At least she hadn’t seen
them
anywhere.
The Long Gallery Threesome, as she now thought of the trio of ancestral ghosts from the Folly.
But when she drove out of the trees and caught her first glimpse of the castle hotel, she was sure they’d be here somewhere. Ravenscraig could have leapt out of the pages of a fairy tale.
It had to be a haven for ghosts.
Mindy swallowed, unable to take her gaze off the castle. The Folly was—and would be again—a sturdy, square-shaped medieval tower. This place looked like a castle confection suitable for Disney World.
It was tall, parapeted, and built of pink sandstone that gleamed red from the recent rain, with narrow-slit windows that seemed to stare at her from across a sweep of well-manicured lawn. Mist rose from the grass, hovering low and adding to the sense of otherworldliness. And—she wasn’t at all surprised—dark rain clouds filled a huge swath of sky directly behind the castle, proving that Ravenscraig indeed perched on the very edge of a cliff.
Not that it should matter to her where the castle stood.
All she wanted was a clean and comfortable bed, a hot shower, and, in the morning, a substantial breakfast to see her through to Barra.
She did like to eat.
So she followed the curving drive around the lawn toward the two rounded towers that guarded the castle’s massive iron-studded door.
A door that swung open the instant she stopped in front of Ravenscraig’s broad stone steps. Mindy’s heart leapt to her throat. For one crazy moment, she expected the Long Gallery Threesome to rush out, yelling their slogans, swords and walking stick at the ready.
With great caution, she climbed out of the car, her gaze pinned on the castle door.
But the only
souls
to rush to greet her were three dogs.
Two lively Jack Russells who flew down the steps at breakneck speed and a border collie whose slower gait and whitened muzzle marked him as a senior dog.
The wolfish beast was nowhere to be seen.
Before she could be grateful for small miracles, a gnomelike man in a kilt appeared on the steps. His bushy white brows snapped together in a fierce scowl when he saw the three dogs sniffing and crowding her. When the two Jack Russells started jumping on her, he hobbled forward, waving his arms like a windmill.
“Away with you, you pesky buggers!” His blue eyes flashed as he scolded them. “Dottie, Scottie, get down!” He shook a fist at the Jacks. “That’s no way to greet our guests!
“And you, Ben . . .” He started after the border collie. “You ought to know better!”
The dogs ignored him, now running circles around the car, each one barking a storm. Even Ben, the aged border collie, kept pace, his plumed tail held high in excitement and his pink tongue lolling.
It was canine chaos.
Mindy laughed.
Until the old man’s swinging kilt and his thick burr reminded her where she was. This was Scotland—very near to the Western Isles and the MacNeils’ beloved Barra—and she shouldn’t be finding anything here to laugh about.
Not even Scottish dogs.
No matter how amusing she might find them.
As if they wished to change her mind, the three dogs rushed her again, frisking around her feet and wagging their tails. The border collie pressed close and slurped her hand. Not to be outdone, the two little Jacks pounced on her calves, their wet noses cold on her knees. They, too, kissed her, and then they all took off, bounding across the lawn toward a thick hedge of rhododendron.
“Oh, my!” Mindy brushed at her pants legs. “They—”
“You pay them no heed, lassie.” The old man glared after the dogs. “Pampered, worthless beasties, they are. Good for naught but stirring mischief! We’ll have your clothes cleaned. We have a fine laundry service and—”
“No, no.” Mindy wished she hadn’t swiped at her pants. “I love dogs and there isn’t a speck of dirt. Even if there was, I wouldn’t—”
“You’ll be Miss Menlove.” He cocked one of his extraordinary brows, peering sharply at her. “We’ve been expecting you. I’m Murdoch MacEwan, house steward. Welcome to Ravenscraig.
“We’re always pleased to have American guests.” He thrust out a hand, almost crushing her fingers in a grip that seemed much too strong for such a wizened little man. “You’ll enjoy your stay with us. Our genealogy center—”
“I’m not here to trace my roots.” Mindy could’ve bitten her tongue. She hadn’t meant to be rude. “I mean . . . I’m not Scottish. I’m not even sure where my ancestors came from, though I think they were English.”
