“Eight hundred acres, huh? OK. Sounds big. So, how many sheep do you have?”
He told me how many ewes, how many rams, how many gimmers and wethers, and other types of sheep that I hadn’t a clue about. I assumed they all had four legs and woolly coats, but I wasn’t absolutely sure.
“I bet they keep you busy. It’s just you and your shepherd, you said?”
“Aye, just me and Mark, although David helps at lambing, and we hire a few extra hands for shearing.”
“Still, two men for eight hundred acres seems like it’s spreading you a bit scarce.”
“The hill ewes take care of themselves for the most part.” He went on to explain how the low ground ewes were the more valuable sheep, and they needed more care and direct interaction, while the ewes that lived on the hills that surrounded his farm mostly fended for themselves, being a hardy lot and used to being on their own.
“Do you have those cute black and white dogs that do the… um… sheepy-type things?”
Iain flashed me a grin. “You’ll not be writing a mystery set on a sheep farm without doing a wee bit of research first, will you?” I grinned back. “No, I promise you I won’t kill off anyone on a sheep farm without checking my facts with you beforehand.” I made no promise about writing myself into a romance with a sheep farmer, however.
“I’ve three Border collies: Biorsadh, Rob, and Roy.”
“I bet it’s hard for you to get away with all that work.”
“Aye, it is, although just now there is a brief lull before tupping season starts.
We’ve spent a fair bit of time the last month separating out the lambs for market, and tagging the ones kept for breeding.”
I avoided the thought of sending sweet little baby lambs to market. There was no use working myself into a swivet over something that wasn’t any of my business.
“What’s that sign say?” I asked, pointing to one we were passing that proclaimed Ceud Mile Failte .
“Ah, it’s a welcome to the Highlands. It means a hundred thousand welcomes .
It’s the traditional welcome here.”
“Isn’t that nice? Not just one welcome, but a hundred thousand of them.” We both mulled that over for a bit, then, desperate to learn more about his life, I goaded him into talking about it. As the car climbed up into the Highlands, he told me about how he sorted the sheep, how they were dosed for worms, how they were dipped, how he and his dogs moved the sheep where he wanted them to go, and how he and Mark kept track of which hirsel (flock) lived on which hill.
It was all very fascinating, but it didn’t tell me what I really wanted to know—
how he lived, what he did during the long, lonely evenings, how he spent his free time, who his friends were, whether or not David would be likely to kick up a fuss over me, and oh, yes, there was that one niggling question that I couldn’t seem to ask—whether he had been seeing anyone, someone female who would mind if I suddenly showed up and staked my claim on him. As a rule I love alpha males, but Iain was obviously one of a rare subgroup—a quiet alpha—and that quiet aspect drove me mad with the desire to pry information out of him.
As for the possibility that he had someone tucked away back home, I wasn’t casting aspersions on his morals. I knew that if he was inviting me to come and stay with him, he wouldn’t be trotting out a girlfriend and introducing us. The man had class, after all. But I also realized that we both fell into this relationship much faster than was wise, and he might very well have left behind a loose end back home.
“So, um…” I stumbled over the words in my attempt to find out his romantic status. “So, you were married.”
He slid me a curious look. “Aye, love, you know that.”
“Yes, of course I do, silly me, but… um… for how long did you say you were married?”
He grimaced, God love him. “Almost ten years.”
“That’s a long time. I imagine you were divorced a while ago, yes?” He swore and swerved around a dead thing in the road. “What did you say, Kathie?”
“Oh. I… er… how long ago did you get divorced?”
He frowned. “Must be near to sixteen years now.”
I was getting nowhere fast. I decided to take the less circuitous route. “That’s quite a long time. I’m sure there were moments when you must have regretted the… er… lack of companionship?”
“Aye,” he nodded, flipping on the windshield wipers and muttering to himself about the rain.
“I can imagine that living by yourself, there were times you were… uh…
lonely.”
