by Allie Mackay
Mindy flicked another toast crumb off the table.
It was an invisible one this time.
“The ghosts were in the long gallery,” she argued, not ready to hear anything odd about the kitchen.
“You think they can’t move around?” The gleam in Margo’s eyes intensified. “I can feel whole battalions of spirits tracking through here. Maybe they’re medieval servants, cooks and little spit-boys” – she looked about, warming to her topic – “or perhaps hungry clansmen coming in to raid the midnight larder.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Mindy rolled her eyes.
“Medieval Highlanders were big strong men.” Margo sent her long-lashed gaze toward the closed door of the buttery. “I’m sure they had appetites to match.”
“If they’re here and hungry, they can have whatever they want as long as they leave me alone.” Mindy folded her arms, starting to get cross.
Margo hopped up onto the table, swinging her legs. “The time for that is past. It’s you disrupting their peace now. They won’t be pleased to see you bringing in workmen and movers. Ghosts never like such things. The noise and-”
“The ghosts are insisting I do this!” Mindy’s head was beginning to hurt. “They appeared to me. They demanded I have the Folly dismantled and-”
Several copper milk cans artfully arranged in a corner toppled over, crashing into an equally ancient butter churn. The clatter – and ensuing echo - was deafening and brought a huge grin to Margo’s face.
“See?” She scissored her legs gleefully. “The castle spirits don’t want you disturbing them. The Folly is their sanctuary. They’re letting you know they want to stay here. They consider Bucks County their home now.”
Mindy snorted. “The Caspers in the long gallery made it clear what they think of Bucks County and” – she glanced at the door arch, half expecting to see them huddled in the shadows, eavesdropping – “where they want to be. I’m taking them there, to Barra, and then I’m heading for Florida.”
“Florida?” Margo sounded horrified.
Mindy quite agreed, but kept the sentiment to herself.
She did cross the kitchen to fetch a platter of locally made farmhouse Cheddar, sliced salami, and a loaf of crusty French bread.
“Here” – she plonked down the tray on the table, next to her sister – “eat something before hunger puts any more crazy notions in your head.”
“Why Florida?” Margo popped a salami slice into her mouth. “You wanted to go to Hawaii. Settle on Maui or, at least, Oahu’s North Shore.” She swallowed the salami and reached for another piece. “I even caught you scanning the Internet for homes in Haleiwa and Waialua.”
“My budget won’t allow a North Shore rental, much less the kind of house I was hoping to buy.” Mindy started to cut a piece of Cheddar, then set down the cheese knife.
Not surprisingly, she wasn’t hungry.
She did frown. “Florida is my only option. It’s sunny, warm, and affordable. I can stay with airline friends in Tampa until I’ve saved enough to rent a place of my own. If Global will let me start flying anywhere near my old salary, I should do okay.
“I’ll visit Hawaii on my vacations.” She shrugged, the prospect making her heart sink. She’d wanted to live there, not scrimp and save to visit as a tourist. “Florida won’t be so bad. As long as I’m away from rain and cold mist, I’ll be-”
“You’ll be miserable.” Margo jumped off the table. “I have a better idea. You stay here and let Ye Olde Pagan Times take advantage of your ghosties. Look how many people flock to our Gettysburg tours. The tours are booked solid months in advance, sometimes a whole year. A cadre of angry Highland ghosts in a real Scottish castle will make you a mint. And” – she waved a piece of bread in the air – “you’ll be able to keep every dime of the fortune Hunter left you.”
Mindy waited until her sister ran out of steam. “This might be a real Scottish castle, but it’s in the wrong place. The angry ghosts are going to be volatile, livid ghosts if I don’t do what they want.”
“But-”
“There aren’t any buts.”
“You’re making a huge mistake.” Margo adjusted the silk paisley scarf wrapped stylishly around her neck. “We could also call in some of the TV ghost-busting teams. Hollywood might even engage the place for film settings. Or you could lease turret rooms to recluse writers. The possibilities are-”
“A moot point.” Mindy remained firm. “And the only mistake I made was helping Hunter with his seatbelt.”
