More damning yet, he could feel the maid’s presence. Taste her kiss on his tongue as if he’d already ravished her. Soon, he knew, she’d be here. Tempting him as only modern-day sirens could.
Bran groaned. Then he tipped back his head and stared at the moon, peeking out from behind a wisp of torn clouds. If only he could be somewhere as distant.
But MacNeil’s Tower was his home and he wasn’t leaving.
He’d deal with the American when she arrived. As long as she wasn’t from
Pen-seal
-where’er, his chances of withstanding her were good.
It was just a matter of preparing.
Chapter 2
Mindy stood in the doorway to the long gallery, refusing to budge. Not that her legs would carry her anywhere even if she wished to flee. Her knees knocked furiously, her feet felt like lead, and a good dozen angry- looking MacNeil ghosts were blocking her way. Big, bad medieval
spooks
with bushy beards and flashing swords, and—she was sure—not a one of them stood under six feet four.
They were towering, plaid-draped hulks of menace.
In a word, they were terrifying.
Mindy swallowed. A chill of fear streaked down to her toes. If she’d thought Hunter’s ancestors looked ferocious before—safely trapped within oiled canvas and heavy gold-gilt frames—now they’d give Attila the Hun a run for his money.
Their shouts alone turned her blood to water.
Even worse, escape meant darting through their glowing, translucent ranks.
It would also require an intimate brush with their steel. Swords that somehow managed to look much more substantial than the ghosties wielding them.
Clearly retreat wasn’t an option.
As if they knew, the see-through Highlanders whooshed closer, their eyes glinting with malice.
A strange blue mist shimmered and billowed around them, filling the long gallery and casting its dark-paneled length in an eerie, otherworldly light. Icy tendrils of the mist slid through the open doorway to float in the corridor beyond, hovering as if in wait.
It was a no-win situation.
So she remained where she was, careful to keep her back straight and her expression unperturbed. The Highlanders’ faces darkened, their scowls turning formidable. Those who weren’t yet waving swords whipped out their blades now, brandishing them with flourish. A few snarled and growled. One waggled the scariest eyebrows Mindy had ever seen. She gulped and tried to pretend the ghosts were irate passengers, riled by overbooked flights and weather delays. A dreaded middle seat when, the passenger swore, he’d booked a window or aisle.
The list of upsets was long and Mindy had heard—and dealt with—them all.
Unfortunately, in all her ten years of flying, she’d never encountered sword-wielding complainers. Even the most unpleasant business travelers and VIPs hadn’t packed anything more daunting than laptops and newspapers. Some did arm themselves with oversized hand luggage and could become threatening when faced with objections.
But not a one of them had been dead.
Dust and bone for centuries.
Mindy shivered.
Then she remembered the mint chocolate wafers she’d eaten, gobbling down the entire plate and—shame scalded her—even polishing off what remained in the package.
She wasn’t seeing ghosts.
She was living a chocolate binge—a sugar-induced nightmare.
Sure of it now, she puffed her bangs off her forehead and tipped back her head to peer up at the long gallery’s elaborate wood-inlaid ceiling. Calorie regret swung round into pure relief. Even so, she took a deep, ghost-banishing breath and began counting to ten, certain the spooks would be gone when she looked again.
Sadly they weren’t.
If anything, they’d moved closer.
The nearest pointed a walking stick at her. “Begone, wench! If you—”
“Be warned!”
A second, much more fierce- looking ghost elbowed the cane pointer aside. The shimmering blue mist around them darkened, even crackling when he swept the other spooks with a heated glare. “We are here to warn the lass, no’ chase her away!”
Warn me?
Mindy’s blood froze.
Her eyes rounded. “Ahh, errr . . .” Her objections fizzled in her throat. This was bigger than chocolate hallucinations and grumbling frequent flyers.
She pressed a hand to her chest, not sure she could breathe. She recognized the ghosts from their portraits with little gold nameplates at the bottom of each heavy gilt frame. The first one—the
Begone
ghost—was Geordie MacNeil, one of Hunter’s sixteenth-century ancestors. The other, the spook now aiming the sharp end of his sword at her, had to be Silvanus, a MacNeil chieftain of fifteenth-century fame. Legend claimed he’d outlived six wives and died not long before wedding a seventh, a great beauty who was said to have been more than half his age at the time.
