“She said you did a bang-up job up in Gleann for her Highland Games,” Ann went on, “and that I couldn’t go wrong in hiring you.”

Chapter

26

While Gleann had the benefit of the northern New Hampshire mountains, an atmosphere that lent itself more to Scotland, at least the Connecticut Highland Games, held in a small town northeast of Stamford, didn’t have a giant glass box of an abandoned corporation looming over it. These smallish games, where Jen had secretly confirmed Leith was throwing, were set in a beautiful park surrounded by thick stands of trees and pockets of shade and shadow. A building of pale stone overlooked the circle where pipe bands marched in to their competition. Little girls dressed in tartan and velvet, their hair pulled tightly back, giggled and stretched, preparing for their competition. The blare of perfectly timed drums and pipes sailed toward the athletics field, and it was there Jen headed.

Unsure of how Leith would take her sudden appearance, she timed her arrival toward the end of the athletics competition in the afternoon, desperately wanting to see him throw but also not wanting to distract him. After all, he’d thrown after she’d left Gleann, and apparently her absence had changed quite a bit in him.

The day was ridiculously hot, and people huddled under portable canopies and umbrellas as they cheered on the ten or so men and one woman, all kilted up, on the athletics field.

Still a good distance away, Jen immediately picked out Leith. He’d cut off the sleeves to his T-shirt, and the navy blue thing with the white X on the front to symbolize the Scottish flag was nearly soaked through. He wore his father’s kilt and one of his giant smiles. The kind that lit up his whole body and enveloped anyone near him. God, she’d missed him.

“And now,” the announcer said, his tinny old man’s voice sputtering through the bad speakers, “the final round of weight for height.” Applause circled the towers holding the crossbar. “Competitors are Duncan Ferguson and Leith MacDougall.”

Jen grew excited. She’d arrived just in time.

Leith gave a respectable nod to the audience, but Duncan lifted both meaty arms and turned in a circle, mouth opened in a roar, begging the audience to give it up for him. They did, too. Leith just shook his grin at the ground, sweaty, shaggy hair plastering itself to his cheeks and neck. He pushed it off his face and went over to the towers and bar.

A few more onlookers straggled over to watch this event, and Jen found a place in the shade of a big tree, behind an older couple holding hands in their lawn chairs—just out of sight, should Leith happen to look up.

He didn’t, though. An intense look of concentration masked his face as he went over to the weight—a great black orb with a thick ring attached to its top—lying tilted in the grass between the towers. She’d once picked up that same kind of weight in the MacDougall garage, and had nearly toppled over under its fifty-six pounds. She remembered how Leith had laughed with her, but Mr. MacDougall had thrown out some words of encouragement, wanting her to try the women’s twenty-eight pounder instead. She’d politely declined.

“The bar is at fifteen feet,” said the announcer. “Each thrower gets three attempts to get it over using any style necessary, as long as they use only one hand. The weight touching the bar doesn’t matter, as long as it ends up on the other side. First to throw: Leith MacDougall. A fine Scottish lad.”

Leith pointed at the announcer, grinning, then positioned himself under the bar, looking up several times to get his placement just right. Giving his back to the tower, planting his feet wide, tugging the bottom of his kilt up and over his knees, he reached down and wrapped one big hand around the ring of the weight. Any semblance of a grin died. His lips rolled inward with concentration.

Knees bent, torso forward, the great muscles in his gripping arm flexed, the ligaments popping out. She watched his neck and face flush. With a heave he pulled the weight from the ground, sending his body rocking, the weight sailing once between his legs, once along the side of his body, and a third time back between his legs. When the weight came forward, he pushed his legs to straighten, let out a shout of effort, and launched the weight high up into the air.

The hefty thing sailed upward, looking way too big and bulky to get anywhere near fifteen feet. Leith stepped away, whipped around . . . and watched, teeth clenched, as the curve of the ball hit the bar, then rolled over the back side to land with a thunk in the grass.

The crowd cheered, no one louder than Jen. Leith slapped his hands together once and then acknowledged the audience. Jen ducked behind the old couple in the off chance he’d see her, but he turned to Duncan, who was showing him a jovial double thumbs-down.

Duncan gave his competitor a hearty clap on the back, then assumed his own position under the bar. He used a little different method to throwing this event—a full-body pivot and spin, more like a classic shot put throw. To Jen, he didn’t seem as graceful as Leith, being shorter and bulkier around the middle. Leith was more streamlined, a little more top-heavy, and at least five inches taller.

Duncan made fifteen feet, but missed sixteen all three times.

Leith got sixteen on the second attempt, and the crowd erupted. Duncan stood off to the side, shaking his head but grinning. When the cheering died down, Jen distinctly heard Duncan say, “Good to have you back.”

She read Leith’s lips: “Good to be back.”

“And the Scottish lad wins the weight for height!” chimed the announcer to a terrific amount of applause, even though it was apparent Duncan had been the overall crowd favorite.

Leith took a seat on a stool and grabbed a water bottle, pouring some down his throat, then squirting a healthy dose over his head and on the back of his neck. It took all of Jen’s strength not to go to him. Another competitor went over to talk to Leith. The other guy was older, clearly strong but in a softer, less defined way. It looked like he was asking Leith for advice on the weight, because Leith was showing the man a grip and gesturing to his back and legs.

This was how Leith had been his whole life. Giving. Accommodating. Generous sometimes to the point of forgoing what he wanted. When he’d revealed the bit of resentment he held for his father and for Gleann, it had shocked her at first, but now she understood. It was okay for someone like him to feel that.

“Next and final event, the heavy hammer,” the announcer said. “And looking at the score sheets, ladies and gentlemen, this event will determine the overall winner of the heavy athletic events here in Connecticut. Duncan Ferguson and Leith MacDougall vying for first place, Duncan with the slight edge. It is my understanding that Duncan won the Gleann games a few weeks ago, so MacDougall might have a score to settle here.”

Leith and the older man looking for advice went over to the edge of the field and grabbed a foldable set of chain-link fence, like what you’d see behind home plate in Little League games. They set it up behind a log painted white that they were using as the trig. Duncan brought over the hammer—a large ball on the end of a long bar weighing twenty-two pounds—and set it by the trig.

The scene was so much like Gleann, with the cook smoke drifting through the air, the kids’ area off to the side where the little ones were trying to throw minicabers, the same bagpipe song played over and over again with varying degrees of talent. And Leith, out in the athletic field, looking every bit at home as he did in his truck or . . . lying next to her. Or on top of her.