Highland Shift (Highland Destiny: 1)

by LAURA HARNER

  “Where are Lilly and Red?” she managed to croak out.

  “They thought we might need some privacy.” He grinned.

  “Oh my God, Faolan. I’m so sorry about last night, I can’t believe I fell asleep.” She started to say more, but he stopped her with a kiss. “Last night ‘twas a gift, lass. No apologies, no regrets.” He kissed her aching head.

  Not long after that, Lilly and Red came into the kitchen, all bustle and noise. Elena went red to the roots of her hair when Lilly gave her an appraising look, then said, “Well, now.”

  Faolan picked Lilly up, twirled her around the kitchen and said, “None of that, Lilly.”

  Faolan was still in his cheery mood from the night before, entertaining them with stories and laughing easily, mostly at Elena’s expense. They all found it amazing that this was her first hangover. They were also chagrined that a lass with the name of MacFarland couldn’t hold her whisky, something they vowed to remedy as a matter of national pride.

  Lilly bullied Elena into eating some toast and drinking a second cup of coffee. After a while, Elena realized she felt almost human and considered living a reasonable possibility. However, she vowed to stay out of the bright sunlight and away from hammering for now. It seemed like a good day to try again with the categorizing of the books.

  Faolan followed Elena into the library, swept her into his arms, and said, “Ah, returning to the scene of the crime,” before setting her back on her feet.

  Then he kissed her so thoroughly that her knees buckled and he had to support her weight. Faolan carried Elena to the couch, sat her on his lap, and kissed her some more. Her lips felt swollen and bruised. He moved on to her neck, his lips burning, teeth biting. Elena ground her hips against his erection. Hmm, maybe going back to bed wasn’t out of the question. Then he whispered, “I have to leave today, Elena.”

  Elena jerked her head back to look at him. “Leave? What are you talking about? Why?”

  “Do you remember when I made us leave the café so swiftly?”

  “Yes,” Elena said tightly. Here it comes; he’s finally going to tell me about the blonde.

  “There was a man there I recognized. I had seen him around you before, only I didna know he was following you then. When I realized he was tracking you, I drove ‘til I was certain he wasna’ behind us before I stopped. I searched the car for a bug when we pulled over. I found it near the rear bumper. Someone was tracking your movements by placing a tracer on your Rover. Now I need to follow it backwards, and find the men behind these attacks, prove it’s related to Worthington and stop this once and for all. Although we are using an investigator in London with operatives in Phoenix, he willna report to us over the phone. Lilly and I must go, Elena.”

  “I thought you wanted that woman. The tall blonde? You remember her,” Elena asked sweetly.

  His blank look told her just how wrong she’d been. Then a wolfish smile crossed his face, “Were you jealous, Elena? Would you mind it so verra’ much if I were interested in another woman?”

  “Not really,” she affected a bored look. Not once I’d killed her. And if he says verra’ one more time like that, I will come right here.

  He laughed. Elena loved this laughing Faolan. He brought his hand up to caress her face, and ran his finger across her lips. She caught his finger with her teeth and pulled it into her mouth and sucked it. His breath caught, and his eyes turned dark and heavy. He was so very hard beneath her.

  “I don’t want you to go,” she whispered.

  “I know,” he whispered back. He slipped his hand under her shirt, cupped a breast and pinched her nipple.

  “Are you almost ready?” Lilly called from the hall.

  Elena tried to jump off Faolan’s lap, but he held her tightly to him, his only concession to decorum was removing his hand from her breast. He grinned at Lilly as she entered the room, and said, “Be right there.”

  He stood up and swept Elena into another long, hard kiss. “Don’t lose faith in me, lass. I will explain it all when I return. This I promise you.” Then he tucked his hand under her chin and pushed it up until she was looking directly in his eyes, and she saw it.

  They were the eyes of the wolf.

