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Thomas who’d stayed with the clan rather than take their chances returning to the south. One of the MacAnalens discovered the next beam had been cut too short. The men were tired and grumbling. If Angus hadn’t been so determined to see the roof finished in the next few days, he would have called a halt. Instead, he called for another beam.
    “Come on, lads, let’s get on with it.” The oaths answering his words could have singed his ears. They certainly were not fit for the nearby lasses’ ears.
    He grimaced when he noticed Shona had disappeared, then berated himself for expecting her to watch him every moment of the day. She had her own issues to deal with. Her uncle for one.
    With a shrug, he turned his attention back to the crew on the ground and swore when he realized what they were doing.
    “Nay, no’ like that!”
    With another oath, he jumped to the scaffolding and clambered to the ground. The way the new lads were tying off this latest beam, it would have slipped its knots and fallen before the men above could lift it in place, crushing anyone below. Angus controlled his temper and knelt to show the lads—who were trying to help, he reminded himself—the correct way to lash the beam.
    Suddenly a thump, followed by shouts, broke through his irritation. Would nothing go right today? He glanced up in time to see the end of a beam punch through a newly constructed wall, scattering stones and chunks of wet mortar. Just as he gained his feet and yelled for the lads to get clear, the beam disappeared from the wall, and the stones above it collapsed into the shoulder-height hole it left. Then the whole wall tumbled down, one of the stones grazing a lad’s leg. The lad cursed but kept moving, limping out of the way.
    Beyond, a team of men stood with the beam on their shoulders, expressions aghast at the havoc they’d caused. As one man, they backed away, then dropped their burden with an audible thump. One of them called out, “Sorry.”
    Angus made sure no one else had been harmed, then ordered everyone off the structure. Groaning, he ran a hand through his hair. Stonework was the hardest, most backbreaking task, and they would have to rebuild this whole section of wall. In addition, they’d have to check the adjoining sections carefully, as well as the completed roofing above them, for damage.
    In the last few months, Angus had tolerated much. But this? He felt his temper rising as it had yet to do since the awful days of the lowlander invasion. He marched around the tumbled wall to a chorus of accusatory shouts. When he reached them, the men fell silent. The odor of ale assaulted Angus’s nose.
    “Sorry?” he demanded. “Aye, ye’re a sorry lot. Drinking too much and no’ taking care with yer work. Is that the best ye can do?” He clenched his fists. “If we had any stocks, I’d throw ye lot in them. If we didna have to build them first. Like every other damned thing. Do ye ken what ye’ve done?”
    Three of the men had their gazes on the ground. Another, the one in the lead as they’d moved forward, eyed him with the surly confidence of a man fully in his cups and announced, “Ye are no’ the laird.” A few of his fellows angrily silenced him. At the sound of “aye” from others, Angus narrowed his eyes. He wanted to pummel them all for several reasons—the sloppy work, the taunt, and their drunkenness—but that would accomplish nothing.
    To make matters worse, Thomas and some of his men stormed up, cursing and demanding to know who had laid their hard work to waste.
    Angus pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. This was partly his fault. He’d insisted on continuing the work even after he’d noticed the men’s fatigue. Drinking ale didn’t help, but even he had done that. And his mind had been on Shona more than the work at hand. He hadn’t exactly been paying close attention. But he also hadn’t been carrying the beam that knocked down the wall.
    “Ye men did this,” Angus