by Allie Mackay
Leaving Seagrave to crumble into the sea, stone by stone, until the curse ran its course. A sorry state and the very reason he had no business standing here, deliberately letting Cilla think he’d gone.
Souls who insisted on peeking beneath rocks were bound to discover things they didn’t want to see.
Or hear.
Yet he couldn’t leave.
She drew him like a lodestone. Try as he might, he couldn’t blank his mind to the image of her tilting her head back for his kiss, her face going all soft and dreamy and her lips just beginning to part. A brief glimpse of the tip of her tongue to tantalize and enflame him.
He clenched his hands, squeezing them tight when she shifted on her chair causing her jacket to gape slightly, allowing him a splendid view of her full, round breasts.
A sweet temptation he had no business admiring, not that he could tear his gaze away. Nor did it help that she was looking right at him, her eyes earnest and her brows drawn together. Almost as if she saw him despite the cloaking shield he’d willed around himself.
There were, he knew, some souls who could see bogles always regardless of a ghost’s honest attempts at remaining unseen.
Or, he strongly suspected, times when the pull between two souls was so powerful that the veils separating time and place just ceased to exist.
Sure that was the way of it, his heart started a slow hard beating. A rush of warmth swept him, filling him with a deep longing that had nothing to do with her sweet, golden beauty, much as he was drawn by her loveliness.
It was more than that.
So much more, he felt his need for her to his bones.
He frowned, almost willing himself wholly visible until her gaze shifted past him to the windows and Castle Varrich. She stared out at the ruin, but her mind was clearly turned inward.
Hardwick’s body tensed and he narrowed his eyes on her, waiting. Seven hundred years of pleasuring women let him know them well. He could easily read the tempting American. She was about to make an important pronouncement.
“Aunt Birdie….” She returned her attention to her aunt, her tone proving him right. “There was another reason I wanted us to eat here before going back to Dunroamin. I need to talk to you alone.”
Hardwick’s ears perked.
Chivalry forgotten, he sidled nearer.
“About Grant?” One of Birdie MacGee’s brows arched ever so slightly. “You know you have my sympathies.”
“It isn’t Grant.” A pink tinge stained Cilla’s cheeks. “I really am over him. Truth is, looking back, I can’t imagine what I ever saw in him.”
A jolt of triumph shot through Hardwick.
He edged closer. So near that her clean, fresh scent swirled up to entice him. Nae, to bewitch him, because for one crazy-mad moment he forgot he was a ghost. His lips started to curve in a slow, seductive smile. The kind designed to melt a woman’s knees and make her all hot and achy inside. But then he remembered his plight and frowned instead.
As if she knew her power over him and meant to taunt him even more, she leaned forward and her shoulder brushed lightly against him.
He froze, not daring to move as the warmth of her touch spiraled through him. Not just warm but golden and prickly, the sensation spread like honey-fire, flaming his blood. A fierce longing gripped him and he would’ve grabbed her, yanking her to her feet and into his arms. He’d steal her breath with hot furious kisses and free her beautiful breasts, letting his hands slide over them, kneading and plumping.
But then a shadow fell across the room, the brief darkening reminding him of the futility of such desires.
Even so, he reached to touch a finger to her cheek, savoring its silky-smooth softness, knowing she’d think his caress was the wind.
She blinked in response, her breath catching audibly.
“Grant was jerk,” she said then, speaking to her aunt but looking right at him. “He wasn’t even a good kisser. Actually, he was a bad one.”
Hardwick’s heart soared.
All ears now, he flicked his wrist and conjured a three-legged stool to sit on, plunking it down a good - safe - two tables away from hers.
He dropped onto it, waiting.
“Well?” Her aunt was looking at her. “What did you want to talk about?”
“Ghosts.” She cleared her throat. “I want to talk about ghosts.”
Her aunt didn’t bat an eye. “A-ha!” She smiled. “So you ran into Gudrid the Viking maid up at the ruin? I rather hoped she’d show herself to you.”
Hardwick sat forward, eager for her reply.
