Choosing the Highlander

Choosing the Highlander
 

By Jessi Gage

Chapter 1

Scottish Highlands, 1981
 

Connie followed her twin sister around a chunk of rock in the hillside. Above them, the monoliths forked up into the pre-dawn sky, like prongs on the setting of a solitaire ring.

An unbidden image from two nights ago flashed in her memory: a diamond, round in cut and utterly flawless. Its two carats of tasteful brilliance winked at her from a bed of ivory satin, mocking her with the offer of all she had hoped and planned for but that she could not bring herself to accept.

It was the fault of the couple at the next table, the man who had gazed at his date with such fondness Connie’s breath had stuck in her throat, the woman whose cheeks flushed every time her companion brushed his knuckles over her temple or kissed the back of her hand. The meal on their table had been incidental. Love had been the main course. Adoration had glowed around them like a halo, invisible yet impossible to miss.

I want that.

The uncharacteristic thought had sent her into an emotional tailspin. Love had not been on her list of considerations when selecting a potential mate. Her parents didn’t have love, but they had everything else and they had given Connie and her sister a childhood filled with privilege and opportunity.

Give her a man who worked hard and had a head for business, like her father, a man who held the same core beliefs as she, desired the same lifestyle as she. Above all, she desired a man who would respect her choices and support her goals.

Dependability. Compatibility. Respect. Her parents had taught her these were the foundations of a solid relationship, not the shifting emotional sands of love and affection. Those things were for shortsighted fools.

Oblivious to the couple behind him, Milt had gotten down on one knee after the dessert course. His proposal flowed effortlessly as ice wine. Of course the words came easily to him. The Chicago District Attorney’s office paid him top dollar to retain him as Assistant DA. Milt had many talents, producing convincing arguments foremost among them.

Connie had barely heard the proposal. Her eyes kept wandering to the loving couple.

“Wow. This place is gorgeous!” Leslie’s wonder yanked Connie back to the present.

Her twin put on a burst of speed as they neared the top of the hill. Her black dress and storm-cloud gray shawl made her look like a haunting spirit as she disappeared around another bend in the trail full of switchbacks.

Connie followed, glad to put Milt’s proposal out of mind.

She’d chosen sturdy sandals for the walk but wished she’d slipped into the linen slacks she’d worn on the plane yesterday. Despite their need for a good pressing, they would have offered more protection against the prickly shrubbery than her knee-length denim skirt. By the light of day, her lower legs were bound to look sunburned for all the scratches she’d endured.

Oh well. What was a little pain when Leslie was having the time of her life? It wasn’t every day Connie got to enjoy her twin, who spent her days—and her trust fund—traveling to whichever remote region struck her fancy while Connie built her career in the city.

After the proposal, when the urge to flee Chicago—and Milt—had struck, Connie grabbed the postcard Leslie had sent from her latest destination and phoned the hostel where she was staying.

“Of
course
, I’d love to see you, Con!” her sister had crooned over the crackly connection. “Why don’t you fly out to Scotland? If you leave now, you can make it in time for the summer solstice sunrise. Doesn’t it sound completely romantic? Watching the earliest sunrise of the year from an ancient Druid site? Oh, come on, Con. Come with me. It will be so much fun!”

Getting up before dawn to hike a scrubby hill and watch the sunrise after an international flight was the farthest thing Connie could think of from fun. But it sounded preferable to hiding out in her condo and dodging Milt’s calls, so she’d hopped on a plane and met her sister in Inverness yesterday evening. A few hours of sleep and a change of clothes later, and here they were, at Druids Temple, with Inverness—and breakfast—a four-mile bike ride toward the sea.

Cresting the top of the hill, she found Leslie spinning in a circle in the middle of the stone formation. Her sister had her arms spread wide and her face upturned to the velvet-blue sky, which had rolled up its carpet of stars in preparation for the coming day. It was as if she was dancing with the Earth, itself.

For all Connie knew, that might be exactly what she was doing. Wicca was Leslie’s new passion. Earth and elements were part of the discipline, or so she had gathered from Leslie’s excited chatter on the taxi ride from the airport.

Connie had to smile at her sister’s exuberance. And she had to admit that the place was, in fact, gorgeous, even if the hour was ungodly.

The circle of standing stones rose up around them like a ring of witnesses to history. How many centuries had these stones presided over the acres of rolling meadowland below? How many generations of shepherds had guided their goats and sheep under the watchful gaze of these sentinels? How many sunrises, like the one burgeoning below the rosy-orange horizon, had turned these rocks into dynamic time-pieces?

Leslie stopped spinning and faced Connie with a breathtaking smile. Her sister might color her auburn hair black and cover her slender body in dark Goth-style clothes, but she’d never been able to pull off the dispassionate air of her cohort. Which was why Connie suspected the Wicca phase wouldn’t last long. Just like the bohemian musician phase, the backpacking through Peru phase, and the sexual adventures in Amsterdam phase that Connie would have preferred never to have heard about.

Whoever Leslie would be tomorrow, Connie was thankful to be with her today. Leslie stretched out her hand, and Connie went to her, taking it. “I’m glad I let you talk me into this.”

“Me too.” Leslie lowered herself to sit with her legs crossed in the center of the stone circle, still holding Connie’s hand.

She had no choice but to kneel at Leslie’s side, even though it would have been more dignified to sit on the fallen log nearby. At least no one was around to see her flash the countryside before she managed to arrange her skirt. Covered, if not exactly comfortable, she settled against her sister and tried to feel as connected to the beauty all around them as Leslie seemed.

“I’ve missed you, sis,” Leslie said, lacing their fingers together.

No one else held her hand like this. Not even Milt. But she and Leslie had clasped hands like this since childhood. There was a sweet security in it, and it underscored the unique affection they had for each other.

