by Allie Mackay
Intoxicating, and unlike anything in a bottle.
In fact, she was sure men would pay any price if such a scent was on the market.
Too bad the scent belonged to a man who wasn’t a real live man.
As if he sensed the thought, he circled his thumb across the sensitive skin of her inner wrist, his touch as true and warm as the living day. It also sent a rush of tingly shivers streaking up her arm.
Mindy’s heart galloped.
He grinned.
“You’re a ghost!” She tried to jerk free and couldn’t.
His grip was like iron.
His gaze heated again and he stepped back just enough to sweep her with the kind of look that would have made her go all soft and hot under other circumstances. It did make her feel like she should cover herself. For one crazy moment, she feared she might even be naked.
After all, if she was standing here conversing with a ghost, who knew what else was possible?
But then his eyes glinted with some indefinable emotion and he released her. He stepped back only long enough to brace his hands on the table on either side of her, effectively caging her within his arms.
“Aye, I’m a ghost.” He sounded proud. “But it’s no’ me we’re discussing. Saor, and others here, would plunder your sweetness in a thrice. They’re well-lusted, insatiable souls who’d waste no time showing you that lips as lush as yours are meant for kissing or that-”
“Kissing was the last thing the other ghosts wanted.” Mindy swallowed. He’d brought his face so close to hers that he could easily kiss her now if he wished to do so.
She feared he might.
She could see the rapid beat of his pulse at his throat. She also didn’t miss the slight jerking of muscle in his jaw or the wiry copper-bright hairs visible where his plaid dipped low across his powerful chest. The hairs glistened like gold in the torchlight.
Swallowing, she tore her gaze away, forcing her mind to the bandy-legged, bushy-browed long gallery ghosts with their scowls and shouted threats.
“The other ghosts yelled at me.” She blurted the words, nerves making her voice rise. Chest hair was so her undoing. She took a deep breath, willing herself to think only of the crusty old spirits. “They rushed forward to surround me, rattling their swords and- gah!”
She jumped, her eyes widening as an enormous gray beast streaked past them to pounce on the discarded beef rib. Clearly a dog – though much larger and more shaggy than any canine she’d ever seen – the animal hunkered down near the hearth fire to devour his bone.
He kept his gaze on them and as he did so. Mindy would’ve sworn he was grinning.
He was certainly in beef rib-induced ecstasy.
“He’s Gibbie.” The sudden warmth in Bran of Barra’s voice startled her. Actually, it would’ve melted her if he hadn’t been, well, Bran of Barra.
Mindy frowned.
He was a Scottish MacNeil. And worst of all, he was a ghost. As was his dog, undoubtedly. Their relationship shouldn’t matter a fig to her. But the way they were looking at each other squeezed her heart.
“He’s yours?” She spoke the obvious. The dog’s enthusiastic tail swishes and the devotion in his eyes proved their bond.
“Gibbie’s been mine for over seven hundred years.” Bran kept his gaze on the dog, his expression softening. “He was mine in life and then” – he paused to shake his head, as if at a wonder – “when I was no more, he was there to greet me, tail wagging and happy as you see him now. We’ve been together ever since.”
“So there is a Rainbow Bridge. Dogs do...” Mindy couldn’t finish.
She blinked instead, and then swallowed against the rising heat in her throat. She loved dogs and had always wanted one. But flying wasn’t conductive to having a four-legged friend. And Hunter wouldn’t allow dogs at the Folly, claiming that he was allergic to dander.
Bran of Barra looked as if he could get high on the smell of wet dog and laugh out loud at the sight of muddy paw tracks on a just swept and polished floor. Even if the rush-strewn floor they were presently standing on looked mired by worse muck than mere dog mud.
Staring at that floor now, and at the furry beast blissfully cracking his bone, was enough to bring Mindy’s world crashing down around her.
She might have been forced to accept ghosts, both see-through ones and this newest, muscle-ripped and capable of grabbing her wrist in an iron-lock grip variety, but time-slips or whatever altered the appearance of the kitchen was outside her belief system.
