous representation within the bounds of the law. Common sense offered at no extra charge, to no avail thus far. Glover and I have agreed, the winning attorney buys lunch with all the trimmings, if the case ever ends.”

“The clients aren’t ready to settle yet, then,” Jane said. “Timing is everything. What did Jeannie want?”

  “Jeannie exhorted me to keep a close eye on Elias, much as you have. She said Zebedee had apparently contracted for work to start on the castle without telling Elias. The master mason is on site, and expecting a crew any day. Elias is not happy that expenses are accruing faster than revenue.”

“It’s a lovely old castle,” Jane said. “I will never forget our wedding reception, Dunstan. Fairytales do come true.”

The great hall had been freezing, as usual. All the whisky in Scotland couldn’t make tons of granite cozy in winter, though the laughter of family had echoed wonderfully from the vaulted ceiling.

“It’s an expensive old castle,” Dunstan said. “The head mason is fairly certain Zebedee also hired carpenters, glazers, and landscapers. For all Jeannie knows, tapestries are being woven in some Flemish studio using gold thread, and Elias will have to find a way to pay for it all.”

“Ruh-roh. That could cost a bundle, couldn’t it?”

A fortune, if the renovation was done properly. “Elias knows about the masons, but not about the rest of it. Jeannie wants me to tell him.”

“I gather Scottish tradesmen frown on broken contracts?”

“Of course not. If the tradesmen are good at what they do, a broken contract simply means remuneration without having to do the work.”

One moment Jane was tucked against Dunstan’s side, the next she was straddling his lap. “So I was right,” she said, undoing his belt. “Elias is in trouble.”

“You are frequently right,” Dunstan said. “You are also possessed of significant manual dexterity when it comes to undressing your husband.”

“I never realized how much I take our privacy for granted,” Jane said, unzipping his fly. “I think Elias is trying to leave us in peace as much as he can. Why Mr. Cromarty, what have we here?”

“Evidence of impending bliss, Mrs. Cromarty.” And then, because a husband was entitled to tease his wife: “I should answer Jeannie’s email.”

“Later,” Jane said, pulling her T-shirt over her head. “Before you hit Elias with more bad news, let Jeannie do some investigating. The mason might be wrong, and you’d be worrying Elias for nothing. He has enough on his plate.”

Sound reasoning, but within two minutes, Dunstan was too busy loving his wife to bother with reasoning on any terms at all.