“No, I didn’t see her.” She sounded distracted. “What I really wanted to know was” – she paused, her fork poised over her baked beans – “if Uncle Mac had been a ghost when you met him, would you have still fallen in love with him?”
“What—?” Her aunt’s eyes widened.
“Don't make me repeat it, please.” She set down her fork, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I feel silly enough already. Just imagine Uncle Mac had been a ghost. Not a Casper-like ghost, but real-seeming. Like” – she bit her lip, clearly searching for words – “a flesh-and-blood man. A really gorgeous and sexy man.”
Hardwick grinned.
She was talking about him. He knew it as sure as Bran of Barra’s beard was red.
Her aunt angled her head, studying her through narrowed eyes. “A ghost? Your Uncle Mac?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “What would you have done?”
“Well….” Birdie MacGhee gazed out the window, appearing to consider. Then her face brightened. Turning back to her niece, she slapped the table with her hand, silver armbands jingling. “I’d have jumped his bones, my dear,” she laughed. “No pun intended.”
Hardwick looked from the older woman to Cilla, waiting for her response.
Her aunt was an ally, an unexpected boon. What a shame it didn’t matter. He could have an army of such stalwarts and his purpose at Dunroamin wouldn’t change. Even so, he leaned forward, his traitorous heart kicking up a notch, hope he daren’t allow himself, making his pulse race.
***
“Aunt Birdie!” Cilla felt her face flame. “I was serious.”
“So am I.” Aunt Birdie sat back in her chair, nursing her soda water. “I was much younger than you when I met your uncle. And very romantic, adventurous and bold.” She glanced aside, clearly reminiscing. “I’m sure I would have fallen for him, yes.”
“Despite the impossibility of it?” Cilla remained skeptical.
“The impossibility of it – the romance - would have spurred me on.” A dreamy look entered Aunt Birdie’s eyes. “Remember, I’m the one your mother says is ‘out with the fairies.’ I would have hoped to find a spell or whatnot to make things work for us.”
“I think you mean that.”
“I do.”
Looking wholly in her element, Aunt Birdie lifted an arm and examined the bangles on her wrist. “I’ll prove it to you,” she said, fingering one of them. “Once, well before I met Mac, I stayed in a lovely castle hotel near Edinburgh. It’s now a luxurious tourist resort, yet preserved as one of Scotland’s finest thirteenth century strongholds.”
Cilla’s heart skittered. She knew her aunt had more to tell, something important. “What happened?”
“Ah, well-” Aunt Birdie laughed, sat straighter in her chair. “I was given a suite in the oldest part of the castle, a wonderfully re-created medieval bedchamber deep in the castle’s vaulted basement.”
“You saw a ghost there?” Cilla pounced on the possibility.
Aunt Birdie’s gaze went past her. “Let’s just say that the castle’s five hundred year old well was in my room.” She looked back at Cilla. “It gave me certain ideas.”
“Like what?”
Aunt Birdie studied her arm bangles again. “The well,” she began, speaking slowly, “was in a corner of the room. For safety’s sake, it’d been fitted with a clear glass covering and an iron grill, but little spotlights shone into
the shaft. You could look down into it, clear to the bottom where the water winked back up at you.”
“You loved it.” Cilla knew her aunt.
“More than that, it fascinated me.” Aunt Birdie’s voice went soft, distant. “Highlighted as the well was, combined with the room’s period furnishings, made it more than easy to lie awake at night and imagine a dashing warrior knight climbing up out of the shaft to ravish me!”
Cilla smiled. “But one didn’t.”
“Sadly, no.” Aunt Birdie shook her head. “But had such a gallant appeared, ghostly or otherwise, you can bet I would have considered his appearance a gift of the cosmos and taken full advantage.”
“I think I believe you.”
“You better.” Aunt Birdie reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “Despite your uncle’s blustering, there are things in this world that just can’t be explained. That doesn’t mean they aren’t real.” Her eyes started twinkling again. “And remember, this is-”
“Scotland,” Cilla finished for her, “a magical land where such things just might happen.”
