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“How would I know that?” Jean asked, her voice wavering.

“Oh, I don't know.” She shrugged. “You two seem to spend

a lot of time together.”

“No more than is seemly.” Her cheeks flushed red.

“Oh no,” Haley said quickly, adopting her most cavalier  manner. “Not too much at all. And besides, he's quite cute.  Have you noticed his hands? They're very nice.”

She watched as  Jean's cheeks turned from red to deep crimson, then added. “He'll make some woman a wonderful husband. What do you think? Do you think he'd be a good… provider? You two seem close.”

“Close, is it?” Jean's chin trembled with some hidden  emotion. Just when  Haley thought she'd gone too far, Jean  turned and pinned her with a pointed look. Wiping her  hands on her apron, she announced. “All right then, we

can talk of close. But keep that spoon in hand. You'll be  needing to learn a good fish soup, if you're to feed my  brother.”

This time it was Haley who was taken off guard. “What do you mean?”

“What do I mean?” Smiling now, Jean put her hands on

her hips.

“I know you've been sneaking about. And there's no need

to. Slink about like a fox in the henhouse, I mean .”

“Though”  - she tapped her finger on her chin thoughtfully  “I suppose it'd be Alasdair the fox and you the hen, aye?”

Haley thought that she had indeed underestimated the girl.

Vastly underestimated.

“God bless you… ” Jean laughed, a musical tinklin g that  dissolved the defensive scowl from Haley's face. “But you'll  find yourself knee -deep in kettles of fish soup, if I know my  Alasdair.”

Haley began to laugh too, but her smile froze on her face.  The thought of a lifetime of sharing fish soup with  MacColla didn't terrify her as much as she'd have expected.  It sounded actually quite… nice.

“No need to gape at me like a boilt haddie.” Jean nodded to  the pot of boiling haddock. “A blind man could see my  brother has it for you, lass.”

A sharp wail cut through the room, shattering their cautious rapport. Jean didn't even spare a look for Haley before she dashed out of the room.

Haley lost a moment staring dumbly at the pot. She put her spoon down, wondering what to do. What her place

was.

The sound came  again. A thin, keening note echoing through the chimney stones.

A single thought startled her back into the moment.

MacColla.

She put her hand to her heart. It pounded hard through the layers of corset and dress.

Haley raced out the door and down the hall, barreling into the common room.

Her eyes skittered over the scene until she found MacColla.  It was irrational-they were all together and seemed safe on

Kintyre  - but still, she felt a quick wash of relief to see him.

His grave nod spoke both his grief and his need to have her

near.

It struck her that the room was full of people. Suddenly self-conscious, she stopped short, backed up a step into the doorjamb. Reaching her hands behind her, she clung tothe wood at her back, chagrined that she might have stumbled unwelcome into something that didn't concern her.

There was Jean, Scrymgeour. Colkitto. MacColla. And all eyes were on his mother. She sat on a stool by the fire.  Colkitto standing at her side. Mary slumped against the belly of her husband, her hands tangled white-knuckled in the folds of his plaid.

Hers was the keening voice, repeating over and over the same word. It took Haley's ears a moment to make sense without any context. And then she realized. Mary  MacDonald chanted, “Gillespie.”

Haley saw the woman's face and knew at once. Only the most dreadful and unthinkable of tragedies would crack a facade like hers.

Somebody died.

“Gillespie,” MacColla mouthed to her.
 
“Mo bràthair”

My brother.

Gillespie. This woman's son.

How would her own mother react to losing a son? Or Haley,

to losing a brother?

Good God.
  
It was all tragedy. Seventeenth-century  Scotland, all unthinkable, brutal tragedy that cared not for mother, or lover. So devastating. And so commonplace.

Oh God, MacColla.
 
Dread bloomed in her gut like a cancer, thinking of the day that could come. The day she might get news that would shatter her forever.

“Gillespie.” It was Colkitto giving voice to the words nobody  wanted to speak. His fury was calm, as barren, as complete  as the fine sparkling of rime on pine needles. “The  Campbell has killed Gillespie. And now he comes for us.  For MacColla. For you, lass.” he nodded to Haley.

A chill shivered through her. “How does he know about me?”

“He calls you the bride of MacColla.” A voice  came from the

far corner, crisp and deep.

Haley's eyes adjusted to the shadows that clung to the edges of the room. A man stood there, neat and tall, with shining dark brown hair, and sharp cheekbones and jaw to match the razor edge of his gaze. “Campbell warns he will destroy MacColla's family. Will ruin MacColla, and you, most of all.”

Haley decided if a knife edge had a human voice, it would sound like this man.

“I… ” She stumbled for words, uncertain of what to make of

such a threat from a stranger.

“Leannan.”
 
MacColla's voice was quiet, but steady, and her

eyes found his. The grief she saw there broke her heart.

The mysterious man stepped from the shadows, and Haley realized he held a cane. Lifting one leg after the other, he moved with slow deliberation.

“This is Will Rollo.” MacColla's face softened for an instant

as he told her, “He is a friend to James Graham.”

Is. Not was.
 
She knew it.
 
James Graham was alive.

It was a thrill to know she'd been right.
 
Graham hadn't died.
 