  ****

  She was too restless to work on the books, so she decided to go back and search out the secret room in the north wing of the steading. She closed the panels behind her and then quickly opened them again, from the inside, just to make sure she could. In her backpack, she’d brought additional lighting, a pad of paper and pencils, and her digital camera.

  Elena examined the walls carefully. As she’d noticed on the first visit, some of the stones had carvings, and she’d done a little Internet research in the subject. She’d discovered these were likely Pict in origin. After photographing, Elena mapped each stone, taking note that the entryway to the room was on the south wall of the vestibule and one carved stone was on each of the remaining walls.

  Starting with the west wall, she ran her hand lightly over the first carved stone. She immediately noticed it was warmer than the surrounding stones. With a deep breath, Elena tried placing her hands on the stone, as she had with the panels, and pushed. The stone moved, and then the other stones around it seemed to ripple, disappearing to reveal a small closet. The closet had a dozen or more shelves, each laden with books, drawings, and other artifacts.

  Elena photographed the treasures on each shelf, then moved to the north wall. Again, the carved stone opened easily when pushed. This time the opening revealed a passageway that ran slightly downhill, disappearing straight into the mountain. Elena shivered. She wasn’t sure she was ready to walk down that dark passageway yet, so she decided to try to open the remaining wall in the entry chamber first.

  This closet was slightly larger than the first one, filled with more books, some folded plaids, daggers, and rolls of parchment. This place is fantastic! I wonder if anyone knows about it?

  Returning to the long passageway made her palms sweaty and her heart thump uncomfortably in her chest. It led deep into the hill behind the farm, and there was no way to tell what might be down there. With a deep breath, Elena forged ahead. The walls were a mixture of stones and boulders, with sconces holding unlit torches protruding every ten feet. The passageway sloped downhill, and after walking for at least fifteen minutes underground, she finally reached the end. Or more accurately, the end of this journey, since she was facing two massive oak doors with iron hinges and locks. She made a half-hearted attempt to open them and then realized the keys in the jewelry casket probably opened the locks.

  Her stomach started to swirl and a sense of vertigo threatened to overtake her as she looked back up the passageway. As her panic started to rise, Elena felt an overwhelming need to escape. With a faked indifference, she walked quickly back to the entrance chamber, picked up after herself, and left, once again hiding the entryway behind her pile of junk. She would come back another day. Maybe a day without a hangover would be a good idea.

  ****

  After a bath, Elena nibbled on cheese and bread in the library while she sorted, first grouping the books by language. If she could read it, it went in one stack, and if she couldn’t, it went in the other. Since this didn’t take much brainpower, her mind drifted to other things.

  Faolan.

  When he’d discovered she was still a virgin, he told her that she honored him, and then left, making it clear they would go no further. He’d told her once there were things she couldn’t know, yet today, before he’d left, he said he would tell her everything when he returned. What had changed? Had she caught him off guard last night with her boldness in the library? He’s as confused as I am!

  Something just wasn’t making sense. As wonderful as last night had been, Faolan still had been careful not to go too far with his fingers. She spent a few minutes side-tracked, thinking about those fingers. With a jerk back to reality, she tried to think dispassionately about last night. Faolan had brought her to pleasure once again without actu
ally consummating the loving. He had plied her with drink and given her a bath, topped by a long massage. She would need to think more about that.

  Faolan had asked her to trust him and promised to tell her the truth when he returned. She wondered which truth he would tell her: the one she wanted to hear, or the one he wanted to tell her. She was sure they weren’t one and the same.

  Elena turned at a soft noise near the window. Suddenly, Shadow was there, fur on end, tail enormous, and his back arched. “Good grief, Shadow. You startled me.” The old fight or flight syndrome really kicks in when you’re out here on your own. Shadow was up on his toes, turned toward the window, his eyes narrowed to slits. His hissing and spitting turned into a menacing growl. Elena laughed as Shadow stared at his reflection in the window. Then the laughter died in her throat, and her blood ran cold.

