THE CAT’S FOOTING was sure and certain even on the sharp rocks. He inched through the darkness, eyes burning as he relied on the ancient senses of a hunter.
Light danced beside him. “You are certain this is the way, Gideon?”
The cat meowed once.
There were strange sounds from the shadows, a dozen unfamiliar scents that called to him. But Gideon held to the desperate task before him.
“I should have known. I should have realized.” Terence Night’s lanky frame took shape in the darkness, and the turmoil in his eyes seemed at odds with the color that shimmered around him. “I had a sense about that young man. He was too interested, too quick to be helpful. At the time, I thought he was simply being nice.” He made a ragged sound. “When will I learn that most people aren’t nice?”
The cat was outlined against the sky as he made a twisting flick of his tail.
“Yes, I know that trusting is in my nature. But if I hadn’t been so trusting, Jamee wouldn’t be in danger now. She wouldn’t be trembling, her fear about to choke her.” His light dimmed for a minute. “Gideon, how much longer?”
The cat gave a low cry and then disappeared behind a row of rocks.
“BLAST IT, DUNCAN, how much longer?”
Adam Night sat tensely, his fingers clenched on the window of the helicopter chattering noisily over the darkened glen. He had arrived at Dunraven just in time to claim a seat as Duncan left for Glenlyle.
“Five minutes. Maybe less, Adam. We’re above Glenlyle land now. In a few minutes, we should be able to see the castle.”
“What I want to know is why?” Adam said harshly. “Why would he target Jamee after all these years?” His hands opened and closed. “But it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is getting her back safely.” His voice wavered. “This man, McCall. He’s good. The best, you said?”
“He’s good,” Duncan said grimly.
“He damned well better be.” Adam stared down into the darkness, then stiffened. “Isn’t someone down there running along the cliff?”
PAIN BURNED THROUGH Jamee’s forehead as she tried to push to her feet from the sharp stones. “Who are you? What do you want?”
A match hissed and light flared around her. “I want everything. Everything that’s yours. Everything that should have been ours.” A face took shape from the darkness. Long hair. Sulky eyes.
Jamee blinked. “Rob? What are you doing here?”
His laughter was sharp and very cold. “Not Rob, Thomas. Thomas Starkey. Don’t you recognize the name?”
Jamee eased backward, fighting a wave of panic. A corner of the stone well was behind her, digging into her back. Beyond that lay emptiness and two hundred feet of cliff straight down to the beach. “Starkey. Oh, God, not the man in the car. The man who shoved me into the closet.” Her voice shook.
“That’s the one. You remember my brother even now, don’t you? Your brother Adam was in the same foster home that we were in. It was us your parents were going to take, us instead of him.”
Rob’s lips twisted with anger. “Then they saw Adam. Adam with his Indian face and his quiet arrogance. How soon they forgot about me and my brother.”
Jamee’s fingers slid from the rock. “You knew Adam back then?”
“He was cunning. Always so cool. He knew just how to use his power over other people, especially adults. He took away what should have been ours, but my brother and I waited. We survived. And we swore that one day we would have everything he had stolen from us.”
His eyes glittered, sharp as glass. “You had velvet dresses and little lace dolls. Your brothers had new shoes, warm coats and laughter, while we had nothing, only each other. He drove trucks so I could enter the merchant marine, but even that was ruined. And one day my brother was taken away, thrown into prison.” His boots tore across the heather as he lunged for Jamee. “Now your Adam will die, but first you’re going to bleed—to pay for what your parents did, Jamee Night. I promised my brother I would see to that.”
Jamee felt his hands scrape at the stone wall, only inches from her neck. She threw herself backward with a gasp. She fell sideways, then plunged down the sharp, rocky incline. Little stones hurtled after her, digging into her cheeks and drawing blood.
The figure in the shadows loomed over the edge of the hill. “Where are you, Jamee? Talk to me. You can’t get away this time.”
His voice fell. Changed. “Come out, little girl. You’re the meal ticket, remember?”
