“There she is!” Geordie pointed at a small blue car inching toward the ferry terminal.
Mindy could be seen at the wheel, her hands white-knuckled and her face grim.
Silvanus whirled on Roderick and Geordie. “I told you she’s miserable here. Just look at her!”
“She’s here. That’s all that matters.” Roderick stood straighter, smoothing his plaid. “There’s time aplenty for her to come around.”
“And you think our welcome-to-Barra greeting will impress her?” Silvanus didn’t bother to hide his skepticism.
“I thought it was a warning?” chimed Geordie.
“You’re both wrong.” Roderick cast a glance at the mist-hung bay, his heart already thundering with excitement. “What we are about to do is make a flourish.”
Silvanus rolled his eyes. “I say it’s a mistake.”
Roderick slung his arm around Geordie’s shoulders. “You’re outnumbered. Geordie sides with me.”
Silvanus glared at them both, not missing that Roderick’s foot was jammed hard on Geordie’s toes.
Pretending not to notice, he strode forward and slapped Roderick on the back, most vigorously. “Then let us be away to attend our
surprise
!”
But as they all three turned and headed down the road to the bay, kilts swinging, Silvanus vowed that when all was said and done, he’d make it up to the lass.
A flourish, indeed.
If she spotted them through the thickening mist, she might never be the same again. And it would all be their interfering fault.
Silvanus frowned. Aye, he’d have to do something good for her and he would.
Somehow, someday.
Chapter 8
It was by the skin of her teeth that Mindy made the Barra ferry. But now that she was on board—her rental car wedged in place between a battered van and an RV, both belonging to the other stragglers who’d arrived at the last minute—she found she couldn’t move.
Her hands clutched the steering wheel in a death grip and her knees shook so badly, she doubted her legs would ever support her again. At the very least, not until she recovered from her driving-around-Oban-and-trying-to-get-to-the-ferry panic and could breathe again.
It hadn’t even been that she hadn’t found the ferry.
She had.
She’d seen it from afar—after all, a giant black-and-white Caledonian MacBrayne ferry wasn’t easy to miss—but who would have guessed that every road leading to the ferry terminal would be barricaded and that the alternative—
diverted-traffic
—route would be a maze of one-way streets and confusion?
Spindle-thin one-way streets that seemed only to lead her farther away from the place she was trying so hard to reach.
It’d been a harrowing experience.
And it’d been made even worse by having to go through it while driving left.
She hated driving left.
The only thing she disliked more was making a spectacle of herself. And she was doing a fine job of that now. She didn’t need to look into the rearview mirror to know that her face was glowing tomato red or that her eyes glistened with unshed tears of frustration.
The glances the van and RV drivers and their passengers had given her as they’d hopped out of their vehicles and exited the ferry’s parking hold had been telling.
And if their looks weren’t enough, the stares of the black-and-yellow-jacketed ferry workers who’d waved her aboard said everything.
They thought she was mad.
And, Mindy admitted, she was beginning to believe that she was.
Why else would she be here?
She frowned and puffed her bangs off her forehead. It’d been a mistake to keep driving in circles when she realized how close she was to missing the ferry. What she should have done was seize the moment, view it as fate, and turn around to head back to Glasgow and the next available flight to Newark.
Or, for that matter, any US-bound plane she could catch.
Instead, she’d kept on, even stopping to ask directions from an old man walking a dog.
Unfortunately, he’d known exactly how she could reach the ferry.
And now . . .
Mindy took a deep breath. She wouldn’t have believed it possible, but the knocking in her knees was finally beginning to lessen. Grateful, she slid a glance at the three black-and-yellow-jacketed ferrymen, relieved to see that they had turned away and were no longer staring at her.
If she was quick, she could escape to the ship’s upper level.
She could stand at the rail and let the chill wind blast the heat out of her cheeks. Or, perhaps a better idea, she could lose herself in one of the lounges or claim a quiet spot in the cafeteria.