Time travel, sifting place, and whatnot, belonged in romance novels.
As did sexy Scottish ghosts and – it had to be said - their tongue-lolling, four-legged cohorts.
Mindy closed her eyes, sure she was losing it.
When she looked again, nothing had changed.
Bran of Barra was still crowding her space, trapping her against a kitchen table that, although of a similar size and sturdiness, was much newer than the Folly’s antique, age-smoothed refectory table.
Gibbie the ghost dog was still gnawing happily on his beef rib.
Mindy took a deep breath and released it slowly. “So dogs…” She tried again, only to have the words jam in her throat.
“Aye, they wait for us,” Bran of Barra confirmed, looking away from his dog to pierce her with another heated blue stare. “You can take a lesson from Gibbie. Something you’ll heed if you’re wise.”
“If I’m wise?” Mindy bristled.
His swift reversal back to towering menace banished any burgeoning sense of sympathy she might’ve felt upon his dog’s arrival.
“You’re mistaken,” she said, taking up a defiant stance.
She tossed back her hair, trying to pretend he wasn’t a ghostly Highlander, but the Texan who’d once planted himself on a first class armrest and refused to budge from an overbooked flight.
The memory of security carrying him off the plane gave her courage.
It did good to know that arrogance didn’t always prevail.
So she stood just a bit taller and held Mr. Too Alpha for His Kilt’s gaze.
She lifted her chin, aimed for her coolest tone – “Some might say I’d be wiser to stop talking to a ghost.”
“Aye, you would.” To her surprise, he grinned.
Stepping back, he flicked his fingers to produce another well-roasted, succulent beef rib. “Ho, Gibbie!” he called, holding out the tidbit. “Show the lass how ravenous you are.”
Gibbie leapt up and flew toward them, the gnawed bone forgotten. He slid to a skidding halt at Bran’s feet, his entire body quivering with excitement.
In a blink, he plopped onto his haunches and raised his paw, raking the air.
“That’s a good laddie.” Bran of Barra gave him the new beef rib, which, along with Gibbie, disappeared in a flash as the dog nipped the bone, streaked across the rushes, and then – Mindy’s jaw slipped – ran right through the stones of the kitchen wall.
Mindy’s airline cool vanished like a puff of smoke.
Even so, she held her ground.
“If you did that to prove he’s a ghost dog, you needn’t have bothered.” She hoped her voice didn’t sound as shaky as she felt. “I already believed you.”
“Ah…” Bran of Barra hooked his thumbs in his sword belt and rocked back on his heels. “Now you’ve seen how greedy MacNeil males are. How ravenous we can be when a tempting sweetmeat is dangled before us.”
“Meaning?” She was sure she didn’t want to know.
He grinned and shrugged. Then he sent a pointed look at the door arch.
Mindy followed his gaze and understood at once. He didn’t mean what she could see in the archway, the inky shadows and a single, smoking wall torch. He wanted her to note the noises issuing from beyond the kitchen’s entry.
A low swell of raucous voices and other assorted uproar, sounds that she hadn’t noticed. But she heard now, her ears catching bursts of male and female laughter, the unmistakable clink of tankards, and the scrape
of wooden bench legs on stone. It was the kind of mayhem one associated with medieval merrymaking.
And beneath it all came the ceaseless roar of the sea, the sound of waves crashing over rocks and receding.
Mindy’s blood chilled.
No one loved the ocean more than she did, but there wasn’t any pounding surf anywhere near Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Nor did the waves she heard sound like any she knew. The noise was real and even recognizable, but more distant than if she’d pressed her ear to a seashell.
It was as if she was listening over a space that couldn’t be measured in miles.
Like she was hearing through time.
A denial rose in her throat, but before she could form the words, a loud skirl of pipes and the scream of fiddles filled the chill, smoky air. Somewhere dogs barked and – she was sure – a woman screeched, then laughed. The sounds of vigorous dancing followed, stamping feet and lots of manly whoops.