“I’ve missed you too,” she told her twin, meaning it more than she could convey with words. They’d been apart too long. Connie had been working so hard at managing her current project that she’d neglected to connect with Leslie, even by phone, in more than a month.

Leslie’s smile turned serious. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining, but, um, I kind of doubt you came all this way just to watch the sunrise with me. What’s with the impromptu vacation? Is it Milt? Did you two break up?” Her voice lifted with hope at the end, evidence of Leslie’s disapproval of Milt.

Connie gave her a stern look. Then she slumped and rested her head on her sister’s shoulder. “No. Worse,” she admitted. “He proposed.”

Leslie held herself too still. Then she nudged Connie’s head off her shoulder. “Who are you, and what have you done with my sister?” Her forehead creased in confusion. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Milt was your anti-knight-in-shining-armor. He was your ticket to—shoot, what is it you want instead of happiness? Satisfaction, right? Milt was your ticket to the satisfying life you had all engineered to perfection.” She rotated her hands like she was solving a Rubik’s Cube.

“Don’t knock, Engineering,” she chided. It was an old argument between them. Leslie was the artsy type and couldn’t understand why Connie would want to work at all when they each had a cushy trust fund at their disposal, let alone do math all day. Connie couldn’t understand how Leslie could be content to live off their parents’ money and never make any of her own, how she could flit from place to place calling no address home, how she could go through life without a solid plan.

“I’m not knocking engineering. I’m knocking Milt. Or maybe I’m knocking your whole satisfaction plan.” Leslie jostled her with an elbow, taking the edge of the criticism. “I take it you didn’t say yes, or you would be celebrating with Milt, not here with me.”

“I didn’t say yes,” Connie confirmed. “I told him I would think about it.”

She winced at her cowardice. After witnessing the love flowing between the man and woman at the neighboring table, her answer could only be no. But a no to Milt was a red slash in permanent ink across the plan she had devoted the last few years of her life bringing to fruition.

“Think about it?” Leslie said. “Really? Oh, Con. Tell me you’re going to say no.”

She stared at the brightening horizon. “I should have said no already.” She couldn’t help noticing Leslie had gone carefully quiet. It was probably taking all her willpower not to gloat. “Go ahead,” she sighed. “I believe the saying goes, ‘I told you so.’”

“I would never say that. Especially when you look so miserable.” Leslie’s compassion brought Connie’s attention to her radiant face. Everyone told them they looked just the same, but to Connie, her sister would always be the pretty one. It was more than just her hazel eyes, much more expressive than Connie’s, and her easy smile. It was who she was. Caring, sweet, free-spirited Leslie. Sometimes, though she would never admit it, Connie wished she were more like her sister, able to embrace the joy of life without analyzing everything to death.

“Oh, Con.” Leslie wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I know you don’t think you want happiness and love and all that ‘emotional nonsense.’ But I’ve always wanted those things for you. You deserve so much more than a life planned out in boring detail.” She sat up suddenly and clapped her hands. “Oh! Oh, this is perfect!”

Just like Leslie to go from serious to excited in a heartbeat.

“What’s perfect?”

Her twin bounced where she sat, gripping both of Connie’s hands like when they were children and used to spin in circles until they both fell on the grass, dizzy and giggling. “You know how Daddy always says, ‘Fate favors the intrepid?’”

“Yeah…” Connie drew out the word. What was Leslie getting at?

“Well, I met a shopkeeper yesterday who asked me what I would wish for on the solstice.
‘The sunrise is a magical time, mademoiselle.—’
”

“Wait, a French shopkeeper in Inverness?” Connie interrupted.

“I know. Weird. But he had this totally magical vibe to him. I think he might be a warlock,” she whispered, wide-eyed. “Anyway.” She waved away the man’s possibly magical properties while she dug in her backpack. “He told me a wish made from a heart that is pure will sometimes be granted on the solstice, and he gave me this.” With a triumphant gleam in her eye, she lifted a necklace from her bag. It was little more than a stone on a braided rawhide rope.

“Did he sell you that? I hope he didn’t charge much.” It looked like a kindergartener’s art project.

“He
gave
it to me,” she said with wide eyes, as if this was incredible. He said it began singing to him the moment I walked into his shop.”

 Connie rolled her eyes.

“It’s a witch’s stone,” Leslie said, undaunted by her sister’s lack of enthusiasm. “The hole through the middle is naturally-occurring, but no one knows the process that forms it. Stones like this are said to have magical properties. Looking through the hole is supposed to allow the owner to see into Faerie.” She held the stone up to her eye and looked at Connie through the hole. “Hmm. I don’t see anything unusual.”

“Of course you don’t. They probably manufacture them by the hundreds and sell them to tourists looking to bring home a piece of Scottish history.”

“Oh, come on. Let me have my fun.” Leslie spread the string like she was about to put it on, but she surprised Connie by draping it over her head instead.

“What are you doing? I don’t want this.” She tried dodging her sister’s hands, but she wasn’t quick enough. The stone settled against the sheer fabric of her shirt, cool and heavy.

Leslie shushed her. “It won’t bite. I’m going to make a wish for you when the sun comes up. Maybe this will make the magic more powerful.”

“Magic? For real?”

“Yes, for real.” Leslie spun in a circle with her arms spread. “All of this is magic. Can’t you feel it? The stones? The solstice? You and me together after so long.” She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, looking completely at peace.

Connie thought about taking off the ridiculous piece of jewelry and tossing it back at Leslie, but the look on her twin’s face stopped her. Indulging Leslie had always been one of Connie’s weaknesses. She sighed with resignation.

“Fine. Make your wish. But why don’t you make one for yourself? I have everything I want.”