Emma grinned wider while extending a conciliatory hand in Alfred’s direction. Poor old guy. Yanked away from his easy chair and condemned to community service. “It’s good to meet you both. I’m sorry I caused you to miss your program, Alfred. I appreciate your taking time out of your busy schedule to meet me. You really shouldn’t have bothered. I’m going to have to get a rental anyway. I’m sure I could’ve found my way to my lodgings if you and Moira weren’t able to pick me up. It really wouldn’t have been a big deal for me to settle myself in.” Alfred reminded Emma a great deal of her long-dead grandfather. The frowning man was short and squat with bushy gray eyebrows shadowing a pair of watery blue eyes that didn’t miss a thing.
Alfred brushed the tip of her extended hand with the calloused fingers of his gnarled, shaking fist. “Aye, well. We couldna verra well have a doctor who’s coming to help our children arrive and no’ be greeted, now could we? Christian thing to do and all, ye understand.” Alfred cleared his throat, snatched his hand away and clasped it behind his back. He rolled back and forth from the balls of his feet to the worn heels of his scuffed boots with a fidgety rhythm. With a disgruntled clearing of his throat, he tucked his chin to his chest.
Moira beamed at her husband with a proud smile and stepped forward to pull Emma’s carry-on bag out of the crook of her arm. “Let me take that for ye, Dr. Emma. Ye dinna mind if I call ye Dr. Emma?” Moira rushed on without taking a breath or waiting for Emma’s assenting nod. “We’ll get your things loaded up into our lorry and have ye settled into your croft in no time at all. I’m sure ye’ll love the beachfront home we’ve fixed for ye. The view of the water will fair make your heart sing.” Moira fluttered a hand about her face as she talked, greatly resembling a plump, broken-winged bird flapping against the wind.
Emma swallowed a groan and gritted her teeth, forcing a smile until her cheeks ached. A waterfront cottage? Ugh. Please say it ain’t so. Would it be rude to ask for different accommodations? The proud twinkle shining from Moira’s eyes immediately squelched that idea. How could Emma rob this sweet old lady of her obvious pride at providing such lovely accommodations to a visiting doctor from across the pond?
Emma took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled in slow controlled bursts through her nose. Please let there be shutters or really thick curtains. Stretching her pained smile even tighter across her clenched teeth, Emma struggled to filter the anxious tremor out of her voice. “I’m sure it’s lovely. But you really shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble. An apartment in the center of town would’ve been just fine since most of my time will be spent at the clinic.” A windowless apartment squirreled well away from the sound of waves would’ve suited so much better. If she went online tonight, ordered industrial strength earmuffs and paid extra for express shipping, maybe she could block the slightest hiss of the waves before the sound drove her crazy.
“Posh, no.” Moira clucked her tongue as she bumped an ample hip into an unsuspecting Alfred and pointed him toward Emma’s waiting pile of luggage. “There’ll be nothing but the best for the fine pediatrician who’s come to help Dr. Mac set up our new clinic.”
“Dr. Mac?” That name didn’t sound familiar. Emma groped through her tote in search of another clump of paperwork Seacrest had included in her packet. “Who’s Dr. Mac?” Dragging out the dog-eared sheaf of papers, she flipped through the pages, scanning through the paragraphs of names. Nope. This was just details of the grant for setting up a specialized children’s clinic in the town of Stornoway. Emma folded back another handful of stapled sheets. Here’s where she’d agreed to dedicate at least a year of her life to the remote island. The foundation had led her to believe they were short on medical facilities and hoped to attract more doctors to the isolated region. If they already had a physician on staff, she didn’t want to horn in on anyone else’s territory. The uneasiness of second thoughts telegraphed the foul taste of dread through her system. Sometimes local doctors tended to get a bit territorial about their patients and Emma didn’t blame them. She tended to get a bit protective and defensive when it came to the patients in her neck of the woods.
