RACHEL

As Rachel MacLeod watched him go, she felt an overwhelming need to cry. Not so much for herself but for him. Especially when he turned back and she saw that slight little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth before their eyes met. Smiles were supposed to be the by-product of happiness but his held no joy. If she had to pick one word to described the look that encompassed his face it would had been melancholy. He didn't really want to go but some invisible force was compelling him to leave. Something wouldn't allow him to stay in Glenfinnan.

She didn't completely understand what had been going on for the past few weeks before and after his arrival. But now, in hindsight, she knew that all the events were somehow connected with him. Something to do with clan loyalty, legends and honor. She doubted there was no coincidence that the man who now walked solitarily down the lane possessed the same name as one mentioned in ambiguous Highland myth.

Who exactly was Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod? Her eyes told her that he was a man of about thirty-five years old who had come to the Highlands in search of his roots. However, her heart and her mind were convinced that he was the same person who had originally laid a silver Celtic bracelet in Debra Campbell's grave over four hundred years before.  As illogical as it seemed, she couldn't get the notion out of her brain. If a man could rise up from the dead to avenge his father, who was she to dispute whether he could still be alive four centuries later.

She knew the history. Duncan MacLeod had been banished, his birth-right of Clan leader revoked, and he'd been disowned and discredited by his own father. If her theories were right, no wonder this modern version felt he couldn't stay. To her, his behavior only further proved that he was indeed one in the same. If only she'd been able to convince him that Glenfinnan was not just the resting place for an ancient family claymore.  It was the place of his birth and would always be his home.

Rachel finally turned away from the window long after Duncan had disappeared from view. There was no more time for speculation. She had an inn and a tavern to run. Her four remaining guests would soon awaken and she hadn't even started the tea and coffee. For the first time since she'd returned from America, she didn't want to be where she was; in the Highlands, along the shores of Loch Shiel, in Glenfinnan. She wanted to be following a lone figure down a desolate lane to wherever.  And, with that realization, the pain increased even more because when it came down to the details, she didn't even know where he was going.

"Snap out of it, Rachel," she lectured herself outloud and forced herself into action. Entering the kitchen, she put a kettle of water on the stove to boil and measured out coffee into the automatic coffee maker. She sliced the fresh bread that had been delivered earlier and put the pieces into the oven to warm. She filled the tea ball with loose leaves and placed it in the teapot to await the water. Then, as she waited, she sank down into one of the chairs set up around the table and, against her will, her head filled with images of Duncan again.

She'd only met him only a few days before but she felt as though she'd known him all her life. And, if her theory held true, she had, through her studies of generations of the MacLeod family history. Was he the same child who had been accused of being a changeling in 1592? Was he the same rejected, adopted son of a clan leader who had lived and died before the English Civil War? How could that be possible?

Details were sketchy. Back then, almost everyone had been illiterate and most records had been kept by the church. The bulk of their history had been passed down solely by word of mouth, a great spawning ground for the birth of legends. And the Clan MacLeod certainly had its share of legends; Connor and Duncan, both clansmen who had been killed in battle; Kanwulf, the Viking destroyer who had a fatal connection with Glenfinnan, all of them men who had risen from the dead to live again.  But was the tall, dark-haired man who possessed the bearing of a true warrior the same man who had walked these lands hundreds of years ago?

The kettle's incessant whistle broke into Rachel's reverie.  Stop it. All's you're doing is going round in circles asking unanswerable questions.  She filled the teapot, checked the bread slices then set the table for her guests. He's gone and you'll never see or hear from him again so quit brooding.

The morning routine returned to normal. After her guest were attended to, Rachel cleaned the tavern. Table tops were wiped off and mugs and glasses were washed and put away. The guest rooms were next. There were linens to change and dusting and vacuuming to do. With only six guest rooms, she'd always managed to complete the housekeeping herself before opening the tavern at noon. But this day, with her attention drifting everywhere else but where it belonged, she'd barely finished five rooms before it was time to open the tavern.

As she prepared for the day's business her mind was on the only room she  hadn't gotten to, Duncan's. Had he left something, something so important that she'd be given an excuse to contact him? Would the bed where he'd slept still carry that clean, soapy and woodsy scent of him?  Would the pillow where he'd laid his head still be imprinted with his outline?

"...for the third time, if you could tear yerself away from yer dreams, girl, I'd like a pint."

Rachel shook her head and when her vision cleared she was staring into the rheumy gray eyes of Kenneth MacFadden. Over seventy-five years old and a widower for fifteen, ever since she'd purchased the inn he'd always been her first customer of the day. He'd plop himself at a table at twelve o'clock sharp Monday through Saturday and wouldn't budge from it until six in the evening when he'd walk home to an empty house and eat the dinner his married daughter had prepared and left for him.

"Sorry, Kenneth," Rachel apologized as she pulled the Guinness tap. The mug slowly filled with dark stout.

Duncan had preferred ale.

This is ridiculous. Stop thinking about him.  She placed the filled mug on the bar top and gave the old man a warm smile. "There you go, dear."

"What were you daydreaming' 'bout, Rach?"

"Nothing."

"That young man who jes left?"

Rachel nervously wiped her clammy hands on a towel then fussed with a row of mugs that were already perfectly line up. "Never you mind, Kenneth."

The old man lifted the mug to his mouth with a shaky hand then licked the foam off his lips before he spoke again. "Fine enough looking fellow, I reckon, if only he'd cut his hair. What grown man in his right mind would walk around with a ponytail in this day and age? Maybe a hundred years ago but not now."

