Annie And The Cowboy (Western Night Series 3) (43 page)

              Reginald looked down at Alec now, standing protectively in front of his sister and curled his lip in distaste.

              “Children, have you seen a woman with golden hair and blue eyes around here?”

              Ness began to speak, but Alec shushed her, looking over at his father who shook his head ever so slowly. Alec shook his head as well.

              “Not around here,” Alec said.

              “Not around here,” Ness echoed.

              Inside the house Leana gripped Essie’s arm tightly, and Essie’s eyes welled up in thanks for such caring. Watching cruel-eyed Reginald outside had reminded her, in a distant way, that she might not have ever received such kindness before. Effie stole another glance, and saw Alec and Ness shaking their heads.

              “I thought I saw someone in there,” Reginald said as he studied the windows of the house. Alasdair cursed inwardly.

              “That’s simply my sister-in-law,” he said quickly. “She’s often afraid of strangers so she hid herself from you.”

              The excuse felt flimsy, but Reginald seemed to believe it. He sniffed pompously and nodded.

              “You may tell her that I’m nothing to fear, I’d like to get a look at her. Maybe she’s seen something herself.”

              As Alasdair turned back to look at the house, Effie’s blood ran cold. Had they been discovered? Picking up Ness, and beckoning to Alec, the three of them made their way back to the house. Effie wondered if she would be able to run faster than Reginald’s horse.

              “Don’t be afraid,” Alasdair said in a voice much louder than he truly needed to, it was clearly for Reginald’s benefit. He closed the door behind him and set Ness down, she ran into Effie’s arms and buried her face in Effie’s apron. She stroked the little girl’s beautiful hair and looked up at the man who would lie for her.

              “He just wants to see Leana,” Alasdair said softly. Alec ran to the window.

              “He’s getting off of his horse,” he said with a hint of alarm in his voice. “He’s walking this way!”

              Panic raced through Effie’s heart, but instead Leana grabbed her by the hand and dragged her back into the bedroom.

              “Just trust me,” Leana whispered as she bid that Effie climb under the bed. “Please just do that. I can’t have these children lose someone else.”

              In that moment Effie understand, and she  kept her eye on the inch of space between the blanket and the floor, watching Leana’s feet move back down into the living room.

             
Please don’t let him find me
, she thought desperately.

              “I’m sorry,” Effie heart Leana say. “I was folding laundry in the back room.”

              “Of course,” Reginald replied. “I’m sorry to disturb you. I’m merely looking for my wife. She’s very sick and has been missing for several weeks, She needs her medicine and from what I understand she has no memory. She might not even be aware that she’s ill.”

              For a few breaths of a moment Effie believed him, but the idea of it was too ridiculous. After two weeks, wouldn’t she have felt ill? Luckily, it sounded as though Leana and Alasdair didn’t believe him either. She heard silence, and then a slow release of breath.

              “Alright, I believe you,” Reginald said at last. “However if I can’t find her, I
will
be back.”

              “And we’ll tell you the same thing,” Alasdair replied. “Now please, leave my property.”

              Effie held her breath as she listened to the door close, heard the faint sound of horse hooves and a whoop of happiness from Alec. She heard the sound of little feet run down the hallway and soon was looking into the smiling face of Ness.

              “You can come out now,” she said in her tiny voice.

              Effie climbed out from under the bed and allowed herself to be led by Ness back into the living room. She was not yet quite accustomed to the feeling of safety, and it was only until she looked into Alasdair’s eyes that she realized that it might be over. With a wordless cry, she threw herself into his arms.

Epilogue

                            “Well, Mrs. McLeod, how do you feel?”

              A month later, and Effie felt as though she was walking on air. They had been married with very little ceremony, but that was enough for her. Leana had helped her prepare everything, and even though she could not remember much about her old life, and that was okay.

              “I’m feeling wonderful, my love,” she whispered to Alasdair in the darkness of their marriage bed. She had hesitated at first, unwilling to infringe on the memory of the wife he had lost.

              “As far as I’m concerned,” he had told her. “We’ve both lost spouses.”

              Reginald never came back, and Effie wondered if he had simply given up on the search or had found something better. Either scenario was acceptable to her, and she hadn’t felt this happy in a long time.

              “Do you want to read the rest of the diary?” Leana asked one day out of curiosity. “You can if you want, I’ve read all of it, and perhaps it will help you remember.”

              Effie had merely shook her head at the suggestion. “I don’t care about my past,” she had replied. “My future is what matters.”

              And as a stepmother to Alec and Ness, her future was bright.

              “I love you,” she said, finally finishing that sentence.

              “I love you too,” he replied, starting his own.

              They lay in the darkness in quiet for quite a long time, until, in each other’s arms, they finally fell asleep.

THE END

Saved By A Highlander

From as far as Fiona could remember, she knew that she wasn't treated like the other girls in the village. She wasn't treated badly, but it definitely didn't feel particularly good. She always felt an extra set of curious eyes, or a group of women would stop talking whenever she would walk by. She didn't have many friends, and the only person she could truly describe as being a friend to her was Ole Bonnie, the wisest (and oldest) person in the village. This, for the most part, suited Fiona just fine.

