Duncan's lady
by
emily richards

For the Jarvis family, who willingly shared
their home and country with strangers.

Prologue.

1965 Bairns, wee bairns
everywhere.  And no one else to bring them into the world.

Dr.  Angus Sutherland wished he hadn't sucked quite hard on the bottle of
Glenmorangie that a grateful pati had given him.  But it was a cold night,
with hardly a ~, visible; Hallowe'en night, in fact.  A night for a bottle
good malt whiskey and a strong lock on the door.  Unt tunately, he'd had one,
and not the other.

"Three of them.  I can no' believe it.  Three at one tLt So far this year
we've had only four babies born in the h pital."  Jeanne Maxwell put her
hands on her wide hips ~ pursed what little lip God had blessed her with.

"I've a' of tea brewing, and you'll drink it strong," she continu "But you
will no' have time to savor it.  You'll need to p~ it down.  Every last drop."

"And you think they'll all be delivered tonight?"  Ant unwrapped his scarf
and shrugged out of his overcoat.

 Duncan'.  ~ Lady supposed it was the whiskey pleading for reasst~ance.
Jeanne had already given her opinion, and loudly.

Jeanne hung the coat on a peg.

"Aye.  I think the?"  11 all deliver immediately.  With or without you.  And
better ~ith.  "

"It's a cold night, Jeanne.  A wet, cold night.  We ~hould both be snug at
home in front of a good fire."

"Well, we can send the ladies home and ask them t~ come back tomorrow."

Even if everything else was as foggy as a Highlards autumn morning,
Jeanne'sexpression was absolutely clear.

She was a sturdy, capable woman, never pretty evenin her prime, but eternally
fresh-faced and steady-eyed.  A~d, tonight, disapproving.

Angus sighed.

"Fetch the tea while I wash up."  ~ went to the sink in the corner and turned
on the water so hat he could scrub.

"Who is it you're thinking I should e~amine first?"

"I'd see Lady Ross.  She's the laird's wife, after al.  But she will no'
deliver first.  Nae, that'll be Mrs. Sinclair" She paused.

"The good Lord willing."

"And Mrs. MacDougall?"

Jeanne shrugged.

He read the truth in that lift of her shoulders.  Jemne really had no idea in
what order the three women makng assorted noises in the next two rooms were
going to have their babies.

Angus had been a physician since the war's enl, and eighteen of those years
had been spent here in the graj stone cottage hospital of the tiny village of
Druidheachdin the remotest part of the Highlands.  He was still consiered a
stranger, the Edinburgh doctor who had come on l~liday from one of Auld
Reekie's finest hospitals, never to return to the city again.  Some thought
he had stayed for tl~ clear mountain air; others said a witch had cast a
spell onlim to keep him nearby.  Only a few understood that the mr had taught
Angus the value of simple things and peope.  He knew the names and stories of
every person for twenty miles.  And now he supposed he was about to delive
three more stories within hours, possibly minutes, of each other

9 "To my dying day, I'll never understand why the ladies all waited so long
to come in," he said as he quickly lathered, rinsed and lathered again.

"Mrs.  MacDougall planned to give birth at home with her auld granny helping,
but she changed her mind when Granny kept nodding off.  The laird and lady
started toward Glasgow at the first sign of labor but realized they were no'
going to make it in time and turned around.  And Mrs. Sinclair just refused
to believe the baby was coming so fast.

Then there was the wee matter of you falling asleep and neglecting to answer
your telephone, and me having to send a passing lad to wake ye.  "

He ignored the last.  I'll see Mrs. Sinclair first.  That'll be her yelling
the loudest, I ken.  "

"It's nearly midnight."  Jeanne checked her watch.

"And her husband's no' back.  He brought her in, then left again."

"Donald Sinclair's no' a man to offer comfort.  He's probably at the pub
counting the night's profits.  She'll need a bit of reassurance."

"Terence MacDougall's no' here, either," Jeanne said.  "It's his pounds that
Donald Sinclair's counting, I'm thinking."

Angus's head began to ache.

"And the laird?"  "Standing beside the lady's bed.  Waiting for you."

Angus quickly discovered that fact for himself.  The noise from the rooms
beyond grew louder.  He skipped the tea and the last few moments of
scrubbing.  As he donned rubber gloves, he saw Jeanne washing and donning
gloves, too.

The first room held two beds.  A regal man with silvering hair stood beside
one.  He was Malcolm Ross, the tenth laird of Druidheachd.  Mary, his wife,
was to have set up housekeeping in Glasgow next week to be near a modern
hospital with the most up-to-date medical care.  Either the baby was early or
a highly acclaimed specialist had never learned how to count.

Thrashing from side to side in the bed beside Mrs. Ross was Melissa Sinclair,
the wife of the innkeeper.  Angus knew Mrs. Sinclair hadn't wanted to give
birth here.  She was an 10 American, and she hated everything about
Druidheachd, including--he feared--the Scotsman she'd married.

In the next room, out of sight but not out of earshot, was Jane MacDougall,
wife of the town's colorful the'erdo-well.

When he wasn't drinking or recovering, Terence MacDougall fished or else
fleeced the occasional tourist who ventured this far into the Highlands for a
glimpse of Loch Ceo's resident monster.

"My wife first," the laird announced calmly.  Angus had little choice.

He felt a stab of pity for the two other women whose men had left them to
fend for themselves.  He started toward the Rosses.

"It's coming!  The baby's coming!"  Melissa Sinclair wailed.

From the room next door, the same wail sounded.  With an unsteady hand Angus
drew back Mary Ross's covers and saw that although she was grimly silent, her
situation was identical.  There was little left to do except catch the
laird's son as Mary gave a mighty push.  Jeanne reached Melissa Sinclair at
almost the same moment and with the same result.  And as they delivered the
babies side by side to the chiming of the town clock, they heard a lusty new
cry from the other room.  Angus plopped the laird's new son into the
outstretched arms of his astonished father and dived for the door.

One glance told him that Jane MacDougall had managed quite well without
anyone's help.

The next morning, the three births were the talk of Druidheachd.  Three
healthy male infants, born at the same moment.

Born at midnight, to be exact.  No one, not the doctor, not Jeanne Maxwell,
and certainly not the proud new mothers, could say which of the wee laddies
had come first.  "Margaret Henley says it's a sign, the three weans being
born at the same moment," Jeanne confided to Angus that afternoon over a
well-deserved dram of the Glenmorangie he'd opened the previous night.

"She says they've started this life together and can no' be separated now.
She's calling them the wee laddies of midnight."

11 Angus knew that whatever Margaret--not a day over ninety--said was widely
accepted in the village, since she was known by one and all to have the
sight.  The poor wee laddies of midnight would bear that title until they
were men.

"They'll go to school together when they've grown a bit," he said.

"But do you think that lads of such different backgrounds will be raised like
brothers?  I can no' believe it."

But Margaret's pronouncement spread through the village.  It wound through
the front door of the moss-etched stone hotel, up the wide spiral staircase
of the laird's manor home, and in between the planks of a humble cottage
beside Loch Ceo.  Duncan Sinclair, Iain Ross and Andrew MacDougall were bound
together by the peculiar circumstances of their birth.  They were destined to
live their lives in each other's shadows.

And they did.  Even as men.

Chapter 1.

One moment the hills below the peak where Mara stood were dappled with
bright patches of sunlight.  The next, shadows stole across them,
shadows and writhing, flailing wisps of fog.  With a shiver she pulled
her long cloak around her and turned toward home.

As a child, Mara had visited the south of England, and she had been
surprised to find that night fell there with calm, ordered regularity,
even in summer. Here in the Highlands, even more than the rest of
Scotland, there was either an abundance of night or not nearly enough of
it.  Now that winter was almost over, the black velvet curtain that
extinguished the afternoon fell later and later, but the days still
weren't long enough to suit her.

Guiser, the border collie Mara had gotten in trade for a dozen hanks of
hand-spun wool the previous year, fell into place beside her.  Her small
flock of sheep were all safely in the stone pen behind her, and the cows
were in the byre.

Guiser would assume his watchdog role after tea, but until then, he
deserved a rest.

"Aye, it's time we were getting home," she agreed.

"I've a full pail of scraps for you and soup simmering on the '.

13 hearth.  " Guiser trotted up the hill at her side and along the
winding path that led to the thatched cottage that Mara called home.
Inside, he stretched out in front of the fireplace, but his eyes
followed her as she went to the cupboard.

"You'll like what I'm serving tonight.  There's nowt in Glasgow or
Edinburgh that compares.  You'll be dining like a king."  She took the
pail of scraps she had assembled that morning and started toward his
bowl.  She reached over to fill it, but her hand froze in midair.  She
closed her eyes as a familiar feeling swept over her.

She tried to focus on something, the smell of soup simmering or the
acrid tang of the peat fire, but she knew how futile it was to resist
the impressions forming in her mind.  Guiser growled; then he leaped to
his feet and started toward the door she hadn't closed tightly behind
her.  He wedged his nose in the crack and nudged it open.  In a moment
he was gone.

Night had fallen.  Mara went to the window, but there was nothing to see
except darkness and more of the same.  She followed Guiser's trail in
her mind.  The dog would be a black and white blur streaking down the
mountainside toward the road that was the only route off Being Domhain.
In her mind she watched as he patrolled silently back and forth, waiting
for something he couldn't possibly understand.  It wasn't the first time
that the dog had discerned his mistress's feelings.  She had no idea why
he always seemed to know when she sensed something was about to happen.

She imagined that without meaning to, she communicated her own
apprehensions to him.  He was an extremely intelligent animal.  She
called him Guiser, the Scottish word for a person in disguise, because
she had never been convinced he was just a dog.  That was foolish, of
course, since no male human she had ever encountered had Guiser's
sensitivity.

The impressions grew stronger, and she stopped fighting them.  The
picture of a man formed in her mind.  He was tall, but not a giant.
Muscular, but not a weight lifter.  She was a spinner and a dyer, and
she thought of colors by their conneetion to the land and sky.  The
man's hair was the brown  of forest shadows and his eyes the clear,
iridescent gray found at the borders of thunderclouds.

His name eluded her.

Mara asked herself why she was envisioning the man, a stranger, now.

Unease filled her.  Then, as suddenly as he had appeared in her mind, he
vanished, and his face was replaced by another.  This face she knew.  It
belonged to Geordie Smith, who lived alone in a farmhouse on the road to
Dmidheachd.  Geordie Smith, who believed he was a poet when he had half
the contents of a bottle of whiskey warming his insides, and the bens
and braes of his beloved Highlands stretched out at his feet.  Geordie
Smith who was known far and wide as a man with more heart than brains.

With her eyes still closed, Mara saw Guiser give up watching the road.
He turned and started up the mountainside, ready to be fed.

Mara wanted to forget the last few minutes.  She wanted her life to be
exactly as it had been before them.

She knew better than to hope for such a thing.

Duncan Sinclair had forgotten that night fell so swiftly in a Highland
winter.  These days there was little but frost in his heart; he was
almost surprised to discover that winter existed outside of him, too.

Duncan hadn't lived in Scotland since the age of eight.  He had finished
his childhood in New York, where he had lost his accent, his roots and
his innocence.  As a boy he had returned for a month every summer to
visit Donald Sinclair, the father he had buried today in the cemetery at
the village kirk.

But it had been more than twenty years since Duncan had seen the
Highlands in March.

As the sky darkened, his breath formed clouds in front of him, and his
glove-encased fingertips grew numb.  He thrust his hands deeper in his
pockets as he hiked on.  He wasn't sure when he had realized that he'd
better start back to the minibus.  One moment he'd been trudging down a
narrow path toward the small mountain loch where he and his best friends
Andrew MacDougall and Iain Ross had camped as boys, the next he'd turned
back, his goal unrealized.  : 15 He wasn't a man who gave up easily.
There were few bat- ties he hadn't fought to conclusion, few ambitions
he hadn't satisfied. He had left home at eighteen, worked his way
through college, and, fresh out of it, he had started an advertising
agency, which at its peak had captured some of the most lucrative
accounts in southern California.  Along the way he had wooed and won the
woman he had been certain he couldn't live without.

Then, last year, at twenty-nine, he had forfeited everything he owned in
order to attain the most important goals of his life: a divorce and sole
custody of his six-year-old daughter, April.

So why had he turned back today?  He supposed thoughts of April had
influenced him, even though she was thousands of miles away in New York
with his mother and sister, Fiona.  He no longer had the luxury of
taking risks, even small ones like walking along a mountain path at
twilight.  Duncan was the only stable force in April's life.

He paused to take a breath.  The darkness settled around him, chill and
damp. It seeped through his ski jacket and wool slacks.  Even his feet,
encased in heavy socks and waterproof leather, were quickly growing
cold.

How far had he come?  He wasn't sure.  His friends Iain and Andrew had
cautioned him to be careful.  They had pointed out that distances in the
mountains could be deceptive and that he had probably forgotten more
than he remembered about their boyhood jaunts.  He had shrugged off
their warnings the same way he had shrugged off the condole rices of the
villagers after the funeral.  He didn't like advice any more than he
liked sentiment.  And today he hadn't liked the way he had responded
deep inside to the warmth of both.

He started back up the path and stepped up his pace, searching the
thickening gloom for reassuring landmarks.

He rounded a bend and halfway expected to see the hotel's old minibus
sitting beside the single-lane road, but there was only mountainside
beyond him and the faint tracing of the path.  : ~ :,:  At the next turn
a boulder rose high in a clearing.  The shape was unusual, wider at the
top than the bottom and nearly level.  As he stared, memories surfaced
of scrambling over it as a boy.  He, Andrew and Iain had played king of
the mountain here, scratching their way up the lichen- crus text
surface, then shoving each other over the side.  He hadn't noticed the
boulder earlier, but now he was reassured.  At least he wasn't lost.

He paused for a moment to watch fog waltz through the clearing.  Broad
and long, the clearing was as lush as a meadow in the summer, a
surprising splash of tall grass and wildflowers.  Now the vegetation was
brown and shrouded with snow.  There were springs hidden in the rocks
beyond him and caves in the mountainside.  He had explored the caves as
a teenager.  At sixteen he had considered moving into one when his
father, stern under the best circumstances, had discovered that all the
tomato plants in the hotel glasshouse had withered and died because
Duncan had neglected to water them.

As he stared into the distance, remembering the man he had buried today,
something moved at the edge of his field of vision.  He narrowed his
eyes and searched for the source.  Not far away rowan trees twisted in
the rising wind, and just beyond them thick clumps of hazel and beech
swayed restlessly. He peered into the darkness behind the dancing
silhouettes, but little else was visible.

He had already started back down the path when a piercing whistle
stopped him.  He faced the trees again, but the whistle was nothing more
than the wind, at most a warning that night was falling fast and he
should hurry back to the bus.  He started forward again, when something
brought him up short.

He turned for one last look.  There was a noticeable change in the
elements surrounding him.  The whistle expanded into a shriek, almost a
howl, and the remaining light seemed to fade away.  The wind, which he
had blamed for the whistling, died completely.  Even the trees were
still.

But something moved behind them.

He stepped forward, squinting into the darkness.

"Hello?  Is anyone there?  he shouted.  There was no answer.

"Hello?"  he shouted louder.

There were animals in these mountains, sheep and t occasional fox or
wild dog.  But Duncan didn't expect to ~, any four-legged beasts.
Whatever he had glimpsed was tal and two-legged.  Either he was
imagining things, or anotl human being was out there.

He hesitated.  If someone was there, that person wanl to be left alone
or he would have answered.  Perhap,~ farmer from one of the surrounding
properties was look for a stray sheep.  Duncan wasn't sure that he had
the lel right to be on this path, which probably cut across p vately
owned lands.  His knowledge of Scottish propeJ laws was as foggy as the
meadow.  But whether he had t right to be here or not, he didn't have
the right to disturb t property owner.

He had convinced himself to leave, but he still didJ move.  Like his
father, he had never been a man who act on feelings, but something kept
him rooted to the spot.  A noyed with himself, he shouted once more.

"Hello?"

No one answered, at least not in the way he had ~ pee ted There wasn't
any movement now, but a shaft of lit illuminated the spot where he
thought he'd seen some or It was too early in the evening for the moon,
too late for t sun.  He stepped forward, intrigued.  The light was tint
focused and intense. He'd never seen anything quite like but he wasn't
frightened.  The day was dying, and the f was thickening.  There were a
billion possible combinatio of twilight and mist and mountain air
currents.  He was w nessing one.

He balanced his need to get back to the road with his no to explore a
little further.  Shrugging, he picked his w.

across the clearing.  The trees were farther than he thought, and the
light glowed brighter.  As he drew closer ] noticed that it had a
peculiar greenish tint.  The color ~ odd enough, but odder still was the
shape.  It was a narr{ beam, the width of a small tree or a person.
Channel through a leafless canopy of branches, it was as conce trated as
a laser.

 No one was nearby.  Duncan wondered if he had mistaken the light for a
person.  Perhaps it had played a trick on his eyes.  His hands and feet
were growing colder, and he began to lose his enthusiasm.  His goal was
just ahead, but there seemed to be little point in walking the final
fifty yards.

Then he heard the shriek again.

He began to run.  There were no more thoughts of farmers searching for
lost sheep or interesting shafts of light.  As he charged through the
trees, he could see the ground where the light was centered.  A man lay
on his back, his eyes closed.

Duncan fell to his knees and patted the man's cheeks.  "Hey, you there.
Can you hear me?"

The man was short and dark, well-padded with fat but not dressed for the
elements.  An empty whiskey bottle lay on the ground beside him.  Duncan
shook his shoulders.  "Can you understand me?"

"I doubt he'll be understanding anything for a good while."

Duncan's head snapped up.  At the edge of the light, just in the
shadows, stood a figure wrapped in a long, hooded cloak.

"Where in God's name did you come from?"  he demanded.

"And just how long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough to be glad you came along."

The voice was a woman's, soft and as delicate as sea foam.  Duncan
squinted into the darkness, and as if to give him a better view, she
glided forward. Her cloak billowed around her, yards and yards of wool
that looked as soft as her voice.

"Do you know this man?"  Duncan asked.

"And do you know what in the hell he's doing here?"

"By the look of him, I'd say he's freezing to death."

 "I had that part figured out."

"His name's Geordie Smith.  And I think he's in this state fair often."

It was too dark to get a good look at her.  Her hood was drawn around
her face, hiding everything but a glimpse of nose, an impression of
eyes.  He could just make out even 19 white teeth gnawing her bottom lip
in concern. He looked back down at the man on the ground.

"Well, right now it doesn't matter how often he gets this way, just
whether he's going to survive this particular hinge or not."

 "He'll survive.   Now that you're here, he'll be all right."

As if to prove her words, the man's eyelids fluttered open, and he began
to moan.  Duncan bent closer.  The man she'd called Geordie smelled like
a distillery.  The moan changed to barely audible words.

"Who's there?"

"My name's Duncan Sinclair.  What in the hell are you doing out here by
yourself?"

Geordie struggled to sit up.  Duncan helped him into position.  It took
a great heave, then an arm around Geordie's shoulders for a moment to
steady him.  Geordie grew paler.  "Are you all right?"  Duncan asked.

"Of course I'm no' all right.  I'm dead."

"Do I look like an angel?"

"There's no use in ye sparing me feelings.  I'm dead."  Duncan sat back
on his heels.

"Not yet.  But you might have been if you'd stayed on the ground all
night. What are you doing here?  Or are you too drunk to remember?"

Geordie looked insulted at the question.

"Och, I'll have ye know I'm no' a drunk.  I'm... a poet, a hard."

"Well, that explains it."

"I'm here for ins... ins..."

Duncan waved away Geordie's twin attempts at explanation and dignity.

"Can you walk?"

Geordie considered.

Duncan was afraid Geordie might ponder the question all night.

"Let's get you to your feet and see."

"I'm still thinking... I'm dead."

"You'll just wish you were tomorrow."

"Then if I'm no' dead..."  He narrowed his eyes.

"Just who was the lady in green?"

Duncan looked up.  He wanted to find out the answer himself.  He hadn't
thought to ask the woman's name or what she was doing on the
mountainside. But now the place where she'd been standing was
unoccupied.  He leaned for20 ward and peered.  into the darkness, but
there was no sign that anyone had ever been there.

Duncan wanted to be back at the hotel in front of a good fire.  His
patience and sympathy with Highlanders were abating.  The woman hadn't
even stayed to be sure that Geordie was going to be all right, and the
evidence that Geordie had brought this state on himself was lying on the
ground at his feet.

"Look, man, you're still drunk, and your body temperature's probably
dropped a few degrees.  Don't waste my time talking.  Just see if you
can get to your feet.

We've got to get you someplace where you can warm up.  "

"It was a lady I saw.  In green.  All in green."  Geordie put his face
in his hands.

"If she was no' an angel..."

"She wasn't," Duncan assured him.

~'.

"Och, then she was a ghost."

~ "What?"

Geordie began to cry, big sloppy tears that threatened to freeze on his
cheeks.  His shoulders shook.

"She saved me.

I've been saved by a ferlie.  "

"I saved you."

"No.  She brought ye here."

~ "Look, there was a woman here, but she left as soon hs she saw I could
take care of things.  She was just an ordinary human.  That's all.
There's no such thing as a ghost.

And if you don't get moving, Geordie whoever-you-are, there won't be any
such thing as you either.  "

With Duncan's help, Geordie managed to get to his feet.

He staggered a few yards, his elbow firmly in Duncan's grasp.

"She told me to lie down, the ferlie did.  She said I'd be safe."

"The only thing worse than a ghost is a ghost who gives bad advice."

"Yer no' from the Highlands," Geordie said.  He lifted his head and held
it high, even though his chin wobbled badly.

"Ye... can no' understand."

"Oh, I'm from here, all right.  And I'm afraid I understand all too
well."

~ Geordie shivered and fell silent.  Duncan wanted nothing more than to
leave the little man in the clearing, but he knew 21 that by the time a
search party from Druidheachd came back for him, Geordie would be a
ghost or an angel himself.  He stripped off his jacket and placed it
around Geordie's shoulders.  The wind cut through his wool sweater, but
unlike Geordie, he was in no danger of dying of exposure.

They trudged on.  To Geordie's credit, he struggled to keep pace.

"Can you make it back out to the road?"  Duncan asked, when they had
crossed the clearing and were near the path again.

"Oh, aye.  With yer help, I'll make it just fine.  She promised I'd be
safe."

It had been a day unlike any other in his life.  Duncan's patience
snapped.

"You're drunk, man.  And you were passed out on the ground because you
were too drunk to stand!  I don't want to hear anything more about
ghosts."

Geordie stopped moving.  He pulled his elbow from Duncan's grasp and
turned in the direction they'd come.

"Dressed in green, she was, with a face like an angel."  "Come on."

Duncan took Geordie's arm.  At this rate it would be very late when they
got to the bus--if they got there at all.

"Don't worry about anything now except walking."  _ "She's there still."

"Sure she is."  i~ "She's there."  Geordie pointed.

Duncan looked up The pale green light was no longer focused It had
diffused into soft, gentle curves.  His breath caught.

For a moment, just the fraction of a moment, the light appeared to take
on the shape of a woman.  Then it dissolved into the darkness. Somewhere
out of sight a dog began to howl.

"Farewell, lady," Geordie said softly.

"And thanks to ye."

At that moment, all the reasons why Duncan could never be happy in
Druidheachd were absolutely clear to him.

"What is it ye say they call ye?"  Geordie asked.  Duncan jerked the
little man back onto the path, and Geordie came willingly.

"Duncan Sinclair."

 "Yer not Donald Sinclair's son?  One of the wee laddies born at
midnight?"

"That's right."

"And will ye be staying in Druidheachd now that yer father's passed on?"

Duncan could feel his jaw clamp tight, but there was only one answer he
could give.

"I will.  God help me, but I don't seem to have been given a choice."

Chapter 2.

A month later Duncan looked out on the sheets of rain sweeping
Druidheachd's High Street.  Spring had arrived officially, but the days
were still chill and gray.

evening; and how cold," he said.

"Aye, gray it can be.  But in Druidheachd, spring's the time of year
when good friends become better ones."

Duncan turned back toward the street and didn't respond.  He had friends
here, the only two people in the world besides April and his sister,
Fiona, who really mattered to him.  Iain Ross and Andrew MacDougall had
drawn him to the Highlands as much as a need to put thousands of miles
between his daughter and Los Angeles.  But there was little A woman's
voice sounded behind him.

"There's a lovely fire in the sitting room, dearie, and a pot of tea to
warm you.  Co,m,e away from the window now, and forget your
~_/~troubles.

- -f/~ Duncan unwillingly faced Frances Gunn, the hotel's cook.  She was
apple-cheeked and white-haired, a storybook-perfect granny with a lap
wide enough for half a dozen children and a smile wide enough to let
them all know they were welcome.

"I'd forgotten how gray it can be on a spring  ~ else of value for him
in Druidheachd, a village so backward~ that the eighteenth century
seemed to beckon from the future.

"You will no' be having that tea?"  Frances asked.  "No.  Thank you,
Frances, but I've got to tuck April in bed.  I promised I'd read her a
story."

"She does look forward to your time together."  "So do I."

"She likes it here, you know.  She feels like she belongs.  And you
belong, Duncan.  You always have."

He wasn't cruel enough to contradict warm-hearted Frances Gunn.  He
managed a smile and was rewarded with one of Frances's own.  He waited
until the click of sensible shoes against the granite floor died away
before he gave up his view of the street for that of the interior of the
building that was the only thing of value--however dubious--that he
owned in the world.

The Sinclair Hotel was gray like the street in front of it, and nearly
as cold, despite a fuel bill that threatened daily to put him out of
business. One room faded into another, austere, colorless rooms with
threadbare furniture and tattered carpets.  Little had changed since his
childhood.  He imagined that in the eighteenth century the hotel had
sprung to life in exactly this form.  One moment there had been a narrow
parcel of barren land facing what passed for a street; the next moment
the Sinclair Hotel, shabby and weather- beaten, had risen intact from
the stone buried deep inside the earth.

Duncan had taken his first steps here, read his first halting sentence.
He had played hide-and-seek in these narrow halls, but those moments of
laughter and friendship seemed to have left no mark.  Now he couldn't
imagine anyone laughing within the confines of these three-feet-thick
walls.

"Daddy?"

Duncan looked up to the top of the stairwell rising to the second floor.
A small, thin figure was perched on the top step, her chin resting in
her hands.  He felt a familiar mixture of love and regret.  .

25 He pointed a finger at her.

"I thought you were in bed.  I was just coming up."

"I was in bed, but I got so lonely."  ': "I know what you're doing.
You're just looking for an excuse to stay up a little longer."

"It's not a very big excuse."

"Just big enough to keep you out of bed."  He started toward her.

"And look at you.  You're not even wearing a robe, as cold as it is."

"I'm not cold.  I only get cold when I'm all alone in my room."

Duncan had painted his daughter's room a sunny yellow and added flowered
curtains, comforter and pillows.  There was a small h6ater in the corner
to steal the ever-present chill from the air, and shelves of toys to
steal the chill from her small heart.  But nothing he'd done for her
could possibly be enough.

At the top of the stairs he presented her with his back, and she
obligingly climbed on board for a ride to the apartment at the hall's
end.  She was lighter than a thick Highland fog.  When he deposited her
on the rumpled comforter in the middle of her bed, he hardly noticed the
absence of her weight.

Duncan sat on the edge as she slid under the covers.  "Now listen,
Springtime.  You know I'm never far away.  I'm always somewhere in the
hotel when you're sleeping, and I come up to check on you often.  You've
got the intercom right beside your bed if you need me, and if I have to
go out, I always have someone come up here to stay with you."

She gave him a tremulous smile.

"I just get scared sometimes."

"I know you do.  But you'll see.  I'll never leave you alone."

Solemn gray eyes exactly like his own stared back at him.  He knew what
she was thinking.  He took her hand and kissed it, then stuck it back
under the covers.  As he did, his fingers brushed something cool and
solid.

"Did you pick out a book already?"  he asked.

Her eyes grew larger.

"No."

 He felt resistance when he tried to tug the book from under the covers.
She was obviously doing her best to prevent it.  He lifted a brow in
question.

"I want the one about the beaver pond," she said.  He almost gave in,
but something about her expression warned him that there was more here
than she was acknowledging.

"Let me see what you have there first."

"It's just a book."

"April..."

~' She looked away and mlaxed her grip.  He pulled the book from under
the covers and mad the title.

"Duncan and the Fairies?"  He flipped through the pages.  The book was
small and beautifully illustrated.  Golden haired fairies garbed in
gauzy green nearly danced off the pages.  Even without reading the text,
he could see that his poor namesake Duncan, a clumsy-looking lout, was
no match for them.

"Where did you get this?  Did someone in the hotel give it to you?"

"No."

He waited.

"Will you read me the book about the beavers now?"

 "I'd like to know who gave you this."

She still didn't look at him.

"Mara."

"Mara?  Who's Mara?"

"Just a lady."

Had the mysterious Mara been just any lady, Duncan knew that April would
have chatted on and on about her.

But obviously Mara was already someone special, and therefore not to be
discussed.  April had learned early to keep the things that really
mattered close to her heart.

"Where did you meet her?"  he probed.

"She lives by Mrs. Gunn, at the end of her road.  Jessie took me there
to get milk.  Don't be mad, please?"

"Mad?"  He finished flipping through the book.  There was nothing like
it in April's sizable library.  She had books that carefully explained
the world around her, books about nature and science, and several about
divorce and children with feelings just like hers.  But there were no
fairy stories. That was no accident.

27 He rose and set the book on her shelf.

"April, them aren't any fairies.  And there aren't any ghosts or
leprechauns or witches.  It's all make believe."

"But Mara says she's heard the fairies singing!"  She sat up.

"They live under the ground near her house, and she's heard their music
late at night.  Mara looks like a fairy, like the prettiest one in the
book, except she's prettier and" -- "This Mara, whoever she is, is just
making that up.  Fairies, elves and gnomes are all pretend."  He found
the book he was looking for.  "

' And people who pretend they re real, shouldn't.  "

"Mommy read me fairy tales."

He didn't know what to say.  There were plenty of other things Mommy had
done that couldn't be talked about.

"I think Mommy believes in fairies, too.  Like Mara," April said.

"She might believe in fairies, but that doesn't make them real."  He
took his place at her bedside again.

"Have you ever seen a fairy yourself?"  He waited for the reluctant
shake of her head.

"A witch?  An elf?  Don't believe in anything, Springtime, not unless
you can see it with your own eyes.  And then question what you see,
because even your eyes can lie."

"I like that book."  Iter bottom lip sank an inch.

"Mara gave it to me, and I like Mara."

"How often have you been to see this Mara?  .... April shrugged.

More than once.  That was obvious.  Duncan wondered why Frances Gunn
hadn't told him about the visits, and why April had never mentioned them
before this.  Displeasure curled inside him.  April didn't need another
unstable, fanciful woman in her life.  As it was, the damage inflicted
by her mother might never be rap aired

He smiled at his daughter, making sum that no sign of his feelings
showed on his face.  This was something he could take care of.  His
hands had been tied before, but this time no court would stand in his
way.  April was his now; he could protect her.  And that was exactly what
he planned to do.

 He opened the book about life in a beaver pond and began to read out
loud.  When she was sound asleep, he tucked the covers around her and
checked to be sure the intercom was on.  The clerk at the front desk
would hear any noise in the room and alert him if April awoke.

Then he headed downstairs to find Frances.

An hour later Duncan watched Iain Ross sip a dram of the hotel's finest
whiskey.  His back was to the hotel bar, and his white hand-knit sweater
gleamed like a beacon in the smoky haze.

"What is it you're wanting to know about Mara, Dunc?"

"What do you know?"   Duncan signaled Brian, the barman, and Brian
obligingly brought him a pint of the pub's bitterest ale.

"You don't have that much time."  Iain sipped, watching his friend as he
did. He was perfectly capable of downing half a dozen shots without
flinching, but Duncan knew he preferred to take his time and savor his
liquor.

"You're jerking me around, Iain."

Iain lifted one dark elegant brow.  He looked every inch the laird of
Druidheachd.

"She gave April a book," Duncan said.

"And Frances Gunn says that no one knows much about her background or
why she's chosen to live in Druidheachd."

 "And those are punishable offenses in America?"

"I just want to know who she is."

"She came here from Perthshire.  About two years ago.  Actually, I sold
her a parcel of land.  I take it you haven't met our Mara yet?"

"How do you know that?"

"I think the look in your eye might be a wee bit different."  Iain
stared at him as he finished his drink.  Then he set his glass on the
counter.

"Mara's a good woman, bonny and courageous and far too lovely a person
for me to get involved with."

Duncan knew that said quite a bit.  lain navigated through romances like
a sailor on a round-the-world cruise.  He enjoyed his times in port, but
he never looked back when the ship put out to sea again.

"What else do you know?"  Duncan asked.

"That you're worrying about nothing.  Mara would never do a thing to
hurt April."

"Do you know, that'sexactly what Lisa said to me the first time I
confronted her?"  He then mimicked hisex-wife, "Duncan, how can you say
those things? You know I'd never do a thing to hurt my baby."

"Mara's not Lisa, Dunc.  And this isn't California.  You've been so far
away and for such a long time, you've forgotten how we take care of each
other in Druidheachd."

 "I haven't forgotten.

That's one of the masons I stayed away so long.  "

"Ask Andrew what he thinks about Mara."  Iain nodded toward the door.

Andrew MacDougall was just striding in.

Rain clung to his dark macintosh and shaggy red hair.  It took him a
while to cross the room, because the other pub guests all had to have a
word with him first.  But when the three men stood together at the bar,
the other patrons kept a respectful distance.  Duncan remembered that it
had always been that way.  Ordinary men when they were alone, the three
friends were considered extraordinary together.  Duncan experienced the
irritation that was the sum total of his feelings about the village of
his birth.  He nodded to Andrew.

"Watch.  No one will come near us now.  What do you suppose they're
afraid will happen?  That as a body we'll put a curse on them?  Turn
them into frogs or seals?"

"Nowt quite so dramatic," Andrew said.  He pointed to Duncan's glass,
and Brian brought Andrew the same, sliding it toward him from six feet
away.

"Look at that.  Even Brian doesn't want to disturb us," Duncan said.

"Be glad," Iain said.

"If we'd been ordinary weans, born where and when we were supposed to
be, we never would have been raised on top of each other."

"We would no' have taken our first steps right here in this hotel
together," Andrew said.

"Or said our first words at the laird's fine table."

 "Or had our first ride on the loch in MacDougall's boat," Iain said.

Duncan Shook his head, and Andrew grinned.  He slung his arm around
Duncan's shoulder.

"There's nowt to be gained by fighting your feelings for Druidheachd
quite so hard, Dunc.

Or your feelings for us, for that matter.  There's nowt womanly about
loving your friends.  "

Duncan shook Andrew off, but a reluctant smile formed.  "What do you
know about a woman named Mara MacTavish?"

Andrew winked and whistled.

"If you want to meet her for yourself, you've only to cross the road."
Iain gestured lazily toward the window.

"She's over at Cameron's now.  I saw her go inside."  Duncan set his
glass on the bar.  If he wanted to know more about the MacTavish woman,
he was going to have to get his facts straight from her.  His friends
weren't going to be any help.

"That's what I'll do, then.  Just tell me how to recognize her."

The other men exchanged a look that told Duncan what he needed to know.
He left without another word.

Outside he pulled his jacket tightly around him and crossed his arms to
hold it in place.  Cameron's was the grocery store, the liquor store,
the post office and the unofficial center of gossip.  No Cameron had
owned it in a hundred years, and for a hundred years a series of new
owners had hung new signs.  But Cameron's it was to the people of
Druidheachd, and Cameron's it would always be.  The building was one
story, with stone painted white and woodwork black.  Boxes adorned the
windows and pale sprouts promised that someday, if the sun ever shone,
there might be flowers in them.

Inside it wasn't any warmer than outside, but at least it was dry.  He
stamped his feet, and water droplets flew.  He used the time to survey
the neatly arranged aisles.  "Is it help you're needing, Duncan?"  the
proprietor, a man in his fifties, asked.

"Thanks, but no."

"We've a new shipment of videos."

31 Duncan shook his head.  His gaze traveled from aisle to aisle, past
an old woman holding tightly to the hand of a rosy-cheeked cherub, past
a thin young man choosing a bunch of carrots.  As he was about to admit
his friends had played a trick on him, a length of green unfolded from
the farthest aisle, and a woman appeared in the midst of it.

She was tall and slender, or at least that was his guess, because most
of her body was shrouded in a forest green cloak.  Straight, pale blond
hair hung over the hood, which was pushed back over her shoulders.  As
if she knew he was watching her, she turned, and her eyes met his.  She
didn't smile, and neither did he.

Now Duncan understood April's description and Iain's comments.  Even a
heart as jaded as his could still respond to beauty.  And Mara MacTavish
was more than beautiful.  It was one more strike against her.

He started toward her, and she waited, as if she knew that she was the
reason he was here.

"And fresh young kail," the proprietor called after him.  "Frances Gunn
told me to let her know if we got good kail."

"I'll tell her."

The proprietor muttered something behind him, but Duncan didn't take his
eyes off Mara.  He stopped just a few yards from her and crossed his
arms.

"I'm Duncan Sin- clair.  You've met my daughter, April?"

She held out her hand.

"Mara MacTavish.  Your daughter's a bonny wee girlie."

He didn't want to touch her, but he knew the whole village would hear
about it if he didn't take Mara's hand.  He stretched out his own.  Hers
wasn't soft, as he'd expected, but callused.  He looked down and saw
short nails and sun blotched skin.  He dropped it quickly.

"She was fair taken with my dog," Mara said in a soft, musical voice.

"He's no' used to children, but he was taken with her, too.  I was
afraid he might try to herd her and Jessie's Lolly into one of my pens,
but he worshiped at their feet."

Mara's voice seemed familiar, but Duncan couldn't place it.  Nothing
else was familiar, though.  Despite April's description he had
visualized a rosy-cheeked, sturdy-boned crofter.

Instead, Mara was as delicate, as ethereal, as the fairy in April's new
book.

"Mrs.  Gunn tells me you have a farm near her house."

"Nothing so grand.  It's a wee croft.  No one would call it a farm."  '
"But you raise cattle?  April says Jessie buys her milk from you."

"Jessie does, and a few others, but I only have two cows.  I raise
sheep."

He really had no interest in what Mara MacTavish did or had, except when
it concerned his daughter.  He went straight to the point.

"Would you mind telling me how many times April's been to see you?"

She seemed puzzled.

"I'm sorry, but I have no' been counting."  -' "I didn't know anything
about her visits until tonight."

 "I suppose there was no' much to tell.   She enjoys my animals."

"You gave her a book."

"Oh, I see."  Her face had been lovely in repose.  Adorned with a smile,
it was breathtaking.

"You're worried that she took a gift from a stranger.  I'm sorry.  I
never thought.  She was just so interested in my stories about the
fairies.  The book was mine as a child, and I thought she'd enjoy it.
You dinna have to worry.  She said a proper thank you."

He was growing more irritated.  He thought he was making himself clear,
but she seemed purposely to misunderstand.

"It's not that you gave her a gift.  It's the gift you gave her."  ' The
smile faded.

"Oh.9" There were things he couldn't tell her, not without a lengthy
explanation, which he wasn't inclined to offer.  He couldn't tell her
that despite a hundred differences she reminded him of hisex-wife, with
her delicate bones, translucent skin and sweet feminine smile.  He
couldn't tell her that he was desperately afraid that she would remind
April of Lisa, too, and make it harder for April to forget her mother.

~ 33 But he could tell her part of the truth.

"April doesn't need stories about fairies in her life.  Not fairies or
witches, ghosts or leprechauns.  She's a little girl, and little girls
can't always tell the difference between the truth and a lie."

"A lie?"

"I've met a few adults who can't tell the difference, either."

"Mr.  Sinclair, I have no' told your daughter any lies."  He shrugged.

"April's still young.  She doesn't understand that not everything a
grown-up tells her is a fact.  I want her to understand that the world's
a certain way.  No ghosts and goblins, just good people and bad.  No
magic, just a world that works on certain fixed principles."

"And you understand everything about the way the world works?"

"I don't make up stories to explain the things I don't understand."

She seemed to see quite a lot.  Her eyes were a pale green and
perfectly' steady They didn't flicker from his.

"I'm not trying to be harsh or ungrateful," he said.

"It's just that April is my responsibility, and I take that
responsibility seriously."

"I can see that."

~ "I've asked Frances not to let her visit you again.  April's ~till
getting used to living here, and I want to be sure '~he's... adjusted
before she starts meeting people.  I'd appreciate it if you'd send her
back to the Gunn's if she and Lolly slip over to visit without
permission."

 "No."

Duncan knew exactly how he'd sounded.  Autocratic, unyielding, an
undisguised bastard.  But he didn't really care.

April was his responsibility, and the fact that Mara MacTavish couldn't
possibly understand his fears didn't change a thing.

"Would you mind telling me why not?"

"Mr.   Sinclair, I've no wish to hurt your daughter.   If I thought I
might, I'd send her home in a minute.   But despite everything you've
heard about me, I would no' hurt a child, could no' hurt a child, if my
very life depended on it."

 Something had changed.  Duncan didn't know what or why, but the balance
between them had shifted.  Now she was angry, and he was the one who was
mystified.

"Heard about you?"

"Oh, I can guess what you've been told.  I know what's said about me in
the village.  Dinna pretend you dinna understand."

"I don't understand."

"Well, try to understand this.  I'm no' in the habit of rejecting
children, no' for any reason in the world.  Your daughter seems to want
my friendship, and she'll have it if she finds her way to my house.  If
you're determined that she can no' visit me, then you'll have to
supervise her more carefully. I will no' discipline her for you, and I
will no' send her away."

Her voice hadn't changed.  It was still light and lyrically accented
with the country of her birth, but the words were flawlessly aimed.
Duncan felt their barb.  He was the one at fault.  He didn't supervise
his daughter closely enough.  He was trying to protect April from an
important friendship.  He was asking a total stranger to reject her.

Except that Mara wasn't a total stranger.  Duncan stared at her.  Her
voice had been familiar from the beginning.  Now he understood why.

"Wait a minute.  I don't know why I didn't realize it before.  You're
the woman I.  met on the mountain last month."

"Am I?"

"Look, I don't want to play games.  You helped me rescue Geordie Smith.
There's not much chance I'd be allowed to forget you.  Since I came back
to live in Druidheachd, I've seen Geordie every day at the hotel, and he
reminds me of that night every time I see him."  She started past him,
but he took her arm, catching folds of forest green wool.

"Where did you go that night?  You just disappeared."

"What does Geordie say?"  She pulled her arm from his grip and faced
him.

"He babbles."

"And what does he babble?"

35 "That he was saved by a ghost.  That the ghost of a lady dressed in
green saved his life.  I don't get much of the credit."

"I'm sure that's upsetting, feeling about ghosts as you do."

"Well, at least now I can tell him exactly who his ghost was."  ' "But I
would no', Mr. Sinclair.  It will just worry him more."

"What do you mean?"

"Dinna you see?  Half the people in Druidheachd already believe I'm a
ghost or a witch or a fairy."  She smiled, but it didn't warm her eyes.

"If you tell Geordie it was Mara MacTavish he saw on the mountain that
night, he'll be absolutely certain his life has been touched by magic.
And we both know you would never want to be responsible for that."

Chapter 3.

Daffodils blanketed the slopes leading away from Mara's cottage, and new
spring lambs frolicked in the afternoon sun.  Mara sat on a stone bench
under a tall copper beech and listened to the humming of the bees as
they waltzed from flower to flower.  From time to time she hummed, too,
a ballad her auntie had taught her as a child about Highland glens and
lost love.  On the ground before her, spread out to take advantage of
the sun, were a dozen fleeces of newly shorn sheep.

She was so absorbed with the lock of wool in her hands that she wasn't
aware she had company until Guiser sprang to his feet beside her.  She
looked up and saw April Sinclair standing in the distance, on the knoll
opposite the cottage.

Mara couldn't see the little girl's face clearly, but she could tell
that April was terrified to come closer.  And she knew what was
frightening her.

"Stay, Guiser," she warned.  He whined, but he sat obediently.  She
stood and started toward the knoll, skirting the fleeces.  As she passed
the last one, she lifted and rolled it into a neat bundle, then started
toward April again, holding it up for the little girl to see.

,!

37 "It's just a sheep's wool," she called when she was close enough to
be heard.

"No' a real sheep.  Look."  She pointed in the distance, where the newly
shorn sheep grazed contentedly.

"They've given me their coats so I can spin them into wool."

She stopped a short distance from April and waited.  Once she had been a
fanciful child herself.  She knew that April needed a moment to absorb
this new and better explanation for what had appeared to be a dozen
slaughtered--and flattened--sheep.

"They're not dead?"  April asked at last.

"Och no, no' dead at all.  The sheep are busy growing more wool right
over there."

"Why are their coats on the grass?"

"I'm letting the sun soften them.  Come here and feel one."

April moved slowly toward her.  Several feet away she stopped; then she
stretched out her hand.  She rubbed her fingertips over the fleece, and
her eyes grew wider.

"It feels funny."

"When I'm done with it, it will feel wonderful, all soft and cuddly,
like a wee bit tie lamb."

"What do you do with it?"

"Well, right now, I'm teasing the wool."

"Like my daddy teases me?"

Mara couldn't imagine Duncan Sinclair teasing anyone.  It had been weeks
since he had confronted her at Cameron's, weeks during which she had
relived those short minutes in her mind and gotten angrier in the
process.

