He looked more than ready to use it.
Mindy shuddered. Her palms dampened.
But then the blue blaze vanished as quickly as it’d appeared. Once again, the long-ago chieftain smiled as if enjoying some private joke. His sword safely returned to the painted scabbard at his hip.
If he’d really been glaring at her, he was only oil and dust now.
Mindy blinked and shivered again, not surprised to find that the
ghostly
chieftains had pressed close. They’d circled her and now eyed her quizzically. Some had thrust the pointy ends of their swords into the blue mist at their feet and were leaning on the blades’ hilts.
None of them seemed to have noticed the illumination of their forebear’s portrait.
Their entire focus was on her.
“So, lass!” Roderick lifted a hopeful brow. “Will you agree to carry out our wishes?”
Mindy took a deep breath. She still couldn’t believe she was conversing with ghosts. “I told you, I’m selling the castle. You’ll have to find someone else. I’m moving to Hawaii as soon as the deal is inked.”
Roderick’s face fell. He went still as stone.
Geordie’s jaw slipped. “Inked?”
“She means when she’s sold the castle.” Silvanus shot him an annoyed look, then turned back to Roderick. “But she’ll no’ be doing that, will she, now?”
Roderick gave a heavy sigh. “I was afraid it would come to this.”
“Come to what?” Mindy was sure she didn’t want to know.
“Our alternative plan should you prove disagreeable.” Roderick stole a glance at the others, then cleared his throat. “We’d hoped you’d be more reasonable.”
“I only want to leave here.” Mindy was beginning to wonder if it wasn’t the chili-hot sardines and garlic toast she’d eaten for lunch that had summoned them rather than the chocolate mint wafers.
Sardines and garlic seemed a more likely possibility.
It was a remote chance, but enough to keep her chin lifted. “That means”—she straightened her shoulders, as well—“I’ll soon be out of here and you can be sure it won’t be to fly to Scotland.”
“A pity, that.” Geordie looked down at his walking stick. “I dinnae think I’ll care much for this
Hah-wah-ee
.”
The others nodded in prompt commiseration.
Mindy felt sick.
She turned to Roderick. “What does he mean he won’t care for Hawaii?”
“What he said, just.” Roderick’s tone was pure resignation. “If you’ll no’ be taking our castle back to Barra where it belongs, we’ve no choice but follow you wherever you go when you leave here.
“You’ve already seen how quickly we can move.” A touch of pride lit his eyes. “We can also sift ourselves anywhere. So-o-o, if you won’t comply with our—”
“You’ll follow me to Hawaii?” Mindy stared at him. “Are you saying you’ll
haunt
me?”
“Every last one of us, aye.” Roderick glanced at the others, who all bobbed their heads. “We’ll follow you to the ends of the earth if need be. And”—he made her a solemn bow—“we’re prepared to do so for all your days.”
Mindy felt her eyes widen. “That’s madness. I- it’s blackmail!”
Roderick spread his hands. “It is a drastic measure, to be sure. Nor something we do lightly.”
Mindy didn’t care. Images of cold mist, sheep, and constant rain flashed across her mind. Lukewarm toast and plates of steaming haggis, followed by black pudding—
blood sausage
—and rivers of tea when she was so a coffee person.
Long dark winter nights and summers that weren’t.
Everyone knew Scots considered seventy degrees a major heat wave.
They drove left on roads that could only be called threads. Everyone you met claimed to be descended from Robert the Bruce. And—horrors—they sold fried Mars bars in the fish-and-chip shops.
Mindy felt under assault.
Her stomach began to hurt. “I don’t want to go to Scotland.”
“You can leave after you’ve done our bidding.” Roderick waved away her objection. “We’ve been here, in this wretched
Pen-seal-
place, for centuries. We wish to go home.”
“And to take our castle with us,” Silvanus put in, eyeing her sternly. “We’ve watched o’er these walls all these many years, honor-bound to safeguard each stone. Now”—he put his hands on his hips, looking most decisive—“it’s time for you to help us undo a great wrong.”
“The choice is yours.” Geordie lifted a finger significantly.
“You’re not giving me a choice.” Mindy’s heart sank on the words.
