“Aye,” she murmured in agreement, threading her fingers in his hair. “I suppose I can wait an hour to see ye ride him.”
The End
Heather House: Witch of the Moors
North Berwick, Scotland
1590
Alec Montgomery threw his head back and laughed, his green eyes twinkling in mirth.
“Ach, Taran, ye sound like Old Bertha,” he quipped, looking down his aristocratic high-bridged nose. “What was it she said?”
He slammed his tankard down with a crash and grinned as his tall, dark-haired cousin greeted his display with a scathing glance.
“Ah yes.” Alec ignored the stare and continued, shifting into a storyteller’s voice. “She swore I was cursed for dying with the name of the wrong lass upon my lips nigh on a hundred years ago. And because of it, my true love is now mine enemy.” His handsome face creased into an even wider grin as he ran his hands through his sun-burnished hair. “And an enemy that I could lose my life for in rescuing her from the flames. What sense does that make, aye? The woman is mad.”
His brooding cousin curled the corner of his lip in disdain. “And what has that to do with me?”
Staring directly into the man’s unnerving gaze, Alec wriggled both brows and whispered loud enough so that all could hear, “Ye both are mad.”
But then the wench perched upon his knee stood up with a scowl. “Did ye not hear about Old Bertha? They burnt her as a witch a fortnight ago!”
Alec cocked a surprised brow her way.
Old Bertha was daft, but she’d been a harmless old woman. Who could possibly think her capable of witchcraft?
The conversation lulled, but then Alec’s younger brother ducked inside the alehouse and strode their way, his plaid-draped shoulder stiff with anger.
“Ach, the lot of them are fools!” he spat, lifting a booted foot over the bench to join his kin. “’Tis not highwaymen lurking along the road launching attacks on the unwary. 'Tis the Cunninghams and well all know it!”
As usual, the name of Cunningham shifted the mood.
“Aye, not a Cunningham exists whom I’d allow to walk upon the Earth, if I had my way,” Alec said without hesitation. “Useless, the lot of them.”
“Ach, have ye brought new tidings?” Taran asked with a note of scorn. “Or is this merely an opining of the same blood grudge that’s lasted nigh on a hundred years?”
The younger Montgomery opened his mouth, but whatever he was about to say was lost upon Alec as the door to the alehouse opened once again, this time revealing a lass at the threshold.
She arrested his attention at once.
Slim and delicate with a mane of coppery curls, she wore a homespun blue dress that accentuated her stunning blue eyes, eyes that seemed to bore deep into his soul. But then she moved, and he couldn’t make up his mind if her eyes were instead gray, or mayhap green.
She began to move his way.
Tilting his head toward his brother and cousin, he queried in a low tone, “The lass coming our way. Do we know her?”
“With as many lasses as ye kiss, Alec, I’d say ye do,” his cousin observed with a sardonic crook of his lip.
But Alec only had time to toss him an exasperated glance before the lass was there at the table.
She was quite delicate and a bit younger than he’d first thought.
And her eyes, aye, her eyes. Her eyes seemed to shimmer from blue to green as the flicker of the candlelight struck them. Or mayhap it was the anger in them that caused them to shift color.
With a proud toss of her head, she slapped her hand down upon the table. “Ye owe me a debt, Montgomery.”
“I do?” Alec asked with an easy grin. His eyes swept her up and down in outright appraisal. “Forgive me, but I canna recall ye, lass, though I’m fair flummoxed how I ever could forget ye.”
She pushed a silver pin across the table, and the three leaned close to inspect it.
Alec raised a questioning brow.
There was nothing particularly special about the pin but for the fact that it was the Montgomery crest.
He shrugged, and then sent her his most seductive smile. “The pin means naught to me, but I canna say the same about your lips, lass.”
Her eyes flashed and her bosom heaved.
But before she could respond, a bald man wearing a dark cloak opened the alehouse door.
At once, the lass dove upon Alec’s lap and pulled the corner of his plaid over her shoulders.
