Patrick stopped his horse at the crest of a deep sunlit vale, cradled beneath the vast slopes of Sgurr Na Sti. His gaze scanned the jagged horizon of the Cullians beyond and Bla Bheinn to the north. Many kisses had been shared by many generations on the braes of Bla Bheinn.
He turned when he heard a sound from Duff on his left. His cousin was staring into the vale where sheep and cattle grazed, and children played around stone-roofed cottages.
“Ease yer concerns, cousin. All will be well there.”
“’Tisn’t that,” Duff said and spread his gaze to the west of the glen and the frothy caps spilling onto a pebbled beach, where a lass had paused to dip her feet. “This could have been my home,” he said, his voice laden with regret.
Patrick didn’t worry too much over it. His cousin would be well here. Camlochlin had been built to heal. “’Tis yer home now.”
It was Patrick’s home and his heart swelled with love for it. More than the stone fortress with turrets rising from the mountain behind it, or the houses scattered around it, built by the masterful hands of the Grants, the land beckoned him home.
He turned to the braw lass saddled to his right. She’d crossed the cliffs of Elgol on her horse without so much as a peep, though she purged her lunch as soon as they were back on solid ground.
“Feelin’ better, m’ love?”
She turned to him and he was surprised to see her eyes moist with tears. “Camlochlin?”
He nodded and she turned back to the view before her and smiled. “You described it well. I don’t want to ride there,” she decided and dismounted. “I want to run.”
Dropping her reins, she lifted her earasaid and her billowy skirts beneath it, and set off over the crest and onto the wind-blown heather-carpeted hill. She spun around to aim her most radiant smile at him and then continued on her way.
She fired his blood and made his heart race. “Bring the horses doun, will ye?” he asked Duff while he dismounted and handed his cousin the reins. “I’ll wait fer ye at the bottom.”
Casting him a grin, Patrick took off after her.
Hearing him behind her, she turned and laughed, picking up speed. He let her run until she tired and then scooped her up and set her down over his shoulder.
Her laughter filled the braes and drew the attention of some of Camlochlin’s inhabitants.
“Patrick, put me down!” she shrieked and pounded her fists on his back. “I’ll not meet your family tossed over you like a sack of grain! Now, put me down!”
She’d learned a little trick from Nonie and promptly bit him on the shoulder.
He howled and tripped and they both landed with a heavy thud. After they retrieved the breath that had been knocked out of them, they sat up and laughed.
They became aware of the man standing over them. Charlie looked first, from his kid-skin boots, up his long, deadly Claymore, dangling from his hip, to the drape of his plaid over the expanse of his shoulders. She gulped and blinked up into a gaze as powerful as the seas.
Patrick smiled and stood to his feet, bringing a mute Charlie with him. Callum MacGregor still had the same effect on people.
“’Tis good to see ye, grandsire.”
“Patrick?” His aunt Davina rushed toward him on bare feet, leaving the whitecaps behind. “Is that you?”
The current laird’s wife reached them the same time Duff did. Seeing him, Patrick’s grandfather slipped his arm around her.
Ever the unflustered Lady of Camlochlin, Davina turned her wide gaze on Charlie. “Do we have this lovely maiden to thank for bringing you home to us?”
“Aye,” Patrick told her and presented Charlie to them. “M’ wife, Charlotte—and her brother, Duff.”
Callum watched Duff dismount with a scrutinizing eye. Patrick wondered, while Davina took Charlie by the hand and under her wing, if his grandfather saw the stark resemblance.
“Her brother?” he asked.
Patrick smiled. “I found him in Pinwherry, fostered by Charlie’s father, Allan Cunningham.”
Callum’s gaze slipped to him. Patrick’s grin faded. “’Tis a long story, grandsire. One which I will explain to everyone at supper tonight.”
Mollified, the Devil MacGregor returned his attention to Duff. “Yer faither will be happy to meet ye.”
Duff smiled for the first time in days. “Do I resemble him so much that you already know who he is?”
Callum nodded. “Ye’re Will’s.” He held out the crook of his elbow to Charlie. She accepted, looking suitably overwhelmed. “Though I dinna know how I feel aboot ye if ye let yer sister wed this wanderin’ rogue.”
“Wanderin’ no longer,” Patrick corrected, catching up, Duff just a step behind. “I’ve been hit with the fever and awaken from m’ bed each morning freshly delirious.”
Both his grandfather and his wife smiled at him.
Patrick entered Camlochlin the same way every one of her children who’d been away for any length of time did when they returned—with awe at its warmth and familiarity.
But being reunited with his father was by far the best part of being home. Patrick had much to tell him. Things he suspected his father would be glad to hear.
His mother, as beautiful as the day he’d left her, doted over Charlie, as did the rest of the women. His uncles and cousins greeted them and marveled at Duff, eager for Will to arrive when one of Patrick’s younger cousins was sent to fetch him from his home.
Duff was sharing a cup of brew with Callum when his father finally arrived.
After greeting Patrick with a great bear hug, and Charlie with a more delicate embrace, Will turned to Duff and smiled.
There was nothing unusual about Will’s lack of interest in the people milling about around him, staring and waiting like they hadn’t been fed in a sennight and food was on the way.
“Will Mac—” He stopped his introduction and gave Duff a more careful looking over. “MacGregor,” he finished. “Have we met?”
“Aye,” Callum said, and spotting his wife on the other side of the great hall, pushed off the wall. “He’s yer son.”
Charlie sat at a long polished table in the great hall. All around her sat MacGregors and Grants, young and old, laughing, bickering, toasting their cups to this thing or that.
She listened with one ear while Patrick told them her and Duff’s tale and everything that had happened with Kendrick. They asked questions, but soon their merriment returned. It was as if nothing beyond the water concerned them overmuch.
She watched her brother smiling while he spoke with his father, Will MacGregor taking in every word and smiling with him. She knew she’d lost her brother to their family before he told he didn’t want to go back.
She didn’t blame him. Why would any good man want to live in a cruel world? Patrick would. He’d return to Pinwherry with her and help her follow her heart and change the lives of the people who lived there.
And then they would return to Camlochlin, perhaps with Elsie and Shaw, and raise their bairns with a family the size of an army. She smiled thinking of it and felt her husband’s mouth caress her neck.
“Are ye thinkin’ aboot kissin’ me in the heather?”
She giggled and slapped his arm but turned to him, her lashes low, her smile, promising. He made her insides burn. No other man would. “When can we leave?”