He slipped me a quick questioning glance. “What is it you’re wanting to know, love?”
I opened my mouth to say the few words that would put my worries to rest. Iain, are you dating anyone in particular ?
I tried, but my lips wouldn’t form the words. Iain, were you in love with someone else before we started playing squishy-squishy ? Nope. No good. Much too crass.
Maybe the straightforward way was the best: Iain, this weekend aside, when’s the last time you had sex? Ack ! I couldn’t possibly ask that!
“Nothing,” I said at last, and looked out at the scenery, only to find it suddenly drenched in an ugly gray drizzle. Somehow it seemed apropos.
I spent the rest of the trip being alternately very, very happy, or plagued with doubts and questions and concerns that I couldn’t seem to put into words. No surprise there—I was, after all, in a car on my way home with a man whom I had met only six days before. It’s not, perhaps, the smartest thing in the world to blindly follow your heart without giving your brain equal time, but I had a feeling that Iain and I were meant for each other. Scotland felt right for me. Iain felt right. I pushed the doubts to the back of my mind and watched, as we climbed into the Highlands and the rain cleared, the scenery unfold one breathtaking vista after another. As we drew closer to Iain’s farm, he started pointing out landmarks.
“Loch an Eilein,” he said, pointing to a picturesque castle ruin on an island in a loch. I love castles. I made a mental note to visit it before I left. “Over there sits the Highland Wildlife Park.”
“Really? A wildlife park? Here?”
A smile curled the corners of his lips. “Aye, we do have wildlife here. The park has badgers, wolves, lynx—all sorts of animals. I’ll take you there one day when we have some free time.”
Hmmm. Interesting. That sounded as if he expected me to be around for a while. Which was, of course, another issue that was making me gnaw on my lower lip with worry. The invitation he had offered me to stay with him had been rather vague, without either a time limit or the offer of carte blanche.
Now I worried over the intent behind his invitation to stay with him. Was I a houseguest who would be given her own room and sent on my way after a week? Was Iain expecting me to stay with him for the entire three weeks of my vacation? What if I wanted to stay longer—would he want me to? Did he even want me to be there now, or was he already regretting his hasty and lust-induced invitation as he drew ever closer to his beloved farm? What would I do when he turned me out and broke my heart?
I had visions of myself staggering down a long winding dirt road while bagpipes wailed a lament in the distance, dragging my luggage and sobbing as each reluctant footstep took me farther away from Iain, breaking my heart and shattering my soul into a million fragments.
There are times when it doesn’t pay to have a vivid imagination.
“Just a few minutes more, now, love,” Iain said, interrupting my pity party. I sat up and looked around, pleased with the rural area, noting several large farms as we drove down a winding road that snaked its way through the mountains.
Everything was wet and green and absolutely breathtaking.
“This is lovely country,” I exclaimed, my nose pressed against the rain-splattered side window as Iain slowed down to give me a better look. Before us spread a valley dressed in rusty reds, rich browns, and succulent greens, the ground sloping gently up to dusky purple
- and green-clad undulating hills. The valley sat snug and protected by its surroundings, giving it a timeless, peaceful quality.
“Aye, it’s a good land,” he replied, his voice belying bone-deep satisfaction.
“That bit there is Kin Aird. I share it with a neighbor.”
“It’s lovely,” I repeated as he drove on. “You share it? Is that common here?”
“ ‘Twas a disputed border. We settled the boundary issue last year by agreeing to own it jointly, sharing the expenses and the profits.”
“That makes sense. I don’t see any sheep on it, though.”
“We haven’t settled on how to best use the land yet.” He turned off at a small wooden sign that said Dulnain Farm, and started up a long gravel drive. My stomach tightened into a little ball of worry as we meandered up the drive, almost a mile long, past several pastures, barns, and assorted outbuildings. There were a few sheep visible, but not the great big herds of them that I expected.
