Highland Seasons, page 1
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No part of this publication may be sold, copied, distributed, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or digital, including photocopying and recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of both the publisher, Oliver Heber Books and the author, Willa Blair, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Laird of Lies Copyright © Linda Williams
Her Highland Deception Copyright © Linda Williams
Heart of Ice Copyright © Linda Williams
Heart of Hope Copyright © Linda Williams
Highland Fury’s Legacy Copyright © Linda Williams
A Season for Longing Copyright © Linda Williams
Cover art by Dar Albert at Wicked Smart Designs
Published by Oliver-Heber Books
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This book is dedicated to my fans.
When I decided to create short stories around my existing series, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. It turned out to be a lot of fun, so I hope you, too, will enjoy reconnecting with favorite characters and meeting new ones as much as I loved writing these stories about them.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’ve been lucky in my writing career to have worked with wonderful editors who taught me to avoid problems authors tend to be blind to in their own writing, and who often saved me from myself. My current editor at Oliver-Heber Books, Kim Ostrom, is no exception. Besides catching my mistakes, she makes valuable suggestions that make the stories you get to read even better. I truly appreciate what she does for me—and for you.
CONTENTS
Introduction
Laird of Lies
Her Highland Deception
Highland Yuletide Reunion
Heart of Ice
Heart of Hope
Highland Fury’s Legacy
A Season for Longing
Afterword
Also by Willa Blair
About the Author
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to my first collection of short stories. Several are based on books you’ve read, but two are glimpses into new novels I’m writing. I enjoyed taking another look at characters in my books, expanding their stories, and creating new characters, as well.
I called this my first collection of short stories for a reason. I hope you’ll enjoy them, too! If you do, there may soon be a second collection in the works. Please let me know by reviewing this book, or sending me a note at willa@willablair.com. And keep reading!
1400s - Based on the His Highland Heart Series
“Laird of Lies” - enjoy a long teaser of a new Sutherland Twins Duet novel.
“Her Highland Deception” - a look at the beginning of new His Highland Heart series novel.
“A Yuletide Reunion” - Mary Rose and Cameron Sutherland welcome her sisters and their families back to Clan Rose where not much goes as planned. This story takes place between the main story and epilogue of HIS HIGHLAND BRIDE.
1500s - Based on the Highland Talents Series
“Heart of Ice” - a prequel to my novel, HEART OF STONE.
“Heart of Hope” - an epilogue to my novel, HEART OF STONE.
“Highland Fury’s Legacy” - a prequel to Jamie Lathan and Caitrin Fletcher’s story in HIGHLAND TROTH.
“A Season of Longing” - a Yuletide epilogue to HIGHLAND TROTH.
LAIRD OF LIES
Cameron Sutherland’s older twin brothers are mentioned in HIS HIGHLAND BRIDE (His Highland Heart Series Book 4), but we don’t meet them there. This story is your first glimpse of a new duet based on this series.
You see Stellan and Anders Sutherland first as young twins troubled by the news that they will be wrenched apart for seven years under the clan custom of fostering sons with other clans, some far, far away.
Then as adult sons of the Sutherland laird, on missions for their father and the clan, trouble of a very different kind threatens to separate them forever.
Or will they cause a clan war to honor a vow made when they were nine?
PROLOGUE
SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS, SUMMER, 1400
“Wait for me!”
Stellan Sutherland heard his twin’s faint call, but he kept going, his pace fast, his thoughts faster. He would have to break the awful news he’d just received, but how? He couldn’t bear to see the hurt in Anders’s eyes, and to be the one to put it there. His own distress was too recent. Too fresh and too painful for any nine-year-old to bear, but especially one like Anders who wore his heart for all to see.
If Anders got close enough, he’d know immediately what was amiss. He’d know the reason for Stellan’s anger as clearly as if he’d spoken the reason aloud. Da had informed his heir, his eldest son, of his plans, with no thought to how they would affect both twins.
So Stellan kept moving, stumbling down the swale into the next glen and leaping across the rushing burn, then climbing the next hill and the next. Sutherland territory stretched farther than anyone could see, farther than he could go afoot at this pace with no food and only icy water from a burn to drink.
He hadn’t planned this infuriated march. He’d simply bolted from the keep after Da had announced his plan to split them up. He sought to put an end to the canny bond they shared, the bond he feared, but they cherished. The twin bond that let them understand each other without words, and to know how the other felt without seeing so much as an expression on the other’s face or the set of his shoulders.
The thought of being away from his twin for years stole Stellan’s strength and he halted in the heather, panting, bent forward, hands on knees. He heard Anders shout again for him to stop. His twin was still out of sight, below the crest of the last hill, unaware Stellan had stopped and was finally waiting for him.
It was time. They were far enough from Dunrobin to give voice to their anger and grief and not have word of their indulgence in such raw emotions get back to their Da.
Anders caught up with him a few minutes later.
Stellan barely got his breath back when the look on his twin’s face took it from him again.