He had no objection. She was frail and slight, but deliciously curved in all of the right places.
He slid his hand around her waist and pulled her even closer.
“Has any of ye seen an odd redheaded lass with uncanny eyes?” The bald man’s voice reverberated throughout the low-ceiling room.
Several heads turned their way, and the lass dropped her hands to grip Alec’s hard.
He froze, startled, and glanced down at her fingers resting atop his. Her hands were delicate and warm.
And strangely, inexplicably familiar.
Perplexed, he looked deeply into her mysterious, ringed eyes and then asked a bit chagrined, “Ach, have I bedded ye afore?”
If he hadn’t, he knew he certainly would.
She answered him with a swift kick to the shin.
“Her name is Sorcha,” the man approached them, his voice continuing to shake the alehouse rafters. “She’s a witch. A Cunningham witch!”
... to be continued in "Heather House: Witch of the Moors"
About the Author and Other Books
Click this link for a list of Carmen's books on Amazon
Like many of us on this planet, Carmen Caine/Madison Adler is from another world. She spends every moment she can scribbling stories on sticky notes that her kids find posted all over the car, house, and barn.
When she is not working as a software engineer, she is busy ferrying her kids to various appointments, writing lyrics for her husband's songs, raising her Doberman Ajax, attempting to tame her three insane cats, scratching her three Nigerian Dwarf Goats behind the horns or coddling her flock of thirty bizarre chickens from around the world.
And although I am terrible at tweeting and posting on Facebook (though I do strive to improve), please find me at the following places:
Carmen and Madison's Facebook Fanpage
Facebook friends with Madison Adler ( aka Carmen )
Facebook friends with Carmen Caine ( aka Madison )
Madison's Twitter - more paranormal content
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Carmen and Madison's website
THE GLASS WALL SERIES (PG-13)
The Glass Wall
What if humans were more powerful than they thought? What if an alien race had a reason to keep humanity entrenched in fear? And what if ancient beings that we've met before were still trying to protect us?
And just what if the fate of Earth depended upon an average 17-year-old girl with a few secrets of her own?
Would she discover that the power of love was truly the strongest of all?
Prequel - the short story "Behind the Mirror"
Rafael Channing is a Fate Tracker, protecting his world and Earth from disaster, but what should he do when disaster appears in the form of love?
Book One - The Glass Wall
17-year-old Sydney's only interest in life is flying under the radar.
But destiny has other plans when the tall, handsome, formal, and unusual Rafael Channing moves into the neighborhood. Athletic and with killer looks, he wears black eyeliner like a magician and seems to be watching Sydney's every move.
What starts out as a light-hearted investigation with her gadget-happy foster father takes a serious turn when she discovers that Rafael isn't human. Add Jareth, the country's latest rock sensation, into the mix and Sydney is swept into a mysterious world of Tulpas, the Fae, and the Brotherhood of the Snake.
Sydney doesn't know she's a Blue Thread of Fate. She doesn't know
the fate of humanity depends on her choice of whom to trust--Jareth or Rafael. And she certainly doesn't know that she's taken the first step on the unexpected path of love.
Book Two of the Glass Wall- The Brotherhood of the Snake
The excitement and mystery continues as the romance begins. After breaking the Glass Wall, Sydney finds herself on the run with Rafael. And as her feelings for him awaken, danger arrives in the form of Mesmers, agents of evil sent by the Brotherhood of the Snake.
But when Jareth struts back onto the scene, it isn't long before Sydney finds herself immersed in sinister secrets, and the subsequent whirlwind of events leaves her wondering just who is right and who is wrong?
Book Three of the Glass Wall - The Inner Circle
As the predictions from the Hall of Mirrors come true, Sydney seizes control of her destiny and makes a choice between Rafael and Jareth. A choice of true love.
And as she evades Mesmers, Tulpas, and the Fae's Inner Circle, she discovers the power of human thought.