“Then walk away.” Margo proved she was just as relentless. “Let the castle fall to romantic ruin and take the money he’s left you and run.”
Mindy went to make more coffee. She needed caffeine. She wasn’t about to tell Margo that she had tried to leave. Her sister would thrill to hear about how the ghosties had flanked the tree-lined drive down the castle hill. How they’d shaken their swords at her. Worst of all, how the three gang leaders, Roderick, Geordie, and Silvanus, had waited for her at the bottom of the road. Her car’s headlights had picked them out standing in front of wrought-iron gateway between the twin entrance lodges.
They’d armed themselves with long spears.
Deadly, wicked-looking, fourteen-foot-long, steel-headed lances that looked as if they’d come straight off the set of Braveheart.
Just when she’d thought to plow through them, the gate’s remote sensor refused to work. She’d been effectively locked inside the property, much to the three ghosts’ amusement.
The one called Silvanus had thrown back his head and laughed.
Then he’d disappeared into thin air.
Only to reappear in the backseat of her car!
She’d seen him grinning at her in the rearview mirror, the memory curdling her blood even now.
Her car radio had blared bagpipe music all the way back up the castle’s graveled drive.
The radio wasn’t turned on.
And – Mindy knew – her sister wasn’t going to listen to reason. But she did understand cold, hard facts. Margo might dress like a model out of the pages of English Country Living, but Ye Olde Pagan Times paid her peanuts. Margo’s chic look was pure good taste and a healthy dash of bargain hunting, combined with second-hand thrift.
So while Mindy waited for her coffee to brew, she scooped up an armful of papers and scribbled notes and carried them back across the kitchen. She dumped them on the table, then stepped back and wiped her hands.
“Here’s why I can’t run anywhere.” She snatched a yellow-lined notepad and handed it to her sister. “I’ve told you how the ghosts threatened to follow me anywhere I go. These figures” – she tapped the top sheet of the notepad, indicating lines of numbers and her own looping shrift – “will show you exactly how much it’s going to cost to have the Folly dismantled, transported across the Atlantic, and then reassembled on the Hebridean isle of Barra.”
Mindy folded her arms, waiting as Margo scanned the jottings.
It didn’t take long for the color to drain from Margo’s face. “This is an astronomical sum.”
“Uh-huh.” Mindy nodded. “Once all the costs are tallied, not much will remain. Now you see” – she went to pour their coffee – “why I have to go back to flying and why I’ll be moving to Florida and not Hawaii.”
“This is so unfair!” Margo waved aside the coffee Mindy offered her.
“Everything happens for a reason.” Mindy took a sip of her own Kona blend. “Maybe it isn’t my karma to be rich and independent and live the good life in Hawaii. Isn’t that what you always say?” She set down her cup and summoned what she hoped was an untroubled smile. “That all our ups and downs are part of the big karmic cycle?”
“Yes, but-”
Mindy pressed a finger to her sister’s lips. “No buts, remember?”
Margo swatted her hand away. “Well, it’s just that-”
“No it’s just that’s, either.” Mindy sighed inwardly. She knew better than to let her sister get on a tangent.
“I love flying anyway. It isn’t as if-”
“These quotes can’t be right.” Margo frowned at the notepad. “You could send the castle to the moon and back for this kind of money.”
Mindy shook her head. “I checked everywhere imaginable. Those figures are the most competitive and they came from the experts. One of the Global captains I know has a brother who works on the Acquisitions Committee at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. No one knows more about such things.
“They buy up everything from Tuscan villas to entire French palaces and bring it all back to New York, stone by stone. Apparently” – she paused to glance over her shoulder, half certain she’d felt someone standing behind her, listening – “they even keep secret warehouses throughout the city to hold such treasures until they decide what to do with them.”
Mindy tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, remembering her phone conversations with the museum’s luminaries. “The Metropolitan’s board of trustees kindly recommended several removal firms best suited for” – she looked at her sister and forced a smile – “such a monumental task as I’m about to undertake.”
