“But are you my uncle or my papa? I’m very confused.”
Callum grinned at her. “I’m yer uncle. I’ll be standing in for yer papa as best I can, though. Can ye make do with that, bug?”
“The puppies will be mine, though?”
“They’ll be a part of the pack, with the rest of us.”
Margaret sighed. “Aye. I can make do with that. But I would like at least one of them to be called mine, anyway.”
“But ye dunnae mind me marrying yer mama?” he pressed, ignoring Rebecca’s chuckle.
“No,” she returned, taking another sip of weak rum. “I think you make each other happy, and we’re all in the same pack, anyway. Though I also think I may be three sheets to the wind.” Setting the mug aside, she rested her head against the table.
Standing, Callum moved around the table and picked her up. She laid her head against his shoulder, her arms and legs tucked against his chest. For a bairn with such a mighty heart she weighed barely more than a feather, and it struck him again how delicate she was, and how close he’d come to losing both her and her mother tonight.
Rebecca slid her arm around his waist. “I love you,” she murmured, “and I love that you love her.”
Leaning sideways, he kissed her as the rest of the men present moved out of their way. “Thank ye,” he said to the Duke of Lattimer, and nodded at Maxton.
“I’m glad I was here to witness it,” the duke said crisply, and Callum remembered that he’d been a soldier before he’d inherited the dukedom. “The man ruined far more lives than he protected.”
“Aye,” Viscount Maxton said, nodding. “I’ll sleep better, knowing he’s nae about any longer. Ye’ve done us all a favor, ye ken.”
Callum looked over at Rebecca. “I didnae do it for pleasure, and I didnae do it for ye. I did it to protect my own, and because I’d nae other choice. And if this is the end of clan Maxwell, well, he brought it on himself.”
“I dunnae think it’s the end of the clan,” Graeme Maxton commented. “We’ve all been looking after our own for years, while Dunncraigh was busy lining his pockets. Lattimer here’s got over a thousand Maxwellsmasquerading as MacKittricks. Mayhap they’ll rejoin us, now.”
Lattimer pulled open the Seven Fathoms front door so Callum could pass through it. “Whatever your motives, Geiry, you’ve taken a stand for a great many people who could never do so themselves. Don’t think that’ll go unnoticed.”
Callum nodded, though at the moment he didn’t give a hang who noticed what. All he noticed, all he cared about, was that his two lasses were safe, and that he would never have to leave them. Settling Margaret in one of the coach’s seats, he handed Rebecca into the other and sat beside her.
“What did they mean by that?” she whispered, tucking the coach blanket more closely around Margaret as they started back for MacCreath House. “This won’t go unnoticed?”
He shrugged, pulling her against his shoulder. “Politics and arguing, I would guess. They can do as they like. I’m figuring Donnach will be needing to sell his third of Sanderson’s now, so we’ll have a fleet to manage, plus two distilleries and four bairns.”
“And wolf mop puppies,” she added, twisting to kiss him.
Relishing in her touch, in the quiet intimacy after the evening’s chaos, he kissed her back. “I love ye, lass. With every ounce of me.”
Rebecca sighed against his cheek. “You made us more than a pack, Callum. We’re a family.”
Aye, they were. In ways he’d never expected, but now couldn’t do without. A pack, a family, their own wee clan—whatever they chose to call themselves, this was precisely what he required in his life. She was what he needed, just to make his heart keep beating. Now and forever.
Epilogue
Three months later…
“I dunnae ken why ye’ve settled on me,” Callum said, flinging a rock into Loch Brenan and watching it skip a half-dozen times. “I’m nae a chieftain, and I’ve nae more than a hundred cotters on my property.”
Graeme, Lord Maxton, leaned back against a pine tree and crossed one ankle over the other. “Exactly. Ye’ve nae potatoes in the pot. That’s why.”
“If that’s what qualifies me, I’ve a niece with nae a potato in the pot, either,” Callum retorted, then pointed at the third man, standing midway between himself and Maxton. “And why is Lattimer here? He’s the chief of clan MacKittrick.”
Tall Gabriel Forrester, Duke of Lattimer, squatted down as a wee bairn ran up and grabbed the back of his leg. “I’m not a clan chief. I’m a Sassenach landlord whose cotters gave him a nickname.” He straightened again, holding the toddler against one hip. “Where’s your mama, Kieran?”
“Puppies,” the boy returned, laughing and shaking his hands in clear excitement.
“Ah.”