No one knew much about Geordie.
And Mindy didn’t want anything to do with either of them.
“You don’t have to chase me anywhere.” She didn’t know how she managed to speak. She began backing away, still half hoping they were figments of too much chocolate. “I’m leaving just now and—”
“You’re no’ going anywhere.” A deep voice boomed from the back of the long gallery. “No’ until we’ve had a word with you. And then”—the blue haze parted to reveal Roderick MacNeil, another fifteenth-century laird, in all his formidable glory—“you can choose your path!”
Resplendent in full Highland dress, he sailed forward, kilt swinging about his knees, sword at his hip. He stopped right in front of her and gave her a sharp look before sweeping low in a gallant bow.
“Roderick MacNeil,” he thundered unnecessarily as he straightened. “I am MacNeil of Barra, chief of that illustrious race! These other lairdlings”—he made a broad gesture with his arm—“answer to me. I—”
“We’re all the MacNeil of Barra,” another objected from deeper in the whirling mist. “Leastways we were in our own day and time!”
Beside him, Silvanus swelled his chest. “So I said just yestere’en. There be no’ one o’ us more lairdly than the other. That be the way o’ it.”
“Hear, hear!” Geordie rapped his walking stick against a table. “One for all and all for one is our creed.”
Roderick spun around to glower at them. “If that is so, why must I tell the lass what we want of her?”
Silvanus huffed something unintelligible. Then he nudged the ghost hovering beside him until he, too, gave an inarticulate grunt.
Near the table, Geordie shuffled his feet, sending up eddies of sparkly blue mist. He didn’t appear to have an opinion otherwise.
“Spineless women!” Roderick jammed his hands on his hips. “A blind newt would see why I am Barra!”
At the very back of the long gallery, someone snorted. It was a deep voice, richly burred, and sounded more amused than riled. The voice was also more distant. Different enough for Roderick’s bushy red brows to snap together as he whirled to flash an annoyed glare at the farthest reaches of the haze-filled room.
But nothing except the mist moved there.
And only Bran of Barra’s mute, oil-painted face stared back at them, his grin wicked as ever. He, at least—and Mindy was grateful—hadn’t leapt out of his portrait frame like the others.
In fact, Mindy was quite sure that his portrait was just that.
A painted likeness, nothing more.
Even so, Roderick shook a fist at him. “You’ve been silent seven hundred years,
Cousin
. Dinnae think to thrust your nose in our business now!”
“Hear, hear!” Geordie rapped the table again.
Others rattled their swords and hooted agreement. Some tossed back their plaids and stood proud. All sent agitated glances down the room at the fourteenth-century chieftain’s portrait.
Mindy could have kissed him.
He’d provided just the distraction she needed to start inching backward. Regrettably, she was having difficulty getting her legs to cooperate and managed only to bump into the doorjamb.
“Ho, lass!” Roderick’s voice roared from just behind her. “Where do you think you’re heading? We haven’t yet discussed our plans for you.”
Mindy whipped around to find him towering over her. He stood with his legs planted apart and one hand resting masterfully on his sword hilt. Obviously adept at intimidation, he was using every inch of his big Highland body to his most fearsome advantage.
Mindy blinked.
When her jaw started to slip, Roderick grinned. “Didn’t know that ghosts could move so quickly, eh?”
A ripple of hearty laughter from the other chieftains proved they appreciated his wit.
“I . . .” Mindy’s tongue seemed stuck to the roof of her mouth. She tried not to quake when Roderick’s grin vanished and he leaned toward her, coming so close that his curly-bearded chin almost tickled her own.
His gaze burned into hers, hot, blue, and terrifying. “Are you ready to hear us out?”
Mindy bit her lip to hold back the squeak that she was sure would be her only reply.
