A Time & Place for Every Laird (36 page)

Breamar Highland Games

September
2013

The crowd cheered and Claire joined them enthusiastically as Hugh successfully heaved the fifty-six-pound weight into the air and over the bar currently set at fifteen feet high, his ancient Urquhart plaid flapping about his muscular thighs. Directing a cocky salute and a wink to Claire, he turned and strode back to the group of competitors waiting for their next turn as the renowned heavy eventer, Hamish Robb, held out his hand in congratulations.  Hugh accepted the compliments and whistles from the crowd with a wave of his arm and a broad grin that only served to amplify the delighted onlookers. 

The
Breamar Highland Games were the oldest and most prestigious of the many highland games held throughout Scotland, but surely they had never had such a genuine participant in the heavy events as Hugh.  Some might have commented on the remarkable accuracy of Hugh’s kilt in the blue, green, and red of the Urquhart plaid, his leather shoes, and even his stockings, but none would ever know how truly authentic a Highlander he was, or that he had roamed Scotland long before the first of the modern Highland Games.

Obviously Hugh was in his element.  He had already broken the games’ record in the
twenty-two-pound Scots hammer, throwing over thirty-five meters, and was well on his way to proving himself victorious in many of the other events as well.  And it wasn’t merely the traditional events themselves that had such satisfaction gleaming in his eyes.  It was the pipes, the fiddle, the traditional dance, and the ancient castle that hosted it all that, in spite of the modern tents and food vendors interspersed among it all, reminded him of another time in a way that the busy streets of Inverness had yet to achieve.

Scotland
really was the most magical place Claire had ever been, and it was easy to appreciate why Hugh had longed for it so.  It was wild and untamed yet majestic and elegant.  Just like him.

Over the past few weeks, they’d
found time to rediscover the more remote and unpopulated areas of Scotland where only minimal change could be found.  They had roamed ancient villages that looked as out of time as Hugh was and walked hand in hand across endless moors where the rolling hills of verdant green stood in vivid contrast to the turbulent grey clouds suspended heavily above them.   They had picnicked on the banks of turbulent rivers still swollen with the late thaw and on the barren beaches of the Cromarty Firth, wanting only the shadows of Rosebraugh over them for Hugh to feel truly at home.

And she did as well
, with Hugh at her side.

They were making a new home together.  Both of them putting the past where it belonged and looking forward. 
Claire had returned her focus to environmentally responsible research and had taken a job at the small propulsion lab near Inverness.  Hugh was taking small steps into investments but had also taken her offhanded suggestion to write about his time with Voltaire to heart.  He’d had the idea to write it as a work of fiction, taking his conversations with Voltaire, Hume, Frederick and others of that time into round table debate that could have never taken place but for Hugh’s interactions between them.  His tentatively entitled “Conversations Among Men” had already received notice from the Oxford Press.

“
Well, well, well, Mrs. Manning.”

Claire stiffened at the
regrettably familiar voice and looked over at the man who had appeared at her side.  His dark suit and tie were such a ludicrous contrast to the casual attire of the crowd and the kilted participants in the games, she might have laughed aloud had it not been for the dread and nerves that suddenly knotted her stomach.  She hadn’t been so shaken for weeks, but Claire forced the anxiety away, silently assuring herself that there was no reason now to worry. She was safe in the thick crowds, safe with all the security that accompanied the Queen’s presence. “What?  No kilt?”

“I’m not here to participate, Mrs. Manning,” Phil Jameson said softly.

“No? Then what brings you to Scotland?  Vacation?” she asked.  “Because I’m sure it can’t be anything else.”

“
You do think this false naïveté is humorous, don’t you?” he asked rhetorically.  “No, your trip through customs raised a red flag on my notifications, so I thought to come and see what you were about for myself.  I was surprised to learn that you’d moved out of your townhouse in Spokane.”

She had packed Matt’s things carefully into a box with Hugh at her side but had taped that last box shut with no guilt.  Perhaps one day she might bring one or two of those items out once again but Claire had learned that life was for the living.  She had promised herself once that
she would mourn her husband for the rest of her life but it had taken recent events and even Phil Jameson himself to make her realize that her own life hadn’t ended.

When her parents and brothers and even Robert and Sue had come to help them pack her belongings away into storage, only one of them knew that Hugh Urquhart wasn’t the only one who should be thanked for drawing her from the darkness that had enveloped her.

“I guess I should have sent a note, but, you know, a little bird told me that you had been demoted and put on desk duty so I didn’t think you’d mind if I carried on without your okay.”  From everything Danny had been able to dig up for her, she knew that Jameson had been officially reprimanded for the excessive and borderline illegal measures he had taken during the search for both Hugh and the Native American escapee.  “How did you even come across me here so conveniently?  There are a thousand places I could have been today.”

Jameson only frowned
, ignoring the taunt, and stared across the field, taking in the competition on the field.  “You are still a difficult woman to run to ground.  Thankfully, your new neighbors knew where you had done this weekend.  Tell me, which one is he?”

“Can’t you guess?”  She waved her hand at the field of men dressed in kilts.  “They all look alike, don’t they? 
So you tell me.  Which one is your savage?”

“Shall
I bring them all in, then?”

“Call me a skeptic but I don’t think the NSA
has that kind of power over here, even if you were still on the case … oh, that’s right.  The case is closed, isn’t it? Yes, I know that and more,” Claire went on boldly, refusing to let Jameson’s appearance fluster her.  There was little chance that his superiors had endorsed his search for her, which meant that Jameson had taken up a personal vendetta against Hugh.  “Even if you still had the authority, how would you explain yourself?  Explain who you were looking for?”

“
I could just take in the first undocumented highlander I come across.”