Margo brightened. “Maybe the Metropolitan will want the Folly? Let them deal with-”
“The castle isn’t for sale.” Mindy drained her coffee. “It will be dismantled, each stone and every stick of furniture and what have you packed in straw, acid-free paper, and Bubble Wrap, then shipped to Scotland in at least 10,000 crates.”
“I still say you’re making a mistake.” Margo glanced at the very spot where Mindy was sure someone invisible was standing. “Even Madame Zelda said it was your destiny to live in this castle. She didn’t say anything about you getting rid of it. She-”
“That was in the early days when I’d just met Hunter.” Mindy couldn’t believe Margo would bring Ye Olde Pagan Times’ resident fortune teller into it. “Besides, we both know she only tells people what they want to hear. And” – she couldn’t resist raising a finger - “her name isn’t Madame Zelda of Bulgaria. She’s Marta Lopez and she’s Puerto Rican.”
“She’s accurate all the same.” Margo helped herself to another salami slice and then slung her oversized leather handbag across her shoulder. “You did move in here not long after she read your tarot. And” – she went to the door arch, pausing just outside of the shadows – “she was right about Hunter. She said your one true love would be a big, burly Scotsman who favored kilts and was a notorious ladies’ man.”
Mindy tried not to snort.
She started to remind Margo that the fortune teller also said the Highlander would carry a sword, but she caught herself in time and just glared.
Glaring was good.
She did so until her sister waved an airy good-bye and disappeared into the narrow corridor’s gloom. But the instant the tap-tapping of Margo’s heels on the stone flags faded and she heard the castle door fall shut with a muffled thunk, the glare slipped from her face.
Damn her sister for reminding her of Marta Lopez/Madame Zelda’s predictions.
And double damn herself for remembering the bit about the sword.
Hunter wouldn’t have touched one with a ten-foot pole.
He’d claimed they gave him the willies and he’d even considered selling the Folly’s entire armory collection of medieval weaponry. Something he would have surely done if his parents’ testament hadn’t forbid the sale of artifacts they considered part of their family heritage.
Mindy shivered, the fortune teller’s words echoing in her mind.
They were coming back clearer by the moment, reminding her of things she’d rather forget. Like how Madame Zelda’s eyes had widened when she’d professed to see the Highlander’s sword, claiming she’d never seen one quite that long.
Then she’d gone all coy. She’d smiled secretly and lowered her voice, looking at Mindy from beneath her lashes as she’d declared that other parts of this Scottish paragon would be extra-long as well.
The remembered words hit Mindy like a fist to the gut.
Hunter had been one of the least endowed men she’d ever seen.
He was tall and dashing. His smile wicked enough to charm women out of trees. He knew his way around a mattress and was so skilled with his fingers and tongue that he should have carried a license. But big and burly wasn’t an apt description.
However, the plaid-draped, coppery-haired man standing in profile to her near the kitchen fire, eating what looked like a beef rib, was definitely big and burly.
In fact, he defined the words.
At least this time he wasn’t naked save for a medieval pillow.
Even so, Mindy felt her world begin to spin.
She blinked and knuckled her eyes, but he didn’t go away. Far from it, he simply munched on his beef rib, staring into the fire all the while. Mindy pressed a hand to her breast, unable to look away.
Huge, powerfully-built, and rough-hewn, he had the somewhat crumpled appearance of a man who’d just crawled out of bed. Or, she was sure in his case, off some scratchy medieval sleeping pallet. Without doubt, the thick, ancient wool of such coarse bedding, or even the prickly bits of straw on the floor, wouldn’t have bothered him.
He looked that tough.
He was also a ghost.
Though there was nothing see-through, flimsy-whimsy about him. He had an air of brute strength, positively oozed power, and unless she was mistaken, his nose was just a tad crooked. He looked real, solid, and – so far – wholly unaware of her presence.
His entire attention seemed focused on devouring his beef rib. An activity that disproved her assumption that ghosts didn’t have appetites. This one clearly did. And he wasn’t just any spirit either. She didn’t need to see the wicked, overly long sword at his hip to speculate as to his identity.