"It seems to suit him," she replied, remembering the first time she'd seen him and how she hadn't even noticed his long hair. She hadn't noticed anything about him other than the fact that there was an intruder standing in the family plot. It wasn't until much later that she'd become aware of him as a man. And when she did, it had been his shoulders she'd noticed first.

Shoulders. He had the widest set of shoulders she'd ever had the pleasure of seeing. When she'd returned from Debra Campbell's grave and had found him sitting at the table with his friend, that white sweater had accentuated every masculine feature he possessed. It had contrasted against the darkness of his cheeks with their heavy five o'clock shadow.  It had stretched across his broad chest and the ribbing at the bottom had clung to his narrow hips. And the sleeves had led her eyes to his hands.  Big, strong, hands that had been wrapped around the pint of ale. Broad across the callused palm with long, blunt-ended fingers that stopped at short clipped nails. Hands so big that they could almost span her entire waist. And when he'd stood up to respond to Father Laird's summons, she'd become aware of his size, especially when he'd loomed over her on his way out. Yet she still hadn't paid much attention to his hair. Not until he'd walked out and she'd noticed the silver, triangular clip with its Celtic design, a beacon of light against the vast darkness, holding it back.

"Ach. There's no accounting for taste," Kenneth piped. "Good thing he's gone, though. Haven't seen you with stars in your eyes before. T'ain't good for business."

Suddenly, there was a commotion at the front door. Their clothes dripping from the morning mist, Robert and Collin MacLeod, brothers and distant cousins of Rachel's, came bursting through, their faces locked in expressions of shock and indignation. They headed straight toward her.

"What's the matter?" Rachel asked, fear lacing her tone.

"The grave robbers struck again last night," Robert cried. "This time they hit the family plot. The old MacLeod grave was dug up."

Temper immediately flaring, a furious Rachel threw the towel down on the counter and spat, "Damn them to hell." She angrily flipped the counter open to get through and grabbed her coat on the way out. "This has got to stop!" she yelled.

The brothers, both squat and short-limbed, had trouble keeping up with her quick pace as they left the tavern and headed toward her car.

"Something spooked the livestock last night and they jumped the fence," Collin explained between huffs the exertion exacted on his overweight frame. "I was missing twenty head this morning so I went out looking for them. I followed the tracks and they led to the plot. I almost missed it. Whoever got in there took what they wanted then covered it up again.  The only reason I noticed that it had been hit was the freshly turned soil."

"This had got to stop," Rachel repeated. She flung open the driver's door of her car, jumped inside, switched on the ignition and started to pull away before the brothers were completely settled. The forward motion flung them into their seats.

There was no conversation as the car sped up the lane leading to the cemetery. Slamming on the brakes at the dead-end, Rachel was out the door and on her way up the hill before Robert and Collin could even get a grip on the door handles.

As Rachel stared down at the violation, the tears of frustration and anger gave way to hope spiced with a little guilt. Bits of overturned green vegetation peeking through the newly exposed soil on Ian MacLeod's grave looked a little too familiar to be anything other than a repeat of the Debra Campbell episode. What had Duncan MacLeod placed in what was most likely his father's grave the night before?

The moment the brothers arrived with shovels in hand and immediately started digging up the plot, she knew she should stop them. With absolute certainty, she knew the body of their ancestor hadn't been disturbed but her curiosity overrode her common sense and blind-sided her respect for the dead. Without clueing them in to her speculations, she stood by silently and watched their progress.

When they'd dug down three feet Robert's shovel clanked against something. Rachel jumped down into the hole, wormed her fingers through the damp dirt and found what felt like a stick. She pulled out an old, hand-forged ax with a broken shaft. Upon closer inspection, she could see the break was fresh and dirt clung to the edge of the blade as though it had been wet when it had been buried. She touched a finger to one of clots and it came away with what look suspiciously like blood.  Rachel had her confirmation. There was no way this instrument had been buried for several hundred years. It was Debra Campbell's grave all over again. Not taking, replacing.

Duncan had said "it's over" when she'd caught him returning the claymore to its display. What was over? What had happened the night before to scare the sheep? What would the results be if she sent the sword to Edinburgh for testing? Questions again. So many questions, they made Rachel's head spin.

She replaced the ax without a word and motioned to Robert and Collin.  Silently, they re-filled the hole. They didn't speak on the short drive back to the tavern.

Only as they started parting company in the parking lot did Collin pause.  He took hold of her arm, turned her to face him and gave her a beseeching look. "I thought I saw lightning in the wee hours last night but t'weren't a cloud in the sky," he said in a tone of voice that subliminally requested validation that he wasn't going crazy. "What do you suppose caused it?"

An image of concentric circles rippling away from the center of agitated water formed in Rachel's mind. But instead of a rock being the cause, these rippling events seemed to flow away from a ganglion that was Duncan. "Probably just an optical illusion, Collin," she rationalized offhandedly, although in her heart she knew better.

"I heard from the MacFarley sisters that Father Laird is no where to be found this morning," Robert mentioned. "For the first time in months he wasn't there waiting for them when they went to mass."

Rachel's eyes scanned the lane leading away from Glenfinnan for the second time that day. Instantly, she was overcome by an instinctive feeling that "it's over" was directly connected with the blond-haired father. Thinking back, there had been a strange, wild and worried look to his eye when he'd requested a meeting with Duncan. "He's gone and won't be back," she announced portentously.

Then, as she entered the tavern and felt the warmth and security of her small village envelop her, she added to herself, And we've Duncan MacLeod to thank for that.