A HIGHLANDER FOR CHRISTMAS
by Sandy Blair

Excerpt

Tracy twirled the wrought iron Christmas card holder sitting on the Claire’s antique shop desk. "Hey, you got another card from that old guy you helped a few years ago."

"Yes." Claire grinned. It had been on a night much like this one that she'd first met Tavish MacLean. She'd been closing up for the night when she heard the crash, rushed outside and found Tavish half frozen, his compact car crumpled against a light pole and sitting crosswise to the deserted street. After he assured her he could walk, she brought him back to the shop, where she'd called the police and tended his wounds.

While they waited three hours for the tow truck to arrive, she'd filled him with cocoa and sugar cookies and he'd entertained her in his lovely burr with tales of his Christmases in Scotland. Since then he call regularly, always sent her a lovely anniversary card three weeks before Christmas, and drove down from Portsmouth to have lunch with her the day before Christmas.

Reading the card, Tracy grinned. "I think he’s sweet on you, Claire."

"Just my luck the only real man in my life is almost eighty and—"

Brrrrringggggg

Tracy jerked, her head snapping around in the direction of the sound. "What the hell is that?"

"Just the loading dock bell." As it continued to clatter like an ancient fire house alarm, Claire reached for the cane she kept behind the desk.

"Who'd be making a delivery at this hour?"

"No one. It’s probably just kids screwing around."

Every merchant on the street had recently been hit by vandals. Their leader, a pimple-faced kid of about fifteen with a pierced eye-brow and tattooed fingers, had had the audacity to suggest she pay protection money to insure her windows remained intact. When she told him to go screw himself or she'd call the cops, he'd shrugged and walked away.

At three the next morning the crash of glass followed by her security alarm screaming nearly gave her a heart attack.

She'd shot out of the bed, grabbed her cell phone and cane and headed for the back staircase. She hadn't made it to the first landing when she heard alarmed shouts from her elderly second floor tenant.

After telling Mrs. Grouse to stay calm, she'd raced down the stairs and found the glass in her double front doors in shards but everything else intact.

The police came, dusted for prints and said they'd patrol the neighborhood.

And then it happened again.

To date the little bastards had cost her $1,800.00 in new plate glass and glazing fees, an amount she could ill afford.

In the back store room, cane in hand—its lethal inner blade exposed—she peered through the small window. A moving van filled the alley and a man, dressed in a delivery uniform, stood on her loading dock blowing white clouds into the air. The loading dock—an add on the previous owner had constructed when he'd converted the first floor apartment into retail space—had been the primary reasons she'd chosen this narrow building over others. That and its rock bottom price. There was something to be said for leaking pipes, an antiquated heating system and layers of lead paint.

She pulled back on the steel bolt and cracked opened the sliding door. Peering out, she asked, "May I help you?"

The guy stomped his feet as he held out a clipboard. "Are you Claire MacGregor?"

"Yes."

"Good. Sign this, and we'll start unloading."

"But I haven't ordered anything."

"Doesn't say that you did. We're just delivering the stuff from the house."

"What house?" She hadn't been to an estate sale in weeks. Couldn't afford to go. "Look, you must have the wrong—"

"Claire!" Tracy shouted from the front, "The phone—some guy from Brindle, Bailey and somebody, attorneys at law. He says he has to talk to you."

Now what? Scowling, Claire pointed at the delivery guy. "Don't you dare unload a thing until I get back."

At the front of the store Tracy held the phone out to her. "Are you in some kind of trouble?"

Claire shrugged as she took the phone. "Not that I know of."

Praying her vandals hadn't decided to sue her for defamation of character—her language had been scathing the last time they'd called and threaten her—she brought the phone to her ear. "Hello, this is Claire MacGregor. How may I help you?"

"Ms. MacGregor, this is Wesley Brindle, senior partner at Brindle, Bailey and Sheltonship. I'm the executor handling the estate of Mr. Tavish MacLeod, formally of 210 Willow Street, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It’s my sad duty to inform you that Mr. MacLean has passed, and—"

"Passed?"

Claire groped for the stool behind her. No, no. She'd just received her anniversary card, had spoken with Tavish not a week ago. He'd called to thank her for the chocolate chip cookies, and they'd made plans to meet Christmas Eve as they did every year. If the weather was nice they'd stroll through the Common, admire the decorations and store windows, then...

He can't possibly be dead.

"Ms. MacGregor?"

Claire struggled to clear the burning at the back of her throat. "I...I'm here. When did he die?"

"On November 28th, of a heart attack."

Oh, God. He must have mailed his card that day. "Please tell me he wasn't alone when it happened." Please, please. She couldn't imagine anything worse.

"No, he didn't." The attorney’s clipped voice had softened. "According to the police, he was in a grocery store when he collapsed and the manager called 911. Unfortunately, the paramedics couldn't revive him. The police went to his home in hopes of notifying next of kin. Finding he lived alone, they went through his personal phone directory and found our listing."

Poor sweet Tavish. He'd been the picture of health when they'd last—

"Ms. MacGregor?"

"Yes."

"I know this comes as a shock, but it was very important to Mr. MacLean that his estate be settled as quickly as possible. Since he'd died of natural causes and his affairs were in order, I believe we're close to completing that task. He bequeathed his assets, limited as they are, to you."

Claire’s throat, tight with unspent tears, seared as she croaked, "To me?"

"Yes. Per his request, you'll be receiving a check within the next week." He asked her to confirm her mailing address, which she did. "I've also contracted a moving company to crate his worldly possessions and deliver them to you per Mr. MacLean’s instructions. The truck should arrive in a day or two."

Oh shit!