Gray light stole across the horizon where the sun struggled to break free of the hills. Jamee clawed her way over the gorse and heather, trying to find a place to hide before dawn broke.
“There’s no escaping. Why even try?”
She heard the snap of metal and then a beam of light tunneled through the darkness.
“I’m right here, right behind you. We’ll squeeze all the money we want out of your brother. Then we’ll dispose of you—just the way we’re going to dispose of Adam.” He spoke in a strange singsong, and Jamee realized he was no longer reachable by logic.
She bit back a moan as light crisscrossed the ground before her, capturing her hand in its glowing beam before she pulled away.
“I see you,” her stalker hissed. His feet scraped on the rocky incline, already far too close.
And then the earth fell away. A row of ragged stones rose before her, and beyond that lay the chill darkness with the wind snarling off the sea.
Jamee stumbled to her right until the way was cut off by a solid overhang of impassable granite. There was no going forward and no going backward. She would die here, caught on this cliff, just as another woman had died here centuries before.
Dry undergrowth rustled behind her. “They won’t find me. I took another photographer’s place at the last minute. I’ve been watching you for months with a little help from a woman in your brother’s office. It didn’t take much to get her to fill me in on every one of your destinations. It must be because of my kind face,” he said, the words grotesque and mocking. “Now I know everything there is to know about you, Jamee Night,” he whispered. “It was so easy to pass as one of Hidoshi’s staff. All I had to do was pretend to be waiting to shoot—always waiting for the weather to clear or the light to be better. Fools, all of them.”
From the far side of the hill came the shudder of motors. Jamee stood at the edge of the cliff while wind gusted up around her, straight up from the sea. Dear God, they would be too late.
“No one can help you. Either come with me now or you’ll take a pleasant dive off the edge of this cliff.” His laughter grew sharp as rocks rattled hollowly in the darkness. “Do you hear me, little girl?”
Motors coughed and lights exploded over the hillside. Jamee blinked, blinded. A second later, she realized that her pursuer would have the same response. She lurched toward the ruined well, her feet slipping on the bare stone. Her shoulder struck bone and muscle, then she plunged sharply down the hill.
“Dammit, you’re mine! You’re not getting away now. I’ve waited too long for this.”
Jamee slid desperately down the hill. Jagged fingers of scree dug into her legs as light flooded the stone ridge. A helicopter screamed over the top of the castle, then dived toward her. Jamee could have sworn she saw a dark shape outlined against one of the rocks, tail erect and ears arched forward.
She heard a panting breath behind her and ran, biting back a cry of pain as a boulder grazed her ankles.
A blade hissed through the air, striking her shoulder.
Wincing, she stumbled as the whirling blades rushed down above her.
“Get down, Jamee!” Ian roared. A shot screamed over the heather.
Twisting, she leaped a row of boulders and fell in their lea as another shot rent the air. Gravel and dry heather dug at her face, caught in the updraft of the helicopter while Rob worked his way down behind her, cursing.
He clambered over the rocks, inches away. “You’re mine.” His knife burned in the cold light cast from
the sky. “No one’s taking that away from me,” he hissed.
A blur of gray plunged over the hillside as he spoke. Cursing, he toppled backward, his knife clattering onto the well. Jamee heard the high, shrill cry of a cat and then Ian hurled himself from the helicopter.
There was another burst of gunfire, and Jamee saw her brother plunging over the hill. Then Ian’s arms were around her, his hands locked against her waist.
“Thank God, you’re safe.”
The faint, sweet smell of bruised heather filled her lungs as Adam cursed at the top of the hill.
“Go, Ian,” she rasped. “It was Adam he was after, Adam all along. He—he’s mad.”
Ian’s hands left her. He stumbled toward the two bodies silhouetted against the beam of the helicopter while Jamee’s heart raced in sickening fear.
Adam twisted, driven back toward the edge. It might have been her imagination, but years later Jamee would still wonder at what she heard next. The sound was low, almost otherworldly, the furious growl of an animal from the wild. There was a blur of movement from the gorse and her kidnapper twisted sideways, his hands raised protectively over his eyes.