“What has he done?”
Anders’s demand jerked Stellan upright and he grimaced against the stitch in his side. “Ye dinna ken?”
“Ye are so riled, I canna pick one thing from another. So tell me.”
There was no easy way to break the news he’d begun to hope Anders could pluck from him in silence. He must say the words, and the pain in his torso intensified. “Da has decreed we are to be sent to foster.”
“Where? What has ye so upset?”
Anders still didn’t understand. Stellan sucked down a lungful of air, then with a twist of his lips, told him, “I am to be honored to foster with Domnhall, the Lord of the Isles, for seven years. Da thinks to send ye far away, to the Norse land, surety for the treaty between we northern Scots and the Norse king.”
Anders shrugged. “But we will return to Sutherland.”
Stellan shook his head. “He thinks to have ye betrothed there. To someday rule the Norseland for Sutherland. Or for Scotland.”
Anders’s mouth fell open. Finally, he understood why Stellan was so upset.
“That canna be,” he objected. “I will go with ye.”
Stellen let his gaze drop to the ground. “Da will send us where he wills. We must do as he says and go.”
“And ye are willing to do that?”
Anders planted his fists on his hips, displaying his growing anger that Stellan could now feel.
“I dinna believe ye,” Anders continued. “Ye always have another plan, a way around our da.”
“What would ye have us do?” Stellan demanded, his earlier anguish returning. “Run away together today?” He waved a hand at the hills that marched on ahead of them, seemingly forever.
“Nay! We are lairds of Sutherland. The clan needs us, or will…someday.” Anders sank to the ground and sat, his gaze confused and dismayed.
Stellan was the stronger of the two, but his heart broke for both of them. “We believed so. The laird, our grandfather, decreed it may be so. As we have always done everything else, we would rule together. But grandda is dead. Da’s time has come, and he will do as he pleases.”
Anders drew his sgian dubh. “Then we will swear a blood oath to survive and reunite to keep Sutherland safe and strong.”
Stellan nodded, impressed at Anders’s initiative. “Once we inherit, it will be so. And,” he added, holding up his hand to stop Anders before he began to sanctify the oath with his blood, “we willna fall for any lass—or Norse princess—unless we can bring them home, so that we can fulfill our destiny to be lairds together. As is our right and our grandda’s wish.”
Anders scored a line in his palm. When it seeped red, he handed the blade to Stellan, who did the same. They clasped hands, mingling the blood they had once shared in the womb.
“So it will be as we have sworn this day,” Stellan said. “We may be forced to part for a term of years, but we will return. Someday, we will rule Sutherland together.”
“So it will be,” Anders repeated, “And when the day comes that Sutherland is ours, we will keep it safe and strong—together.”
Northern Scotland, Spring, 1412
The fire in the great hall’s hearth warmed Stellan Sutherland as he waited for his twin, Anders, to shake the sleet from his hair in the keep’s doorway and join him by the fire. May was late for this kind of weather, but they were far enough north, one never knew what to expect. “Come on, laggard. It’ll melt, but ye willna.”
Anders grimaced, gave his plaid a final shake and stepped in. “Sod off. ’Twould run down the back of my neck, as cold as the trail of a witch’s finger on my skin.”
“And when have ye felt the chill of a witch’s finger?”
“Never. And I dinna plan to start now.” Anders settled on the bench opposite his twin and signaled a passing serving maid for an ale. “’Twas a long, cold ride from Inverness. If I were eldest, I’d have been sitting here by the fire for the last fortnight, drinking and cuddling the lasses while ye froze yer arse riding home through snow and sleet.”
Stellan ignored the jibe. He was older than Anders by mere minutes, a fact that meant nothing to them, but carried great weight with their father, the Sutherland laird. He could have told Anders about hunting in the same sleet storm earlier in the afternoon. And he couldn’t recall the last time he’d embraced a lass, much less held one on his lap, but certainly not in the last fortnight while Anders visited Inverness on business for Sutherland. Instead he asked, “Did ye get what Da sent ye after?”
Anders nodded. “Aye, and more. I’ll go tell him once I’ve thawed my feet.”
Stellan waited, knowing he’d be present when Anders reported to their father.
Anders thanked the lass who brought him a mug of ale. She gave him a grin and a wink she also turned on Stellan, curtsied and went on her way. Anders took a long drink, following her with his gaze until she was out of sight, then lowered the cup and rolled his eyes.
Stellan knew exactly what he meant. The lasses flocked to Anders like gulls to a beached fish. His open, friendly nature made him seem more approachable than Stellan, though both were more than passably good looking. And Stellan considered himself open and friendly. Some of the time. When it suited his purposes.
They looked so much alike, anyone who didn’t know them well had trouble telling them apart, a fact they’d taken advantage of many times both before and after they’d spent the years between ages nine and sixteen fostered away, Stellan with Domnhall, the Lord of the Isles and Anders sent northward, though not where their father had first threatened, across the North Sea. They’d traded off to fool their tutors of subjects one hated and the other liked. They’d fooled the cook, getting a treat, and returning as the other brother and getting another.