A slow smile curled her lip.  “You do that.”

He turned to look at her with a furrowed brow that spoke clearly of his frustration.  “He’s not what you think, Mrs. Manning.”

“So you’ve said
a dozen times, but let’s agree to disagree, all right?” she said. “There is no threat officially or unofficially any longer.  Your director saw to that, didn’t he?  Stop wasting more taxpayer money … or your own, since I’d be willing to bet that your director doesn’t know you’re here.  Should we call and ask?”

Jameson just
frowned and shook his head.  “I can’t leave, knowing what I know.  You wouldn’t either, if you knew.”

“I’ve read the files and can even read between the lines, Phil.”

“Then you know he’s not human.”

“He’s incredibly human,” Claire whispered, turning her head as Hugh’s warm laughter joined that of the other men in kilts, pretenders to the Highland legacy.  He belonged here.  This wasn’t his home but it was the closest
he would ever have.  She refused to let Jameson ruin that for him.   “You’re a fool to pursue this, Phil, and you’re even crazier if you think that a little world politics is all that would blow up if the magnitude of what Fielding did got loose.  You should consider yourselves lucky to have gotten off with just a slap on the hand … so far, of course.  Could be worse for you if it all somehow managed to get out … and it will if you don’t leave it alone.  What would Nichols say, with his impending retirement and all?”

“Still trying to blackmail me?”

“Merely attempting to make you see that you are jumping at shadows.  Stop trying to pretend that you know more than the scientists, Phil. If there was any real danger to the world at large, as you seem to think, Fielding’s entire office would have been sealed off as a biohazard right from the beginning; did you ever think of that? Just be glad your moneymaker is still intact and everything that resulted from it has been deemed safe.”

Hugh’s biceps bulged against the short sleeves of the
T-shirt he wore with his kilt as he lifted the heavy weight once again and flung it over his head with an audible grunt.  Up it went over the high bar again, embedding itself with a solid thud into the moist ground of the field.  The crowd roared and Claire joined them in their applause as Hugh’s gaze once again searched her out, eager to share his triumph at the accomplishment, but the brash smile slipped away when he saw the man at her side, and a frown took its place as he turned in her direction.

Claire shook her head with a glower of her own but Hugh kept coming. 
“By the way, it’s not Mrs. Manning any longer.  It’s Mrs. Urquhart.  I remarried recently.  I thought with your connections, you would have known.”

Jameson gaped.  “To the savage?”

“No, to that wonderful Scottish man who you missed meeting a few months ago when you ran into his fist.  He’s a commodities trader in Inverness.  That’s why I’m here, actually … not here as in these games but here in Scotland.  I moved here with him.”  She continued as Hugh neared, aware that the NSA agent was still staring at her in astonishment, “You’re not going to find what you’re looking for here.  Go home, Phil.  Find another hobby before I have you arrested for stalking me.”

Hugh jogged up to them and slipped an arm around Claire’s waist before transforming his scowl into a politely inquiring look.  “Who’s this, Sorcha?”

“This is Special Agent Phil Jameson from the National Security Agency in the United States,” she said.

“
Ah, I dinnae recognize ye … conscious, that is,” Hugh said with a raised brow as he looked the agent up and down speculatively before addressing him directly in the most cultured and regal tones Claire had yet to hear from him.  “I thought Agent Nichols had agreed that ye wouldna be bothering us any longer, Jameson.”

“I can’t just
let it go.  I know who you are.”

Hugh
’s voice dropped to an icy chill.  “And I know that if ye willnae let Claire live her life wi’out yer constant interference, I will do more than see the details of yer project spread tae the ends of the earth.  I will show ye pain such as ye’ve ne’er imagined before I break yer neck wi’ my own two hands.”

“You can’t threaten me.  I am a federal agent.”

“And I’m a verra angry and protective Scotsman,” Hugh shot back.  “Ye hae nae reason other than yer own paranoia to pursue this.  Only Claire’s benevolence saved ye the first time. Leave now before I override her wishes and ye die most … savagely.”

Jameson gaped, his mouth opening and closing as his hand went inside his jacket
as if he had forgotten that there was no longer a pistol holstered there.  “I will find something, someday to put you back in prison where you belong.”

“
Good luck wi’ that,” Hugh mocked as Jameson turned away, knowing that with Danny’s good work there would never be anything for Jameson to find.  The agent’s threats were empty ones, while his were not.  If Jameson came within a hundred meters of them again, Hugh would happily find a more permanent solution to his meddling in a manner that harkened back to his savage roots.

Hugh gathered
Claire into his arms.  “Are ye all right, then?  Did he threaten ye?”

Claire had to smile at that.  “No, but you did a good enough job on him.  I doubt he’ll be bothering us anymore.”

“Good,” Hugh said, tracing a light caress down her temple and cheek before slipping his fingers along her jaw and threading them into the hair at the base of her neck.  His other hand slid down to splay across her flat abdomen.  “Because, I hae a whole new life tae look forward tae with the woman who saved my life.”

Claire laughed, feeling joy warm her heart and soul
as she snuggled into High’s loving embrace.  “I only
tried
to save your life, but in the end, it was you who saved me, my handsome Highlander.  You brought purpose and laughter back into my life… No, let me amend that.  You brought
life
back into my life.  I love you.”

“I love ye more,” Hugh whispered feathering a kiss across her lips.

“I loved you first,” she argued between kisses.

Hugh smiled against her lips.  “I said it first.”

“Yes, but I said it first in Engl…”

Catching her tightly in his embrace, Hugh cut off Claire’s playful arguing with a passionate kiss, stealing the words away until they faded into a soft moan of delight.  A thousand such arguments might await them in the
future but the number paled in comparison to the millions of kisses waiting to be taken.