  The growl grew louder, reverberated through the glass pane, into the house, and out into the night. Elena ran to pick up the kitten and looked out. There was another wolf right outside the window. He wasn’t quite as large as the one she’d encountered in the yard, and his fur was lighter. His teeth bared, his hackles rose, and he crouched, leaning forward, prepared to attack, growling low and menacingly. He was facing away from the window, looking out into the fields surrounding the house. He was guarding her.

  ****

  Elena asked Red about the wolf the next morning, but he hadn’t heard anything from his flat. She got the impression he didn’t think much of her story but was too polite to say so. Elena waited until he’d gone back to the barn before donning her boots and jacket and going outside to confirm her own story. Sure enough, right in front of the library window there were several large paw prints.

  She walked straight out and back from the window, each time in a slightly different direction, creating spokes. Confirmation came on her fifth or sixth attempt when she found the spot where someone had stood and watched her house. Someone with high-powered binoculars could have seen right into her windows at night, and she never would have known. Elena followed the footprints until she found the spot where a car had been parked. There were fresh cigarette butts in the snow, so presumably whoever it was had waited there for a while, probably until after dark, before hiking out to spy on her.

  Elena walked slowly back to the house, thinking about the wolf. Or more accurately about the wolves. She had seen at least two, but she thought it was probably three different wolves since she’d had been at the farm. The one in the yard had only been a few feet away from her, yet hadn’t tried to harm her in any way. Last night a wolf had stood guard at the window. She’d heard a wolf howling on more than one night. The night of her attack, she’d thought that she’d heard a dog growling. Could that have been a wolf too?

  Was there some connection between this place and the wolves, something that caused them to stay close to it and protect it? Maybe I should be feeding them. She went to the library, logged on to her laptop, and searched for wolves in Scotland.

  Color me flabbergasted. The wolves in Scotland had been extinct for nearly two hundred and fifty years! Plans to reintroduce wolves here were on hold, due to pressure from farmers protecting their herds. Yet she’d seen two of them up close and personal. Elena decided to ask the others about the wolves at dinner.

  She spent the rest of the day measuring windows for window treatments. It seemed absurd that, although she had no visible neighbors, she would have to cover her windows for privacy, but she didn’t want to feel so exposed again. She would also ask Red to start repairing the shutters.

  Chapter Eleven

  Elena heard Lilly’s truck in the yard and peeked out. She watched as Lilly emerged and Red pulled her into a passionate embrace that left her feeling as though she was intruding on a private moment. Faolan studiously ignored them and busied himself with unloading their bags and some boxes of supplies at the rear of the truck.

  Faolan turned as if sensing Elena, and their gazes locked through the window. He reached the back door in three long strides, threw it open, and took her in his arms, lifting her high off the floor. She wrapped her legs around his waist so he couldn’t let her go. She didn’t know what this was or where it was going, but she was going to hang on for all she was worth. He kissed her, but it was with a sense of desperation that made Elena uneasy.

  Faolan only set her down when Red and Lilly came in the back door, and Red cleared his throat and said, “Sommat smells good in here.”

  “Oh, I better get the cornbread, before it burns,” Elena exclaimed. She made dinner American style: fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy.

  She busied herself putting the food on the table, running into Faolan constantly, since he didn’t seem inclined to leave her side. Finally, Elena tasked him with serving the beer in the frosted mugs while she finished mashing the potatoes and Lilly whisked the gravy. Red put new logs on the fires throughout the house.

  When they sat to eat, Faolan again sat so close to Elena their legs touched, keeping her unsettled and anxious. Based on his reaction to seeing her, she had high hopes for how this night might end. She couldn’t seem to track the conversation. At one point, Elena asked if they had found what they were looking for, but Lilly derailed any talk of business, as she called it, at the table. When dinner was over, Red pulled Faolan aside for an intense conversation before they helped with the cleanup.

