Her MacKinnon #5
“Oh God.” She looked about in panic then grabbed his arm.
“Come on, we have to get you to the hospital. Oh, shit! We don’t have a car.
Stay, don’t move.” She ran across the room and grabbed Mickey by the arm.
A moment later, she returned with Mickey and another man.
Taking his arm, her panic obvious in her lovely countenance, she shouted, “Come on!”
He looked longingly at the lobster but didn’t argue only because his mouth did feel most strange. By the time he slid into the back bench of the conveyance with Police stenciled on its door, he could feel his face swelling. What the hell was happening now?
One look at Maggie’s countenance told him whatever it was had her most alarmed. “I ha na meth to––”
God, his tongue felt like a fleece pelt.
She held tight to his hand. “Sshhh, you’ll be fine … as soon as we get you a shot.” To the driver she shouted, “Please hurry!”
By the time she ushered him into the hospital and spoke with the woman behind the glass, spots were dancing before his eyes. A doctor stuck a needle in his arm then tried to place a mask on his face. He knocked it away, having enough trouble breathing as it was.
Maggie stroked his back. “A.J., the oxygen will help.”
Leaning on his arms, his lungs sucking for all they were worth, he shook his head. All he needed was air. To be let be … so he could focus on breathing.
Maggie, tears streaming, murmured something to the doctor.
Alex breathed and they waited. And waited.
Finally, the tightness in his throat eased and he could draw a breath without sounding like an ill-made whistle.
Shoulders hunched, he looked at Maggie. “My apologies for embarrassing ye yet again, love.”
“You didn’t. What you did was scared me near to death.”
He blew through his teeth. Scared himself near to death as well. He straightened and slid off the bed.
“No, we can’t leave just yet.”
“But we must. The wedding––”
She pressed a finger to his lips. “You aren’t going anywhere until the doctor says you can and certainly not before I get a prescription for an epinephrine kit.”
He had no idea what she was going on about but the look in her eyes told him she’d make his life a living hell if he thought to naysay her so, huffing, he sat. And thought.
By the time the doctor said they could leave, he had no doubt that his continued ignorance would be the death of him.
That if he planned to live long enough to make love again – much less make and raise a son, he had to enlist Maggie’s help.
And the only way he could do that was to tell her the truth.
But to ensure her belief he still had a good bit of work to do.
Three
At dawn the next morn, Alex stood on the stoop and smiled as if he hadn’t a care in the world, waved as the bus bearing Maggie to Portree pulled away. The moment it disappeared, he ran to the shed.
Whilst looking for the scythe, he’d spied a carefully covered stash covered in clear sheeting. Given the care with which he’d found the objects and boxes wrapped, he knew it had to be Maggie’s handiwork, A.J. being a sloth.
Uncovering only roll upon roll of fabric, he frowned. He opened the first box and uncovered hundreds of colourful spools. In another, he found all manner of sewing sundries from needles and measures to buttons. In another, skeins of finely-spun wool in a rainbow of colours.
Humph! This store made no sense. Maggie, the least vain woman he’d ever met, rarely wore anything but her tight blue trews and that God-awful serving wench livery. Spying the edge of a large battered trunk, he worked his way through broken furniture hoping it held the answer.
The lock proved no obstacle. “Let us see what yer hiding, Maggie my love.”
He lifted the lid and pulled out several books from the chest. Hmmm, clothing styles dating back centuries. He opened the next, finding only descriptions of textiles and their manufacture. He dug deeper and pulled out a large, green leather-bound and gilt edged volume. “Ah, this is more like it.”
He opened the cover expecting to find a ledger or diary but instead found page after page of beautiful drawings, some in charcoal while others were coloured in lovely vivid hues. And all with the initials M.M.M. penned at the bottom.
So this was her dream, to be a modess. He sighed.
This he could not make happen. Disappointed, he started putting all of it back as he found it, bumping his shoulder against a teetering pile of fractured furniture.
A tube of yellowed paper fell at his feet.
He opened it and found architectural renderings labelled Sky High Designs, Maggie MacKinnon Proprietor.
He studied each of the pages then grinned.
Moments later he pushed through the Boar’s Head door. “Mickey, a word if ye please.”
Looking none to pleased to see him, Mickey nodded. “What can I do for you A.J.?”
He smiled. Mickey loathed A.J., which meant he respected and cared deeply for Maggie.
“Take yer ease, Mickey. I’ve not come to drink ye dry. I need yer opinion on these.”
