A Highlander Christmas

by Dawn Halliday, Cindy Miles, Sophie Renwick

  He gave her a slight smile, then scrubbed his shadowed jaw with his hand. “You want to know more about me, aye?”

  An arrogant ghost, she thought. “I do, yes.”

  “Verra well. But,” he said, those green eyes locking onto hers. “When I’m finished, I want to know why a beautiful young maid like yourself is jaunting about the Highlands in a blizzard. Alone. During the holidays.” He leaned forward. “Agreed?”

  She nodded, embarrassed that he thought her beautiful. “Agreed.”

  Stretching his long, lean arms across the table, he played with a knot in the wood with a fingertip and began. “My clan’s ancestral home is no’ far from here,” he said. “A pair of towers, an hour’s ride to the north. They’re derelict now and owned by Scotland’s National Trust.”

  Paige continued to listen intently.

  “I was born on the winter’s solstice of the year 1115.”

  Paige blinked. She nearly choked. “That makes you almost nine hundred years old.”

  A wry smile tilted his mouth and deepened his dimples. “Aye. So it does.”

  Amazed, Paige shifted in her chair and leaned closer. “How did you, um, when did you—”

  A frown furrowed his dark brows, and the muscles in his jaw flinched. “By the hand of a MacDonald, on the eve of my twenty-eighth birthday.”

  Paige gulped.

  Gabriel chuckled. “No’ to worry, lass. ’Tis no doubt that scoundrel wasna a relation of yours. Thankfully, that clan died out long ago. You’re from America, after all.”

  Her hand eased to the heirloom tucked beneath her sweater and hanging from a silver chain around her neck. A clan pin, passed down from the MacDonald women before her.

  Again, she gulped. Her ancestors were from Scotland.

  And she’d heard a similar tale from her grandmother, years and years ago . . .

  Chapter Four

  “What’s the matter, lass? You look more ghostly than I do.” Paige blinked and took another sip. She quickly decided to keep her ancestry and tale to herself. Besides. Even if it turned out she was one of those MacDonalds—and that would be a serious coincidence—she herself hadn’t had anything to do with Gabriel’s death. “You were murdered?” The question sounded as absurd as the situation.

  “Aye. Just there.” He pointed toward the raftered ceiling. “In the tower.” He shook his head. “I dunna recall much—only the face of my murderer.” He pushed away from the table and crossed his arms over his muscular chest. Intense green eyes pinned her to her chair. “Enough of my life’s tragic ending. I’ve suffered it once, and that was quite enough.” A smile lifted one side of his mouth. “I want to know more about you.”

  Paige studied Gabriel Munro. Sexy didn’t accurately describe him. There was something ultimately sensual about his mannerisms, the way he stared so thoroughly at her, and she couldn’t imagine what sort of impact he’d made when alive. His sexual allure all but strangled her now. She wasn’t used to that. Not at all.

  “Well?”

  Paige pushed her plate away and shrugged. “There really isn’t much to tell, I guess,” she said. “My parents died when I was four, and my grandmother raised me after that. She died right after my second year in college.” An image of Granny Corine came to mind, and tears stung her eyes. God, she missed her. “I live in a one-bedroom apartment just outside of Fredericksburg, Virginia. I commute into D.C. six days a week and work as a museum curator and researcher. I work a lot of hours.”

  Gabriel was silent for a moment; then he cocked his head. “You work at the Smithsonian?”

  Paige smiled and lifted a brow. “How on earth does a ghost from the twelfth century know about the Smithsonian?”

  Nonchalantly, he shrugged. “Discovery Channel. I watch Craigmire’s telly oft enough. ’Tis a place I would love to visit, given another set o’ circumstances.”

  Paige gave a soft laugh. “I see.” She stood, gathered her plate, and took it to the sink.

  “You’re alone then?”

  Paige jumped at Gabriel’s closeness. He stood just behind her, so close she could have sworn her skin tingled as his words washed over her. She couldn’t help it. She shivered. An attraction reaction to a ghost? Oh, that’s just precious, MacDonald . . .

  “I cannot fathom it,” Gabriel continued. “You’ve no family left? Friends, even? No man?”

  Paige turned, leaned against the counter, and met his gaze. He didn’t exactly glow, but he did in fact have a sort of aura about him. She could see him just as perfectly as if she were looking at a live man. Strange, how just a couple of hours ago, she’d been running for her life. “When you say it like that it sounds awful.”

  “A woman like you shouldna be alone.”

  Paige swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Um, thanks. I think.” What it actually meant, she hadn’t a clue.

  Just then, the wind whipped fiercely through the cracks of the stone wall, making a howling, moaning noise that left goose bumps on Paige’s arms. She rubbed them. “What about you?” she asked. “Do you have anyone? Now, I mean?”

  A somber expression crossed Gabriel’s handsome face. “I have Craigmire and his wife, the castle owners. They’re away on holiday, visiting their children in London. A fine pair, those two.”

  “No one else?”

  “Nay,” he said.

  She liked the way his r’s rolled and the heavy brogue of the Highlands flew off his tongue. Seductive. She thought he could talk to her all night long and she’d be perfectly content. Maybe she could find a book for him to read aloud.

  She’d keep all that to herself.

  “Why are you here?” he asked.