Mindy began to tremble.
“Yon is no place for Ameri-cains.” Bran of Barra spoke the words close to her ear, the soft brush of his lips against her hair, almost a kiss.
“Be gone, Mindy Menlove, before one of my men decides to prove it to you.”
“You don’t understand.” She whipped around to argue, amazed her legs still held her. “I want nothing more than…”
The words died in her throat.
Bran of Barra was gone.
So were the floor rushes and the soot smears that had blackened the kitchen walls. Vanished, too, were the torches. And the only sound besides the patter of rain was the steady hum of the dishwasher.
That, and the racing of her heart.
A soft footfall behind her and – she started - the faintest rustle of wool.
“Remember Gibbie and his bone, lass.” The words hushed past her. “You’ve been warned.”
She had.
Not that it mattered.
She was already up to her ears in paranormal madness and something told her ghost dogs, spectral merrymaking, and waves-that-weren’t-there were just the beginning.
As for Bran of Barra…
He didn’t fool her for an instant. It wasn’t his high-spirited friends and their carouse that she needn’t to worry about.
It was him.
Chapter Four
Bran of Barra stood before his kitchen cook fire and wondered how in the blazes an American named Mindy Menlove had found her way into his keep. He couldn’t shake the damnable feeling that her presence in his kitchens went beyond his sword’s magic. For sure, he’d seen her shimmering inside the Heartbreaker’s blue glow in his bailey and then – he shuddered – he’d even glimpsed her within his own bedchamber’s walls.
Still, he suspected more than the blade’s ancient powers were at play.
He cast a sideways glance at Gibbie, half hoping his longtime friend would provide an answer to the riddle. But the ghost dog simply wagged his tail, clearly expecting another meaty beef rib. Knowing Gibbie would keep his unblinking canine stare pinned on him until he produced one, Bran did just that. He flicked his fingers to conjure a succulent bone, which he tossed to Gibbie before letting out a long, defeated sigh.
If only his cares could be so easily remedied.
A great mystery was afoot and he didn’t have any answers.
Never before had a modern woman slipped into his world. He used all his skill and ghostly craft to keep MacNeil’s Tower as it’d been in his day. And just as he knew the tip of a sword from its hilt or a clump of heather from a thornbush, he’d damned sure know if he’d sifted himself into her time.
But he hadn’t gone anywhere.
The lass had appeared in his kitchens. Here at MacNeil’s Tower and on his own beloved Isle of Barra. And, this time, she’d done so without being swathed in a mysterious blue light. Somehow she’d breached the delicate veil that hid his realm from the living.
It was an action that struck terror into his heart.
Frowning, he stroked his beard and felt his pulse skitter. His gut tightened and twisted. That her fresh and delicate lily-of-the-valley scent lingered to taunt him only made it worse. He was most especially alarmed because he was certain that she wasn’t just any American female.
She was the lass he’d seen in the bailey.
He swallowed hard, not at all pleased that his life, for want of a better word, had gone so disastrously awry. Yet there could be no doubt that Mindy Menlove was the maid shown to him by the Heartbreaker’s unholy magic.
And unless he’d lost his fine ear for accents, she hailed from that Pen-seal-where’er place that bode such ill for medieval Highlanders.
As a Hebridean Highlander – a braw and respected chieftain of the Isles – he would prove even more irresistible to such a female. There wasn’t a woman born who didn’t melt in the presence of an Islesman. He couldn’t imagine Mindy Menlove would prove immune.
For truth, not with a name like Menlove, by all the tartaned gods!
Bran felt a chill sweep clear to his toes.
Dread seized him and it was all he could do not to hunch over, brace his hands on his knees, and gulp deep breaths of air to stop the roiling in his innards.
Not that anyone could fault him.
He had ample reason for concern. After all, every one of his ghostly friends who’d had their heads turned by a modern woman had fallen under the spell of a lass of her ilk.
There’d been no exceptions.