But it was a hollow victory.

She found all she cared for at that moment was MacColla.

At the mention of James, Rollo swung his head sharply to  MacColla, his eyes narrowed. But MacColla simply ignored him, Haley his single focus.

“Rollo.” She murmured the strange name, trying to place it,

trying to remember who he might have been.

“Aye, he bears news of my brother. Gillespie was killed in a  siege of Skipness Castle. To the north. He's in Kintyre, lass.  Campbell is in Kintyre. He slaughters his way right to us,  an army at his back.”

“We must fight,” Colkitto growled.

“We must go.” MacColla's mother finally spoke, her voice  cracking as she visibly gathered her anguish, reeling it  back once more, to bury it deep inside. “We have Jean to  think of. We're… ”

She hesitated, and MacColla continued for her, “We're trapped at the edge of Kintyre with naught but the sea at our backs. The Earl of Antrim has men by the thousands, waiting for us in Ireland. It's to Ireland we must go now.”

There was a sharp cry. When all eyes turned to  her, Haley realized the sound had torn from her own throat.

MacColla shook his head a fraction. “Would that there were

a choice,
 
leannan
. But there's no other course. I need more  men. And there are Irish confederates by the score who  wait for us, eager for a taste of Campbell blood.”

“Och.” Colkitto pulled his wife tighter to him. “Your mother  and I stay here. On Scottish soil. I'll not turn tail to Ireland.  I've been driven out of my country for the last time.”

“It's not-” MacColla began in a snarl.

“Och, son, I ken well. An army waits for you there. But  heed me, boy. I'm an old man and if I'm to die, it's Scottish  soil will drink my blood.”

“You cannot stay here.” Rollo's voice cut through the room  like a shard of glass, clear and deathly sharp. “You  must  leave Kintyre.”

“To Islay, then,” MacColla said to his father. “We rally a

dozen men and you'll set sail for Islay.”

“Ranald,” his mother gasped.

“Aye, my brother is there,” MacColla said. “There's a rebel  stronghold at Dunyveg. Father, I need you  to help hold the  castle there. I'll return, with thousands at my back.”

Mary delicately blotted her eyes with her fingertips. “Can I”

“No, mother. 'Tis not safe for you there.”

Even as Colkitto flexed to pull his wife closer, Haley saw her sit just a little straighter. And it was a revelation. Mary would be accustomed to such a parting.
 
What life is, for these women
… she thought with a chill. Always saying good bye to their men and their boys, often for the last time.

Scrymgeour spoke then, his voice warm and sure. “Mary will come with me. You both will,” he said, addressing  Jean. “Campbell will have left Fincharn; his attentions long directed elsewhere. He'd not suspect we'd return. We head for Loch Awe at once. Back to my home.” He turned to  MacColla  and promised somberly, “The women will be safe

there.”

Scrymgeour looked to Haley, adding, “You shall come too, of course. We will all ”-

“She'll do no such thing.” MacColla's words resonated low  and fierce, pebbling her arms into goose bumps. “Haley  stays with me.” His glare silenced any who would  contradict him.

He intended to protect her. But Haley knew.

She looked around the room, taking in this portrait of profound grief.

The MacDonald men have begun to die.

She looked around, and she knew. It was MacColla who needed the protection now.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Haley sat on the sand, not far from where she and  MacColla had been together. And rather than feeling warmed by the memory, it came to her on a knife's edge.  Sharp and with a pang she felt as surely as steel on skin.

She had been excited, imagining what it'd be like to be intimate with him. But the reality had been so much bigger, so much more than any fantasy.

It had been both tenderness and ravaging lust. Losing herself in him was all the  reassurance of coming home, with the exhilaration of setting on some new, uncharted

course.

But how many more nights would they get?

She tried to savor those memories, but her eyes were continually drawn to Ireland, a long, thin band of shadow looming on the horizon like the black cloud of a coming storm.

Haley wriggled her toes in the sand, welcoming the damp chill. It grew late, and she savored the cool at her back, a peculiar craving for some physical symptom of her despair.  She felt sorry for herself and would wallow in those feelings. Far from peaceful or secure, Haley would have her body chilled to the bone as well.

Fiery clouds streaked low on the horizon as the sky blazed into night. The sun came at a sharp angle, warm on her

cheek. She focused on it. Anything to pull herself out of her

thoughts and back into her body.

She turned her face full to the setting sun, squinting against the halo of orange winking over the sea.

Red sky at night, sailor's delight.
 
She remembered the words her mother repeated at the sight of a particularly vibrant sunset.

Red sky in morning, sailor's warning.

Something trembled through her veins, cold, making her heart feel shallow, as if it pumped something less than blood.

They were to sail tomorrow morning.

First they would set off for Islay, with Colkitto. They'd see him off. Leave at once for Ireland. It would be goodbye to  Jean, and Scrymgeour, and Mary. Good-bye to Colkitto.

She had no misconceptions of what life was in the seventeenth century. She doubted she' d ever see any of them again.

And what of her MacColla? What of this man, fated to die on an Irish battlefield?

Fate?
 
She wondered what that meant. Wondered if the pathof a human life was predestined, an unerring map of events etched in stone.