“Well?” He drew his sword with a real-sounding
zing
. “I’ve ne’er chanced to use this on a woman,” he mused, eyeing the blade, “but there’s always a first time. . . .”
“That sword isn’t real.” Mindy didn’t know where the words came from. Maybe it was a touch of refuse-to-die airline bravura. She
had
been trained to face crash landings with a smile.
Nerves of steel and a saint’s calm had been drilled into her for years.
In this case, it was likely desperation.
Either way, her daring had been a mistake because as soon as the words left her mouth, Roderick’s eyes flashed dangerously. Stepping back, he flipped his sword high in the air, laughing as he caught it on the downfall and presented it to her, hilt first, to examine.
“See how real—or unreal—you find the blade, my lady.” His voice thrummed with challenge. “I vow you’ll change your mind about speaking with us thereafter!”
“I don’t need to touch it.” Mindy ignored her trembling knees and lifted her chin. He’d made her angry now. “You’re a MacNeil. That counts more with me than if your sword is real or isn’t. As a MacNeil”—she almost choked on the hated name—“you’ll find a way to harm me regardless of the weapon you choose.”
To her surprise, his brows snapped together and he spluttered.
He almost looked embarrassed.
But the moment passed quickly and he folded his arms, giving her his worst glower yet. “So-o-o!” He drew himself up to his full imposing height. “If that is the way the wind blows, you’ll no doubt do our bidding.”
“And what might that be?” Sheer annoyance kept Mindy’s voice from cracking.
“We”—Roderick swept his ghostly friends with a regal glance—“want you to restore the tower to us.”
“I’m selling the castle.” Mindy was sure they already knew this. “Besides, you have it anyway. You live here, don’t you? Glaring out of your portraits at everyone who dares to pass through the long gallery and—”
“You’re no’ telling her proper-like.” Silvanus appeared at Roderick’s elbow with a swirl of plaid and a scatter of whirling blue sparkles. “Tell her—”
“I’m getting to that part!” Roderick glared at him.
Mindy wasn’t sure, but she thought Geordie sniggered.
He must have, because Roderick speared him with a dark look before turning back to her. Taking a deep breath—if ghosts could even do the like, though it seemed that indeed they could—he sheathed his sword and then once more planted his hands on his kilted hips.
“Hear this, lady, and think well before you reply,” he began, watching from beneath his brows. “We would have you restore MacNeil’s Tower to its original glory and”—he paused for dramatic effect—“we want you to return the castle to its rightful home.”
Mindy stared at him. “The castle’s rightful home?”
Roderick nodded meaningfully.
The other chieftains did the same.
A sick feeling began to spread through Mindy’s middle. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.” The lie made her heart pound and dried her mouth. She had a very good idea what he’d meant and the thought paralyzed her.
Still, she went for a bluff. “The Folly is in wonderful shape as it stands and—”
“The
Tower
is an abomination and shall remain so until it’s returned to Barra!” Roderick’s voice rose on every word. “You must take the castle back to Scotland for us. Stone by bleeding stone.”
Mindy’s eyes flew wide. “That’s impossible. I—”
“It was possible to get the castle here!” Geordie shook his cane at her. “Taking it back should be no greater bother.”
A chorus of ayes and foot stompings agreed with him.
Roderick folded his arms and grinned. “Well? What say you to our proposal?”
Mindy couldn’t answer him.
The floor was dipping wildly beneath her feet. She was sure the walls were weaving. And a brilliant flash of dazzling blue light at the back of the long gallery was nearly blinding her. Blinking, she saw with horror that the blaze was Bran of Barra’s portrait frame.
Worse, the builder of MacNeil’s Tower no longer wore his roguish grin.
He was staring right at her, his proud oil-on-canvas face wearing a scowl more frightening than all his chiefly descendants put together.
If he, too, jumped down and
whooshe
d up to her, she just might faint. After all, if the artist hadn’t used poetic license, his sword was the longest of the lot’s. Just now the blade’s pommel stone burned with the same fiery blue as the portrait frame. He’d also unsheathed the sword and—it was very obvious—he stood clutching the blade’s hilt in a white-knuckled grip.