“Most are out in the parks,” Iain answered my question as to their whereabouts. “This is arable soil, here. I plant those fields with turnips, and over there with silage. Across the way, there, is the lambing park. And around this bend is the house.”
I thought I was going to throw up at the sight of it. I didn’t believe it was possible to work myself up into such a state over the thought of meeting a person, but I was literally worried sick. David would be at the house. How was he going to take his father’s showing up with a strange woman in tow?
Added to that concern was my distress over not knowing what Iain felt about our future. Somehow, despite several tries, I hadn’t screwed up my courage enough to ask him point-blank whether or not he wanted me in his life. Hell, I couldn’t even ask him how long he expected me to stay!
“It’s good to be home,” Iain said, his voice thick with satisfaction as he pulled to a stop in front of a whitewash and redbrick, two-story, squat little farmhouse. “I’ve been away too long.”
I stood next to Iain’s car and looked at the neat grounds and cute little house, and mentally castigated myself for a fool. All I had to do was open my mouth and ask him what I wanted to know: How serious were his feelings for me? Did he catch his breath in wonder when he looked at me as I did when I looked at him? Was he overwhelmed with the same sense of rightness that I was when we were together? Did he want me to stay with him forever and never leave? And most important, who was that dark-haired beauty who ran out of his house and threw herself into his arms, kissing him with a possessiveness that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end?
“David, this is Kathie. She’s going to be staying with me,” Iain introduced me to his son. I dragged my attention off the woman who clung to Iain’s arm, and smiled tentatively at David. He looked a bit surprised for a moment, shot his father a quick assessing look, then turned back and enveloped me in a bear hug that brought tears of joy to my eyes.
David looked like a slightly blurred copy of his father. He was big, burly, had nice brown eyes, and a smile that could bring warmth to the coldest of days. I liked him immediately. He turned and waved toward a slight woman with lovely cornflower blue eyes and a shy smile. She’d been hovering in the background, but came forward with a warm handshake to be introduced as David’s wife Joanna.
I liked her immediately as well. She was very sweet, English (At last! Someone I could understand without having to be very still and concentrate intently), and had been married to David for almost four months. They still wore that blissful look that all newlyweds have.
“Iain, darling, don’t tell me you’re reduced to taking in boarders?” the dark-haired Iain-kissing woman drawled in a BBC voice, pulling on his arm.
Iain darling? Iain darling ?
“Kathie’s not a boarder, Bridget. Love, this is Bridget Stewart. She owns the farm to the south of mine.” Iain disengaged his arm and turned back to his son.
“Kathie writes books.”
Darling.
David smiled. “Now, why is it I’m not surprised to hear that? Welcome to the Spey Valley, Kathie.”
Darling?
“Oooh, an author. How thrilling,” Bridget cooed. “What is it you write?” Darling!
Iain took my hand and pulled me toward him. “She writes mysteries.” Daaaaaaarling.
“Does she speak?” Bridget asked in a snotty tone that made me grind my teeth.
“Only when there’s someone worth talking to,” I snapped, and turned back to David and Joanna.
Darling, indeed! I knew I was overreacting a bit. Just because the raven-haired hussy had wantonly thrown herself at Iain and tried to suck the tongue right out of his head didn’t mean she was a bad person. Just because she clung to him, and cooed at him, and made disgustingly brazen sheep’s eyes at him didn’t mean she was worthy of my scorn. Just because she called him darling right there in front of God and everyone as if she had a right to, didn’t mean she was a strumpet and therefore worthy of my contempt. Or jealousy. Yeah, right.
It was all fine and well to realize that later, but at the time I was positively seething, even after I turned my back on her and chatted for a minute with David and his wife. Soon, however, I realized my mistake when the little besom latched on to Iain.
“It’s cold out here, darling. Let’s you and I go in and we’ll let your little writer friend get to know David better.”
I noticed she only included Iain in her invitation to go into the house and thaw out. She evidently didn’t give a tinker’s damn if the rest of us stood outside and caught pneumonia.