She had known men like Duncan before.  Her former husband, Robert
Fitzwilliams, was one of them.  Robbie had known what was best for
everyone, too.  Like Duncan, he was a physically appealing man, a man
who would catch a woman's eye, then imprison her in a web of his own
conceit and self-righteousness.  She had learned more from Robbie than
he would ever know.  Most of all, she had learned to see him in others.

She put her arm around April's shoulders and guided her toward the
house.

"You can help me with the wool, if you'd  like," she said.

"But first you have to tell me if anyone knows you're here."

April was silent.  It was answer enough.  "Will they no' worry?"  Mara
asked.

"No.  Jessie thinks I went home after school."  "Then how did you get
here?"

"I came on the bus to the end of the road with Lolly.  And I made her
promise not to tell anybody."

"Your father will be worded, will he no'?"

"He thinks I'm at Jessie's.   He wrote me a note for the bus."   April
looked troubled.   The complex strategy had obviously taken its toll.
Mara guessed that April seldom disobeyed her father.

"You must have wanted to come here very badly."  Mara stroked a lock of
April's hair.

"Daddy..."

Mara knew what April wanted to say.

"I know.  He'd rather you did no' visit me.  But surely you can
understand why.  I'm a stranger to him, am I no'?"

 "Daddy says there's no such thing as fairies."

"Well, perhaps he's right."

39 closer than the Gunns, but their houses were still a good distance
away. There was no easy way to let anyone know where April was.

She picked up a lock of wool.

"A sheep's fleece can get matted and crees hie when it's covering the
sheep."

"What's crees hie

"Greasy, like your hair or mine if we did no' wash it.  So after it's
sheared, I set the fleece in the sun.  The grease warms and makes the
wool soft.  Then I can take the longest fibers, like these, and tease
them apart with my fingers.

If they're no' too tangled, I can spin them without carding them.  "

"What's carding?"

Mara picked up two wire brushes 6n the ground beside the bench and
turned them over.

"You put the wool on these and rub them back and forth.  Like this."
She demonstrated.

"The brushes straighten the wool and blend it.  But I like to tease the
best part without carding it, because after I've spun it, it takes dye
in a bonny way."

"What will this be?"  April took the wool from Mara's hands.

"But you heard them singing!  .... That's the best part.  I dinna know.
Someone will buy it " I'm very fond of fairy tales Perhat>s I onl want
to hear when I've spun it into yarn, and use it for weavin or knit them
They reached the bench where Mar~had been sit- i t~ng, whatever their
unag~nat~on tells them it should be.  "

ting.

" ~-~v,a~~~i~a ~ She demonstrated how to tease the wool, taking another
" I want to hear them, too.

~ ~.  /~ ~-~?  ~:~ ~"~' ?~~1ock in her left hand and separating the
fibers. Then she " Perhaps you will one day.  " Mara sat, and April
joined'~*~ ~ :'~ helped April do the same with hers.  The sun was warm,
and her.  Mara snapped her fingers, and Guiser, all wags and the little
gift was fascinated by the new task.  Minutes slipped lolling tongue,
lavished canine affection on April.  She hugged him like a favored teddy
bear.

"May I tease some wool?"

Mara gazed into April's pleading gray eyes and knew she couldn't refuse
her.

"Aye, you may.  But then we're going to have to take you back to Mrs.
Gunifs house, are we no'?  We can no' have anyone worrying about you."

I'll just stay a little while.  "

For the first time in two years Mara wished she had a telephone.  But
her cottage lacked everything that most people considered conveniences.
There were neighbors by.

"You have perfect fingers for this, nimble and strong," Mara said at
last.

"Look how even your fibers are."

April glowed at the compliment.  Mara knew that expression.  For this
brief moment, the child believed in herself.  It made the moments that
had come before and those that would come after seem more poignant.

"Would you like to try more?"  Mara asked.  "Can I?"

They worked in silence for a while.  April showed no signs of tiring,
although Mara watched her carefully to be sure.

Skylarks wheeled and sang overhead in accompaniment to  the hum of the
occasional car on the road below.  Dragonflies flitted from shadow to
shadow.

Even though she knew it was time to take April back, Mara bent over to
get more wool.  The little girl's company made the afternoon perfect,
and she was reluctant to see it end.  She was searching for one last
easy clump to guarantee April's success when Guiser began to bark.  She
knew whom she would see if she straightened.  She supposed his arrival
had been inevitable, despite all April's scheming.  "Quiet, Guiser."
Mara sat up.  She noticed for the first time that dark shadows had cut
across the sunlit expanse of daffodils.  Even the baby lambs seemed
chastened as they huddled closer to their mothers.

"April."  Duncan stood at the end of the path that led down to the road.

Duncan's arms, encased in a dark blue jacket, were crossed over his
chest. The sunlight glinted against his brown hair but ignited no sparks
of gold or red.  If there were hidden depths, sensitivities or emotions
inside Duncan Sinclair, there were no signs of them now.  His striking
face, with its dark brows and shadowed eyes, was expressionless.

April moved closer to Mara, as if for support.  But Mara knew better
than to come between father and daughter.

"I

think it's time you were on your way, April," she said.

"I'm SOrry."

' April stood.  Mara watched Duncan closely.  She couldn't keep him from
taking April home, but neither would she allow him to mistreat his
daughter. April lacked the natural confidence and spontaneity of most
children her age, and Mara was afraid she was about to witness the
reason for it.  But Duncan surprised her as April approached him.  He
squatted so his eyes were level with the little girl's, and he didn't
raise his voice.

"Just what do you think you're doing, Springtime?"

: She hung her head.

"I wanted to see Mara."

"There are people who worry about you, me at the very top of the list.
Didn't you realize I'd be worried if you weren't where you were supposed
to be?"

"But I fixed it so nobody would worry!"

41 He lifted her chin with a gentle hand.

"I'm afraid you didn't."

April looked down at the ground again.  Duncan gently cradled her chin
in his hand and lifted it again.

"I called Jessie to see if you'd gotten there yet, and she told me you
hadn't come home ~with Lolly.  You never thought I might call her, did
you?"

April shook her head.

"Haven't I told you that I always check to be sure you're safe?"

"And I mean it.  That's my job, and I'm very good at it.  I'm going to
be sure that nothing ever happens to you."

"I just wanted to see Mara."

"Next time, you have to tell me."  , "But you'll say no!"

Duncan looked up, and Mara met his eyes.  She lifted a brow in question.
He lowered his gaze to April again.

"Whatever I say, you still have to tell me.  I have to know where you
are."

April began to cry.  Duncan pulled her closer and held her in his arms.

"Now look, I parked the car on the road.  I want you to go down there
and wait while I talk to Mara."  Mara rose.

"Guiser will go with you to keep you company,"

she said.

"He needs a good walk, anyway.  Will you take him for me?"

April, tears still running down her cheeks, nodded.  She broke away from
Duncan and started down the path.  Mara signaled, and Guiser followed in
pursuit.

The shadows seemed to lengthen as Duncan and Mara stared at each other.

"Well, I'll give you this," he said finally, when the sound of April's
footsteps had died away.

"You meant what you said at Cameron's?"  , "And what was that?"

"That if April ever found her way here again, you wouldn't do a thing to
be sure she got back home."

 She knew it was useless to defend herself.  He wouldn't believe she had
intended to take April back to the Gunns.

"Aye, I suppose I did say that."

"That's pretty irresponsible, don't you think?  Did it occur to you that
I might be worried sick?"

"No.  But it did occur to me that if you found out she'd been here, your
ego would take a terrible beating."

"My ego?"

"It can be very threatening, can it no', when a child takes it into her
head to do what she wants?  April defied you, and I'm guessing you're
no' a man who likes defiance."

 "You think that's what this is about?"

She watched him, and she saw what she had refused to see at first.

She sighed.

"No.  That's no' all it's about, I sup pose.  You were worried.  I'm
sorry."

"You obviously don't have children."

"No.  But I understand them, and I understand that your April finds
something here that she's no' getting anywhere else."

"And what might that be?"

She knew better than to provoke an argument.  She shook her head.

"I give April everything she needs.  There's nothing I wouldn't do for
her."

~ .  i Mara wondered what Duncan's ffi~W uld look like if h smiled.  It
would still be a strong face, a face defined by bold, uncompromising
angles.  But his mouth fascinated her.  It was a grim slash that just
hinted at the possibility of transformation.

"Then let her come to see me," Mara said.

"If there's nowt you will no' do for her, let her come here sometimes.

She needs it enough to defy you.  Let her take what she needs.  I will
no' hurt her.  "

He looked beyond her to the cottage that was her pride.  "I don't know
you or anything about you, except the little I've heard in the village."
His eyes flicked back and condemned her.  : 43 "And the way I live is
hardly a recommendation, is it?"  She lifted her chin.

"I gather you're no' a man with simple tastes, Duncan Sinclair."

"Your name provokes a strange reaction whenever I hear it mentioned.

Why is that?  "

"What kind of reaction?"

"Something close to fear.  You told me yourself that half the people in
Druidheachd think you're a witch."

"Among other things."

"Yet you think I should turn my daughter over to you."

 "You told me yourself, you're no' a man who believes in the
supernatural."

There was a commotion on the road below.  Duncan whirled, as if he
expected to find April in trouble.  But it wasn't April who was
approaching.  A white-haired woman was coming toward them.  Mara
recognized her closest neighbor, Marjory Grant, at once, just as she
recognized the feelings that assailed her.  She felt for the bench
behind her and sat.  Her hands began to tremble.  Somewhere in the
distance, Guiser began to howl.

"Mara MacTavish, I'm wanting to speak to ye," the woman said when she
was close enough to be heard.

"And I will no' be put off.  Do ye ken?"  She stopped several yards from
Duncan and stared at him.

-~ Duncan stared back.  - "Ye look like yer father," the woman said.  ~
~: Duncan nodded and remained silent.

The woman faced Mara.

"I've come for the truth.  I'll have nowt but.  I want to know about my
Fergus."

"Please go home, Mrs. Grant.  There's nowt I can tell yOU."

"Last week he was peely wally, so I put him to bed thinking that would
take care of it."

"Mrs.  Grant, there's nowt I can do for you."

"Then last night he took a turn for the waur.   The doctor says he's
fair ill, and they want to remove him to Glasgow."   ' "I'm sorry, I
truly am, but I can no' do a thing to help you except look after your
sheep till you get back."

 "Ye can tell me what I'm facing!  And some in this glen say ye can even
cure Fergus--if ye've a mind to!"

"Those who say that have no idea what I can or can no' do."  Mara stood,
although her legs felt as weak as a newborn lamb's.

"I can no' cure your Fergus, Marjory.  I'm no' a doctor."

Marjory's hand, spotted and gnarled by age, swept the air, gesturing to
the land behind Mara's cottage.

"I've seen yer garden.  What grows in that patch of earth?  No tattles,
no kail.

Yet, for a' that, ye tend it like a mother tends her weans.  What is it
ye do with the plants ye grow if ye dinna use them to heal?  "

"Come back later in the spring and I'll show you potatoes and cabbages.
But I also make dyes from what I grow.

You've seen me dying yarn yourself, out here under the trees.  And I
grow herbs and flowers for sachets to sell in the stores in Inverness
and Fort William.  I grow none for healo ing.  "

"My Fergus is dying!"

Mara swallowed tears.  Marjory Grant and Fergus, her 45 some place more
frightening.  She would sell her soul to save Fergus.  She would
challenge the devil.  "Mrs.  Grant!"  Duncan stepped in front of the old
woman.

"No one can see the future, no matter how much they might want to.  Any
stories you've heard about Mara are just that--stories."

Marjory Grant swayed, as if she were balanced on the edge of a chasm no
one else could see.  Duncan steadied her with a hand on her shoulder.

"I have to know," she said.  But the threat had gone from her voice.

"I wish I could help."  Duncan dropped his hand.

"I know Fergus from the pub.  He's a fine man.  I'm sorry he's ill."

"No one will tell me anything."

Duncan shook his head sympathetically.  Mara witnessed the
transformation she had only imagined before.  His face softened, and his
eyes warmed.  For a moment he seemed capable of a full range of human
emotion.

"Maybe I can help you there," he said.

"I know Dr. Sutherland well.  He delivered me."

son, had not welcomed her to Being Domhain.  Jessie and 1 "Aye.  Yer one
of the wee laddies of midnight."  Roger Gunn and Roger's mother Frances
had extended "Shall we talk to him together?  I'll go in with you, and
I'll friendship immediately, and Some of the other residentS?

~ I g: be sure he answers all our u

7~ 4 I

~- y q est ons.  ~ n orlve you in now, along me mountain roaa naa oeen
gracious, lr cauuous, ou~: ~i:~if you d like We ll on to hia hnnr,~.  if
we have tn" Marjory had been suspicious and antagonistic from the be---~
~- ~VIrs Gra~t seemgd-;- ~ ..... :~l~-~ ' to crumole.

Ice tl oo mat ginning.  Still, that hardly mattered now.  She was
suttenng,~ ]_=,~r-~-:: "Of course."  ' and Mara knew what it meant to
suffer.

"I can no' go now.  But they told me I could see Fergus " I'm so sorry,"
she said.

"You've no idea how sorry I am."

"Then he is dying."  Marjory moved closer.

"And yer sorry because ye can see it.  It's just as everyone says.  Ye
can see the future, and ye can see that my Fergus will no' survive
this."

She moved closer again, her eyes narrowing.

"Tell me what ye see.  I have to know!  Tell me or I do no' know what
I'll do!"

Mara felt the woman's approach as clearly as she saw it.  There was
almost a malevolence about Marjory's determination to know the future.
She had moved beyond grief to after tea this evening.  Ye'd go with me
then?  " I'll meet you at the cottage hospital at half past six."

"The doctor will listen to you."

Duncan smiled warmly.

"I'll make sure he does."  She didn't smile back, but she looked as if a
burden had been lifted from her shoulders.  She turned to Mara.  Her
eyes narrowed.  I'll remember that ye would no' help me when I needed
it.  And I've rowan growing beside my fence.  Remember that if ye come
to call.  "

I'll pray for Fergus," Mara said.

"And for you."

 The old woman sniffed.

"Does God listen to the prayers of the likes of ye, Mara MacTavish?"
She turned without waiting for an answer and started down the path to
the road. Mara felt the bench against her legs and sat.  She put her
head in her hands. She didn't know how much time passed before she felt
a warm presence beside her.  In the wake of Marjory Grant's words she
had almost forgotten that Dun- can was still there.

"Rowan?"  he asked.

"Dinna you know?  Rowan keeps away witches.  I'm surprised she does no'
wear a cross of it when she visits me."

"She's an old woman, and she's very upset," he said quietly.

"Don't let her get to you."

She opened her eyes and found him sitting beside her.  His leg was
stretched along the length of hers.  She could feel his warmth through
her wool skirt, sense the complex essence of the man in the air that
surrounded them.  His presence seemed both an invasion and a peace
treaty.

"I guess I hadn't given much thought to what it must feel like to be
branded a witch in a place like Druidheachd.  In California, where I'm
from, it would be pretty ho-hum.  There's probably a coven on every
block."

She didn't know what to say.

"I was always one of the different ones here," he continued.

"I was born..."  He shrugged.

"I guess that doesn't~ matter now.  Let's just say that right from the
start, I was considered different.  So I guess I should have been more
sensitive to your situation.  It doesn't take much to set off the
'locals.  A dog howling late at night, chimney smoke that curls in the
wrong direction, the size of a rising sun.  They read signs here like
people in other places read the newspaper.

Druidheachd may look like a hundred other Highlands clachans, but
underneath, it's pure seventeenth century.

Brigadoon risen from the mists.  "

He faced her, and for the first time since she'd met him, his eyes were
unveiled.  She glimpsed the whole man, both the man he tried to be and
the one who lived deep inside of him.

There was understanding in his eyes, and even a reluctant compassion.
She was stirred in a way she hadn't been in years.  And frightened.

Frightened.  She looked away.  Her hands began to tremble again.

"Marjory has reason to be worried."

"I guess I'll find out tonight how much reason."  ~ Her voice trembled
now. Her voice, her hands, even her heart seemed to tremble.

"I tell you, she does."  "What do you mean?

Do you know something she doesn't?  Have you heard something?  "

She raised her eyes to his.  It was easier than imagining the worst.

"Heard something?  No.  But Fergus Grant is dying.

He'll be dead in a fortnight, at the full of the moon.  And there's nowt
any doctor in Glasgow or anywhere in the world will be able to do to
prevent it. "

Chapter 4 ~.

"Did you know Fergus Grant died last night?"  Duncan looked up from his
desk to find Andrew lounging in his office doorway.  His mind was filled
with figures confirming that the Sinclair Hotel had always been a losing
proposition.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"Fergus Grant died last night.   In hospital in Glasgow."   -Duncan
stared at his friend.

"He was doing better.  They said he might even be able to come home
after the weekend."

"Aye, Fergus will be coming home, all right.  In a kist."  Andrew's
expression was solemn, a rare event and a powerful thing to see.

"What happened?"

"A clot of some sort.  Took him like that."  Andrew snapped his fingers.

Duncan felt more than sadness.  It had been two weeks since Mara had
predicted Fergus's death.  And last night the moon had been full.  He
knew because he had lain awake and stared at it through the sheer
curtains of his bedroom.

"It's a coincidence."  He stood and came around his desk.

49 "A coincidence?"  Andrew shook his head.

"It's no' a coincidence when any of us die, Dunc.  We're meant to.  It's
inevitable.  No' even the Americans have figured out how to avoid it.

It was Fergus's time.  That's all.  "

Duncan didn't explain himself.  He hadn't told anyone about Mara's
prediction.  It had been too bizarre to discuss, and he had been angry
with himself for reaching out to her and provoking it.

"Don't tell me you believe in fate, Andrew.  You think there's somebody
up in the clouds with a clock and a gong waiting for some prearranged
moment to end our lives?"

"Well, put like that, it sounds a bit gyte."  Andrew clapped his hand on
Duncan's shoulder.

"You're taking it harder than I thought.  You hardly knew old Fergus."

 "It's a surprise, that's all."

"I'm just home for a few days.  Do you have time for some snooker?"

Andrew was an engineer on an oil rig in the North Sea.  For most of the
year he came and went according to his work schedule, but in the summer
he remained in Druidheachd and took the few tourists who wandered into
the little village out on Loch Ceo to look for the resident monster.

"Did you just get paid, by chance?"  Duncan asked.  Andrew grinned.

"What would make you think such a thing?"

Duncan smiled, too.  Andrew had always been able to make him smile.

"Sorry, but I don't have an extra pound that doesn't have to go into
this slag heap.  If I don't have the plumbing fixed soon, I'll have to
build outhouses back behind the carriage house and advertise the hotel
as an authentic bit of old Druidheachd."

I'll play you for a wee dram and the sheer joy of beating you.  "

Duncan looked at his watch.

"I can't.  I promised April we'd have supper together up in our flat so
we can discuss her birthday.  She's going to be seven this weekend."

 "Ah, if she were only about twenty years older, I'd be knocking at her
door."

"And I'd be on the other side of it with a shotgun."

 The room seemed empty when Andrew left.  He filled any space he
wandered into with good humor and exuberance.

From the moment of his birth he had drawn others to him.  He had been a
hearty, laughing baby and a child who could make anyone see the best
side of life.  Even Donald Sin- clair, Duncan's father, had been a
different, warmer person when Andrew was around.

Duncan couldn't remember a time when Andrew had brought him bad news.

But he had today.

He found himself at the window, staring through the ancient, wavy glass
at the street that ran beside the hotel.  Fergus Grant was dead, and
Mara MacTavish had foretold the hour of his death.  Duncan knew it was a
fluke; he wasted no time on wondering how it had happened.  But the odd
timing of Fergus's death brought back the afternoon two weeks before at
Mara's.

He had been stunned at her prediction, so stunned that at first he had
only stared at her.  Then anger had gripped him.

"What in the hell are you trying to do?"  he had demanded.

"Are you trying to make me believe-you're as strange as they say you
are?"

Her eyes had been fixed on some point in the distance.

"I dinna care what you believe.  I dinna care what anyone believes."

"Well, if you don't care what anyone believes, maybe you ought to give
some thought to keeping quiet.  Then maybe no one would pass judgment on
you.  But you're inviting them with crazy talk like this."

"Crazy?"  She rose and faced him.

"You think I'm no' sane?"

"What else can I think?  It's not all that normal, is it, to announce
the hour of somebody else's death."  He stood, too.

"At least you had the sense not to tell Mrs. Grant her son was going to
die. We can be thankful for that."

"There was nowt to be served by telling her."

"And nothing to be served by telling me, except to convince me that my
daughter really isn't safe here.   She's had one unstable woman in her
life. She sure as hell doesn't need another."

51 "Unstable?"

::: Duncan had a moment of regret, but just a moment.  There was no
point in beating around the bush.

"April's vulnerable right now.  The last thing she needs is a role model
who thinks she can see into the future.  Just what do you get out of a
stunt like this, Main?  It must have been clear to you that I wouldn't
be impressed."

She didn't look away.  He saw pain in her eyes as deep as any he'd ever
witnessed.

"Aye.  I knew better than to tell you.  I dinna know why I did."  Then
she slid past him.  He watched as she disappeared into the trees beside
the absurdly primitive thatched cottage that she called home.  And that
had been the last time he'd seen her.

What was she thinking now?  Did she know that Fergus Grant had died at
the full moon, exactly as she'd predicted?

Did she see the irony, or did she believe it was not a coincidence at
all, but proof that she had that dubious gift the Highlanders called the
sight?

He told himself he didn't care, but he couldn't get Mara 'out of his
mind. He remembered the pain he'd seen in her 'eyes.  And when he moved
away from the window, he knew in his heart that she would feel nothing
but sorrow that her words had come true.

~~ "I can have anything I want for my birthday?"  Duncan smiled across
the dinner table at his daughter.

"Well, anything within reason.  I don't think I could afford a pair of
dancing elephants or a tiger who nibbles on the hotel guests."

April giggled.  "what if it was something that didn't cost much?"

"Then I would be especially pleased to give it to you."

 "I want to go on a picnic."

He cocked his head in question.

"A picnic with you... and Mara."

She'd caught him by surprise.  He didn't know what to say.

"A picnic that lasts all day.  In the mountains.  And Guiser has to
come, too."

 "I'm not sure we can do that."

~ "You said anything."

Just six months ago Duncan had prayed for the day when April would feel
secure enough to assert herself.  Six months ago, she wouldn't have
asked for a piece of bread.  Now he knew he couldn't say no.  He had
waited too long for this flash of independence.  Going to Mara's against
his wishes had been a sign that April felt secure enough to reach for
what she wanted.  And now she was brave enough to ask for more.

"Mara may not want to go.  She might be busy," he warned.

                                      .

"But you'll ask her?"

He had said some hard, cruel things to Mara, and he was ashamed.

Fergus's death didn't change his feelings about her prediction, but it
did remind him that he was fast becoming a man more comfortable with
condemning others than trying to understand them.  And he suspected that
Mara needed understanding now, more than she had two weeks ago.

He poured himself a cup of coffee.

"I'll ask her."  Mara would refuse, he was sure.  She would have no
reason to want to spend time with him.  But if she agreed to come, it
would give him a chance to observe her up close with April.

He could discount most of what she'd said to him, but one thing she'd
said was true.  April obviously did need something that Mara offered
her.  And he needed to find out what it was.

By the time April was sleeping, he had decided that nothing would be
gained by waiting to ask Mara if she would picnic with them on Saturday.
April had talked about nothing else as she'd gotten ready for bed, and
Duncan was afraid that if he waited too long, April would be profoundly
disappointed when Mara refused.

He asked one of the chambermaids if she would stay with April while he
went out for a while, and she settled in with a thick murder mystery and
a plate of Mrs. Gunn's shortbread.  Before he left he played a fast game
of snooker with Andrew, lost immediately and grudgingly told Brian to
give Andrew free drinks that night.

53 Outside, a soft, chill mist filtered through his raincoat and made
him nostalgic for California sunshine.  But the air had never smelled
this way in Pasadena.  There was a sweetness here that defied his
attempts to name any particular plant that produced it.  It was the
smell of a Highland spring, green and fertile and tinged with the
promise of new life.  A snatch of music, the piercing laughter of a
child, the tinkle of a shop door.  All the sounds of Druidheachd drifted
around him like the mist.

The mist thickened as he drove, and as the road beside Loch Ceo wove
back and forth through neat stands of Forestry Commission pines, he
slowed his pace. There was an eerie beauty here.

He could almost understand the Highlanders' preoccupation with the
unknown. The landscape promoted it.  It was easy to imagine ghosts
rising from these mists, witches in stone cottages set between desolate,
craggy mountains, fairies in tiny underground villages roofed with
purple heather.  Druidheachd was a Gaelic word meaning magic, and at
moments like this, he could understand why the name had been chosen.

His car climbed steadily until it was time to turn off the main road to
the single lane track that zigzagged up Being Domhain to Mara's cottage.
He couldn't fathom why a young woman had chosen to live so far from
civilization.

After their last encounter, he'd made a few inquiries.  Mara's nearest
neighbor, Marjory Grant, was more than a quarter of a mile as the crow
flew, and a human would need wings to travel that route, since a wide
creek, or what the Scots called a burn, flowed between their properties.
If Mara wanted to reach a neighbor by foot, she would have to walk
nearly half a mile around the mouth of the burn and over a rocky,
inhospitable landscape, or along the single lane track for more than
half a mile.  The journey would be relatively short by car, of course,
but he had seen the ancient Morris Minor parked behind her cottage, and
he doubted it was reliable.  In the worst weather she was probably
trapped at home for weeks.

She obviously didn't mind.  Iain said that Mara had bought her land from
him. Duncan couldn't imagine it had  cost her much, since it had little
to offer.  The house was worth nothing, and the land was steep and
unproductive. But if she could afford a large plot in the mountains,
surely she could have afforded something smaller and closer to town.

Instead, she had chosen isolation.

He felt that isolation as his car climbed along the track.  The mist had
deepened into fog now, and it grew denser as he climbed.  The sky was
dark, and his headlights illuminated only a short stretch of road.

He slowed even more.  If he crept along he would be safe, he knew, at
least as far as his own driving was concerned.

He could see enough of the road not to miss a twist or turn.  The real
danger lay in cars coming down the mountain.

Even with good visibility, the road was treacherous.  One car could be
on top of another with no warning.  There were frequent passing places,
small clearings beside the road so that one car could get out of the way
to let another pass.  But with the fog, there were even fewer signals
than usual that it was time to find one.

Another five minutes went by, and he began to curse himself for choosing
tonight to talk to Mara.  He wasn't a complete stranger to these
mountains. He should have known thick fog was inevitable.  Now he had
ignored it until it was too late to turn back.  He had no choice but to
continue, and the wind was steadily growing stronger.  His car windows
rattled in protest.

He estimated he was only a few minutes from the turnoff to Mara's
cottage when he saw the light.  He was approaching a particularly wicked
curve, and he had taken his eyes off the road for the briefest moment to
gaze down. Something glinted just beyond the next passing place.  It was
little more than a twinkle, an earthborn star winking along the
fog-enshrouded mountainside.  He caught just a glance, but it was enough
to intrigue him. By the time he had reached the passing place, he had
made up his mind.  He pulled over and got out of his car.  Then, with a
flashlight in his hand, he walked as close to the edge as he dared.

At first he could see little.  There was a sharp but short drop-off that
culminated in a wide ledge.  Beyond that ledge 55 was infinity, a sheer
drop of hundreds of yards to the glen below that spelled instant
extinction for anyone unlucky enough to step over the side.  He turned
off his flashlight and peered into the darkness.  He could see next to
nothing now, just fog, shifting and whirling with each gust of wind.

He was almost ready to turn back to the car when he saw the light again.
It was just below him, a tremulous fountain of green that blinked for an
instant and then disappeared.  "What the hell?"

He wasn't anxious to get too close to the edge.  If he fell, he might
miss the ledge altogether and end his life in some Druidheachd garden,
planted head first among an old lady's poppies and bluebells.  But he
was more than curious now.

~ He was determined to find out where the light was coming from.  He'd
only seen light this color once before.  And Geordie Smith was alive
because of it.

He lowered himself to his hands and knees and felt his way to the drop
off. He was afraid his flashlight would ruin his view, so he kept it
off.  The ground fell away just in front of him, and he dropped to his
belly, sliding close enough that his chin hung over the side.

For a minute or more nothing appeared.  Then, just as he was beginning
to wonder if he had imagined it, a light formed, a pale green light the
color of Mara MacTavish's re yes As he watched, transfixed, the light
seemed to coalesce into human form.

~ ~ He told himself it was the moonlit residue of some mysterious gas
seeping through the rocks and the age-old de.

posits of carbonized plants.  But even as he told himself that the light
was completely natural, it formed into the shape of a woman in a long,
flowing gown.  She lifted her arms in entreaty.

He could no more have moved at that moment than if he had been chained
to the ground.

He had no idea how long he stared at the light; time seemed suspended.
He was only aware of its passing when a roar sounded on the road behind
him.  He pushed himself away from the ledge, cold and surprisingly stiff
from his sojourn on the wet ground, and sat up.  He turned just in  ~
time to see a truck with its headlights blinking crazily swoop by at a
tremendous speed, barely negotiate the next curve, then, with tires
squealing in protest, careen down the mountain track.

If he had been on the road, as he should have been, he would have been
directly in the truck's path.  And his small sedan would have been no
match for the forces of gravity and several tons of solid steel.

If he had been on the road.

He was chilled inside and out.  His hands began to shake.  He rarely
played the game of "what if."  But he played it now, and the answer was
simple.  If he had been on the road, he would be a dead man.

He peered over the side of the cliff again.  There was no light now, not
even moonlight tracing the ledge below.  He got to his feet and realized
his knees were weak.  He stared over the cliff, but nothing appeared,
not light, not a woman, not a sign of anything out of the ordinary.

He stared at nothing for a long, long time.

Mara was fond of her sheep, particularly the lambs.  But even she had to
admit that more foolish creatures didn't exist anywhere on the food
chain. As she and Guiser were penning the sheep for the night, she had
realized that one of her ewes and the ewe's two lambs were missing.  She
was exhausted, and she hadn't liked the idea of going out to look for
them.  She had been up early to work with the shearer who had come to
finish her sheep.  She had paid close attention to everything he'd
taught her and attempted to shear the last sheep with his help.

There were some things, she'd discovered, that not even the most
self-sufficient crofter should do herself.

Ordinarily she wouldn't have worried about the missing sheep.  But the
ewe was a first-time mother and not suited for the role.  She was
completely capable of leading her lambs into danger.  Several days
before, Mara had found one wedged between two rocks while the mother
grazed contentedly some distance away and ignored the lamb's pitiful
bleating.  r .  ~ 57 So Mara had been out since nightfall searching. For
once Guiser had been little help. All day he had done the work of two
dogs, and now he was determined to take his well- deserved rest.

He had skulked beside her as she tramped her fields, lantern in hand,
but he had shown no enthusiasm or initiative.  Just as she'd been about
to give up, she'd found the ewe with both lambs, encamped under a
chestnut tree.  Now they were safely penned with the rest of the flock,
and she was ready for a warm, fragrant bath and a three-course supper
prepared by a gourmet chef.

Except that warm, fragrant baths and gourmet meals were only memories
from her past.

She was unfastening her cape to hang it on a peg beside the door when a
knock sounded from the other side.  She was startled.  Guiser was asleep
beside the fire, and he didn't even thump his tail in response.

"Who's there?"  she called.

"It's Duncan Sinclair."

She was sorry she'd asked and confused that she hadn't anticipated his
arrival.  She regretted the ancient Highland code that declared a
welcome should be extended to strangers.

She opened the door and stepped back to let him in.  There was light
from the fire and the lantern she had hung on a hook in the rafter.  She
could see his face clearly enough to watch his expression change as he
gazed around the room.

"Whatever you paid Iain for this cottage was too much," he said bluntly.

"I did no' pay lain anything for this."

He frowned.

"Nothing was still too much."

"I did no' pay Iain anything for this."  She gestured to include the
room.

"I built the cottage myself.  Stone by stone.  I paid Iain for the land,
and it was a fair price."

 "You built it?"

"Aye, and proud I am of it."

_ ~ He was silent.  She knew what he saw.  The cottag~ was small,
divided into two rooms, what the Highlanders called a "but and ben"
cottage.  There were fireplaces at both ends, the one farthest away
crowded with pots and kettles suspended from chains.  She was
inordinately proud of her fireplaces. She had studied and planned and
sketched them a dozen times before laying the first stone.  Never had
she expected them to draw properly.  But somehow they had.

"This is incredible," he said at last.

"Why have you come, Duncan?"

He looked down at her.  Her hair was plastered against her cheeks and
lank against her neck.  She was wearing the dark green cloak in which he
had first encountered her.

"You've been outside?"  he asked.

"I have."  She finished removing her cloak and hung it on the peg.  Her
back was to him.

"You sound as if you're surprised by that.  Crofters live outside, or at
least once they did.  A house was only for sleeping."

"What were you doing out there?  Where exactly were you?"

She faced him.

"Is something the matter?"  "Were you down by the road?"

"As well as a'hundred other places."

"Were you down by the road just a little while ago?"  She saw what had
been invisible to her at first.  He was upset, as upset as a man like
Duncan Sinclair ever got.  Something had shaken his confidence.

She found that satisfying.

' She turned away and crossed the room to pour Water from a kettle into
the wash basin on the hearth.  She soaped and rinsed her hands, then
took a cloth and soaked it in the water.  She wiped the cloth across her
forehead and cheeks and finished by wringing it out once more and wiping
her neck.  "I'm sorry, but I'm soaked to the skin and spattered with
mud.  I hope you dinna mind."

"You don't have running water, do you?"

"No.  And I dinna have electricity or a telephone, which is why I could
no' phone you about April's visit here.  But I have a nice warm fire and
two chairs beside it.  You can join me over here for a cup of tea if
you'd like."

She didn't watch to see what his decision would be.  She shook tea
leaves from a jar on her shelf into a brown ceramic teapot and poured
the remaining hot water from the 59 kettle into it.

"I have some crumpets we can toast," she said.

"I have no' eaten tonight, and I'm near starving."  "Why haven't you
eaten?"

His voice sounded from right behind her.  She never seemed to know
exactly where he would be, and that was disconcerting.

"I've been out looking for one of my ewes and her lambs.  It's been a
long day."

"And were you looking out by the road?"

"I told you, I've been all over."

Duncan wondered if he was losing his mind.  He looked at her and saw
light in the shape of a woman.  The figure he had seen was Mara's size,
with flowing hair and a long dress--or perhaps a cloak.

He lowered himself to one of the chairs; his legs were still
surprisingly weak.

She took the other chair and drew it closer to the fire.  Then she
picked up a hairbrush from the fireplace ledge and held it up with a
whimsical smile.

"My hair dryer," she explained.  She began to pull it through her hair,
holding the long locks out toward the fire.  With each stroke it fell to
her shoulders in fine clouds, like the angel hair on Duncan's childhood
Christmas trees.  She brushed her hair for a long time in silence.

"What happened on the road, Duncan?"

she asked at last.

"Did you have trouble getting up Being Domhain in the fog?"

"I got up just fine.  There was the small matter of a truck going down
at the same time."

Mara paused for a moment.

"You do understand about our passing places, do you no'?"

"I understand perfectly.  I'm not sure that the driver of the truck
understood.  If he'd driven any faster, he would have been airborne."

"But you're all right?  You were no' hurt?"

 "No.   I had pulled off the road to look at something?"

She resumed brushing her hair.

"I'm glad of that.  The drivers on this road are usually cautious.
Maybe his brakes failed.  You were fortunate that something caught your
attention. what was it?"

 She had finished her hair, and she set down the brush before he
answered.

"It was just a shrub caught in a stray moonbeam or the truck's lights.
There's a full moon out tonight, even if the fog's nearly obscured it."

"I' 11 get the crumpets."

Duncan watched Mara busy herself beside the fire.  She wore a long
sweater of heath cry green and violet, and a dark wool skirt that fell
past the tops of her boots.  She moved with an uncommon grace, and under
different circumstances it might have been a pleasure to watch her.  But
the world wasn't the same place it had been before his brush with death.
He was too wrought up to appreciate her feminine allure.

"Fergus Grant died last night," he said.

"Did you know?"

There was just a slight pause in her movements, so slight he might not
have noticed it if he hadn't been watching so carefully.

"Aye."  She reached for a tin and removed the cover.  She put crumpets
on two crockery plates before she turned.

"The neighbors have organized to take food to Mrs. Grant."

"You don't seem surprised, Mara.  The rest of us thought he was
improving."

,L _

She didn't reply.

' .  ~'~ ~ "The moon was full last night," he said.  "I'm well aware of
the cycles of the moon."

"You said Fergus would die at the full moon.  And you were right."

"Aye.  And I'm wishing I'd been wrong."  She turned to look at him.

"And I'm wishing I had never spoken of it to you."

"But you did."

"I did."  She sat down again, placing a tray with a crock of butter and
the two plates of crumpets in front of him.  She reached for two
long-handled forks hanging from a hook embedded in the fireplace mortar.
She handed one to him.

He took it without a word.

She speared her crumpet and held it in front of the flan just close
enough to heat it.

"So what do you think, D can?  Am I simply unstable, as you said the
last time were here?  Or is there more at work than meets the eye~: "
How did you know Fergus would d/e?  And how did' know when?  Do you have
medical training?  "

"I have medical training.  But do you know a univer~ anywhere in the
world that can teach a student to name hour of a patient's death?
Because, if you do, I would properly grateful.  Then I would know
there's a scient explanation for what I've been able to do since I w,
child."

"And that is?"

She didn't answer.

He wanted to scoff.  He wanted to leave.  But the wr was no longer
exactly the place it had been.

"Why don't, tell me about it?"  .

"Can you listen with an open mind?"  She pulled crumpet toward her to
inspect it.  Then she glanced at [ before she thrust it back to the fire
again.  He didn't know if his mind was open.  He had withes the effects
of New Age philosophy up close, had watche destroy his marriage and
nearly his daughter. He had ways been a skeptical man.  In the past
three years he [ moved far beyond skeptical.

-~: But Mara was not Lisa.

He watched her at the fire.  Mara had none of Li.  " nervous, almost
manic energy.  She didn't seek reassuran There was a quiet
self-possession in everything she did.  g she had built this cottage,
this extraordinary recreation an old Scottish croft.  She lived in it by
herself under c, dit ions most people would find grueling, at best. And:
was proud of everything she'd accomplished.  He didn't want to be
intrigued by Mara MacTavish; d~dn t want to be intrigued by any woman,
particularly ~ one with roots here in the Highlands.  He only planned
stay in Druidheachd until he could fix up the Sinclair Ht and make a
decent profit on it when he sold it.  Then he ~ going to take April
faraway and start a new life and a new business.

He did not want to be intrigued by Mara MacTavish, but he was.

"No, my mind's not open."  He reached for a crumpet and speared it on
his fork.

"I'm not even sure anymore that an open mind is an asset.  I've seen too
many minds that were so open every rational thought drained right out of
them."

"You've been hurt."

"Is mind reading one of your talents, too?"  "No more than anyone's.

But hurt's audible in every word you speak.  Was it April's mother who
hurt you?  " " I don't want to talk about me.  "

"Do you ever?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Do you ever share any part of yourself?  I'm no' a mind reader, but I'd
guess that almost everyone you've ever counted on has failed you.  And
that's part of the reason you've given up believing in the things you
can no' see. I'm no' even sure you believe in the things that you can."

 "How did you know that Fergus was going to die yesterday?

Or was it simply a guess?  Because that's what I think.  A lucky""
Unlucky for Fergus.  " She faced him.

He shrugged.

"Unlucky guess."

"Do you truly want to know?"

He started to say yes, then reconsidered.  There was more to her
question than what appeared on the surface.  She was gently pointing out
that he was asking for more than a simple explanation.  He was asking
for a part of her.

"Are you going to tell me the truth?"  he asked.  "I've never learned to
lie."

Did he want to know about her?  Because he realized in that moment that
he already knew something that he hadn't wanted to know.  Mara MacTavish
was sincere.  She might be misguided, but she had none of Lisa's deceit.
She wouldn't twist the truth to make her own life easier.  And whether
he 63 liked her explanation or not would be of no importance to her. She
could only tell him what she believed to be true.  He leaned forward.

"You believe that you have second sight, don't you?  That's what this is
all about."  She reached over and pushed his fork away from the fire.

"I dinna know what I have, Duncan.  Labeling it only makes it easier for
other people to accept or condemn.  But I've never understood it,
myself.  I only know that far too often I can see the future."  She
smiled sadly.

"And most of the time, the news is no' very good."

Chapter 5.

l i And you've been able to see the future since you were a child?

You're telling me that you always walk around knowing what's going to
happen next?  "

Mara took the toasting fork from Duncan's hands and removed his crumpet.
She buttered it and set it on a plate.

"I'd be a rich and famous woman if everything in the future were that
clear. Just think what I could do on your Wall Street."

He took the plate from her hands.  His fingers brushed hers, and their
eyes met.  Hers were steady, the pale green of a fountain of light that
had probably saved his life.  Disturbed, he looked away.

"Then what do you see?"

"Much more than I want to."

She rose to pour the tea, and she handed him a cup.  She sat back down,
clutching her own to her chest, as if for warmth.  He realized she was
shivering.

"I was still a young child when I realized that what was simple for me
was impossible for others.  At first my parentsexcused the things I said
as the ramblings of childhood.  But when I was four, I told them a
neighbor had been in an accident.  My mum thought I'd overheard someone
talking, and she went next 65 door to see if she could be a help.  Nowt
had happened, of course, and she was terribly embarrassed that I'd lied.
But the next day, the accident took place just as I'd seen it.  I was
too young to know the difference between what I saw in my head and what
I saw with my eyes.  And to a child, past, present and future are very
much the same."  Everything Mara said was an affront to Duncan, but he
couldn't fault her sincerity.  Clearly she believed her story was true.

"What did your parents do then?"

"I frightened them and still do.  They're good people.  My father is an
elder in our kirk.  But he and my mother are very sure they have all the
right answers, and their answers dinna include a daughter who can see
things before they happen.

They told our minister what I'd said, and he told them such talk came
from the devil.  I was punished and told I must stop lying.  It took me
a while to understand.  I became afraid to tell them anything, because I
wasn't always sure if what I was relating was something that had
happened or something that was going to.  If I made a mistake, I was
punished, and the punishments got harsher each time.  " She stopped to
sip her tea.  Duncan didn't know what to say.  He didn't want to feel
compassion for the child Mara had been, because compassion implied
belief in her story.

But he felt compassion anyway.  And anger at the insensitive people who
had raised her.

"By the time I was in school, I'd learned to keep everything to myself,
but I'd lost all confidence.  I barely spoke, and when I did, I
stuttered.  I was sent away to school because I was an embarassment. The
school had a rigid curriculum and uncompromising rules of conduct.  If
anything, I grew quieter. By then I'd learned to ignore my visions of
the future, even to doubt they were real."

"But obviously something happened to make you change your mind,"

Duncan said.

She picked up her crumpet and buttered it.  She finished every crumb,
and still she didn't speak.  He watched her stare into the smoky peat
fire, and he thought that she was reliving those years, remembering how
it had felt to be an outcast.

He could almost feel her pain.  He didn't know what  was wrong with him.
He didn't want to feel this connection to her.

Finally she wiped her hands and faced him again.

"When I was old enough to think about a career, I decided to choose
medicine. I wanted to be a nurse.  I suppose the way I'd grown up made
me want to reach out to other people who were suffering.  I even thought
that if I tried to help people, I might stop imagining that I knew their
futures.  I enrolled at a school in Edinburgh, and at first, when I was
just taking classes, I thought I'd made the right decision.  I
discovered that I learned quickly in a relaxed environment, and that the
world was a far more interesting place than I'd been led to believe. But
then I began to work with the sick.  Just a little at first, then more
often as my studies lent themselves to it.  And that's when I found out
that after one encounter with a patient, no matter how brief, I could
tell if that patient was going to live or die."

Duncan set his cup on the hearth.  Mara had engaged his sympathy, but
now sympathy disappeared.

"One encounter?"

"Aye.  I know how it sounds, Duncan.  I can no' make it sound any
different."

"You're saying that you only had to walk in a room and you knew if a
patient was going to die?"

"No, it was worse than that.  I'd never lived in a large city before.

Suddenly I was surrounded by people.  One day late in my second term it
was as if a floodgate opened.  I could no' walk down the street without
being assaulted by impressions of the people around me.  This man was
going to die the next month.

This man was going to lose a loved one.

This woman had a son in a foreign country with a grave illness that had
no' yet been diagnosed.  I took to staying in my room whenever I could.
I went out at night, when the streets were less likely to be crowded.  I
chose my friends carefully, only associating with people whose futures
seemed out of my reach.  "

"This is increasingly difficult to believe."

'~ She smiled sadly.

"I know."

"What happened then?"  .

:.

67 "One day I considered taking my own life."  The words were
matter-of-fact.

"And on that day, I realized I had two choices.  I could accept myself
and my ability and try to use it for the benefit of others, or I could
end my life. Because the third choice, trying to pretend I was someone I
was no', was slowly driving me insane."

Duncan wondered what he could say.  On the face of it, she'd made a good
decision.  But to tell her so was the same as admitting her story could
be credible.  And her story was preposterous.  As he had so many other
times in their short but emotionally charged relationship, he said
nothing.  "I started to take stock of what I knew.  There were some
things I could do nowt about.  If a patient had a fatal illness, I did
no' have the skills to intervene, and often it was clear to me that no
one had the necessary skills. That person was going to die whatever I
said or did.  Like poor Fergus.

