Love Beyond Dreams (A Scottish Time Travel Romance): Book 6 (Morna's Legacy Series) (6 page)

She shook her head and moved to stand at the entrance of the cave as if waiting for him to leave. Her shortness bothered him. That she could say so little in their last moment together. He said nothing, only made his way past her, stopping to lean in and kiss her cheek before stepping away and out of the cave.
 

For the first few steps, he thought she would allow him to leave without another word but eventually, she called out to him. He turned to look at his friend one last time.
 

There were tears in her eyes, a sight he’d never seen before. He moved in to comfort her, but she held a hand up to stop him.
 

“Ye must go, Craig. If ever ye find a group of people who care for ye more than I, doona ye dare leave them, for ye will be a lucky man.”

CHAPTER 8

Present Day

Cooper’s revelation freaked me out enough that I spent the rest of the day in the solitude of my bedroom wondering if Aiden was right. Could Cagair Castle really be haunted? But did ghosts usually visit people in their dreams? I didn’t know, having no experience with anything paranormal myself. Regardless, the idea that I’d been daydreaming, night-dreaming, painting, and fantasizing about a dead man gave me the heebie-jeebies worse than walking in on my aunt and uncle getting busy in my grandparents’ lake house.
 

And the thing was, no one else had seen this man around the castle. Not the construction workers, or Aiden, or Anne. So what did that say about me? Was I crazy, or was it not so much the castle that was haunted but just me? The entire thing was unsettling and, really, rather embarrassing. I’d spent hours upon hours reading nonsense into my dreams—hoping, wondering if perhaps I was somehow meant to know this man—that maybe in another life, or just later in this one, I might love him. Any chance of that happening was clearly now shot to hell.
 

I spent a miserable night trying to stay awake and then, in the end, fell asleep only to have the same beautiful dead man hanging out behind my eyelids. Come morning, exhausted and rather peeved, I went to check in on Aiden to see if he needed anything now that Anne had left for the day to go and check on things back at their real home.
 

I found him already awake, dressed, and sitting at the end of his bed slipping on shoes as if he were about to head to work. That so wasn’t going to happen today. If I allowed it, I would never hear the end of it from Anne.
 

“How are you feeling? Whatever you say, I know it’s not well enough to be slipping on your work boots.”

He stilled his hands on the laces of his shoes and lifted himself so that he could cross his arms and stare back at me.
 

“My wife just left. I can do without ye bossing me around, as well. I feel fine, a bit sore but better than yesterday.”

Yesterday, after the copious amount of drugs he took the day of surgery, had been miserable for the poor guy. Anne restricted the pain pills, and he’d not felt like doing anything but lying around and having her baby him.
 

“Well, I’m glad you’re feeling a little better, but I don’t think you need to do any work today. The construction crew can’t come back until after everybody leaves so just take it easy for a while, yeah? Think of it as a little vacation.”

He could see that he fought a losing battle and kicked his shoes off with a frown.
 

“I doona want another ‘vacation.’ The last dinna go well.”

I grinned and stepped inside the room, moving to sit on a small bench opposite him.
 

“Yeah, it was awful mean what she did to you. Though, I’m sure she’ll make it up to you somehow.”

Aiden lifted his eyebrows mischievously. “Aye, I’ll make sure she does. What are ye doing here, Gillian? I expected ye’d already have half a canvas painted by now.”

“I’m going to take a break from painting during the day for a while. Let our guests have their run of the place. I’m just trying to stay out of their way. They all seem very preoccupied preparing for whoever they are hosting here tonight.” I paused and bit my lip as I tried to approach the strange subject with Aiden. Eventually, I decided to just go for it. “Hey, you want to hear something really creepy?”

He smiled with wide eyes. “Aye, always.”

“Okay, so you know that painting you commented on the other day? The one of the man?”

“Mr. Needs-To-Eat-More-Cookies-And-Less-Protein-Shakes? Aye, I remember the painting. What about it?”

I laughed at Aiden’s description of him. The same thought had crossed my mind more than a few times—the man’s body fat had to be like some sort of ridiculous negative percentage.
 

“Well, I’ve been dreaming about him, you know? And, yesterday morning, I bumped into the small kid that’s here—Cooper? You probably don’t remember his name since you were high as a kite when they got here but anyway, he wanted me to show him around the castle, so I did, and…” I hesitated, chills scattering over my arms just thinking back on it. “When he saw the painting, he looked like he’d seen a ghost.”

Aiden’s brows pulled in and his smile faded. “Why would he do that?”

“He knew the man in the painting. He knew him very well. That man is dead now.”

“Aye, ye were no joking when ye said creepy.”

“I know.” My voice lifted an octave as I answered him. “I don’t know what to think about it. I dreamed about him last night again too.”

“Do ye think Cagair was his home? Maybe ye should switch bedrooms?”

I shook my head and stood to move around the room in an effort to calm my nerves. “I don’t think that he did, but I don’t know. I didn’t ask the boy anything more. It seemed to upset him so much. I just sort of dropped it and brought him back downstairs.”

“Ask the lad’s parents.”

I couldn’t do that. I already promised Cooper that I wouldn’t.
 

“I can’t. He thought the painting would upset his Aunt Jane and Uncle Adwen even more than it did him. He didn’t want anyone else to know about it.”

Aiden reached up to rub his hand over his face like he always did when he was thinking something over. When he spoke, his tone was entirely serious.
 

“He’s trying to tell ye something, Gillian. Ye’ve got to listen to him. It’s the only way he will leave ye alone.”

“But he never says anything. I just see him. I don’t know how I could listen to him any more. I dream about him. I’ve painted him. If he’s a ghost, why doesn’t he just act like a normal one and stay out of my head and show up in the hallway?”

