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He and his twin had been a pair of jinglebrains, as Angus liked to say, and they’d had some splendid adventures together. Running an illegal still had probably been the stupidest escapade in their careers of mayhem, but it had been rather grand for all that. For the first time in their lives, they’d made something and earned money by their own hands. As foolish as it was, it had felt like a real accomplishment.
In the difficult days of their youth, when tragedy had so often brought the family teetering to the brink of destruction, he and Graeme had actuallydonesomething. They’d built something that worked.
Together.
From his earliest memories, Graeme had always been inseparably by his side. Because of his twin, Grant had never had a chance to be lonely, even on the darkest days. Graeme had been wild, yes, but always there, the rock on which Grant could find his footing.
And that was the root of the problem, wasn’t it? His family had all moved on from those tumultuous times, settling down and building happy, purposeful lives. While he had built a useful life too, in service to family and clan, it was a rather solitary one. Even surrounded by Kendricks, as he was most days, he often felt alone.
Graeme quietly moved to his side, his gaze warm with understanding. “All right?”
He mustered a smile. “Always.”
“Brings back memories, doesn’t it?”
“Aye, that.”
“God, we were stupid.”
Grant laughed. “Incredibly stupid. But you’ve done a splendid job with this. Everything looks top-notch.”
“Not like the old days, eh? That crazy still we cobbled together. It’s a miracle we didn’t blow ourselves up making the blasted stuff.”
Sabrina joined them. “How satisfying that your misspent youth has transformed into something so productive. Kendricks have an interesting way of going about life, I must say.”
“You mean the most difficult way,” Grant said. “Taken only by hard-headed Scotsmen who can never make life easy on themselves.”
“Or the rest of us,” Sabrina wryly commented.
Kathleen, who’d been inspecting one of the stills, glanced up. “Are you saying you distilled illegal whisky?”
Her skeptical tone seemed to suggest that Grant couldn’t possibly do something so interesting.
“As a matter of fact, we did.”
“Best brew in the district,” Graeme added.
“So you two were both . . .” She twirled a hand, as if words failed her.
“Criminals?” Grant finished for her.
“I was going to say smugglers. I assume you had to smuggle your ill-gotten gains to market.”
“Those casks weren’t going to walk themselves out of that glen, now were they?” Graeme said. “Grant excelled at developing the distribution network, which is no surprise.”
“I think you mean I was simply better at outrunning the excisemen,” Grant replied.
Kathleen pressed a hand to her lips.
“One mustn’t be too shocked at such goings-on, Miss Calvert,” Brown said. “The taxes imposed by the British on the legal trade were punishing. Although quite wrong, one cannot be surprised that some locals engaged in a spot of illegal distilling.”
“I’m not shocked,” said Kathleen. “As I said to Sabrina earlier, men get to have all the fun, which isquiteunfair.”
“I’ll say,” Jeannie piped in.
Brown looked startled by their responses, but then he mustered a gallant smile. “Yes, but what would we do without the ladies to keep us in line?”
“Become smugglers, apparently,” Kathleen replied.