Even now, after he’d managed to sift himself away from her, the Heartbreaker’s pommel stone still glowed with a soft blue light. And – he was loath to admit it – the crystal seemed to be grinning up at him, almost looking pleased.
Its blue shimmer danced over the kitchen’s thick, smoke-blackened walls and even reached into the corners and other dark places of the room, tinting the shadows and casting everything in a glittery, magical light.
Almost as if the faeries and not one mere American female had laid claim to his home.
Bran shuddered.
The gemstone’s luminance was a terrible confirmation of the maid’s significance.
Not that he’d deny her appeal. As a Highlander still possessed of the same heated red blood that had made him so lusty in life, he’d have to be blind not to have noted her charms. But he did allow himself the satisfaction of letting his brows snap together in a dark scowl.
He could still see the wench before him. His sharp mind’s eye captured the cheeky tilt of her chin and her flashing blue eyes. How she’d tossed back her shining blond hair and then parted her lips ever so provocatively when he’d glared at her. Almost as if she’d expected him to sweep her into his arms and kiss her.
Bran snorted.
Truth was he had almost kissed her.
He’d been tempted to do more.
“Odin’s balls!” he growled his favorite curse to the empty room.
He could feel the lass’s sweetly curved lips beneath his, knew exactly how her tongue would slide against his in a sinuous, silken tangle. He knew, too, how she’d press herself into him, letting her lush breasts rub against him as she slipped her arms around his neck and tunneled her fingers through his hair.
She was born seductress.
And you have lost your wits for noticing!
Put her from your mind and be done with her.
Instead, his mouth went dry and his hands itched to touch her again. Regrettably, he already had and it’d been a great mistake. He could still feel the smooth warmth of her skin, the gentle beat of her pulse. He imagined holding her wrist now, perhaps replacing his circling thumb with kisses.
Kisses and nuzzles that would lead to… Scowling fiercely, he broke off the thought before he drove himself to madness. For sure, there was something in the water in Pen-seal-landia that turned the womenfolk into sirens. They were living, breathing vixens that no man, alive or otherwise, could resist.
Now he, too, was in danger of being snared by one.
Trouble was, unlike his friends who’d thrill
ed to have such females fawn and gush all over them, he enjoyed being a ghost.
He didn’t want some American temptress whisking him into her day.
He – Bran of Barra, Hebridean chieftain of great acclaim – was a ghost by choice and with pride.
Yet it jellied his knees to think he couldn’t visit his kitchens in the small hours without having an American female materializing before his nose. Havers, but she’d startled him, ruining his night’s peace, and stealing his appetite.
Well, she hadn’t quite taken his appetite.
He did have a voracious one.
He was still hungry, praise Thor and his thunderbolts!
Beginning to feel better, he cocked his ear, pleased to note that the revelry in his hall remained loud and raucous. The kitchens’ thick stone walls muted much of the noise, but he could still hear the wild skirl of pipes and the vigorous strains of a fiddle.
Just as the occasional hoot and whoop reached him, the joyous burst of female laughter, and – his mood began to improve – the energetic stamp of dancing feet as his friends jigged and whirled to Highland reels.
It was good that they were enjoying themselves.
He smiled again at last and he rubbed his hands together, determined to do the same.
Only at the moment, his greatest desire wasn’t to join the carouse in his hall, but to eat. He might have devoured several fish-and-eel pies and even an entire platter of oysters before he’d sought his bed, but his stomach felt empty now.
Indeed, it rumbled as if he hadn’t eaten in days.
So he flexed his fingers and then wriggled them, using his ghostly magic to fill both his hands with perfectly roasted beef ribs, each one meaty, dripping with juices, and smelling delicious.
His mouth began to water.
Like Gibbie, he loved his beef ribs.
But before he could take the first bite, there was a screech and a crash somewhere above him. Bran scowled and sprinted for the kitchens’ torch-lit entry, his beef ribs still clutched in his hands. Unfortunately, the moment he gained the archway, Saor came thundering down the stair tower’s winding stone steps.