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 nature to keep his more serious and focused compatriots from growing too stodgy and dour.
Graham was a scientist by nature and degree. He was happiest when he was out in the fields, and the only technology he cared about was the kind that would help him nurture the unique Kinloch flaxseed crop that his clansmen’s entire economic existence depended upon. In addition to being a scientist and a farmer, he was, and had been for several fortnights now, the laird of the MacLeod clan, as well as current leader of the dual clanship—with the McAuleys—that comprised the citizenry of Kinloch.
Or he was until the autumnal equinox, anyway.
At which point he needed to be married to a McAuley, or the leadership would pass to the other side. In this case, it would put them into the hands of a man who didn’t even reside on Kinloch, who very likely wasn’t even aware of the daft ancient island law, much less his possible pending inherited title.
“Do you really think all this is necessary?” Graham asked, yet again. “Ualraig was single for as long as most everyone on the island can remember. I don’t recall them nudging him to tie the knot after my dear grandmother departed.”
“But it was precisely because he had wed your dear grand-mamma when he became laird and leader, that it wasn’t a concern,” Shay noted. “No’ a legal one, at any rate.”
“But how legally enforceable is a four-hundred-year-old marriage pact? Surely there isn’t a man, woman, or sheep, for that matter, who sincerely wishes me to stop moving forward with our crop growth. We’ve turned things around substantially in the years since the blight, and in the past three we’ve seen significant progress, but no’ enough as yet to guarantee the rest of us won’t be fleeing to the mainland to look for new livelihoods. We’ve already lost people more than we should have, though I can hardly blame them. But if we’re to ultimately survive, we need—I need—to keep pushing and doing whatever it takes to get us back to one hundred percent growth. Hell, seventy-five percent would allow us to take advantage of our full market potential. We can’t promise that right now, so we have to turn new interests away. We’re at sixty-two percent. Sixty-two! With winter howling at our backs. We’ve no time for silly games.”
Graham waved a hand at Roan’s laptop, which might as well be umbilically attached to the man, he was never separated from the damn thing.
Roan headed the island board of tourism—which was actually just Roan and auld Liza MacLeod, who came in thrice weekly to do minor bookkeeping and the odd secretarial job. But he also took care of marketing Kinloch Basketry, which was the far bigger and most important job. The unique artisan baskets were woven from the waxed linen threads made from the rare, if small, flax crop that grew on the island.
There was no denying it had been Roan’s marketing genius and “big-picture strategy,” as he’d called it, that had moved them from merely selling their one-of-a-kind baskets in the U.K., to competing in a global marketplace…and competing quite famously.
Much like Harris tweed, which had been borne on one of their sister islands, theirs was a cottage industry—literally—that single-handedly kept the island economy afloat and, like its tweed weaving counterpart, could continue to do so for generations, if not for one wee problem.
“If we don’t grow the flax, we can’t weave the bloody things! That is where my energies should be directed,” Graham said. He paced Roan’s small office, trying to stay calm in the face of the ridiculousness of it all, but losing the battle handily. At barely thirty-one, he’d already worked too hard, for too long, taking up where Ualraig had left off, fighting the foul whims of Mother Nature. They were all working hard, and the stakes were bloody damn high.
The blight that struck their island home close to a dozen years back had made it a struggle to take full advantage of the increased interest Roan’s online marketing campaign had brought them. The impact on the wee island’s economy had been so severe, at their lowest points, it had looked as if the centuries strong MacLeod-McAuley clan alliance might finally be forced to a sad, ignominious end.
But Graham’s hard work and dedication to finding solutions to the ongoing struggles they faced by growing a unique crop on such unforgiving land was beginning to pay off. Harvest percentages were climbing—slowly—but the increase was constant, with no decline at all for the past three growth cycles. With enough consistency, they could accept more contracts for their baskets. There was real hope, and his clansmen knew it and supported him wholeheartedly. Not that he wanted their gratitude, but due to the situation at hand, surely now that he was clan chief in full, they weren’t going to hold him hostage to some centuries-old, outdated tribal law.
Shay cleared his throat. “I’ve studied the original documents until my eyes are crossing, Graham. I’m sorry to report that I don’t see any way around it.”
“We’ll simply overturn it, then, right? As clan chief, don’t I have a wee bit of say in how the island laws are maintained? Surely—”
“According to what was written, the law was purposely created so that no individual clan chief could abolish it,” Shay explained. “Its sole purpose was to keep the clans united against—”
“The insurgency on the mainland, which, I might remind you, hasn’t been an issue for quite some time. Just what are we protecting ourselves from, by forcing the sitting chief to legally bind himself to the other clan by marrying it?”
Shay held him under a steady regard. “We’re a wee spit of land located not only a fair distance from our mother land, but also from the rest of our sister islands, all situated between us and its bonny shores. We’ve no cause to have ever been the stronghold we’ve succeeded in being, for any amount of time, much less centuries of it. Clearly the pact has done what it set out to do. It has worked. I dinnae believe it matters, Graham, that the wars that provoked its evolution have ended. Look at the American constitution and how it has managed to guide a country to power, despite being written so long ago that the creators of the document couldn’t possibly have foreseen how it would be applied in times such as the ones we live in now. And yet,” he added, mildly, “they seem to be doing okay.”
Graham lifted his hands, then let them fall helplessly at his sides. “I understand the sentimental reasons why everyone wants to hew themselves to the auld rituals. But it’s no’ practical any longer, to force my hand, especially in something as sacred as marriage, all to appease a ruling that we no longer need abide by to survive. What we need to do to survive is to grow the flax, increase our industrial output. If we’re going to focus on sentiment, then let it be the pride of the fact that we create the most intricately woven, beautifully artistic, unique baskets in the world. It’s history, it’s art. It’s the—”
“Harris