She just needed to slip out of the car and sprint up the stairs.
It was now or never.
But when she leaned down to grab her purse—it’d slid off the passenger seat—she bumped into something that set off the car alarm.
Bleep, bleep, bleeeep!
“Oh, no-o-o!” Her heart stopped.
The noise was deafening.
“Oh, God!” Frantic, she jerked back up and fiddled with the key. When it wouldn’t budge, she began pressing every button she could see until, at last, she jabbed something that stopped the bleeping.
“Having problems, lassie?” One of the workmen opened the car door, peering in at her.
“No, I . . .” She couldn’t finish. There was no point in lying when it was painfully obvious that she was about to expire from stress.
“Right, then.” The man stepped aside as she clambered out of the car. He glanced at his mates and then looked back at her, his weather-beaten face sympathetic. “You’ve got five full hours before we arrive in Barra. That should be long enough to get o’er whate’er it was that wasn’t bothering you.
“If I were you, I’d be for having a wee dram abovestairs.” He indicated the stairwell only a few yards behind him, smiling. “A good swig and you’ll be feeling better in no time.”
“I—I’ll do that, thank you.” Mindy forced a smile, knowing it was a shaky one.
It was the best she could do.
The man’s own smile was crooked, reminding her of Bran of Barra’s lopsided grin.
On the thought, her pulse skittered. Before she could flush any redder, she hitched her bag onto her shoulder and hastened to the steps, hurrying up them as fast as her wobbly legs would carry her.
She would have a dram.
In fact, she might even have two.
But when she finally located a lounge, it was to discover that the entire carpeted, large-windowed area was standing-room only. Men stood four deep at the bar and although there were quite a few sofas and little round tables, each one boasting at least four chairs, there wasn’t an empty seat anywhere to be seen.
The cafeteria was worse.
Even from the door, she could see that every table was occupied. And the line snaking past the serve-yourself buffet-style offerings looked so long she doubted she’d get through it before the ferry docked at Barra.
Mindy sighed.
Who would have guessed so many people would want to visit a tiny island in the Outer Hebrides?
You’d think they were giving away something.
Sure she didn’t want any of it, whatever it might be, she pulled a scarf out of her jacket pocket, tied it around her neck, and went in search of exit stairs to the outside promenades. It was clear that most of the passengers—Scots, not tourists, from the looks of them—were more keen on staying inside than facing the cold wind on the decks.
And as she wasn’t feeling very sociable, that was where she supposed she should be.
So she elbowed her way through the ferry passengers thronging the corridors until she found the nearest exit to the outer decks. Escape in sight, she shot a last frown at the teeming ship’s lounge, then wrenched open the door and stepped out into icy, biting wind.
It was a grave mistake.
Not because the gusting wind threw freezing spray at her. Nor did it bother her that within two seconds of stepping outside, her eyes were tearing and her fingers felt like Popsicles.
What stopped her in her tracks—and stole her breath—was the shock of exhilaration.
It hit her full force.
And it was so unexpected, so unwelcome, that she could only lurch across the pitching, rolling deck, grab the rail, and look about her, slack-jawed and wide-eyed.
They hadn’t even left Oban Bay—fishing boats bobbed everywhere and she could still see the town and the headlights of cars moving along the coast roads—but already she felt a prickly kind of freedom that caught her totally unawares. Cold, windy, and gray, especially when
wet
, just wasn’t her idea of happiness.
And yet . . .
The choppy, whitecapped water, so roughened by the fast-moving current, and the many seabirds screeching and wheeling above, even the chilling rain driving into her face—it was all just so wild.
As if time as she knew it hadn’t yet happened.
And—she couldn’t believe the thought crossed her mind—as if the brash, modern world she knew and had always loved didn’t matter here.