Aiden stood and walked over to look down the hallway as if he thought my words would summon the man straight from his grave. “Doona say that unless ye mean it. Ye shouldna invite them in. Enough wander this world on their own as it is.”

“I do mean it. I’m tired of this and more than a little freaked out by it now that I know this man is dead and not my soul mate.”

Aiden laughed, easing the creepy tension that had built quickly.
 

“Yer soul mate? Why I wouldna have picked ye to be the kind to think of something so fanciful. If he were yer soul mate, he wouldna be dead, and ye’d be far more likely to meet him in an airport rather than yer dreams.”

My face warmed in embarrassment. “Yeah, well obviously, I know that now but at first, it seemed logical.”

Aiden shook his head in amusement. It made me want to jab him in the cheek with one of my fingers, just to aggravate his sore teeth.
 

“Logical? Ha. There is nothing logical about ye women folk.”

I couldn’t argue with him. Now, knowing what I did, it seemed ridiculous.
 

“Okay, I regret having told you any of that, frankly. Let’s just move on from it.”

Aiden started to speak but stopped as someone cleared his throat in the doorway. It was Adwen, Jane’s husband who I’d been formally introduced to the day before. He looked concerned, and he started talking as soon as we both noticed him.
 

“I am sorry to interrupt the two of ye, but I’m afraid that I’ve received some bad news and must leave at once.”

I stood and made my way over to him. “I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I doona think so, but thank ye for the offer. ’Tis my brother and Da. They travel often and I doona worry, but they dinna arrive where they were meant to over a fortnight ago. My other brother is leaving this evening to go in search of them, and I doona feel that I should leave him to go alone.”

“Of course not. Are the others leaving as well?” Two weeks seemed like a very long time for people to be missing and there just now to be concern over it, but evidently news traveled a little more slowly amongst Cagair Castle’s newest guests.

“No, this is too important to Jane and Grace, and I’m sure no harm has come to them. I wager they just changed their minds about where they were headed and either dinna send word to those expecting them or they sent a man to give word of their new direction and he dinna do as he was asked.”

I couldn’t bring myself to bite my tongue. “Why wouldn’t they just call those who were expecting and tell them themselves?”

The corner of Adwen’s mouth turned up in a peculiar smile, and I could tell then that despite his need to leave and see to them, he truly wasn’t all that worried. “They doona have phones with them nor anywhere near where they’re traveling.”

“Are they traveling in Antarctica?”
 

Aiden walked over to join us while we were talking and suddenly jabbed me in the ribs as if I’d said something very rude.
 

Adwen just laughed, ignoring me completely as he turned to talk to Aiden.
 

“I know that I havena met ye yet, but ye seem a good enough man. Could I ask ye a favor? ’Tis no a small one, and I doona know if yer wife would approve of it.”

His question piqued Aiden’s curiosity and immediately he gave his permission. “Aye. What do ye need?”

I stepped back and watched the two of them as Adwen shifted uncomfortably between his feet. I couldn’t wait to hear what he said.
 

“We are here because Jane and Grace received word that their parents were coming from America for a visit. They dinna ask if they could come, only told them when and where they would meet them. The lassies are no that close with them, but I guess their parents have decided that long enough has passed since they’ve seen them. They’ve never met me nor Eoghanan, and while Jane understands why I must go, she worries that they will think she made me up if I am no there.”

The oddities of these people seemed to grow by the second. They’d rented a castle for an obscene amount of money, Aiden was convinced they’d arrived here by crawling out of some sort of cellar that didn’t exist, they knew the man who was haunting me in my sleep, and now, it almost sounded like Adwen meant to suggest that Aiden step in and take his place.

Aiden must have come to the same conclusion for his entire face pinched up uncomfortably in confusion. “I’m sorry, I doona understand what I can do to help with that.”

“I’m asking that ye pretend to be me for the evening. Jane is fine with it, and the others willna give way to the truth.”

I almost refrained from speaking up, but if he didn’t want me to hear anything, he should’ve asked when I wasn’t around. “I’m sorry but how will that ever work? Even if they believe it now, it’s not like Aiden will be around every time you see your in-laws. That’s sort of a ridiculous thing to ask him.”

“’Tis the only occasion I’ll have to see my in-laws for some time and, from what I’ve heard about them, they both keep themselves in a state no unlike the one Aiden was in the night we arrived.”

Aiden looked like he’d just been asked to save the world. His face lit up with excitement, and he lifted his chest like he was ready to start the charade right away.
 

“Hush, Gillian, and mind yer own business. If that’s true, then I’ll have no problem doing as ye’ve asked. As far as my wife goes, she willna mind. If I know her at all, she’ll enjoy watching the spectacle. I’m in.”

CHAPTER 9

“Gillian, just what exactly are you looking for? You look sort of crazy, and I’m worried that you might fall out of the window if you lean any farther out.”

Grunting, I clicked off the flashlight and pulled myself back inside before closing the window and twisting to look at Anne. She wore sweats and had her hair pulled up casually and had a frozen pizza she’d just warmed in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. She was all prepared for our grown-up sleepover. We planned to eat way too much food, drink way too much wine, eavesdrop on Aiden’s charade as much as we could and, despite my profound objections, summon the ghost of Orick using some sort of scary-ass book Anne picked up in Glasgow.
 

“I feel crazy, Anne. I really, really do, but I’m telling you, I just can’t shake the feeling that something is way off with these people. I think Aiden was right about them that first night here. It doesn’t make sense that they don’t have a car, and what sort of car service do you know of that brings people all the way out here?”