Highland Song Read Online Free PDF Page A

possessively and smiling warmly. “Thank you, dear Gavin.” She tilted him a look, confessing, “The haggis was bad, I know. But I’m afraid me and Da made do with much simpler fare.”
    He gave her a sympathetic look. “Do ye miss him still?”
    She nodded. “Nary a day goes by that I don’t, but I know he’s still out there somewhere… watching o’er me.”
    “ It’s good to have faith,” he said, though he couldn’t seem to find any for himself these days. “Dinna fret, lass. For a time, even Meggie burned everything after Grandminny Fia passed.”
    Her tone was hopeful. “Truly?”
    “ Aye, my brothers and I were doubled over for weeks with hunger pangs. We worked through supper and snuck into the kitchen when the moon was high. And Colin, the bastard, hoarded all the bluidy bread—the one thing Meggie knew how to do right.”
    Seana giggled at the image he presented—all three brothers sneaking about in the middle of the night for victuals. “The Colin I know has always been a wee bit of a brat,” she agreed.
    Gavin lifted both his brows. “A wee bit?”
    Seana giggled again.
    “ Where are they now?”
    “ Colin and Leith?” She gave him a canny look. “Alison has them both cleaning out the hearth.
    Gavin laughed. “Smart lass,” he said, but left it at that.
    Above them, the stars winked like brilliant jewels in a clear ebony sky, despite the thick mist that swirled low to the ground. It was this sort of evening when the woods seemed almost surreal, full of blinking eyes and snapping twigs, unseen footsteps and whispers. The sort of night when a body could actually believe in faeries and wraiths. His Grandminny Fia had certainly believed in their existence, and she had walked about talking to them even in the broad light of day. Alas, it had earned her the first of the Mad Brodie titles. He glanced up at Seana, wondering if Seana and Alison would break that curse for Brodie women at long last.
    Seana wrapped her cloak about her more firmly against the night air and demanded suddenly, “Tell me about this woman you met today, Gavin.”
    Gavin peered up at her. She was quite lovely, his brother’s wife. It was no wonder Colin was enamored with her. She had a heart of gold besides. But she wasn’t anything at all like his painted lady.
    He shrugged. “Not much to tell. I simply wondered if ye had e’er seen her,” he said, peering up.
    “ Maybe she was looking for a husband?” She winked at him. “There isna a woman for leagues who doesna fancy herself a Brodie bride.”
    “ They do not pine for me,” Gavin assured her. “Leith is head of his clan. ’Tis quite natural a woman would fancy him, and Colin... well, ’tis no mystery what girls might see in my pretty brother... but nay, no’ me.”
    Seana chuckled. “Colin would not like it to hear himself called pretty, I think. But I can assure you there is no’ a woman in these Highlands who would not pluck oot her eyes to be your bride.”
    He gave her a half-hearted grin. “If she plucked oot her eyes, then she wouldna have to see me—is that what ye’re thinking?”
    Both of them laughed together and Brownie began to lick his paw, chewing at his nails.
    “ I have nothing much to offer,” Gavin said, this time without levity.
    “ Hmmm,” Seana replied and looked down upon him with furrowed brows. After a long moment of contemplation, she added. “My Da was of the mind that those woods are full of magik. He was certain my minny was a faerie... that he would join her once he passed this world to the next. In fact, the last few years of his life, he swore she was a cat—My Love, he’d called her.”
    “ A cat?”
    Seana rolled her eyes. “I half believed it, because it seemed that bluidy cat was always aboot.”
    “ And what do you believe now?” Gavin asked.
    Seana shrugged. “Well... I believe there are things we canna explain,” she confessed.
    “ Like what?”
    She grinned down at him. “Like love, Gavin Mac