Alfred grunted as one of Emma’s bags squirted out from under his arm and hit the floor with a heavy thud. “Sorry, Doc.” With a muffled expletive, Alfred stooped and hitched the strap back over his shoulder while juggling the weight of another bulging bag against his barrel chest. “Dr. Alexander Mackenzie brings all the bairns into the world what will be coming to that clinic yer plannin’ on settin’ up. All the women on the island fair flock to the man. Ye’d think they were all starving dogs and the man had a juicy lamb chop hangin’ about his neck. If ye be single, I’m sure ye’ll be tempted by him as well. All the lasses clutch their folded hands against their hearts and babble on about how the silly man is so easy on their eyes.”
“Alfred!” Moira batted Alfred across his bent shoulders with the rolled up map she’d just pulled from the stand beside the airline counter. “Ignore him, Dr. Emma. The old fool’s mouth takes off long before he spares the time to shift his mind into gear.”
Emma stifled a chuckle as she snatched the map from Moira’s tight grip before the woman swung at scowling Alfred again. “So what you’re telling me is that Dr. Mackenzie is the obstetrician on the island?” Emma clamped her lips into a flat line and swallowed hard against the laughter begging to burst forth. These two were worth the price of admission. Although having a conversation with the pair was much like watching a tense tennis match. Wait ’til she told Laynie about them. Her sister would immediately want to meet them.
“Family practice.” Moira huffed and puffed through slightly off-kilter, brightly tinted lips while her short chubby legs churned into high gear to keep up with Emma’s long-legged stride. She pulled a lace hanky from the abundant crease of her neckline and lightly patted it to her reddened cheeks. “My goodness but the day has turned verra warm.” Blowing her curls away from her damp forehead, she wheezed in a deep breath as they pushed through the double glass doors leading to the deserted parking lot stretched across the front of the tiny terminal. She ducked her well-powdered chin as she swallowed hard, wet her pink lips, and waved a crinkled hanky toward a dilapidated truck parked beside a freshly painted fence. “We’ve no’ got a lot of specialists here. If there’s a need for special care then we must travel to the mainland.”
“All the women still flock to the man,” Alfred interrupted with a snorting grunt as he ambled up beside them. “Ye’d think he’s bespelled them or some such nonsense and I’m sure a woman such as Dr. Emma will be certain to catch his eye.” Alfred tossed Emma’s bags into the back of the truck, all the while casting a disgruntled glare back over his tweed-covered shoulder.
“If ye don’t mind my askin’…” Pointedly turning her back to Alfred with a curt twist of her round little body, Moira cleared her throat and lifted her powdered chin higher in the air. Moira folded her hands atop the floral printed ledge of her tummy and gently tapped one foot. As her glasses slid to the end of her nose, Moira gave Emma an appreciative glance up and down. “Would ye happen to be single? Completely unattached? I’m sure Dr. Mac would find a willowy redhead such as yourself quite fetching.”
Willowy redhead? Who was this lady kidding? Emma had never thought of her five foot nine frame as willowy. More like gawky and out of proportion—nothing but elbows and knees that didn’t corner well in cramped areas. Emma fished her sunglasses out of her bag and tightened the scarf holding back the tangled mass of curls struggling to flutter in the breeze. The wind had picked up and yanked her long ponytail free of its confines, lashing it about her face. Moira’s questions had taken the wrong direction and she’d seen that I’ve-got-a-man-you-need-to-meet look too many times on Laynie’s face to not recognize it when it gleamed in Moira’s eyes. “Since you asked, yes I’m single but I’m entirely too busy for all that nonsense. I’m here to get our clinic started. That’s it. I’m afraid there won’t be much time for socializing.” That universal matchmaking glint
on Moira’s face had to be doused before it blossomed into a full blown mating beacon. The last thing Emma needed right now was the distraction of dodging a series of catastrophic blind dates.
Emma swallowed a groan as the calculating tip of Moira’s tongue darted excitedly across her lower lip. The woman looked like a plump gray cat about to pounce on an unsuspecting canary. An Emma canary. Moira’s eyes twinkled. The woman was definitely plotting. One corner of Moira’s mouth curled up into a knowing twitch, clearly indicating that Moira’s unite-two-lonely-souls gears had shifted into overdrive in less than a nanosecond. Emma would bet her best stethoscope on it. Whoever this Alexander Mackenzie was, he better run like hell.
“Well.” Moira arched a silvery brow, giving a gentle tsk tsk with a toss of her head and a disappointed shrug. “Whatever ye say, Dr. Emma. We’ll see what we shall see.” Moira beamed a smug glow as she yanked open the door to the truck.
