Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves(93)



He kissed her nose, then rested his forehead against hers, a gesture that was as intimate as any of his kisses. “Anything I love crazily enough.”

Forget the Leprechauns pot-o’-gold. She had all she had ever wanted, right here, right now.





T H E E N D


With gratitude to my talented friend, Rick Parent,

for permission to use his resplendently romantic lyrics

from his melodic, “Lost in Your Smile”



Find it here: https://is.gd/pR4LIK




~



I would be dancing on sunshine if you would recommend GYPSIES, TRAMPS, AND THIEVES to your friends as well as write a review at: https://is.gd/9AwFjI





Parris Afton Bonds is the mother of five sons and the author of more than forty published novels. She is the cofounder of and first vice president of Romance Writers of America, as well as, cofounder of Southwest Writers Workshop.

Declared by ABC’s Nightline as one of three best-selling authors of romantic fiction, the award-winning Parris Afton Bonds has been interviewed by such luminaries as Charlie Rose and featured in major newspapers and magazines as well as published in more than a dozen languages.

The Parris Award was established in her name by the Southwest Writers Workshop to honor a published writer who has given outstandingly of time and talent to other writers. Prestigious recipients of the Parris Award include Tony Hillerman and the Pulitzer nominee Norman Zollinger.

She donates her spare time to teaching creative writing to both grade school children and female inmates, whom she considers her captive audiences.



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THE CALLING OF THE CLAN



Book II

of

THE CLAN



by

PARRIS *AFTON * BONDS





Published by Paradise Publishing Copyright 2016 by Parris Afton, Inc.

All Rights Reserved

Cover design by Jerry Jackson, Inc.

This is a work of fiction based on history and a product of the author’s imagination. No part of this novel may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away.





In honor of the beautiful Scottish river, I was given the middle name of Afton, as were my mother and grandmother, as well as, my niece and granddaughter (and, also, the youngest of my five sons, after I surrendered any further attempts at producing a female bairn). THE CALLING OF THE CLAN, like its prequel, THE CAPTIVE, bears witness to my author’s rather vivid imagination of my Scottish heritage ~ and, aye, the film THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS with its majestic music score and complex hero Hawkeye inspired me.



FOR MY SAUCY, SASSY, AND REDHEADED BFF,





ANNE BEHL





§§ CHAPTER ONE §§




Wanting a bride, the proper bride, twenty-five-year-old Jacob Dare reckoned Campbelton’s annual Gathering of the Clans festival would be the most likely place to seek one. At least, the one he wanted.

A port on the Cape Fear River, Campbelton was in 1776 the mercantile and political life of the royal province of North Carolina. Rich merchants, high ranking officials, and wealthy landowners – almost all exiled Highlanders – mixed with crofters, cotters, and poor immigrants from Cross Creek, one mile away, on the opposite side of the Cape Fear.

From somewhere among Campbelton’s Gaelic gentry, he was determined to find a young woman to recreate the home that his father’s Dare Castle in Paddington, England must have been. She would have to be well-bred, well-read, and gifted with the ability to turn the primitive into the palatial. If she was favorable to look upon and sweetly dispositioned, that would be even better.

That unusually warm April afternoon he and the much shorter forty-year-old Fergus Munroe observed the festival from a sycamore stand, where the shade was dense and impervious to the sun. “Yewr forking in the wrong direction, lad,” Fergus said, shaking his bush of salt-and-pepper hair that nigh matched the shade of his bedraggled coonskin cap.

“No. I want one from here.”

“Why would a high-born lady live in an injun-‘fested settlement sech as Kinsfolk Landing?” The Ulster Scots fur trapper had built a trading post at Jacob’s settlement in exchange for the five acres Jacob had given him and ten percent of the profits.

Jacob’s dark face flashed a startling white grin. The dark eyes did not. His voice had a quiet, measured, and determined sincerity. “Because I do not take no for an answer.”

The tobacco plug Fergus spat dinged the dirt. “Campbelton’s Highland lasses are accustomed to foot servants and ladies’ maids. Ye know – high-stepping horses drawing fine carriages and a slew of overhead candles dripping hot wax at fashionable balls. The lass ye selected would have to be glaikit to agree to settle on a wild creature fer a mate.”

He was already surveying the crowd gathered on the parade grounds. “You settled for Coowee.”

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