“And do.”
“Oh, Aunt Birdie, I-” a sudden burst of wind shook the nearby windows, splattering rain against the glass and through the opening onto the edge of their table.
“Goodness me!” Aunt Birdie leapt to her feet and carried her chair around to Cilla’s side. “We’d best finish up and be on our way,” she added, reaching for her plate. “I hadn’t realized the weather was turning so quickly.”
“I saw storm clouds earlier but forgot about them.” Cilla spoke a half truth.
It was Hardwick who’d taken her mind off the weather.
Now, with the wind whistling around the eaves of the pub and rain pelting the walls, the magick moment had passed.
She’d have to wait for another opportunity to tell Aunt Birdie about her sexy ghost.
Her aunt might be receptive, but her mind was no longer on some romantic castle hotel and its medieval well. Now she was thinking about the long drive back to Dunroamin in the rainy dark and on slick, wet roads.
A journey made more hazardous by sheets of drifting mist.
“I can’t believe it’s so dark out there.” Cilla glanced at the windows. Light from the hotel shone out into the road, but otherwise the world had turned a deep, thundery gray. “I thought-”
“It will pass.” Aunt Birdie sounded confident. “As soon as the storm blows over, the night sky will be as shining bright as always this time of year.”
“Should we wait then? Maybe-”
A movement outside the window caught Cilla’s attention and she snapped her mouth shut, blinked several times. She might be wrong – the sword and his shield were missing – but unless her eyes were fooling her, Hardwick stood outlined against the overcast night.
Seemingly oblivious to the rain and whirling mist, he leaned against the wall near the hotel entrance, his arms folded and his feet crossed at the ankles.
He was clearly waiting for someone.
She had a good idea who.
Her breath snagged and her heart started racing. Then she nearly jumped out of her skin when Aunt Birdie placed a hand on her shoulder. She hadn’t even noticed her getting up.
“I think it’s time.” Her aunt smiled down at her.
Cilla’s jaw almost slipped. But then she realized her aunt only meant the drive home. ‘Out with the fairies’ or not, Aunt Birdie wasn’t a mind reader.
“Well?” Aunt Birdie stepped back, hitched the strap of her bag onto her shoulder. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.” Cilla pushed to her feet before her knees could start knocking.
She was ready.
Aunt Birdie was right. Scotland was a magical place.
And some of that magick was about to happen to her.
She could just feel it.
Chapter Nine
“You’re slipping, my friend.”
Bran of Barra stood on the pavement outside the Ben Loyal Hotel and grinned at Hardwick. Then he whipped out his sword and, with a bit of a flourish, jabbed at the empty space where Hardwick’s sword and shield should’ve been.
“You’ve manifested without your best pieces.” Bran sheathed his blade and set his fists on his hips. “The lassie’s addled your wits.”
Hardwick frowned. “My best pieces are here, right enough.”
All of them, he added. Naturally, to himself.
For Bran’s benefit, he held up his hands and wriggled his fingers. Instantly, his trusty shield and brand appeared. “They are here if I need them.”
He refrained from commenting on his wits. They did seem to be in a questionable state. Leaning back against the wall, he vanquished his sword and shield. Then he assumed the most casual stance he could muster.
He also damned his luck that he’d sifted himself out of the pub only to reappear in nearly the very same spot and instant that his Hebridean friend chose to manifest his great hunkering self.
The collision of their foreheads had been formidable.
Most annoying of all, the impact hadn’t seemed to faze Bran.
His own head was splitting.
So much so that if the knave didn’t stop grinning at him, he’d be sore pressed to challenge him to a bit of swordery on the edge of the nearest cliff. A plunge down a five hundred foot rock-face and into the cold, dark sea would dampen even a wild Islesman’s humor.
Instead, he left his blade safely out of reach and tried another, equally effective tactic.
He smiled.
“So-o-o, Bran.” He spoke as if they were in Seagrave’s massive great hall, enjoying fine ale and finer women. “How is it you lost interest in Norse wenches so quickly? I didn’t expect you back from Shetland for a good while.” He deepened his smile. “Or did the bonnie northern maids snub their pretty noses at you?”
