“Well, that is so not cool.” I climbed the steps to the screened porch. “Mrs. Satan should file a restraining order against that ass-hat.”
He snorted and reached out to pluck something from my hair. Turning his palm over, I saw it was a solid clump of stable yard mud or . . . what I sincerely hoped was mud. Above us, the mountaintop had disappeared behind a cloak of white mist. The air around us had turned an odd peachy plum, as if each droplet emitted its own tiny rainbow.
Collum sighed. “Oh, but I do love this time of day,” he said. “When the day rests her bones beneath night’s soft cloak.”
“Why, Collum MacPherson,” I said. “Were you just being poetic? Hang on, I need a pencil and paper. Someone has to notate this auspicious occasion.”
Collum’s always-windburned cheeks went neon as he bumped me with his shoulder. And despite the mud and the rain and the sore muscles . . . as we both smiled, I felt something peaceful and comforting settle around me, a warm blanket to chase away the chill.
“Might be that a shower is in order.” He gave the dark clump a dubious look.
“Right back atcha,” I threw over my shoulder as we headed inside. “’Cause you look like a golem.”
We were still laughing as we went upstairs.
Chapter 4
EVEN IN OUR MODERN AGE OF SMARTPHONES, delivery by drone, and social media addiction, there is apparently nothing more sacred to the average Scottish Highlander than the Gathering.
“Here. Put this on.”
I eyed the teensy scrap of red and green tartan Phoebe was holding out to me.
“What, uh . . . What is it, exactly?”
Phoebe just shook her head and tossed the fabric in my direction so that I had no choice but to catch it. Wrinkling my nose, I shook out the scant folds of soft wool, holding them tight with two fingers as if some errant breeze might—?at any moment—?come along and blow them away.
I gave her a look like, You have got to be kidding.
“But,” I tried to argue, as I looked down at the knee-length skirt Moira had altered for me the day before. “I already have a skirt.”
Phoebe raised a hand to silence my protests as she stepped back to give the modest, loose-hanging plaid I currently wore a scathing once-over. “You’re having one over on me, aren’t you?” she said. “You can’t really be planning on wearing that old thing? You’re sixteen, Hope, not fifty.”
When I only looked at her, she rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “No,” she said. “No way I’m letting you out of the house in that . . . that horrible granny garment. You’ll wear this one, and you’ll look brilliant.” She marched to my closet and rummaged through, snorting at the selection. Finally, she emerged with a cropped ivory top with cap sleeves and a low neckline. “This’ll do. And you can just quit shaking your bloody head at me, missy. Trust Auntie Phoebe. You’ve got great legs. It’s time to show them off.”
My friend had no issue whatsoever with the amount of skin she displayed. Her own skirt—?patterned in the red, blue, and yellow tartan that had clothed generations of MacPhersons—?barely covered the necessities.
I cringed as her critical gaze roamed me up and down. My hair, though freshly washed, was pulled up in its usual tight pony. And my face hadn’t seen more than a lick of mascara in weeks.
I hadn’t seen the need. Not when most of my day was filled with endless hours in the library, broken up only by the occasional mud-soaked farce that was my so-called weapons training.
“You know what it’s time for, don’t you?” she said, her blue eyes narrowing as she stalked toward me.
“No-o.” I backed up, stepping on poor Hecty’s tail in my fruitless attempt at escape.
Yowling, the tiny cat shot under the bed and turned to glare at me from the shadows.
“Oh, aye. It’s makeover time.” With a firm grip on my arm, Phoebe marched me toward the bathroom. “Let’s be on with it, then. We’re running out of time and you—?my darlin’ girl—?are sadly in need of an expert hand.”
In the passenger seat of the battered old Range Rover, I spent most of the hour-long drive yanking at the soft, loose curls that whipped about in the wind, and tugging on the short skirt that seemed determined to ride up.
Thing was, I hadn’t really felt like doing much of anything lately. Even racing across the moors on Ethel’s back had done little to penetrate the gray film that seemed to coat my senses like a dirty shroud.
As Phoebe and Doug chattered and giggled in the back seat, the yeasty, savory scent of Moira’s meat pies rose from the neatly packed boxes in the floorboard. With this batch, Moira had sworn she’d at last beat out “that braggart Catriona MacLean,” for the blue ribbon.
I folded and refolded the square of crinkled wax paper that had held a sample of her entry for Scottish tablet, a buttery, sugary confection I’d scarfed down within five minutes of getting in the car.
Even Collum was in rare form.
“Sure, and there are bigger fairs around,” he said, eyes pinned on the winding road ahead as he followed Mac’s truck up into the glory of the Highlands. “Braeburn and Atholl, for instance. But they’ve become so damn commercial. Food trucks that sell junk like corn dogs and burgers and chicken on a stick, for God’s sake. None of which can match Archie Gordon’s bannock and bangers, mind. And they bring in ringers from other countries, so locals have little chance to place in any of the competitions.”
Traffic had come to an abrupt halt as we joined the line of cars attempting to crawl through the tiny, quaint village that had played host to the ancestral gathering for a thousand years or more. An enormous ruin loomed atop a nearby hill. Only the ghosts of its noble occupants now watched over town and fields and glassy loch. Even smaller and older than the village near Christopher Manor, the sidewalks before the homes and businesses that lined the town’s only street now bustled with strolling Highlanders.
When we eventually reached the grassy field that served as a parking lot, the sun was just peeping over the mist-cloaked mountains to the east. As the guys moved off with a roll of striped canvas and poles, to set the Carlyle tent among the other clans, I reveled in the fragrance of the cool early air that sieved around us.
Deep water. Highland pine. Ancient mysteries that would remain forever unsolved.
I’d never seen any of the guys in a kilt. But as they greeted old friends on the way to our assigned spot, they looked oddly natural among all the other kilted lads. Collum’s back muscles bulged beneath the blue and white rugby jersey as he pounded tent stakes in the ground. By the time they’d pulled the canvas taut, Doug’s gold-framed glasses were opaque with steam, and beads of sweat dripped from his finger-length dreads to trail down his face.
Collum swiped a handkerchief over his face. “Think that’s it, then. If you’re done with us, Gran, we’ll be off.”