She knew exactly who he was.
Bran of Barra.
“Oh, no – it’s you!” She backed up against the refectory table, shock and recognition slamming into her like the punch from an iron fist.
The ghost whipped around to face her, his beef rib flying from his fingers. A torch – a torch! – flared on the smoke-blackened wall behind him and a shower of iridescent blue sparks burst from the crystal pommel stone of his sword. The bright glow of the sparkles, and the blazing torch flame, illuminated a kitchen that wasn’t the one Mindy knew.
Bran of Barra knew it well.
Possession – and fury – stood all over him as he fisted his hands on his hips and gaped at her. “Lugh’s balls!” he roared, his warrior’s body bunching with muscle. His stare flashed down the length of her, then snapped back to her face, his own wide-eyed and incredulous.
“You shred my last nerve, wench! Can a man no’ eat in peace?” He shot a glance at the half-gnawed beef rib.
Mindy glanced at it, too, feeling sick.
Her heart might be racing, but there was nothing wrong with her eyes. It was plain to see that the rib rested on icky, matted rushes and not the kitchen’s so-clean-you-can-eat-off-it highly polished stone floor.
She gulped.
Bran of Barra took a step forward. “I dinnae ken how you found your way in here, but you’d best be gone before someone else sees you.” He came closer and flung out an arm, indicting the door arch.
It was an arch Mindy recognized, but one that appeared so different in the blackness of deep shadow and dancing medieval torchlight.
Bran of Barra looked even more medieval.
At least six feet four of pure Highland testosterone, he was simply overwhelming. His portrait’s laughing blue eyes and roguish grin didn’t do him justice.
The dream image came close. But now, in a riled state, he was flat-out magnificent.
Mindy stared at him, mouth dry and knees weakening.
The words dinnae ken hung in the air between them, as did everything else he said in his rich, buttery-smooth burr. His voice was deep and real, almost a sensual touch sliding around her. The deliciously sexy Scottish accent taunted, making her pulse leap and igniting sparks of
female awareness even as every living inch of her quivered with nerves.
She’d vowed to never again be moved by anything Scottish.
That his burr affected her so powerfully made her face flame and her head pound. Admitting that his rugged I can toss you over my shoulder, carry you up the tower stair, and ravish you good looks were appealing was even more galling.
She’d been kilted and jilted once.
She wouldn’t be hoodwinked again. Most especially, she wouldn’t be fooled by a seven-hundred-years-dead Scotsman. Even if he did have a melt-her-panties voice, she was immune and would stay that way.
As if he knew, his eyes narrowed and – shades of Twilight Zone - his sword’s crystal pommel stone began to glimmer with a pulsing blue radiance.
“Damnation!” He clamped a hand over the gemstone, his scowl turning fierce. “Away with you, whoe’er you are. There are others about who’d do more than glower if they chanced upon you.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
Mindy straightened, heat scalding her cheeks.
No Scotsman, alive, ghostly, or otherwise, was ever going to do her again.
“I’m Mindy Menlove” – she lifted her chin to shoot daggers at him – “and I’ve already met the others, so you can’t frighten me with them.”
“What others?” He flashed a glance at the door arch, his brows snapping together as he scanned the shadows. “Was Saor one of them?”
“Say who?” Mindy blinked. She started to tell him about the long gallery ghosts, but before she could, he was right in front of her. His big, strapping body blotted everything except his broad, tartan-draped chest and shoulders that were almost indecently muscled.
The hot-eyed look he gave her was indecent.
So much so that her breath hitched.
She tried to scoot away, but he caught her wrist and pulled her close against him. So near, she could feel the rough weave of his plaid, the rock-marble hardness of his chest, and – she hardly believed it, considering – the soft brush of his breath on her cheek. She could also smell him. The bracing scent of cold, fresh air flooded her senses. It was a heady, outdoorsy scent laced with just a dash of wool, woodsmoke, and pure unadulterated man.