The truth was, Fiona was odd. She knew that it was true, and she knew that it was mostly her fault. Fiona loved the faeries, and not in the usually cheerful way the other people in the village cared for the wee folk. Perhaps they would do a half-hearted offering come Beltane, or walk carefully home from the pub at night lest they wander across the washerwomen, mysterious spirits who wash the clothing of the future dead. While others may casually laugh and trade stories of such creatures, Fiona
loved
them, trying her best every day to give them offerings and hope for blessings. For her it was a matter of life and death.

Many people saw her as a tragic thing, her mother had been taken by a fever when she was a little girl, but her intensity towards all things otherworldly had started to make the other people in the village feel uneasy about it. For the most part they said nothing, and Fiona cheerfully allowed them to avoid her, and she knew on some level that she was lucky that she was so beloved to her father.  Perhaps another girl would have been tossed out by now, for fear that she was a changeling. As the daughter of the chieftain of Clan MacCaig, a man very practical by all means, she knew that his love for her protected her, and for that she was thankful. the only tragedy she could see was the fact that her oddness had left her woefully undesirable to the men in the village, and few men from other clans were willing to travel across the highlands to set eyes on the "witch girl".

"Never you mind that," Old Bonnie used to tell her in her kindly old voice, often while attempting to brush the tangles out of Fiona's long dark hair. If anything could e said for her, it was known that she was beautiful, with long curly hair the color of rich soil, pale skin with a sprinkling of freckles across her nose, and dark gray eyes with a touch of blue in them. Fiona knew objectively that she was beautiful just as much as she knew that it did not truly matter, and that filled her with sorrow.

"Of course I mind that," Fiona would always reply. "It is my duty to provide an advantageous marriage, is it not? When Artair takes over as leader someday, what else would I do?"

Ole Bonnie snorted, never one to care for Fiona's hot tempered brother. "I am not saying that you should prepare for the life of an old maid, just that you shouldn't mind about those who don't understand."

That was easy for Ole Bonnie to say, she had been married for many years before becoming a widow, Fiona winced as she pulled a little too tightly on her hair, attempting to tame her wild curls into a braid of two. Fiona smiled a little, her hair never cooperated with such attention. The fact of the matter stood, as it so often did, on the fact that she was nineteen years old and her father had never once considered making a match of her. After so long, Fiona simply thought that he never would.

"I just see all of the girls my age getting married or betrothed, of course I can't help but despair," Fiona finally replied. She could feel Ole Bonnie's gentle smile warm the back of her hair, and she took comfort in it in spite of her frustration.

              "These simple boys are not meant for you, my darling child, you must believe that."

She spoke with so much knowing that Fiona could not help but believe that she may be right. Perhaps the man she was meant for was cut from a different cloth than these men that she had known. So, with hope in her heart, she waited.

She waited for what felt like forever. An eternity.

And then fortune struck the day the first sheep was found killed.

Chapter One

"Good morning!" Fiona called to the chickens that sat clucking in their roosts. It was a fairly early morning, but her father and brother had already left with the dawn. She did not mind this so very much, she enjoyed the solitude while she performed her chores, and it gave her a quiet time to bake her offerings to the brownies.

She always took care to honors as many of the good Faeries as possible, but the brownies held a special place in her heart. They were small, helpful kitchen spirits, and lord knows that she could use the help. They seemed happy enough accepting her rough baked oat cakes and fresh milk poured at the base of a stone. She delighted in this daily ritual, and for the most part her father allowed her to complete it with very little fuss. Her older brother, Artair, tried his best to tolerate it as well, but sometimes she saw the worry blossom in his eyes. She wondered if he thought that she was mad.

The chickens merrily clucked their hellos to their mistress as she used her apron to gather their eggs. Full of good will, she treated with  each of them personally and traded meaningless bits of gossip, often invented, and laughed at jokes she had come up with herself. With a lap full of eggs, she thanked her feathered friends and bustled back to the house. After putting the eggs away, she grabbed a little pitcher of milk and a small fabric wrapped bundle of oat cakes and made her way to the edge of her father's land, where a Rowan tree stood proudly, shading the rock where she liked to make her offerings.

Of course, on her way here, she searched for a sprig of white heather, a flower she knew could bring luck and love into her household. For almost her entire life, she had dreamed of finding a bit of white heather, on their journeys her father and brother had even promised to search for her, but it was always. No avail. One day she knew she would find it, and she had decided long ago that the day she found it, a great and wondrous change would come and fix everything.

But of course like Ole Bonnie said, she had to be
patient.

              She poured the rich milk at the base of the stone, placing the little bundle of cakes on the top. More often than not the cakes disappeared by the next morning, although her brother liked to remind her that cattle were often driven to the edge of this land, and horses were just as fond of oats as faeries are. She didn't believe him though, she didn't want to, and he had learned a long time ago to leave her alone about such beliefs.

She sent a quick thought of love and hope towards her faerie friends, hoping for blesses and more help, and for a safe home.

Most importantly, however, she wished that they would show themselves, so that for one moment she wouldn't feel so terribly alone.

#

The sheep looked as though it was sleeping the way that it lay so peacefully at the edge of the meadow, and Angus MacCaig tried to not feel a stab of annoyance over the fact that he had been called over something so simple as a wolf attack. In the distance of the meadow, he could see the other animals milling about in the meadow in e distance, peaceful to the fact that one of their own lay dead not far away. He hoped that he would never be so blind as to the problems of his own people. That was why he had come, he knew that the shepherds would never call for him were it not something important.