Page 24 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son (Brides of Chattan #3)

5 YEARS LATER, CALLANISH, ISLE OF LEWIS

M aggie stood on the beach looking out to sea. The vast, open ocean always filled her with both contentment and longing.

“Penny for your thoughts, Maggie May,” Len said, taking her arm and squeezing her close.

Maggie shook her head and smiled. She couldn’t put into words what she’d been thinking. That was what feelings were invented for.

“I suspect,” Jory answered instead, taking Maggie’s other arm, “she’s contemplating the sailor who keeps doing that to her.” She nodded at Maggie’s belly, which was only just beginning to swell. No one else had noticed yet, except for Bash.

“Goodness,” Len teased. “When do you plan on stopping? You’ll soon be quite outnumbered. You know we don’t need a christening as an excuse for a visit.”

“Bash says he wants eleven,” Maggie giggled, delighting in the way her cousin winced and her sister’s eyes bugged out.

“Mercy,” Jory said.

“Well,” Len told her, “at least there’s plenty of room for them to run wild here but still be somewhat contained.”

As if to prove the point, Alex and Marjie, Ellen’s two children, ran past shouting, “Run for your lives!” while little Sav and Amoy chased after them hollering like banshees.

Maggie laughed, delighted to see her banshees playing with their older cousins. Their joy was infections. “They’re so funny. Maybe we won’t even stop at eleven,” she said, only half joking, and Jory and Len squeezed her tight.

Though he was very much loved by his mother and grandparents, Bash hadn’t enjoyed the sort of closeness the Mackintosh girls had taken for granted growing up. If he wanted two dozen children to fill up his heart, she would happily carry them. She adored watching the bond her little ones shared with each other and their adoring da. “This was delivered to Leod just before we left,” Len said, taking a rolled-up parchment from her pocket. “Sealed inside a green glass bottle.”

She held it out for Maggie to see, and a tiny thrill ran through her when she recognized her own familiar scrawl.

“Did you read it?” she asked, but Ellen shook her head. “You should read it,” Maggie told her, a little stunned the message she’d thrown into the ocean as they attempted to outmaneuver the navy had finally found its way to her sister. For a second, she wondered if Constantin himself were responsible—fishing it out of the brine and delivering it all these years later. She wouldn’t put it past him.

Taking Jory’s arm, she led her cousin back up the beach where the others had built a great bonfire.

“I wasn’t sure I’d like it out here in the islands,” Jory confided. “It’s quite lovely. You’ve made a wonderful home.”

“You should stay,” Maggie told her. “We could always use a physician.”

“From what I hear, you could fill the role. ”

Maggie warmed with pride. “I only know what you taught me. Stay and teach me more?”

“A tempting offer.”

“But your Highlander longs for home.”

“He does,” Jory said fondly, glancing at Finn who turned their way at once, as though deeply in tune with his lady. He smiled shyly, the tips of his ears going pink.

“I never thanked you,” Maggie told Jory.

“For what?”

“Showing me what marriage could be like.”

Jory’s smile held a moment’s sadness, and she squeezed Maggie a little too tight.

“It’s all right,” Maggie assured her. “If one single thing had been different, I might never have run away and found Bash. Now every day’s an adventure. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Her cousin peered into her face, as if making sure Maggie meant it. Then she smiled. “You used to be so fearful of freckles. But they suit this beautiful, adventurous face.”

They joined the rest of the family by the bonfire and Finn, the former Shaw Wretch, embraced Maggie. “Congratulations, Magpie,” he whispered, and so there were five who knew about the baby, despite the loose fitting dress and shawl she had donned instead of her usual breeches.

“This one wants a feed, I think,” old Mrs. Leask said, bringing a fussy baby Freddy over, though she was clearly reluctant to part with him so he could nurse.

More likely he was cranky because the milk didn’t hold him long anymore and he wanted some gruel, but Maggie was happy to let him suckle as long as he would.

“Chamomile will help the teething pain,” Ryna said, joining them and putting a necklace of copper coins over Freddy’s head. “Same as it helped your migraine when you hadn’t had enough to drink. ”

“I’ll give him some before I put him down,” Maggie promised, kissing her adopted mother-in-law on the cheek.

They’d been shocked six months before when Bash’s auntie arrived with Constantin, proclaiming that a vision had sent her to help with Freddy’s birth. The labor had been worse than Maggie’s first three combined, and without Jory there, she’d been so very grateful to have Ryna’s steady, calming presence.

Once the baby arrived, Ryna decided to stay through the summer, vowing to return to Kingston when she’d had enough of the cold. Now autumn was encroaching, and still she and Constantin remained.

Maggie hadn’t told them yet they might as well stay another six months rather than leaving and coming back again, but sometimes when she caught Ryna watching her or exchanging a look with Constantin, she supposed they had probably guessed as much.

