To see the years touch ye gives me joy", he whispered, "for it means that ye live.

......what I was born does not matter, only what I will make of myself, only what I will become.

I'm afraid that my wife picked up a number of colorful expressions from the Yanks and such, Frank offered, with a nervous smile. True, I said, gritting my teeth as I wrapped a water-soaked napkin about my hand. Men tend to be very colorful when you're picking shrapnel out of them.

Don't be afraid. There's the two of us now.

"Sassenach." He had called me that from the first; the Gaelic word for outlander, a stranger. An Englishman. First in jest, then in affection.

He leaned close, rubbing his bearded cheek against my ear. 'And how about a sweet kiss, now, for the brave lads of the clan MacKenzie? Tulach Ard!' Erin go bragh,' I said rudely, and pushed with all my strength.

Highlanders make the truest friends-if only because they make the worst enemies.