Donald gazed at his daughter. Her eyes flickered and filled with tears.
For more than two-dozen years he had walked his ship’s deck with the stars shining overhead, wondering what kind of woman his wee lassie would have grown up to be. Now, gazing at her, he knew. “Ye are as beautiful as yer mother. I loved her so, and I love you.”
MY FATHER?
Kit had thought she’d find his broken, bloodied body at South Pass. Then Braham told her she’d find him in San Francisco. Then she had gone home and given up all hope of ever knowing his name. He had been only a picture she had sought to identify, a man with whom she had no emotional attachment, a man who had never been part of her life, a man she would probably never grow to love. Now he stood a breath away, and she saw the depth of the pain in his eyes, smelled the sea in his hair, heard his humble request for forgiveness, and felt his physical presence as viscerally powerful as his portrait.
He was a handsome man standing proud in his clan’s yellow and black kilt.
Tears streamed down her face, and her heart reached out to him.
This man was her father—Donald Shelly McCabe. And she loved him, because she was born to do just that.
She kissed his cheek. “You are indeed the topping to an extraordinary day.” She reached for Cullen’s hand. “This is my husband, Cullen Montgomery. I married the man to whom I was promised as a child. And I want you to forget everything Braham said about him and form your own opinion.”
Braham held up his hands in surrender. “I didn’t tell him everything, Cul.”
Cullen glared at Braham. “He’s my father-in-law, for God’s sake.”
Sean laughed.
Cullen shook Donald’s hand. “Tis a pleasure to meet ye, sir. I’m sorry I didn’t get the opportunity to ask ye for yer daughter’s hand in marriage. I hope ye will forgive me.”
Donald looked very stern, and then he smiled. “I’ve been forgiven, son. How could I ever withhold forgiveness from anyone?”
Joe entered the room carrying a violin and handed it to Sean, who settled the instrument under his chin and began to play. Kit recognized the Shaker hymn
Simple Gifts
and with an encouraging nod from Sean, she sang.
'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.
Chapter Fifty
A LIGHT KNOCK on Kit’s bedroom door woke her before dawn, groggy and confused. Winter’s moon filtered through the naked oak outside her window, and its skeletal branches splashed eerie shadows onto her bedroom walls. The wind moaned about the mansion, worrying a shutter that rattled against the brick.
Another tap, this time louder.
She snuggled against the heat of Cullen’s body, ignoring the intrusion into her warm cocoon filled with the slow, melodic beat of his heart.
The tap became a heavy knock.
“Who’s there?” she asked in a croaking voice.
“Father’s taken a turn. Hurry.” Sean sounded unusually abrupt.
Fully awake now, a cold chill washed over her, and she rolled from Cullen’s embrace.
“What’s the matter, lass?”
“Is today the twenty-fifth?” She eased her pregnant body out of bed.
“Yes.” Cullen swept to his feet and helped her with her robe, planting a soft kiss on her neck.
She looped the fringed belt, tying it snuggly above the swell of her child. “If I had remembered, I would have prepared.”
He stood at her back and folded his arms around her, pulling her into him. “Death isn’t something ye can prepare for in order to minimize the pain.”
“I would’ve liked to have known.”
“Nae, it would have worried ye.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder, and he kissed the sensitive spot below her ear. She shivered as a tingle raced through her. “I couldn’t do this without you.”
“You don’t have to do anything alone ever again.”
She smiled. “I don’t think you can birth this baby.”
“Well, maybe not, but I’ll be there with ye. Just like the daddies do in yer time.”
“
This
is my time now.”
“I’m just teasing ye, lass. Go on now and see to ye grandfather. I’ll dress and join ye in his room.”
She took a deep breath, slung open the bedroom door, and waddled down the hallway.
The door to Thomas’s room stood ajar. The smell of incontinence permeated the air. A smell that reminded her of her granny’s last few days.
Donald huddled next to the bed. His hair stood disheveled from running his fingers through its thick waves so many times. He rose when he saw her, kissed her cheek, and helped her to his chair. “He’s been asking for you.”