He screamed in pain or terror, then lurched backward, only to find a greater terror. His hands rose, flapping at emptiness while his eyes filled with the unspeakable certainty of the death that waited below, in the sharp rocks at the base of the cliff.
He fell.
Jamee turned away, her eyes squeezed shut.
His scream seemed to go on forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DAWN HAD NOT COME, only its faint precursor, when Ian crouched beside Jamee and pulled her against him. “Did he touch you?” His hands were trembling. “If the bastard did, I’ll—”
“No, but he was close, so close all this time. He hated us, Ian. He said it should have been him instead of Adam who was adopted.” She gave a broken sob and turned her face to Ian’s chest as the memory of her pursuer’s mad eyes flashed before her.
“It’s done, mo cridhe. He’ll never bother you again,” Ian whispered. His hands clenched on her shoulder. “You’ll not escape me again, either. Blind or not, I’ll tie you up. I’ll use ropes of silk and leather if I have to.” His breath was as ragged as hers was. “You’re going to marry me, Jamee Night. If you say no, I’ll hold you here, captive in my keep. Day by day and night after night I’ll hold you until you’re an old woman whose beautiful white hair slides through my fingers while I kiss you senseless.”
“Is that a promise?” Jamee said breathlessly.
“Senseless. I’ll seduce you with no remorse. I’ll see that you’re pleading for release before I’m done.”
“I should imagine that will take about five seconds, you execrable man,” Jamee said. “Just like you did at dinner…”
Ian turned, his fingers trapping her face. “I never meant that, love. I never expected you would respond so…generously. You’ve been a fire in my blood since I first saw you. I don’t know which of us has been crazier. When I woke and thought I’d lost you—Thank God, Duncan and Adam arrived when they did.” He kissed her then, hungry and desperate while his hands slid onto her shoulders.
A low, male voice coughed behind them.
“Go away, Night,” Ian growled. He pulled Jamee closer, fingers buried in her hair.
Another cough followed.
“Dammit, Adam—”
A chuckle came out of the darkness behind them. The helicopter motors had shut down and darkness returned. Only the faint gold fingers of dawn touched the eastern sky.
“Go away. We can talk later. Then you can curse at me for falling in love with my client. Right now I’m going to sit here and kiss your sister until she loses every fragment of logic and agrees to become my wife, even if it means living six months of the year in this old wreck of a castle.”
“Yes,” Jamee said softly.
“And what if she says no?” Adam Night asked.
“I’ll reorganize the Glenlyle weaving cooperative and let her take charge of the hand-loomed tartans produced by ten villages.”
“Yes,” Jamee repeated.
“What if that doesn’t work?” Adam continued.
“Then I’ll have to threaten something truly terrible, like selling this castle which has stayed in McCall hands for seven centuries.”
“Yes!” Jamee threw her body against him, bringing them both down onto the soft heather.
Ian blinked. “Yes? You’re agreeing, my lass?”
“Three times already, you great, stubborn Scotsman.”
Ian closed his eyes as a shudder ran through him. “You’re certain?”
Jamee proved to him just how certain she was, pinning him to the damp earth beneath her determined body. “If you think you’re getting rid of me, you’re wrong. In fact, if you think you have even a hope of getting rid of me—”
He twisted, catching her beneath him as ragged laughter burst from his mouth. “No, not even a shred of hope. I’ve had none since I first saw you, mo cridhe, with your face more beautiful than a dream and your hair like a copper halo. I was afraid to hope.” His eyes closed. “The truth is, I’d given up, Jamee. Your laughter brought me back my light.”
High over the hills the first fingers of dawn touched the sky.
Jamee made a breathless sound and pushed to her feet. “I have to go. There’s one thing left to do.” She caught up the bright length of wool hanging at the edge of the stone well. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
Only at the edge of the cliff did she stop, wool in hand. Across the loch to the east, where the hills rose in steep waves, she saw the faint glow of dawn and offered up her gift. With it came the hope that had slumbered in her soul for centuries since her death on this very rock.
As Maire MacKinnon.
