Mindy flushed. “No, but—”
He laughed. “There you have it! I enjoyed life too much to spend my afterlife drifting on a cloud.”
“And now . . .” Mindy couldn’t finish. It bothered her to think about his
now
. And it disturbed her even more that it bothered her!
It really shouldn’t.
Especially not in a crowded hotel reception area, where, sooner or later, someone would notice her and see that she was having a conversation with a ghost, regardless of how solid he might or might not be.
She started to say so, but just then a tall, heavyset man in a kilt came out of the sitting room. His tweed Argyll jacket was slung over one shoulder and he wore a white, open-necked ghillie shirt. The shirt’s old-fashioned Jacobite styling and his fur-covered, three-tasseled sporran made excellent foils for his brisk, confident stride.
Only his paunch and somewhat thinning red hair detracted from the image of Highland magnificence.
And—Mindy noted—perhaps, the glint of arrogance in his small, piggy eyes.
“Bluidy windbag.”
Beside her, Bran of Barra drew his sword, holding it menacingly.
Mindy blinked.
She was sure he hadn’t been wearing it a moment before. His clothes were, and still appeared, totally modern. Except, and her heart began to race, for the low-slung sword belt now circling his hips and the great, gleaming length of steel he held in his hand.
“Who is that?” She watched a crowd gather around the newcomer, some people oohing and aahing, as the man drew to a halt.
He put back his shoulders, nodding regally as people fawned over him. Then someone moved and light from a wall sconce shone fully on his face and Mindy gasped, recognition hitting her like a bucket of ice water.
The pseudo Jacobite was the author.
Wee Hughie MacSporran.
And if the sound—almost a furious growl—coming from deep inside Bran’s chest was any indication, her brawny Hebridean chieftain didn’t think much of the man who styled himself the Highland Storyweaver.
“You don’t like him, do you?” She glanced at Bran, only to find herself staring into the dark eyes of a big, bulky man with a shock of curly black hair and a weather-beaten, seaman’s kind of face.
Bran of Barra—and his dog—had vanished yet again.
Mindy swallowed her gasp, not wanting the fisherman to think she was nuts. She hitched the shoulder strap of her bag again and then smoothed her hair, trying to look normal.
“Thon windbag?” The man jerked his dark head in the author’s direction, his use of Bran of Barra’s title for the writer making him instantly sympathetic.
“Nae, I don’t like him.” The man looked as if he’d spit on the carpet—were they standing anywhere but in the finely decorated reception of the Hebridean House.
“He’s no’ come here to put people in books.” He hooked his thumbs in his belt, keeping his gaze pinned on Wee Hughie. “It’s all show, I say you.”
“Show?” Mindy’s attention, too, was fixed on the writer.
It was clear that he was a performer.
“Aye, that’s what he’s about, that one.” The fisherman’s tone was cynical. “He’s here hoping he’ll find the Barra sword, he is. That’s what he’d put in his book! After”—he glanced at Mindy, still looking so ready to spit that she almost jumped backward—“he’s made a fool out of all these good, trusting people.
“Then he’ll sell the sword to some museum down London way and have a fine laugh at us all.”
“Sorry; I’m not following you.” Mindy didn’t want to be rude, but she couldn’t stop looking past the man, hoping to see Bran and Gibbie reappear.
And she didn’t understand what he meant about a sword.
Until . . .
She went hot and cold, grabbing the fisherman’s arm when he started to move away. “What’s this about a Barra sword? I just got here and haven’t heard anything about—”
“That’s because there hasn’t been a sword here for centuries.” The man turned, but his gaze kept flashing to the writer. “No one except a historian or archaeologist would know it was ever said to exist.
“If it even did,” he added, lowering his voice. “The sword belonged to the old Barra MacNeils and was half-mythic. Had strange powers, it did.
“Sword done went and vanished in the mists o’ time, like so much from the auld days. But”—his eyes glinted—“there’s some who believe it might be hidden in with all the stones some rich American has brought back to Barra.”