“Darling,” I ground out to myself, narrowing my eyes and watching her tug on Iain’s resisting hand. I think David heard me because he gave me an odd look and seemed to be having some sort of a problem with his lips. They twitched.
Joanna, bless her heart, took pity on us. Agreeing with the she-devil that it was too cold to stand about outside, she ordered David and Iain to bring in the luggage while we womenfolk went in and set out tea.
I felt like a dog with its hackles up as I stalked behind the two women, decidedly out of place, homesick, miserable, furious, jealous, and sorely put-upon. And those were the good emotions.
David and Iain came in with the luggage while Joanna was bustling around in the kitchen, bringing out hot scones, ordering Bridget to cut up the sandwiches, and handing me a stack of cups and saucers to lay out on the kitchen table.
“Dad, David’s been sleeping in the guest room,” Joanna called out to Iain as he passed the kitchen on the way to the stairs. “I’ll change the linens in there for Kathie directly after tea.”
Iain paused, raised his eyebrows, looked at me, and winked. “That won’t be necessary, love.” Then he turned and marched up the stairs with a grinning David following behind.
Now, I clearly had two choices: I could either die right there of embarrassment, which would mean I wouldn’t have the satisfaction of spiting Bridget, or I could pretend nothing had happened out of the ordinary. I was, after all, thirty-seven years old. I was a world traveler. I was no shy virgin to be blushing at every hint of intimate relationships. I could do this, and I could do it with poise and dignity.
“Oh, god,” I moaned, and sitting down in the nearest chair, covered my face with my hands. “Tell me he didn’t just do that.”
Joanna had been trying to hold back her laughter, but she gave up the struggle at my moans. “It’s all right,” she said in between whoops. “It’s just family. But oh, if you could have seen the look on your face when he winked!” Just the thought of it set her off again. She wiped her eyes with the edge of the tea towel and put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Kathie, that wasn’t kind of me. Or of Dad. He should have a little more respect for… for the situation.”
“Oh, god,” I moaned again into my hands, rocking in the chair. Everyone knew! This was not how I had envisioned this meeting going. Why was I forever doomed to have Iain’s family members, the minute they met me, know I was more than just a friend? Did I have Has E
ngaged in Sex with Iain stamped across my forehead? Was there some sign marking me that I didn’t know about? Were they all psychic? Why couldn’t I just once meet someone in his family without them instantly knowing we were playing Poor Man’s Polo?
I glanced over at Bridget and was immediately chilled by the glint in her eye. I knew what was coming even before she opened her mouth.
“Yes, it’s just family. Nothing to be ashamed about. I’m sure you’ll be very happy with Iain’s room—his bed is so deliciously comfortable. Not that I’ve actually ever slept in it, you understand.”
Oh, I understood. She gave me a slow, evil, knowing smile and turned back to the sandwiches.
“Darling,” I growled, and amused myself for some minutes by plotting her detailed, protracted demise.
It’s interesting how in times of great emotion or stress, our brain sometimes creates a mental release valve by bringing odd little facts or ideas to the forefront of our mind. For example, at the very moment when I was sure I was about to give in to Bridget’s goading and strangle her as she deserved, I remembered something I’d read about medieval punishment. It seems that in the medieval times, disputes were sometimes settled by an act of God. The hand of God was deemed to be shown by the outcome of ordeal by water or ordeal by fire. In the former, the accused was lowered into a body of water. If the person sank, he or she was declared innocent. True, the person was drowned at that point, but all in all, everyone went home happy that justice had prevailed. If the person floated, the verdict of guilty was passed. In ordeal by fire, the accused had to grab a red-hot piece of metal. If, three days after the ordeal, the wound had not festered, it was considered to be a sign from God that the person was innocent. An infected wound proved guilt.
As a rule, those medieval folk concerned with meting out justice really knew their potatoes as far as torture went, but they missed one ordeal so hideous, so cruel and inhuman that I almost hate to mention it.