  Once again, everyone met in the library after dinner, and Elena noticed a change in all three of them. This really was going to be business. Lilly and Red sat together on the couch before Red popped up to pour drinks. Faolan stood by the fireplace and stared into the fire. He had one hand propped against the mantle with the other fisted by his side.

  Red declared the American beer they’d had with dinner suitable only for lightweights. When Elena demurred from taking a whisky, Faolan insisted, saying through a tight jaw, “It will make this conversation easier, lass.”

  Elena watched the firelight flicker on Faolan’s face and waited for him to begin. Instead, it was Lilly that got things started.

  “We traced the transmitter back to a small surveillance company in Phoenix before the trail went cold. The investigator working for us in Phoenix said the man who operates the company is an ex-con who is represented by Worthington, Tyler, and Walters, so we know who is behind having you followed.”

  Elena’s face felt incapable of expression. She sat motionless, staring at Lilly, as if waiting for the punch line to a very bad joke. Somehow, the situation had all become more real, more deadly with that bit of information. It really was Worthington that tried to have her killed.

  “What now?” Elena managed to stammer out after a minute.

  Faolan growled.

  Red looked at Faolan’s back, then turned to Lilly, “Tis not quite all. There was someone here last night; I got the license number before I scared him off.” He faced Elena. “The car was rented to a fellow that we already know works for Worthington.”

  Her mouth fell open to hear Red admit someone had been out there last night. He’d been lying when let her believe he’d dismissed her concerns this morning. Faolan bowed his head, dragged his fingers through his hair, and then held on to his head, as if to keep it from splitting open. He still hadn’t looked at Elena.

  Lilly took up the tale again. “Worthington knows about us, about all of us now. He knows we are connected to the farmhouse. We doona’ think he knows Faolan is the Gailtry, else he would have been here long before now. Perhaps he thinks we are treasure hunters, trying to find the same secrets he is looking for. The Worthingtons thought they had killed the last of the Gailtry and his family years ago, so the longer Faolan stays out of his sights, the better.

  “Our job, Red’s and mine, is to protect the MacGailtry. His job—” she thrust her chin at Faolan “—is to preserve the family legacy.”

  Elena wasn’t quite clear on what the Gailtry was, but she knew from her grandfather, adding “Mac” in front of a name meant “from the clan of,” and names were sometime
s used with or without “Mac.” Lilly spoke as though Faolan was some kind of clan chief, which was an outdated notion in this day and age.

  Faolan groaned quietly but did not turn around or lift his head.

  “I am sorry, lass,” said Red, “but there is no choice. We have a flat near Beauly that is secure. Worthington does not know us there. You can go tomorrow and be safe. Once the land passes to you permanently, you will sell it to us. You’ll be safe enough then, as long as Worthington does not believe there is any other connection between us.”

  Lilly and Red both looked at Elena expectantly, clearly waiting for her to agree. Try as she might, Elena couldn’t think of anything to say. She shot back her drink and rose to pour another. Still no one spoke. Only the crackling of the fire marked the passage of time. Elena leaned against the doorway and looked back at them all, her mind rapidly trying to sort through this confusing moment.

  Red and Lilly exchanged uneasy glances, then both turned back to look at Elena. Faolan stood with both hands resting on the mantle, his head down between his outstretched arms, apparently staring into the fire, his long hair hiding his face.

  There was something unusual about this place, about all of them. People had died to protect the secrets of her farm, and Worthington was willing to kill to get it back. What kind of secrets could stir such passion? Elena sifted the evidence of underground tunnels, ancient artifacts, and animals long extinct. She tried to sort fact from fantasy. If she took a rather large leap of faith, she thought she could weave a story from the facts she knew and those she now suspected.

  Faolan had planned to tell Elena his secret, but now she was sure he’d decided she’d be safer not knowing. She hated the idea that he would sacrifice his own happiness and hers in order to keep her safe. He was having Red and Lilly send Elena away because he couldn’t bring himself to do it.