KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

       www.kensingtonbooks.com

      For Brian

       For the encouragement, support, and timely distractions

      I would also like to acknowledge the many wonderful weavers from the world of basket-making who have helped to educate me about the intricacies of this complex and stunningly beautiful craft. Special thanks to Joanne Howard and Linda Hovermale for your time and enthusiasm and all of the hands-on instruction. Please excuse the artistic liberties I’ve taken, and know that any mistakes that were made are surely my own.

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Epilogue

      Chapter 1

      Graham MacLeod needed a bride.

      Not that he wanted one. But there were extenuating circumstances.

      “How about Bitsy?” Roan said, clicking away on his computer keyboard, resulting in a steady stream of photographs parading across his monitor.

      Graham did not want to know what site his friend was on, much less who any of those women were. He was hardly going to choose a mate from a website catalog.

      Roan barely paused on any of them more than a second or two, then kept clicking, while faces kept flashing.

      Graham turned and looked out the office window, wanting no part of any of it, truth be told. He should be out in the fields, running tests, checking the fresh growth. Not wasting time on some four-hundred-year-old wild goose chase.

      Roan took a short break, sighed, and plowed his fingers through his hair, then went back to tapping keys, a resolute expression on his normally genial face. “I mean, there is that unfortunate skin condition, and I’m no’ too certain she’ll be willin’ to leave the family homestead, carin’ for her great auntie’s cats as she does.” He paused briefly to shoot a wry smile in Graham’s direction. “Not to mention carting her over the threshold might take the wind out of your sails a wee bit.”

      Graham glanced over at him. “Bitsy is your cousin. Have a care.”

      “She’s routinely pulled pranks on us since we were wee lads,” Roan reminded him. “And no’ the gentle, affectionate kind, either, if you recall. I still bear the physical scars. Just last week she thought it would be the height of amusement to con Henrietta into addin’ a heavy starch to my laundry. The laundry in question was my boxers.”

      Shay snorted from where he sat at the other desk, across the room. “So you’re sayin’ your cousin gave you a stiffie?”

      “That’s no’ amusin’, Shay, no’ in the least,” Roan shot back.

      “And he wants to marry her off to me,” Graham said to Shay. “With friends like that—”

      “It’s a friend like me who’s going through all the trouble of helping you out in the first place, don’t forget,” Roan said. “I wouldn’t have suggested her, but she’s the only available McAuley lass of age left on the island.”

      Graham turned fully back around. “That canno’ be true.”

      Roan laughed. “Ye’ve less than four hundred of us to see after, perhaps twice as many sheep, but I’ll bet you know the sheep’s lineage better than your own. You spend far too much time out in the fields, running tests, measuring soil—”

      “Probably sending longing looks toward the sheep,” Shay interjected, but was studiously going over papers when Graham shot him a dark look.

      Roan laughed. “Perhaps I should send them a warning. You’ve been quite the hermit far too long.”

      “Veritable monk,” Shay added, distractedly. “It’s not natural.”

      “Yes, well, as you both are fully aware, given you face similar circumstances, the list of available companions on Kinloch is a rather short one past blood relatives of one sort or another.”

      “Aye, but we’re not tied to a clan law that forces us to marry one of them in order to carry on our work,” Roan said, not remotely put off by Graham’s deepening scowl.

      “Nor are you tied to only finding a suitable McAuley on this island,” Shay reminded him. “Which is why God made ferry boats. Perhaps you’ve heard of them, big seafaring vessels that can transport a man to the mainland—and heaven—in a matter of hours.”

      “He only goes to the mainland for science and farming symposiums,” Roan reminded Shay. “And a veritable smorgasbord of sweet, young flesh to be found at those functions, I’m sure.”

      “Actually, I think horn-rims on a woman are rather sexy,” Shay said, pausing in his reading as if to give that matter serious thought.

      “Only as you’re sliding them off her, so she canno’ see you so clearly,” Roan joked. “Blurry up your bits a little. ‘Things are larger than they actually appear, darlin’, and all that.”

      “He’s really no’ that amusing after all, is he?” Shay said to Graham in that flat, dry manner that was distinctly his, before going straight back into the stack of legal documents he was poring over.

      Graham gazed at his two closest friends. He and Roan McAuley had been best mates since they’d both been in nappies. Shay Callaghan had popped up during their seventh summer, when his mother dumped him on Kinloch to be raised by his father before leaving for parts unknown. It had come as a particular surprise to Callaghan senior, as he hadn’t known he was a father until that fateful day. The three youths had muskateered up pretty much immediately, and had been quite the reckonable force ever since.

      As young men, they’d left their tiny Hebridean island, heading to university on the mainland—Graham in Glasgow, Shay and Roan in Edinburgh—each in pursuit of very different dreams. But fate’s quirks had eventually brought all three back to their rustic, rural home, where they remained, each with a vested interest in bettering the life for their fellow clansmen and islanders.

      They were an odd mix. Shay, always the pragmatic, level-headed one, was the natural born mediator and solver of problems. He’d become a barrister, just like his father, though their relationship had always been a rocky one. Aiden Callaghan had been gone close to six years, an early heart attack taking him far before his time, leaving Shay, freshly minted degree in hand, as the most recent Callaghan man to handle all matters of legal import, for the Kinloch residents, as his forebears had done for centuries prior.

      Roan, on the other hand, was the one with the ready wit and easy charm. Inventor, dreamer, and electronics genius, once he’d found computers and the Internet, there had been no stopping him. While Shay kept the peace, Roan was often called upon to use his droll and easygoing