Free My Very Best Friend by Cathy Lamb

that stubborn expression on your face again, Charlotte.”
    “This is, once again, against my—”
    “Your feminist leanings, I know. Don’t quite understand it. No arguing, or I’ll kick you out of Clan TorBridgePherLotte.”
    “You can’t do that. It would require a vote.”
    He grinned. Dang.
    “Thank you, Toran.”
    “I’ll have two of my employees return your car tomorrow. Leave the keys on the front seat.”
    I would like to strip you naked on your front seat . “I can do it.”
    “I know you can. Let me do this for you.”
    Let me do what I wish with you, Scottish stud . “I’ll handle it.”
    “But I want to do this for you.”
    “Then I insist on cooking dinner for you.”
    His eyes lit up. “Luv, I think I have the better end of the deal.”
    I would like to see your rear end . I cleared my throat. I hoped he couldn’t tell what I was thinking. I gave him a smile to cover up my rampant, carnal thoughts.
    He smiled back.
     
    My father, Quinn Mackintosh, was a huge, blustery, smart Scotsman. Proud of himself, his family, his ancestors, his clan, proud of being a Scot.
    I remembered some of his favorite quotes. “A man who does not stand up for what he believes in, is no man at all. . . . If a man doesn’t make a decision, that is a decision.... A man who cannot provide for and protect his woman and family has fallen down on his responsibilities. . . .”
    He told Bridget and me Scottish legends, handed down from generation to generation, but often he’d make up legends and magical stories himself, sometimes on the spot.
    “Keep an eye out, girls,” he told us one day. “Yesterday I saw a faerie watching me, sprinkling her golden glitter. When I chased after her, she flew up into the trees and right through a hidden green door. The faeries use the trees as secret passageways to their own villages.”
    “Where do they live?” Bridget asked.
    “They live in the clouds, on rainbows, on the tops of stars, in our forests and meadows. Their world is filled with magic, rivers of gold and stars of silver. They have two moons.”
    “They have two moons?” I asked.
    “Aye, lass, and two suns, and now and then they come here to play tricks and maybe make a wish or two come true.”
    Bridget and I decided to keep our eyes out for faeries in the forests and meadows, but also in the village, as my father said they could hide quickly among the alleys, nooks, and crannies.
    “They know the village because they’ve lived here for hundreds of years. They know where the magic is. They know where they can slip in a crack, or jump through an attic window, or hop through an open door.”
    I wrote my father’s legends down, and Bridget drew the pictures. She liked to draw everything in miniature, down to the most intricate details. She drew tiny faeries with sparkling wings, homes tucked into tree branches, birds with glittering wings carrying princesses, butterflies drinking tea together.
    We spent hours making books, in our house, not hers. She had to leave all of her work at our house, as her father would not have approved of magic. Magic was considered ungodly.
    My parents delighted in our books, always careful not to say a word about it to Carney Ramsay, or his cowed wife, Bonnie. It was a magical time.
    At least for me.
     
To the ladies of the St. Ambrose Gab, Garden, and Gobble Group—
We will meet at our usual time, 6:00, on Tuesday, at my home. Please bring soup and bread to share.
Charlotte Mackintosh will be coming. I am delighted that she is back at her family home, although I fear she plans on selling it. All these years of dealing with Mr. Greer stealing my chickens. Lieutenant Judith. Lizbeth. Smelly Toad. To think of my edible pets in his massive gut!
How he was able to get that girth of his up and moving fast enough to catch one of my ladies is beyond me. If the man was broke, he could have told me, and I would have helped, but he had to go and steal my precious feathered friends.