“Ye’ve doomed yourself to a certain visit of no peace. Ye do realize that, do ye not?” Alfred gripped her hand in his work-roughened grasp and helped her climb up onto the worn fabric seat. Moira whacked him on his backside and he turned to her with a chilling scowl.
“I heard that, ye old goat. I’m standing right behind ye.”
Emma settled into the sagging cushions of the truck and pulled her bag to her chest. First thing on the agenda was definitely a rental car. She could tell right now ping-ponging between these two would prove exhausting. But wouldn’t they make for tons of great conversation whenever she got Laynie on the line? Closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose, Emma bowed her head and fought back a grin as Moira and Alfred dove into another tirade.
Chapter Five
Destruction. A pleasurable rumble of satisfied laughter bubbled up through the depths of Arach’s coils and fanned the red-hot coals simmering in his gullet. He rolled the word off the tip of his forked tongue as though savoring the flavor of a fine robust wine. Such a delightful word: destruction. It even tasted good when he spoke it.
Arach filled his lungs with the stale dank air of the blood-soaked cave and waved away annoying carnage flies buzzing about his face. This world had turned out quite nice indeed. A bit on the dull side of late, but all in all not a bad place to spend a few millennia. Arach dipped his head with a single nod of certainty. Yes. He definitely considered his time here well spent. He’d most assuredly rate the prey of this world as one of his favorite races to hunt. Arach chuckled. The confused lot was even more enjoyable and entertaining than warming his scales beneath the scorching sun once a feeding frenzy was over.
Arach unsheathed one razor sharp claw and hooked it into the meatiest part of a smoldering carcass spread across the sticky stone floor. Impaling the body on the extended tip of one talon, he lifted the dripping corpse into the air, threw back his head and dropped the charred body into his mouth. Ah yes. Delicious. And the lovely screams the humans released as they realized they were about to die could not be matched anywhere else in this universe. What could be more musical than shrieking cries of a begging victim blubbering for something as ridiculous as mercy? Silly fools, these simpering mortals. What in the world could ever make them believe he would succumb to their pitiful begging? It must have something to do with that strange thing he’d heard one of their women wailing about while she clutched her mate’s dying body against her chest. What was the word the female had used? Arach slowed his chewing and thoughtfully tapped a greasy claw against his blood-spattered chin. Hope. Yes. That was it. Arach snorted. Their highly-prized hope was as useless a ploy for saving their lives as was their incessant pleading.
Snugging his barbed tail around his scale-covered body, Arach crunched down on the last bits of dismembered body piled between his stubby front legs. Such sweetness. Human bones made such a delectable pop when properly toasted before enjoying.
He cocked his head and brought his grinding jaws to an abrupt halt. A disgruntled gurgle bubbled at the back of his throat as he unsheathed a foreclaw and slid it in the side of his steaming mouth. Curling his leathery lips back in a sideways sneer, Arach probed along the third ridge of molars and pried a particularly worrisome bit of rib-bone out from between two stumps of hardest to reach back teeth. Apparently, he’d not scorched this one quite long enough. It still had a bit of fight left to it. The bone shard popped free and ricocheted off the glistening black walls lining the rear of the cave.
There. Much better. Smacking his slime-covered lips together, Arach pulled them back in a revealing grimace and examined his reflection in the pool of blood surrounding a pile of swollen torsos. Good. It looked as though he’d finally scraped all the bits of man from between his yellowed tushes. After all, one never could be too careful. A left behind piece of rotted meat or sliver of gristle could make for a miserable soreness in one’s mouth.
Arach scratched his delightfully full belly with a bloodied claw and slithered the cumbersome length of his body to the opening of the cave. Life was indeed quite decent since coming to this reality. He only wished there was a bit more challenge when it came to the hunt for fresh blood. Boredom did tend to grate on his nerves in the most tedious way.
Arach smacked his lips and sucked at his teeth as he groaned in a gut-stretching breath. He adored the plentiful food of this place and the humans had been quite good at rebuilding even more lovely structures for him to destroy. As a matter of fact, the buildings of this era exploded and burned with the most glorious billows of black smoke he had ever seen. Arach exhaled as he mindlessly tapped a claw against the limestone shelf. If only these mortals would learn how to fight back. It had been eons since he’d faced an interesting battle or found any victims worthy of well-thought-out torture.