But sometimes I sensed a situation that I could affect.  "

" Such as?   "

"Once I purposely lost the discharge papers on a patient who was to go
home one morning, and that afternoon she suffered a heart attack.  She
survived because she was still in hospital.  Another time I scribbled a
note in a chart and forged a signature.  It led a doctor to order more
testing and saved another patient's life.  A classmate complained of
menstrual cramps, and I dragged her to casualty.  Her appendix had
nearly ruptured."

"Come on, Mara.  Those were all things you might have noticed or known
because of your training."

"There was a young doctor at the hospital, Robert Fitzwilliams.  Robbie
told me one morning that he was going to fly to Austria for a skiing
holiday with his friends over the weekend.  I saw an avalanche and
certain death.  I was terribly worried, but I did no' know what to do.
He was no' a particularly sensitive man.  I knew he would only laugh if
I told him what I'd seen."  -- She stood and faced the fire, crossing
her arms as if she were still chilled.

"The night before he was to leave I saw Robbie making rounds.  I went
into the doctors' lounge and went through his jacket and found his
airplane ticket.  I took  it and hid it under my cardigan.  By the next
morning, when Robbie discovered the ticket was gone, it was too late to
replace it, and he missed his trip.  He was furious enough to make
inquiries.  Someone remembered that they'd seen me leaving the doctors'
lounge, a place I never should have been.  Robbie confronted me, of
course.  I did no' know what to do except tell him the truth and return
his ticket."

She turned.

"Robbie said he was going to report me on Monday when the hospital
administration returned.  That night there was an avalanche on a trail
at the resort where he'd been scheduled to stay.  Several skiers died,
among them Robbie's friends."

"Surely he saw it was a coincidence.  Avalanches aren't uncommon."

"No' one of that dimension.  Robbie believed he'd escaped death because
of my intervention.  He was grateful.  I was lonely.  Gratitude seemed
to lead naturally to love.  We married the next year.  I was certain
that at last someone understood my strange gift, and that he would help
me deal with its burdens.  And at first he did."

"At first?"

"Robbie was... is a fine doctor.  But nowt in his training could compete
with my predictions.  After a few months he began to resent me.  He
wanted victory over death.  He worked twelve hour days, and when he was
no' working, he studied.  But I had only to walk into a room and I could
tell if a patient was going to live or die."

"I gather you're not married to him now?"

"No, I left him.  Robbie did what my parents had done.  He began to make
me doubt myself.  He questioned me constantly, but he never wanted to
hear my answers.  He belittled me to his friends and colleagues.  At
home he found fault with everything I did and was."

Duncan might not believe that Mara had the gift she claimed, but she
believed it, and it had caused her nothing but sorrow.  He wanted to
reach out to her, but he was too cautious and too skeptical of all she'd
said.  He could only manage a gruff

"I'm sorry."

69 "Thank you, but I'm no'.  I stayed with Robbie for three years.  I
believed in marriage, but I did no' believe in myself.

Now I believe in both, but they have to go hand in hand, do they no'?  "

She had revealed so much, in the spaces between sentences as well as in
the sentences themselves.  She talked with reserve about her marriage
and her childhood, but he suspected there was a great deal more to each
than she'd related.

What had her husband done to make her leave him?  And what about her
parents? She'd said that their punishments had gotten harsher as she'd
aged, but what exactly did that mean?  And the school where she'd been
sent?  What had the teachers done to continue the destruction of her
spirit?  How had she survived the continued onslaught on her
self-respect?

Duncan didn't believe in Mara's abilities, but he believed in her.  He
realized it, and battled it the next instant.

"I can't accept any of this," he said.  He stood.  She was only a few
feet from him.

"You are no' the first, Duncan."

He saw resignation in her eyes and not a trace of anger.  She didn't
expect support or even understanding.  She had come to the Highlands to
learn to live without either.  She lived alone because she believed that
was her only salvation.

Perhaps if she had expected more from him, he would have turned away.

He thought of that as he moved toward her.  He reached out, and he saw
her tense.  But she didn't move away.

She had schooled herself to face whatever was thrown at her.

He touched her shoulder.  His hand rested lightly there.

"I can't accept any of this," he repeated.

"But I accept that you believe it, Mara.  I don't believe that anyone
can see the future.

I don't know what you see, and I don't know why.

But I know you're not lying to me.  "

She didn't relax under his touch, but she didn't move away.

"You realize you'll have to reconcile that someday, do you no'?  You'll
have to find a way to explain to yourself that I'm no' lying but I'm no'
telling the truth."

 "Why don't we just leave it the way it is?"

"Why should we leave it any way?   We're strangers.   We can remain
strangers."

She was right, but she didn't feel like a stranger.  He was unwillingly
entranced by the delicate curve of her shoulder under his palm, the
sheen of her hair in the firelight, the candid, wounded green of her
eyes.

"Can you see your own future?"  he asked.  "No.  And I can no' see the
future of anyoneI love."

"Can you see mine?"

She paused.

"No."

'"

" Then I'll be easy for you to know.   "

She shook her head.

"There's nowt easy about you, Duncan Sinclair."

"And nothing so hard."  He dropped his hand.

"Right now I'm just a man with a favor to ask."

She took a deep breath, as if to cleanse herself of all she'd said.

"What could I possibly do for you?"

"Would you join April and me for a picnic on Saturday?  It's her
birthday, and she wants you to help us celebrate."

"And all the things you said before?  After tonight you must know I have
no' changed, but I have no new way to explain the things I see."

"I'm sorry."  The words tasted strange against his tongue.  " He had
said them so rarely, but never with more sincerity.

"I shouldn't have said the things I did.  I know you won't hurt April.

And you were right.  She seems to need something you can give her.  She
wants you in her life.  " " And you?  "

He wasn't sure what she was asking.

"I would be grateful if you'd be our friend."

She hesitated before she spoke.  He could see her sifting through
answers, and he couldn't rate his chances of success.

"Shall I pack a picnic tea, or shall you?"  she asked at last.

He was surprised at his own pleasure.

"I'll have Frances put a basket together for all of us.  Will you choose
a place?

Is there somewhere near enough to walk to?  "

71 ~J~CIer lips turned up slowly into a smile.

"Aye, I know a place.  I can almost guarantee you'll feel at home
there."

"Good."

"You'll be careful going back to the hotel tonight?  No more clashes
with lorries on my road?"

He had already turned to go, but he turned back.

"You don't know something I should know, do you?"

She shook her head.

"Mara, have you considered that you didn't predict I would have a brush
with death tonight?"

"I've considered it, aye."

"And?"

"You did no' die, did you, Duncan?"

He wasn't dead; that much was true.  He had gone in search of lights
where no lights should have been, and that bit of whimsy had saved his
life.  He had been spellbound by stray moonbeams and swirling mists, by
an illusion that for moments had seemed like a woman beckoning. Scotland
was getting to him.

Duncan had planned to go back to the hotel after leaving Mira's, but
instead he found himself heading toward the Ross estate, several miles
in the other direction.  He turned onto the road that girdled Loch Ceo.

As a boy he had taken this trip often.  Had the circumstances been
different, he might never have shared more than a word or two with Iain
Ross.  But the good people of Druidheachd had proclaimed that the wee
laddies of midnight would be raised together.  And the Rosses, like the
Sinclairs and MacDougalls, hadn't been courageous enough to refuse.

The Ross home, Fearnshader, had been a second home to Duncan.  And
Iain's parents had welcomed him and treated him with the same mixture of
reserve and warmth with which they treated their son.  Only Andrew had
been treated differently, Andrew who had never thought twice about
crawling up on the lap of Lady Mary Ross and throwing his chubby arms
around her neck.  There had always been an extra smile for Andrew, a
glance the other way when he misbehaved, an extra scone or spoonful of
jam when no one was looking.

The elder Rosses were gone now, Malcolm Ross of a sudden illness when
Iain was only ten, and Mary Ross of heartbreak--diagnosed as
pneumonia--less than a year later.  Iain had been sent away to school in
England.  On holidays he had grown from youth into adulthood under the
care of servants and an aged great-uncle who rarely left his bed.

There was a legend repeated in Druidheachd, one as old as the village
itself, that the Rosses of Iain's line would never know happiness. There
had ben a curse on one of Iain's ancestors, a chieftain of his clan, and
the modern-day Rosses still labored under its spell.  No one knew the
particulars of the curse--at least, no one who was willing to talk about
it--but almost anyone in the village could count back generations and
relate stories about

"Rosses who had died under mysterious circumstances or lived desperately
unhappy lives.

Legends and curses, the stuff of the Middle Ages, but still a vital part
of the lore of Druidheachd.  As he drove, Duncan wondered about his own
decision to return.  He had come here to give April a stable place to
recover from her mother's neglect, and he had wanted to make a success
of the hotel so that he could make a greater profit when he sold it. But
what exactly had he done? Apparently even he wasn't immune to the
effects of Druidheachd's magic. Witness his -sympathy tonight for one
green-eyed fairy-witch who believed she could see into the future.

The fog had lessened as the night wore on.  The road ahead of him was
clear. It widened perceptibly as he approached Iain's house.  He had
been on Ross land for miles.  There was little of the surrounding area
that Iain didn't have title to, although most of it was leased to
others.  He rounded a bend and saw the skeletal outline of Ceo Castle
beside the loch.  It was daunting in moonlight, daunting in sunlight. He
knew every stone, every step, every grisly reminder of ancient tortures
deep in the castle dungeons.  He had romped through the halls with
Andrew and 73 Iain, camped in chambers where princes had slept, shot
handmade arrows through slits in the north tower. Ceo Castle was as much
a part of the mystery and reality of Druidheachd as the glistening
midnight waters of Loch Ceo.

He turned away from the castle and started up a drive that led to an
inlet of the loch.  He drove until the castle had disappeared behind a
grove of alders at his left, which gave Fearnshader--alder house--its
name.  He parked beside a small, vacant gatehouse and started toward the
house.  Rhododendrons as tall as small trees lined the path.  Duncan
knew that in a month or two peonies, roses and sweet william would
perfume the journey to the front door. In Mary Ross's day the gardens of
Fearnshader had been renowned throughout the Highlands.

He paused at the doorway and reconsidered his visit, but only for a
moment. He let the knocker, a ferocious bronze gargoyle, fall against
the carved mahogany door.  Then he waited.

Iain answered on the third knock.  His household staff was small.  He
was seldom at home, and when he was, he liked solitude.  More than once
Duncan had been ushered into the cavernous kitchen to find Iain at the
stove alone, frying his own sausages for supper.  ~ Duncan stared at
Iain, lounging in the doorway.  He was casually dressed in dark trousers
and a shirt of finely woven cotton.  His hair was rumpled, as if he had
finger-combed the curls he despised on the way to the door.  ~ "Are you
alone?"  Duncan asked.

"Unfortunately."  He stepped aside, and Duncan entered.

Fearnshader was large by the standards of anyone except other landed
gentry. The hallway was wide enough for a bevy of servants to pass
without touching; the rooms were many and varied, all with elaborately
ornamented plaster cornices and skillfully carved woodwork.

~ "I've got a fire in the sitting room."

"Am I interrupting something?"

"Contemplation.  You're welcome to interrupt."

 Duncan followed Iain through the hallway.  On those rare Highland days
when the sun shone, the sitting room was awash in light, but tonight the
heavy formal draperies were drawn against the chill, and the massive
dark furniture that cluttered every square foo_t seemed on guard against
pleasant thoughts.

"You need to have a garage sale, Macbeth," Duncan said.  "Scrap
everything in here and start all over."

"Better men than you have sat on these chairs, Sinclair."

"And after spending a few evenings in here, they probably didn't even
flinch when their heads were lopped off or their kingdoms snatched out
from under their noses."

"You have no respect for tradition."  Iain flopped into a particularly
aged chair with fraying upholstery.  He gestured to the one beside him.

The fire was warm, and despite the gloom, Duncan could feel himself
beginning to relax.

"Just out for a drive?"  Iain asked.

"Have I ever, in all my years, just gone out for a drive?"

 "That's one of the things that's wrong with you."

"Do you want to tell me the others?  Or don't we have that much time?"

"You're overly cocky and underly appreciative of the value of my
friendship."

"I'm here, aren't I?  And I came solely for a chunk of your remarkable
insight."

"Then you don't have enough time.  It would take me years to set you on
the proper course."

Duncan put his feet out and his arms behind his head.  He stared at the
flames, and they reminded him of the fireplace at Mara's cottage.

"I was just up at Mara MacTavish's."

"At this hour?"

"April wanted me to invite her for a birthday picnic.  You and Andrew
are invited to the hotel Saturday night, by the way, for cake and ice
cream."

: ~ "I wouldn't miss it."

Duncan knew Iain was sincere.  Iain adored April.  He lavished her with
affection, brought her dolls and dresses 75 from faraway places and,
this year, the first primroses and violets from Fearnshader's gardens.
He was her beloved uncle, and she worshipped him and Andrew equally.

"Seven o'clock," he said.

"And be on time, even if Andrew isn't."

"You weren't just up at Mara's to invite her on a picnic, were you?"   '
"No.   We'd had a run in."

"And you went to apologize?  The guilt must have been overwhelming."

Duncan smiled.  Iain understood him so well.

"She's not your everyday run-of-the-mill beautiful woman."

"You've been listening to the good folk of Druidheachd?"

"I haven't needed to.  She gave me a small sampling of her so-called
abilities a few weeks ago.  You know, don't you, that she claims to be
able to see the future?"

 "I know quite a lot about Mara.   Is that why you're here?   ' " Yes.
"

"What is it you plan to do with whatever I tell you?"  Duncan
considered. The bantering was over.

"I don't know what I'll do.  I don't even know why I'm interested."

 "You said it yourself.   She's a beautiful woman."

"But I'm not in the market for another beautiful woman with her head
screwed on backwards."

"Mara is not Lisa."  .  "Why don't you tell me who she is, then?  Start
with why you sold her such a godforsaken piece of property.  Or better
yet, tell me how you met her."

The fire had burned down a little more before lain answered.

"I met her through her husband ... her ex-husband.

He was my physician.  "

"He practiced a little too faraway to treat colds and stomach aches,
didn't he?"

"I had a problem I had to consult him about."  Iain didn't elaborate.

"He's very capable and, on the surface, quite a pleasant chap.  He
invited me out to dinner after an appointment.  Mara met us at the
restaurant.  It became a tradition of sorts.  Whenever I was in
Edinburgh, or later, after they moved to Pitlochry in Perthshire, we
would dine together.  It was a harmless habit, one I saw no reason to
break.  But eventually I couldn't close my eyes to the way Fitzwilliams
treated Mara.  He seemed to pride himself on humiliating her."

Duncan recognized the edge in Iain's voice.  He knew from childhood
skirmishes how deceptive Iain's patrician manner could be.  He was
perfectly capable of going from bored lord of the manor to avenging
angel in the blink of an eye.

"She said that he belittled her."

"That's gently put.  The last time the three of us were together, she
was a bit late getting to the restaurant.  Fitzwilliams entertained
himself and me with two extra rounds of drinks.  By the time she arrived
he was in fine form.  He told me that Mara fancied herself able to tell
the future, but she couldn't tell when her own car would get stuck in
traffic.  She tried to quiet him down, but he got more loathsome as the
night went on.  He told one tale after another about Mara's strange
abilities, twisting them to make her look like a fool.  I tried to leave
once, but he wouldn't let me, and I didn't want to make a scene, because
I knew it would upset Mara more."

Iain turned so that he and Duncan were eye to eye.

"Finally, Mara tried to leave.  But Fitzwilliams wouldn't allow that,
either. He'd had far too much to drink by then.  He leaned over the
table, and he said that Mara was just upset because he'd told her that
morning that he never wanted children.  He was afraid a child of hers
might have the sight, too.  He said he didn't want another freak in his
family.  One was more than enough."

"The bastard!"

"Aye, but he's like too many of us, Dunc.  He's frightened of anything
he doesn't understand."

Duncan felt the sting of Iain's rebuke.

"And you understand Mara?  You really believe she can see the future
like that old Margaret Henley, who decreed that you and An- drew and I
had been born together for some great purpose and we shouldn't be
separated?"

77 "There's magic in this place, Duncan.  We both know it.  There will
always be things that happen here--and everywhere, for that matter--that
we can't understand.  I don't know what Mara sees, and I don't know why.
But I know her.  I stood by her during her divorce, and I offered her
that godforsaken bit of land because she needed isolation.  She needed a
place to build her confidence.  I could give her that, and I did."

"Did Fitzwilliams leave her destitute?"

"Oh, not at all.  She has money.  She lives the way she chooses to live.
She's building her self-respect with every stone of that cottage, with
every hank of yarn she spins, with every plant in her garden and sheep
in her steading."

Iain didn't let himself care about people easily.  But he cared about
Mara; that was obvious.  Duncan knew he had to let the things Iain had
said to him settle.  There was just one more thing he had to know.

"What did you do to Fitzwilliams when he called Mara a freak?"

Iain smiled for the first time that night.

"I threw him halfway across the room.  It was a very nice restaurant.
I'm afraid I quite spoiled a platter of roast duckling and a six- layer
torte."

Chapter 6.

With his heart in his throat, Duncan watched April fling herself at
Guiser, but before he could intervene, the dog methodically covered the
little girl's face with canine kisses.  "I suppose this proves she needs
a pet," he told Mara, who had come down the path in front of her cottage
just after the dog.

"A wee kitty, perhaps.  Imagine the havoc a dog with Guiser's
energ~wbuld wreak at your hotel."

Duncan almost protested that the hotel didn't belong to him.  It
belonged to his father, and he was only managing it until it could
belong to someone else.  But he supposed Mara was right.  The Sinclair
Hotel was his, as well as his sister's, at least temporarily, even if
that thought made him feel a thousand years old.

"One of my neighbors has a cat with kittens just old enough to give
away.  We could stop there on the way home this afternoon."  Mara was
careful to be sure that April, still occupied with Guiser, didn't
overhear her.

"It would make a good birthday gift," Duncan admitted.

"Then might I give one to her?"

He pretended to consider, but he used the seconds study her.  She was
dressed in a green sweater and skirt pale as the newest leaves of
spring.  Her hair was pulled bain a long braid that fell past her
shoulder blades, and sl wore a straw hat with a wide brim that shaded
her face fro the day's rare and glorious sunshine.  Perhaps he had kno,
more beautiful women, women who understood fashion ar artifice and made
the most of both.  But he had never kno, 'anyone whose beauty appealed
to him more.  He shook his head.

"I used to be in advertising.  I had account a couple of years ago that
depended on finding tl perfect model.  I lost it because nobody I tound
could ev~ come close to the image we were trying to promote.  Ar here
you are."

She smiled.

"You're saying that it was someone like n you were looking for?"

"Exactly."

"What was the product?"

"Fabric softener."

Her smile widened.

"Should Ibe flattered?"  He thought of the ad campaign that had come to
notl ing.  Of acres of billowing clouds and a wo~aan dancing ju'~ above
them, as feather light and delicate as a fairy.

"Fla tered?  I don't know.  I've never really uncerstood the w~ women
think.

But you'd have made money.  "

~ "I've never wanted to be rich."  ' m,~ "Just happy?"

"Perhaps not even.  as grand a thing as t~at."

"Can I have a kitten, Daddy?   Please?"   April jumped her feet, pushing
the fawning Guiser away.

"Can Mara gix me a kitten?"

Duncan raised a brow, and Mara shrugged.

"I can no' blamed.  Her hearing'sexceptional," she said.

"If Mara is willing, I'm willing," Duncan said.  "We'll have to check
with n~y neigh bar first," Mm warned.

"No promises."

"But you think she'll let me have one?"  "Aye.  I think it's possible."

 Duncan watched April run toward the cottage with Guiser close at her
heels.

"Thank you for coming with us today,"

he said.

"I don't know that I'd have been as charitable as you are, under the
same circumstances."

"What circumstances are those?"

He saw humor in her eyes.

"I haven't exactly been fair to you."

"I think you must have your reasons."

"And I'm still not sure how I feel about all this."

"You're sure, Duncan.   You think I'm a wee bit daft.   But you're
willing to overlook it.   I take what I can get."   He realized that had
become his philosophy, too, at least as far as Mara MacTavish was
concerned.   He couldn't dwell on her supposed gifts, because he found
the idea so impossible.

But he was beginning to think he might be able to wall away his doubts.

She was worth a little effort.

"I've packed a few extra treats.  Let's get them, then we can start our
walk."

He fell into step beside her.

"We're walking from here?"

 "Along a sheep path.   You might be surprised where sheep will go."

81 "What if you're wrong'?"

"Well, I suppose I will have had a wheen happy hours just pretending
you're a better man than you are."

He laughed, and she laughed, too.  He couldn't remember suffering such
ferocious criticism so gladly.  He felt rebuked and forgiven, and he
realized, for the first time, that he had needed her forgiveness.  He
didn't examine it too closely; he was just glad to get it.

The door to the cottage stood open, and April had already gone inside.

Duncan followed Mara through the doorway.  He crossed the threshold and
stopped, examining her handiwork as she and April gathered containers
from the kitchen and put them in a canvas backpack like the one firmly
in place on his own back.

With sunlight streaming through the doorway and windows, he could see
the details that he had ignored on his last visit.  The cottage was
simple, almost primitive in its construction, but everything had been
put together with craftsmanship and an eye for detail and beauty.  The
rafters were hand-hewn hardwood.  He imagined they had once graced a
barn or stable. Bunches of dried herbs and flowers hung from them in
colorful, lacy disarray. Without peat stool.  ' dering in the fireplace,
he could smell their subtle perfume.

There was a hlt to her vince that ~ntngued him.  You i] ~ ~i~.  The
walls were a patchwork quilt of shapes.  The stones sound like you're
enjoying this already.  "

' i~had been assembled so expertly that they seemed to form "I've been
looking forward to it."  f ill: pictures.  He imagined that on a cold
winter night, they He read between the lines.  She'd been looking
forward to ~ !  :~ i~rovided hours of entertainment and fantasy.  today
because she had so little contact with people.  And she.  ~ Almost
everything in the cottage had been handcrafted, loved children--he could
see that in the way she treated 5: ~ and possibly a great deal of it had
been crafted by Mara April--but she seldom had a chance to be with them.
She surprised him when she continued.

"I've been looking forward to knowing you better."

"Have you?"

"Aye.  I dinna think you're the dour, humorless, judgmental and arrogant
skellum that you pretend to be."

She'd said it with such charm, he couldn't feel insulted.  "I'm
relieved.  I think."

"Dinna fasb yourself, Duncan.  I think you're a sensitive man who feels
things so deeply he does no' know what to do about them.  So he tries
no' to feel them."

herself.  The furniture was simple, certainly not as crude as might have
been found in the but and ben houses of old crofting settlements, but
cho~n with utility and modest el- eganee in mind.  The walnut table in
the kitchen shone from a century of careful polishing.  Hand-thrown
pottery of subtle hues adorned it, along with a bouquet of golden
daffodils and grape hyacinth.  The bed loomed large not more than three
yards from him.  It was high off the stone floor, a wide wooden
rectangle with what looked to be a comfortable mattress.

He found himself staring at it, imagining  Mara asleep there at night,
surrounded by the fragrance of smoldering peat and drying herbs, her
long blond hair flowing over the pastel pillowcases.

"Do you approve, Duncan?"

She had asked the question humorously, a woman who'd caught a man with
more on his mind than decor, but he sensed she really wanted to know.
Did he approve of everything she'd accomplished?  And did he approve of
her?

"It'sextraordinary.  You're extraordinary for living here."

"There's still much to be done.   It has no' been easy, nor will it be.
But it's mine."

"And you've done it all by yourself?"

"Could you see me lifting those timbers for the ro9f alone?"

"No.  I can't see you hauling stones, either."

"Well, the stones I did.   There was a settlement here once, and stones
aplenty for the taking when I began to build.   Sometimes late at night
I like to imagine the lives of the people who lived among them."

"You hauled the stones and set them in place?"

"The stones are not as large as you might think.   These walls are a
double thickness.   Did you know?"   "Double?"

April was busy with Guiser again.  Mara beckoned Dun- can to the
doorway.

"If this frame were gone you could see how it's done.  There are two
rows of stones, filled in with earth and whatever was handy.  It was a
natural way to insulate against wind and cold.  My house is snug in the
coldest winter."  ' "Is that how the old houses were built?"

"It was.  I tried, as best I could, to do everything the same " Why?  "

"I've always been interested in history.  My ancestors lived not more
than fifty miles from Druidheachd before the Clearances, and probably
had a croft much like this one.  I had an auntie who knew our family
history, and she used to tell me stories."  She paused.

~ He could almost see her editing what she w0dd say nex "What did she
tell you?"

She looked away.

"This and that.  But I al~ays found t~ stories of life in the Highlands
fascinating."

"I find stories of the Romans fascinating, but I've hey{ built my own
amphitheatre or hired gladiators to enter tai at my parties."

"Will you promise no' to laugh?"

"Scout's honor."

She didn't look convinced.

"When I've finished what I'~ set out to do, I'd like to bring
schoolchildren here to teac them the old ways.  No' because all the old
ways are bette~ mind you, but because we are sometimes in danger of for
getting where we came from and what we once knew."

"What would you teach?"

"A bit of everything.  Caring for animals, the spinnin.

and dying of yarn, construction methods, gardening an, preserving food,
the old customs and beliefs.  "

"It sounds ambitious."

"It is ambitious.  I won't be ready for a year 0r two, an, then only
just the smallest number of children could corn for a week i~ the
summer.  But it would be a beginning would it no'?  ' ~ " I think it's a
fine idea.  "

;i~ .  .  filll ~ ~BeUs~aWr~e~dtoY saU;t~datAtPh[~'as ~not APril'~
heritage an therefore there was LITTLE need for this in her life, but
even a the words formed, he realized how false they were.  He wa
descended from crofters himself.  And not just from hi Druidheachd-born
father.  His mother had be~na fifth gert erat ion American, but a branch
of her ancestors, like ~ multitude of Scots, had been transported to the
Unite~ States against their will in the early 1800s.  The Clearance had
rid the mountains of the troublesome, clannish High landers and made
them safe for the sheep of wealthy Englishmen And when that tragic time
had finally ended there had been more Scots living outside Their 0'~tn
countr].

than within its borders.

 "I would send April," he said.

"It might be her only chance to know something about her history."

"Why?  She'll be taught it in school."

"We won't be here long.  Just long enough to put the hotel on its feet
and sell it.  Then we'll be moving on."

"I did no' know."

"I think I owe it to April to raise her somewhere more cosmopolitan,"

he said dryly.

"Do you now?"

"You don't sound convinced."

"There are things to learn everywhere.  She'll learn things in
Druidheachd she'd never learn in New York or London and vice versa.
Who's to say which is more valuable?"

She smiled.

"And so you should, like a good father."  He wanted to protest.  He
wasn't a good father.  He had been an abysmal failure when April most
needed him.  But Duncan never talked about his failures--or his
successes.

"Can we go?"  April asked, coming to join them.  Guiser wagged his tail
as if to repeat the question.

"Aye, I think it's time," Mara said.

"Do we have everything?"

"I hope so.  I feel like I'm carrying half of Scotland on my back."

She laughed.  April and Guiser scampered through the doorway, and Mara
followed.  Duncan was the last out.

"Shouldn't I lock the door?"  he called after them.  Mara turned, and
the sunlight wasn't nearly as bright as the expression on her face.

"Silly mannie.  We trust each other here.

We dinna have to lock our doors.  I suppose that's just one of those
things you will no' be learning in New York.  " .

The spot Mara had chosen for their picnic was the meadow where Duncan
had first encountered her at winter's end.  Duncan hadn't been aware
that it was so close to her house, because by the road, it would have
been a twisting and treacherous drive.  But by foot, along a trail
blazed over the centuries by flocks of cloven hooves, the meadow 85 and
the small loch that he had been headed toward that day were only a
pleasant hike.

They stopped for everything.  April wanted to examine every rock, every
sprouting wildflower, every clump of fern or heather.  She threw fallen
twigs for Guiser and collected shining pieces of agate to set on the
windowsill of her room.

It was after noon when they reached the meadow.  A profusion of violets
and cowslips greeted them.  The tall grass seemed to turn a deeper green
as Duncan watched, stretching toward the cloudless sky and rippling in
gratitude.

"It's a rare and perfect day," Mara said.

"The sun is out for your birthday, April.  It's God's own present."

"The sun doesn't shine here much, does it?"

"i'm no'."   afraid "So when it does, you notice it.   Like now.   I
never noticed it at home, because it was always there."

"Then you like this better?"

April considered.

"No.  But it makes a good present."  Duncan and Mara laughed together.

"Just tell me one thing," Mara said, after April scampered off.

"With a bonny name like April, why is her birthday in May?"

"She made a late arrival, a whole month late~ She was SUpposed to be
born m April, he said.

"And you liked the name so you could no' bear to change " My ex-wife
never let anything as unimportant as reality ~:~-'~'-stop her from doing
whatever she wanted," Duncan said.

They chose a spot not far from where Duncan had seen the light show that
had led him to Geordie Smith.  Duncan cleared away the largest stones
and spread a thin blanket on the ground.  In a companionable silence he
and Mara unpacked their backpacks, while April and Guiser searched
unsuccessfully for the seas oh first forget-menots.

Frances Gunn had outdone herself in honor of April's birthday.  There
were tiny sandwiches of smoked salmon and cucumber, and more of a tangy
local cheese garnished with the tart watercress that grew along a small
burn near the hotel.  There were apples saved over the winter in
Frances's  fruit cellar and freshly baked oatcake studded with plump
raisins.

Mara had added raspberry jam made with berries from her own garden and
scones she had baked that morning, along with thick cream from Bluebell,
her best milk cow.  Mara and Duncan drank fragrant tea from one thermos,
and April finished two glasses of fresh, sweet milk from another.

Duncan stretched out with a backpack as a pillow after a determined
April and Guiser went off to search for forget me-nots again.

"Bluebell is a health hazard."  Mara stretched out beside him.

"I'll have you know she's been examined and vaccinated, and she's a very
proper cow, as cows go."

Duncan didn't think about his next move.  He reached for her,
repositioning her so that her head was pillowed on his well-satiated
belly.

"So you can watch April, too," he explained.

"It takes two to keep a good eye on her."

"Guiser will watch over her."

Duncan felt an urge to stroke Mara's hair.  Her braid lay across his
chest, and he wondered if it was as silky as it appeared.

He wondered what she would do if he touched her in such an intimate way.
He wondered what he would do.

He kept his hands by his side and chose a safe subject.  "Bluebell's a
health hazard because her milk is so rich.  I can feel my arteries
clogging."

"When you lived in Los Angeles, did you nibble on lettuce leaves and
have your own personal trainer?"

"I was always too busy.  The only way I got to the gym n " was if a
client was there and wanted my com pa y.  "You said you were in
advertising."

"I had my own agency."

"And did you give it up because you had so little time for anything
else?"

The obvious answer was no.  Duncan had thrived on hard work.  His
adrenaline had soared higher and higher with each success.  There had
been nothing else in his life that had come close to the exhilaration of
winning a new account.

But there was a less obvious answer.

"In a way I gave up because I didn't have time for April," he said.

"in away?"

"When I divorced April's mother, she told me I could have all the time
with April that I wanted if I was willing I pay a small, price."

"A price?"

"Lisa traded sole custody of April for all my financi: assets, including
the agency.  She took our net worth.  I toc our daughter."

' "You made the better bargain."

Mara hadn't even hesitated, although he knew she mm have been shocked by
his revelation.

"I did," he agreed "And now April's mine, and Lisa can never hurt he
again."

"Hurt her, Duncan?"

He debated whether to tell her a little about Lisa.  If Mar was going to
spend time with April, she needed to unde~ stand.

"Lisa was worse than a failure as a mother.  Sh foisted 3,pril off on
anyone who would take her.  I w~ working too hard, and for too long I
didn't know what wa happening."

Mara shifted so that her cheek was against his shirt an, she could see
his face.  The intimacy of the position wasn' lost on him.  He wondered
how it would feel to have he against him this way, cheek to bare skin.
She too easily in spired those kinds of thoughts.

"But dinna a lot of people find that adjusting to a chil~ takes time?"
she asked.

"Was your wife so unusual?"

"I wish it had been that simple.  But Lisa never wanted t~ face the real
world.  When I met her, she was a strugglinl actress, a good one, but
without the self-discipline or driw to succeed, so she married me.  And
after April's birth, sb found that the real world still wasn't much fun,
so she retreated into the New Age.  I don't think I'll ever know ev.

erythingshe did.  Some of it was harmless, even healthy, like meditation
and yoga.  But she quickly moved on to other~ things.  For a while she
was an astrologer and self- proclaimed psychic.  She surrounded herself
with crystals  She claimed to see auras.  She talked endlessly about her
past lives.

At one point she believed she could teach herself to travel anywhere in
the universe while she was lying on our bed, which she did for days at a
time.  "

"But dinna a lot of people search for answers?  Perhaps her choices were
no' traditional ones, but do we all have to follow the same paths?"

"I told myself the same thing.  And I shut my eyes to how obsessed she'd
become with all of it, and how completely oblivious she was to April.
After more than two years of floundering and searching, Lisa found her
answer.  She became the disciple of a man who preached brotherly love
and psychic healing, along with total and complete obedience to his
teachings.  His church--if it could be called a church-- was named the
Temple of Knowledge and Joy, and I suppose those were the things Lisa
was searching for.  She began to spend all her time at indoctrination
sessions.  She sold all her jewelry and gave him the profits.  She took
huge chunks out of our savings and signed over a number of our
investments.  She'd always handled our personal finances, so I didn't
find out until it was too late."

"So you divorced her and took April?"

He wished with all his heart that it had been that straightforward.

"No.  I left Lisa, but I let her keep April.  I could see that Lisa's
behavior was unhealthy, but I couldn't see what it was doing to our
daughter. When it came time to decide custody, Lisa promised me she
wasn't involved with the Temple anymore, and I believed her.  I really
thought she loved April, and I didn't believe she would do anything to
hurt her.

I worked so many hours each day that I just couldn't see how I could
care for April by myself.  " " Then you did what you thought was best. "

He was surprised that she sounded so certain.

"Did I?  When I visited April, she clung to me like she was drowning.

I thought she just missed me, but that she would get used to our divorce
the way I had gotten used to my own parents' divorce when I was a child.
"

"Those would be natural explanations."

Or the explanations of a man too obsessed with his ~ importance to care
enough about his own daughter.

Duncan didn't add that part.

"After I left, Lisa went from leaving April with um able people to
leaving her alone.  I went to visit April late evening, and before I
could even get the front door locked I heard screaming.  Lisa hadn't
known I was c, ing, so she'd locked April in her bedroom and gone of
finally quieted April and got her to sleep, then I waited Lisa.  She
didn't come back until early the next morro When I confronted her, she
claimed that someone from Temple was supposed to have come over to stay
with A[ but she couldn't give me a name. When April woke ul took her
into the office for the day.  At four o'clock Lisa arrived with her
attorney, demanded that I give April ba and the negotiations began. I've
told you how they ende " But could you no' have gotten custody without
giving everything?  Would your American courts no' have t ferred a
healthy father to a mother with psycho log problems?  "

"Unfortunately, I couldn't prove what I knew.  Whe found April alone
that night I didn't call anyone to cc and help me verify Lisa's neglect.
I was too upset to th that far ahead.  And none of Lisa's neighbors
would tes~ ~~against her, because they were afraid some of her more
::~~bious friends might retaliate.  April was too young to l:
4~:~'~reliable source of testimony.  So I was told that either I co~
share custody of April with Lisa, or I could give Lisa wh ever she
demanded."

"And that's what you did."

"I'd have paid a thousand times more to get her out April's life.  I
didn't want my daughter alone with her fc minute.  Now April never has
to see Lisa again."  Mara sat up.  She stared down at Duncan.

"You can ~ mean you deny April the chance to see her mother?"

"That's exactly what I mean.   That's why we're here.   I has a short
attention span and very little desire to exert h self.   She won't
follow us to Druidheachd.   April's safe he And in a year, when the
hotel's sold, we'll move so~  where else.   By then Lisa will have
forgotten she has a daughter."

"Never."

He sat up, too.

"You don't know her."

"Lisa sounds incapable of caring for a child, that's certain.  But I can
no' believe it's best for April never to see her own mother again.  Does
she no' miss her, Duncan?  Does she no' ask about her?"

April didn't ask about her mother.  Not anymore.  She was more sensitive
to nuance than any child should have to be.

And Duncan knew that his clipped, evasive answers to the questions she
had asked had been a warning that Lisa wasn't to be discussed.

Mara was still waiting for an answer.  He could feel anger rising inside
him.

"Lisa will never put her hands on my daughter again.  She doesn't
deserve to be April's mother.  She abandoned her and neglected her.  My
little girl still has nightmares about being left alone.  I can't
believe you think a woman like that should have any part in April's
life."

Mara stared at him.  Then she shook her head.

"Duncan, when will you forgive yourself for no' being a better father?"

"How dare you pretend you can read my mind!"  She shook her head slowly,
sadly.

"It's no' your mind I'm reading but your heart.  And I have no special
powers to help me.  Your guilt is visible to anyone who cares enough to
look behind your anger."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

Her voice grew softer.

"Am I wrong?  Or are you no' distressed that you did no' protect April
from so much sadness?

Are you no' consumed with guilt that you worked so hard you had little
time for her and ignored the signals that she was suffering?  I think
you're afraid that you and Lisa are more alike than anyone knows.  And
you can no' forgive her, because you can no' forgive yourself.  " "
Maybe you're not pretending to have psychic powers.

But what gives you the right to psychoanalyze me?  "

91 "I have no right, but I have no secrets, either.  I've lived too many
years pretending I have no thoughts or feelings about anything.  I'll
live that way no longer."  He wanted to stay angry.  He didn't want this
woman to understand him so well, better, perhaps, than he understood
himself.

But he was a fair man.  At his very core he was fair--if nothing else.

She rose, as if to leave.

He rose, too, and took her arm.  She looked down at his hand, then up at
his face.  He dropped his hand.

"Don't go," he said.

"I'm sorry I spoiled the afternoon.  I shouldn't have dumped all my
problems on you."

"You'll have to decide now if we're going to be friends or just
acquaintances.  Friends sometimes have to dump their problems--and
sometimes have to endure suggestions on how to solve them."

He heard April's laughter from the grove of trees just beyond them.

The same grove of trees where this woman had somehow--and
improbably--entered his life.  He wondered how he could have ignored
what was now so obvious.

He hadn't asked Mara to come today because of April.  That had been a
part of it, but there had been more behind his invitation.  He had
wanted to get to know her better, not to protect his daughter but to
risk a part of himself.

He took a step toward her.

"I don't endure suggestions well.  I'm sorry.  I didn't want to hear
what you said."

"And I'm sorry I was so blunt.  But I've wasted too much of my life
saying what other people wanted to hear."

"I appreciate honesty.  Just not when it's applied to my life."

She smiled and put her hand on his.

"Shall we walk down to the loch?"

The door was neither open nor closed.  But it was still ajar.  He felt
her fingers brushing his skin.  Her hand was soft, despite its calluses.
He could almost feel reassurance flow through her fingertips,
reassurance and a curious kind of  strength.  He didn't want to feel
anything.  And he didn't want to smile at her.

But he did, and he covered her hand.

"You're a far different man when you smile," she said.  "I can almost
understand why I'm wasting this beautiful day with you when I could be
cutting peats or mucking out the byre."

She whistled for Guiser; he shouted for April to join them.  And
somehow, as they started down the path to the loch, their hands
continued to touch.

Chapter 7.

Mara watched April blow out the candles on an absu il ~llarge birthday
cake.  Frances had designed the two laye~ look like a spring bonnet
covered with pink frosting r and lemon peel daisies.  Happy Birthday
April was spe out on the wide ribbon of frosting that circled the crow
At first April had refused to let her father cut the c Frances herself
had been forced to step in to convince .  :~li~m the spirit of the
occasion, April was smiling happily little girl that it was for eating
as well as for looking at. N ~basking in the attention of her guests,
but particularly three men surrounding her.

They were an odd mix, the three men of midnight.  h4 had heard the story
of their unusual births and the evoh legend that went with it.  But she
thought that more usual--and interesting--than their births was their
uni friendship.

Three more diverse men didn't exist, yet they were un in their devotion
to each other and, now, to Dunc', daughter.

Andrew seemed the easiest to know, although Mara k him the least.  He
was open and forthright, consiste:  good-humored and warmhearted.  He
was a tall, brawny man, with a strong man's knowledge of his own power,
so he conscientiously schooled himself to be gentle.  There was a temper
there that he kept under tight control, and possibly a vulnerable heart
that only a few people had ever taken note of.  She had liked Andrew
MacDougall on sight because she had known instinctively that she would
never have anything to fear from him.

On the surface, at least, she knew lain the best.  He was unfailingly
well mannered and solicitous, a man of considerable charm and personal
appeal. But under Iain's cultured exterior was a darker specter.  He was
haunted by his past and his future, a man who lived only for the moment
because he had no faith in anything else.  He never talked about his
past, and she had never been able to glimpse his destiny.

Her gift--or her curse--could not be manipulated.

There was far more she couldn't see than she could.  The real Iain was
almost as much a mystery to her as Duncan was.

Duncan.  Mara covertly watched Duncan with his daughter.  He was helping
April gently guide a knife through the bonnet's brim.  When he was with
his daughter his patience was infinite.  He talked her through the
destruction of the bonnet in low, supportive tones.  Father and daughter
were so much alike. April had her father's gray eyes, and although her
hair was lighter now, someday it would probably be the rich brown of
Duncan's.  Like her father, she seldom smiled, but when she did, her
solemn little face showed the promise of beauty.

When Duncan smiled.  He was smiling now.  Mara felt that smile blossom
somewhere deep inside her.  She had chosen a nun's life, but she hadn't
a nun's inclinations.  She felt no shame at the immediate, almost
visceral reaction she had experienced after her first meeting with
Duncan.  She had stood in a mist-shrouded meadow and looked down at the
man kneeling beside Geordie Smith, and as Duncan felt George for signs
of life, she had imagined those same hands gliding over her body.

It hadn't been a vision of the future.  It had been lust, pure and
simple.

' 95 Since then, her attraction to Duncan had grown.  She didn't
understand it.  She had never felt anything like it, not with her
husband, not with other men she had known.  It frightened her, not
because she was afraid of her own sexuality, but because the sheer power
of her response to Dun- can could change her life.  And she was only
just beginning to believe that she had a life worth protecting.  "Mara
gets the first piece."  April held out a plate with a huge slab of
bonnet brim across it.

"I'm honored."  Mara reached for the plate.  Her eyes caught Duncan's.

He wasn't smiling now.  Not exactly.

Something else glimmered in the thunder-curtain gray.  "She's thanking
you for the puppies," he said.

"The puppies were no' my doing."

As if in protest, one of the three tiny hounds in the basket under the
table began to howl.

"I said a wee kitty," Mara reminded him.

"Never did I say a word about puppies."

"But there were no kitties left, were there, Mara?  Just a basketful of
puppies."

A basketful of puppies about to see their final hours on earth.  A
basketful of puppies with dubious lineage and no genetic guarantee that
they would ever hunt or herd.  A has- /i ~~ ketful of unredeemably ugly
puppies with soulful eyes and lolling pink tongues and a master whose
patience had run out.

"I understand the puppies were all born at midnight," she said, "and
that their destinies are intertwined."

Andrew's laugh roared over the puppy'showls.

"Then we should each have one, should we no', Iain and Duncan and me?
It's only fitting."

"I get to choose first," April said.

"And I don't know which one I want."

"Iain?"  Duncan asked.  His gaze never left Mara's.  "Would you leave a
poor puppy without a home?"

"Gladly."  Iain glanced down at April and saw her distress.  He lifted
his eyes in resignation.

"Gladly will I take one."  ' "Then it's settled," Mara said.

"And easily at that."

 "But I don't know which one I want?"  April said again.  Duncan patted
her shoulder.

"You have until tomorrow afternoon to choose, then we'll take the others
to Uncle lain and Uncle Andrew."

April seemed satisfied.

"Can they sleep in my room?  v Frances made a noise deep in her throat.

"It's all right," Duncan told her.

"I'll clean up after them."

"And it's well you plan to, because I'm the one the maids will complain
to tomorrow if the wee hell hounds make a mess!"

Andrew lifted the howling puppy from the basket and soothed him, while a
mollified April passed out cake to the rest of her guests.  Jessie,
Frances's daughter-in-law, and her husband Roger had come for the
celebration, along with her daughter Lolly and another of April's
classmates.  Members of the hotel staff came and went over the next half
hour to have their slice of cake and pass along small gifts to April. By
the time everyone had gone home, there was no cake left, but there were
a pile of presents, three snoozing puppies and one exhausted little girl
in a pink nightgown.

"It's time for bed, Springtime," Duncan said, lifting April into his
arms.

Mara gathered the last of the plates to take into the kitchen.

"I

should be going, too," she said.

"Guiser will think I've left him forever."  She was glad she'd insisted
on bringing her own car so that Duncan wouldn't have to leave April.

"Will you read me a story first?"  April stretched out her arms to Mara.

Mara looked to Duncan to provide her with an excuse.  "She'd really like
it," he said.

She was surprised he had encouraged April.

"Well, if you're certain."

"I'll trade you."  He strolled toward her with April.  She set down the
dishes and held out her arms.  April wound her arms around her neck.
For a moment Mara stood quietly and held her.

