Page 22 of A Scot on the Rocks

“Aye.” His friend looked at him as if Jamie were daft.

“Now taste the water.”

With a sigh that suggested the world had asked too much of him, Ewan dipped his hand into the burn and drank, then drank again.

“There’s a taste after, a bit like metal.”

Jamie smiled. “Aye.”

Ewan looked at the water again. “So you were right.” He stood and wiped his hand on his plaid then rubbed his scarred knee. “It’s going to rain again tonight.”

“Then we wait until the water clears.”

“That could cost us a run.”

Jamie looked back toward the rushing burn. “It could cost us more if we make three bad ones.”

For a few moments neither man spoke.

Alasdair would hate the answer because waiting cost time and winter made every lost run matter. But wasting scarce barley on whisky they already knew was wrong would cost more.

They mounted and rode toward the village. By then the mist had thinned, and the glen was beginning to brighten in scattered patches where weak sunlight reached the wet hills. Smoke drifted from chimneys, children shouted, and a woman stood outside a cottage shaking crumbs from a cloth.

Jamie knew every house they passed, knew who had enough peat stacked for winter and who would need help cutting more. He knew which roof had leaked during the storm, which ewe had gone lame, whose son had a fever, and which old woman would feed him if he made the mistake of lingering within sight of her doorway.

To a stranger, the glen might have looked poor with its low cottages, patched stone, and roofs repaired more often than replaced. But to him, it looked like home. Morag. Robbie. Old Iseabail, who believed every man under forty was starving. Donald Fraser, who could repair almost anything except the cart wheel he’d been complaining about for six months.

Catrìona MacRae, who at that exact moment came tearing out of her grandmother’s cottage with her dark hair half loose and enough purpose in her little body to make Bess lift her head.

“Jamie Campbell!”

He reined in as Ewan stopped beside him, and before the child could say another word, Jamie reached inside his coat and produced a twist of paper as Catrìona stopped in the road, hands on her little hips.

“Three,” Jamie said.

She approached cautiously, eyes on the paper.

“As promised.”

Catrìona opened the paper and counted each sweet before looking up at him. “You remembered.” She nodded to herself “One is for Robbie. And one is for tomorrow.”

Jamie frowned. “That leaves ye only one for today.”

“Aye.”

“A terrible hardship.”

Catrìona considered that for a moment before tucking the sweets carefully into her pocket. Then she looked him over from boots to hair.

Ewan coughed and tried not to smile.

“What?” Though he should have known better than to ask.

“You’re too dirty to be a ghost.”

Jamie glanced down at his clothes. “I’ve been working.”

“Ghosts are white and ye can see through them.”