The dark cliffs crowding the bay, swells surging against them, said as much. High above, a crescent moon was just beginning to cast its glimmer on the blue-black water, adding to the entrancement. It was a lonely, sea-washed world that wasn’t supposed to affect her.
She wasn’t her Scotophile sister.
The Hebrides, especially, should repel her.
Instead, her heart thundered and her grip on the rail turned white-knuckled. She sensed a strange power—a fierce, stark beauty—in the elements around her that left her feeling slightly faint.
These churning seas, the rocky headlands, and the empty shores had nothing to do with the Hebrides of song—those celebrated, gemlike isles Margo could wax poetic over for hours, getting misty-eyed about sparkling turquoise and amethyst water, white cockleshell strands, and glittering bays.
Margo would no doubt also mention Bonnie Prince Charlie, Culloden, and the anguish of Scottish exiles scattered the world over, ever yearning to return.
Mindy huddled deeper into her heavy waxed jacket, certain she wasn’t looking out at her sister’s romanticized Scotland—a sentimental, tartan-draped wonderland she’d put together from watching
Braveheart
and reading romance novels.
This before her was the real deal.
It was Bran of Barra’s world.
A vast, rapturous place of tides, cliffs, and reefs that gave meaning to the old adage that you are where you live. Each soul ever born, hewn and molded by—
“ ’Tis a wide-open, edge-of-the-world place, eh?” a reedy voice trilled behind Mindy.
Starting, she spun around.
She wished she hadn’t when she saw the tiny old woman peering up at her. Birdlike and with a piercing blue gaze, the wizened woman was dressed in black and had a whir of frizzled white hair. She could have been the witch who shoved poor Hansel and Gretel into the oven. At the very least, she might easily belong in another time.
Mindy blinked, feeling a flutter of unease.
But the woman’s eyes were bright, twinkling even, and she
was
smiling.
“I’m most partial to the Hebrides,” she announced, joining Mindy at the rail.
A move that quickly revealed that although she did look like a crone straight out of a rather grim fairy tale, her black
cloak
was nothing more sinister than a dark-hued waxed jacket. And her boots weren’t old-fashioned or wicked-witchy-ish at all. They were simply sensible footgear, thick soled, high ankled, and tied with red plaid laces.
Mindy’s first-glance assessment had been erroneous.
Even so . . .
There was
something
about the woman.
Mindy shivered and narrowed her eyes, trying as surreptitiously as possible to discover if she could see through the woman.
She couldn’t.
But relief didn’t sweep her.
It remained odd that the woman appeared just when Mindy was feeling as if she’d entered into a bold new world. A place that had captivated her as soon as she’d stepped on deck, and—her heart skittered—she wasn’t sure what to make of her sudden, inexplicable enchantment.
The old woman tutted. “These isle- strewn waters”— she made a grand gesture, taking in the tossing waves and the dark smudges of islands—“formed the men who rule here.”
Mindy blinked.
“Rule?”
She could have bitten her tongue, giving the strange woman the perfect in to pursue what was turning into a very bizarre encounter.
“Hold sway, my dear.” The woman glanced at her. “The Lords of the Isles and all the bit chieftains, each one living like a king in his own wee realm. Only men”—the crone turned back to the rail, her expression almost proprietorial—“strengthened by cold seas, high wind, and long, dark winters could be so grand.
“There be none like ’em anywhere.” The woman nodded smugly. “Nowhere worth being, that is!”
“You’re from here?” Mindy could feel her ill ease returning, a growing urge to inch away from the woman and dash back inside the crowded ferry. “I can see the Hebrides are quite an impressive place.”
“Ach!” The woman cackled. “I live on Doon. But all these isles have their charm.” She gave a little sigh, pressed a knotty hand to her breast. “Wait until you see them on a fine summer’s day. That’s when—”
“I won’t be here in summer.”
“Nae?”
“No.” Mindy folded her arms on the rail. “I won’t even be here in the spring. I’m traveling on business and will be leaving as soon as possible.”