Kit leaned over the bed. Despite a roaring fire, a chill pervaded the room. Thomas’s thrashing about had crumpled the bedcovers. “I’m here Granddaddy.” She straightened his blanket, then threaded her fingers with his. The blue veins had stopped pumping blood through his wrinkled, arthritic hands, leaving them curled and cold. She tried to straighten them, but the frozen joints refused to move. Damn the infirmity, and damn the cancer.
Time had passed much too fast.
Not that long ago, Elliott had let her loose to ride her palomino alone, but she’d ridden farther than the boundaries he had set. She couldn’t resist trotting the pony to the cemetery. That corner of the farm had always fascinated her. A two-hundred-year-old sycamore stood at the edge of Cemetery Hill’s wrought-iron fence. Thomas Sean MacKlenna’s granite monolith rose from the middle of the plot like a sentinel from the mist. She knew his epitaph by heart.
THOMAS SEAN MACKLENNA II
He saw what others did not.
He lived what others could not.
He dreamed what others dared not.
JANUARY 25, 1770—JANUARY 25, 1853
From that day on, she rode to the cemetery, circled the fence, then continued her morning ride. And that was where the ghost scared her off Stormy the day she found her father’s letter, and that’s where she saw the ghost for the last time.
“Sing.” Thomas’s whisper pulled her from her memories. His eyes held a glassy, fixed stare, and his lips wore a pasty gray. His jaw opened, and he breathed rapidly through his mouth.
Her baby kicked, and she squirmed in the chair. Her child grew stronger every day in her womb’s protection, while her grandfather’s life ebbed. The circle of life could not be broken, she understood that, but understanding and accepting were polar opposites.
Oh, God, I’m so tired of people dying.
Tears flowed down Kit’s cheeks. Cullen leaned over her shoulder and handed her his handkerchief. She wiped her eyes and rubbed her thumb over the monogrammed M’s smooth stitching. Sing? Yes, she would sing him into heaven, just as Sarah and John had done with baby Gabriel. She took a breath and in her cool, intimate contralto voice began to sing. “
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And auld lang syne!”
Sean, Donald, and Cullen stood at the end of the bed and picked up the chorus. The voices of three Scottish tenors resounded through the master suite. Even though no bagpipes played, she heard the Caledonian Pipes & Drums in her mind.
“For auld lang syne, my jo, for auld lang syne, We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.”
Braham and Henry slipped quietly into the bedroom and gathered behind Kit. Braham squeezed her shoulder and joined in the singing. While they sang their final goodbye, Thomas took his last breath.
Kit bowed her head and wept for the man she’d respected all of her life, but not until she met him, did she come to love him, too. His last breath was not the loudest sound she’d ever heard, but a gentle rush of air exhaled from a life well lived.
They all remained by his side, lost in their own thoughts and prayers.
“I didn’t have enough time with him.” Kit caressed his cold hand. The heat of life drifted away like the last wisps of smoke from a dying fire.
“I’m not sure any of us did. He was a remarkable man, and I was proud to call him…to call him, Father.” Sean’s words spilled out through a deep, racking sob.
“He forgave me,” Donald said. “How can a man’s heart be that big?” He buried his face in his hands and wept.
“Because he was once forgiven, and he never forgot the power of grace,” Sean said.
Cullen knelt beside Kit and laid his head against her belly. “Thank ye, for dreaming me here, lass.” He sighed heavily and tears spilled from his eyes, dampening her robe.
Sukey and Joe entered the room. “We’ll take care of Mister Thomas,” Joe said.
“Thank you, Joe,” Sean said. “You let us know when you’re done.” The family shuffled out of the room leaving the servants to wash and dress the old man’s body. “I’m going for a walk.” Sean addressed Cullen and Donald. “If you want to go with me, we’ll look about the farm for a burial site.”
“I’d rather stay here and do what I can to get him ready,” Donald said.
Cullen fetched a deep breath and then another, letting each out slowly. “Give me a few minutes.” He and Kit held hands and returned to her bedroom. She climbed into bed, and he spooned with her, while her body heaved with grief.
