A Hellion for the Highlander

I was just a bairn who thought himself a man. Barely old enough to grow a beard.

The last words he’d ever spoken to his father had been those of adolescent irritation.

“Ye have nae right to forbid me from anythin’. I’ll be a better Laird than ye ever have been.”

Alexander flinched even now, remembering the tiredness that had flashed in his father’s eyes. Just six-and-ten and all too proud, Alexander had locked himself in his chambers and refused to even entertain seeing his parents away as they left to visit his older sister in the neighboring clan.

Catherine had left her Laird husband and her weeks-old baby behind to travel back and tell him the news personally.

Still injured, and pale as a ghost. She may be thrivin’ now, but I ken she never recovered in her heid.

She’d been part of the whole thing, and young Alexander had all but forced her to tell him everything, trying to find some hole in the story, some error of judgment that told him that this was a lie.

He could still picture the word-portrait she’d painted in his mind to this day. How, as she and her parents chatted amiably, something had spooked the horses. How they had whinnied and screamed and veered off, and the feeling of her stomach dropping away as the carriage broke away from their harnesses.

How the carriage tumbled down the stark hillside, hitting every rock on the way down, and how the ice-cold water had soaked them through when it had plummeted into the water. How their father had been unconscious, bleeding badly from his head, and how their mother’s skirts had been tangled in the broken upholstery.

How she’d forced Catherine to leave her and swim for the surface, passing the body of the driver on the way. How Catherine had clung to a rock for hours, knowing her parents were drowning just below her as she waited and prayed.

I still thank God daily that the fisherman who saved her was fishin’ outside his usual area.

Cut and bruised and with a broken arm, Catherine had only spent a day at home recovering before she insisted on traveling to the Gallagher lands to let her brother know.

When she’d finished telling him, she’d held the pin out to him. “Father left it in his room,” she’d explained softly. “An’ it’s yer’s now, by right. I’m right sorry, Sandy, but I cannae stay more than a night or two. Ye ken that me bein’ wed to the Laird o’ Sinclair means I cannae interfere in business here.”

She was right. As far as the law was concerned, Catherine belonged entirely to another clan now. Even if there had been no male heir, the Lairdship would likely just pass to the commander of his father’s army or another suitable male candidate.

As if to punctuate the point, Catherine said gently but firmly, “Ye’re the Laird o’ Gallagher now.”

Alexander hadn’t felt any pain as his sister described his parents’ death and called him by his childhood nickname. There had been pain later, of course, much of it, but none where anyone could see. He’d sat there like an old Celtic statue, frozen in time.

Catherine had waited a few minutes, then gently reached over and pinned the badge to his shirt. “The servants are here, and Thomeas will be able to help ye with the finances. But ye’ve got a lot o’ tough decisions ahead o’ ye, and nae body much to help. Be brave. Be strong.”

“I will be bold,” he’d told her emptily, raising his fingers to brush the cold metal. “Audentes fortuna iuvat.”

“Aye, indeed,” Catherine had said in response, tears in her eyes. “Indeed.”

Alexander saw his sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew as frequently as his duty allowed, but no matter how she tried to approach it, he would never speak with her about that day.

He knew she simply wanted to remember the parents they’d loved. Still, Alexander had spent twelve long years building his hard, protective shell. He needed to, for the good of his people, and he could not let anyone break it, not even his sister.

Tha’s more than enough dwellin’ on the past, Alexander.

He blinked a few times, drawing himself back into the present. Thomeas was waiting, with whatever financial wizardry he had performed today.

The farmer had been due to leave for the town an hour before, but a mishap with one of the dairy cows meant that hadn’t quite gone as planned. Walking past one of their cottage’s windows, the loud voices of both siblings could be heard echoing loudly out.

With a sigh, the farmer headed inside again, and to the kitchen door. If something went wrong, they had no mother, no father—only some servants, and the farmer alone to deal with the eight-year-old twins.

It was hard, that was true, especially with the secret of their own identity that the farmer held close. Running a farm with two eight-year-olds would have been hard for anyone, never mind in these unique circumstances.

I’ll just stay out o’ sight an’ watch whatever they’re bickerin’ about now.

With that in mind, hiding just behind the doorway, the scene unfolded.

“Stop it, Jamie, or I’ll smack ye in the face!” Annys screeched at the top of her voice, dodging out of the way as the thick slice of buttered bread flew at her head. “I’ll do it!”

“Ye will nae!” her twin brother yelled back. “Ye stop it! Ye spilled milk on me best trews!” He picked up an apple from the table, ready to lob that at his sister’s head, too.