“English?” Murdoch MacEwan’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
Mindy wished she could sink into the graveled drive.
Who would’ve thought the Scots would still harbor historical grudges?
But the steward had definitely bristled.
“If you’ll come this way”—he turned back to the castle’s low steps—“I’ll take you through to the reception and then see to your car and luggage.”
“Actually, I’m from Bucks County, Pennsylvania.” Mindy followed him up the steps, feeling a ridiculous need to explain. “It’s near Philadelphia. We like to think America was born there. There are also many Colonial and Revolutionary battlefields nearby where we fought the English and—”
“Philadelphia, you say?” The little man swung round, his entire face lit like a Christmas tree. “Herself is from Philadelphia,” he said, beaming. “Lady Mara, our very own lady of the castle.”
Mindy smiled back, thankful—as so often—that her airline training also taught her how to change awkward topics in the blink of an eye.
“I’d heard that she was American.” That much was true. “I’d love to meet her,” she added to be polite, not quite sure she did want to have to make small talk with an American who obviously must love Scotland and had even married a real live Highland laird.
They would have absolutely nothing in common.
Or so she thought until Murdoch left her alone in the dark-paneled entry. He hurried away, disappearing up a spacious open staircase at the end of the corridor, having promised to return with Lady Mara. He wasn’t gone two seconds before Mindy felt chilled from the inside out.
It was the same shiver of awareness she’d often had at the Folly.
As if someone was watching her.
Rubbing her arms, she was sure Lady Mara would recognize the sensation. That much they did share. Anyone who lived in such a historical old place likely knew the feeling. And it was getting stronger the longer she stood in the echoing silence of the foyer.
She started pacing, but then stopped to peer into a vast, shadowy room that could only be the castle hotel’s erstwhile great hall.
As in the entry passage, standing suits of armor gleamed from niches set at intervals along the room’s walls. An incredible array of medieval weaponry dazzled the eye, with swords, lances, and shields seeming to occupy every inch of display space.
The room also boasted an impressive painted beam ceiling and even offered stunning views of the sea through a wall of tall, arched windows. Or so Mindy assumed, as, at present, thick clouds and rolling mist were all that could be seen out the ancient glass panes.
But none of that was responsible for the déjà vu moment she’d experienced on peering into the great hall’s shadow- hung gloom. Everyone knew there was a sense of kinship shared by those who lived in ancient places.
Yet this was more.
It was the kilted man standing near the room’s massive hearth, his broad, plaid-draped back to the door.
Big, burly, and with a shock of fire-burnished hair skimming wide-set, powerful shoulders, he had an air of the
medieval
about him. Power and pure masculine strength poured off him so that even in front of the enormous hearth—a fireplace large enough to roast two whole oxen—he dominated the space, seeming to tower over everything around him as if he were, well, larger than life.
He could have been Bran of Barra.
No, it
was
him.
Mindy’s jaw slipped. She took a step forward, and another, her heart thumping. Her mouth went dry, so badly she might have swallowed a spoonful of chalk. As if he knew, the ghost turned slowly around, his blue gaze locking with hers. Recognition flashed across his face and he gave her a wickedly intimate smile.
Mindy put back her shoulders, not about to return it.
I told you no’ to come here.
His words slid past her ear as if he were standing right beside her. His voice . . . it was sinfully provocative. Mindy tried to remain unaffected. But the silky-smooth tones lingered, taunting everything female inside her.
No man—corporeal or otherwise—should speak that way.
Annoyingly, Bran of Barra did.
Deep, low, and richly burred, his soft Highland voice would have melted her had she heard it B.H.
Before Hunter.
As things stood, she was supposed to be immune to Scottish charm. So she lifted her chin and glared across the shadowy room at him. No way was she crossing the threshold. They were on his turf now, after all, and that might give him some supernatural advantage.
Mindy swallowed, hoping it wasn’t so. “You warned me to stay away from your friends at the Folly,” she shot back at him, taking satisfaction in his immediate frown.
The way he blinked on the word
Folly
.