She'd seldom been so physically close to a 97 child, because she had
always been afraid that such intimate contact would trigger a vision of
the future.

April's small form nestled against her only triggered a yearning for the
things Mara had never had.  She rested her cheek against April's hair.

"Shall you choose a story, or shall I?"

"Will you read me Duncan and the Fairies?"

Mara turned to Duncan for permission.  He shrugged.

"Aye, I'll read it to you," she said.

In April's room Mara set the little girl at the foot of the bed.  Duncan
had followed them as far as the doorway with the basket of sleeping
puppies.  He set the basket down and returned with newspaper to spread
around it, although he didn't look optimistic about the chances of puppy
success.

"I've got to run downstairs to take care of a few things," he said.

"Do you mind?"

I'll stay until you come back.  "

"Maybe you should stay a little longer.  It started to rain a while ago.
I'll check when I go downstairs, but it sounds like a real downpour now.
I don't like the thought of you going back up the mountain until it
slows."

She tried to ignore the comfort his words gave her.  Seldom in her life
had anyone worried about her.  The people who were supposed to have
loved her had more often worded about what she might do or see.

"We were lucky the weather was so bonny today.  It could have rained
earlier," Mara told April when Duncan had gone.

"It wasn't luck.  It was 'posed to be."

Mara smiled.

"Was it, now?  And how do you know?"

"My mommy says things always happen for a reason.  Do you think so?"

"I can no' say."  Mara turned back the covers on April's bed and fluffed
her pillows.  She couldn't imagine that Duncan would appreciate her
talking to April about her mother.  She tried to change the subject.

"Do you like the rain?"

"Sometimes Mommy and me would go for walks in it."

 Mara tried once more.

"Guiser loves the rain because he loves to splash in puddles."

"I've got a picture of my mommy."

Mara understood defeat.

"Do you?"

"Daddy doesn't know."

Mara sat on the bed beside her.

"Perhaps you should no' be telling me, either."

"Can I show you?"

Minutes later Mara had seen more than a photograph.  She had seen a
shrine to the absent Lisa, a shrine in a carved wooden box hidden at the
very bottom of April's toy chest.  Inside the box there resided an
enameled earring in the shape of a unicorn and a silver rhinestone
button.  There was a tattered recipe for broccoli and brown rice that
looked as if it had been tacked too long on a refrigerator and a
postcard to Duncan signed

"Lisa" in a bold, romantic script.

There was half a tube of bright red lipstick and a tiny vial of perfume
with most of the label rubbed off.

And there was a photograph of a lovely, ethereal brunette gazing down at
an infant in her arms.

"How' did you gather all this?"  Mara asked.  She didn't know what else
to say.  She certainly didn't have to ask who the baby was.

"I looked.  When we were moving.  I found things."

 "And you put them in here."

April took the box from Mara's lap and, after one more quick peek,
closed it and put it back in the toy box.

"Lisa's pretty, isn't she?"  She not only called her mother by her first
name, she sounded more detached, as if by looking at the sad mementos,
she had gathered enough objectivity to face her loss again.

"She's very pretty.  You'll look a bit like her when you're grown, I
think."

"Do you?"  April turned.  Her smile.  was huge.

"Do I look like her now?"

~ ~: Mara nodded, even though the resemblance was slight.

"Daddy doesn't like her."

Mara saw no point in offering false hope.

"Does he no'?"

99 "Sometimes I don't like her, either."

"And sometimes you do?"

"I haven't seen her in a long, long time."  And the longer April went
without seeing her mother, the' more importance Lisa would gain in her
life.  Mara could see the truth as if it were printed on a page in front
of her.  She wondered how Duncan could fail to see it.  "Don't tell
Daddy about the box. Please?"

"It's your secret to tell."  Mara brushed April's hair off her forehead.

"But sometimes secrets are very heavy things."

"It would make him sad."

Sad.  Not angry.  Mara wondered how a child could see beneath an adult's
surface with such perception.

"Shall I read you that story now?"

"Will you make your voice like a fairy's voice?"  Mara leaned over and
kissed her cheek.

"You'll think it's a fairy reading to you."

Mara was standing at the window of Duncan's sitting room when he
returned. April had fallen asleep before the fairies had taken poor,
bewildered storybook Duncan down to their home below the hill.

"It was a very big day for a wee bit tie girl," she said, .  turning to
greet him.

"She'll need her sleep.  I imagine the puppies will wake her sometime
during the night."

"One of them is sleeping with her.  He's a sleek it laddie, that one.

He came to the bedside and yapped until I tucked him in beside her.  "

"I imagine he'll be the favored beast in the morning.  I hope he was the
most presentable."

She smiled and shook her head.

"He'll take no prizes."

"It's still raining hard.   I'd feel better if you'd stay a while until
it slacks off."

She had taken care of the necessary chores before joining Duncan and
April at the hotel.  There were always things to do in the evening, yarn
to spin, sachets to stitch, the cleaning she didn't get to during the
day.  But the appeal of waiting out the storm where the roof and walls
were watertight and the fire warm was undeniable.

The thought of spending more time with Duncan whs appealing, too.

"I'll stay, but not long.  I've an early day planned for tomorrow, if
the weather permits."

 "And what will you be doing?"

She turned back to the window.

"I've enough yarn spun to begin my dyeing.  If there's no rain, that's
what I'll do.  If there is, there's still the byre to shovel and plenty
of fleeces left to spin.  I'll be busy."

"Can you really make a living doing what you do?"

"No.   If I had to depend on what I make from my crafts, I'd be looking
for work in the village, like most crofters.   But I meet a portion of
my needs, enough to keep me from draining all the profits from my
investments."   "I'd like to see you spin."

She hadn't realized he had come to stand beside her.  His words skated
along her flesh.  He was so close, yet she hadn't guessed he would join
her. Duncan was a continual surprise.

She was a surprise when she was with him.  "What is it you'd like to
see?" She stole a glance at him.

His face was turned toward hers.

"I imagine you're a study in grace.  Everything about you flows when you
move.  I can see you in front of the fire at your wheel, swaying with
the rhythm.  What do you think about when you're spinning?  You spend so
many hours alone."

"I suppose I think about how glad I am to be alone."

 "I watched you with April tonight.   You're not always glad."

She faced him.

"No.  But I'm always glad when the alternative is to be with people who
are afraid of me."

"I'm not afraid."  : "Perhaps no' of me.  But you're still afraid of
what I say I can do."

"Aren't you?"

She considered.

"There was a time when I would have given anything to have the sight
taken from me.  Now I unl 101 understand that it's a part of me, and if
it were gone, I would be a different person.  And I like myself, Duncan.
I'm beginning to like myself very much."

"I like you, too."

"But you would like me better if I had no peeks at the future, or if
there was a rational scientific explanation for what happens to me.  A
disease with a Latin name and a cure."

He touched her cheek.

"I couldn't like you better."  She couldn't pull her gaze from his.

"I'm no' strong enough yet for this."

"Neither am I."

"I should go."

"Yes, you should."  His fingers slid to her chin, then into her hair;
his palm was warm against her cheek.

She smiled a little, just a little.

"I dinna seem to be leaving."

"I don't seem to be letting you."

"I can no' change, and I can no' deny who I am and what I see.  Dinna
kiss me, Duncan, unless you're willing to accept that."

He kissed her anyway.  She watched his face descend, and as her eyes
closed, she felt the warmth of his lips against hers.  She inhaled the
masculine fragrance of his skin, tasted the dark wine flavor of his
lips.  His arms came around her, and she could feel her breasts sink
against his chest.  Her hips pressed against his, and she could feel
desire stirring in Duncan as well as herself.

Her arms crept around him, even though she knew she should push him
away.  He kissed a sensuous trail to her ear.

"Don't kiss me, Mara, if you can't accept a few doubts.  I'm no
different from you.  I can't be anyone except who I am."

"I dinna want this unless we're going to be good for each other."

"I'm beginning to think we can be very, very good for each other."

She settled more fully into his arms.  This time her lips parted beneath
his. Her doubts drifted away; thought drifted away with them.  She could
feel his fingertips against  her back, the rise and fall of his chest,
the subtle shifting of his hips.  Somewhere in the distance, thunder
roared as their kiss deepened.

She had always thought that desire was a subtle thing; now it was as
brilliant, as illuminating, as the lightning that split the night sky.
Kissing Duncan was more than a need for comfort and human contact.  Her
blood surged, and her pulse sped wildly.  Heat poured through her and
settled in places that had never before known its power.

She held him closer.  His knee slid between her legs as if he understood
her need to be touched there.  A moan formed deep in her throat.  She
wanted him to touch her everywhere.  She wanted to run away.

Finally he was the one who stepped back.  She opened her eyes and stared
into his.  She had been afraid she would see doubt or self-mockery.
Instead she saw desire and a reluctant self-control.

"You feel the way I thought you would.

You taste the way I thought you would," he said.  She heard more than
just words.  She heard the unsteadiness of his voice and weeks of
unconscious yearning.  " You've thought about this?  " Her voice was
unsteady, too.

"More than once."  He pushed her hair off her face.  His hands rested in
it.

"In my dreams, most of all."

Duncan had been in Mara's dreams, too, although she hadn't known it
until that moment.  She had repressed all yearning for him, she who
valued honesty abOVe all.

"I'd best be going," she said "The rain hasn't stopped."

"But I think that I have, at least for tonight."

 "If we continue to see each other, a kiss won't be enough."

She knew he was right.  Even now, it wasn't enough.  Her body cried out
for the solace of his.

"Will you tell April that I'll finish the book the next time I see her?"
"Then you'll be back?"

"After awee."

"May we come to see you again?"

She leaned forward and kissed him again.  Then she slipped past.

103 "Be careful on the road," he called.

She didn't turn.

"Aye.  It's canny I'll be.  There'll be flooding tonight."

"Flooding?  I doubt it.  There's been just enough rain to soak the
ground."

"There'll be flooding, Duncan.  Tonight when they come to ask for your
help with it, remember that I told you so."

Jamie Gordon hadn't drunk as much as his older brother Peter, but he'd
had enough to propel him the first mile toward home without much minding
the rain soaking his shirt and trousers.  He wasn't sure where he'd left
his mac.  He wasn't even sure if he'd brought a mac to the pub.  He
wasn't even sure which pub he'd been to.

"We could lie a bit under that tree," Peter said, waving a hand in the
air in a dozen different directions.

"Any tree.

Just until the rain stops.  "

"A fat lot of good it'd do ye to lie down in this.  We'd be washed away.
Have ye nae sense left at all, Peter?"

Peter began to whistle.  He coughed sharply when he inhaled water with
his next gulp of air.

"I will nae be having any more of this!  It's the back way for me.  Ye
can come if ye want."

' "It's no' safe in this rain.  We'd have to cross the burn, and it'll
be rising fast."

"Yer a poor excuse for a brother and a wee gyte at that.  It'll nae be
rising.  It'll come to our knees.  Nae higher.  And we're wet all over,
are we no'?"

Jamie continued to stumble down the road.  He wasn't even sure he could
find the back way home.  He'd gone about twenty steps when he realized
Peter was no longer beside him.

He stopped and turned.  Through the rain he could just see Peter's
outline disappearing into the field at their left.  He debated whether
to follow; the rain seemed much more daunting without his brother beside
him.  "Wait!" Jamie stumbled after him.

"Peter, wait!"  He caught up to him easily.

"Ye know where yer going?"  "I know.  Do you no'?"

"Haud yer wheesht!  O' course I do!"

 The ground under Jamie's feet sank lower with every step.  He went
quickly from uncomfortable to miserable.  Brambles tore at his legs, and
once he tripped over a stone, sprawling facedown in the mud.

"We should no' have come this way," he said after Peter helped him to
his feet.  "Ye can always go back."

Jamie thought of all the times that Peter had beaten him soundly at
their childhood games.  At eighteen, Jamie was still the thinker and
twenty-year-old Peter the doer.  But tonight they hadn't an intelligent
thought between them, and nothing they were doing made any sense at all.
He plodded on, lifting his feet higher, setting them down carefully. The
rain seemed to be falling faster.  He wondered about the burn.

"I've a rock in my boot."  Peter hobbled to a boulder large enough to
sit on and began to unlace his boot.  Jamie crossed and recrossed his
arms for warmth.  He had never been this cold, not even in the midst of
winter.  Peter cursed repeatedly.  His fingers were numb, not nearly as
clever as usual, and the laces were soaked and knotted.

"I'm going on," Jamie said, when it was obvious Peter would be a while.

"I'll go on just a wee bit."  He wanted to see the burn and make his own
decision about whether it should be crossed tonight.

"I'll wait up ahead for ye, Peter.

I'll stay in shouting distance.  "

"Och, go on.  Yer setting my nerves on edge."  ~ Jamie started in what
he thought was the right direction.

He moved slowly and carefully, never intending to get very far ahead of
his brother, but as the ground sloped down, his speed increased.  He
entered a stand of trees and for the first time thought he knew where he
was.  If he was right, the ground would continue to slope and then level
off.  The burn would be just ahead.

When the ground began to level off, he felt a surge of pride.

He tried to decide whether to wait there for Peter or whether to forge
ahead on his own.  Peter wouldn't wait for him.  That he was sure of. If
Peter missed him in the dark, he would go on without him.  .  .

105 ~.  ::~He took a few tentative steps forward, torn by the desire to
be home in bed and guilt at leaving his brother behind.  He had told
Peter he would wait, and he was usually a man of his word.

He took a few more steps, and then he halted in his tracks and stared at
the light coalescing just in front of him.

At first he couldn't believe what he saw.  He couldn't remember how much
he'd had to drink that night.  He couldn't even remember where he'd had
it.  So why should he believe his eyes when they told him that eerie
green light was forming into the shape of a woman in the midst of the
trees ahead of him?

He put his hands over his eyes, then peeked through his fingers.  The
light--the woman--was still there.

"Who are ye?"  he shouted.

The light seemed to move toward him.  He took two jerky steps backward
and fell.  He could feel the earth under his backside and the rain on
his face. He was still awake, and before him was a ghost.

He covered his face with his hands, and this time he didn't peek.  He
hadn't been inside the village kirk in years.  His mother went
sometimes, but his was not a family that took to religion.  He tried to
remember a prayer. There had to be a prayer.

He could no more remember a prayer than remember where he'd left his
mac.  He stumbled to his feet, his face still covered.  He turned and
fled.  Halfway up the slope he slammed into a tree.  His hands fell away
from his face, and he tumbled backward.  At the bottom of the hill he
opened his eyes, expecting to meet his death.  The woman was standing
only yards away.  Even gripped by the worst fear he had ever known, he
saw how beautiful she was.

She stretched out a hand and stroked the air in front of her, again and
again.

She was warning him away.

Jamie wasn't certain how he knew the ghost's intent.  But at the moment
he realized that he wasn't to come any closer, she vanished.  He rubbed
his eyes and peered through the' darkness, but the lady of light was
gone.

 "Peter!"  He found his way to his feet and started up the slope again.

"Peter!"

"I'm right here, ye idjit!"  Peter materialized out of the darkness.

"And what is it yer doing there, when you should be at the burn?"

Jamie told him what he'd seen, or at least he tried to.  The words came
out wrong.  He stuttered.  He sputtered.  But when Peter tried to push
past him, he grabbed his arm.

"Ye can no' go that way, Peter.  That's what she was saying."

"Saying?  She did no' say a thing, did she?  She was no' even there!

Ye've had too much whiskey and too much rain!  " He shook off Jamie's
arm and started down the hill.  " Peter.

Dinna go that way!  "

But Peter disappeared into the rain.  As Jamie watched, his brother's
dim outline vanished completely.

It didn't take Jamie long to consider what to do next.  He started back
toward the road at a run.  He was completely sober now, sober and
determined. He would not remain in the woods, not for all the whiskey in
Scotland.  He was sorry that Peter hadn't listened, but not sorry enough
to follow him and try to persuade him.

He was the thinker and Peter the doer.  And now he thought that in the
very near future he would become a sober man and a regular at the kirk,
as well.

Chapter 8.

The entire month of May was stormy, but no night had been as threatening
as the one of April's birthday celebration.

The burn that wandered lazily from the hills above Druidheachd had risen
swiftly, spreading and rushing up the slopes that enclosed it until it
had changed from peaceful stream into roaring river.

Peter Gordon had stories to tell about the burn, stories of logs rushing
past him as he clung to a root in the frigid water, stories of prayers
prayed and promises made.  Somehow his life had been spared.  His
brother, Jamie, had trudged the long road home to discover that Peter
hadn't arrived yet.

A rescue party of villagers had retraced Peter's path through a field
where Jamie insisted his brother had last been seen.  They had arrived
at the burn just in time to save Peter from the waters.

There had been other damage during the flood, a cottage washed from its
foundations, a car submerged nearly to its roof, sheep and cows stranded
on rocky knolls and lambs drowned.

But the gossips of Druidheachd spared little conversation for the flood.
High waters would come and go, and it  was a pity that some people
weren't canny enough to stay out of them.  What was more interesting was
the vision that Jamie Gordon swore he had seen, the ghost who had warned
him away from the burn.

"They've come up with a name for her now," Andrew told Duncan one
afternoon just outside Andrew's house.

"There's a solicitor from Perthshire with a summer cottage on the loch
who heard Jamie tell his story.  It seems there's a legend in Perthshire
about a ghost like ours, a braw lassie with flowing hair and a green
satin gown who warns people of impending danger.  They call her My Lady
Greensleeves.  Now some people in the village say she's just changed her
place of residence."

Duncan watched April romp with Primrose and Poppy.  Never had dogs been
less deserving of their names, or more ridiculous because of them.  All
three of the puppies were mouse brown and shaped like a baker's first
loaf of bread.

April had chosen names for them after a great deal of
thought--christening Iain's puppy Hollyhock in the process.

Andrew, with great forbearance, had accepted his fate, but Duncan was
afraid that some day Hollyhock was going to-conveniently disappear into
the loch. Even Primrose, April's puppy, had the grace to appear
chagrined whenever his name was called.

April sprawled on the narrow shore of Loch Ceo to be tackled by the hell
hounds shrieking happily all the while, and Duncan turned his attention
back to Andrew.

"No one is serious about this ghost thing, are they?  Jamie Gordon had
too much to drink that night, and so did his brother.  They both admit
it freely. Surely no one is taking a drunken man's word for something so
ridiculous." "There've been other stories.

They started about two years ago, you know, long before you came back.
And Jamie story is a bit like the lights you saw the night the lorry
nearly smashed into you," Andrew said.

"You saw a woman, too, or something that looked like one."

"Something that looked like a woman is a very different thing from
seeing a ghost."  Duncan looked past April and 109 the puppies to the
loch.

"But a man who believes in loch monsters might be hard to convince."

"I have no' closed my mind, it's true.  I have no' made the mistake of
thinking I understand everything."

"And neither have I.  Just some things.  Like the fact that there are no
ghosts and no monsters."

"Some people are saying that the ghost began to appear just after Mara
bought her land from Iain.  And Mara's from Perthshire herself."

DUncan had only seen Mara briefly in the past weeks.  She had asked him
for time, and he hadn't rushed her.  But he had missed her more than
he'd bargained for.  Yesterday he'd glimpsed her going inside Cameron's,
so he'd invented his own grocery list just to be with her for a few
minutes.  She had refused his invitation for a drink at the hotel, but
she had invited him to bring April and visit today.  They would be
heading up the mountain after April tired of playing with Poppy.

"They're not saying Mara has anything to do with the ghost, are they?"
he asked.

"Don't they know a coincidence when one hits them on the head?"

"Some are saying Mara is the ghost."

"I'm going back to the hotel and pack my bags."

"It's said with good humor, Dunc, but it does no' help that Mara hides
away in her croft and refuses to socialize with people in the clachan.
They're suspicious of her.   Good humor can quickly turn to bad."

"Do you know why Mara stays away from people?"

 "Aye.   But should I tell that to the good folk of Druidheachd?

That's she's no' a ghost, merely a seer?  " " No.  As far as I'm
concerned, she's neither.  "

"And what accounts for her visions, then?"

Since Duncan didn't know, he couldn't answer.

"I'll talk to her today.  I'll tell her what's being said.  And I'll
think of something to turn the tide of suspicion."

Duncan considered Andrew's warning--for that was exactly what it had
been--as he drove the winding road to Mara's.  This was the twentieth
century, and even Druidheachd couldn't completely ignore the march of
time.  But  pry off the thin veneer of contemporary attitudes and
beneath it there was a deep foundation of Celtic superstition and primal
mysticism.  If an immediate answer couldn't be found using rational,
scientific methods, an answer from the pagan past would suffice.

He silently berated the villagers until he turned onto Mara's road.

But during the last mile he'd given up his own magical thinking.
Druidheachd might be more in touch with its past than most places.
Legends might be more freely bandied about here, stories passed down,
the mystical cherished, but Druidheachd was like any corner of the
universe and the people here like any other.  They wanted and needed
answers.

They were willing to settle for old ones if new ones didn't suffice.

Primrose scampered up the path to Mara's cottage, and April skipped
after him.  Guiser came down to greet them, and after sniffing and
approving of Primrose, trotted off with the puppy at his heels.  Duncan
crested the hill and saw Mara beside her house piling wood under a black
iron kettle.

He thought of every fairy tale he'd ever been read as a child, every
Saturday morning cartoon with black cats and witches.  She wore a loose
smock to cover her dress, and her hair was pulled back in a long, pale
braid.  Had she been wearing a pointed hat, he might have turned tail to
run-- except that she was so incredibly beautiful.

"What on earth are you doing?"  He watched April break into a jog.

Mara turned and droppe4:!  an armful of wood to open her arms to his
daughter.

She lifted April and swung her ~round.

"Och, look at you," she said.

"All pink-cheeked and bonny from the sunshine."  ' Duncan lifted his
gaze to the sky.  If there was sun today, it was the Scottish variety,
hiding behind clouds and peeking out just often enough to tease them.

He joined them.

"If I were a stranger, I'd think I was about to be turned into a frog.
Or added to eye of newt and wing of bat to complete one of your secret
potions."

I'll "If you were a stranger?"  She lifted a brow.

"Dinna you half think that now?"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm about to make dye.  I thought April would enjoy helping."

His gaze strayed to the ground by the kettle where suspicious bundles of
dried plants were assembled.

"You dye with those?"

"Aye.  I grow or collect much of it myself.  Would you like to see my
garden?"

Duncan could see that this was a true source of pride for her.  He had
no doubt that she had a green thumb.  Even though the weather hadn't
truly warmed, the rock-lined beds outside the cottage were filled with
interesting foliage and occasional bright splashes of color.

"I'm renowned for how quickly I can kill a plant," he warned.

"My father despaired of me."

"Will you kill my herbs by just walking through?"  "I give no
guarantees."

"Do you want to see, too?"  Mara asked April.  "I want to find Guiser."

"Then you shall."  Mara set her on the ground.

"Off with you.  And bring him back when you find him."

"She'll be all right?"  Duncan asked.

;; "Guiser will no' have gone far.  He's just giving Primrose a tour."
She didn't look at him.  She watched April until she had disappeared
behind the byre.

Duncan put his hand on her shoulder.  She turned then and raised her
eyes to his.

"I've missed you," he said.

"I dinna know what to do about you, Duncan."  The way she said his name
did strange things to him.  To Mara, he was Doon-kin, a fluid, musical
sound that was almost an endearment.

"You dinna have to do anything," he said.

"Can we no' just see where things lead."  " She smiled at his accent.

"I can almost hear the kilt and the bagpipe."

"I come by it honestly, you know.  I lived here for the first eight
years of my life."

~' .  ~:.

 "There's no hint of your Scots blood now except when you feel passion.
Usually anger."

"I've been angry too often with you."  He touched her braid.  It slid
through his fingers, fine and soft.

"It's no' your anger that frightens me."

 "There's no reason to be frightened."

She shook her head slowly.

"You're just finding yourself.  I know.  I'm wary of women who need to
find themselves.  I know that, too.  But that's out in the open.  We
understand each other.  We can be careful with each other."

"Is it just care that's needed, then?  Is it as simple as that?"

"Give it a chance and see."

"I've missed you, too."  She took his hand and linked her fingers with
his.

"And I was glad to see you at Cameron's yesterday.  Were you really so
desperately in need of butter that you braved the rain for it?"

"There's twenty pounds in the hotel refrigerator."  She laughed.

"Shall I show you my herbs now?"

He leaned forward, hands still linked, and kissed her.  She didn't move
away, and she didn't move closer.  Her eyelids drifted shut, and she
sighed against his lips.  Sensation spiraled through him.  He felt as if
he'd been holding his breath for most of a month, waiting for this.  But
he felt more than relief.

Much, much more.

"My herbs?"  she said at last.

He heard April's laughter somewhere just behind the byre.  He stepped
back.

"Your herbs."

Her garden was fenced against the animals, a rectangle carved from the
rocky soil.

"In two years' time, how did you manage all this?"  he asked.

"Remember, there was a settlement on this spot once.  The garden plot
was here.  The rocks had been cleared away for a larger garden than
this, the soil cared for and replenished.  When I moved here there were
weeds aplenty, weeds I'd never even seen before.  But beneath them, the
land was as rich as any in the Highlands.  Each year I'll reclaim a bit
more."  She opened the gate, a modern-looking affair with Duncan's Lady
113 sturdy hardware.

"Now, be careful where you step.  I'll no' have you trampling my
seedlings to death."

 "I'll be drawn to them like magnets."

"Step where I step."

"My feet are twice the size of yours."

She was ahead of him, and she didn't turn.

"They are no'.  You take a respectable boot and no more."

"And how do you know so much about my feet?"

 "I know all about you, Duncan.   There's little I have no' noticed."

He wished he could see her face.

"All?  Nothing left to the imagination?"

"Nowt that my imagination could no' provide."  ~'~ He laughed softly.

"My imagination probably works as well as yours, but apparently I find
it less satisfying."

 "I did no' say it was satisfying."

He laughed again.

She bent and brushed soil away from a mound.

"I grow some plants for sachets to ward off moths.  This is camphor.

And in the row beyond is sweet woodruff.  " He was growing more
interested in spite of himself.  But in Mara, not her herbs.

"How did you learn all this?"

"When I was a wee girlie I had an auntie, a great-auntie, really, who
took me to stay with her whenever she could.   She taught me to spin and
to collect plants for dyeing."

He was relieved to find that someone in her life had wanted her.

"Did she teach you to grow things?"

She straightened.

"The MacTavish women were always known for their gardens.  As well as
other things."

- .

"Their great beauty?"

She smiled.

"No."  She hesitated, as if weighing her answer.  Then she shrugged.

"For having the sight, Duncan.

It's been passed down for as long as anyone remembers.  Sometimes it
skips a generation or two, but it always reappears.

My granny had it, but she died before I was born.  My mum tried to hide
the truth from me, but my auntie told me before she died.  I was no' the
first MacTavish woman to see the future.  But perhaps I'll be the last.
"

"Why would you be the last?"

 "There are no more in my line.  My mum was an only child, and her
auntie had no children.  And I have no brothers or sisters."

"You could have children."

"But first I'd have to find a man who wanted them with me, would I no'?"

"A man who didn't want your children would be a fool."

"I've married one fool already.   It's possible I'd marry another.
It's not a risk I'd take lightly, or even willingly."   "You would be a
superior mother."

"Did you think Lisa would be a superior mother, too?"

 "No.   I'm not sure I ever thought about it."

"A superior mother takes a superior marriage.  A woman needs support to
weather the storms of childhood.  A man does, too."

"I'm doing all right alone."

' "It takes its toll though, does it no'?"

He almost protested; then he grimaced.

"I almost forgot.  I'd better go find April."

"She's over there."  She pointed to the sheep pen.

"I saw her a moment ago."

"Then lead on, MacTavish."

She showed him more of the herbs that she dried for sachets, lavender
and pennyroyal, tansy and, in an isolated corner of the garden,
wormwood, a herb so powerful its very fragrance was said to inhibit the
growth of neighboring plants.

They moved down the rows, and she pointed out plants she grew for
dyeing. April joined them, and Mara drew her into the tour.

"This is weld, which gives a clear yellow dye, and this is woad, which
gives a blue.  These..."  she pointed to a lacy-leafed row "are cosmos,
flowers bonny enough to pick for bouquets, but I grow them for dyeing.
This is ribwort, this is coreopsis, a lovely golden blossom."  She
pointed to a quarter of the garden on the edge opposite them.

"And that's my dinner for months to come, though I'll be using the skins
of the onions for dyeing, as well, and the stalks of the tomatoes."

"Can we dye with onions today?"  April asked.

115 Mara ruffled her hair.

"No, today we'll dye with crottal.  Do you know what that is?"  April
shook her head.

"It's lichen.  It grows on rocks.  We'll go for a walk later, and I'll
show you a bit I saw yesterday.  It's a wonderful dye, April.

It's used for Harris tweed, and it turus the wool a russet color.  Did
you know that fishermen will no' wear a russet jersey?  The people of
the Highlands say that crottal always tries to find its way back to the
rocks it came from.  And fishermen are afraid that the crottal will make
them sink like a stone if they fall overboard.  "

April was wide-eyed.

"Do they really sink?"  "Hardly," Duncan assured her.

Mara showed April how to hill dirt over the POtato plants in the
vegetable portion of the garden and supervised as April carefully
covered the emerging shoots with dirt.  "You've got the touch.  You'll
be a gardener, unlike your father, who looks as if a rock's fallen on
his head."  Safely outside the confines of the garden, Duncan walked
with Mara back toward the house, while April, with the dogs at her
heels, took a handful of fresh comfrey leaves to feed a trio of baby
lambs in a stone pen.

"You wouldn't know to look at the garden that you can make dye from any
of those plants," he said.

"Are you intrigued?"

With Mara, definitely.  Duncan made a sound that could ~~have meant
anything and hoped it sufficed.

"You can make dye from so many things.  Roadside weeds ~and the bark of
trees.  In the next months I'll be picking everything I see.  Broom and
thistle, goldenrod and dandelions."

"Then you'll be very busy this summer?"

 "Aye.   Very.   But no' too busy, Duncan."

"Not too busy?"

' "For you."

~ He pulled her to a halt beside him.  He knew how to press an
advantage.

"Then come with me to the fair in the village next weekend."  She
frowned. He could tell she had expected something more intimate.

"Come be with me there."

"Why?"

 "Because you don't let anyone in the village know you.  You've kept
yourself a stranger to almost everybody in Druidheachd.  It's time you
got to know the villagers."

"And why would you care when you hardly know them yourself?   There's
more to this than you're saying."   She might not read minds, but she
was a hard woman to fool.

"There's talk, Mara.  Some people claim to have seen a ghost, a ghost
who unfortunately resembles you."

"A ghost, is it?"

"Fortunately a good one.  They're calling her My Lady Greensleeves after
some ghost in Perthshire."

"I know the story."  ~ "She's warned several people of impending danger,
most recently a young man who was almost caught in the flood."

He remembered Mara's warning that night.  There'll be flooding, Duncan.
Tonight when they come to ask you for help with it, remember that I told
you so.  Andrew had come to ask his help that night.  Duncan hadn't been
called on to search for Peter Gordon, but he and the hotel's minibus had
helped a family evacuate their home.

Mara shook her head.

"And now you want me to come to the fair so the village will see I'm no'
a ghost at all, but a woman of flesh and blood?"

"They've seen that much before.  Now let them get to you a little.  Let
them see you laugh and smile and flirt with me."

"You know why I avoid crowds."  She searched his face.  "At least you
know why I say I do.  Everyone from the village and beyond will be
there.  How can I come?  Can I pretend I'm just like them when I'm no'?"

He rested his hands on her shoulders.

"You are just like them.  You can be hurt by malicious gossip, just like
any of them.  You can be hurt by too much isolation.  You can be hurt by
your own fears.  Come to the fair."

"You can no' know what it's like, Duncan."

"Maybe not, but I can be there for you.   I can be there beside you.
And if it gets too bad, I can help you find a place to escape everything
for a while."

"You can be so kind."

i: 117 He pulled her closer.

"I can be even more."

"Do I feel like a ghost to you, Duncan?"

"You feel like a woman."

She leaned forward.

"Do I taste like a ghost?"  she asked softly.  She pressed her lips
against his.  ~ He enclosed her in his arms.  She tasted like the
Highlands, seductive and exhilarating.  There was a wildness in her as
well as a deep serenity.  She was all the things he had carefully
schooled himself not to want.

But he wanted her.

"Come to the fair with me," he said when he had finally forced himself
to step away.

"Aye, I'll come.  But I'll no' guarantee that it will have the results
you desire."

"Don't wear green."  Green was the color that fairies wore, and now the
color associated with the ghost.  Even if it suited Mara perfectly, he
didn't want her to have any strikes against her.

~ She smiled sadly.

"I could wear pink or blue, but it will no' make a difference.  If the
people of Druidheachd dinna want me here, they'll find a reason other
than the clothes I wear."

"I want you here."

~ "Duncan, have you forgotten you will no' be here long :~--ll
yourself?"

~ ~ For the first time that thought gave Duncan no '~leasure.

Chapter 9.

As promised Mara didn't wear green.  She wore violetviolet skirt, violet
stockings, and a violet body suit, with her hair flowing loosely over it
like a golden satin mantle.  Her eyes were still green, however, as
green as a Scottish summer and as filled with clouds.  Early in the
morning--or at the skmich of day, as Frances always called it--Duncan
contemplated Mara standing in the hotel lobby and knew that she had come
only to fulfill her promise to him.  She didn't want to be here.

"I half expected plaid," he said.  Sunshine broke momentarily through
clouds.

"The only plaid I own is nearly all green."

He laughed.

"I'm not surprised."

"I did no' want to be My Lady Green Tartan."  "You look lovely."

"And you look bonny yourself, Duncan.  More a Scot 'than an American
today."

Her words gave him pleasure, although he told himself that was silly.

The local tailor had insisted on fitting him for a jacket of the finest
Harris tweed, and he wore it now as a public relations gesture.  Frances
had given him a tie she'd 119 bought him in Inverness.  He held it out
now.

"The Sinclair tartan," he said with a grimace.

"I look like a tourist."

 "Have you ever visited Rosslyn Chapel south of Edinburgh?"

"No.  Why?"

"It's the burial place of the Sinclairs.  And you've more in common with
your clan than you might think.  Until the seventeenth century was
nearly over, the Sinclair men were buried in full armor.  Even in death
they were no' vulneraHe narrowed his eyes, but he laughed, too.

"Well, I haven't donned my armor today.  And under the tweed and plaid
beats an American heart," he said.  er)~I

"But's it's interesting, is it no', that when you needed refuge, you
came back to Druidheachd?  Perhaps you have two homes, Duncan.  A person
can belong to more than one place."

He didn't want to explore that, but he didn't protest.

"I wasn't sure you'd come."

:; .

"I told you I would."

"Good.  Because I need you."

She lifted a brow in question.

"We're going to set up a stand at the fair," he said, "to sell food and
drink."  Two of my staff got sick during the ~night, and they won t be
able to man it.  I could use your "Me?"

"Think about it, Mara.  Everyone in the village will stop by.  It will
give you a chance to see and be seen."

"Aye, I know.  That's the trouble."

"Are you afraid?  I'll be there with you."

 "I'm not afraid.   Resigned, I suppose."

"I thought you couldn't see your own future."  "No, but I mind well my
past."

He wanted to take her in his arms and reassure her--at least reassurance
was part of what he wanted to give her.  But people passed back and
forth beside them, and there had pal ready been enough furtive glances
in their direction.

"This  is the present.  And you're_with me.  Everything's going to be
all right."

"My Lady Greensleeves and one of the Men of Midnight?"  She smiled.

"It's a wheen of blethers to think my reputation will be improved by the
likes of you."  He put his arm around her shoulders and guided her
toward the kitchen.

"Frances is making enough sandwiches for a Highland regiment.  Will you
help her?  I'll be at the green setting up for the next hour.  When the
sandwiches are finished, I'll come back for the food and the kegs."

"And what do I get for all the hard work?"

He thought how lucky he was that the question had been asked just then.
He pulled her into a dark corner of the hallway.  Momentarily at least,
they were alone.

"What do you want?"

"Undying gratitude?"

"Yours forever.  Anything else?"

She surprised him.  She rested her hands on his shoulders and drew him
closer.  Her fingers curled against the back of his neck.  Lightly,
seductively, she stroked.

"No pleas and no promises," she said.

"Just a moment at a time.  The blink of an eye, then another."

"I can give you that."

"Aye, if you will."  She raised up to kiss him.  His mouth descended
hungrily to hers.

And more than a moment passed.

Duncan didn't know if he had ever been in love.  As a young man he had
been infatuated with Lisa.  They had married young, before they'd had
the good sense to look behind their passion to see if they shared
anything else.

When it had become clear to him that passion wasn't enough, that in fact
they no longer shared even that, he had tried to find common ground on
which to build a marriage2 But he hadn't tried hard enough.  He had been
busy building a career.  As part of her endless search for meaning, Lisa
had gotten pregnant.  He, in turn, had worked harder to support his
growing family. Lisa, in turn, had looked elsewhere for answers to the
mysteries of life. The 121 cycle had completed itself inevitably with
divorce.  If there had ever been love, or even the potential for it, it
had wilted on the vine.

Since his divorce there had been little time to think about the future.
He had been left with a daughter who needed all his attention and a lack
of faith in his own potential as a husband.

He was still bitter about the damage that Lisa had done, and wary about
letting anyone get close to him.  Yet beside him today, as close as he
had allowed anyone to get in years, was Mara MacTavish, a woman with
problems to rival Lisa's and a heart that was entirely different.

"There you go, Mr. Burton," she said.  She counted pounds and pence and
smiled politely as she did.

"All your change and your sandwiches, too.  And there's crisps to go
with them in the poke."

Duncan watched Carlyle Burton, a man no younger than seventy-five, bathe
in her smile.  From across the green the skid of half a dozen bagpipes
and as many drums drowned out Carlyle's response, but from the corner of
his eye Duncan saw Mara flush.

"Cheeky old chap," she said, when Carlyle Was gone.

"I gather he likes you."  ' "I think you asked for my help to stir up
business."  She had been good for business, but not only because men
like Carlyle had succumbed to her charms.  Duncan had watched the faces
of most of the villagers who'd found excuses to stop by the stand.  Mara
was a creature under a microscope.  She had been silently scrutinized by
the cowardly and questioned by the bold.  In return, she had presented
herself with the perfect mixture of reserve and warmth to even the most
judgmental patrons. But Duncan had felt no easing of suspicion as the
morning wore on.  Mara was an unknown quantity, a stranger who kept to
herself and lived alone in a primitive stone cottage she had built with
her own hands.  And why would a woman live as she did unless she had
something to hide?

"It's important for people to get to know you," he said.  "How else will
they see that you're exactly like them?"

"Am I?  Am I exactly like them?"

 .

"Yes," he said firmly.

"Maybe you're a little more sensitive to your environment.  That's all.
I think you pick up clues the rest of us don't notice."

"Is that how you explain my entire life?"

"And that's what you tell yourself?  That's how you justify your
interest in me?"

He wasn't completely insensitive.  He heard frustration and sadness in
her voice.

"I don't know what you mean."

"It's no' complex.  You have to explain me somehow.  If you dinna, then
you have no way to explain yourself."

He frowned.

"Are we having a fight?"

Her shoulders slumped, and for just a moment he saw exactly how
difficult the morning had been for her.

"I've no wish to fight with you, Duncan."  ~ "Then let's not."

She nodded.  As if she needed to put space between them she crossed the
straw-scattered ground to talk to Frances.

The stand was nothing more than an ancient canvas tent with two sides
open to the elements and long tables across the openings piled with
food.  Behind them Frances and Jessie sold kedgeree, a fish and rice
stew, and at the end of their table Brian dispensed beer.  There were
similar tents strung around the green, manned and womanned by local
organizations, but the Sinclair Hotel had the greatest varied The midday
rush began, and both he and Mara Were caught up in the flow of patrons.
It wasn't until later that he was able to talk to her again.

"I wasn't trying to downplay what you've been through, Mara.  I know
your sensitivity has made life difficult for you, and I know today's
been a trial. I was trying to let you know I understand."

"I dinna think that's it at all.  Are you no' asking for reassurance,
Duncan? Dinna you really want to know if I've seen someone's future
today?  Dinna you really want to know if, as I handed out crisps and
sandwiches, I had visions of who's destined to die or merely who's going
to suffer terribly?"

123 He didn't answer immediately.  He pushed past his initial rush of
anger and tried to sort out his feelings.

She spoke first, but she didn't look at him.

"I'm sorry."  "What in the hell's going on?"

She was silent for a few minutes.  She handed out more sandwiches with a
forced smile and made change.  He was pulled reluctantly into two
separate conversations with villagers.

Only when the crowd slacked off again did he turn back to her.

"Are you going to tell me?"

"I dinna ken how to tell you."

"Tell me what?"

Her shoulders were pulled back as rigidly as a soldier's, and her chin
was lifted high.  She shook her head.

He was headstrong and stubborn, and he'd long ago learned how to get
what he wanted in situations like this one.

But staring at Mara, Duncan knew that this time he'd found his match.

He could poke, pry, plead and she still wasn't going to tell him what
she didn't want him to know.  "Can I help?"  he asked instead.

She seemed to wilt before his eyes.

"There's nowt to be done."

"I can't remember feeling this frustrated in a long time."

"I think I'll stroll the green."   She untied the white chef's apron
that Frances had provided her with.

"Can you manage awee without me?"

"Would you like some company?  Or would you rather be alone?"

"If the company's you."

He felt the strangest mixture of emotions that he didn't want to
dissect.  He removed his apron, too, and asked Jessie to cover their
table while they were gone.  Outside the tent he took her hand and wove
his fingers through hers. He waited for her to pull away, but she left
her hand in his.

"Shall we just walk around, or did you have somewhere special you wanted
to go?"

"I just wanted to walk."

"Then that's what we'll do."

The Druidheachd Johnsmas fair was part medieval market festival and part
traditional Highland Games.  There was  no written record to document
when the first one had been held.  For as far back into antiquity as
anyone could see, the fair had been held on Midsummer Day, climaxing in
the evening with dancing and bonfires on the hills just outside the
village.  For centuries before this one, men in belted plaid and trews
had strolled the Druidheachd green with their ladies, bartering for
bolts of cloth or bits of ribbon.  There had been fire eaters and
jugglers, strolling bards and games guaranteed to test the strength and
endurance of the strongest clansman. There had been bannocks warm from
stone ovens and strong malt whiskey from local stills.  And there had
been laughter.

Laughter was noticeably absent in the voice of the woman walking beside
Duncan.  The Mara he knew was warm and witty.  Now she was as brittle as
glass, but not nearly as transparent.

"Have you seen April lately?"  he asked her.  Sally, one of the hotel
maids, had offered to take April for the day.  She had two young
daughters, and April enjoyed playing big sister.  The last time Duncan
had seen them all, they were enjoying the antics of a clown at one of
the two stages set up on opposite ends of the green.

"They may have gone back to the hotel to put the bairns down for their
nap."

"April could use a little nap herself.  She hardly slept last night, she
was so excited about the fair."

"I'm sure they'll return before the tQssing of the caber and the other
games."

"There's a horse race at three.  I know April wanted to see it."

' "A race?"  :" " It's been a tradition in Druidheachd since I was a boy
and probably for a hundred years before.  " He pointed to the center of
the green.

"There's a ring of sorts there, pounded hard as stone by horse hooves.
It's not exactly the Kentucky Derby, but it suffices."

"But it's a wee bit tie green.  There's no room for a race."

 "No one's expectations are high.   This is Druidheachd.

Half the fun's the anticipation, the other halifs the wagers.

125 No one cares if the horses have to go round and round to log any
distance.  " He pulled her toward one of the stands where local crafts
were displayed.

"Look at this, you could have sold your wool or your herbs.  Let's check
out the competition for next year."

Her hand seemed to grow cooler as they walked, and she grew stiffer.

She was silent as they perused the hand-knit sweaters and white pottery
adorned with thistles and blooming heather.

"You're a braw pair, are you no'?"  Andrew asked from behind Duncan.

Duncan faced his friend, his hand still entwined with Mara's.  Andrew
was dressed in full Highland regalia, from kilt and fur sporran to plaid
pinned at his shoulder with a silver brooch.  On his right stocking the
traditional sgian dubh, a dirk in a sheath, peered over the top.  He was
a splendid sight with his auburn hair gleaming in the sunlight and his
hazel eyes reflecting the dark green stripes of his tartan.

"I'd have run the other way, no questions asked," Dun- can said.

"I

wouldn't have stayed to meet you in battle.  "

"No' to worry.  We'd have been on the same side."  An- drew extended his
hand to Mara.

"What do you think of our fair, Mara?  Have you seen one to rival it
anywhere?"

"Andrew has a natural career in advertising," Duncan said, "but I've
never been able to convince him."   "And why would I want to sell things
I dinna believe in to people I dinna even know?"

"Aye, why would he?"  Mara asked.  She smiled.  It was a pale imitation
of her usual, but it was an attempt.

"I don't think you told Andrew how you were enjoying the fair,"

Duncan said.

"It's a bonny wee fair."

Duncan watched Andrew search her face.

"There's shade over in the corner.  If Duncan does no' take you there to
rest, I will."

"Mara?"  Duncan asked.

"Is he right?  Do you need to' sit down for a while?"

"Maybe a bit."

 They started over toward a trio of chestnuts that shaded the grass in a
wide circle.  It was adorned with the bodies of young and old alike who
were temporarily protecting their pale Scottish complexions.