Roderick flipped back his plaid, his grin triumphant. “We are giving you more. You will be spending time in Scotland, lass.
Scotland!
You’ll see the grandest isle in the Hebrides, our own sweet Barra.”
“Many would fall to their knees in gratitude.” Silvanus’s deep voice rang with pride.
“Hail Barra!” A round of cheers filled the long gallery. Everywhere, chests puffed and plaid folds were flicked and smoothed. Bearded chins lifted, while swords—and one walking stick—were thrust high in the air.
The ghosties enjoyed victory.
Mindy glared at them.
She didn’t doubt for a heartbeat that they’d follow her to Hawaii.
They were MacNeils, after all.
One MacNeil had already made her life a misery. She wasn’t about to see what a whole band of them would do if she crossed them. It didn’t bear consideration. However she turned it, she lost.
She didn’t have much choice except to do what they wanted.
She was doomed.
Bran knew he was in trouble when he cracked one eye to peer across his bedchamber at his sword. The eye crack had to be his thousandth since he’d sought his bed for the night. He refused to torture himself by counting how many times he’d tossed and turned. How often he’d punched and plumped his pillows didn’t bear thinking upon, either. Yet no matter how penetratingly he stared through the darkness at his blade, he couldn’t detect anything unusual.
More specifically, he couldn’t catch the faintest glimmer of blue in the Heartbreaker’s pommel stone.
The fabled gem appeared insultingly innocuous.
Yet Bran knew what he’d seen in the bailey.
And although the blazing heat that had scorched his side left no brand scars, his sword hip felt as if the skin should be blistered. He’d also swear that his veins ached from the fiery blast that had swept through them, igniting his entire body.
His head pained him so fiercely that even pressing his hands against his temples didn’t ease the throbbing. And if he didn’t know better, he’d think he’d swallowed a whole pailful of ashes.
His mouth was that dry.
Most damning of all, he could still see the American’s startled blue eyes staring at him. Closing his own eyes helped him naught. If anything, each time he did manage to start slipping into a deep, much- needed slumber, he saw more than the woman’s eyes.
He saw all of her.
And he saw her naked.
Fully unclothed in all her wondrous glory, she stood a few feet from where he’d propped the Heartbreaker against the wall. Tempting beyond reason, she shimmered in a shaft of glowing blue light that hid her most intimate secrets even as the luminous swirl of color taunted him with just enough glimpses of her curves and shadows to set him like granite.
“Odin’s balls!” He flipped onto his back and snapped open his eyes.
Across the room, the blue mist swirling around the woman stilled and dipped just low enough to give him a clear view of her full, round breasts. They shone beautifully in the soft luminosity cloaking her, teasing him with their creamy, lush swells. Her nipples were taut, sweetly puckered and thrusting, as if she felt the cold, damp air streaming in through the shutter slats.
Or, saints help him, as if he’d been palming her breasts, rubbing his thumbs round and round their pink-tinted tips, making them tighten with excitement.
Bran scowled.
He wanted nothing to do with the woman, no matter that she had a lush and creamy bosom.
Wishing he hadn’t noticed, he curled his fingers into the bedcovers, clenching his hands until his knuckles hurt. He swallowed hard, outraged that his sword’s magic would summon the American here, into the sanctity of his bedchamber.
But furious or not, he was unable to look away.
A fierce lust slammed through him, scalding his blood and damning him with scorching need that made his loins pound and burn unbearably.
When the blue mist began to shift again, once more hiding her breasts, he released his fierce grip on the bedsheets and swiped an arm across his sweat-dampened brow. The mist was glowing even brighter now, whirling faster in glistening colors, sure signs—he hoped—that the vision would soon end.
Instead, the unholy glow parted again, this time presenting him with a quick glimpse of the tantalizing shadows at the apex of her thighs.
“Damnation!” Bran leapt from the bed, his control shattered.
To his horror, the woman jumped as if she’d heard him. Her gaze flashed to his, her startled blue eyes widening as she caught him staring at her nakedness.
She clapped one hand to her breasts and thrust the other one over the triangle of golden curls that—he was doomed—Bran couldn’t stop trying to see behind her splayed fingers.