Pleased, she put her hands on her hips. “You said nothing about Ravenscraig. In fact, I’m surprised you’re even here. Or are you following—”
“He’s a ghost, you know.”
“Agggh!” Mindy spun around to find a tiny white-haired woman peering up her. Birdlike and wearing a frilly white apron, she smiled sweetly.
“Married our own Lady Mara, he did,” she chirped, her bright blue eyes taking on a mischievous, child-like gleam. She clutched a wicker basket of gift-boxed soaps and candles, hitching the basket on her hip as she stepped closer. “His name is Lord Basil and—”
“
Innes.
You know that’s Alex in there.” A young woman with flaming auburn hair and a Philly accent reached to take the basket from the old woman, stirring a waft of herbs and lavender as she hooked it on her own arm. “He’s discussing our plans for the Autumnal Ancestral Ball with his friend Hardwick.” She gave Mindy an apologetic smile, her gaze flicking to the open doorway to the great hall. “Lord Basil isn’t with us any longer.”
“He was just there.” Innes smoothed her apron with an age-spotted hand. “He was talking to thon young lassie, wasn’t he, miss?”
She turned a hopeful gaze on Mindy. “He said you shouldn’t be here.”
“Innes!” The American—surely Lady Mara—took the old woman’s elbow and started guiding her away. “Shouldn’t you be in the tea shop?” She glanced over her shoulder at Mindy. “Innes runs our tea and gift shop down in One Cairn Village. She’s our resident soap and candle maker.”
Mindy ignored them both, too gob-smacked, as the Brits said, to see two men in deep conversation near the great hall’s fireplace.
Bran of Barra wasn’t with them.
He’d vanished as if he’d never been there.
And in his place—exactly where he’d been standing a moment ago—these two new men were talking away. As if they’d been there all along, discussing, she now knew, an upcoming ancestral event.
That thought alone gave her another chill. Hoping it didn’t show, she stared at the men. Both were tall and well built, and had an air of the medieval about them. But their jeans, heavy work boots, and thick Arran sweaters marked them as twenty-first century.
Both turned to smile at her.
One had dark, shoulder-length hair and flashing eyes that gave him the look of a pirate. The other was slightly taller and had shining chestnut brown hair that, like the other man’s, just brushed his shoulders. He also had dimples. And the greenest eyes Mindy had ever seen. When his sea green gaze slid to Lady Mara, turning all warm and adoring, and he lifted a hand in greeting before turning back to his friend, Mindy guessed that he was Alex.
Sir Alexander Douglas, as the castle brochure called him, which would make him the Philadelphian’s Highland laird husband and master of Ravenscraig.
But his fine manly beauty left Mindy cold.
Even if in some hidden-away corner of her heart, she’d give anything to have a man look at her the way she’d just seen him look at his wife.
Dinnae think I’m no’ here just because you cannae see me.
Mindy jumped.
Bran of Barra’s rich burr was even closer than before. He also sounded amused. She could almost see the corner of his mouth lifting. She
did
feel his hand press her cheek, cradling her face. Her heart stopped and her breath snagged in her throat. His touch felt good, his fingers strong and warm as they brushed—no, as they caressed—the sensitive hollow behind her ear.
Then his lips were there, too. And his hands moved to her shoulders, gripping her firmly as he leaned in to nuzzle her neck.
Mindy shivered. The man knew how to neck nuzzle.
For a beat, she was whisked back to the times she’d pinned her gaze on his portrait in the Folly’s long gallery, letting his image help her flit past the other paintings. His roguish grin and twinkling eyes had reassured her that he would protect her from the other ancestrals if they leapt down from their gilded frames. He’d been her hero.
Now . . .
His teeth lightly grazed her earlobe, sending ripples of delicious chills all through her. She bit back a sigh, resisting the urge to angle her neck and offer more of herself to his attentions.
You should have heeded my warning, Mindy Menlove.
’Tis too late now.
“So sorry I was late in greeting you!” Lady Mara’s American voice filled the entry passage, as did a chill, damp wind as she closed the castle door behind her.
