“They remembered,” Ina breathed.
There was a low buzz of whispered excitement flavored with giggles from the very young, and any thought Finley had of their farm being the destination was quickly forgotten as the women glided around and past her and Ina and headed to the small, sloped pastures beyond.
“Come,” Ina said, just as the sun began to peek over the ben, the strip of sky above the cliff and trees going white, then butter yellow. Her mother’s eyes sparkled like a girl’s as she pulled Finley along into the feminine current.
“What are we doing?” Finely laughed as the sounds of the women’s chatter grew higher with the rising of the sun.
“Lá Bealltainn!” Ina called up to the sky.
They reached the pasture, the grass longer than Finley had ever seen it now that Carson animals had infinitely larger and better meadows to feed on, and plunged into the sea of greensward. Ina pulled Finley around in a half circle until they were facing each other, and then released her. All around them, the older women, even to the eldest widow, were bending their stiff knees, crouching with spread arms and then sweeping their hands over the heads of the grasses and wildflowers, scooping their palms toward their faces and leaving their cheeks and foreheads, eyes and décolletages shining with dew, their sleeves clinging wet and transparent to their skin.
The littlest girls squealed and giggled as understanding dawned on them. Finley looked again at her mother, now participating in this slow, graceful dance, her smile as radiant as the beams of morning that shot over the cliff and set the pasture to sparkling with dew and femininity. She swooped down and swept her hands toward herself, daubing her face with the cool, lubricous dew that still smelled like night and also green, still-tight buds ready to burst forth with life. Finley laughed and laughed as she, too, washed her face with summer’s arrived ripeness, while the youngest Carson daughters raced around the pasture with their palms skimming the grass like swallows.
Lá Bealltainn.
Then the women began picking the flowers—yellow and orange and all shades of lilac—until their arms were laden. The young girls made beautiful crowns of blooms for them all, ropes and necklaces and waist garters, all frilled with soft, fragrant petals. Back down the hill they went, looping the wreaths and circlets onto low-hanging branches along the path, on doors and windows, overhangs and well handles.
Finley and Ina diverted through their own barn, laughing and skipping as they christened the tired old building with the bright gaiety of summer. Lachlan and Rory were in the aisle about their chores and stopped to lean on their fork handles as the women swept toward them. The old milk cow won a crown hung over one sweet ear; her calf received the treat of a thistle flower to crunch.
Ina draped a necklace over Rory’s head, who grinned proudly and pulled his wife to him for a peck on her cheek. Finley was caught up in the moment as she skipped up to Lachlan and tucked a bell heather behind his ear. She rose up on her toes without thinking as he leaned forward to grant her her kiss, and Finley didn’t turn her head. Lachlan’s hand came up to cup her jaw as their mouths met, and when Finley pulled away, his fingers lingered on her skin as he looked into her eyes with a faint, bewildered smile.
“Dew suits you,” he said.
Finley felt warm to her very toes, and rather than ruin the moment by saying something ridiculous and clumsy, she skipped away from him and out of the barn, her spontaneous laugh the only betrayer of her ecstasy.
The entire town was soon bedecked in bright blooms and then, as if prearranged, the menfolk emerged onto the streets, the elders of the town, the young men and boys afoot with rowdy shrieks. The feminine and masculine halves of Carson Town melded as streams converging into a river. And that river wound its way up the main street to the expanse of rolling hill before the old house, where the evidence of the long hours scouring the bay for driftwood was piled.
A cassock stuffed with heather lay on the ground near the base of the mountain of fuel wood, a bow and cord and dry, fluffy tinder at the ready. Murdoch stood patiently by the quiet pile until everyone from the town had arrived and was attending him with great anticipation. Just as he opened his mouth, Finley felt a warm hand slide along the small of her back. She looked up to see Lachlan at her side, and although he didn’t look at her, his hand remained resting on her waist.
As if he had truly come to meet her.
As if she was truly his woman, his wife.
As if he cared not who saw him touch her and the conclusions they would draw from it.
“Lá Bealltainn, Carsons!” Murdoch bellowed, startling Finley back to the present. The gathering returned the greeting to their chief with whooping cries of revelry.
“It has been many a long year since our town has celebrated. Many a long year since we’ve had aught to celebrate,” Murdoch allowed more solemnly. “But let today mark the beginning of nae only a fruitful growing season for our crops and our animals, but a future of abundance for all our folk.” He paused, seeming to struggle with a bit of emotion, and the sight of it brought a prickle to Finley’s eyes. “Never again, God willing, shall our people suffer from such want as we have endured. With this need-fire, we kindle renewed wills—the very thing that makes us Carsons. Never a stronger clan was there, and never a stronger clan shall there be!”
The crowd cheered, and Finley noticed that Lachlan’s shout was one of the loudest, and her heart squeezed painfully, wonderfully.
“Now, as I’m sure yer all in want of a hot meal,” Murdoch went on to the laughter of the crowd. He bent and picked up the corded bow and spindle, held them in his hands for a moment, looking at them in a most melancholy way before raising his gaze once more to find Finley’s father nearby in the crowd.
“The need-fire must be struck by a married man of the town.” He bundled the tools together in one hand and held them out. “Rory Carson, you gave up the life you were making to return to us when you were needed. You’ve done everything you could to see that your kin in blood and in name survived. You have proved a friend to me. To us all.”
Finley’s father stepped forward and took the tools with a humble nod of acknowledgment, and then he turned away, looking over the sea of faces before him. “I did return to Carson Town. But it was nae unselfish, as I wouldna’ve had my good Ina, nor my sweet, gentle, meek, wee lass.”
At this, the crowd broke out in good-natured laughter, and Finley felt a creeping blush steal over her face even as she sent her father a mock scowl.
Lachlan squeezed her tighter to his side for the briefest moment, as if he was proud to be standing with her. Finley didn’t think anyone had ever been proud of such a thing in her whole life.
Rory continued. “But I am an old man now. And I am not so proud as not to know that the burden of Carson Town’s success rests on the shoulders of the young. And I hope you will agree with me, Murdoch—that all of you will agree—that there is one here who has done much that was unexpected of him for our good.” He paused, and Finley held her breath. “My gel’s husband, Lachlan Blair.”
Rory extended the corded bow and spindle into the empty space at the center of the crowd. “You are well met to us, Lachlan Blair.Lá Bealltainnis your doing. Would that you kindle the need-fire.”
Finley couldn’t help the gasp that escaped her, and she felt Lachlan stiffen at her shoulder. This was a clear olive branch from the town, delivered through her own father, even if Murdoch could not bring himself to extend it. It was a laying to rest of the past, and the grudges held against Lachlan for the sins of his clan. All those gathered watched him with anxious, hopeful expressions. There was no animosity here for the man at her side, not any longer. Lachlan had worked every day to win over the town as he had set out to do, and Finley could think of no stronger evidence to prove that he had succeeded.
He pulled away from her gently, taking care to press her shoulders with his palms and look into her eyes before he turned to the center of the crowd and stepped toward her father. He held out his hand.