The delivery guy was still freezing his buns off on her loading dock. "Could you please hold for a moment?" Without waiting for an answer, she covered the mouth piece and flapped a hand at Tracy, who stood not three feet away pretending not to be listening. "Quick! Go to the back and tell the delivery guys they can unload the truck."

"Okay, but what’s happening? Who died?"

"Later." She shooed Tracy away and again tried to clear the thickness in her throat before saying, "Mr. Brindle, I'm sorry. The moving van is here."

"Ah, very good. I feared the weather might delay them. In a day or two you'll receive a certified package containing a copy of the will and a check. Please signed the enclosed forms and send them back in the envelope provided as soon as possible. We can deal with the tax issues at a later date. Do you have any questions?"

Yes, hundreds. "Why did Tavish name me as his heir?"

"He had no family and from what I could gleam from our conversations he was quite fond of you."

"Oh." She'd been very fond of him, too. Imagining Tavish—pink-cheeked, dressed in tweed, wispy tufts of white hair sprouting from beneath his tam—chuckling as the Russian Tea Room fortune teller told him that he'd live to be one hundred, seeing him grow pensive when the woman had said, "Ah, a secret...but you've chosen well," and then to see his broad grin return when the fortune teller had picked up Claire’s tea cup and told her that she'd have a strapping son—her tears spilled. Tavish had only been seventy-seven.

"I think that covers it," Mr. Brindle murmured. "If you have any more questions, please don't—"

"Where is he buried?" The opportunity to attend his funeral had passed but she could still pay her respects at his grave site, place flowers by the headstone. Roses. He'd loved red roses.

"Mr. MacLean requested that his body be shipped to Appin, Scotland. He’s buried in a family plot next to his parents."

"Oh...I see." Her gaze shifted to the open armoire and the glass case protecting a beautifully-crafted miniature sloop sitting on the middle shelf. Tavish, an avid model builder, had told her it was an exact replica of the boat his father had once owned. He'd given the model to her last Christmas and she'd placed it in the shop in hopes that it might garner him a commission or two.

She could wire flowers. Tavish had said Appin was small, little more than a fishing village. Perhaps someone in town or at the church would remember him, might agree to place the flowers on his grave for her. Maybe Telefloral—

"Miss MacGregor? Are you still there?"

Claire shook her head, felt tears splash her cheeks and dashed them away. "Yes. I'm sorry, this...It’s still such a shock."

"I quite understand. If you have any further question please don't hesitate to contact me." He gave her his contact information. "If there’s nothing else, I'll bid you good evening."

"Thank you."

How long the phone buzzed in her ear she couldn't have said, but a thud followed by Tracy yelling, "For God’s sake, be careful with that!" pulled Claire out of her haze.

In the back room, she found Tracy shivering against the frigid blasts coming through a wide open loading dock door. Beside her stood four, shoulder-high wooden crates. "How many more are there?"

Teeth chattering, Tracy shrugged. "I have no idea. I just know they're heavy. The guys have been sweating and cursing a blue streak."

Claire ran a hand over one of the crates. How sweet of Tavish to care enough to will her his worldly goods. And how painfully sad that she—a relative strange—had been the only one he could leave them to.

The burly guy she'd left standing on the dock dropped another crate—this one long and low—on the floor then shoved his clipboard under her nose. "That’s it, lady, five crates. Sign here and we'll be gone."

After reading the invoice, Claire signed the bottom, then handed the clipboard back. As he tore off her copy, she asked, "Do you know the contents?"

"Furniture and clothes mostly."

Great. She was already up to her chin and wall to wall in furniture.

She took the copy he held out to her and saw him to the door. "Thanks and Merry Christmas."

The guy waved over his shoulder as he headed for his truck. Ah, apparently a fellow Scrooge.

She closed the door and threw the bolt.

"So," Tracy grumbled, "are you going to tell me who died and what all this is about, or what?"

"Tavish died. Last Monday." Just saying the words caused something around her heart to contract and more tears to take shape.

"Oh, Claire, I'm so sorry." Tracy wrapped her arms around her. "I hadn't realized he'd meant so much to you."

"Thanks." Her relationship with Tavish had been a special secret, one she'd kept close. She'd never known her grandparents and Tavish had somehow filled that gap. And knowing how ridiculous it was for a thirty-year-old woman to long for such a connection—much less cry over its sudden loss—she stepped out of Tracy’s embrace, forced a smile and tapped on the closest pine crate. "He willed the contents of his home to me."

"You're kidding?"

"No." Claire gave the crates a final glance, noting that the last crate the men had brought in looked like a coffin, and headed for the front of the store.

"Hey! Aren't you going to open them?" Tracy’s high-heeled boots clicked against the shop’s warped oak flooring as she followed. "I'll help."

"Thanks, but I'm not ready to open them just yet. Let’s find something to eat."

"Oh, okay." Brow furrowed in obvious confusion, Tracy donned her coat as Claire shut off lights. "Are you still up for going to the Oyster House?"

Claire shook her head, doubting she could eat, but knowing she should try or she'd being dealing with the mother of all headaches before too much longer. "Let’s just go to the Cocky Rooster." The neighborhood pub was a lot cheaper.

She flipped up the hood of her down jacket, tugged on her gloves, activated the alarm and closed the Velvet Pumpkin’s front door. Inserting the key into her newly installed deadbolt, she mentally cursed the hoodlums who'd forced her to change out her shop’s pretty but useless antique hardware.

As Tracy tottered on her four inch heels down the broad granite steps coated in as much snow, she said, "Wouldn't it be cool if he left you millions stuffed in a mattress?"

Claire, moving just as cautiously but in sensible rubber soled boots, guffawed. "Dream on."

Tavish, for all his affection toward her, had been a bit of a recluse and almost as poor as she. She'd be lucky to not find a body in that long narrow crate.