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havena choice but to let it go."
    Slowly nodding, Johnnie
continued, "I just have one more question."
    Exasperated, Ian scowled at his
brother. "Awful damned nosy, aren't ye?" Even in the dark, he could
see Johnnie's flush.
    "Why?" Johnnie
demanded, bullheadedly determined to get all his answers, it seemed.
    Ian shrugged. "He's
mine." Speaking the words aloud to someone other than Brodick felt good.
    Johnnie grunted. "I thought
ye'd given that up."
    Sighing, Ian slouched lower
against the tree and pulled the plaid closer about his shoulders. "Can ye
give up visiting Old Maggie's place and lying with the fair lasses,
Johnnie?"
    "'Tisn't the same, Ian. What
ye do…‘tis a sin."
    "Fornication is a sin too,
Johnnie. But if it makes ye feel any better, I've given up sinning with anyone
but the doctor."
    Johnnie sat in silence. Ian
risked a glance at his brother. "Do ye hate me then, for the sin?"
    "I canna believe that Andrew
approves."
    Chuckling mirthlessly, Ian
fingered the thin sharp blade of his dirk. "He does, though. I’m nearly
certain he thinks the MacFarlands have laid a spell or a curse upon us. It is
the same for him and Agnes as it is with me and Brodick. One look into those
blue eyes and I was lost." He regretted the loss of Johnnie's esteem, but
he could no more choose his clan over Brodick than he could choose celibacy.
    "If my laird gives his
blessing, then I canna hold back my own." Uncertainty still laced
Johnnie's voice, but there was no condemnation in his hearty shoulder clasp.
"What now?"
    "Now, we wait for this
stubborn bairn to be born, and my love to get his arse out here."
    "I'll get to meet him,
then?"
    "I'd planned to knock ye
senseless and leave the burned plaids at the bothy, set it afire for ye to
find, but if ye can pretend ta be suitably grieved over my demise, I'll
introduce ye and ye can walk on to the bothy with us before I strike ye."
    He stifled his laugh at Johnnie's
wince. "Do ye hae to strike me? Canna I just make an untimely call of
nature?"
     
     
     
     

He Could Admit That
    "Are ye so sure then that
yer man will take kindly to being abducted?"
    Ian grunted. The damned noises in
this eerie place would surely cover any sound they made. "'Tisn't
abduction if he comes willingly."
    "Will he?" It seemed
almost as though Johnnie wanted to assault Brodick.
    Casting a doubtful glance at his
younger brother, Ian nodded. "Aye. He's prepared. When the bairn has
arrived, he'll come out that door, mount up and head for the path. Did ye think
we could overtake a man on horseback without his consent?"
    "I thought ye had a
plan."
    "This is it."
    The dim light increased
fractionally as the door of the homestead swung open. A slight figure stepped
out into the farmyard. It was just a shadow, no features could be
distinguished, but Ian knew by the sudden singing of his blood and rapid patter
of his heart that the man leaving the farm was Brodick. "Soon…" he whispered,
rubbing his palm over the thin scar on his chest again.
    "Ian!" Johnnie
whispered urgently. "He's goin' the other way!"
    Of course he would. His clansmen
would expect him to return to the village where he had a small cottage and
tended the clan's ills when he wasn't in Aberdeen. "He'll ride out of
sight and circle around ta meet us." He will , he promised his
rapidly tripping heart. A cold sweat broke out on his brow. A lingering doubt
about their plan sent a chill down his spine. He stiffened his back and pressed
his lips tight together. Brodick would be at the bothy when they arrived.
"Let's go."
    "Go? If all we were going to
do is sit here in the cold and entertain the spirits, why did we not just await
the man at the bothy?"
    Because I wanted to be close
to him … because I still canna believe
that it's finally going to be real? "So I could knock ye on yer head
and leave ye in the woods where the MacFarlands wouldna find ye," he snarled.
"An' I still might!"
    Pulling the plaid closer about
himself, he pushed upright and turned his