"I was thinking of Fiona just a moment ago," Andrew said.

"I mind a Johnsmas fair where we were lads and she was a bit of a
thing."

"Fiona?"  Mara asked.

, "My sister," Duncan said.

"She was a canty wee lassie, all spirit and laughter.  She leaped up on
the stage and tried to dance the fling."  Andrew fell silent.

"That was a long time ago," Duncan said.  Mara and Duncan settled
themselves in a quiet spot, but with a wave Andrew wandered off toward
the stage.  He played in a pipe band that was scheduled to perform soon.
"Did something happen to your sister?"  Mara asked.

He was so glad for a change of subject that he was even willing to
discuss Fiona, a subject he usually avoided.

"There was a fire at the hotel when she was just three.  I was eight.

I don't know if anyone ever really determined what caused it.  A carpet
too close to the fireplace; a spark that probably smoldered for hours
unffi everyone was fast asleep.

Unfortunately the fire started in the room that Fiona and I shared.  I
was away that night, staying with Iain and Andrew at Feamshader.  Fiona
was alone in our room with our parents asleep in the next.  Maybe if I'd
been there I'd have woken up at the smell of smoke.  But Fiona always
slept deeply.  By the time my father awoke to her screams and rushed in
to rescue her, the draperies had caught fire and her bed covers, too. If
the hotel weren't solid stone, it might all have gone up.  "

Mara reached for his hand and covered it with hers.  "How terrible to
lose her that way."

He felt connected to Mara again; she was no longer a million miles away.

"She didn't die, but we all lost her anyway, or we lost the person she
would have been.  Andrew's right.  Fiona was all spirit and sass, and he
and Iain loved her

                                      J

as much as I did.  Her burns were serious, and for a while one knew if
she'd recover.  I remember my parents fight constantly for those weeks.
My mother wanted to fly Fit to America to a burn center there, as soon
as she was s bilized, but my father wanted her to stay at the hospital
Glasgow.

Finally my mother got her way.  She was American citizen, so there was
no red tape.  She and Fit and I flew back to the States, and the two of
them h~ never returned to Scotland.  My father insisted that I co back
for a month each summer, and my mother allowed ~ that small victory. But
Fiona's never been back, not even my father's funeral.  He left her half
the hotel, but she fuses to make any decisions about it.  She's put me
charge.  "

"And where is she now?"

~" " She still lives in New York with my mother.  " He t hated how much
more to say.  He had already bored her w the story of his marriage.  But
Mara seemed genuinely c cerned, and Fiona's story seemed to have taken
her mind i her own problems.

"She's never really grown up," he said.

"She wt through terrible pain, skin grafts and treatments all the ye~ of
her childhood.  I'm sure that changed her, but the we part was my
mother.  She smothered Fiona until there x~ almost nothing left of the
little girl we'd all known.  Motl felt so guilty about what had happened
that she devoted l entire life to making things easy and safe.  Now Fia
doesn't seem to be able to function without her."

"That's very sad."

: "You want to hear the real irony?  Fiona's writing ct dren's books.

She's been successful, because she's still a'.

the girl at heart, a little girl who may never grow up.  " Mara was
silent for a while.

"Did you ever think," ~, asked at last, "that what happened to Fiona
might expla a bit about why you did no' interfere with the way that Li
was raising April?  Were you afraid you might turn out to' as
overprotective and smothering as your mum?"

He hadn't thought about it.  He had never thought abo it, even though it
seemed perfectly clear to him now.  But  couldn't absolve himself of
guilt that easily.

"Even if it were true, it would hardly be an excuse, would it?"

"We're too old to need excuses, Duncan.   But perhaps, if it is true, it
might help explain something that obviously bothers you."

A month ago he would have been angry; a month ago he had been angry when
he'd believed she was trying to analyze him.  Now he leaned over and
kissed her lightly on the lips.

"You're always trying to get me off the hook, aren't you?  You're
determined to make me feel good about myself as a father."

"Is that so bad?"

" She really wanted to know.   He read her own questions in her eyes,
questions deep inside h6r, formed by the life she'd been forced to live.

"Nothing you could do would be bad, Mara."  He was all too aware of a
green filled to capacity with gossiping villagers, of her reputation and
his, of customs and superstitions and centuries of Sinclair men who had
probably sat at one time or another in this very spot with the women
they loved.

"Nothing."

He kissed her again, aware of everything, but most es- 129 Her vision
swam for a moment, as it had on and off since midmorning.

She felt suddenly clammy, and her head began to pound.  The scene before
her vanished; transposed over it was another that was much the same. She
saw the village green and the people thronging it.  The sun still
shone--although it was lower in the sky--but even as she felt its rays
warm her skin, she heard the roar of thunder.  Horror gripped her.  She
struggled to move, but her limbs were weak and uncoordinated.  She
struggled-- "Mara?"

She felt a hand on her shoulder.  She swallowed, then gasped for air.

The vision dimmed, then disappeared.  Duncan was beside her, and it was
his hand she felt.  Heat flooded back into her body, but her head
pounded harder.

"Mara, are you all right?"

She shook her head.  She couldn't speak.  Duncan swung April off his
shoulders and pointed her toward Sally, who was standing in a line at a
nearby stand.  "Sally's buying currant buns for you and the girls.
Better go help, or little Fanny will eat them all before you get yours."

 "Is Mara going to be all right?"

especially, of her.

, "Sure.  She's just _n,o_t used to the sunshine."

~.  : ~ April Patted Mara s hand, then she skipped off to find ~ She
didn't know what would happen or to whom.  She'd ~mSatt~.  had no clear
visions, no glimpses of the future.  She jus~ ~ "It's not the sun is
it9" Duncan asked when they were knew that something was going to
happen, and soon.  ~~alone.

' ' " Mara watched Duncan cheering for Andrew in the cabe~-- ~ .... She
shook her head.

toss.  The caber, nearly eighteen feet long and weighing more :~g "Do
you want to tell me what's going on.9" than a hundred pounds, was to be
lifted and tossed so that it lay across the ground in front of the
competitor like the hands of a clock at midnight.  The crowd hushed in
anticipation and Andrew hoisted it, ran the required steps and heaved it
into a nearly perfect position.  The crowd roared.  Duncan, who had
swung April to his shoulders for a better look, strode over to
congratulate his old friend.  Mara saw a cluster of young women eyeing
Andrew with longing.  Andrew liked the ladies, and in turn they liked
him twice as well.

"You would no' ken."

"You could try me."

~ ' She tried to focus on his face.  Little by little her vision cleared
until she could see every nuance of his expression.

And she realized she couldn't tell him.  He was wary, already suspicious
that her behavior had something to do with the second sight he didn't
believe in. She could share herself with this man, share her feelings,
even the story of her life before Druidheachd, but she couldn't share
her visions.  Because the visions would stand between them.

 "I've a bad headache," she said.

"And I wouldn't understand that?  I've never had one myself?"  ~
"Duncan, dinna push me.  I can only tall you what I can."

"Maybe you ought to go home.   I'll drive you if you don't feel well
enough. Or better yet, let's go back to the hotel.   I'll put you to bed
in my room.   You can sleep this off, then we can have a nice supper
together."

"I have to stay here."

His tone grew sharper.

"Why?  You didn't even want to come in the first place."

She left him standing there with his questions and his suspicions.

She started back toward the hotel stand, paying just the minimum
attention to her surroundings.  Somehow she had fooled herself into
believing that she could keep her visions separate from her relationship
with Duncan.  She had almost believed that she could allow him into her
life and her heart.

But they could not be separate.

"Mara!"  She felt a hand on her arm, and she was jerked unceremoniously
out of the path of a sturdy chestnut mare.

"Iain."  She put her hand to her throat.  Her pulse beat wildly beneath
her own fingers.

You were about to get trampled.  You certainly weren't watching where
you were going.  Are you all right?  "

"I seem to have all my body parts intact.  Thank you."  He was dressed
much as Andrew except that he wore a white shirt with his black-and-red
kilt and a black velvet jacket instead of a plaid across his shoulder.
He grimaced as she surveyed him.

"It'sexpected," he said.

"The laird of Druidheachd always shows up in his kilt."

"And you dinna like it?"  She certainly liked what she .  saw, and she
knew that the other women at the fair would, too.

"I don't mind the kilt.  I mind being the laird who has to show up."  ,
', 131 He walked beside her, still holding her arm.  Two more horses
trotted by. She saw them clearly now, and she stayed out of their way.

"You were deep in thought," he said.

"Trouble, Mara?"

"I came here to find peace, Iain, but there's no peace to be found."

"There might be a message in that."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe peace isn't what you need."  He squeezed her arm before he
dropped his hand.  With a wave he disappeared into the crowd gathering
to watch the horse race.  She was torn about what to do.  She had only
rarely felt this lost. She wanted to go home, to her mountain and her
cottage.

She wanted the solace of a peat fire and Guiser lying contentedly at her
feet.  But she had to stay.  She felt warm arms come around her.  She
knew they belonged to Duncan.  She shut her eyes and leaned against him.
And despite everything else she felt, she no longer felt lost.

"Don't run away from me again, Mara," he murmured close to her ear.

"Maybe I don't understand everything, and maybe I don't even want to.
But don't run away.  Let's see if we can find some, compromises

:~ ,S~e covered his, hands with hers in answer.  _ ~ Come on.  Let s go
watch the race.  "

_.  ~: ~ She let him lead her to the edge of the crowd.  The oval where
the horses were to race was large enough that there were enough places
along their route so that everyone could see.

Posts had been set up and ropes marked the boundary so that no one would
stray onto the course.  The horses waited at a makeshift gateway.  There
were only three of them, the chestnut that had nearly trampled her, a
heavyset white gelding that looked as if it belonged behind a plow, and
a bay that danced nervously from side to side each time a bugler
summoned the crowd to the race.

"I've got a pound on the chestnut," Duncan said.

"Iain wants the white and Andrew the bay.  What'11 you take?"

"I've no talent for this," she said too sharply.

ncan's Lad Du

                                      Y

132 He ignored her tone and its implications.

"Well, which one looks like a winner to you?"

I'll take the chestnut, too.  "

"Good girl.  You can pick a winner."

She tried to smile, but her face felt frozen.  The pain in her head was
nearly unendurable; she knew that worse was coming.

She could hear Duncan making soothing conversation; she could hear her
own polite responses.  The bugler finished and the horses came through
the gateway to line up beside each other.

"They go around five times, I think," Duncan said.  I'll bet the white
doesn't even go four.  "

Someone fired a shot into the air and the horses were off.  They
streaked by, their hooves pounding the earth just in front of her.  Mara
closed her eyes, but she could still see them.  The chestnut was out in
front, the white in second, and the bay, who was tightly reined in by
its rider, was a close third.  The rider would keep the horse in check
until nearly the end of the race.  Until.  The horses thundered by
again, but Mara barely ~aeard She o~>ened her eyes but it wasn't the
present she.  saw,.  [hem.  -~- >'~-~ and final lan, and as she watched,
the ~ay s alder g .  :~ ~"a before its rider could ave the horse its
head.  But instead of surging forward, the horse jerKea to on; ~,u;, ,~"
,compensate, the horse plunged into the crowd.

Exactly into the spot fifty yards from where Mara stood.  The spot where
two little boys stood beside their mother, who was holding high a
chubby, laughing toddler, so that ,.  she could see the race.

'~ She jerked away from Duncan and began to push her way through the
crowd. The horses were on their fourth lap now, at least she thought
they were. Time was confused and confusing.  It stood still and sped
forward in the same instant.

There was no time.  She was alone in a timeless void, and she had to
reach the children.

She pushed harder, ignoring the disgruntled noises of those she
trampled. The crowd was dense here, too dense to easily pass through.
She made a path for herself with i hands, concentrating only on what lay
ahead.  She could hear the horses rounding the bend, althc, she didn't
have time to spare a glance.  She was only yards from her goal, ten
impossible yards.

"Please, let me through!"  She pushed, and at last crowd parted.  She
launched herself forWard.  The chik were almost within reach.  She could
see their faces, ~ huge and glowing with the excitement of the race.

She saw those same eyes, sightless eyes staring fro: wooden kist in the
old stone kirk across the green.

"Le!

through!  "

She made a final push and grabbed the closest boy b5 collar, flinging
him with nearly superhuman strength i the crowd behind her.  The second
boy screamed in pro as she grabbed him and flung him after his brother.
~ mother whirled, shock, then fury written across every ~ ture.  She
lunged at Mara, and Mara circled her with arms.  She could feel the baby
between them, still safely cooned against her mother.  She launched
herself b, ward, taking them both with her.  Pain shot through her ~ as
she fell, and her head exploded into a million shard: light as it hit
the ground.  out just as the bay broke through the ring ~ into the empty
space where a~_mother and tl~ ~11 children had just been standing.

ChaPter 10.

There was a moment as Mara fell when she cried out silently against
fate.  She felt no regret for trying to save the children, but she knew
as she heard the thunder of horses' hooves closing in on her that her
vision had come too late.

She had not been warned in time.  She had not thrown the boys completely
clear and she had not protected their mother and the baby.  She had been
taunted with their fate, but she had not been given the strength or time
to prevent it.

How much better not to have known.

As fireworks exploded in her head, then darkness closed around her, she
felt an agony that surpassed physical pain.

She had battled fate and lost, and in the process she had lost Duncan,
too.

"mara."

Pain shattered the darkness, and she tried to retreat, but a man's voice
called her name once more.

"Mara.  Wake up.

Mara, can you hear me.  9" She tried to retreat further.  She lay very
still and willed the voice to go away.

135 "What I dinna understand is how she knew th_e horse would bolt," a
different voice said.

"Why does that matter now?"  the first replied.  "It does no' matter,
it's just a subject of some interest in the village."

"Damn it, Angus, the only thing I'm interested in right now is if she's
going to be all right!"

"You're a man who will no' take telling, are you no'?  I've told you
she's going to be fine.  I've told you more than once.  It's a nasty
bump, but I've seen nastier."

"We're talking about a brain here.   She hit the ground hard, and it's
been over an hour.   She still hasn't come to!"   "She's waking up now.
After nearly fifty years I know the signs.   Her head will ache for
days, and she may be a wee disoriented.

But her arm will give her more trouble than her head.  She'll be in a
sling for weeks at the very least.  She'll no' be milking cows or doing
chores.  "

"I don't care about her cows!  Her cows can be damned.  It's Mara I'm
worried about."

"Listen to me, Duncan Sinclair, Jeanne whacked your wee bottom nearly
thirty years ago in this very room, and now I'll do it myself if I must.
Stand back and give the lass room.

She'll no' come round a' tall with you breathing all her air.  "

Putting the men's words together in some sort of logical order made
Mara's head hurt worse, but she struggled to make sense of their
conversation.

A woman's voice sounded from faraway.

"Angus, the lads are all patched and ready.  The bittiest one's climbing
the walls, and I can nae contain him any longer."

 "Let me check them over again, Jeanne.   Then they can go."

"And nae a moment too soon!"

Mara felt someone take her hand.  I'll call you if she wakes up, or if
there's any change.  "

"Then you'll be calling me soon.  She's awake now.  She just does no'
want to be."  Mara heard a door slam.

 "Mara, is that true?  If you're awake, will you please open your eyes
and let me see for myself?  For God's sake, I can,?

tell if this old quack knows what he s talking about or not.  ~
Everything was clearer now.  Mara willed it to be even clearer.  She
opened her eyes and saw gray.  Gray stone, gray light, the grayish
pallor of Duncan Sin claWs face.  Her eyes closed.

"Mara."  Duncan's voice was close to her ear.  She could feel the warmth
of his breath against her cheek.

"Do you know where you are?  You're at the hospital in Druidheachd.
You've been here about an hour."

"The... children?"

"They're fine.  A few scratches, that's all.  Their mother's all right,
too. You got her out of the way just in time.

The horse was so close it caught the heel of her shoe when it plunged
past, but she wasn't touched.  The baby just had the wind knocked out of
her when all of you fell.  " Mara didn't know if she dared to believe
him.  Then, from somewhere in the distance, she could hear the whooping
of children's voices, and she knew he was telling the truth.  She began
to cry.

"Don't cry.  Mara, don't.  Please.  For God's sake, don't cry."

She cried anyway.  She could feel his fingers stroking away tears.

They trembled against her cheek.

"I thought..."

She couldn't form the words.

"You thought you were too late?  You weren't.  You got there just in
time."

"So I was fight.  She's awake."  The door slammed once more.

Mara opened her eyes again.  Old Dr. Sutherland swam into view.

"Aye."

"Well, it's no' every day I treat a heroine, lass.  I'm honored to have
the good fortune today."  He came over to stand ~ beside the bed.  He
lifted her wrist and felt for her pulse.  "You had a bad bashing, and
your head will ache for a while yet.  But it's your arm that'll give you
the most trouble." Their earlier conversation was beginning to make
sense to her now.

"Arm?

"Your right arm.  You did no' break it, but it's a n sprain.  We'll have
to keep it immobilized for a while.  ' can no' do a thing except have
the good grace to accept She attempted to move the arm in question and
dis~ ered it was tightly bound against her chest.  Panic bega fill her.

"I

can no' manage without my arm.  I can no' ~ it in a sling.  "

"You've no choice.  It'll be too painful to use, even allowed it, and I
will no'."  He dropped her wrist.

"M~

there's a question I'd like you to answer, if you're able.  I/ did you
know, lass, that the horse was about to br through the ropes?  "

The panic spread.  She was vulnerable in a way she never been before.
Her arm was bound to her side; her h pounded as if the crew of the Royal
Scotsman was tryinl lay new track through her brain.  She was surrounded
people who were suspicious of her, who thought her a gt or a witch, and
there was no place more remote that could run to.  She was trapped.  Her
throat closed around truth that might have her drummed from the village.

couldn't speak.

"Damn it, Angus, she didn't know," Duncan said.  " was trying to get a
better view, that's all.  We were watck the race together and Mara told
me she couldn't see fi where we were standing.  So she headed for a free
spac~ the rope.  The horse bolted just as she got there.  She was close
she saw instantly what was happening, and ~ grabbed the kids and their
mother.  It wasn't anything m mysterious than that.  Don't tell me all
these rumors ab, Greensleeves are getting to you, too."

Angus was silent.

"Where do you want to go, lass?"  asked at last.

"You'll have to stay here tonight, and ma, tomorrow.  But after that you
can no' go back to your c tage alone.

Someone has to look after you while you cover.  Shall I make
arrangements with someone in towr take you in as a boarder for a week or
two?  "

"She's coming home with me," Duncan said, bef Mara could answer.

"She's coming home with me if I h  to carry her like a sack of oats down
High Street and tie her to my bed."

"Now that would be a muckle show," Angus said.  "There'd be no more
rumors about witches and ghosties, I'm thinking.  The rumors would be
far more interesting."  He patted Mara's good hand, and laid it gently
on the bed.

The door closed behind him.

"Duncan.  " "Hush, Mara.  You're coming home with me."  ~ "Duncan, I did
no' tell you I was going to the rope... to get a better view."

"Hush.  Save your strength.  All you have to worry about now is getting
better."

"Duncan..."  Tears filled her eyes and frustration, her heart.

He smoothed her hair back from her forehead.

"I know, Mara," he said softly.

"I know.  Just close your eyes and rest.  You did a good thing today, a
wonderful thing.  No matter how it happened, you saved those children.
Just close your eyes and rest now."

"MY sheep... And my cows need milking."

"Jessie and Roger will see to everything.   They've already promised me.
Please, just rest so I can take you home tomorrow."

His hand was so soothing.  Her eyelids drifted shut.  Pain continued to
pound through her head, but it was growing more bearable.

"When I fell," she said softly,

"I thought..."  ~ "What?  What did you think?"  v "I thought I'd lost
you."

His hand paused.  Then she felt his lips against her forehead.

"You haven't lost me," he said.

"Now rest.  But don't fall asleep.  We're going to have to watch you
carefully for a while.

What would you like me to talk about to keep you awake?  ~ "Tell me...
about growing up in Druidheachd."

Duncan chose a room for Mara on the wing where his apartment was
located.  He had rejected one with a view of the green--because of
obvious reminders--and chosen other with a view of a small enclosed
garden where gc sometimes took tea.  Jessie's husband, Roger, the hotel
dener and handyman, tended the flowers with a lo' hand, and fragrant
stock and bright-eyed daisies bloo~ in profusion under Mara's window,
along with the e: roses.

Duncan filled Mara's room with the choicest bloss~ and asked the maids
to take special care with cleaning.

airing it before she arrived.  April donated her favorite and a
lace-edged pillow embroidered with teddy bears rainbows.  By the time
Dr. Sutherland was ready to rek Mara, they were more than ready for her.

"Now don't forget, Springtime, you can't jump on when she gets here.

You have to be quiet when yo] around her.  She bumped her head pretty
bad, and it hurts.  "

"She'll be glad to see me," April said, with a serious f, "I'm sure
you're right.  But you still can't jump on h{ " Lolly says Mara's a
ghost.  "

"Lolly's wrong."

"You can see through ghosts, can't you?"

 "There are no ghosts."   He kissed the top of her head: sent her on her
way.

He could walk to the cottage hospital in minutes, bul took the hotel's
minibus instead because Mara certai wasn't going to feel like walking
back. She was doing m~ better, completely out of danger now, but she was
still and in a good deal of pain.  She'd made light of it when visited
early that morning, but he had seen the pain's feets.

This afternoon she looked tired but pleased to be lea,~ the hospital.

She was sitting in a chair beside a wind, dressed and ready.

"Duncan."  She rose to meet him.  "Now, you're sure you feel well enough
to go?"

"Please get me out of here."

He frowned.

"What's wrong?  Haven't they been goo~ you?"

 "Oh aye, the care's been wonderful."  She bent and picked up the small
suitcase that Frances had packed for her.

"But may we go now?"

Hospitals, even cottage hospitals in scenic Highlands towns, were not
places where anyone~ might want to linger.

But Duncan was mystified at her Y~urry.  Mara said her goodbyes to the
staff and even accepted a hug from Jeanne Sutherland before they stepped
out into the fresh air.  She seemed to relax visibly as they walked
toward the parking lot.

"Did you know that Jeanne and Angus were married about six months after
I was born?"  Duncan asked.

"They claim that delivering the wee laddies of midnight brought them
together."

"They're both past seventy, are they no'?  But Jeanne says Dr.
Sutherland will no' give up the hospital."

"The new doctor does most of the work, but Angus keeps an eye on him.

He wouldn't be happy if he had to leave it all behind.  "

"There's been much sadness there."

"Where?  The hospital?"

She didn't respond.

"Is that why you were in a hurry to go?  You found it depressing?"

"It would be hard to explain."  -- "You could try."  .  "And I could
no'."

He took her arm to guide her to the minibus.  He didn't say anything
until they were on the road.

"Did you sense things there that you found disturbing?"

 "Does it matter what I say, Duncan?   Are you saying you'd believe me?"

He was silent until he pulled into a space behind the hotel.

"I don't know what I believe," he said, as he turned off the engine.

"But I'll tell you what I don't.  I don't believe you're crazy.  And I
don't believe you're making any of this up.  You saved lives at the
Johnstoas fair because you sensed something that the rest of us were
completely oblivious to.

I'd be the crazy one if I didn't acknowledge that much.  So, 1 if you
tell me the hospital was a hard place to be because were picking up
vibes or having visions, or whatever it is do, then I'll believe you.  I
won't understand it, but I'll lieve you.  "

"Duncan..."

He cupped her chin and turned her face to his.  Her were moist with
tears.

"I believe in you," he said.

He didn't add that he was beginning to believe in th, Them together.

Them in each other's arms.  Them gix and taking pleasure.  He had begun
to believe the minx that he found he hadn't lost her forever.

He touched her lips with his thumb, lightly brushin back and forth.

"And now I'd better get you inside, so can see for herself that you're
okay."

She smiled.  Something very much like hope bloomo her eyes.  He felt it
deep inside him.

Mara had never been idle, not in her entire life.  Sh~ Duncan, Frances
and April fuss over her for exactly hours, then as soon as they left her
to rest, she bega; prowl the hotel.

She immediately found the room where Duncan's si~ had, been burned.

She couldn't.  see the past clearly-nearly as clearly as her occasional
glimpses of the futur but she could sense residues of deep sadness.
True trag, resonated for centuries in the places where it had occun and
the more tragic the event, the more deeply she co experience it.

Her room at the cottage hospital had oppressed her most beyond
endurance.  At first she had tried to screen her impressions.  She'd
told herself that certainly people 1 died there, but death was as
natural as life and no reaso; make her feel distraught.  Still, she had
slept little, and by end of her stay she could no longer block her own
mi~ Something sadder than death had occurred in the very ~ where she
slept, something within recent memory but something that either Jeanne
or Angus Sutherland had v nessed.

 She had been almost hysterically grateful to be discharged.

Her impressions about the room where Fiona had been burned were much
clearer. She sensed fear and terrible pain when she stood at the
door--thrown wide open so that Sally could clean it later--and when she
stepped over the threshold, she could almost hear the screams of a
child.  She turned and came face-to-face with Duncan.

"You're supposed to be in bed," he said.  "I've been in bed much too
long already."  But even a~ she said it, she knew he was right.  She was
suddenly exhausted.  "Why'd you end up here?"

"I was just exploring."

"This was my room as a child."

"I know."

He cocked his head in question.  She shrugged in answer.  "Shall I
escort you back to bed?"

"Aye."  She was stiff with tension.  She could still hear a child crying
. He frowned.

"Shall I carry you?"

"Of course no'!"  She hadn't finished speaking before he swept her off
her feet and started down the hall.

"Duncan, we'll be the talk of the village.  Put me down!"  "Don't be
silly.

We're the talk of the village anyway.  "

The feelings vanished as they moved away from the room.  "You've a wee
daughter who'll wonder what's wrong if she sees this!"

"My wee daughter is at Jessie's house playing with Duncan turned down
the corridor where Mara's room was located.  He pushed her door open
with his knee and strode to her bed.  He bent and laid her carefully on
the coverlet, protecting her arm as he did.  He didn't straighten.
Instead, in the blink of an eye he was lying beside her.  She stared at
him.

"The door's open."

He said a few choice words that spanned the gap in slang from Scotland
to the U.  S.  But he didn't rise to shut it.

"I'll be known as a fallen woman," she warned.  "That might be an
improvement."

143 She laughed.  Her good arm curled around his neck.  His face was
only inches from hers.

"Is this why you volunteered to have me here, Duncan?  So you could have
your way with me anytime you pleased?"

"You mean it would be that easy?"

"You could try it and see."

His eyes darkened.

"I don't know if I could live with the disappointment if you said no."

"And if I said yes?"

"I don't know if I could live with the joy."

 "Then I suppose you'll be forced to live with indecision."

He laughed, a low, sexy rumble that seemed to vibrate between them.

"I know my decision.  Do you know yours?"

In an instant they were no longer teasing.  Mara could feel Duncan's
response to having her so close.  He was a leopard ready to spring.  If
they were truly alone and naked, skin-to- skin, he would be ready to
sink deeply inside her.  And the pleasure would be unbearable.

"I want you, Duncan," she said.

"I want you when the moment is right and we can no' be interrupted.  I
want you no matter how it turns out, because someday when I'm an old
woman, I'd like to know that this once in my life I reached out for what
mattered to me."

 "Mara..."   She felt the pressure and warmth of his lips.

She felt the strength of his body pressing her against the mattress.

His hand crept to her breast.  She could feel the imprint of his fingers
through her dress and wild pleasure streaking through her body.

She was only dimly aware of noise in the hallway, but Duncan pulled away
abruptly.  In a moment he was on his feet staring down at her.

"When the moment's right," he said in a low voice.

"And damn it, it's not right now."  He lifted her hand to his lips.

"Get some rest, Mara.  Sleep, and when you're well, we'll find the right
moment and the right place.  And I'll be there when you reach for me."

By the end of the day Mara knew she would go mad lying about for a week
or two and watching the world go by  _.

~.

without her.  She prided herself on her independence, and the forced
inactivity gave her too much time to think.  After Duncan had deposited
her back in her room again she had counted all the reasons why they
could never have a future together, and she had allowed herself the
luxury of sadness.

Then she had begun on the lives of others, sifting through the
impressions that came her way as they passed in the hall.  By supper,
she knew that something had to be done.

She dressed with difficulty.  The slightest movement made her arm and
head throb, and she couldn't will the pain away.

She had no choice but to keep the arm completely immobile and to move
like a tortoise mired in treacle.  By the time she had changed she was
frustrated, exhausted, and all fantasies of returning immediately to her
cottage had vanished.

But something still had to be done.  Something presented itself when she
started toward the dining room to wait for Duncan and April at their
special table.  She found a frustrated Duncan standing in front of the
reception desk along with Nancy, the thoroughly intimidated young woman
who womanned it.

Mara caught most of their conversation as she approached.

"It's sorry I am, Mr. Sinclair.  Truly 'tis.  But what can I do?  My
granny's sick, and there's no one to leave the babies with in the
afternoon.  No one a' tall.  And my Harry won't be back from London for
a fortnight, so there, s no hope he'll be able to help until Granny's
better."

"I understand, Nancy.   I just don't know what I can do about it.   With
three of the maids leaving on holiday we're short staffed as it is and
we've got twice as many guests as we had last month.   I can't spare
anyone from their usual jobs to take your place.   I'm sorry, but I may
have to hire someone to replace you."

Nancy looked as if she were going to cry.  She was a plump woman in her
late twenties with a sweet face that didn't take well to tears.

"I know.  I'd do anything I could to stop that from happening, but what
can I do?  My babies have to come first."

145 ~ "I'd be the first to agree with you."

Mara stepped forward.

"I'm sorry, but do you mind if I ask what's wrong?"

Nancy looked too choked up to speak, and she edged away subtly as Mara
moved closer.  Duncan shook his head in frustration.

"Just the usual joys of being an innkeeper.  Nancy's going to have to
take afternoons off for a while, and I don't have anyone to replace her
with." "But you do.  I can do it."

"Mara, you're here to rest and recover, not to work."  Nancy found her
tongue.

"But it's no' hard work, Mr. Sinclair.  I could take care of all the
paperwork in the mornings.  I'd have time aplenty.  Miss MacTavish would
only have to answer the telephone and speak with the guests."

"It would give me something to do, Duncan."   Mara saw she wasn't
reaching him.   He was as stubborn a man as any she'd ever met.

"It's either work here or go back to my cottage,"

she said firmly.

"And as weak as I am, the cottage seems very faraway."

He narrowed his eyes.  I'll think about it.  " Nancy tossed away
caution; she grabbed Mara's hand and squeezed it.

"It's true what I've heard about you," she said.  "And what's that?"

"That you probably dinna wish any of us harm."  Duncan glowered at
Nancy, but Mara touched his arm to keep him silent.

"Thank you, Nancy."

Nancy beamed.  She took off for the reception desk, sensing, Mara
imagined, that she should leave before Duncan had a chance to add his
own comments. "Well, it's nice to know that no' everybody thinks I'm the
devil's tool," Mara said.

"Why on earth did you volunteer to help?  Nancy's not your problem, and
neither is the hotel."

"I did it for myself.  I've got to have something to do, or I'll be as
daft as a sheep in a shearing pen before I'm all healed.  This is
something I can do with one good arm," She saw indecision in his eyes,
but she knew how to get around it.  She smiled and stepped closer.

"And dinna you ken?  It will put me in the public eye.  Maybe everyone
who comes  through the hotel will see that I'm just flesh and blood and
relatively harmless."

"Unless you start saving lives in the lobby."

"You're going to let me do it, are you no'?"   - "There s nothing I d
refuse you.

~ Her smile broadened.

"I'll hold you to that, Duncan.  I will most decidedly hold you to
that."

Chapter 11.

Sometimes it seemed to Mara that in the two weeks that s had been at the
reception desk the entire village had F raded through the hotel lobby.
She kept a private collecti~ of her favorite excuses.  Some were almost
reasonable, of ~ers so far-fetched that April would have been able to s
I ~.  right through them.  One man sat on a sofa just in front ~ner day
after day and claimed when asked that he jt .  i~~wanted to see if
Duncan was maintaining the same hit ~standards as the Sinclairs before
him.  A woman was cm ous as to whether the lobby furniture had been
rearrange recently--she checked every afternoon at four.  Still a~ other
woman asked--unsuccessfully--for the guest book; determine if her
neighbor to one side Was using the hotel fi trysts with her neighbor to
the other.

Mara responded politely to all of them She allowed he self to be
examined and judged, and she didn't flinch fro: questions.  By the time
she was nearly ready to return to h~ own cottage, she realized that she
was going to miss the he tel.  She had begun to make friends, a benefit
she hadn expected. Some of the same people who had come to inve.  ,
tigate had stayed on for the duration.  The couch-sitter no,  brought
flowers from his garden every morning, and the furniture arranger had
agreed to Mara's suggestion that together they draw up a new plan for
the lobby that would facilitate the flow of traffic while at the same
time provide cozy seating groups.

There were others, as well.  The woman who delivered fresh sheets each
day had a son in Dublin and loved to talk about her visits there.  The
greengrocer sought out Mara every afternoon to discover whether ~she had
been pleased at supper on the previous night with whatever fruits or
vegetables she'd selected from the menu.  Most touching of all, Sarah
Mac Daniels and her children--whose lives Mara had probably saved--had
come in at the end of the first week with a basket of fresh blackberries
and a promise of a winter's supply of jam.

"How did you know about that horse, Miss?"  Sarah had asked as she and
the children were leaving.

"Just how did you know?"

Mara shook her head.  She couldn't make up a story for Sarah.  Of all
people she deserved to know the truth.

"I wish I could tell you, but I can no'.  I just did."  She smiled
warmly.

"Have you no' had that happen yourself, Sarah?

Mara had Wondered at the beginning how it would i have Duncan so close
at hand.  At first Robbie had fount fascinating, too.  Her second sight
had been as attracti, him as her trim body and long golden hair.  But
after had married, Robbie's enchantment had ended abru The r~lity of
living with her visions had eclipsed the elty.

She was not married to Duncan.  He had never awaker~ed in the middle of
a night by a wife trembling crying from nightmares of things to come. He
had n been asked to leave a party because she was overwhel~ with
impressions and had to retreat.  He had never t forced to purchase the
quietest house on the quietest st~ never given up a holiday in bustling
Rome for one at a lo seaside villa, never abandoned the idea of having
chill because he couldn't bear the possibility of passing on handicap to
future generations.

Duncan had never had any of those experiences.  Bt her two weeks at the
hotel, he'd had others.  He had i there when she'd realized that Mrs.
Robbins, a warm, v pensioner who came to the hotel each Wednesday and
urday for tea, would not last out the year.  He had lea~ to tell when
she was becoming engulfed in images, and i Have you no' "felt something
deep inside you, then watched_ ~ it come true?

57~ Sarah nodded.

"Aye.  Once I woke up from a sound sleep and got out of bed for no
reason to check on my weans.

Something told me to do it.  My oldest had a high fever, even though
he'd been well before bedtime.  I dinna know what would have happened if
I had no' awakened.  " " Then you understand.  "

"But no' everyone would."

"Which is why I keep the truth to myself."  Sarah nodded again.

"And why I'll keep it to myself as well."

There had been other benefits, too.  April to play with and read to and
cuddle.  Hot water and indoor plumbing, a view of a garden she didn't
have to work herself, meals prepared by Frances Gunn, the finest cook in
the village.

And Duncan.

learned to help her avoid those times.  He found quiet pl ~for her to
retreat and often went with her.  He drove he to her cottage every night
so that she could see for bet that all was well.

And he had yet to ask anything of her that she could, give him.

That changed on what was to be her last Friday at noon at the hotel.

Her arm was out of the sling now, though it was still tender.  She had
begun to exercise it m and it promised to be good as new eventually. She
still headaches occasionally, but the severity had decreased.  ] of all,
her recovery had coincided with the return of lX cy's husband from
London, and next week Nancy wouh ready to take back her afternoon shift.

I'll just be going," Nancy said, when Mara came t lieve her after the
midday meal.

"But before I do,  should know something."  She lowered her voice.  She
and Mara were coconspirators now.  Over the weeks Nancy's feelings had
progressed from hesitant gratitude to outright affection.

"April's mum called this morning.  She tried to get me to put her
through to April, but, of course, I did no'.  I've strict instructions
to put her through to Mr. Sinclair when she calls."

Mara knew about those instructions.  Nancy had warned her repeatedly the
morning she'd trained Mara to take her place.

"She'll be phoning back," Nancy continued.

"Mr.  Sin- clair was out when she phoned the first time.  And when she
hears a different voice at the desk, she'll ask you to put her through
to April.  I likely can guarantee it."

Mara felt suddenly chilled.

"Thank you for the warning."

Nancy chattered on.  Her granny was better.  Mara should come over some
evening to meet her Harry now that he was back.  Did Mara think that Mr.
Sinclair was going to let her rearrange the lobby furniture?

Mara made all the correct responses, but her mind remained on Lisa.

After Nancy had gone, she settled herself at the desk and finished the
paperwork that Nancy hadn't gotten to, but her distress increased.  And
when the telephone rang at half past two, she knew who was waiting
impatiently across the Atlantic.

She picked up the receiver.

"This is the Sinclair Hotel.  How may I help you?"

There was a slight pause.

"Excuse me?  Did you say this is the Sinclair Hotel."

"That's correct.  May I be of service?"

"Umm... Yes.   I'd like to speak with April Sinclair, if she's there.
This is ... a friend of the family's.   From the United States."

Mara knew that Duncan was back.  She had eaten dinner with him at noon.
They had exchanged a few hurried kisses in a dark hallway and promises
of more. Now he was in his office, and April was playing with Primrose
in the garden~ outside Mara's room.

151 "Hello?"  Lisa sounded puzzled that there had been no reply.

I'll connect you.  It might take a moment.  She's outside.  Please dinna
hang up.  "

"Oh, I won't.  I promise I won't!"

Tears filled Mara's eyes, but she didn't know exactly whom they were
for. She put the call on hold, then started down the hallway closest to
the garden and her room.  She beckoned April inside and when the little
girl came in, she unlocked her own door.

"There's a call for you.  Somebody I know you'll want to talk to.  Take
it in here, April," Mara said.

"Just hang it up when you're done.  Then come and find me.  I'll be at
the front desk."

Dread had replaced tears by the time that April ran through the lobby.
Mara held out her arms, and April leaped into them.  Mara held the
little girl tightly against her.

"That was my mommy!"

"I know, dearest."

"She wanted to talk to rne.t"

"Of course she did."

"She says she misses me."

"Of course she does."  Mara rocked back and forth in her chair.

"I'm certain she misses you very, very much."

"She wanted to know about school and my friends and room.  She wanted to
know everything!"

"And did you tell her everything?"

"I told her about Primrose and Uncle Andrew and Iain, and about the dead
toad we found in the garden."

"The important things."

"And I told her about you."

Mara went very still.

"Did you, April?"

"She said she thought you were nice, too, 'for letting her talk to me.
What did she mean?"

"I suppose she was just glad that I did no' mind going outside to look
for you."

"Oh."  April was already beginning to sober a little.  "Daddy doesn't
know I talked to Mommy... Lisa.  Does he?"

"No, I dinna think he does."

 "Are you going to tell him?"

Mara had been asking herself the same question.  The answer had to be
yes. But when and how were different matters.

"Would you like to be the one to tell him?"  she asked.  April frowned.

She didn't answer.

"I can tell him if you'd rather."

The frown began to fade.  April's phone call had been too wonderful and
too important to let anything spoil it.

"Do you think she might come to see me?  Do you think Mommy might come?"

She would come.  Mara knew it as surely as she had ever known anything.
Lisa would come, and she would bring pain and turmoil with her.  Mara
hugged April, then set her firmly on the floor.

"What I'm thinking right now is that certain wee puppy might just take
it in his head to run outc~l in the road if you dinna go find him."

April ran off in search of Primrose.  The lobby was silent.  For once no
one was watching.  Mara put her head in her hands and closed her eyes.

Duncan waited for Mara to walk through the door of his apartment.  He
had been moved to cook supper for her himself, as moved by the fact that
April was going to Lolly's for a sleep over as by his desire for
pasta--which Frances rarely served in the dining room.

He had steamed and marinated vegetables overnight serve over fettuccine,
and he had chilled a bottle of vinta French Chablis, purchased on his
last trip to Fort William.  Frances had sent up a loaf of her best oat
bread; he'd made a salad of local lettuce and glasshouse tomatoes. There
were two servings of the hotel's special trifle in glass bowls in his
refrigerator and fresh, thick cream to serve over it.  And there was
dark roast coffee to savor after everything else had been eaten.  If he
and Mara were thinking about coffee right about then.

Having Mara at the hotel for two weeks, within reach at all times, had
been torture.  He had walked around in a perpetual state of temptation.
He had told himself again and again that Mara was still wary, that she
had been hurt too 153 deeply to take sex ligBtly, that she was still
physically weakened and emotionally vulnerable.

And each time he'd seen her, he'd wanted to take her to his bed and
explore ~'very secret of her mind and body.  particularly her body,
Familiarity hadn't bred contempt; rather it had bred desire, and along
with it, respect and admiration.  Mara had faced up to the problem of
her reputation in Druidheachd, and she had held her head high,
enchanting and charming a fair number of the locals along the way.
Duncan was enchanted and charmed himself.  He couldn't sleep at night
without dreaming of laer.  He couldn't walk through the hotel halls
without hop hag he would run into her.  He couldn't work at his desk
witl~out seeing her face on the papers in front of him or hearing the
musical cadences of her voice on each breeze that drif~d through his
window.  Tonight there were no breezes, but a bracing wind that
announced a storm w~as to follow.  He had almost adjusted to the cold
Scottish climate again, to penetrating mists and smirr, the fine rain
tl~at was a step beyond fog.  He had learned to look forward to lengthy
summer nights and iridescent clouds that adorned the blue noonday skies,
to spectacular views of distant treeless peaks and an unpolz lured loch
one brief stroll away.

He didn't want to live in Druidheachd, and he didn't know how that might
affect his growing desire for Mara.

But for now he was hal~ pier than he had ever expected to be.  The wind
carried AlPril inside with it.  She had been outside most of the day,
and her cheeks were as pink as Primrose's ridiculous lolling tongue. The
puppy squealed happily--Duncan was; resigned to the fact that Primrose
would never learn to b~ark--and skidded across the floor to his water
dish where he landed headfirst with a splash and another squeal. Duncan,
experienced by now, already had a dishrag in hand.

"It's going to rain,~ rain, rain."  April danced in circles.  "Rain,
rain, rain..."  3  Duncan rose after setting Primrose back on all fours
and mopping the water.

"Let me guess.  You think it's going to rain."

April tackled him, wrapping her arms around his hips.  He stroked her
hair.

"Did you see Mara downstairs?"  he asked.

"She's coming.  Coming, coming, coming."

"Let me guess.  You think she's coming."

"Daddy is silly.   Daddy is silly!"   She began to dance around the
floor again.   He couldn't remember seeing her so happy.   She was
growing into the little girl he had never expected to see but for whom
he had wished desperately.   At the moment she wasn't worried about
anything.   She had nothing to do except be herself.

For the first time he wondered if perhaps someday he might be forgiven
for being a bad father after all.

There was a soft knock on his door, a tentative knock.  He crossed the
room and threw it open.  Mara'sexpression was serious.  She assessed
him, and he had the strangest feeling that she wasn't sure if she was
satisfied with what she saw.

"Shall I come in?"

"No.  I thought I'd serve you supper in the hallway tonight."  He
grasped her arm and pulled her inside.

"Welcome to the madhouse.  April and Primrose are competing : who's
crazier."

April tackled Mara, then she grabbed her father, too.  They were
cocooned together in one little girl hug.  Duncan could see a faint
sprinkle of freckles across Mara's nose.  He was close enough to kiss
them and just disciplined enough to resist.

Instead, he lifted April off her feet and swung her to his hip.  She was
almost too large now to be held that way; she was definitely growing up.

"Look, Springtime, you've got to get yourself together.  Jessie's going
to be up in a few minutes to pick you up for the sleep over."

 "I'm all ready."   She clasped his neck in a death grip.

"Ready, ready, ready!"

"I think she's ready," he told Mara.

"And excited about it," Mara said.

155 ~' "Is that w~y you're so silly tonight?"  he asked.  He tickled
her, and she giggled and kicked to get down.

"I had a x~onderful day," she said.  She began to dance around the reom
again.

"Did you?  I'd say all that fresh air and sunshine agrees with you.  Ox
was it the walk over to Cameron's for ice cream?"

"No.

"Caue I got to talk to Mommy."  She Stopped spinning.

For a moment Duncan didn't register what she'd said.  He was busy
watching Mara.  It was the change in her expression that brought him to
attention.

"What did you say, ~:-April?"

[-- April stood very still now.

"I got to talk to Mommy."  She looked up at ~ara, as if asking for help.

"Mrs.  Sinclair called this afternoon and I put her through to April,"

Mara said.

"They had a nice chat, did you no', dearest?"  ' "She miss~ me," April
said.

"Just like I miss her."  She still didn't look at her father.

"I told her everything."

"Did you how who was calling?"  Duncan asked Mara.  He kept his voice
neutral, but it took considerable effort.

~l

"Aye, I knew."

There was mthing he could say that could be said in front of April.

,~e gazed out the window until he could control his ~5 ~tongue.  Did you
remember to pack your toothbrush, ---~ Springtime?  And how about your
seal? "

"My seal a~d my lamb."  April relaxed again and beamed at Mara.

Thelamb had been a birthday gift, lovingly sewn by Mara from scraps of
her own fleeces.