“You ken no’ lass can resist me.” Bran’s grin turned annoyingly confident. “There wasn’t an hour I was away when I didn’t have a willing lass perched on each knee.”
“Then why are you here?”
“You ask! The whole bleeding Lerwick town was astir.” Bran’s expression turned earnest. “I’d ne’er seen the like,” he said, tossing a flap of his plaid over his shoulder against the cold wind coming down off the hills. “Even the womenfolk were up in arms, carrying on like the men.”
He shook his head, pulled on his beard. “You’d think the world was coming to an end.”
“That bad?”
“Did I no’ say so?” Bran’s chin jutted.
“I have known you to stretch the truth.”
“No’ about suchlike.”
Even so, Hardwick folded his arms.
Glancing aside, he pretended interest in the mist-bank blotting the scatter of houses at the far end of the road. From somewhere closer by came the sharp tang of wood-smoke, welcome on the chill, damp air. He took a deep breath, waiting.
He knew better than to rush a Hebridean bent on sharing a juicy bit of blether.
“Quit doing as if you’re counting raindrops.” Bran’s face loomed in front of him, mere inches away. “I know you’re keen to hear what’s set all Shetland on its ear!”
Hardwick examined his knuckles. “You’ll tell me whether I wish to hear it or not.”
“Is that so?”
Hardwick tried to keep his lips from twitching.
Bran needed less than an eye-blink to detect the hidden smile, his rugged face splitting in another grin. “You great lump!” he roared, clapping Hardwick on the shoulder. “All these hundred years and still you get the better of me.”
“I’d say the score is about even, my friend.” Hardwick reached up to give Bran’s hand a squeeze. He wasn’t about to admit it, but he’d missed the lout.
Stepping back, he resumed his leaning-against-the-wall pose. “So what drove you from some sweet Norsewoman’s arms?”
“A raid!” Outrage swelled Bran’s voice. “The whole of Lerwick town is out for vengeance.”
&nbs
p; Hardwick’s brows lifted. He could scarce believe it.
Bran’s bobbing head said that it was so.
“A raid?” Hardwick looked at his friend. “You’re certain?”
“Sure as I'm standing here.”
“Was there pillage, the burning of houses? Men put to the sword and women captured?”
Such was, after all, the old way of marauding.
“Nary a drop of blood was shed.” Bran huffed. “Nor was a single war cry given. It wasn’t that kind of raid.”
“What then?”
“They took things.” Bran lowered his voice, glanced over his shoulder. “National treasures, Seagrave. All that’s most dear to a Shetlander's heart.”
“The women?” Hardwick could think of nothing else.
“Nae, you great loon!” Bran scowled at him. “‘Twas far worse than that. They raided the Galley Shed, for the love o’ Thor!”
Hardwick blinked. “The what?”
“Just what I said. The Galley Shed.” Bran hooked his hands in his belt and rocked back on his heels. “Dinnae tell me you’ve forgotten the place. It’s the great warehouse – a shed - where the good men of Lerwick build their Viking longboat each year. They-”
“Vikings?” Hardwick’s brows arched.
“Up Helly Aa guizers!” Bran’s voice boomed. “Braw, proud men taking care to uphold their Norse heritage by burning a galley at their fire festival each winter. Now their exhibition hall’s been looted.”
“The boat was stolen?”
“Nae, but I’ll vow they only left it because it was too big to carry away.” Bran paced a few steps, whirled back around. “The fiends took nigh all else they could get their hands on. If the town can’t recover their losses, next year’s Up Helly Aa will have to be cancelled.”
Bran slapped his thigh, his eyes blazing. “Now you see why tempers are rising in the north! Blood calls when a Viking’s wronged.”
Hardwick understood.
Up Helly Aa was Shetland.
The festival with its firelit procession of costumed guizers and the burning of their dragon ship went back more than twelve hundred years. He and Bran had even attended a few such raucous celebrations together, in their earth lives and thereafter.