Mindy looked at him. “And you think Wee Hughie MacSporran is hoping to find it?”
She shot another glance at the author.
He looked arrogant, true.
But she doubted he was a sword thief.
The fisherman shrugged, the inborn reticence of the Highlands settling over him, closing his expression. He was clearly sorry he’d said as much as he had.
“Aye, well.” He couldn’t quite hide a trace of indignation. “If that’s his plan, we’ll be hearing soon enough if he finds the sword.”
“But you’re hoping he won’t?”
“That I am.” The man nodded solemnly. “There’s some things shouldn’t be disturbed.”
The words spoken, he cut across the crowd, exiting through the hotel door to the dark night beyond.
Mindy started after him, sure that the sword he meant was Bran of Barra’s. But before she made it halfway to the reception desk, the blue-cardiganed proprietress sailed up to her, the woman’s beaming face heralding success.
“You’re in luck!” The woman halted before Mindy. “I’ve just run down Jock and he’s agreed that you can let the Anchor. In fact, he’s heading there now to put on fresh linens and lay a fire for you.”
Mindy blinked. “That’s wonderful.”
She hoped it was!
She’d forgotten all about the Hebridean House not having a room for her.
The Anchor hadn’t sounded very inviting.
But beggars couldn’t be choosers.
And if the little cottage wasn’t exactly luxurious, she’d at least have a roof over her head. Better yet, according to the proprietress’s earlier description, the Anchor also boasted its own bath.
She’d have privacy.
Much-needed alone time to relax and—her heart skittered—to think about Bran and the mysterious Barra sword, an ancient MacNeil heirloom.
Mindy’s pulse skittered.
She was certain the two were connected.
When she stepped outside the Hebridean House and saw that the night had cleared, any doubts that might have remained left her. She’d never seen so many stars, and even from here, high up on a hill above the village, the lights along the waterfront twinkled brightly, reflecting in water that looked as still and glassy as a black mirror.
It was a beautiful night.
And with a surge of buoyancy that would have astounded Margo and the others at Ye Olde Pagan Times, she almost believed that the disappearance of the pea-soup fog was a sign.
A good portent.
And one that meant she was supposed to be here.
So she pulled her jacket tighter against the cold and started down the road toward her car, happier than she’d been in a very long time.
She inhaled deeply as she walked, filling her lungs with the chill night air. She relished how it smelled not just after-rain fresh, but also of the sea. And, she was sure, a trace of heather and woodsmoke. Enchanted, she tilted back her head and smiled up at the glittering heavens, hoping that a certain burly and too- full-of-life-to-hold-with-cloud-floating ghost would soon pay her another call.
Mindy grinned as she reached her car, surprised to find herself almost eager to left-drive down to the Anchor. The tiny village suddenly struck her as cozy. And with the rain stopped and everything so peaceful, she couldn’t help but recall the noise and hecticness of the Newark airport that had been her last glimpse of America—plus the auto-fumed stink of the taxi stand and the crush of passengers and airport personnel in the always-crowded check-in area. Security had been a nightmare she refused to relive, even as a memory.
As for the concourses and boarding gates . . .
She shuddered.
Then she looked around, feeling the quiet like a living, breathing presence. It felt like heaven, she decided, fumbling in her bag for the car keys. Her hand actually shook when her fingers closed on them. And it wasn’t because she was upset. She was feeling quite good, almost deliriously so.
Margo would say it was Highland magic.
And until this moment, Mindy would have scoffed at the very idea.
But now . . .
One night in the Hebrides and she was a changed woman.
Who would have thought it?
Chapter 10
Mindy’s elation began to evaporate as she drove through the village. Although the lights still twinkled, many reflecting prettily in the night-blackened water, there wasn’t a sign of life anywhere. The entire waterfront and harbor stretched full of emptiness. Across the bay, she caught the flash of white breakers on the rocks edging Bran’s islet. She also saw the great piles of stone from the Folly, the sight making her breath catch.