"And how about Primrose?"  Mara asked.

"Did you pack him, too?"

"Silly!  He has to stay here."  April wrapped her arms around M ara'~
waist.

"Can I pack you?"

"Will I fit?"

April's gig~ was interrupted by a knock.  Duncan opened the door and
ashe red Jessie and Lolly inside.  There was a flurry of greetings,
followed by a flurry of goodbyes.

 ~ Finally he and Mara were alone, and the apartment was as silent as
suspicion.  , He crossed the room and poured himself a whiskey.  He kept
his back to her.

"May I get you a drink?"  His voice froze the air between them.

"I dinna think so.  I dinna drink with anyone who is angry with me."

"Angry is a pale word for what I'm feeling."

"Then tell me what you're feeling, Duncan, and let's have it on the
table. Dinna pretend that nowt's happened."   He faced her.

"You let my daughter talk to her mother.  I put an ocean between Lisa
and April.  I put thousands of miles between us.  I'm living in the most
godforsaken part of a godforsaken country just so Lisa can't have any
interaction with April!  And you let April talk to her!"

"Aye."

He slammed the glass down.  Whiskey sloshed over the rim.

"Who do you think you are?  It's my decision if and when Lisa ever gets
to talk to April!  Goddamn it, I paid enough to have the right to make
that decision, didn't I?

And then you come along, with your bleeding heart and your conviction
that you know what's best for everyone, and you take that decision out
of my hands!  And I'm the one who has to live with it!  I'm the one who
has to watch that woman ruin my daughter's life again!  " " You're
right, of course.

I had no right.  But I'd do it again, Duncan.  Because you're right
about something else.  Lisa is ruining April's life.  But no' in the way
that you think.  She's ruining it by no' being part of it.  " He covered
the distance between them, towering over her.

He wanted to shake her.  He wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her
until the rage inside him subsided even a little.

But he didn't touch her.  He had never touched anyone in anger, and even
this, even this betrayal would not alter that.

"You weren't there," he said softly.

"You weren't there when I unlocked a bedroom door and found my child, my
little girl, huddled in a corner screaming her heart out.  There wasn't
even a light on in that room, Mara.  Lisa hadn't even 157 had the
decency to leave a light on!  April's still afraid of the dark.  To this
day she's still afraid!"

"I'm no' defending Lisa, Duncan."

"Then what are you doing?  What in the hell are you doing?"

"I'm interfering.  Because I love you both."

"Love?"   He took a step back and folded his arms in front of him.
They were safer there.

"What is this?  Do you love us both enough to ruin April's life and
mine, too?  Is that the kind of love you practice?  Is that the kind you
know?  Has your life been so devoid of love that you don't know what to
do with it?"

"My life may have been short on love, but it's been long on watching
people suffer.  And your daughter is suffering, and I could no' stand by
and watch her suffer more."

 "I think you'd better go."

"No' before I show you something."

"What?  What could you possibly show me that would change what you did
today? You encouraged Lisa.  And now she may take it in her head to find
Druidheachd and her beloved baby girl.  She's just exactly unstable
enough to become fixated on seeing April now that she's talked to her.
Finding April can become her newest obsession.  Who knows where it will
end!"

"Obsession is exactly what this is about."  Mara moved past him and to
the doorway leading into the hall.

"Do you want to see, or no'?"

He wanted her to leave.  He had been crazy to let himself become
involved with her.  He had known, from the very beginning, that she was
trouble, yet despite his own experiences, he had allowed her to take
over a portion of his heart.

She disappeared into April's bedroom.  He had no choice but to follow.

He would see whatever she wanted to show him, then he would ask her to
leave.

She opened April's toy chest and began to rummage.

"I dinna even know if it's still here.  She: may have taken it with her
to Lolly's.  I dinna think she often lets it out of her sight."  , "What
are you talking about?"  He stopped in the doorway.

She continued to rummage, removing toys and piling them on the floor
beside the chest.  Finally she stood and gazed around the room.  Regret
colored her eyes a darker green.

"She took it.  And now I can no'..."  She stared at the bed, then she
shook her head.

"No, there it is."  She walked to the bed and lifted April's pillow.

"She must have planned to take it with her and forgotten in the hurry at
the end."  She held out a carved wooden box.

He knew the box.  It had once belonged to Lisa.  She'd kept crystals in
it or candles or incense.  Something magical and absurd.  He didn't know
how April had gotten hold of it, but it hardly seemed to matter.

"So?"

"Look inside, Duncan.  Have a good look at obsession."  Reluctantly he
took the box and lifted the top.  He stared at the contents.  Time
passed.  He didn't know how much time.  He heard Mara's footsteps fading
from the room, and moments later he heard the apartment door close
softly behind her.

He didn't move.  He stared at his daughter's memories and the sad,
discarded mementos of the mother she was not allowed to see.

Chapter 12 ':'.

The day had been warm, but the storm had brought with it chilling winds,
and Mara was glad for the peat fire burning on her hearth. She had made
herself tea when she'd arrived home, and even as simple an act as that
had left her And when his eyes finally closed in defeat, he still held
the remains of his marriage tightly in his hands.

'~l ~) feeling tired.  She closed her eyes and rested, willing herself
:~i~1 I ~ to concentrate on the familiar sounds of the croft instead of
the voices in her head.

But the voices were louder.

~2~ ~-She loved Duncan Sinclair, and she had told him so.  But the
revelation had made no difference to either of them.

What did love matter when there was no trust with it?  She hadn't
trusted him enough to go to him immediately and tell him what she'd
done.  He hadn't trusted her enough to wait for her explanation.

Guiser stretched out at her feet.  He had been pathetically grateful for
her return.  Jessie and Roger had taken excellent care of him during her
absence, but he was a one- woman dog.  She inspired mindless devotion in
animals and exuberant growth in plants.  And in humans she inspired
mistrust and anger.

 Guiser shifted, and his ears perked up.  She didn't know what time it
was, only that hours had passed since her return.

She knew she ought to go to bed because tomorrow her life would resume
its usual course and she would rise at dawn to begin her chores.  She
was two weeks behind in her gardening and dyeing, and she didn't know
how she was going to manage to do everything in the few warm months
still left to her.

Guiser got to his feet and started toward the door.  She followed,
throwing it open to watch him dissolve into the darkness.  The storm
still thundered somewhere in the distance and rain fell hard enough to
obscure whatever view she might have had, She wanted to follow him, to
run through the darkness and keep on running.  She did not want to face
her life alone again.  The croft that had once seemed like a prayer's
answer now seemed like a prison.

"Mara?"

She stepped back, startled.  Duncan stood before her, and she hadn't
even sensed he was there.

She didn't know what to say.  She hadn't expected him to come.  She had
tried to glimpse her own future, and she had seen a void.  -~ "Mara." He
stepped forward.  He reached out his hand.

161 "We're in the most godforsaken corner of a godforsaken country.
Dinna you tell me that earlier?"

"Are you going to stand there, or are you going to come over here?"

"Say what you've come to say, Duncan.  Then please go."

 "Do you think I'm going to hurt you?"

"You've already hurt me.  I'm no' in the market for more."

' mara.  "

She closed her eyes.  His voice wrapped around her heart and squeezed
mercilessly.

"I was wrong to go against your wishes today," she said.

"But I never deserved such anger.  Do you think I did it easily?  Do you
think I was no' torn?  I knew you'd be upset, but I thought you'd give
me a chance to explain.

I was only waiting until we were alone.  "

"You had all afternoon and evening.  You could have found a time and a
place."

"I did no' want you to be hurt by what I had to show you, and I knew you
would be.  But I should no' have waited.

You're right about that.  "

"And I should have known you had reason to put Lisa through to April.

I'm sorry.  "

II She opened her eyes and he was standing just in front of her again.

"So you've said what you came for."

She backed away, Why are you here?  " a~ " " ..... '~' ' _:r.~!  ~ Mara
She tried to turn away, but he cun~xt her face .................... ~
~in ms nands I was wrong I had no idea what April was '
She~l~newasstanqmgmmeram. mmmacnaa~n ~~ .  .  '.  _ .

.  .

going throug, I shut my ey~ to it, just like I shut my no match for a
sin met thunders tom His dark hair was ~ ~ " plas~r~ to h~ forehead and
raM drops tra~ his ch~ i ~ ey~... bon~ She s~ to one side and let h~ in,
but she d~dn't :~ " I what.

m~.  o a~a~ frnm ~h~ dnnr ~.

th fire ' .

~ 'if- stud a lot of th3ngs ~av I stana oy e .

~ " .

' .  You stud that you lov~ me" She ~r~ toward ~t, g~wng ~on.  He took
off hm ~ ..... ' r from It was i love easny, Duncan mac ~d hung ~t on a
~, ~en he go~ the o .  ~ heft com~g up the mo~ ~ t~.  But at l~t I
didn't ~ He drop~ his hands.

"Is that right?"

"Aye.  I dinna know how to prot~t my~lf."

any ghost.  "

"Then I'm just one of a ~ri~.  Is that what you're say She didn't
answer.

"I forget somet~ that I'm not in California anymore.  ing?"

I forget it can be so damn~ cold in July.  " ..  ~ She just stared at
h~.

 "I don't think so," he said softly.

"I think you've built walls as thick and as solid as the walls of this
cottage.  And I think you've isolated your heart the way you've isolated
yourself on this mountain.  But you weren't meant for any of this.  You
were meant to love and be loved."

"That's what we were all meant for.   But no' all of us succeed, do we?
And for some of us, it's better if we stay in our stone cottages and
isolate ourselves on mountains."

"Not for you."  He pulled her close and turned her face to his.

"Not for you.  You were meant for this."

She tried to pull away, but his lips took possession of hers and his
arms circled her.  He claimed to be cold, but his body was as warm as
fire against hers.  She was enveloped by his warmth.

Some part of her that had long been frozen began to thaw, and she knew
she couldn't let it.

She slid her hands to his chest and pushed.

"I want you to go.  Please go.  I've nowt to offer you."

"Just yourself."  He dropped his arms, but he didn't move away.

"I'm asking for that, and nothing more."

"You dinna know what you're asking!"

"I do know."  He took her hands and held them to his heart.

"I know who you are, and I know what you suffer sometimes.  And I'm
telling you it doesn't matter.  I want you the way you are, Mara.  I'm
not asking that you be someone you're not."

"Please, Duncan."  But she didn't know what she was begging him for.

"I've made a million mistakes in my life."  His hands tightened around
hers.

"A billion.  And I'll go on making them.  And I want you anyway because
I can't help myself.  If I was any kind of man at all I'd walk through
that door and leave you here because I'm not good enough for you."

 "No' good enough?"

"I don't know how to be the man you need.  I couldn't be enough for
Lisa. God knows I tried, but I just couldn't be everything she needed.
And if I could have been, maybe she never would have gone off the deep
end."

"It was never your fault."  She wasn't sure when her fingers had woven
with his.  He was no longer holding her 1 hands.  They were joined by
mutual consent.

"How can y blame yourself?"

His eyes were the color of peat smoke.

"And how can y think you have nothing to offer?  You're the kindest worn
I've ever met, and the most perceptive.  There's nothi small or mean
about you. From the first moment I saw y, standing in that meadow I knew
them was going to something between us.  And that something is this."

He bent his head lower.  She knew she should move aw, that this time he
would take nothing from her.  He was gi ing her time, teasing her with
her own need.  He was aski for a commitment, a mutual expression of
longing.

And she wasn't strong enough to deny him.  She groan as his lips found
hers, because suddenly lips weren't enough~ She had been hollow too
long, and she had yearned 1 Duncan all of her life.  There were no walls
thick enough,: mountain high enough to keep him from her any longer.
"Oh, Mara."  He breathed her name against her ha "For once let's stop
fighting what we both want."  She couldn't fight.

She stroked instead, stroked the clan dark silk of his hair, the warm
skin of his neck, the roug textured wool of his jumper, the cool,
slippery cotton of l shirt.  She stroked and she tasted the secret
flavors of his sk and lips and the deeper recesses of his mouth.

His hands were as eager for sensation as hers.  Th, her hair to close
tightly over her shoulders a~ propel her even closer.  Restless again
they edged to h breasts, to her waist, to the narrow flare of her hips.
He w hard against her, aroused and ready to forsake the ple sures of
foreplay and slide deep inside her.

But he didn't move toward the bed.

"Tell me you w~ this, too."

"Aye."  There were better ways to say it.  She grasped t hem of his
jumper and tugged it toward his head.  ",4 Duncan, I want this and I
want you.  And I'll have wha want."

His eyelids drifted shut.  His hands moved over his he and in a moment
the jumper lay on the stone floor.  She h: a nurse, used to dressing and
undressing men of:  ages, but her fingers were suddenly clumsy.  He
stood completely motionless, taut and brimming with tension, and let her
fumble with the buttons.  He made a soft sound, a moan of raw pleasure
as her palms skimmed his bare chest at last.

She savored the sensation of the wide expanse of skin, of broad
shoulders and muscular arms.  The shirt joined the jumper on the floor
and firelight turned his torso to bronze.  "This is a favor I can
return."  He sounded like a man lost somewhere between pleasure and
pain.  His fingers trembled as he guided the zipper of her dress to its
lowest point.

Her skin seemed to smolder every place that he touched it.  She felt as
if she were expanding inside, winging to some uncharted place with only
the boundaries of her skin to keep her grounded on the earth.  The dress
fell to the floor and pooled at her feet and her bra followed it.  His
hand closed over her breast, and she had never felt such pleasure.  She
melted against him, pressing herself closer.  She heard a moan and
didn't know if it was hers or his.

His lips found her ear; her hands found his zipper and the bulge beneath
it. She freed him and felt the fire of his arousal against her abdomen.
The bed seemed a light-year away, a journey through impossible terrain.
He swung her off her feet, kicking his pants away, and strode there. The
soft mattress gave willingly beneath her back was welcome and heavy on
top of her.

She wasn't sure when the last of their clothes had disappeared.  They
were naked together now, but there was no time to explore or to note.
She was driven by a purer need than curiosity.  She had been created for
this moment, for the merging of her being with Duncan's, and he had been
created for her.

She knew, without knowing how, that they would both be changed by what
was already an inevitable conclusion.

They would be separate again, but never quite as separate.  This moment
would always be between them, no matter what the future held.

They were two, then they were one.  She took him inside her and felt the
power of their merging shake the foundations of everything she had ever
known.  Time, which had so 165 often moved in mysterious ways for her,
stood absolutely still.

And the pleasure, the raw, mindless pleasure, stretched into eternity.

Mara was sleeping.  Her thighs skimmed his, her arm was draped lightly
over his chest.  The scent of herbs, of lemon balm, lavender and mint
perfumed her hair and tickled his senses in ways he had never imagined
they could.

There was an owl hooting somewhere nearby, hooting blatantly,
shamelessly, now that the worst of the storm had passed.  There were
other sounds.  The distant bell of a wandering sheep.  Mara's soft
breathing.  The sizzle of peat on the hearth.  Wind sighing through the
waltzing branches of trees.

He couldn't remember feeling this way before.  He couldn't even find a
word to describe the interplay of emotions that had assaulted him while
making love with Mara.  And afterward, afterward he had brimmed with
feelings.  He envisioned a dam as thick as the walls of Mara's cottage
and a slow, steady leak that could never be plugged again.  He had
believed himself to be a man with few emotions.  Now he knew that he had
built his entire life on a myth. He was emotional, wildly, furiously
emotional and passionate beyond comprehension.

And he had met his match in Mara.  She had set him on fire, wringing
passion from him and returning it in full measure.  How could two people
who had been so terribly careful for so long ignite on contact?  How had
they found each other when there was so much that should have separated
them?

That still could?

She cuddled closer and he drew the blanket higher over her, although he
hated to block his glorious view of her body.  She was more beautiful
than he had imagined--and he was a man who was long on imagination.  Her
legs were showgirl length and wickedly agile.  Her waist was as slim as
a reed, her breasts small but beautifully rounded and softer than
anything had a right to be.

 She stirred again, and this time her eyes opened.  She smiled and
touched his cheek.

"What time is it?"

"I have no idea.  You don't seem to have a clock."

 "Umm... That's right.   I dinna."

"Why don't you?"

"What would I need one for?"

"Moments like this.  When you wake up and want to know what time it is."

She smiled.  Something sparkled in her eyes.

"Ask me what time it is, Duncan."

He shifted, so they were face-to-face.  His heart began to beat faster.

"What time is it, Mara?"

She circled him with her arms.

"Come a little closer, my love, and I'll show you."  --' ~ Mara was up
before Duncan.  He was sleeping so soundly that he didn't stir when she
dressed to go outside.  Roger had moved the cows to his own croft to
make them easier to care for, so until she got them back--if she
did--there was nothing to do for them.  She was considering the
possibility of selling them to Roger if he was interested.  She realized
now that she had bought them as much to tie herself to the land as for
any other reason.  But she had moved beyond needing excuses for anything
that she did.  And if Roger took the cows, she could buy her milk from
him and turn the tables nicely.

The sheep were another matter.  She had become a fair shepherd since she
had moved to the mountain.  She could vaccinate and lamb and do a
hundred other less appealing tasks now, but she would never get used to
breeding lambs, then selling them off at the end of each summer.  The
mourning cries of their mothers rang in her ears for weeks after the
ewes themselves had adjusted, and thoughts of the lamb's fates weren't
to be tolerated.  No, in the weeks since she had been away from the
croft she'd had time to contemplate her life.  And what she'd seen
hadn't necessarily pleased her.

She walked to the barn, Guiser at her heels, and opened the door to let
the sheep out for the day.  With Guiser's as.  I 167 sistance she herded
them to the section of pasture where they would graze for the next few
weeks.  She closed the gate behind the last one and trekked the
circumference of the fence, to be sure that no stones were out of place.
Then she leaned on the gate and watched the lambs at play.

She kept two different herds, although she grazed them together.  One
was an ancient breed, the Shetlands, whose wool ranged from white to
black and included a shade called Moorit, a deep, rich, reddish brown.
The other she kept were the Highland Black Face, a sheep with a
beautiful long fleece and a tendency to fatten quickly for meat.  The
Shetlands were her favorite because their wool was so unusual,
suggesting endless combinations for a creative spinner, but the wool of
the Highland sheep took color beautifully.  "What are you doing?  The
sun's hardly had time to rise."

She turned to find Duncan right behind her.  She put her arms around his
neck for a good morning kiss, savoring the taste of his sun-warmed lips.
His hair was endearingly tumbled and the shadow of a beard adorned his
jaw.  He had never looked sexier.

"I had to get the sheep to pasture."  "Do you rise this early every
morning?"

"Earlier when the cows are home."  ' "And in winter?"

She made a face.

"It's harder."

He put his arm around her shoulders and stood with her at the fence.

She didn't know what she had expected to see this morning when they were
face-to-face.  Regret, perhaps.

Astonishment.  Distress.  But she had seen none of it.  Duncan simply
looked like a satisfied man.

"I've liked the sameness of all this," she said, sweeping her hand in an
arc.

"I've liked the chores and the primitive conditions, working with the
animals, even sometimes, the bleakness of the weather."

"You've been testing yourself."

She was pleased he understood.

"I needed to begin at the most elemental level.  Does that make any
sense to you?"

She was pleased again.

"We have a saying here, to 'dree yer am wierd."  Do you know it?  "

 "It means to face up to whatever's ahead of you.  My father used it
often."

"I suppose I've thought this croft was my way of doing just that.  I
thought to make a life for myself, to face up to who I was and learn to
accept solitude as my lot."

 "And now?"

"You were right when you told me I had to spend more time with people.
After I divorced Robbie I was convinced the only thing left to me was
retreat.  Now I'm no' so certain."

"You've got a fan club at the hotel.  They're a hard bunch to win over,
but they've already formed ranks around you."

"They're a dear group of people."

"So, what will you do?"  .

"Simplify a bit, I think."

"Sell this place and move into the hotel with me?"  She turned to him
and smiled.  He had said the words lightly, but she suspected there was
something more than humor behind his request.

"I'm going to sell the cows and some of the sheep.  Downscale instead of
grow.  I dinna like raising lambs for meat, so I'll stop that first.
I'll only breed the ewes whose lambs I'll likely want to keep.  And I'll
keep all I can for sheafing.  Without so many lambs, my work will be
easier, and I can spend more time with my plants and my dyeing and
spinning."

"Aren't the lambs an important source of income?"  "I'm fortunate.

I've no real need for the money.  But I think I've more need for time.
and freedom.  " " Freedom?  "

"There's a wee shop on High Street that needs a tenant.  The stone house
that's part of the old mill?"

"I know it."

"I've a mind to lease it myself and run it as a gift shop.  I could sell
my wool and my herbs and lease space to others to sell their
handicrafts. There's no place in Druidheachd to feature the work of
local craftsmen or artists, and we have enough tourists to support one."

169 "There's a capitalist under this beautiful hair."  He wound a long
lock around his finger.

"But it's not money that's driving you, is it?"

"No.  I need to spend more time off the mountain."

 "You need to spend more time with me."

"Aye.  I do."  She rose on tiptoe and kissed him and desire heated her
blood. When she had come to Druidheachd she had locked away desire,
along with every other emotional need except survival.  Now, after one
night together, Duncan seemed as important to that survival as the air
she breathed.

His arms closed around her.

"What do you have in mind for the day?"

"Do you have to go right back to the hotel?  " No.  April's not due back
until this evening, and the hotel can run itself.  I don't care.  "

"Stay with me, then.  Have a look at the way I live.  Gather herbs, mend
fences, perhaps even go with me to collect peats if the good weather
holds."

"Mara, you're just getting over a nasty fall.  You shouldn't overdo."

"Oh, I will no' overdo.  It's supervising I plan.  Have you ever used a
toirbhsgir to cut peats yourself?  It's a nasty, sharp blade, but it
gets the job done.  You should have the ~experience, you know, !f,
you're going to live in the High~lands even a little while.

~ "Have you ever read Torn Sawyer?"

"Aye, and I've no' a fence in sight that needs whitewashing.  Just a
bothy that'll need a good peat fire come autumn."

I'll donate a whole truckload of coal if it means I don't have to cut or
haul peat today.  Besides, I've got another idea for keeping you warm
this winter. "

She wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Have you now?"

"Come back to the bothy, and let me teach you a new strategy."

She knew her eyes were dancing.  She couldn't remember ever being
happier. It didn't take second sight to envision the  future only
minutes away when she would be in Duncan's arms again.

"I've always believed in education and progress.

Can I refuse?  " .

"Not if I have my way."

"And do you always get your way, Duncan?"

 "Never as gloriously as last night.   Do you suppose my luck has
changed?"

"I'd have no way of knowing that.  But I do know something."  He lifted
d brow in question.

"My luck changed one cold night in a meadow just across the ridge, and
I've Geordie Smith to thank for it."

He cupped her face in his hands.

"My beautiful Lady Greensleeves."

She pulled his face down to hers and brushed her lips across his.

"Your lady, Duncan.  Your lady for as long as you're here."

Chapter 13.

There were half a dozen crows perched on the stone fence that surrounded
Mara's garden, eyeing her cornstalks with undisguised ardor.  They
ignored Guiser's barking and Mara jabbing at them with her hoe and
politely waited for her to depart.  As soon as she left the garden and
closed the gate behind her, they would take her place.

"My old auntie could make a tat tie bogle that scared away every crow
for a hundred miles," Mara told Duncan as she stopped to wipe her
forehead with the back of her hand.  "Yours is smiling.  Everybody knows
a scarecrow is supposed to look fierce."  Duncan made a terrible face.

"Like this."

She pressed her hand to her heart.

"That would certainly do it."

"I could be persuaded to improve on yours."  She smiled.

"Oh?  And what would I need to do to persuade you."

"I could think of a thing or two."

Her smile widened.

"Oh, could you now?  And what if I reminded you that I've a million and
one things to do today and dinna have time for your foolishness?"

 "Foolishness?  I could swear that's not what you were calling it last
night."

Her cheeks grew pink, and not because the sun was shining on them.

"You're a scunner, Duncan Sinclair.  You've no right to come here today
and tempt me away from my work."

"Now I'm a temptation?"

"You're a trial."

"Put up your hoe and come with me.  It'~ a gorgeous afternoon and we're
going to Iain's this evening, anyway.

Spend the rest of the day with me.  "

"But I've two months' work to do in one, and the first frosts will be
coming soon.  I can no' spend such a braw afternoon trauchling after you
when I've my own work to do."  He crooked his finger.

"Come over here and let me persuade you."  ' More than two months had
passed since Mara and Dun- can had become lovers.  The heather had
bloomed; the largest part of a small tourist population had come and
gone; the creature said to live in Loch Ceo hadn't shown itself for yet
another summer.

Mara had sold her cows and the lambs she couldn't keep; she had spun her
fleeces and dyed her yarn in hues as variegated as the gorse and bracken
of the hillsides and the unpredictable blues of a Scottish summer sky.
Duncan had seen his own changes.  The rap airs to the hotel were nearly
finished and with Mara's help and only a small outlay of cash, he had
remodeled and brightened the lobby and dining room.  Best of all,
surrounded by love and security, April had bloomed into the child he'd
been afraid he would never see.  She had regular conversations with her
mother now, and spoke more openly about her.  He was comfortable with
neither, but he had seen the improvement in April, and he was willing to
do what he had to just to keep the smile in her eyes.

He'd had no hopes for his months in Druidheachd except the most basic.

He had wanted to escape from Lisa.  He had wanied to refurbish and sell
the hotel.  He had wanted to rebuild his relationship with his daughter.

173 Instead, he'd gotten so much more.

"If I come over there, I'll no' be going back, will I?"  Mara asked.

"That's a distinct possibility."

"You'll steal me away, like a fairy king.  And when you return me, I'll
be old and withered and good for nowt."

"Now, that part I doubt very much."

She came within kissing distance.

"What exactly do you have in mind?"

"April's at a birthday party until six, then Sally's agreed to watch her
at the hotel until Frances can take her home.

I've got my jacket and tie and a clean shirt in my car.  "

" And?   "

"And I thought you might like to spend some time together.  Your
choice."

She leaned over the fence and planted a kiss on his lips.  "My choice?

Really?  "

"Anything you want to do."

"You'd pull weeds if I asked?"

"Along with perfectly healthy plants, I imagine."  She put a finger to
her nose and wrinkled her forehead.

"You'd dip sheep or help me breed the black face ewes to Roger's prize
tup?"

"If you think I could stand the excitement."  "I know just the thing."

"If it's along those same lines, you need some help in the imagination
area."

"I have some seeds to gather before the frosts come.  You could help."

' Where?  ~ "No' here.  I'll show you."  She kissed him again, then
followed the fence to the gate and let herself out.  The crows cawed in
anticipation.

"About that tat tie bogle," she said.  I'll put the plans on the drawing
board.  "

He escorted her to the door, and then he began to wander.  When he
visited Mara he never asked her permission to do chores around the
croft.  He knew if he asked she would say no, so instead he worked on
the sly.  It had become a game to find places where his labor wouldn't
be noticed  Duncan's L~dy right away.  She was so fiercely and
rightfully proud of all she'd accomplished.  He was sure she didn't want
to give up even a shred of her independence.

While she changed her shoes for hiking and packed a snack for tea, he
walked down to the spring behind the house.  It gushed from the earth to
form a small, crystal clear basin, and Mara had hauled stones to line
it.  He had noticed the first time that he'd gone for water that stones
were needed at the source of the spring, too, to keep silt from washing
into the basin.

He crouched beside the spring and began to feed stones into the places
where they were missing.  When he had used up the ones within easy
reach, he stood and ranged farther, hauling them back and setting them
in place.  He became so involved in his project that he forgot to watch
out for Mara.  "Now that's something I've had on my mind to do for
months," she said.

He stood and faced her, chagrined.

"I was just killing time."  ' "And why should anyone want to?  We've so
little of it as it is."

"You've done such a good job with the spring.  I was just playing with
it a bit."

"You were helping, and you've been helping for months.  Did you think I
would no' see?"

He smiled.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're beginning to like this place, Duncan.   It's weaving its spell
around you."

"You've got a better imagination than I was giving you credit for."

"You like my croft, and you like the village, and you're beginning to
grow fond of some of the people here, even though you find it hard to
admit."  She walked toward him and stopped.

She stroked her palms up his chest.

"I am definitely fond of certain people."  He put his arms around her
and drew her closer.

"You still have Scotland in your blood."

He was beginning to believe he had a certain woman in his blood.

Every day since they had become lovers he warned 1 75 himself to be
careful. He would not be staying in Druidheachd, and Mara would not be
leaving.  All they could ever hope to have was a brief, passionate love
affair.  But no matter how many times he told himself to slow down and
step back, he couldn't stay away from her.

"You know, it wouldn't be hard to channel this water into your house,"
he said.

"With a pump and some pipe you could have running water."

"Aye.  I've thought of it more than once."

"And there are ways of running electricity in from the road that
wouldn't ruin your views."

"And telephone, too?"  ' "Sure, and we could hook you up to a computer
network and buy you a fax machine and a satellite dish and get you on
the information superhighway in a jiffy."  He snapped his fingers.

She laughed and reached up to kiss his nose.

"I want to keep the cottage just the way it is.  But I've other plans
for this property.  Shall I show you?"

He clasped her hand in his.

"You have my undivided attention."

He learned soon enough that her plans were extensive.  The cottage that
she lived in now was someday to be a dormitory for schoolchildren who
would come to learn the ways of their ancestors and the history of the
Highlands.  She wanted to build more cottages like it, to have the older
children do it themselves as part of their learning experience.

With the right kind of help and supervision they could learn to
construct walls and thatch roofs.  She believed it' would give them the
same sense of pride and accomplishment that building the cottage had
given her.

"But I dinna need to live this way forever," she said, swinging Duncan's
hand in hers.

"I'm going to build a bigger, more modern house for myself.  One with
water and electricity and proper plumbing."

"I definitely vote for the plumbing."

She stopped and pointed to a place just beyond them.  "There."

 He could imagine a house on the spot she had chosen.  It~ was a wide,
level site with a view that on a clear day like this one probably
couldn't be topped.  He whistled softly and his imagination took flight.

"You like it?"

"It's outstanding."

"I knew when I saw it that I wanted this property.  That's why I bought
it. I started small so that I could learn what I needed to.  Now I think
I'm ready for this."

 "You're not saying that you're going to do the work yourself?"   .

"No.  Some, perhaps.  But I'll be well prepared to supervise."  ' He
wondered if he would ever see the finished product.  He could imagine
the house, nothing large or ostentatious, but small enough to be cozy
and roomy enough not to feel cramped.

There would be wide windows on every side, double paned and tightly
sealed against the wind.  And Mara, with an artist's sensitivity, would
design a flawlessly simple floor plan with an eye for the best of
traditional and contemporary.

"It'll be wonderful," he assured her.

"Do you think so?  I'll show you my plans someday.  You might have
suggestions you'll want to make."

He didn't know how to remind her that he wouldn't be in Druidheachd much
longer.  His suggestions would be worth nothing because he wouldn't be
here to see them implemented.  He had always been honest about his plans
to sell the hotel and leave Scotland, but now he felt reluctant to
mention them again.

She led him across the site and down a path where he had never been.

The path narrowed at the edge of a sheer drop of fifty feet or more,
then it seemed to stop.  She stood beside a large boulder, a chunk of
mountain that probably had fallen from some higher peak hundreds of
years before.  The boulder was covered with a fine, lacy moss, some of
which was in flower. Brambles grew in a thicket just beyond them and
vines twined and slithered along the ground.

"You must

                                      I

177 swear never to tell any secrets you might learn here," she said.

"You must promise."

"This is where you keep all the men who've fallen hopelessly in love
with you, isn't it?  I've wondered where you put them."

"Duncan," she said severely.

"You must promise."  "On my honor."

"Hold up your hand."

He did.

"I suppose you can follow, then."  She turned and with her back to the
boulder, she slid along beside it, carefully watching every step.  When
she was halfway around she beckoned.

"Just watch your feet, and you'll be safe."

"Dipping the sheep is beginning to sound more and more appealing."

"Are you afraid of heights, Duncan?"

"No.  Just of breaking my neck."

"You will no' fall if you pay attention.  And if you do fall, I have a
sturdy rope.  Somewhere."  She smiled.

"I think."

He followed her and discovered that the ground at the base of the
boulder was solid rock and wider than it had looked.  Mara took his hand
on the other side.

"Welcome to Lon an Sith."

"Lon an Sith?"

"Fairy's burn.  Look below you.  What is it you see?"  The path dropped
sharply for a hundred yards or more, then widened.  Beyond that he
glimpsed paradise.  He didn't know what to say.  The area was completely
unspoiled, as if no one had ever stepped foot there before.  A variety
of foliage covered what was probably a three-acre glen.  A brook bubbled
over stones to one side and pooled between two large rocks, then
narrowed once more and flowed out of sight.

"It's magnificent."  , "It's a hard climb.  Are you willing?"

He had already started.

Five minutes later they were standing at the entrance.  "I've seen red
deer here, and the first year I lived on the mountain a fox made her den
just over there."  She pointed.

 "There are ptarmigan and blackcock and other types of grouse, and I've
seen wild swans swimming in the wee loch an

"It's unbelievable."

"It's protected from man and sheep, and from the worst of the elements.
There are plants growing here that I've yet to see anywhere else in the
immediate area.  Those are the seeds we'll collect today."

"What do you plan to do with them?"

"Spread them to other places where they might find some protection.

In time, perhaps they'll colonize.  Man has no' been kind to the earth
here. We brought in the sheep and cut down nearly all the trees, and now
we're planting our bens and braes with species that were never meant to
grow in the Highlands.  It's our task to restore what we've destroyed. "

"And this is your way of doing it?"

"It's a wee small thing."

"Enough wee small things can make a great big differ- enee."

"Aye.  I think so, too.  Now we must be canny, Duncan, when we take
seeds. Only a few at a time.  We've no right to destroy the balance in
this place."

Her tone was reverent.  She might as well have been praying in the
village kirk.  He was enchanted with Lon an Sith, but more so with her.

"I don't know a thing about collecting seeds.

Are you going to show me how?  "

"I'll show you."  She led him to a smattering of plants he recognized as
a local wildflower, spikes of purple bells that he'd often seen
cultivated in cottage gardens.

"Do you know this one?"

He hedged.

"It's familiar."

"I'll make a gardener of you yet, Duncan."  She knelt beside it and
motioned him down.

"Now there's nowt rare about this.  It's foxglove, found all over
Scotland. But there are few plants that can match it for beauty.  I'll
tell you how it got it's name."

He crouched beside her, and watched the way the sun set her hair aglow.

"It's truly lovely," he murmured.

179 "Long ago the flower was called Folksglove, the glove of the.

fairies.  Do you see the wee spots inside it?  That's where the fairies
have placed their fingers.  "

The petals were velvety and surprisingly sensual to the touch.  He
brushed his fingers over them lightly.

"The fairies had a good thing here.  Is that why you named this place
Lon an Sith?"

"No.  I'll show you why later.  You've heard of digitalis?  The drug
used for heart disease?"

"Sure."

"This is where it comes from.  The Latin name of this plant is Digitalis
purpurea.  We'll just take a few seeds now.

It hardly needs our help to flourish, but it's a bonny plant to
demonstrate on.  "

He watched her caress the plant gently.  Desire stirred inside him.  He
could imagine her hands touching him the same way.

"Different plants sow their seeds in different ways.  Some store their
seeds in pods that burst open when they've dried and seed flies out like
wee cannon balls.  Some, like this one, have pods that ripen a bit at a
time, and as they dry they open and spill their seed, so it's best to
collect them each day.

Like this.  " She twisted off one of the withered blossoms at the bottom
of the stalk.  Then she took a white tissue from her pocket and spread
it on the ground and gently shook the bloom.  Tiny seeds fell to the
tissue.  She gestured to the plant.

"Now you try it."

He selected a blossom, but she put her hand over his.  "That one's too
new. The seed probably has no' had time to develop enough.  Try one
farther down."

He selected another, and she nodded.  He twisted it as she had done and
waved it over the tissue.  Several seeds fell out.

"How's that?"

"Truly brilliant."  She smiled, but her eyes turned a deeper green as he
bent his head to kiss her.

Her lips were as soft as the flower petalsl The fragrances of the earth
surrounded her and entwined with the scent of her hair and skin.  He
wanted to fill his hands with her hair and hold her there forever.  They
had been lovers for  months, but he couldn't seem to get enough of her.
Each time he touched her, each time he made love to her, he found
himself wanting more.

"Shall I show you some of the other plants?"  she asked.  He didn't
trust himself to answer.  He stood, and she took his hand and led him
between trees and stones, stooping to show him the plants she wanted to
collect seeds from today and teaching him how to collect as she went.
She identified a rare white lousewort along with butterwort, its leaves
spotted with insects entrap peal by the plant for a leisurely dinner.

In the deepest of the woods she showed him wild orchids and white
habenaria, varied species of violets and saxifrage.

She took seeds when she could until finally she put her carefully marked
collection safely in a bag and stored it back in her pocket.

"That's all for today.  This will give me plenty to do.  I'll have to
find places for each seed with conditions nearly the same as I have
here."  She put her hands on his chest, and he put his arms around her.

"Would you like me to show you why I call this the fairy's burn?"

He could think of a thousand things he wanted her to show him, none of
which had to do with the landscape, but he smiled.

"I'd like to see it."

"You're a game chap pie Duncan.  You've stood up to this well."

"It's really a lovely place.  Why haven't we come here before?"

"I've never brought anyone here.  It's my very own dell.  I'm no' even
sure that anyone else knows it exists.  I come here when I'm loneliest,
or when I have a problem to solve.  I can sit beside the burn and listen
to its song, and when I go back home, I'm stronger."

He was touched that she had shared her special place with him.  He let
her lead him to the brook.  They walked beside it until they came to the
place where the water flowed out of the rocks.

"This is the source," she said.

"And this is where I come to sit."  She stepped across a series of
boulders to a wide grassy mound.  The sun fluttered through leaves and
dappled the ground.

"Come join me."

181 He didn't need another invitation.  He followed her path and
sprawled on the grass beside her.  There was a distinct chill in the
air, but the earth was still warm.  Duncan lay on his side and propped
his head with his arm so he could watch Mara.

"Now, are you listening?"  She asked.

"To what?  To you?"

"No' to me.  Close your eyes.  Put everything from your mind."

"I'd rather look at you."

"Close them.  Go on, now.  Do it, and listen carefully."  His eyelids
drifted shut.  Warmed by the sun and lulled by the murmuring water, he
let his mind go where it would.  There were birds singing somewhere
close by.  He couldn't remember the last time he'd listened to them. And
bees humming, preparing, he supposed for a cold, damp winter.

Unaccountably he heard laughter and knew it came from inside him.  He
remembered another day, one so long ago that he couldn't say what year
it had been, when he had gone walking with his father and Fiona.  Fiona
had been tiny then, a laughing, chirping baby-child, and his father had
carried her on his shoulders.  Now he could almost hear her laughter,
and his father's, too.

His father had laughed.  As a young man, Donald Sin- clair had laughed.
Duncan had forgotten that until now.

And once, Fiona had been afraid of nothing.  What an enormous burden of
guilt his father must have borne to change from that youth joyfully
carrying his beloved daughter, into the stern, brooding man Duncan had
known in later years.

He didn't want to examine that memory too closely.  He opened his eyes,
and saw that Mara was watching him.

"This is a magic place," he said.

"What did you hear?"

"Laughter."

"That's as it should be."

He turned to his back and closed his eyes again.  He could feel the sun
against his eyelids and deep inside him.  Mara lay down, and he could
feel the length of her leg against his, the  dip of her waist and the
soft pressure of her breast against his arm.

He reached for her, pillowing her head against his shoulder.

And then he heard the music.

At first he thought the sound was coming from his memory, just as the
laughter had.  But the song that resonated from the earth was like
nothing he had ever heard before.  It was the sound of the Scottish
countryside, pipes and fiddies and an accordion, too, but played with
such artistry that it seemed to fuse with the air he breathed.  It was
made up of sunshine, of the clearest, cleanest air, of the scents of
late summer and lacy flakes of winter snows.  He listened and saw the
wildflowers Mara had picked so carefully, the glisten of Loch Ceo in
misty moonlight, snow-covered, barren peaks and an endless stretch of
unruly sea.  "Do you hear it?"

Mara whispered.

He listened harder.  There was a minor note, too.  Battle cries and the
weeping of women.  Screams of defeat from Culloden Moor, the
hand-to-hand clatter of dirk and sword as clan battled clan, the voices
that still sounded today, demanding separation from the remainder of
Britain.  And there was the babble of languages, the soft guttural
sounds of Gaelic, the sharply accented burr of the lowlands, the
lyrical, poetic speech of the highlands.

The Sounds, the music, clutched at his heart.  He opened his eyes and
stared at the sapphire Scottish sky.  For a moment he couldn't breathe
properly.

"What do you hear?"  he asked.

"Fairy music."

"Is that what it is?"

"We're on their roof right now, you know.  They live in this hill.  And
the music is their gift to us."

"Is it?"

She turned so she could see his face.  She was smiling.  "You can no'
tell anyone, Duncan.  No one else would understand.

The local folk are afraid of the fairies.  " He managed a smile, too.

"Shouldn't they be?  Don't fairies carry away mortals and imprison them
until they're very old?"

183 She laughed.

"And how would you know?"

"I've read the hook you gave April."

"Duncan and the Fairies?  Aye, that's what happened to poor Duncan, I'm
afraid.  But he had cut away the fairies' roof, after all, even though
they'd warned him to take his peat from another place."

The birds were singing louder and the burn was bubbling merrily as it
emerged from the stone.  He knew the birds and the brook were all he had
heard, and yet.  He threaded his fingers into Mara's hair and turned to
her.

"Then they won't be angry with us for lying on their roof?"

 "Does it sound as though they're angry?"

"Will they mind if I kiss you here?  Will they spy on us?"

 "I dinna know what they'll do.   rye never kissed a man here before."

He pulled her a little closer.

"Shall we try?"  "I think we should.

For the sake of fairy science.  "

He brushed his lips against hers.  Once.  Twice.  And the music began
again.

Chapter 14.

Fearnshader was too Gothic for Duncan's tastes.  Had he come across it
on a New York City street, he would have assumed Fearnshader was a
church where 'every Sunday morning a stern message of sin and redemption
was trumpeted to shivering parishioners who wished they were home in bed
reading the Times.

On a rambling, tree-lined Scottish wynd miles from the nearest village
and a stone's throw from the hulking remains of Ceo Castle, Fearnshader
could only be a country home built by a humorless laird and lady of a
past century.

Castellated, parapeted and foreboding, Duncan loved Fearnshader still.
He wondered if Mara, who was cuddling beside him with her hand on his
knee, would sense the happy hours he had spent here.  Would the laughter
of three young boys still hang in the hallways for her to hear? "There's
been much unhappiness here," she said instead, as he parked beside the
gatehouse. There were other cars there already.

"That's a safe bet.  What old house hasn't known unhappiness?"

Duncan's' Lady 185 "It's no' always the first thing I feel."

"Why haven't you been here before?   I can't believe Iain hasn't invited
you before this."

"He knew I preferred my own company."  Something occurred to him, and he
wondered why he'd never thought of it before.  lain had reassured him
before Duncan had even met Mara.  But he wondered.  "Did Iain..."  He
tried again.

"Did you and Iain ever think about having a relationship?"

She smiled.

"What are you asking, Duncan?  Do you want to know if Iain and I were
lovers?"

"No.  Of course not."  He considered his own answer and frowned.

"No, I really don't want to know if you were."

"Well, we were no', so you can rest your mind.  He's always been a
friend, and nowt more.  I was too much in need of solitude, and Iain,
despite the face he turns to the world, is too much in need of distance
to choose someone like me."

"Like you?"

"Iain chooses women who will no' feel badly when he moves on to another.
Have you never noticed?"

It was almost exactly what Iain had said.

"Iain plays the field, but he's no different than a lot of men.  He's
just not the type to settle down."

No, there's more to it than that.  "

~.  : -- "what do you mean?"

': .  "I dinna know."  She must have seen the doubt in his eyes, because
she shook her head.

"I really dinna know.  He's afraid of something."

He leaned over and kissed her nose.

"And well he should be.  How many happy marriages have you seen?"

"Aye, it's always a gamble.  But Iain's no' a coward.  There's something
more."

"You look beautiful tonight."  He touched her hair.  She had pulled it
off her face and confined a portion of it in a sleek roll at the back of
her head in honor of Iain's dinner party.

He wanted to take out the pins and watch it tumble over the lace collar
of her dress.

 "You look fair handsome yourself, Duncan.  Harris tweed suits you
well." She laughed at her own pun.

"Aye, at moments like this you look a Scot through and through."

 "We could make this a short evening.   I could use, April as an
excuse.."

"And what did you have in mind?"  Her eyes sparkled.  "A stroll beside
the loch?  An evening of chess or gin rummy by the fire?"

"There's nearly a full moon.  We could haul some more peat."  He watched
her cheeks color.  They had gone to the peat bog one evening and ended
up instead making love between mounds of earth on the open moor.  They
had found a hidden spot where the grass-covered ground was as soft as
feathers, and as a sliver of moon had peeked at them between clouds,
they had taken possession of each other's souls.  He had felt part of
something ancient and lasting that night, just as he had this afternoon
at the fairy burn, sealed somehow to the land where he had been born and
to the woman in his arms.

"I'll no' be hauling peat with the likes of you again," she said.

"You're all play and no work.  I'll be cold all winter because, of you."

"There's always a warm fire at the hotel."  She stroked his hair hack
from his forehead.