Jamee gave her words to the dawn and tossed the bright colors out before her. They spilled through the air, tumbling end over end in a blur of color. Fuchsia burned into orange and glowing purple until a network of light pulsed against the darkness, flaming outward until the whole horizon lay streaked with the colors that could almost have been stolen from her cloth.
Watching the sun rise, Jamee felt the rush of beating wings, the taste of joy and the presence of all the people she had loved and lost. Mother. Father. Her wonderful, eccentric brother Terence.
So close, suddenly.
The hillside seemed to stir and the air filled with birdsong. Jamee turned to Ian, who stood motionless, watching her in mute shock.
“Can you see it?”
He nodded, unable to speak.
Her hands trembled. “The colors, too?”
“Red. Orange. Gold and purple. Oh, God, Jamee, the colors—” His voice broke. He reached out, gripping her hand. “The colors are beautiful. I can see them so clearly.”
She closed her eyes. Tears burned down her cheeks as dawn swept over the serried hills before them.
“How?” Ian whispered.
Jamee watched light fill the heather and thought of a woman who had lost her heart to her enemy’s son. Love like that could do many things—maybe even miracles. “Only because I love you, Ian McCall of Glenlyle. For now,” she said, repeating the words of a vow that could not be forgotten. “For tomorrow. For all eternity. These are my three wishes.”
EPILOGUE
SNOW HISSED over the glen and brushed the deep, leaded windows of Glenlyle’s library. Inside the thick stone walls a fire snapped in the granite fireplace, splashing color over the vibrant tapestries on the wall nearby. Tiny bears decorated a huge blue spruce beside the full-length windows that overlooked the hills circling the loch.
“I’m certain I saw the book in here last night after dinner.” The heavy oak door opened and the bears dipped and spun gently on their Christmas boughs. William Night charged into the room, frowning. His shirtsleeves were folded unevenly above his wrists and a dusting of powdered sugar touched one cheek, a remnant of the particularly fine tea he had just finished. “It was a first edition of A C
hristmas Carol, I tell you.”
“You’re imagining things again, William.” Adam Night moved toward the fire and braced one arm on the warm stone. He smiled as the door opened again. “What did I tell you, Ian?”
“That I’d be regretting my marriage into your family inside of a week.” Ian looked very dashing in a vintage kilt and a formal short black fitted jacket. His brow arched faintly as he looked down at his wife, lovely in green velvet with a scarf of creamy antique lace. “I think it may take a little longer than that to exhaust my patience, Adam. After all, without you and William I never would have met the charming, irritating and unforgettable master weaver who is now Lady Glenlyle, Countess of Lenox and Kincaid.”
Jamee tucked a finger under his lapel. “How do you manage to say all that in one breath?”
“Practice, my dear. One has to do something to pass the time on these dark Highland nights.”
Jamee leaned close, her long hair brushing his dress jacket. “I’ve got a better suggestion.”
Ian’s head bowed.
Her face rose.
Their lips met gently.
“Sweet heaven, no more of that,” William protested.
His brother’s eyes gleamed. “It’s a thing newly married people do rather a lot of, William. Better get used to it.”
“At least the food is good here. That nice Widow Campbell sent over a tin of smoked salmon that passes description, and those thin fudge things your cook makes are lethal, McCall.” He sank into a deep leather chair and pulled a paper napkin full of fudge from his pocket, grinning shamelessly. “Nice bears,” he muttered, raising a fudge-streaked finger toward the Christmas tree. “I never knew they could have so many different faces and expressions.” He tapped his jaw thoughtfully. “Say, McCall, have you ever thought of animating these bears of yours? I’ve been working on a prototype titanium skeleton worked by animatronics. State-of-the-art stuff. It could be a very hot item next Christmas.”
Ian brushed the tiny furred nose of a bear in a kilt and sporran. “I think the little fellows are fine just as they are, William. But I have been meaning to ask you about upgrading the wiring in my workshops. I’d like your opinion, too, Adam.”
Draycott Eternal: What Dreams May ComeSeason of Wishes Page 39