Kiss of the Highlander

“Oh, Gwen,” Carolyn exclaimed, squeezing her hand, “I’m so sorry.”

Gwen glanced away, unable to meet Carolyn’s sympathetic gaze. Simple kindness could undo her, make the tears come. Carolyn must have sensed it, because her voice changed, became briskly professional again.

“I can’t stress enough that you must gain weight. Your body is going to need special care, and I’d like to schedule an ultrasound.”

“An ultrasound? Why? Is something wrong?” Gwen was alarmed and her gaze flew back up to Carolyn’s.

“No, nothing’s wrong,” Carolyn hastened to assure her. “In fact,” she added, smiling, “depending on your outlook, you might think it’s something wonderful. Your hCG levels lead me to believe you’re carrying twins. An ultrasound will give us a definite answer.”

“Oh, my God! Twins!” Gwen cried. “Twins,” she repeated disbelievingly. Twins just like Drustan and Dageus. A chill raced through her—not just one of his babies, but two! Oh, Drustan, she thought, lanced by piercing sorrow. Twins, my love! How he would have rejoiced in the news, how he would have celebrated the birth of their children!

But he would never know, would never see his sons or daughters. She would never get to share this with him. She closed her eyes against a wave of pain.

Carolyn watched her closely. “Are you all right, Gwen?”

Gwen nodded, her throat tight. After a long moment, she opened her eyes again.

“If you need to talk, Gwen…” Carolyn trailed off, waiting.

Gwen nodded stiffly. “Thank you, but I think it’s just going to take some time.” She forced a weak smile. “I’ll be fine, Carolyn. I’ll take care of myself, I promise.” Nothing would jeopardize her babies.

“I’ll squeeze you in again on Friday,” Carolyn said, walking with her to the door. “I’ll have my receptionist call you this afternoon with a time.”

Gwen thanked her profusely. “You have no idea how much I needed to know this.”

Carolyn gazed at the dark circles beneath her eyes. “I think I do,” she said softly. “Now go home, eat and take care of yourself. There’s more than just yourself to think about now.”

Gwen waved good-bye to the receptionist as she left.

She was pregnant. She had a part of Drustan inside her. A child of his, possibly two, to raise, to love, to cherish.

Walking across the parking lot to her car, she was briefly stunned by how blue the sky seemed, how bright the sun, how green the grass.

Color. There was light in her soul again.

27

A week later, Gwen was back in Scotland.

She sat at the base of the MacKeltar’s mountain, perched on the hood of her rental car, gazing up, filled with trepidation.

When Carolyn had confirmed she was carrying twins, a surge of energy had flooded her. She’d cleaned her apartment, put the phone back on the hook, gotten her hair trimmed, treated herself to an eyebrow waxing, and gone grocery shopping. Then she’d called Allstate to tender her resignation, only to find they’d already fired her for not showing up for so many weeks. No loss there, she’d shrugged philosophically.

She’d called a Realtor and placed her parents’ house on the market. The ostentatious showplace had been paid off years ago, and the sale of it would give her more than enough money to make a fresh start. She was done with Santa Fe. Done with insurance claims, done with it all. She was thinking of moving to the East Coast, maybe Maine, near Bert and Beatrice. She’d buy a lovely house with a darling nursery. Perhaps get a job at a local university teaching math and making it fun.

But before she could do any of that, before she could move forward, she had to somehow make peace with the past.

And the only way to do that was to lay to rest the questions that drove her mad at three o’clock in the morning when her heart felt heavy and her soul was inclined to brood.

Questions like: Had Drustan died from the arrow wound, or survived? And if he’d survived, had he ever married? She hated considering that one, because it left her feeling so torn. She would be crushed if he had remarried, yet at the same time, she would be crushed if he’d spent the rest of his life grieving. She loved him so much that if he’d lived, she wanted him to have been happy. It hurt her to think that he might have grieved for thirty or forty or fifty years. She realized that she was the lucky one: They’d both lost each other, but she alone had the precious gift of their babies.

More questions: Had Dageus had children? Had any MacKeltar descendants survived to the twenty-first century? The answer to that question could be a blessing, for if MacKeltars still lived above Alborath, she would feel as if they hadn’t failed completely. One of the things Drustan had wanted was to ensure the future succession of his clan, and if by saving Dageus they had guaranteed survival of his clan, she could find some small measure of satisfaction in that.