"I know how warm your fire is, Duncan."

The car was suddenly too warm.  He'd believed on the night they first
made love that the passion between them would one day burn itself out.
Now he wasn't sure of anything except that he walked around in a state
of continuous desire, waiting impatiently for the moments when they
could be alone.

"We'd better get inside."

"Aye, it would no' do at all to have you zipping your pants and me
straightening my hair when Iain comes to the door."  ' He burst into
laughter.  She blinked innocently at him, and he grabbed her for one
final kiss before he got out of the car.

Roses scented the air, old roses with pedigrees as ancient as Iain's
own.  He stooped for a sprig of sweet william to .  t 187 tuck in Mara's
hair and one for his buttonhole.  The air was growing cooler with the
onset of fall, and he used the chill as an excuse, to put his arm around
Mara to keep her warm.

Iain didn't answer the door.  An elderly woman in a starched gray dress
answered instead.

"You were always late, Duncan Sinclair.  Never as late as Andrew, mind
you, but late.

You always had the idea that whatever it was you were about was too
important to interrupt for politeness sake.  The good Lady Ross nearly
gave up on you a time or twa.  " She turned to Mara.

"And you have no' reformed him, I see?"

"I'll confess I did no' realize he had such a major failing."

"Then he's on time when he comes to see you?"  Mara shrugged.

"Always."

"It must be love then, pure and simple."  Duncan cleared his throat.

"If you don't mind, Gertie, I'd like a kiss on the cheek."

Gertie blushed like a schoolgirl, but she did as he'd asked.  "So you
reme~nber me, do you?"

"How could I forget?  But I thought you'd retired and gone to Glasgow to
live with your sister."

"Och, I dinna need all the noise, and thrang of a city.  And the sister
had no notion how to keep me happy.  If she told me once no' to clean
under her bed, she told me a thousand times."

Duncan shook his head in mock disapproval.  "So I'm back, and I'll stay
here, thank you.  Master Iain needs me, and he does no' complain if I
take the dust mop to his room every morning."

"Well, he's lucky to have you.  If he doesn't treat you right, you can
come to the hotel and live with me."

"And are you going to introduce me to your lady friend?"

"Mara MacTavish, this is Gertie Beggs.  Renowned for having a worse,
bark than a bite."

Gertie ignored him.

"And you'll be the lass they're saying is the ferlie."

 "

" ^ye.   " ' " Ferlie?   " Duncan asked.

"You've been away too long," Gertie said, shaking her finger at him.

"Something out of the ordinary," Mara translated.  "Something strange
and wonderful," Gettie said.

"And I can see it applies here."

Iain, dressed in a dark suit, came up to stand behind her.  "Are you
going to let them in, Gertie?  Have they passed muster yet?"

"Master Iain, you have no' changed enough in the years I've been away!"

"But now that you're back, you'll see that I do."  "No' likely," she
said.

"No' likely a' tall."  She strutted back down the hall.  Even with her
back turned to them, Duncan was sure she was inspecting for dust motes.

He ushered Mara in and followed close behind.  He watched Iain
compliment her and kiss her cheek and felt something stronger than
gratitude that Iain and Mara had never been lovers.

"Everyone's here but Andrew," Iain said.

"I pity him.  Gettie will tear him from limb to limb."

"She'll just whack him a bit.   She always had a soft spot for Andrew."
He started toward the drawing room.   He kept his voice low.

"I can't guarantee the company tonight.  I have business dealings with
both of the men you're about to meet.

They're pleasant enough on the surface, but sharks underneath, both of
them. Watch that you leave with your wallet.  "

"How kind of you to invite us," Duncan said dryly.  "I asked you because
you'd better get to know them both.

They're looking for investments in this part of the Highlands.  "

"What kind of investments?"  Mara asked.  "Nothing much, really.  They
want to market the life we've always been privileged to lead."

i~~ "Exactly what do you mean?"  Duncan asked.  "Let them tell you.  And
listen carefully."  ~ 189 There was a fire in the drawing room, what the
Scots called a stick fire, with logs as thick as the caber Andrew had
tossed at the Johnsmas fair and flames leaping from the cavernous
fireplace.  Two women stood beside it, one with silver hair arranged in
perfect waves and a pale blue dress that skimmed the middle of her calf.
The other was much younger, with sleek black hair falling from two combs
at the side of her head and a red cocktail dress that was one step to
the left of immodest.

The men were less diverse.  Both were in their fifties and balding.

One was overweight; one obviously spent the requisite hours at the gym.
But neither of them seemed comfortable relaxing in the environs of a
Scottish country home.

Iain made the introductions.  The overweight man was married to the
elegant woman with silver hair.  They were Martin and Sylvia
Carlton-Jones from a town just outside of London.

The slimmer man, Nigel Surrey from Birmingham, was partnered for the
evening--and for as many nights as she'd have him; Duncan imagined--with
the brunette, Alicia Cox.

"Iain tells me you're from the States," Nigel said.  Duncan accepted a
glass of Iain's finest whiskey and took his first swallow.  He felt
unaccountably irritated.

"I was ~orn in Druidheachd," he said.

~ "And you've come hack to stay?"  ~~ --7 "No."

l'r Duncan owns the S~nclatr Hotel, along w~th h~s s~ster, lain said.

"And he'll soon be putting it up for sale."

"Will you?"  Martin asked, hlOVing closer to take part in the
conversation.

"I know the building.  I've admired it, actually.  It's quite...
Scottish."

"Quite," Duncan said.  He downed the rest of his drink, but he didn't
take his eyes off Martin.  Both men seemed completely ineffectual to
him, hesitant and not particularly bright.

But he was a good enough businessman himself to know how important it
was sometimes to put on an act.  And he trusted Iain's judgment.  Iain
could spot a shark well before it began to circle.

 "Are you in the area on holiday?"  Mara asked.  Nigel's pleasantly
vacuous eyes focused for seconds on her.  Duncan watched him scan Mara
with the efficiency of a radiologist.

"We'll be heading east in a day or so to shoot grouse."

"The grouse dinna stand a chance," she said.  Duncan had rarely heard a
nip in Mara's voice.  Now he was surprised that Nigel wasn't dripping
blood. "But while we're here," Martin said, "we thought we might look
around.  We're always looking for property to invest in.

The idea of a hotel in the Highlands intrigues me.

Druidheachd's a lovely little village, and your loch is so unspoiled.  "

"And will remain that way," said another voice.  Duncan smiled at
Andrew, who had come to join them.  Introductions were made all around,
and Andrew gripped the necessary hands.

"Andrew knows every inch of Loch Ceo," Iain said, as if introductions
hadn't interrupted the conversation.

"It's a perfectly wonderful little lake," Alicia said.

"And there are the dearest little cottages around it.  I'd like to have
one myself."  She slipped her arm through Nigel's.  "I dinna think there
are any for sale," Andrew said.

"The families who live on the loch have lived there for centuries and
passed their homes down from generation to generation."

"Andrew has one of those dear little cottages himself," lain explained.

"But everything has a price," Martin said.

"Or at least I've always found that to be true."  He turned to Duncan.

"We might discuss the price of your hotel, Mr. Sinclair.  Would you be
willing to give us a quick look at it tomorrow?"

Duncan met Iain's eyes.  lain gave the slightest, almost imperceptible
shrug. Dunean switched his gaze to Mara.  Her face showed no expression,
and her eyes were carefully blank.

191 Duncan had taken a dislike to both Nigel and Martin, although he
hadn't had time to analyze exactly why.  But it seemed they might just
give him what he had hoped for most.  Freedom and a chance to start
over.

"I can show you around," he said.

"Will ten be convenient?"  "It will do nicely."

"And now I'd say we should start toward the dining room before Mrs.
Beggs comes in and leads us there by the ear.

I've been told that the cook's outdone herself.  " lain held out his arm
to Mara.  The others paired up and Andrew and Duncan were left to walk
in together behind them.  Andrew held Duncan back.

"Does it no' feel odd, Dunc, to sell your birthright?"

Duncan felt a flash of anger, made more potent, he supposed, because the
same thought had occurred to him.

"No odder than it must feel to spew guilt so blatantly, Andrew."

 "I dinna like these men."

"Am I supposed to wait for a buyer you approve of?"  "You belong here."

"I don't!"  Duncan took a deep breath.

"You don't know me anymore.  You don't know what I want or need."

"No?  Then that makes two of us, does it no'?"  Andrew started for the
door.

Duncan grabbed his arm.

"Look, I can't stay here.  What's here for me?"

Andrew shook his head.

"If you can no' figure that out alone, there's nowt to be done about
it."

Duncan dropped his hand.

"Why are we fighting about this?  We're not kids anymore.  We're both
adults. I don't tell you what to do, and you've never tried to tell me
what to do before this."

"I'm no' telling you what to do.  I'm asking you to look at yourself and
your life, Dunc.  That's a wee thing to ask."

"I've looked and I've thought, and I'm leaving.  Just as soon as I can.
I owe it to April, and I owe it to myself."

"I mind the day you left Druidheachd.  We were eight years of age.  You
sobbed as if your heart would never be whole again.  And it has no' been
whole since that day.  And  it will no' be whole until you cease trying
to run away from who and what you are."

Duncan stared at his friend.  He had never seen Andrew so serious.

"I

don't even know what to say.  "

Andrew jammed his hands in his pockets.

"Will you make my excuses to Iain, please?  I dinna think I can eat
tonight.

And certainly no' with this company.  " Andrew left Duncan standing in
the hallway.

Mara had felt uneasy all night, although she hadn't been sure why.

Fearnshader, with its medieval gargoyles and shadowed corridors, was a
house with terrible secrets, but once there had been laughter there,
too, and that balance had kept her from being overwhelmed.

She had disliked Iain's guests, and at first she had believed the dread
growing inside her was related to them.  But as the night wore on she
realized that Martin and Nigel were only part of the problem.  Her
feelings were much more closely related to Duncan.

"So, you'll be showing Mr. Carlton-Jones the hotel tomorrow," she said
in the car as she and Duncan drove back toward her cottage.

"I suppose so.  He seems interested."

She wished, as she often had, that she could read Dun~ can's thoughts.

"Did you like him, Duncan?  Did you enjoy : your conversation?"

"I didn't like him."

"But business is business?"

He glanced at her.  She couldn't read his expression, either.

"I've never thought it was necessary to like the people I negotiate
with."

"And you feel no different when it's your da's hotel you might be
selling?"

"You know, it's possible you've ended up with the wrong man of midnight,
Mara.  You and Andrew may be more suited to each other."

She was hurt clear to the bone.  She stared out the window at darkness.

193 He was the first to break the silence.

"Look, I'm sorry.  I just don't want another guilt trip, okay?  I may
have a buyer for the hotel, and that's what I've been working for since
I came here, so I'm happy about it.  Maybe Martin won't make an offer,
and maybe he will. But even if he doesn't, ' I'm going to sell the hotel
to somcone, and I'm not going to ask the villagers for yea or nay
votes."

"You have no attachment to it?"

"None.  And no attachment to Scotland."

He smacked his hand against the steering wheel and pulled off the road
at the next passing place.  He turned off the engine.

"Look, I didn't mean that the way it sounded.  I didn't mean there's
nothing here that I want or care about."

"It does sound that way."  She still didn't look at him.  His tone
softened.

"You know I care about you, but we've both known this was coming.  I've
always been honest about my intentions."

"So you have."

"I would take you with me if you'd only go."  "You've never asked, have
you?"

"Because I know what your answer will be."

"Perhaps you do, or perhaps you only tell yourself I'd no' consider
following you."

"Would you?  ....... She heard a dozen conflicting messages in his
voice. Even through her own pain she could hear his longing.  He was a
man with a deep well of emotion inside him, even if he rarely
acknowledged it.  He wanted and needed her desperately, and that was in
his voice.  But there were other messages, too.  Fear.

Distrust.  A stubborn resistance to what he needed most.  He had made up
his mind what was best for them both, and he wouldn't reconsider.

"I would follow you anywhere if I thought I was truly wanted," she said.

"But I will no' be following when you go."

He touched her hair, as if to reassure her.

"Could you really be happy in New York or London or even a smaller
city? What kind of life could you live where you were overwhelmed by
impressions of the people all around you?  You would be a prisoner."

"What kind of life will you live when there are no impressions of the
people around you because they are all strangers?"  She faced him.

"Is that no' a prison, too, Duncan?  Will you leave the people who love
you most to go live among people who dinna even know you?"

 "People do it all the time.   People change jobs, move on, make new
friends."

"And the new friends will be the same?  You'll learn to love them as you
love Andrew and Iain?"

"And love you?"

It was as close to telling her he loved her as he had ever come.  She
swallowed.

"And me."

"What else can I do?  I can't stay here.  You can't go."

She saw that in his mind there were no other answers, no compromises.

"Why can you no' stay here?"

"There's nothing here for me.  I have to live in a city to be a success
in advertising or any business.  And I want to be a success again.  Lisa
took something precious from me, and I want it back.  Druidheachd is a
prison, and Martin Carlton Jones may very well have the key to help me
escape."  - "There is no prison except the one you've made for
yourself."

"Don't talk in riddles."

She saw that he really didn't understand because he wasn't going to
listen to his heart.  And there was no way she could make him.

"It's getting late.  I think you'd better take me home."

"Mara, don't do this.  Don't let anger spoil the time we still have
together. Let's make the most of it."

"It truly is getting late."

He shook his head and turned back to the steering wheel.  In a moment
the car was climbing again.

There were so many other things she wanted to say to him.  But there
were no words for any of them.  There were so 195 many things keeping
them apart, and the very least of them was his need to live in a city.

They were almost to the turnoff to her croft when she spotted a car on
the side of the road.  Duncan's car was warm, but inadvertently, she
shivered.

"Isn't that Frances's car just ahead?"

He didn't answer.  Instead, he pulled over and parked behind it.  She
started to get out when he did, but her growing dread slowed her limbs
and pounded through her head.  She closed her eyes for a moment, but it
didn't help.  She tried to envision walls as thick as a fortress, but
that didn't help, either.

Nothing helped; she'd had a lifetime to learn that lesson.

The conversation drifted toward her.

:~ "Frances, what's wrong?"

"Oh Duncan, it's glad I am you came along.  I've a tire that needs
changing. And I can no' seem to get it off."

"Then I'm glad I came along, too."  He peered inside the car.

"Where's April?  I thought she was going home with you tonight?"

Frances, who had been examining her woefully flat tire, straightened.

"April?  But I've no' seen her all night.  I went up to check on her
just after you'd left, and she was no' there.

Sally'd been keeping an eye on her out in the garden, as you asked, and
Sally said she left with someone and we thought"-- " My God, and you
didn't call me to check?  " ~" "But there seemed to be no need!  Sally
said it had all been arranged, that the woman said" -- "Woman?"

Frances was becoming agitated.

"Aye.  It was a young woman that April left with.  And she told Sally
she'd met you and April in Inverness at the hotel supply company there,
and that when you heard she was going to be in town you'd asked her to
take April out for the evening since you were going to be away.  She
said you must have forgotten to mention it.  Sally thought it odd, but
April seemed so glad..." She stretched out her arms.

"No!  I never thought.

 .

We had so many guests for supper, and I was so busy.  And Sally.  I" "
What did this woman look like?  Did Sally say?  " " No, except that she
was bonny. "

"Sally knows better!  Somebody should have called me!"

"But it could no' be April's mother.   She must have spoken like a
Highlander, Duncan, or Sally would have been suspicious.   How could
Mrs. Sinclair have spoken like a

S .  "

COt.

"She can sound like a Frenchwoman or a German or an upper class English
aristocrat!  She's an actress.  She can be whatever a role requires!"

"Oh Lord, forget me, Duncan.  Go back to the hotel.  Someone else will
come along, and I'm no' that far from home."

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to leave you."  He started back toward
the car.

"I'll phone Roger when I get back to town."

Frances wrung her hands.

"It's my fault.  I should have thought.

Sally's so young, and she would no' think the worst of anyone.  And she
said she was watching from the window when the woman went to get April,
and April seemed so glad.  "

Duncan slammed the car door behind him.  He swung around in the narrow
space and started back toward Druidheachd.

"It's Lisa," he said after he'd left Frances far behind.

"Damn it, I knew if she started talking to April on the telephone, she'd
start thinking about trying to see her!  I know her.  I know what she's
like!"

"She's a mother, Duncan.  Had you no' let her talk to April she might
have come sooner."

"You don't have any idea what you're talking about!"

 "I know more than you think."

"What?"  He was terrified, and he was covering his terror with anger.

"What could you possibly know?"

197 "I know that April's all right, and that Lisa has no intention of
stealing her from you.  She's taken her somewhere so that you can no'
stop her from visiting, but she plans to bring April back."

"Oh really?  I feel better now.  Thanks!"  She told herself not to be
hurt. She told herself he was suffering.  She was bleeding inside for
him.

"I know you have little faith in my gift.  But listen this time, please.
Lisa's intentions are good."

"If you can see all this, just tell me where she's gone, why don't you?
I'll go wherever you say.  Just tell me where that woman's taken my
daughter!"

"I can no'."

"Can't or won't?"

"I can no' see the fate of anyone I love."

"You can see just enough to stop me from worrying, but not enough to
tell me where she is?"

"I can no' see anything that I can understand.  I can feel this in my
heart. Lisa loves April, too.  She wants the best for her, and she wants
to show you she can be responsible."

"She has a strange way of showing me, doesn't she?   She's kidnapped my
daughter!   She doesn't have any right to her at,a," "

:~ i~ She has a mother's right to see her OWn child.  "

~~ She could see the muscle jump in his tightly clenched jaw.  She
wondered what terrible words he was trying to repress.

She felt nauseated, and her head continued to pound.  Visions had filled
her head as soon as they'd encountered Frances; indistinct pictures she
couldn't understand, and a cacophony of indistinguishable sounds.  She
had seen as if through a fog, and every image she could glean was
unfamiliar and mystifying.

The only thing she knew for sure was that Lisa had no desire to hurt
either Duncan or April.

They were both silent until they got to the hotel.  Sally was gone by
then, and Mara listened as Duncan spoke to her on the telephone.  He
hung up with great care, as if afraid that  if he gave in to his
impulses, he might tear the phone from the wall.

"It was Lisa," he said.

"It could only have been Lisa."  He called the police constable who
served Druidheachd alone and expla'med the situation to him, then he
hung up again.

"There's not much he can do, obviously.  But he'll be over in a few
minutes."

"Might she have left a note?"

He ran his hand through his hair.

"I doubt it, but I can look."

"I'll phone Roger and then I'll check the desk.  Perhaps you should have
a look around your flat?"

He left for the second floor without a word.  She told herself he was
distraught, that his anger was for Lisa, not her.  But she knew it
wasn't completely true.  She was the one who had convinced him to allow
Lisa back into April's life.

She was the one who had slipped behind the barriers Dun- can erected to
protect himself from his own feelings.  And she was the one who
understood most what he was going through.

Minutes later she knocked on his door.  When he didn't answer right away
she let herself inside.  He was sitting beside the window.  In answer to
her unspoken question, he held out a slip of paper.  She took it.
Written in a delicate, feminine script was Lisa's plea for forgiveness,
and her promise that nothing would happen to April.  She would return
her on Monday.

"Please believe me.  She wants only the best for her," Mara said.

"There's no malice here."

"I'm going to have every police officer in Scotland out looking for
them!"

"I dinna think that will help matters.  Can you no' wait until Monday
before you begin to search?  Can you no' have that much faith in her?"

"I have no faith!"  He got to his feet.

"You don't know what she's like!  If she takes it into her head to steal
April forever, she'll do it.  Just like that!"

199 "She means April well."

"Stop it!  For God's sake cut it out, Mara!  You don't know!  You can't
know, despite what you think your intuition is telling you.  You don't
know her!"

"And neither do you."  She saw the truth now.  With blinding clarity she
saw the truth.  And it didn't take second sight.

"You dinna know her either, do you, Duncan?  You never took the time to
get to know her.  And that's what's been destroying you since you
parted.  You never really gave her a chance.  Oh, it was no' your fault,
no' completely. She was insecure and fragile, and when you made the
effort, she did no' know how to respond.  But when you could no' get
through to her, you stopped trying."

He started to pace.

"I've told you all that.  Stop pretending that you're reading my mind."

"But there's more that you never told me.  When you realized how badly
Lisa needed your help, you took April and ran instead.  You were afraid
to reach out to her, even then, even when she was vulnerable and you
knew you might have made a difference.  Because reaching out terrifies
you.  You could have helped her.  You could have gotten Lisa help, but
you paid her off and took April and you vanished."

 "Stop it!"   He started toward her.

"Who do you think you are?"

"I'm the other woman you're running from."

"He stopped just in front of her.

"You know, you're more like Lisa than I thought."  His voice shook with
anger.

"And yet you've loved us both, have you no'?  You've loved us both
because we're no' afraid to feel.  And we're aware, both Lisa and I,
that there's more to the world than anyone can see and touch.  And
that's why you've loved us both, and that's why you're so afraid now.
And that's why you're going to run again."

"I never loved Lisa the way I've loved you!"  "Loved, Duncan?"

He stepped back, as if he couldn't bear to be so close to her.

"I

think you'd better go.  "

 She saw his anger; she saw his distress, and she felt as if a hole had
opened up inside her.  There was nothing more she could do or say.

"Aye.  Perhaps I'd better."

"I'm going to get my daughter back, and then I'm going to sell this
place!"

"And vanish again," she said.

"I know how to cut my losses, Mara.  Apparently that's something you've
never learned."

"For which I'm thankful."  She turned and started for the door.  Her
hand was on the knob when she spoke again.  She didn't look at him.

"And I'm thankful for something else.  I'm thankful I've loved you,
Duncan, despite everything that's happened here tonight.  Because loving
someone is worth all the risk.  No matter how it ends."

When he didn't respond she stepped into the hallway and closed the door
softly behind her.

Chapter 15.

Duncan needed a shave and a clean shirt.  He was an adeI businessman who
knew the value of appearance and pre entation, but he was also a father,
frantic at the thought th: he might never see his daughter again.  He
tucked the shi in tighter and splashed water on his face, then he left
tt Gatwick Airport restroom and headed for the next of ha a dozen ticket
counters that he hadn't tried yet.  The airport bustled with travelers
coming in and going of of London.  Flights were continually announced
over tL intercom and toddlers wailed as their weary parents haule them
through the foot traffic.

Duncan stood in a long line and waited his turn.  He ha plenty of time
to scrutinize all the clerks, and by the time h turn was next, he had
singled out the one most likely to hell him.

When he was called, he passed up his turn and waite for the clerk he'd
chosen instead.  She finished with her cu: tomer and the moment the old
man stepped away from t~ counter, Duncan took his place.

The clerk was pretty, blond and blue-eyed with the cla: sic English
milk-and-roses complexion.  He had watched h~  carefully.  She had been
uniformly polite to even the rudest customer, and she hadn't rushed
anyone. Now she smiled and asked how she could help.

"I'm looking for my daughter," he said.  He handed her April's most
recent photograph.

"She may have come through here with her mother.  I have custody and
three days ago her mother kidnapped her."  He pulled out the
documentation that proved the courts were on his side.  Then he pulled
out Lisa's photograph, the one that April had kept in her wooden chest
of secrets.

"This is my ex-wife.  Do you remember selling her a ticket?"

She frowned, obviously not happy to be involved.  He glanced down at her
hand and saw a wedding ring.

"Do you have children?"  he asked.

She nodded.

"Then maybe you can guess how I might be feeling?  The court gave me
custody because my ex-wife isn't fit to raise a child.  And now she has
our daughter, and I may never see her again."

She took the photograph of Lisa, but she didn't look at it.

"Hundreds of people come through here every day, sir."

"I know.  I know this is a long shot.  But I'm desperate.  Please.

Just look at it.  And show it to your colleagues.

Th " at s all I ask ...... ~:~ " Do you have reason to think she came
here? " ;" :" ::~ " I don't know.

I've already been to Prestwick and ;~ Heathrow.  No one remembers her.
"

The clerk sighed and shook her head.  Then she looked at the photograph.

"Well, she's quite lovely.  She has a memorable face."

"Yes.  I see it clearly in all my nightmares."

"But I'm afraid she doesn't look familiar."   She picked up April's
photograph again.

"And neither does your daughter.  She favors you, doesn't she?"

"Will you show it to your colleagues?

I'll just be a moment.  "

"Take all the time you need."

203 Duncan had learned patience in the past three days.  He had learned
to stand and wait, and he had learned that disappointment left the taste
of ashes in his mouth.  He watched the young woman show the photograph
to first one clerk, then another, and he watched them shake their heads.
As she moved steadily down the row, he realized that he had chosen her
to be his emissary because in appearance she reminded him a little of
Mara.

He hadn't seen Mara since the night April had been kidnapped.  Mara had
been gone for only minutes when he regretted everything he'd said to
her.  But he hadn't gone to find her.  He didn't know how she'd gotten
home, and he hadn't inquired.  He had let her slip out of his life
without ceremony.

There'd been little time since to think about her and no time to grieve.
He had to concentrate on finding April.  Too many days had passed
already, and by now Lisa and April could be living anywhere in the
world.  But Lisa was a creature of impulse, with little talent for
long-range planning.  He was counting on that to help him.  Perhaps Mara
had been right and he'd never known Lisa well, but he did know enough to
guess how she might proceed.

Snatching April was probably as far ahead as Lisa had been able to
think. Now that she had April, L'rsa would begin to make plans.  She had
money.  She could fly anywhere and settle down, but she would need a
passport to get out of Great Britain, and April would have to have one,
too.  Lisa probably wouldn't chance using her own name, in case the
airports were being watched, and April's passport was under lock and key
at the hotel.  So she would have to get false papers.  And false papers
took time.

If he could just get one lead, one possible sighting, it might not be
too late.

The clerk returned: She looked genuinely sorry.

"No one recognized the photographs.  But if you have copies to leave?"

 ~:~ He left her several copies of each photo, along with his thanks,
his name and the number of the Sinclair Hotel.

Then he headed for the next counter.

By the time there were no more counters to try, he was exhausted.  But a
new shift would settle in after the dinner hour, and he planned to make
the rounds of the counters all over again then.  Now he headed for the
closest restaurant and waited for a table.  Once he was off his feet
with a drink in his hand, he let exhaustion overwhelm him.  He leaned
back and closed his eyes, and he wondered what more he could possibly
lose.

"Can you squeeze in another invitation to this affair?"  He opened his
eyes and saw Iain standing beside the table.

He leaned forward.

"What in the hell are you doing here?"

"Looking for you."  Iain held up his hand.

"No, we haven't heard anything."

Duncan slumped back in his chair and gestured to the seat across from
him.

"I'm surprised you found me."

"I thought you'd probably stay on until you could interview the evening
shift."  ' Duncan nodded.

"Why are you here?"

"To take over.-I've got you a seat on a flight back to Prestwick in
about an hour.  Then you're to go home and get some sleep.  And have a
shave, for God's sake.  You look like a barbarian.  Your car's there?"

Duncan was so tired he could hardly make sense of it all.  "You're going
to take over for me?"

I'll stay for this change of shift and the next.  Andrew's checking all
the other routes out of the country.  Ships, ferries.  "

He shrugged.

"It hits me every once in a while that we live on a great, huge, bloody
island."

Duncan's throat felt tight, the way it had as a boy when he'd needed to
cry but known he was too old.

"I don't know what to say."

Iain made a face.

"Then please, by all means, don't say anything."

"Nobody's heard anything back at the hotel?"

205 "Not exactly."

He was almost too tired to pick up on Iain's words, but not quite.

"What do you mean?"

"Mara came by to see me this morning."  "Mara?"

"You remember her?"

"Cut the crap, lain.  Has she heard something?"

"No.   But she still thinks Lisa is sincere.   She still thinks she's
planning to bring April back tomorrow."   Duncan didn't say anything.

"I gather the two of you fought," lain said.

"Is that why she came to see you?"

"No.  She's having disturbing dreams.  Apparently she's been having them
since Lisa took April."

"Then we still share that much, at least."

"She's afraid that despite Lisa's intentions, she's going to be
prevented somehow from returning April."   Duncan rapped his fingers on
the table.

"I'd thought better of Mara than that."

"What do you mean?"

"Can't you see what she's doing?  She's talking out of both sides of her
mouth.  She's making completely different predictions so she can't
possibly be proved wrong.  Whether Lisa returns April or not, Mara's
hedged her bets."

"Do you think so?"

"Well, what do you you think?"

"I think you're a fool."  Iain got to his feet.  Duncan reached across
the table to stop him from leaving.

"Why am I a fool?"

"Because Mara has no need to prove herself to you or anybody.  She's not
selling her talent, Dunc.  She doesn't need a perfect record."

Duncan realized just how low he had sunk.  Now he was trying to invent a
case against Mara when all she had ever tried to do was help.  And why?
Because even this tenuous connection to her was too painful.

"Sit down."

 Iain must have heard something promising in his voice, because he sat.

"What can I do?"  Duncan asked.

"What should I do?"

"Go to her.  See what she can tell you."

"I don't know if I can face her."

"You know, I've always envied you."

"Me?"

"Does that surprise you?   It shouldn't.   You have April."   "You
forget. I don't have April anymore."

Iain shook his head.

"And then Mara came into your life.  And for a while you had her, too.
And what man wouldn't count himself fortunate?  There's nothing she
wouldn't share with you if you'd let her."

"So what are you trying to say?"

"You're in danger of letting them both slip through your fingers.  And
then you won't be a man to envy."

Duncan held out his hand.  Iain took an envelope from his inside coat
pocket and handed it to him.  Duncan shuffled 'through his ticket,
noting the gate and time of departure.  "Do you remember the day I left
for America?  We were just eight."

"I remember."

"Andrew reminded me of it when we were at Fearn- shader the other
night."

"Our Andrew can be ruthless."

"I hadn't thought of that day in years."  Duncan gave a harsh laugh.

"I was sure my world was ending."

"It did."

Duncan looked up.

"I guess it did.  I felt like I'd been ripped out by the roots.  And I
didn't transpla~,t well until!

stopped caring about everything.  "

"Do you need something else to think about?"  Duncan didn't answer.

"In your absence I took Martin through the hotel and showed it to him.
He's made a bid for it.  With some negotiation, it should do.  It's
rather generous, actually."

 "Why are you telling me now?"

207 lain gave a sad smile.

"Because somehow, it's all connected, isn't it?"

Mara was waiting at the hotel when Duncan, weary beyond imagination,
walked into the lobby after his drive back to Druidheachd from the
airport.  It was already past midnight, but his own exhaustion seemed
insignificant when he saw her.  She looked pale and drained, as if she
hadn't slept in days.

She didn't smile when he approached, but she rose and nodded in
greeting.  He wondered how she had known when he would be arriving.

"Iain told me what time your plane would be getting in," she said, as if
to set the record straight immediately.

"He told me he'd talked to you."

"I dinna want to take up much of your time."  She hesitated.

"For what it's worth, Duncan, I did no' want to take up any of it.  I'd
hoped that lain would speak to you for me, but he refused."

He was too tired to fight his own feelings.  Regret as deep as the
bottom of his heart surged through him.

"I hope you feel you can always talk to me."

She met his eyes, and he saw her answer.  She was a woman willing to
risk almost anything, but she was not a ~fool.  She, too, knew ho~ to
cut her losses.

"I will speak to ~you about this because I m afraid for April."

"Let's go upstairs."  She appeared to consider, as if she didn't want to
be alone with him.  His regret dug deeper.

"Mara, come upstairs.  I'm not going to hurt you.  And we can't talk
privately in here."

Her nod was almost imperceptible.  He led the way and she trailed after
him. He ushered her into his apartment and turned on the lights.  She
went straight to the couch and sat down, as if her legs were too tired
to hold her.

"I'm going to make some tea," he said.

"We can both use it.  Just sit tight."

Her eyes were closed when he returned, but she held out her hands for
her cup.  She wrapped her fingers around it  and hugged it to her chest
as if she needed the warmth.  The night was unusually cold for
September, and the hotel hadn't yet turned on the heat for the season.
Duncan didn't think about his next move.  He picked up a soft wool
afghan from the end of the couch and draped it over her shoulders.

"I'm quite capable of looking after myself," she said.  "I know."

She opened her eyes, but they might as well have stayed closed because
there was no expression in them.

"I've told you from the beginning that I believe Lisa means no harm by
what she's done.  I think she has every intention of returning April."

"So you've said."

"What I have no' told you is that I've been plagued with... other
feelings? Sensations?  I dinna know how to explain.  I can only say that
there is something else very wrong."

Duncan took a seat beside her instead of one across the room.  She
shifted subtly, as if she didn't want him to touch her.

"Tell me more," he said.

"Tell me whatever you can."

"I've had nightmares, and waking dreams, too.   The images are
frightening. They make no sense to me, and they get no clearer with
time.   It's as if I'm seeing everything through a fog.   The mists
swirl, then there's a brief opening.   I see a face or a figure and then
the mists swirl over them again."

"Do you recognize anything or anyone?"

"No.   And the orra thing is that no one I see looks... as they should?"
She lifted her shoulders in question.

"I dinna ken why."

"All right.  Maybe we should start there."  "Start?"

"Yes.  Start trying to pin it down a little.  Maybe we should start with
why they don't look the way you think they should.  What's strange about
them that you haven't been able to put your finger on yet?"

"I've never been able to pin my visions down, as you put it."  She set
her tea down and stood, as if she couldn't stand 209 to sit beside him.
She began to pace.

"I have no control over what I see or when I see it."

"Why are you pacing?"

"I'm more comfortable this way."  "Mara..."

She stopped pacing.

"I'm here because I'm afraid for April.  Dinna make this into something
else, Duncan, or I'll be forced to leave."

He dropped his hand to his lap.  He hadn't even realized that he had
reached out to her.

"Can you describe what you see?"

She began to pace again.

"Faces.  Mist."  She shook her head.

He watched her pace.

"What about the faces?  Men's?  Women's?"

"I dinna know."  Suddenly she stopped and faced him.

"I can no' sleep, because when I do, the dreams begin.  And I wake up
with a scream in my throat."

He felt wrenched by the emotion in her voice.  She was struggling not to
let him see how deeply she had been affected by the visions, but the
struggle was there for him to hear.

"Is that very unusual?"

"Aye.  I've often had prophetic dreams, but never ones that repeat
themselves over and over."

"When you wake up, what do you feel?  You must feel fear if you're ready
to scream."

"No' fear.  No' for myself."  She began to pace again.  "Then for
someone else?  For April?"

"I dinna think it's April in the dream.  But it's about her."

 "I don't understand."

"Neither do I."

"Mara, you're wearing yourself out.  Please sit down before you drop."

She continued to pace.  Faster, if anything.

"There's a feeling of such betrayal" -- "Betrayal?"  He sat forward.

"Terrible, terrible betrayal."

 He thought of his own betrayals and shame filled him.  "Well, there's
not much doubt where that comes from."

"What do you mean?"

He stood and intercepted her, resting his hands on her arms.  She pulled
away as if she couldn't tolerate his touch.

"I betrayed you," he said softly.

"I used you, and I betrayed you.  And you were fight, I did the same
thing to Lisa, even if the circumstances were entirely different."

 "This is no' about you and me."

"I think it is.  What you believe to be a nightmare about April is
really about us, Mara.  You gave so much of yourself, and I gave so
little.  And when you wanted more, when you reached out to me, I shoved
you away."

"This is no' about you and me.  The dream is about your daughter!"

He reached out to her, and she backed away.

"Dinna touch me, Duncan.

Dinna touch me again or I'll leave and no' come back.  "

He saw how agitated she was becoming.  He had never seen her this way.

He nodded, afraid she would do exactly as she threatened.

"All right."

"Please, move away from me."

He walked to the window and looked out over the village green.  He
struggled for something to say, something ordinary and soothing.  He
didn't struggle long.  It's snowing.  " He slapped his palm against the
windowsill.

"I knew it was cold, but I had no idea it waS that cold."

 "They've been predicting storms in the Highlands all day."

He could tell from her voice that she was doing exactly what he was,
struggling for normalcy.  It almost seemed insane.

"Then it's not just a flake or two?"

 "At the highest elevations it might be several feet."

He turned slowly.

"Maybe your dream isn't about me and you, but that doesn't make what I
said any less true."

"Does it no'?"

211 "I've closed myself off from everyone for so long that I don't even
know when it started.  But you got too close, and it scared me."

"You've never trusted me.  No' from the beginning, and no' now."

"What do you mean, I don't trust you now?"  She began to pace again.

"I've told you this dream is about your daughter, yet you persist in
calling it s9something else."

 "

" I'm trying to tell you I'm sorry!    "

"And will that change anything?  You've suddenly realized that you're at
least partially to blame for the problems between us, but you still
dinna see what you're doing."

 "What am I doing?"

"You have no' really changed at all.  You see me and everything I am as
less than whole.  You see the sight as a regrettable handicap, and me as
a hysterical woman whose own psychological needs are coming out in
dreams and visions.

It's a wonder you're taking the time to speak to me at all!  "

He stared at her.  He saw her pain, and the self-respect that she had
somehow managed to cultivate anyway.  And he realized that she was
right.  At no time during their reunion had he truly taken her visions
seriously.  He had used them as an excuse to be with her.

From the beginning of their relationship he had ig~Sred the abilities
that she had used so often and so well.  He had seen her predictions
come true time and time again, yet he had pushed her successes out of
his own narrow mind.  And when he had been forced to confront the
evidence, he had sought other explanations.  Any other explanation.

He had never trusted her.  Not the way that she needed someone to trust
her. Not the way that she needed him to trust her.

"How could I have been so blind?"  he asked.

"I haven't understood.  I still don't understand.  But you're right.  I
couldn't understand, and so I denied what's so obvious."  She faced him.

"And what is that, Duncan?"

 He had to push his answer from his throat.  He still didn't want to
believe it.  Even as he said it, he didn't want to believe it.  But he
knew now that it had to be true.  "You can see the future,"

he said.

"You really can."

"Aye.  I can see the future.  And it's nearly destroyed my life."

"And you're seeing the fiature now.  In your dreams.  In your visions."

"Aye."  She lifted her chin.

"And it's nearly destroying me."

"How could I have been so stupid?"  He moved toward her.  She didn't
move away.  He moved slowly, so very slowly.

"Only one of us has behaved irrationally, and it hasn't been ~you."

He stopped an arm's length away.  He stretched out his hand.

"My mind has been closed.  You've proved yourself to me again and again,
and I've simply ignored everything I didn't want to see."

She closed her eyes.  He uncurled his fingers.  He touched her cheek.

Lightly.  A feather's touch.  This time she didn't move away.

"And there's so very much I didn't want to see," he said.  And now I'm
beginning to.  "

Chapter 16.

Mara closed her eyes.  She could feel Duncan's fingertips against her
cheek.  She could feel his words in her heart.

And she could feel the boundaries that separated the present and the
future begin to shift.

"Dinna touch me," she gasped.

"Get away from me, Duncan I ~ She stepped backwards.  Suddenly she was
trembling so hard she was afraid her legs wouldn't hold her.  She opened
her eyes and saw the shock in his.  Then shock turned to hurt and
finally to anger.

"All right.  I won't," he said quietly, but the pitch of his voice was
deceptive.  He might as well have slapped her.

"You dinna understand!"

"That's possible.  Or maybe I do.  Finally."  She struggled to find a
way to explain.

"When you touch me..."  ' "What?  It disgusts you?  I'll remember, and I
sure won't do it again."

 "No!"  Dizziness overwhelmed her.  She couldn't hold off the
inevitable. It was like trying to stop a raging river.

"Move away from me.  Please!"

"Mara?  What in God's name is wrong?"  He stepped closer.  His
expression changed again.  Anger disappeared to be replaced by concern.

Her knees gave way and she slumped to the floor.  She put her head down,
but it only made the dizziness worse.

Then she saw the mists.  Thick, swirling mists, and she shivered because
suddenly she was so cold, colder than she had ever been in her life.
But this wasn't her life, nor any- one's that she had ever known.  She
was somewhere she had never been, and layers of time were crashing one
into the other.

She heard screams and nausea gripped her.  She wanted to move toward the
screams, to help somehow, but she was rooted to one place and could not
move at all.  Someone was running toward her in the mist.  She could
hear the sound of footsteps crunching on the snow.  There was snow at
her feet.  She saw it now.  And the mist wasn't mist at all but a
snowstorm.  A woman's face materialized in the midst of it.  She was
young and obviously terrified.  Her hair streamed out behind her as she
ran and a bruise darkened her cheek.  As Mara watched a hand closed over
her hair and the woman screamed.

"Mara!  Are you all right?"

She was jerked back to the present.  She could sense Dun- can kneeling
beside her.  She heard a pounding somewhere behind her, but she couldn't
open her eyes.  With a curse he got up and went to the door.  She heard
voices.

Duncan's: "No, damn it, I don't know if everything's all right or not."

A woman's: "Is it Miss Mara?  I heard her scream.  Is she ill?"

Duncan's again: "Will you go get Dr. Sutherland, please?  Ask him to
come immediately if he can.  And get him, not his partner."  He slammed
the door.

215 She took a deep breath.  Her voice came out a whisper.  "Stay away
from me, Duncan," she said.

"Don't come any closer."

"For God's sake, tell me why!  What's happening?"  But the mists were
closing again.  She couldn't speak.  She whimpered as they cut off the
present again. There were men talking.

She strained to understand their words, but they were nearly
incomprehensible.  She recognized a word, then another.

The language was a mixture of a deeply accented English and another
language.

"Gaelic."  She wrenched out the word, but it didn't take her back to the
present.  Instead the scene cleared.  There was smoke mixed with the
snow now, thick, smothering smoke.  She began to cough.  She tried to
move away from it, but she was trapped.  The smoke stung her eyes, and
she began to cry.  Then she heard a child screaming.

"April!"  She tried to run.  She was able, somehow, to get to her feet.

Her eyes opened, and she saw Duncan.

"Move away from me," she gasped.

"Move away!"  He backed away.

"I'm the trigger, aren't I?  You're seeing the future, and I'm the
trigger!"

She shook her head.  She could almost feel her: mind clear with each
step he took.

"No' the future..."  Her head began to pound, but she was, for the
moment, firmly back in "What then?"  ' "I dinna know!"

"What do you see?"  ' She shook her head again.  Images swam there, but
the feelings were even more terrifying.

"Betrayal.  Terrible..."

She began to cry again.

"I want to put my arms around you!"

"No!  Please!"

"I feel so helpless!"

She made it to the couch.  But the moment she sat, the visions began
again. She heard laughter.  Maniacal, inhuman laughter.  A man in belted
plaid, trews and bonnet, appeared in front of her on horseback.  The
horse reared and  I the man lifted a sword above his head.  She saw it
come crashing toward the earth.

There was blood on the snow.

She felt herself falling through space.  There was nothing now except
darkness.  No visions.  No screaming.  As she fell she thought she heard
the mournful wail of bagpipes.  Then, silence.

The silence seemed to stretch into forever.  She only truly became aware
of it when it ended.  She could hear men's voices again.

"I tell you I don't know what's wrong exactly!  But I think she's having
visions."

"Hallucinations?"

"No!  Visions of the future.  Mara has second sight.  That's how she
knew the children were going to be trampled at the Johnsmas Fair.  And
she's predicted other things.  More than I can tell you."

"I thought as much, Duncan.  I guessed it when she was at the hospital.
But why did you no' tell me before this?

Why did you try to hide it?  "

"Why?  Because most people are stupid and unreasonable if they don't
understand something!"

"Most people?"

There was a pause.

"Me," Duncan said.  "Ah, I see, lad.  It's you who did no' understand."

"And you do?"

"Of course.  Have I no' see it before?  There was an old woman in
Dmidheachd, old when I came here to practice medicine.  She lived many
more years after, and she saw the future until the day she died.  The
week of her death she chose her own kist and told us to wait until the
rain stopped before we put her in the kirk yard It rained the day she
died, of course, and three days after.  We waited, you can be certain.
Auld Margaret was no' always right, but she was right often enough."

"Margaret Henley."

"Mara's suffering."

~ 217 "No.  She's resting now.  Whatever it was she saw became too much
for her."

"I think when I'm near, particularly when I touch her, I trigger the
visions."

"Then they must concern you somehow.  Have they to do with April?"

"Apparently.  Mara says that my ex-wife plans to return April tomorrow."
He gave a harsh laugh.

"Today, I guess it is.  But something is going to interfere.  She
doesn't know what."

Mara tried to speak, but her throat was so dry the sound that emerged
was nothing like a word.  She felt hands at her wrist.  They were
soothing hands.

"Get her some water, Duncan, but don't bring it here.  I'll come in the
kitchen and get it."

Mara opened her eyes and saw Angus Sutherland.  "Do no' even try to
talk. Just stay here.  I'll get the water,"

he said.

He returned a few moments later with it.  She was sitting up by then,
and Duncan hadn't reappeared.

"Drink it all,"

Angus commanded.

Mara's hand shook, and she spilled drops on her dress.  But she managed
to drink most of it.  He took the glass and set it on the table.

"Can you talk?"  "Now you know," she said.

"I've suspected for a while."  He sat beside her.

"May I?"

"How long has this been going on?"  "Three days."

"Have you slept?  Eaten?"

She shook her head.

"You're wabbit, lass.  Trauchled.  Exhausted.  I've a mind to put you
back in the hospital."

~, "No!"  She put her head in her hands.

~ ' "How long can this go on?"

"Till I know.  Till I can see clearly."

 "I see."   Dr. Sutherland patted her knee.

"Has this happened before, then?"

 "No.  Never like this."

