And that was that, Catherine realized. These fourhoodlums, as everyone kept wrongly calling them, were more than mere guardian angels—they were miracle workers. Her babies were turning into happy children right before her eyes.
Catherine slipped into her jacket, went to the clock and grabbed her stick, and headed toward the door. “I’ll be here to cook breakfast,” she told them, stopping and then walking back to Gunter. She leaned up and kissed Nora on the cheek. “You be a good girl,” she whispered before going over to Nathan. She gave her son a kiss on the cheek, despite his obvious embarrassment at being kissed in front of the boys. “You be good, too,” she told him, heading for the door.
Gunter set Nora down and followed Catherine out to the barn. “You’re riding up?” he asked.
Catherine slid her stick into the rifle sheath on the saddle, unhooked Sprocket, and led him out of the barn. “I’m certainly not walking,” she told him.
“Are you an experienced rider?”
Catherine mounted up and smiled down at him. “Careful, Gunter. You’re beginning to sound like an old mother hen. I’ve been riding since I could walk. I grew up on a ranch in Idaho.”
Gunter chuckled. “When you see the boss, tell him he needs to come to school tomorrow and sign a progress report for my work-study class, would you?”
“You’ll probably see him before I will.”
“Yeah, right. I forgot,” he chuckled, turning toward the house and waving over his shoulder. “You’re going up to the cabin toread. See you tomorrow.”
Catherine opened her mouth to say something but sighed instead and urged her horse toward the pasture. Some things just weren’t worth arguing over. She spurred Sprocket into a trot, following the fence line, and finally entered the woods, keeping her eyes on the tracks in the muddy trail.
But not far into the woods, the tracks veered to the right, up a tote road that led across the mountain instead of toward the summit.
Robbie was headed to the ski resort?
Once on the tote road, Catherine moved Sprocket into a slow canter, trying to make up for the time she’d lost. She rode for about ten minutes but pulled to a stop at the sound of voices.
Darn it, he was heading back toward her. And he had someone with him.
Catherine scrambled off the tote road and into the thick forest, urging Sprocket down a steep knoll to hide behind a large boulder. She waited, breath suspended, as Robbie came riding by with a man mounted up behind him, and she immediately recognized Ian MacKeage’s voice.
“Will Daar be at the summit?” Ian asked.
“Aye,” Robbie said. “But he’ll be of little help. Have you noticed how smooth his cane has become lately?”
“I did notice that,” Ian agreed. “When he came to supper last night. Grey noticed, too, and seemed pleased. What if Grey hears the storm? He’ll know, won’t he? It’s a sound none of us can ever forget.”
“Aye. But there will be nothing he can do by the time he realizes what’s happening. And tomorrow I’ll call a meeting of both clans and explain that… ”
Darn. They had moved too far away for Catherine to hear what Robbie was going to explain to the clans. What clans? Was he talking about the MacKeages and his father’s family?
Why was he taking Ian up the mountain, especially if whatever he did up there was so dangerous?
Catherine waited another minute or so, then slowly inched Sprocket out of their hiding place, thankful the horse hadn’t nickered to its stable mate when Robbie rode past.
Returning to the tote road, Catherine kept her pace to a walk, stopping whenever she came to a straight section so they wouldn’t see her if either of them happened to look back.
What storm had Ian been talking about? She had heard a loud crack of thunder the morning she’d found Robbie, and the night before, just around sunset, she’d heard the same sound. But there hadn’t been any clouds or rain. Could it have been a gunshot? It had sounded more like a cannon, though, loud and powerful enough to shake the mountain.
Catherine tried to shrug off the nagging voice in her head that kept saying curiosity had killed the cat. She was just worried about Robbie, is all. She wasn’t being curious, she decided, but watching his back.
She and Sprocket slowly rose in elevation, following the winding path up through the dense forest, and Catherine had to keep reining in her horse, who kept trying to catch up to his stable mate.
The trees became shorter and more gnarled the closer they got to the summit, until Catherine had to stop for fear of being seen. She took off Sprocket’s bridle and tied him to one of the trees by his halter, leaving the rope long enough for him to graze. She slid her stick out of the rifle sheath and continued after Robbie and Ian on foot, keeping hidden behind the short trees and large boulders, until they finally stopped.
She continued up and to the side, making her way to a ledge just above them, and lay down on her stomach and watched. They’d dismounted, and Ian was taking off his jacket and unwrapping a length of cloth from around his waist.
It was the same pattern as one of Robbie’s plaids.
Daar came trudging up to them from the opposite direction. “Ya better have given yar word to Robbie,” the priest said, waggling his finger as he approached Ian. “Ya mess things up, and there’ll be hell to pay.”
“I won’t mess anything up, old man,” Ian muttered, turning his back on the priest and unbuttoning his shirt. “I’ve given Robbie my word.”
Both Ian and Robbie were taking off their clothes!
Robbie suddenly stopped and looked up. Catherine flattened herself to the ground and held her breath, not daring to move again until she heard Robbie speak.
“We only have a few minutes to sunset,” he said. “Do you still want to do this, Uncle?”
he asked, his voice more tender than questioning.
Catherine lifted her head and peered down, thoroughly confused.Sunset… sunset, she repeated to herself, looking off to the southwest. The bottom of the sun was nearly touching the horizon. She looked back at the men and saw Ian, completely naked now, wrapping the plaid around himself with sure, deft movements, as if he’d done it a thousand times.
Robbie was also totally, beautifully naked and was wrapping a plaid around himself that was the same color as the one Ian was wearing. Both men secured the cloths with wide leather belts, and Catherine saw Ian tuck a small dagger—similar to the one Robbie had shown her—into a sheath on his belt.
Robbie reached down to one of his discarded boots, pulled his own dagger out, and tucked it in his belt, then picked up his sword and the second, different-colored plaid she’d washed and mended over a week ago.
What in heck were they doing? Was this some sort of ritual that Scotsmen did at sunset in the spring? Was it something for Ian, maybe, relating to his age?
What in heck was going on?
Father Daar looked at the sun, which was already halfway hidden behind the horizon now, and turned and pointed his cane at Robbie and Ian. “Ya must go,” he said.
Catherine inched forward to the edge of the cliff just as Robbie settled his sheathed sword over his shoulders. He then wrapped his arms around Ian and curtly nod to the priest.
Father Daar held his cane up, and the wood appeared to glow as the last rays of sunlight touched it. A harsh wind suddenly rose with a howling scream, and dark, boiling clouds swept down from the summit.
“Lend me yar own power, MacBain!” Daar shouted, lowering his cane to point at Robbie and Ian. “Godspeed to the two of ya!”
Catherine used one hand to protect her face from the wind and blinding light, leaning further over the ledge to see a storm of crackling, sparking clouds tighten around Robbie and Ian.
A loud, piercing shriek came from above her, and Catherine rolled over, holding up her stick to ward off Mary’s sharp talons. The owl dove toward her, snatching at Catherine’s coat sleeve just as Robbie shouted.