Naked himself, he snatched a bed cushion and held it strategically, hoping her surprise had kept her from noticing how much she affected him.
Unfortunately, the slashes of deep color across her cheeks said she
had
seen.
“You can’t be here!” She finally spoke, the blue swirls circling her glittering more brightly than ever. “This—”
“Is my bedchamber and you’re the intruder.” Bran did his best to speak with chiefly authority. No easy task, standing mother-naked and clutching an embroidered and tasseled bed pillow in front of his groin.
He cleared his throat. “Begone and let me return to my night’s rest.”
“No.” She had the temerity to argue. “As I was saying, this is my dream and
you
can’t be here.”
“I can be anywhere I wish.” Bran glared at her, her boldness making him forget his dignity.
“Not in my dreams.” She stood firm, her chin lifting.
He scowled at her, then flashed an even darker look at the Heartbreaker. The damned sword was a single blue flame, its light brighter than a thousand bale fires.
“No’ in your dreams, you say?” Anger made Bran push away from the bedpost. A muscle leapt in his jaw and he narrowed his eyes, grateful that the blue mist hid her pert nipples from view.
He took a step toward her, his gaze locked on hers. “Did you know there are women who live and breathe to bed a Hebridean chieftain?”
“You’re a ghost.”
“Aye, so I am.”
“A MacNeil.”
“That, too.” Clan pride flared in Bran’s chest. “A greater race ne’er walked this earth.”
“The MacNeils are—” She didn’t finish, clamping her lips instead. Her lovely blue eyes glinted dangerously. “I am going to waken now. When I do, you’ll no longer be here and I won’t remember this nightmare.”
“I have a better idea.” Bran strode forward, drawn by the way her agitated breaths made her breasts jig on each inhale and driven by a mad urge to kiss her. “As you’re here, and we’re both naked—”
She vanished before he could reach for her. The room was empty as it’d ever been.
Bran tossed aside the bed cushion. Wheeling about, he scanned the shadows, but he knew she was gone. Nor did it surprise him to see the Heartbreaker leaning benignly against the wall, the blade’s cold steel and crystal pommel stone gleaming dimly.
Bran scowled and rammed both hands through his hair. His heart thundered wildly. Cold sweat spilled down his brow and even his palms were slicked damp. Frustration and fury took care of the problem at his loins, but even as certain swellings receded, blood roared so hotly in his ears he could scarce hear himself think.
Though—he had to admit—at the moment, not thinking was a very good thing.
Every thought to have crossed his mind since the Heartbreaker’s warning in the bailey sent terrible shivers slashing down his spine.
And he, Bran of Barra, Hebridean chieftain, appreciator of women, and Highlander to the bone, was not a man to be known for suffering shivers.
He was a lusty soul.
Broad grins, hearty laughter, and a ravenous appetite were his particulars.
He’d never been in love.
Not sure why that truth popped into his mind, he returned to bed and pulled a pillow over his head. A precaution should the closing of his eyes summon the naked American. He wasn’t of a mind to see her again. Not this night or any other.
The Heartbreaker be damned.
The blade chooses its master.
His grandfather’s words came back to him, bringing along a slew of other wisdoms credited to the half-mythic sword. Whispered tales of awe he’d heard in his early years as a lad. The most troubling being his grand-sire’s insistence that he couldn’t promise the sword to Bran. According to clan belief, the Heartbreaker sought the hand to wield it, seeking a new MacNeil in each generation and magically placing itself in the path of the chosen.
But Bran hadn’t cared for clan legend.
He’d wanted the sword. So he’d tagged after his grandfather always, begging to be the blade’s next master. Until at the sage age of four-and-ten, he’d faced his first worthy opponent in swordplay—a well-loved cousin several years his senior—and upon drawing his blade to meet his cousin’s challenge, he’d found not his own sword but the great shining Heartbreaker clutched in his hand.
The blade had been his ever since.
Leastways the ghostly sword whiling so innocently in the shadows. Without doubt the true blade had sought other MacNeil masters through the ages, but Bran had always felt a special affinity with the sword.