The stones—now better termed
ruins
, she supposed—were everywhere. And although some even appeared to be stacked in wall-like formations, it was obvious that anything presently standing on the tiny isle was silent and roofless.
Even so, she slowed the car to a crawl. It was hard to look away from the sharp outlines beginning to take form on Bran’s isle. But she couldn’t stare out across the water as she drove, so she scanned the village instead, each turn of the wheel making her feel farther from civilization. No shadows stirred behind the drawn curtains of the whitewashed cottages along the road. Even the chimneys looked cold, without a trace of smoke rising above them.
A tiny, combined general store and post office was closed at this hour. And the pub, called the Islesman’s Pride, appeared equally battened down for the night.
Only the fish-and-chip shop blazed, but as she drove past the shop’s large, plate glass window, it was easy to see that the counters were bare and there wasn’t anyone standing behind the till.
No one moved on the docks, either.
And if the fishing boats bobbing everywhere were any darker, they’d be invisible.
Mindy drove on, refusing to be daunted.
She did lift her chin, trying to recapture the wonder that had swept her on leaving Hebridean House. It was the same night, after all. So she leaned forward, peering briefly through the windshield, relief flooding her to see the heavens still brilliant with stars.
When she looked back at the road, she was rewarded by the sudden appearance of a small sandy beach. It curved along beside the harbor wall, shining beautifully in the silvery glow of the moon.
Feeling better, she passed the deserted Village Hall without even a twinge of ill ease. Her practical mind told her that all the locals were at Hebridean House, no doubt vying for Wee Hughie’s attention. And—if she was of a whimsical mind, like Margo—she’d have to admit that the stillness, together with the lovely night, lent the village an entrancing, almost ethereal quality.
It was sort of like slipping inside one of those incredibly atmospheric, too-beautiful-to-be-true, cozy cottages-and-landscape paintings one saw in so many mall gift shops in the States.
She couldn’t think of the artist’s name, but his colorful, luminous work was right in front of her.
Come to life in Barra.
Something told her that she, too, would come into her own here.
That brooding gray skies, wild, cold rain, and starry nights like this one would soon have her believing she’d found something she didn’t know she’d been seeking.
But before she let her mind wander down such a fanciful path, she needed to find the Anchor.
When a sloping, broken-stoned jetty at the far end of the beach appeared in her headlights, she knew the self-catering cottage had to be near. Especially as the road seemed to dead-end against a fast-approaching cliffside that reared up just ahead, its sheer, wet-gleaming heights effectively signaling that she could go no farther.
Sure enough, when she pulled over beside the jetty, she immediately spotted a small, thick-walled cottage across the road. A handmade sign propped in a window assured her in large, carefully printed black letters that the one-story dollhouse, with its corrugated iron roof and blue painted door, was indeed the Anchor.
She climbed out of the car, sure she’d never seen anything sweeter.
Her pulse quickened as she gathered her bags and crossed the road. But when she let herself inside—just as the woman at Hebridean House had said, the door wasn’t locked—she found the cottage cold and smelling of damp. She shivered, but doubted the chill would last long. Someone, likely Jock, the owner, had lit a fire and even turned on a tiny heating unit that stood in a corner.
Better yet, a kitchen niche opened off the main room and she could see the makings for tea set out on the counter. A very modern electric kettle promised she wouldn’t have to wait long for boiled water. And packets of Scottish Breakfast Tea and Earl Grey Cream gave her a choice, while a generously sized box of locally made shortbread reminded her of how long it’d been since she’d eaten.
There was also a large jar of hot chocolate, its thoughtful inclusion going a long way in impressing her.
In all her years of flying and sleeping in different hotel rooms every night, she couldn’t recall ever finding a jar of finest hot chocolate waiting to tempt her.
Digital alarms she couldn’t figure out, too-thin walls, and televisions that seemed to show only hotel information or pay movies without going fuzzy, yes.