He spread the curled pages on the counter and Mickey smirked. “I haven’t seen these in ages. Thought she’d lost them.”
Alex pointed to a circle. “Do you know their meaning?”
“They’re lighting fixtures.” He flipped a page. “This is the electrical schematic for the entire shop she’d planned.” He flipped another and grinned. “Ah, the facade she envisioned. Too bad she never had the money.” He rolled up the papers.
“Do ye know a man who might be available to do such lights?”
An hour later, Alex had all the information he needed and bid Mickey adieu. To his surprise, Mickey followed him out. “A.J., wait.”
“Aye?”
“I should have driven you home that night. I’m sorry.”
Ah. “Believe it or not, I’m most glad that ye had not.”
Mickey thought on that then said, “Where are you off to?”
“Portree.”
“If you can wait a few minutes, I’ll give you a lift into town. I have to pick up some supplies.”
“Thank you.”
Entering the outskirts of the town, Alex was again taken by how much had changed since his time. “May I ask a boon?”
Mickey grinned. “A boon, huh? What is it?”
“I need yer help in keeping Maggie occupied in a few days whilst I get a few things accomplished about the place. Might ye be able to help with that?”
“I’m sure it can be arranged. Just tell me when.”
“Thank ye.”
A few days turned into a fortnight but finally Alex was ready. When Maggie went to work, he walked to the Boar’s Head and rang the bell.
Mickey, one eye open and his wiry hair askew, opened the door. “Do you not have a clock, MacKinnon?”
“Aye, ye lazy sloth, I do. Now to why I’m here. Today is the day! I need ye to get and hold Maggie ’til I come fetch her. I’ve much yet to do and don’t wanther coming home and finding me half done.” Just thinking about what he’d yet to do made him weary.
“Alright. I’ll pick her up from work and Bridget will keep her occupied.” He started to close the door, then peered out again. “Did John finish with the electrical?”
“Aye and then some.” To Alex’s amazement the auld man had brought in and installed a most bonnie hanging lamp of wrought iron. A gift for Maggie, he’d said. A good man, John.
Alex ran back to the house where he pulled out the drill Mickey had taught him to use.
Off came the storage shed’s old door and on went the new.
Off came the weatherworn shutters that had been masking the new windows and on went the new.
He worked as if possessed until he was satisfied all was in order. He could only pray ’twould be enough.
He found Maggie in the pub chatting with Bridget. Seeing him, she smiled. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten me.”
He gave her a quick kiss and took her hand. “Never. Come, I’ve something to show ye.”
Seeing that Mickey and Bridget, grinning like idiots, had followed them out, she asked, “What do they know that I don’t?”
His middle in knots, he smiled down at her. “Ye’ll see soon enough.”
As their home came into view, Maggie looked up at him then back at the croft. “Oh! Oh my God.”
She broke into a run only to come to a halt before the shop door. A hand pressed to her lips, she pointed to the sign he’d spent hours ever so carefully painting. “I never thought …”
“Go inside.”
Bouncing in place on the red granite stoop, she drew a deep breath and opened the door.
He reached past her and flipped on the lights only to hear her gasp as she took in the interior.
Knowing it was smaller than her plans, he quickly assured her, “Once ye’ve a few patrons, we can knock an arch in yon wall and build the new room so all will appear just as it does in yer renderings. ”
He’d been alarmed learning how expensive construction was in this time. Had he not been able to barter brawn for those services he had no talent for …
“I love it.”
“Are ye sure, lass?” Tears were streaming down her cheeks at a hellish rate as she walked about the room, her hand sliding over the fabrics, her work counter and then the colourful spools Bridget had insisted he mount on walls pegs. She stopped before her desk.
“You bought a computer?”
“Aye, Mickey said ye would need such and Bridget said we should get the silver,” He shrugged. “The man said ye need go back to his shop and get yer special drawing … uhmm?”
“Programming?”
“Aye, that’s what he said, and in the drawer ye’ll find something else.” He forgot what Mickey had called it.
She opened the drawer. “Oh! A cellphone.”
He nodded. “And all is working here and in the croft.” He’d been disgusted to learn A.J. had been slack about paying his debts but all had been set to rights thanks in great part to Bridget getting testy with those involved.
Shaking her head, Maggie whispered, “I just can’t believe you did all this … for me.”
“I did have a bit of help and auld John gifted ye with the splendid lamp.”
She wrapped her arms about his neck. “I don’t know how to thank you for making this dream come true. I love it, but how could you afford it?”