The parking lot was already half-full, and couples and families were making their way up the Hemmertex drive from town, pulling their kids in wagons decorated with Scottish flags. The locals wore all kinds of tartans in all sorts of manners: full kilts, T-shirts declaring their clans, hats. Jen even saw a scarf, though it was pushing eighty degrees.
She had enhanced the long entrance from Route 6 by draping flags along the Highland cattle fence. The hairy beasts had eyed her and she’d tried to talk to them as she did it, assuring them the things would be gone in twenty-four hours and they could have their unobstructed view back. But they still didn’t look too pleased over having so many people this close to their domain. Loughlin, the old farmer and landowner, had stood in the center of his field with his border collies, watching her the whole time in that hard, wordless way, looking like he shared his cattle’s feelings.
None of them were used to crowds, after all.
From inside the giant music tent streamed the first low, sexy draws of Chris’s fiddle. The rest of his band had yet to show up for sound check, but he’d arrived early and was going through his own practice with an admirable enthusiasm. His hair brushed and pulled back in a low, loose ponytail, he made the kind of music that no recording could capture. She guessed he’d be getting his pick of the girls that night.
A short bus rattled its way up the drive and into the staging area, the product of Jen’s marketing the bus service in Westbury last week. Jen held her breath, watching to see how many people would get off. The tinted windows showed nothing. The doors opened. An older couple staggered to the ground, then no one else. Crap.
Wait. Another couple—this one in their midforties—got off, then another. The four were laughing together, looking around, and then the man with salt-and-pepper hair pointed at the warm, white tent decorated with the Amber Lounge logo. They’d come for Shea and they’d found her. Perfect.
More and more people streamed off the Westbury bus. The beautiful thing had been full. Some trailed the first four to the Amber tent, some families wandered toward the Highland dance exhibition set up in the Hemmertex amphitheater. Others trickled off toward the tug-of-war competition already underway.
Raised voices shot out from the music tent and Jen hurried over, in tune with the sound of panic and impending event trouble. Three more guys had joined Chris on stage, one shouldering a guitar, another with a set of bagpipes under his arm, and the last lazily twirling a drumstick. Chris was laying into the drummer, and as Jen drew closer, she noticed that the drummer didn’t give a shit as he rolled his head in every direction but at the guy yelling at him.
She walked right up to them and tapped the stage with authority, silencing the fight. “Everything okay, guys?”
The drummer swung his head toward her, his eyes bloodshot, his body swaying. Chris stepped between her and the drummer and pushed a wan smile onto his face. “Everything’s great, Jen. We’re still on at nine, right?”
She laid a long, long stare on the drummer. “You better be. Pay depends on it.”
Chris picked up his fiddle and said, “No worries. No worries at all.” But as she turned away, she heard Chris hiss, “For fuck’s sake, Scotty. Get it together.”
As she exited the music tent, a chorus of sound erupted from the tug-of-war competition. She’d gotten the idea to organize one after looking at Mr. MacDougall’s scrapbooks. Though other American Highland games had adopted the concept, she really wanted to make it into an event, a true competition with the prize of some pretty serious Scotch.
She’d pounded the pavement to recruit local businesses to field tugging teams, and when the response had been less than expected, she’d appealed to the rugby teams who would be competing in the tournament tomorrow. Another level of competition seemed to entice the baser instincts of the bruiser males who liked to shove each other around a field, and they’d jumped at the chance.
From what she heard, her idea was delivering.
An enthusiastic crowd had gathered in a long line down the rope. They cheered their friends or husbands or coworkers. Jen didn’t care, as long as they were cheering. As she drew closer she could glimpse the teams through spaces in the crowd. They synchronized their grips and tugs, planted their boots hard into the dirt, and leaned back, almost horizontal to the ground. Their timed shouts and grunts rose and rose as one team made their move, giving the rope all they had, making their opponents fight for it. Finally the judge’s whistle blew, and one half of the crowd whooped. The victors of this round, wearing purple rugby jerseys, jumped up, red-faced and beaming, clapping each other on their backs.
Jen gave herself an inward nod of approval and moved on.
On the other side of the heritage tent, where the historical society had set up information about Scottish genealogy and displayed a fine assortment of tartans, spread the heavy athletic field. Leith was over there with Duncan, looking things over for tomorrow’s competition.
Leith had told everyone in Gleann that he’d decided to stay for the games as his final good-bye. But privately, he’d told her: “I’m staying for Da. And for you.”
He wasn’t throwing but he was acting as the announcer, describing each event as it came up, highlighting each competitor, and calling scores and placement. The crowd was going to love him.
“Aunt Jen!”
The little voice made Jen smile before she even turned. Ainsley was weaving through the dispersing tug-of-war watchers. “Hey, Tartan McGee.” Jen went to touch Ainsley’s plaid headband, but the girl ducked away and fluffed her hair. “Whose clan is that?”
Jen remembered that you didn’t just choose a random tartan to wear when living in Gleann. Oh no. You may as well declare war for a side when you picked what colors and pattern to wear.
“T’s family. Melissa is a Campbell.”
“Oh.” Jen struggled not to cringe, choosing to smile instead. “Where’s your mom?”
“She said to come stand by you until I ran into T and Lacey. They said they’d watch the next round of tug-of-war with me, but I can’t find them.”
Of course they did. Teenage girls made all sorts of promises to tweens, who would hold their word as that of God and then be devastated when those words proved false. And what the hell was Aimee doing that she couldn’t be with Ainsley tonight of all nights, when she’d been the one to beg Jen to come in the first place?
“You want to come and watch me order around a bunch of men?” Jen asked Ainsley. “Maybe you’ll run into the older girls later.”
Ainsley’s nose crinkled, then she caught herself. “But I want to sit with T.”
“Okay.” Jen laughed. “Can’t help feeling a bit rejected, but okay.”
Suddenly Ainsley’s whole face brightened and she thrust out a finger. “There they are!”
Jen turned. The two girls were ambling toward the tug-of-war field. The younger one, Lacey, was chewing gum and thumbing away on a phone. T had put blue streaks in her hair. Ainsley was touching her own hair, as though contemplating the color herself.
Ainsley called out to the girls just as a piper blasted a warm-up chord near the music tent. Ainsley called again. The girls didn’t hear. Or didn’t want to hear.
Jen turned to Ainsley. Oh, boy. Here comes the disappointment, the disillusionment. She prepared for the distraction, ready to sweep Ainsley off toward the tug-of-war. Damn Aimee for—
T swiveled then, seeing Ainsley. She swatted her sister, who slid the phone into a pocket. Shit, they were actually going to look right at Ainsley then walk the other way . . . no. Wait. They started to come over.