She fell asleep dreaming of stallions racing across rolling hills of frost-tipped Kentucky bluegrass toward a black granite monolith.
THE MACKLENNA’S COVERED the furniture and paintings with black shrouds and held a wake that evening. Sean told Kit that his father had requested the shrouds remain until the birth of Kit’s baby.
They buried Thomas the next morning.
The day was unusually warm for January. The bright sun sprinkled the snow-covered ground with what looked like glistening pieces of Swarovski crystals. The young sycamore’s naked branches swayed in the easy wind. Reverend Breckinridge from First Presbyterian Church in Lexington delivered the eulogy to the small family gathering.
Kit had cried most of the night, and now her eyes were scratchy and strained. A pair of sunglasses would be nice. She’d worn them a year ago when she buried her parents. The pain from losing them was no longer raw. The rawness had been replaced with bittersweet memories.
A wrought-iron fence surrounded the cemetery then. Neither the fence nor the monolith existed yet. The gravesite was exactly where it should be though, right smack in the middle of what would become known as Cemetery Hill.
The ghost of MacKlenna Farm had performed his final duty.
Chapter Fifty-One
CULLEN LACED HIS fingers with Kit’s as she waddled down the stairs. She was a week overdue, and while she didn’t complain, he knew pregnancy had aggravated her prior injuries, especially her back. She tossed around the bed at night unable to find a comfortable position. He’d gathered every pillow in the house, stuffing them under her head, shoulders, arms, knees, and feet to give her some relief. Even now, watching her take tentative steps down the stairs, while balancing what seemed like an enormous pumpkin on her belly, his heart ached for her.
Rarely, did he leave her side. When he did, it was to retrieve a book, fetch a cup of tea, or conjure up some delectable treat guaranteed to put a smile on her face. She was especially fond of molasses cookies, and he made sure Sukey kept the jar full for her midnight sorties to the kitchen. His bride was his delectable treat, and he fell in love with Kit anew each morning when he woke and felt her warm breath beside him. Their painful separation of months earlier was still a constant reminder of the fragility of life. And because of that, he carried the ruby brooch in his pocket, keeping the magic stone close by. If Kit needed medical care beyond what a midwife could provide, he was prepared to send her back to her modern hospital. He often wondered if living in a time of medical and technological advances would be more enlightening, but he always circled back to his own reality. He lived when he lived. Not in the past, and not in the future.
“I can’t find my toes. Someone snuck in our room, stole my feet, and left these
.”
She lifted her foot from beneath her dressing gown. “There’re bigger than a Clydesdale’s.”
“Yer not fat, yer voluptuous.”
“I didn’t say I was fat. I said my feet were.”
Pure joy dwelled within, but he stifled his laugh. Kit was sensitive about her size, and in fact, cried to the point of exhaustion the previous night, believing she no longer aroused him. He reassured her, crooning that he only thought of making love to her once a day, but the thought lasted twenty-four hours. He found his own singing amusing, but for some reason it made her weep even louder. He’d given up trying to find logic in her actions and reactions. Instead, he nodded and smiled and asked how he could make her more comfortable.
“Don’t laugh at me.”
Cullen raised his hand, surrendering. “I’m not, lass.”
“Well, tell that to your body because it’s shaking like Jell-O.” He was unfamiliar with that word. He would add it to his growing list of questions. When she couldn’t sleep, she kept him awake by answering them.
They reached the bottom landing, and she gingerly stepped to the floor. He pulled her wrist to his lips, touching his tongue to her pulse, her fingertips pink as seashells. “I love you, regardless of your size.”
She rolled her bottom lip downwards into a pout. Too enticing to ignore, he kissed her, nibbling on her pouty mouth.
“You’re not supposed to tell me I’m big. You’re
supposed
to tell me you’ve never seen me more beautiful.”
“Aye, ye are a bonnie lass.” He gave her a cheeky smile, eliciting a little slip of a laugh from her.
Donald emerged from the library leafing through a book on horse breeding. He leaned over and kissed his daughter’s cheek. “I think you’re the most gorgeous woman in the world.”