So perhaps the count was up to seven who knew. Or eight, given the way Mrs. Leask was eyeing her. Mercy, it was hard to keep a secret among this lot.

Then again, anyone who knew Bash could probably tell just by glancing at him. Pure joy radiated off him in delicious waves. If Maggie weren’t already pregnant, that might be enough to make her so.

She glanced around for him, but he wasn’t there at the fire with the rest.

“He took the children up the hill to the stones, right before they came tearing back down again like a pack of demons,” Ellen said, having returned from her solitary walk with Maggie’s letter, eyes rimmed red and cheeks rosy. She kissed Maggie. “Thank you for writing to me.”

Upon seeing his wife, Silas MacKenzie drifted over, away from the conversation he’d been sharing with Mr. Leask and Captain Constantin .

“Ladies,” he said, in his staid way, hugging Len and tousling a dozing Freddy’s wispy hair.

“Do you want to take him?” Maggie asked, and her brother-in-law’s eyes shone with the memory of his own children’s early days, so she handed the baby off once more. “That’s a good boy,” she cooed. “Go to Uncle Si, and I’ll go find Da.”

Atop the hill, in the circle of standing stones, Bash looked down at his firstborn child. Seb was quiet and studious, so different from the others, so much more like himself—the only one of his children to have been conceived at sea.

He was lying in the middle of the stones, staring up at the endless blue sky, as blue as the little boy’s Mackintosh blue eyes, a laundry peg soldier in one fist, while the old cat Custard curled lazily at his side.

“What game is this?” Bash asked him.

“As the sun moves across the stones, the shadows change,” his elfin child answered. “But you have to be still and quiet to notice.”

“Shall we go and see what the others are up to?”

“Mischief,” the little boy replied, and Bash coughed to hide his laughter. “They’re not still or quiet.”

“No,” Bash agreed. “Not unless they’re asleep.”

“Do you think the new baby will be more like me?” Seb asked, and Bash’s eyes widened.

“Did Mama tell you there’s a new baby?”

The little boy shook his head solemnly. So he had guessed.

Bash squatted down to his son’s level and Seb sat up to listen. “Pretend you’re surprised when she does tell you. Promise?”

“Promise,” Seb agreed, taking Bash’s hand and getting to his feet .

Bash lifted the little boy up onto his shoulders. At the ripe old age of four-and-a-half, he was still light as could be, but Bash wasn’t sure how much longer he’d tolerate being carried, so he reveled in it every chance he could find.

They could see far out into the Atlantic from here, and Bash pointed. “Looks like Uncle Dutch is on his way back in. Shall we go and see what he’s caught for us to eat?”

His son used his fist like a spyglass to peer out at the little fishing boat. “It’s him,” he exclaimed.

Bash had been grateful to return to Lewis and start his adult life over. With the help of his new fortune and some of his uncle’s naval contacts, he had built a successful shipping business, though he rarely sailed himself these days. He missed the feel of the deck beneath his feet, but he was much too busy never leaving Maggie’s side.

After Mad had been captured, Dutch took control of the Revenge and her crew. But with the gold Bash had set aside for him, he, too, soon abandoned the brigantine for a smaller vessel of his own and settled on Lewis, making an honest living as a fisherman. Langley had returned home to Hull to look after his sister, representing Bash’s business interests in York with Samson and Duffy by his side.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Ravenous,” Seb replied, and this time Bash couldn’t contain his roar of laughter. “Mr. Leask says it means the hungriest hungry you’ve ever felt, where it crawls up from your belly and grabs you around the throat until your mouth waters.”

“Does he now? Well, I suppose Mr. Leask knows what he’s talking about. Look, there’s Mama come to find us,” he said, putting Seb down so the boy could run on ahead to meet Maggie.

Rosy cheeked and windswept, she had never looked more beautiful. It was almost a shame they had so many guests out to the island for baby Freddy’s christening .

When Bash caught up to his wife and son, Maggie cupped his cheek, running a thumb over his scruff and his scar.

“You need a shave,” she said in a raspy murmur that shot straight to his groin. “I almost can’t see your lovely scar.”

“Have you the time to assist me, darlin’?” he asked.

She pursed her lips in a tiny smile, because he liked to pretend he was nervous about re-injuring his right ear.

“After dinner,” she said, with a heat in her eyes that lit another fire in his belly. With so many people crammed into the house, they would have to be very quiet later making love. Twice, on account of it was Sunday.

Seb caught each of their hands and swung between them as they walked back down the hill together, and Bash smiled to realize he’d never been more content.

“Have I ever told you how glad I am you snuck aboard our ship that night?” he asked, and her eyes danced at him over Seb’s head.

“Have I ever told you how glad I am you didn’t throw me overboard?” she teased, and when Seb released their hands to run down and greet Dutch at the beach, Bash pulled her close, tucking her into his side where he could bury his face in her short-cropped hair.