In the five years since they’d returned to Sutherland, they’d honored their vow to each other, neither marrying, both serving the clan much as their younger brother Cameron had done before he wed Mary Rose, traveling the countryside, gathering information for their father.
Female giggles echoed from the direction of the hallway to the kitchen. He hadn’t heard that sound since Anders left for Inverness.
“I see ye havena lost your charm,” he chided.
Anders sighed. “’Tis no’ just me. ’Tis the two of us, together. Which is how some of them would like to try us.”
Stellan laughed. On his own, the lasses were friendly, but when the twins were together, well, lasses had always been fascinated by the wee lairds, as they’d been called when they were bairns. Their fascination had grown along with them.
“Ye are welcome to them,” he said. “There’s none here I’d have without the lass thinking to be the next lady of the clan. I’d never be rid of them.” Anders had protected Stellan by allowing him, once in a while, to pretend to be his younger twin if a lass caught his eye. During Anders’s latest absence, Stellan had toyed with the idea of impersonating his brother with one of the village lasses, but decided it wasn’t worth the trouble it could cause.
“Aye, that does tend to make one think twice.” Anders tossed off the last of his ale. “Very well, I’m ready. Let’s go speak to Da.”
They stood and made their way to the laird’s solar. The door was closed, a good indication Laird Sutherland was within and working. Anders knocked.
“Come,” their father’s deep voice penetrated the thick, oaken door.
Stellan gave Anders an open-handed gesture to precede him. Anders opened the door and went in, Stellan following close behind.
“So, ye are back.” Seated behind his work table, Laird Sutherland was a large, imposing man with glints of silver in his hair.
“Aye, father, just long enough to melt the sleet.”
“And have a drink by the fire, I’ll wager.”
Anders colored and grinned. “I learned from the best these last five years.”
Setting aside his quill, Sutherland nodded agreement, since he was well known to do the same. “So ye did.” He waved them to seats. “What did ye learn?”
“There are rumors Domnhall plans another incursion, but ’tis only talk. No sign of any of his men in any numbers. The normal few ye’d expect to find anywhere in Scotland on business for the Isles. The same for any of Mar’s men foolish enough to remain behind. ’Twas a wasted trip.”
Sutherland nodded. “That was nay a wasted trip. Ye have brought good news. The longer Domnhall holds off, the better. No one kens why he walked away from Red Harlaw instead of finishing the fight. ’Tis something to worry us, but for now, we have other problems. If the MacKay would follow Domnhall’s example, we might get through the spring and summer without more bloodshed.”
Stellan turned to his twin. “No’ much chance of that. In the time ye have been gone, Anders, MacKay has raided crofts on our border three times.” He thought it interesting that their da wasn’t concerned about Mar’s left-behind men.
“So many?” Anders asked. “What about Gunn?”
“Harald Gunn sent me a missive a few days ago. He met with the MacKay recently and said with spring coming on, they’re more interested in planting than stirring up trouble. I hope he kens I have reason nay to believe him.”
“Likely,” Anders said and nodded.
“’Tis time to see what there is to be seen toward the northwest,” Sutherland continued. “Stellan, ye will take some men and ride Sutherland’s borders with Gunn and MacKay.”
“I’ll go,” Anders objected. “Ye need Stellan here.”
“Ye are just back from Inverness. ’Tis time for the heir to visit our outlying crofts.”
“I’ll leave in the morning,” Stellan said, collected Anders with a glance and left the solar.
Mariota MacKay removed the jesses and let her hawk Valkyrie fly free. They’d both been cooped up too long indoors, but the skies finally cleared around midday, and she loved the feel of the sun on her face. Valkyrie soared over the glen, making Mariota wish she could see through the raptor’s eyes, feel the wind and weightlessness as her favorite hunter did.
She would spread her wings and never look back.
But that was a dream. And her fathers’ edicts were real. Not only could she not leave MacKay land, she could not stray out of sight of the keep’s imposing walls. She could not ride, or hunt with a bow, or speak her mind, or live her life the way she wished. And his men enforced his every word.
“Lasses do as they’re told,” her father growled the last time she reminded him she was a better shot with her bow than his men. And Valkyrie could spot and flush prey. To her, it made all the sense in the world. To him, well, she was not a son. And after the boar gored and nearly killed him five years ago, he’d never have one of his own.
She was the clan’s hope for the future. Or rather, the man she’d eventually be forced to marry would be.
And if something happened to her father or her before that day came? The Lord of the Isles was ready to pounce. Or so her father believed. He’d become obsessed with two things in the last year. Finding a husband for her, and guarding MacKay against their neighbors, clan Gunn and the mighty clan Sutherland.
Valkyrie wheeled, catching Mariota’s attention in time to see her stoop and dive on some prey. Good. A kill would do much to ease the frustration her winged hunter had felt at being enclosed for the last week.