~"Do you ken why it's different this time?"

"I can no' see the fate of those I love.   I've never been able to."   '
"And this time?"

"I must!"

"Ah."  He was quiet for a while.

"Duncan says that he triggers the sight."

"This time.  Aye."  She felt gratitude that Duncan finally understood.

"What happens?"

"I dinna know.  He comes close or he touches me and the visions are
stronger."

"And that's a bad thing?"

"They're so terrible!"

"Poor lass."

"But I must see!  April's safety depends on it."

"Aye.   I think you must.   And I think Duncan must help you see this to
conclusion."

Fear shot through her.  She didn't know if she could continue to survive
the horror.

"He loves you, you know," Dr. Sutherland said.

"And even if he triggers the visions, he'll be right here with you to
help you through them.  And so will I."

"I dinna think Duncan loves me."

"He's no' a man who can say it easily, Mara.  He's like his father that
way. I saw what happened to his da when his mother took Duncan and Fiona
to the States to live.  Donald Sinclair withered, like the moors without
rain.  He was never the same man after they left Druidheachd.  And the
saddest thing was that Donald could never tell Duncan how much he loved
him.  He was cruel to the lad when he visited each summer, and he would
no' even let the wee lass come back.  Donald cut both of them from his
life because he could no' stand the pain."

Tears slipped down her cheeks.  He handed her a clean handkerchief.

"Will you try now?"  he asked.

"We must get this over with."

219 "You'll stay?"

"Aye.  I'll no' even write this up for the medical journals."

She tried to smile, but tears filled her eyes.

"Call him," she said.

She elosed her eyes and tried to prepare.  She felt Angus leave the
couch. She heard soft voices in the kitchen.

Sometime later she felt the couch sag beside her.  "Mara, I'm fight
here," Duncan said.

"I won't leave you, no matter what happens, unless you tell me to or
Angus thinks it's best."

She opened her eyes and turned to him.  He held out his hands.  She
lifted hers, and he took them.

"I wish, my lady,"

he said softly, "that I could be the one to suffer."  A blast of frigid
air buffeted her, and she closed her eyes to protect them.  She was so
cold.  The temperature in the room had plummeted.  She breathed out and
her breath crystalized.  And then snow swirled around her.  Noise
swirled around her. Screams and curses and the clang of swords, the
firing of muskets.

A woman, the same woman, with dark hair streaming behind her, was
running toward Mara.  Mara tried to reach out to her, but she couldn't
move.  The woman's bruised face was contorted with fear.  She pleaded
for help in a language that Mara couldn't understand.  Then a hand
closed over the woman's hair, a man's hairy fist.

Mara looked up and saw the man through the snow- stom.  He was large and
red-faced, and he was on horseback.

He dragged the woman beside him until the horse halted.  Then he sprang
to the ground, his belted plaid flapping around his knees as he did, and
dragged her up against him.  He lifted a dirk.

"No!"  Mara opened her eyes.  Duncan gripped her hands harder.

"He's going to kill her!"

"What, Mara?  Who?"

But she was floating by then, floating like the snowflakes.  Except that
she was drifting toward the heavens instead of away from them.  Below
her she heard screaming.

 220 She saw a child running toward a stand of trees, followed closely
by a woman carrying an infant.  A man passed dose by on horseback, but
he didn't pursue them.  The child knelt in the snow.  The mother knelt
beside her and covered her with her own cloak.  And the snow settled
over them and hid them in the darkness.

She floated higher.  She saw smoke and the remains of a house, its
thatched roof still smoldering.  Animals, the shaggy black Highland
cattle and sheep with fine, dark wool, ran wild in the steading, chased
by men in uniform.

She drifted higher.  She could see mountains now, mountains rising in
sharp peaks toward the sky.  Her view had been so con scribed she hadn't
realized she was in the mountains, different mountains than she knew.

The carnage was no less terrible here.  She began to spin.  Slowly, so
slowly.  Everywhere she was forced to look she saw fires and blood on
the snow.  She saw people trying to hide, some successfully, some not.
She saw men and women, and children too, clambering through the drifts,
up the frozen sides of mountains, into caves between jutting rocks.

She tried to look away, but each view was as filled with horror as the
one before it.

And then the screaming stopped.  Blessedly, the snows began to melt.

As she watched, the fires died.  Graves appeared and new cottages rose
from the ground.  Somewhere a piper began to play.  It was a mournful
tune, a lament for those who had died.  Foxglove, cowslip and willow
herb grew in the braes and beside the lochs, and badgers and foxes
hunted for prey.  Clouds cast their long shadows over awe-inspiring
peaks and rocky glens, but there was a longer shadow over the place
where the murders had been committed, a shadow that would never vanish
in the brightest sunlight.

And the piper played until the lament was finished.  Mara opened her
eyes.

Duncan was gripping her hands.  Tears ran down her cheeks.  She couldn't
tell him what she'd seen.  There were no words to describe it.  She
began to hum the lament, tentatively at first, then with more assurance.
She remembered it all.

"Do you know the tune?"  Angus asked when she had finished.

"Do you know what you were humming?"

She shook her head.  She couldn't take her eyes from Duncan's.  He had
not been where she had been; he had not seen what she had seen.  But he
had suffered for her.  She gripped his hands tighter.

"It's piobaireachd.  Ceol Mor.  The classical music for bagpipes.  My
father was a piper.  If I'm not mistaken that's " Lament for Glencoe'. "

"Glencoe."  She breathed the word, and it chilled her to the bone.

"Glencoe?"  Duncan asked.

"I don't understand."

"You've forgotten your history, lad.   Glencoe was the scene of a
terrible massacre," Dr. Sutherland said.   "1692 it was.   The Highland
clans were told they would be pardoned for their loyalty to King James
if they swore an oath of allegiance to William.   One by one they did,
but MacIain of Glencoe waited 'til the last moment and was kept from
making his oath by a storm until the deadline had passed.

He did finally swear his allegiance, but it did no' matter.  He and his
clansmen were attacked by a government regiment that had accepted their
hospitality for most of a fortnight.  The regiment rose up one night and
slaughtered all they could, burned their houses and set their livestock
free. Some of the clan escaped into the hills.  Many did no'.  There's
no' been a waur day for Scotland.  "

"I saw it."  Mara took a deep breath.

"All of it."  "The massacre?"

Duncan squeezed her hands.

"But you called out April's name, Mara."

"I heard a child screaming."

"Was it April?"

"No.  But she's there.  That's where she's gone, Duncan."

 "Glencoe?   I don't understand."

"Lisa took her there.  It's no' that far, an easy drive."

 "But why?   Is there anything there to see now?"

 "I dinna know."  She saw his frustration.  She felt it.  She could feel
every emotion that coursed through him.

"She'sexhausted," Dr. Sutherland said.

"I_et her be now.  She must rest or I dinna know what will happen to
her."

"No.  I have to finish this."  There was no feeling in Mara's hands they
were held so tightly in Duncan's, but she didn't pull away.  She had to
have the connection to him if she was to see more.

"Maybe you'd better listen to him," Duncan said.

"I don't want you hurt."

Mara shut her eyes.  For a moment she was afraid there was nothing else
she could learn.  She could hear Duncan's breathing, the soft crunch of
tires against snow in the street below.  the wild screech of an eagle.

She was floating again.  The worst of the images had vanished now.  But
the wildflowers she had glimpsed were gone, replaced by a soft carpet of
snow. She could see a highway and a glen with modern buildings and a
vast car park at its edge.  Then she was far from civilization, in a
mountain pass.  The snow was thicker here, a golden eagle soared above
her searching for prey against the undisturbed white drifts.

Below her, mountains walled in a ~anyon.  She glimpsed cattle, dozens or
more of them, shaggy and broad, penned in by the mountains, too.  Then
the cattle disappeared.  She heard a child crying.  She heard the
soothing voi~of a woman, then a scream.  And she understood.

~ She pulled her hands from Duncan's.  She would see no more.  She took
a moment to open her eyes.  She let the vision stay in her mind as long
as it would; she drifted with it, noting everything she saw.

Then she opened her eyes.

"They're tenting.  They are off by themselves in a wee clearing between
two peaks.  Lisa did no' want to be with other people, in case you
searched for her.  So she took April to an isolated place, and they made
a snug camp.  But she did no' guess that snow would come, and she was
no' prepared for it. When she tried... or when 223 she tries..."  She
shrugged helplessly.  She couldn't be sure if what she had seen had
happened or was about to.  "Go on," Duncan said.

"There'll be an accident, or there has already been one.  I can no' tell
which.  Lisa is hurt and she can no' get April to safety.  And they are
in danger because of the cold and the snow."

"How do you feel, lass?"  Dr. Sutherland asked.  She shook her head, but
she didn't look at him.

"Duncan?"

His voice was gentle, as if he was afraid he was going to hurt her.

"I'm sorry, lady, but Lisa has never camped or backpacked in her life.
Her idea of roughing it is settling for a motel instead of a four-star
hotel."

"Lisa's changed."  She saw doubt in his eyes.  She had felt completely
drained of emotion.  She would have beheved she was incapable of more,
except that dread was beginning to build inside her again.

"Duncan, you have to believe me.

That's where April is, and you must find her.  " " I know you saw
something, Mara.  I don't doubt a word you've told me, and I know it's
been terrible to put yourself through this.  But you've got to
understand.  This is completely unlike Lisa.  Completely.  You don't
know her or you'd see I'm right.  She wouldn't even consider taking
April camping.  " --: " She did.  "

"Do you need me, lass?"  Dr. Sutherland asked.

"Do you want me to bide with you awhile?"

"There'll be no more visions now," she said.  She held out her hand to
him.

"Thank you so much."

He took her hand and held it for a moment.

"Have you ever been wrong?

Have you ever seen a vision that did no' come true?  "

"I've never before seen women and bairns slaughtered in front of me,"

she said.  Her voice caught.

"Am I to believe I saw them for no reason?"

He squeezed her hand.  At the doorway he turned.

"Listen well, Duncan,"

he said.  The door closed behind him.

 "Will you listen, Duncan?  Or will you no' trust me again?"

"I trust you."  Duncan touched her cheek, her hair.  In a moment she was
in his arms.  He clasped her against him and his lips found her hair,
her cheek, her lips.  His arms tightened around her.

"Mara, I trust you.  I do.  And I'm sorry you had to go through ... such
a terrible experience.  But this is unlikely.  You just don't know how
unlikely it is!"

She pulled away, although it took every ounce of strength she had.

"Then you lied when you said you believed I could tell the future?"

"No.  I didn't.  It's just that this time" -- "I've found April for you,
Duncan."  .  '~ He framed her face with his hands.

"Can you say where she is exactly?"

"No.  I'll have to go with you."

"You can't go anywhere.  You're exhausted.  You heard Dr. Sutherland."

"I'm the only one who can find her.  I'll know where to go when we get
there."  She covered his hands and removed 'them from her cheeks.

"If you dinna go, I'll go without you."  ' She saw a change come over
him. He was torn; she hadn't expected anything different.  As he battled
with himself she knew what she was asking of him, but she couldn't ask
less. "We'll need help," he said at last.  "lain and Andrew are gone.
We're going to have to find some other men to help.  I'm sure we'll have
to fan out when we get there."

She sensed resignation more than acceptance.  She was disappointed, but
right now the only thing that truly mattered was finding April.

"We'll have to tell them why."  "Are you sure?

You're willing?  "

"Aye.  If the people of Druidheachd can no' accept me the way I am, then
I'll need to move on.  But I can no longer pretend to be something I'm
no'."

"I can think of half a dozen people who might help."  He stood.

"Roger.  Geordie Smith--he owes us both, doesn't 'he?"  He named men in
rapid succession.

225 "Did you know you had so many friends in Druidheachd, Duncan?"

He lifted her chin and bent closer.

"Will you promise you'll get some rest?  It's going to take a while to
gather everybody together.  Then I'll come back for you, and we can
leave.  It ghould be nearly dawn by the time we get to Glencoe.  We'll
see if we can find something for you to change into.  You can't hike
into the mountains in what you're wearing."

She knew she wouldn't rest until April was home, but she nodded.  He
turned to go and the telephone rang.  He nearly ripped the receiver from
the cradle.

"Yes?"

He took a deep breath as he listened to the voice on the other end.

She watched his face, but she couldn't read it.  He got a pen and
scribbled as he listened.  He repeated a number and a time.

"And the flight hasn't left yet?"  He waited for an answer.

"Not until then?"

The conversation made no sense to her.  She stood on strangely weak legs
and went to the window.  Snow was still falling.

She knew he had finished when she felt his hands on her shoulders.

"That was a woman I spoke to yesterday at Heathrow.  A woman matching
Lisa's description just bought two tickets to L.A."  and she has a
little girl with her.

The tickets were issued in the name of Elizabeth Sinclair.  "

" I see.   "

~' "Do you?"  He turned her gently.

"It sounds like it could be Lisa, Mara.  The agent says she's the right
age, darkhaired and pretty.  She didn't get a good look at the little
girl, but she was crying and tugging at her mother's hand like she
didn't want to go. Lisa's name isn't Elizabeth, but it's close enough
that no one would question the difference, not at that point."

"What are you going to do?"

"Their flight doesn't leave for another four hours, but there's no way I
can drive to Prestwick and get a plane to London in time to catch them
there. But I can take a flight out of Prestwick to L.A.  myself. There's
one that goes C

226 straight through without a layover and Lisa's.  Elizabeth Sinclair's
flight lays over in New York for two hours.  I'd beat them to L.  A.  by
about an hour.  I could be waiting when they step off the plane.  "

"Aye.  You could."

He rubbed his palms up and down her arms.

"It could be Lisa, Mara.

And if she gets April back to L.  A.  " she could disappear with her.
Who knows where she'd take her from there?  For all I know she's had
this set up with that crazy cult she was involved with.  They've got
branches all over the world, and they could keep me from ever seeing
April again."

"Your daughter is at Glencoe, Duncan."  She gripped his hands.

"Elizabeth Sinclair is no' Lisa."

"You're tearing me apart!"

"No.  I'm giving you back your child.  And if you do no' take her back,
if you do no' go and find her with me, I can no' say what will happen."

"I never thought you'd do this to me!  You're asking me to choose what I
think is right over your ability to see the future."

"Aye.  But no' to test you.  I've never been surer of a thing in my
life. You've said that you trust me.  You must trust me now!"

It had come to that.  She saw it clearly.  Somewhere echoing inside her
was a child's scream.  She could do no less for April than make this,
the ultimate demand on Duncan.  She could feel the tension in his body
against her palms.

He was a man ready to fly into a thousand pieces.  Tears sprang to her
eyes, but she kept silent.

"Glencoe," he said.  He pulled away from her.

"I'll go with you to Glencoe."

"You will no' be sorry."

He walked to the telephone table.  He picked up the receiver and dialed
a long series of numbers, and he didn't take his eyes off of her as he
did.  He put the receiver to his ear and waited.

"Let me speak to Sam, please.  This is Dun227 ,.  can Sinclair.  Yeah,
I'm calling from Scotland.  What time is it there?"  He waited, then he
began to speak again.  She listened as he outlined briefly what had
happened.

She understood from the things he said that the man on the other end was
his American attorney.

"I need you to meet a flight that will be arriving there in about
seventeen hours.  Lisa may be on it with April.  If she is, you'll need
to get April away from her, and if you can't do that, you'll need to
follow them.  I'll pay whatever I have to.  Use a PI.  if you think it's
better.  But you've got to be there to identify her."  He listened
again.

"Yeah, I've got all the flight info."  He picked up the paper he'd
scribbled on.  He gave the man the same information the ticket agent had
given him.

"You can do it?  You're sum?  Okay, then I'll talk to you after the
plane arrives.  Sam, thanks.  I don't know what I would have done if
you'd said no."

He hung up.

"This has nothing to do with trust."  She didn't speak because she knew
them was nothing she could say that would change anything.

"You've asked me to believe in you," he said.

"I do.  Now I'm asking you to believe in me.  I have to take every
precaution."

He turned without another word and left her standing there.

" ," Chapter 17.

Glencoe at dawn had an unearthly beauty.  Snow outlined its rugged peaks
and ice glistened like diamonds on trees and trails alike. Duncan parked
in the lot of a hotel several miles outside the village, but the region
bounded by rivers, lochs and mountains was so vast that it would take
days to cover the parts that were even moderately accessible.

Duncan laced his boots tighter and pulled on an extra sweater for warmth
before he zipped his jacket.  The other men were doing the same.  Not
one of them had blinked an eye at his request.  They had nodded sagely
and asked when he planned to leave.  And they had each been outside his
house waiting when Duncan came to pick them up.

Beside him Mara zipped her jacket, too.  She was bundled from head to
toe, but Duncan was still afraid she was going to suffer from the cold.
She was as pale as the snowfall, and her eyes were shadowed.  He hadn't
asked how she planned to lead them to Lisa and April because he was
afraid to hear the truth.  She had gone through hell already; he was
sure there was more of the same ahead.

229 .  ~- "I brought an extra scarf."  He offered it, but she shook her
head. She had said very little since leaving the hotel.  He had hoped
she would sleep as they traveled, but instead she had stared out the
window.  He wondered if she was afraid to sleep, if she was afraid the
dreams would return as she neared the site of the massacre.

She had endured so much, and he wanted to tell her how sorry he was that
April's disappearance had led to her visions.

But Mara had cut herself off from him.  From the moment he had made the
call to L.  A.  " she had removed herself from his presence, even when
she was sitting beside him.

"Are you going to be warm enough?"  he asked now.  "You're already so
run down, a chill could be serious."

"Bring everything extra that you have for Lisa and April."  She turned
away from him.

"Duncan, do you think we'll need ropes?"  Roger asked.  "I've brought a
good one and an ice axe."

Duncan watched as Mara walked over to the group of men to confer with
them.

"It won't be a bad idea to have them along," he said.

~ "You dinna think the woman did any climbing, do you?  Not with the
child?"

"I don't think they're here," Duncan said honestly.

"But~ if they are, they're just off a trail somewhere.  Even if Lisa's
taken up mountain climbing, ApriFs too young to climb: with her."

"We've food enough for the day, and water.  But we'll have to be back
here by the time the sun goes down.  We're no' equipped to spend the
night out."

"We'll be back on the road by then."

They joined the others.  Mara was speaking.

"I've asked, Duncan to stop here because I saw this hotel in my...
dream."

The men nodded.  Not one of them seemed surprised.  "I also saw cattle
huddled in a mountain pass.  They were Highland cattle, the old ones."
She paused.

"I dinna know  what that meant, but as soon as I'd seen them, they were
gone."  ' "I'm from here, ye know," Geordie Smith said.  He was sober
this morning, had been sober for months, and he had been particularly
pleased to be included on this expedition.  "Well, me mother's people am
from Ballachulish, anyway.

And I spent me holidays here often enough as a lad.  " " Does what I've
told you mean anything?  "

He shook his head.

"The pass was walled in by mountains.  Perhaps someone here at the hotel
will know."

"Walled in, ye say?"  Geordie scratched his head.

"I wonder, could it be Coire Gabhail of which yer speaking?"

"What's that?"  Duncan asked.

"It's a corrie below here a bit.  It's an odd place, that.  It has a
floor as level as the counter in your pub, Duncan.

Gearr Aonach rises to one side of it and Beinn Fhada the other.  "

"Coire Gabhail means the corrie of capture," one of the men, a teacher
in the village, said.  He shrugged when Duncan cocked his head in
question.

"My family's from Skye.  I learned Gaelic as a child," he explained.

"Aye, that's it," Geordie said, slapping his leg.

"The corrie of capture.  That's where the Glencoe men kept the cattle
they stole, or so the tale's told.  In those times it was no' so
uncommon for one clan to steal from another, but the men of Glencoe were
fair fly about it. They would drive the cattle in the corrie and hold
them there, and none could be retrieved."

"Mara?"  Duncan asked.

"There were mountains on each side, like walls.  And it was lonely."

Duncan heard tension in her voice.  He wanted to put his arms around
her, but he knew he would be rebuffed.

"Do you think Corrie Gabhail might be the place you saw?"  "Aye.  It
might."

231 "We'll need to get back in the bus, then," Geordie said, taking
charge.

"And drive up the road a bit.  Then there's a footbridge over the Coe,
or there was when I was a lad."

 "How long will this take?"   Duncan asked.

"With the snow and the cold?"  Geordie shook his head.  "Most of the
day?"

"Mara, this will be our only chance."  Duncan didn't care if she did
pull away from him.  He reached for her hands and chafed them in his
own.

"By the time we're in and out, there probably won't be enough daylight
left to look anywhere else."

"I have one chance then?"

~': "It's ~'i~ not up to me.  It's the weather that will limit us."

"I say we go to the corrie."

As one, the men headed back toward the bus.  Duncan was surprised by
their easy acceptance of her decision.  Mara didn't follow, and neither
did he.  He didn't drop her hands.  "They're good men," he said.

"They believe in me."  For a moment at least, all that was wrong between
them vanished.

"They've accepted this as if the sight is a talent like playing the
piano or painting still lifes.

I've worked all my life to hide who I am, and they've accepted me
without question.  "

"Mara " "We'd best go, Duncan.  If we have only this chance, then we've
got to make the most of it."

"You don't have to go.  You could stay here, at the hotel.  Now that we
know where we're going, you don't have to come.  You could rest, maybe
even take a room and sleep until we get back.  It's warm there and dry."

"I have one chance, and if that's all I'm to be given, then I'll be
there for all of it."

"My stubborn lady."

She pulled away then, as if the intimate tone of his voice might be her
undoing.  He watched her cross the lot to the minibus.

 Mara was less certain than she appeared to be.  She had stared out the
window on the trip to Glencoe, clearing her mind and opening herself to
visions that might lead her to the exact place, but nothing had come to
her. Now as she and the men walked she only felt fatigue.

She was in the middle of the line, a place the men had silently chosen
for her.  She sensed their desire to protect her.

They had encouraged her when the walking had gotten difficult, sung to
her, told her stories.  She couldn't remember a time when she had been
the recipient of so much goodwill.

She had found a home in Druidheachd.  She had never believed such a
thing possible.  At best she had hoped for a place where she would be
left alone. Instead she was slowly, surely being pulled into village
life.  It had begun at the Johnsmas Fair.  She had exposed herself to
anyone canny enough to understand why she had grabbed the children.

Then she had faced half the village over the reception desk of the
Sinclair Hotel, and what questions there were about her integrity had
apparently been answered.

In the midst of an isolated Highland village with its roots firmly
planted in the seventeenth century, with its superstitions and its fears
of ghosts, goblins and things that went bump in the night, she had found
a home.

And a man she loved.  - .  Duncan walked behind Geordie at the front of
the line.  She could watch the proud set of his shoulders, the masculine
thrust of his hips and ramrod straight line of his back.  She loved him,
this arrogant, stubborn Scot-American who refused to see anything except
what was put squarely before him.  And perhaps it was that quality--or
fault--that she loved best about Duncan, because he was a man who
refused to compromise anything.  When he believed in something, he
believed in it with all his heart, and when he loved.  "It's time we
took a break," he said now.

233 Duncan turned and searched for her with his eyes.  When he found
her, he frowned.

"Mara, you look like a snowflake would knock you to the ground.  Sit on
that rock over there and take a break."

"No, we have to keep going."

"You're not going anywhere.  Not until you've rested."  He advanced on
her, passing Roger who had walked between them as if to shield them from
one another.  "We must keep going or we will no' find them in time."

"It's taking longer because every step is like ice-skating, and because
it is, you're completely done in."  He put his hands on her shoulders.

"Please."  He lowered his voice.  "Mara, don't do this to me.  I've got
enough to worry about."

They had hiked beside a wide burn for what seemed like miles.  The burn
tumbled through a gorge fringed with birches, and their path was narrow
and slick.  At some point when the sun had risen high enough to be seen
above the mountains, they had stopped to rest and drink strong hot tea
supplied by Roger.  But they had not come nearly as far as they had
expected.

I'll rest, but only for a few minutes.  " She found a wide rock beside
the stream and sat.  Behind her she sensed the ~:men breathing a
collective sigh of relief.

~ She was exhausted.  At times she felt as if she were floating.  She had
stumbled and nearly fallen twice, and once she had been so overcome by
dizziness she had believed the future was about to present itself again.
But nothing had presented itself to her except doubt.  If she could fly
with the eagles, if she could soar above Glencoe and look down upon it
again, She would be sure they were in the right place.  But she was
earthbound, and she couldn't be sure at all.

"Is there room for two?"

She moved over to let Duncan sit beside her.

"What will you say to Lisa when we find her?"  she asked.

"What a strange question."

"It will be the measure of what sort of man you really are."

 "What should I say?"

"I can no' tell you' that It must come from your heart."

 "It will depend on whether my daughter is alive and well."

She put her hand on his.

"She is, Duncan.  I'm sure of it."  "And Lisa?"

"Alive."

"I hope so.  I don't wish Lisa any harm."

"Do you no'?"

"I told you, I've made mistakes."

"This is no' one of them."  She withdrew her hand.  "Are we one of
them?"

"This is no' the time to talk about that.  There are too many things
still to be settled."

He stood, rebuffed.

"I'm going to go consult with Geor- die and see if he has any idea how
much farther we have to go."

They started out again a few minutes later.  A half hour or so farther
in they came to a pile of enormous rocks that blocked the burn and
seemed to spell an end to it.  "We cross to that side now," Geordie
said.

"But the rocks are slippery.  We'll have to go one at a time."  He
started across even before he'd finished speaking.  Duncan should have
gone next, but he waved Roger in front of him.  "Come on, Mara, I'll go
first, but I'll stay in easy reach if you need me."

She waited until he had made a good start, then she followed.  The rocks
were icy, even more so than they looked, and her knees were weak.  She
struggled to maintain her balance, but she slipped again and again.  And
each time she did, Duncan was there to steady her.

On the other side he held out his arms and sheltered her against him as
she struggled for breath.

"You did well, lady.

I know how hard you're working to keep up.  "

" We have to move on.   "

"We can't forget that we have to go back the way we've come, Mara.

And we have to leave time to rest and still be back to the bus by dark.
It will be safe to go a little farther, 23 but we can't keep going for
miles and miles.  There just isff time.  " ' " I will no' be turning
back until April and her mother at with us.  "

He stepped away from her.  The others had crossed am were waiting.

"Let's go," he said tersely.  .  ~:.

She tried to make her mind a blank, but no matter how hard she tried,
there were no images, not even the most oh scum.  She was aware only of
the cold, of the struggle to lif one foot and plant it in front of the
other, of the murmur o the burn that suddenly reappeared on the other
other side o the rocks and led them into the cot tie

Everyone stopped and stared.  The cot tie was a leve stretch of meadow,
snow-crested now, but probably gree~ and sprinkled with wildflowers in
warmer weather.  On either side the sheer rocky face of mountains closed
it in, am the burn flowed through the center.

There was little to block their view.  For as far as the3 could see
there was nothing except snow and mountains ant a burn flowing far
beyond them.

A new wave of dizziness swept over her.  Mara closed he~ eyes against
it. She could feel her body sway in protest, bu she was powerless to
stop it. Then she saw cattle, shaggy black and stocky, and she heard the
laughter of men as the3 herded them into place.  The image tlashed
across her mind then disappeared along with the dizziness, but in that
instant she knew they had come to the right place.  "They're here," she
said.

"I don't see a tent.  There's no sign anyone's been hen since the snow,"
Duncan said.

"I don't see a single foot.

print, and I don't know if you're going to make it anothe] mile.  " ' "
They're farther in.  " She started along the burn.  The walking was
easier here, flatter and at a lower elevation where less snow had
fallen.  She turned when she realized the others hadn't followed.

"I will bring them out alone if you dinna follow me," she said.

"And then what will your wives  and children say tomorrow when they find
that a woman did the rescuing alone?"

Roger broke into a grin, and Geordie laughed out loud.  Only Duncan
didn't smile.

"Come, Duncan."  She beckoned.

"Your daughter's waiting."

The sun was high in the heavens when Mara saw the tent.  It hadn't been
visible from a distance because it was tiny and white like the
surrounding snow, and there was no movement near it to attract their
eyes.  She pointed.

"There!

Where the burn curves.  "

Duncan stopped and shaded his eyes from the glare of sunlight on the
snow. Then he started to run, and several of the men loped after him.
She purposely slowed her pace and waved the others ahead.

By the time she reached the tent April was outside of it held tightly in
Duncan's arms.  She saw tears on his cheeks, tears he probably wasn't
even aware of crying.  "Are you really all right, Springtime?"

She was crying, too.

"Mommy's not."

"I know.  But she's going to be all right.  We're going to get her out
of here."

"I couldn't wake her up this morning.  I tried, and I couldn't."

"You did the right thing by staying in the tent with her."

"She made me.   When she was still awake she told me not to go outside.
I wanted to find you."   "Mommy was right.   She knew what to do."

"She slipped on the rocks by the river and hurt herself and we couldn't
leave.  And then it got so cold and she made me wear all her clothes and
sleep under her sleeping bag, too.  Then she fell asleep and I couldn't
wake her up."

Duncan looked up and saw Mara.

"Mara's here, Springtime."  ' Still clinging to him, April turned her
head. When she saw Mara she gave a small cry and stretched out her arms.
Mara took her and held her tight.

Roger backed out of the tent and stood.

"Duncan, it looks like she's got a broken leg and maybe a concussion.

, 237 She's got a knot on her head and her skin isn't much warmer than
the snow.  " He looked at April, then he motioned Duncan to one side and
finished his assessment out of earshot.

"Is she going to be all right?"  April asked.

"Is Mommy going to be all right?"

"Yes, dearest.  I know she is.  The men will carry her back to the road,
and then we'll drive her to the nearest hospital."

Even as she said the words she watched the men team up to efficiently
slide Lisa from the tent in a sleeping bag.

Mara looked at the face she had only seen in a photograph and felt a
deep compassion.

Geordie covered Lisa with the remaining sleeping bag while the rest of
the men took down the tent and used the frame and canvas to construct a
stretcher.  Duncan crouched beside her, and Lisa's eyes opened.

Mara couldn't look away.

"April?"

"She's right here.  She's fine."

"I thought... I'd show you I could take care of her."  Tears seeped down
Lisa's cheeks.

"Hush now.  We're going to get you to a hospital."

 "You'll never let me see her again..."

"Don't worry about that now."

"She's my.  " Mara looked away.  She couldn't bear the pain on the other
woman's face.  Lisa had lost her daughter forever.

After this Duncan would never allow her to have contact with April
again.

"Yes, she's your baby," Duncan said.

"And we'll work something out so you can visit her.  I promise.  You
shouldn't have taken her, Lisa, but you did everything you could to keep
her safe.  I'll always be grateful to you for that."  He stood.

April squirmed in Mara's arms, and she set her on the ground.  April ran
to her mother's side.

"Mommy!"  She grabbed Lisa's hand.

 Lisa threaded her fingers through April's and closed her eyes.

"Let's go," Duncan said.

Deftly the men placed Lisa on the makeshift stretcher and lifted her,
two to a side with April still holding Lisa's hand.

Then they started through the corrie.

Duncan watched them for a moment, then he turned to Mara.

"You've given me back my daughter."

"And you've given her back to her mother.  It's a good day's work."

"After today your place in Druidheachd will be secure forever."

"Aye.  I'll be the seer who lives on the mountain.  There'll be respect
and even friendship from those courageous enough to risk it.  It's more
than I've dreamed of in years."  April called to them.  Mara started
after the men, but Duncan put his hand on her arm.

"Mara..."  "Dinna confuse gratitude with anything else, Duncan."

"Is that what I'm doing?"

She couldn't answer, because she didn't know for certain.  There was
very little that she knew now that she had found Lisa and April.  The
strength that had carried her this far had disappeared, and love and
fear warred inside her.

"We're not finished," he said.  April called to him again, and he
dropped his hand and started toward the others.

He turned after a few paces.  She was still standing in the same place.

"We're not finished, my lady.  And if you think we are, it's one of the
few times you really can't predict the future."

 "

Chapter 18.

The hotel pub was crowded, as it had been every night in the week since
the weather had changed.  There was no better place to commiserate with
friends about a summer that had been too short, or to talk about the
mysterious rescue of Duncan'sex-wife.  In the far corner Geordie, drunk
on attention and not a drop of liquor, was relating the story for the
eighth night in a row.

"And so it becomes the best tale ever told in a Druidheachd pub," Iain
said to Duncan.

"Reduced to that."

"Don't underestimate it.  There've been tales told in here for
centuries.  If Geordie's is the best, I'll go down in history."

"And that's how your name will be remembered."  Iain lifted his glass in
toast.

"At least it will be remembered when you're back in America or wherever
you're off to."

 "What makes you think I'm off to anywhere?"

"Carlton-Jones tells me you've been negotiating with him on a price for
the hotel.  You're a good businessman, Dunc.

Anyone else would have taken what he offered for this pile of rubble.  "

 Duncan leaned back and signaled Brian for a dram.

"I've been interested to see how high he would go when pushed."

"And?"

"It's safe to bet there's no one else anywhere in the world willing to
pay what he is.  It should give us all pause.  He bears watching."

"Why?  Just consider yourself a fortunate man.  You found your buyer
right off."

"No."  Duncan downed his drink.

"I didn't."

"You're not going to let something as insignificant as Martin's wee
weasel eyes stop you from taking his offer?"   "I'm not taking anybody's
offer. It's the Sinclair Hotel.

I've spoken to Fiona.  We'll be keeping it.  " Iain lifted a brow.

"Will you now?"

"Oh, come off it, Iain.  You've known all along that I would.  You've
been enjoying this, haven't you?  You like watching the mere mortals
suffer and squirm and act like idiots while you rise above it all."

"You Americans have no respect for your betters."  : "There is no one
better."

Andrew joined them, and they made room for him at their table, which was
easy since everyone else edged away.

As always, Duncan was annoyed.

"What in the hell do they think is going to happen just because we're
sitting together?"

Iain ignored him.

"Duncan tells me he's not going to sell the hotel,"

he told Andrew.

"Is that so?  And what is it you'll be doing with it, Dunc?"

"Living in it.  Running it.  Running a business out of it, I think.  I'm
appalled at the state of advertising in the Highlands.

We've got more to offer than knobby masculine knees and grinning Loch
Ness monsters.  I've got some thoughts on how to tastefully present what
we're about.  " " We?  "

Duncan leaned forward.

"You don't have any idea how much this place irritates me sometimes.
There's nothing to do, and the weather?  My God, the weather's the worst
in the 241 world!  And then there are the attitudes.  I half expect to
wake up one morning and find druids sacrificing victims in the middle of
High Street and everybody else nodding and going about their business.
And the two of you are no better than anyone else in the village. You're
set in your ways and you're lazy and you keep coming back here no matter
where else you go because you think, for some crazy mason, that this
place, this Brigadoon rising from the mists every day of every year, is
home."

"And?"  Iain asked.

Duncan sat back.

"And, damn it, I guess it is."  Andrew signaled Brian, and in a moment
there were three drams of the hotel's best whiskey on the table.  "To
the men of midnight," Andrew said.  He held his glass high.

And the three of them drank in unison.

He had a Scot's tolerance for his native drink and a Sin- clair's
disdain for talking about his feelings.  Now one warred with the other
as Duncan drove the road up Being Domhain to Mara's.  He hadn't had
enough whiskey to impair his driving, but two drinks had been all it had
taken to convince him that tonight had to be the night to confront .
Lher.

~ He'd driven the road already this week.  Twice, in fact.  ~And both
times he'd turned around just before he reached l her croft because he
hadn't been sure what to say.

What could he say to a woman he loved beyond reason but to whom he had
never mentioned that fact?  How did he tell her that he was a stubborn,
overbearing and sometimes blind fool who had learned much too early not
to take any emotional risks?  How did he promise that he had learned
from his mistakes and wouldn't make them again, when he wasn't sure,
himself, that he had learned.  Not totally.  Because he was only human
and, sadly, perpetually fallible.

Something rolled against his foot and Duncan kicked it to the other side
of the car.  A glance affirmed that it was a ball  that April had been
trying to teach Primrose to fetch.  She hadn't taken either the dog or
the ball when she'd left town with her mother two days ago, but she
would have lots of time to play with both when she returned.

April was staying with Lisa for the remainder of the week, at a hotel
near Loch Ness where Lisa planned to recuperate before her long flight
back to the States.  She had plans to come back at Christmas time and
take April to London for a few days.  Lisa didn't want custody, only the
right to visit her daughter.  And she had proved that she could put
April's needs above her own now.

After the rescue Lisa had been surprisingly honest about her difficulty
accepting responsibility, and she expected to work on her problems for a
long time to come.  But she wanted to be part of her daughter's life,
and for everyone's sake, Duncan was going to let her.  Sometime in the
last year she had stopped searching for easy answers.

Sometime in the last year he had started searching for answers.  His
search had led him back to the village of his birth and his boyhood
friends, and to a compromise with Lisa that was going to help his
daughter grow into a happy, healthy adult.

Now he had to face his last and possibly his most difficult challenge.

Duncan's thoughts had taken him a good distance up the mountain.  He
realized he was close to the passing place where he had seen the
fountain of light that had probably saved him from a fatal collision. On
a whim, and because he still wasn't sure what he was going to say to
Mara, he pulled over and got out of his car.

It was a cold night and mist rose like icy fingers from the ground.

If there was a moon tonight, it wasn't visible in the cloud-layered sky,
and not a single star shone.  An owl hooted from the lone tree at the
edge of the cliff, and somewhere on the ground below, a small animal, a
vole or a shrew, perhaps, rustled in fright.

The view--or lack of one--was desolate.  Cold and mist and a starless
sky, the faintest shadows of distant peaks, the 243 stark silhouette of
leafless trees.  And the remnants, the faintest dusting, of last week's
snowfall.

He took a deep breath of the frost-laden air and filled his lungs.

And he finally knew what he would say to Mara.  : - The rest of the trip
went quickly.  He parked at the bottom of her drive to give himself a
few extra moments to prepare.  Over the hill he could hear the tinkle of
a bell and the hypnotic whisper of fleece against fleece as the sheep
huddled together for the night.  For the first time he truly understood
Mara's enchantment with this place, why she had struggled to resurrect
it from the earth, and why it had given her the courage to move beyond
it.  Now he could picture himself here, too.  Winter nights beside a
peat fire, spring days exploring daffodil-dappled meadows.  There was
little he couldn't imagine if Mara was at his side.

He crested the hill and looked toward her house, still a good ways in
the distance.  The chill that stole his breath had little to do with the
autumn air.  Just in front of her cottage was a familiar fountain of
pale green light.

He stared, transfixed.  The light glowed against the stone walls with an
unearthly radiance and transformed everything in its path.  For that
moment he was rooted to the earth, unable to move.  The light swayed and
rippled against the stone, then slowly, so slowly, coalesced into the
form of a woman.

"My Lady Greensleeves."  He breathed the words.  Fear clutched at him
even as he admired her beauty.  He had seen this sight, this ghost of
Perthshire and now of Druidheachd, twice before, and each time it had
been a warning of danger.

"Main!"

He began to sprint toward the light.  He had no thought except to find
Mara. His fear was for her safety, and not for his own.  He would fight
ghosts for her; he would slay dragons.

He was closer now, and the light blazed brighter and didn't fade away.
He could see a clearer outline, the soft  feminine curves, the long,
pale hair.  And then she was running toward him.

He held a flesh and blood woman in his arms, a woman dressed in a
flowing green cape, her hair loose and wild on her shoulders.  He
covered Mara's face with kisses and tasted the salt of tears on her
cheeks.  The lantern she carried brushed his back as she clasped him
against her.  His lips found hers and he knew he would never let her go
again.

"My lady," he whispered over and over.  He held her close.  She seemed
to flow against him, her body as supple and yielding as light, her skin
as soft and as warm.  "I knew you'd come."

"Did you?  How?  Did you see our future?"

"No.  I've waited for you every night.  I've come outside for every
passing car.  I believed in you."

"In us."  He kissed her again and filled his hands with her hair.  She
swayed in his arms and the feel of her body as it brushed against him
set him on fire.

"I believe in us, too, but I haven't known what to say to you."

"You dinna have to say anything, Duncan."  She slid her hands under his
belt, under the waistband of his trousers and pulled his shirt free.

"There's nowt you could say that would be better than this."

He felt her hands against his bare skin.  He felt the rhythmic sway of
her hips against his.  He groaned, torn between trying to tell her what
was in his heart and showing her.  "I love you," he said.  It was too
little, too late, and he was ashamed.

"Aye, I know."  She rose on tiptoe and ended the conversation.  He
kissed her back and let desire consume him.

As if she knew, she led him inside and kicked the door closed behind
her.  He was surrounded by the fragrance of smoldering peat, of sage and
chamomfle and lavender.  The air was warm against his skin as they
undressed each other and the mattress was soft against his flesh.  In
bed she moved against him, her legs entwined with his, her breasts
indescribably perfect against his chest. He told himself to wait, to
savor so that he could remember this al245 ways, but he was inside her
before the words had ended, and they were moving together.

He could feel the velvet warmth of her surrounding him.  He had asked
for so little, and somehow, he had been given so much.  She was part of
him in a way he had never dreamed a woman could be, and he belonged
completely to her.

He didn't know what stars they reached for, what answers they sought and
found together.  He wasn't aware of the passing of time or of beginnings
or endings.  The pleasure he felt was beyond words, and he knew it was
her plea-sure, too.  When there was no way to prolong the ecstasy, when
the agony of prolonging it was too excruciating, he gave himself up to
one all-consuming moment.  And there was no time except infinity.

Mara was the first to speak.  It might have been yesterday or tomorrow,
a minute or a millennium.  Hi didn't know and more important, didn't
care.

"You took your time, Duncan."

Time might have stood still when they were wrapped in each other's arms,
but he suspected she wasn't talking about their lovemaking.  He laughed.

"Did I?  Someday I'll have to show you what it's like when I really take
my time."

She playfully tapped his cheek with her fingertips.

"You-- know that's no' what I meant.  You took your time coming back to
me."

"I needed to think."

"Did you?"

"I've been up Being Domhain twice this week, Mara, and both times I left
without seeing you."

She stroked the cheek she had slapped.

"Is it so hard to tell me what's in your heart?"

"I haven't been able to think of a way to tell you.  I'm only good with
words when it's not myself I'm selling."

"Ah.  And must you sell yourself to me?"

"I think so.  Yes."

"Even though I knew already that you loved me?"

 He turned to his side so that he could see her face.

"Did you know?"

: "Aye.  And I know how much that frightens you."

"I haven't been very good at love, Mara.   I couldn't love Lisa enough
to help her surmount all the problems in her life.   And I didn't love
April enough to protect her when she needed to be protected or to help
her have a relationship with Lisa when it was so clear she needed one."

"You loved them both, and you loved them both enough.  And you did what
you thought was best.  Always.  And sometimes, no matter how hard we
try, it is no' enough to make things perfect."  ~ "You're very wise."  '
Her eyes sparkled.

"Well, I've come by it at great cost.  I wish sometimes I were only half
as wise."

He smiled and lifted to kiss her.

"I would like to take you exactly as you are, wisdom and all, if you'll
let me.  But can you forgive me?"

"For what?"

"For never trusting you enough.  For telling you I believed in your
second sight, then refusing to believe that Lisa and April were at
Glencoe?"

"What is there to forgive?"

"I didn't trust you.  I called my attorney and asked him to meet the
plane that I thought they'd be on.  I didn't really believe that you
could be right."  ~.

"And so?"

"Mara, are you saying you forgive me?"

"There was nowt to forgive, Duncan.   Could I be angry that you took no
chances with April's safety?   Had I been you, I would have done the
same. There was no shame in it.

And you trusted me enough to come with me.  I'll never ask for more than
that.  "

He kissed her again, slowly and thoroughly.

"Then there's one thing more."

"Aye?"

"There's something I've only just admitted to myself."  She smiled.

"Only one thing?"

"I

1 -t 247 He laughed, but he sobered quickly.  He touched her cheek, her
hair.

Then he tilted her face to his.

"From the beginning I've used your second sight as an excuse to keep you
at arm's length.  But it's never been anything more than an excuse."

"No?"

He moved a little closer.

"You've frightened me, but not because you can see the future."

"Why, then?"

He gathered her close, and rested his lips against her cheek.  He
leathered a trail of kisses to her car, and then he whispered the truth
he had only just come to know.  "Never because of the future.  You've
frightened me, my extraordinary lady, because you've turned the present
into something magical."

Her smile trembled and her eyes misted.

"Have I?"  "And it will always be so."  He found her lips with his.

She settled against him with a sigh, and he felt the peace and pleasure
of a man who had everything.  He reached down for the comforter to cover
them, and then with a soft curse he sat up and swung his legs over the
side of the bed.

"What's wrong, Duncan?"  Mara asked sleepily.

"Please dinna tell me you have to go back to the hotel tonight."

"No.  But I just remembered that you dropped the lantern before we came
inside.  I'd better check to be sure it's out."

She took his arm to restrain him.

"Come back to bed.  There's nowt to worry about.  I'd yet to light it
before you came over the hill."

"What ate you saying?  You never lit it?  It was never on?"  She reached
up and dragged him back down beside her.

"No.  I was waiting to see if it was needed."

 "I saw..."   His voice trailed off.

"what is it you saw?"  She kissed his cheek, his nose, and then, his
lips. It was a lingering kiss, full of promise.

He sighed and wrapped his arms around her again.

"I may ask you to prove from time to time that you're really flesh and
blood."  :  "Would now be as good a time as any?"  He smiled, and his
hands searched for evidence.

"Now and forever, my lady.  Now and forever."