—William Shakespeare
Calum slammed the library door closed and leaned against it for a moment, trying to catch his breath. Pine needles clung to his damp shirt and Spanish moss hung from his pants and belt. His spectacles dangled off one ear. He slipped the frame over his other ear, positioned the glasses on the crown of his nose, and the lenses immediately fogged from the heat of his sweaty face.
“I’m going to kill Fergus,” he muttered, cleaning his spectacles again, then picking needles, stringy gray moss, and damp leaves from his clothes. “With my bare hands... around his thick old neck...”
“I take it Fergus brought you more brides.”
“Aye,” Calum said, plucking a dead maple leaf off his white shirt while he turned toward the sound of his brother’s voice.
Eachann sat sprawled in a leather wing chair near the windows; he had to sit sprawled, his size gave him no other choice. While Calum was considered tall at six feet and plenty brawny, Eachann was over half a foot taller, with wide shoulders, and hands so big that he could almost palm the base of a caber. He could throw the hammer farther than anyone Calum had ever seen, but he was nimble enough to skate like the wind when he held a shinty stick in his huge hands. Also, there were Eachann’s horses. Atop one of his prized white horses Eachann MacLachlan was a sight to see.
Calum didn’t have his brother’s skill with animals. But he could run. He ran so fast he could race any one of Eachann’s horses down the beach. As children, it was Calum who won every foot race. It was Calum who could change direction and never lose an inch of ground.
Eachann used to brag that his older brother could wheel about in a blink. And he was right. Calum never skirted anything. He would run right into the woods and never break stride, even where the birch trunks were so thick that anyone else would have to sidle through. Calum ran like Eachann rode—with every ounce of skill that God had given him.
However Fergus’s brides were giving him more practice running than he wanted, or than he had time for.
“How many women this time?”
“Five.” Calum picked the last of the forest from his shirt and dropped the moss and needles into an empty brass ash can that sat near the fireplace. He thought he heard Eachann give a quiet snicker and Calum looked up.
His brother was grinning at him the way be always did when Calum was cleaning up.
“I like things neat,” Calum said defensively, then walked over to his desk and started to sit down, but he stopped and picked some lint balls from the chair.
“Aye, that you do.” Eachann paused and stared at Calum’s head with that same smirk. “You might want to take that pine cone out of your hair. Makes you look like a boarhound with one ear cropped.”
While Eachann was laughing at him, Calum patted his hair and a small pine cone fell onto the neat stack of papers on his desk. He was just cleaning up the mess when a hollow clop... clop... clop came down the hallway.
Both brothers looked up. Eachann’s horse trotted into the library, stopped, looked at Eachann, and then tossed its head.
Calum groaned and sank into his chair. “Can’t you keep that damn horse of yours out of the house?”
Eachann shrugged. “He doesn’t hurt anything.”
Calum watched the stallion’s long tail sweep back and forth, just missing a crystal and silver whisky decanter. “Not yet he hasn’t,” Calum muttered to himself and watched his brother stroke the horse’s muzzle. “That beast thinks it’s a lapdog.”
A sudden loud and furious pounding came from both the back and front doors.
The women called out, “Let us in!”
“Let us in!”
The brothers exchanged a knowing look.
“I’ll take care of the women.” Eachann unfolded himself from the chair and stood.
“Be sure to bring Fergus back with you.”
“Aye. I’d already planned on it.” Eachann crossed the room in a few long strides, a trail of grass and dirt crumbling onto the carpet from his crusty riding boots. His horse whickered, then pranced after him.
Calum opened the bottom desk drawer and took out a whisk broom and dustpan. A minute later he was on his knees sweeping up the grass and dirt and mud clumps in the shape of horseshoes from the carpet. He emptied the dust pan, shook out the whisk broom, and while he polished the pan with a dust cloth he critically eyed the dark carpet. Satisfied, he turned and checked the tall polished red oak bookshelves that his great-grandfather had built into two walls of the room.
Each leather-bound volume was aligned perfectly with the next. No dust. No lint, and every piece of crystal and brass in the entire room, from the decanters to the walnut bowl, sparkled brightly. The windowpanes were so clean that if it weren’t for the frames and the slight waves in the glass you would think there was nothing there at all.
Calum put the broom and dusters away in their drawer and he sat down at his desk. He restacked his papers three times, and when he decided they were perfect he took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair. Everything was in its place.
A few minutes later the door blasted open and slammed against the wall with enough force to dent the crown molding. Calum’s papers flew all over the desk.
