Page 35 of Hold a Candle

Chapter 9

Angus and Darro enteredthe back door of the barn and turned into the barn office only to find Corey and Delilah sitting on Angus’s desk with his biccie stash bag lying between them. The surprise in their big blue eyes told them that the kids were up to no good and knew they were caught. Darro’s eyes narrowed at his niece and nephew.

“And just what are ye two doing out here alone?” he asked with a stern frown, folding his broad arms across his chest.

“Aye, and what are ye doing in my biccie stash?” Angus growled.

Guilt swept across their little faces in a red wash. “W-We are playing hide and seek, Uncle Darro,” Corey piped up, the biccie crumbs falling off his lips as he spit out the answer. He was ready to crumble under his uncle’s stern look.

Delilah rushed to his aid like any good sister and co-conspirator. “Aye, and it’s taking so long for Dal and Luca to find us that we got hungry,” she complained with a soulful look of her big eyes at Angus. “We knew Angus wouldn’t mind if we had a biccie,” she added. “We would have asked if ye had been anywhere around, honest and hope to die.” She crossed her heart with two swipes that indicated a vow that could never be broken.

The clattering of feet coming down the middle of the barn floor, and the two young men appearing in the office doorway had Angus and Darro turning around.

“Have ye seen Corey and Delilah?” Dal asked. “We were playing hide and seek in the hayloft because Lucerne asked us to watch them for a couple of hours while she went to town, and they aren’t there anymore. We searched every inch of that loft!”

Luca shuffled uneasily from side to side. “Aye, we figured they must have left there,” he added unnecessarily.

“Ye think?” Darro growled.

Angus snickered as their faces flushed.

The giggles erupting behind Darro and Angus had the young men’s eyes widening. Darro moved his big body aside so the lads could see their quarry sitting on the edge of the desk with biccies in their hands.

“Ye little rascals,” Dal scolded, the relief evident in his face. “Ye weren’t supposed to leave the hayloft.”

“Ye never said we couldn’t,” Corey replied with all the serious honesty a justified child could muster.

Luca scowled at them. “We told ye we were staying in the loft to play.”

“Well...ye might have stayed, but like Corey said, ye didn’t saywehad to,” Delilah pointed out.

Angus snickered again. “From the mouths of babes.”

Darro held out his hand. “Give me the biccies ye are crunching on.”

The children looked at each other and then laid their prizes reluctantly in his outstretched hand. They groaned when he immediately dumped them in the trashcan beside the desk. Then he picked them up one at a time and set them on the floor.

Pointing towards the young men he said, “Go with Dal and Luca. They will make sure ye get yer faces washed and put ye in yer bedrooms where ye will stay until yer Auntie Lucerne gets home. And if that’s after lunch, then ye will just have to go hungry until then because ye are grounded.”

Two more glum faces you couldn’t find in all of Scotland. “Aye, sir,” they chorused. They walked over to Dal and Luca who looked totally relieved to be free of the children until Darro spoke again.

“Dal and Luca, ye will stand guard, one at each of their bedroom doors, until Lucerne gets home. Is that clear? Mayhap ye can keep better track of them this way.”

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