Arach released a distracted sigh. Still, this hunting ground had lasted much longer than the last world he’d plundered. Of course, he’d been several millennia younger at that time and hadn’t known to pace himself as he’d done here.
The crashing sea roiled past the mouth of the cave. Greenish-gray waves spewed seaweed-filled froth across the sharp outcropping of stained black rocks protruding from the fissures of the cliff. Arach stretched himself out on the windswept ledge. With a sweep of one paw, he scattered sun-bleached bones out of the way and rested his sticky, blood-spattered chin atop the crossed cushion of his meaty forearms. Yes. He’d learned much since burning through the last reality much too quickly. ’Twas a good deal wiser to take things slowly. Savor the killings for the deepest possible enjoyment. After all, one must allow the prey time to breed and repopulate the land. Rather like when those silly mortals allowed the fields of their farms to lie fallow and gave their world a bit of a rest. These odd little mortals tended to be quite prolific if given the time and the short-lasted comfort of a few quiet decades. Once the mindless fools relaxed in the belief that their world was safe, they replenished their numbers quite readily. Arach smiled as he nestled his snout to a more comfortable angle in the crook of his crossed arms. Silly mortals. So easily picked off one by one when he resumed the scourging of their lands.
Arach rumbled a sigh and slathered his tongue around his greasy lips. Besides, juicy worlds filled with prey and ready for destruction grew more difficult to find every day. And even though he wasn’t getting any younger, he still had several more millennia left in this set of scales. Why burn out this world and have to go to the trouble of finding another?
He chuckled under his breath as his heavy eyelids slowly drifted shut. He must remember to thank the foolish old Cailleach. If not for the ancient woman of the moors guiding him to this particular gateway, he might’ve actually missed the pleasures of this world while traveling through the corridor.
The squawk of a gray heron sounded above the rim of the cave. Arach cracked an eyelid open, found the outstretched form of the graceful bird and incinerated it in a single explosive belch of orange flame. Useless birds. Constantly disturbing his naps. A distinct waste of valuable firepower but their racket was so damn irritating.
Th
e blackened steel hull of a fire-gutted ship scraped against the base of the cliff, trapped inside the barrier of rocks jutting out from the swirling sea. The rhythmic screech against the jagged rocks sang like a delightful lullaby to Arach’s heavily armored ear-slits. Yes. That soothing sound was much better than the annoying squawk of the shore birds, especially when it filled his dreams with the anticipation of crunching down on bodies rotting in the hold.
Fidgeting against the curve of the ledge to find a more comfortable position, Arach rolled to his side and exposed his swollen belly to the fleeting warmth of the sun. Lore! What would it take to get comfortable? A nagging restlessness prevented his leisure like a sharp rock poking into his side. Arach slapped at the midges buzzing his blood-streaked nostrils with writhing tentacles sprouting from his jaws. How the hell was he supposed to sleep off a meal with a cloud of insects crawling up his snout?
Snorting out a short burst of blue flame, Arach lumbered to his feet. It was useless. Sleep would never come to him at this rate. He might as well take flight and seed a few thunderstorms among the skittering clouds. At least watching the humans scatter for cover from destructive lightning might provide him with a bit of entertainment. What he wouldn’t give for an exciting hunt, a true challenge to rid him of this bothersome tension and gift him with the delicious weariness of a hard-won kill.
Chapter Six
The shush of steady waves caressed the deserted stretch of shore. The eternal rhythm pounded louder every time the greenish froth washed across the rocky strand. Gulls keened overhead, fluttering across the sky like white ribbons laced through the blinding blue.
Emma waved at Alfred and Moira’s retreating truck, blowing out a relieved breath as the vehicle bounced out of sight. Thank goodness. They’d finally left. Collapsing against the rough-hewn post of the open doorway, Emma kneaded the tensed muscles bunched at the back of her neck. The well-meaning Moira wore her out with an endless supply of prying, rapid-fire questions and constant scolding of husband, Alfred.
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