But then one of the three makes their Blue-Threaded decision, the decision of fate.
Is it the right one?
Book Four of the Glass Wall - The Egg (2014)
A death. A beginning. And the final Blue-Threaded decisions are made.
THE HIGHLAND HEATHER AND HEARTS SCOTTISH ROMANCE SERIES (PG-13)
The Kindling Heart
(Scotland, 1478) - Ruan MacLeod was through with women. They were nothing but trouble.
Leaving the rash life of his youth behind, he returned to Skye, seeking peace. He never meant to split the clan or start a war with the MacDonald of Duntulm. He certainly never foresaw an arranged marriage to the most scandalous woman in Scotland. Even though she was twice his age, the size of a horse and mother to more than one illegitimate child, he agreed to secure his sister's freedom.
However, even that plan goes drastically awry. On his wedding day, he finds himself faced instead with an enticing, green-eyed lass named Bree. A walking disaster, his bride immediately turns his world into chaos and threatens to melt his resolve never to love again.
Betrayed by her own mother, Bree flees to Skye, thinking only to reunite with her long, lost father. Instead, she finds herself wed to Ruan MacLeod as a replacement bride. When she is forced to remain in the castle, she is soon caught between brothers and the mentally ill wife of the laird.
Shy, yet strong, Bree embarks on a journey of independence and learns along the way that all men are not necessarily evil. In fact, one particularly brooding, yet gentle-hearted warrior is worthy of love, and she soon loses her heart forever.
Award-Winning Novel: The Bedeviled Heart
"The Bedeviled Heart" is the ROMANCE SILVER MEDAL WINNER of the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards!
(Scotland, 1479) Cameron Malcolm Stewart, Earl of Lennox, had made his peace with destiny. It was not his fate to love as other men.
Each of his politically arranged marriages had ended in disaster. And though he had never touched a one of his wives, he had come to believe that sharing his name would consign a woman to an early grave. So, on the sunny spring day Cameron encounters a delightfully devious, bright-eyed lass selling charmed stones in one of Stirling's alehouses, he tosses her a shilling, thinking only to steal a kiss. But it is a kiss that will change his life forever.
To care for her ailing father, the precocious Kate Ferguson has resorted to swindling the drunkards of Stirling. But a chance meeting with a handsome and seductively mysterious outlaw named Cameron ends with a kiss that changes the course of her destiny.
But as dark times descend upon Scotland, Kate is inadvertently caught in a deadly web of court intrigue spun by the royal favorite, Thomas Cochrane. And as King James III falls prey to his fear of the Black Arts, accusations of witchcraft and treachery abound. The fate of Scotland hangs in the balance, and while Cameron vows to defy destiny itself to hold Kate forever in his arms, he must unravel the plots of nobles and commoners alike to protect the country that he loves.
The Daring Heart
(Scotland, 1482) - To the scandalous Lord Julian Gray, marriage is a malady and nothing more.
How can a man even court a lass longer than a fortnight when there are so many pouting lips to kiss?
Roaming the courts of Europe, Julian appears to spend his time drinking wine, wagering gold, and dandling willing lasses upon his knee. But no one knows the man behind the mask. No one knows that he is Le Marin--Europe's most daring and brazen spy.
But everything changes the night he finds a dagger pressed against his ribs and an alluring hazel-eyed minx in his bed.
Born into the Vindictam, the renowned Venetian family of assassins, Liselle dreams of the day she will be allowed to practice the family craft. And when she is sent to the Scottish court, her dream is finally realized. But is it an honor ... or a curse?
As the threat of civil war looms over Scotland, and the king's own brother conspires with the English to put himself on the Scottish throne, Julian can't help but be distracted by the mysterious Venetian beauty and her many secrets.
But will it be his undoing?
The Bold Heart
The story that started it all ends with the fated love of Merry and Ewan.
The Bold Heart (The Highland Heather and Hearts Scottish Romance Series) Page 26