  “Well,” she said, pushing off the counter and walking to the large bay window facing the night. “I was determined not to spend one more Christmas alone. Not at the museum, not at the apartment, not walking around the park.” She softly laughed and stared at her own reflection in the glass. The candlelight made the image—her image—surreal. “So I booked a self-driving tour of the Highlands, did not factor in a snowstorm, and here I am.”

  “Weren’t you going to spend the Yuletide alone in Inverness?” he said, seemingly right next to her ear.

  When she looked, only her own reflection shown in the glass. “Well, yes. I suppose I thought it’d be different somehow. Or maybe I’d horn in on the bed-a nd-breakfast’s family Christmas.” She turned and looked at him. “I guess I was wrong.”

  Gabriel leaned against the wall and studied her. “Mayhap no’. Here we are. Together.” He smiled. “Aye?”

  Heat flushed her skin. “Yes. I suppose you’re right.”

  He leaned closer—so close, it made Paige shiver. “Then you dunna mind spending the Yuletide wi’ a lonely, aged warrior?” His mouth lifted at one corner, making the dimple pit his cheek on that side. One dark brow raised in question.

  Incredibly sexy.

  She smiled in return. “I don’t mind at all.”

  Of course she didn’t mind. Hmm. Let’s see. Nobody on one hand. A gorgeous, safe warrior ghost on the other. One with ripped muscles, a killer smile, sexy tattoos, and, well, just plain sexy. And fun to talk to.

  She’d be a moron to accept anything else.

  This Christmas—Yuletide, rather—was looking up more and more by the second.

  Gabriel’s gaze bore into hers for what seemed like minutes. Then that very same gaze lowered to her mouth, and even farther still, to somewhere lower than her neck, before slowly rising back to her eyes. “I couldna think of finer company, in truth.”

  Paige felt that infuriating blush scorch her skin. She cleared her throat and rubbed her neck with the palm of her hand. “Do you sleep?”

  Gabriel’s light chuckle made shivers race through her veins. It had to be one of the sexiest sounds she’d ever heard in her entire life. A total, carefree, guy laugh. And to think it came from a man who’d lost his life centuries before.

  “Nay, lass, I dunna sleep. But I know you need to. You look wea
ry, and your nose is swelling.” He inclined his head toward the archway of the kitchen. “Come. I’ll walk you to your bedchamber. Rest tonight, and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.” He gave her a deep grin, dimples and all. “You’ll need your strength, no doubt. Aye?”

  She thought she could hear him say aye forever.

  Paige smiled in return and began the walk through a candlelit medieval castle with the most unexpected, gorgeous host a self-touring girl could ever wish for.

  Dead or not, Gabriel Munro set her insides on fire.

  She never would have guessed how happy she’d be to have her crappy rental car croak in a blizzard.

  Bloody hell, he couldna keep his lecherous eyes off the lass.

  As they crossed the great hall, he slipped glances down at her. So petite next to him, built slender, fragile. He’d never met a lass with shorn hair such as Paige’s, but damn him, he thought it adorable the way it swung by her jaw, and how she tucked one side behind her ear. And those exquisitely shaped blue eyes and full lips made him wish even harder than ever that he had a live body.

  He would have already tasted those lips by now.

  Mayhap ’twas a good thing he was a bloody spirit.

  “It smells great in here,” she said beside him, her voice and unusual accent a pleasant, tinkling sound. “Very Christmassy. It must be the pine boughs.”

  “Craigmire’s missus insists on decorating the place,” he said. They both started up the staircase, Paige carrying a candle. “I told her no’ to bother, since I’d be here alone.”

  “Sounds like you’re not too crazy about the idea of Christmas,” she said. “I suppose I understand why.”

  He glanced at her. “Is that so?”

  “Of course,” she held the candle closer to her face. “We’re a lot alike, you and I. While you avoid Christmas because of your murder—”

  “You avoid it because it reminds you of how alone you are.”

  Her crestfallen expression made him regret the words instantly. “Beg pardon, lass—”

  “No, you’re absolutely right,” she said softly and continued the climb. Once they reached the top she started down the darkened passageway. “It doesn’t matter how we got to lonely.” She stopped at her door and looked up at him. “We both did. I for one am quite happy I booked a trip to the Highlands.” She gently touched her bandaged nose and smiled—really smiled, and it reached her eyes. The brilliance of it nearly knocked him backward.

  “It’s the first Christmas Eve in years I’ve not spent alone. Thank you.”

  Those two small words, coupled with the vulnerable honesty in her voice, nearly did Gabriel in. It made him uncomfortable. It made him regret being born in another century.

  It made him wish with all his ghostly might that Craigmire would never return, and that the snow would never melt, and that Paige MacDonald from Fredericksburg, Virginia, would never, ever leave.

  They stood there in the shadowy passageway, he with little more than his flimsy ghostly self, and she holding a candle that cast her already beautiful features into elegant lines and planes. It all but mesmerized him, and he knew he stood there staring like a whelp of thirteen—mayhap likely drooling, too.

  “Gabriel? Is there something wrong?”

  Focusing his gaze, he suddenly thought nothing could be more right.

  “Nay,” he said, and cocked his head. “How do you feel?” He tapped his own nose, indicating her wound.

  “Throbs,” she said, not taking her eyes from his. Then she lifted a brow. “But I’ll be fine. How did you change? From before? You know, your modern clothes?”

  Gabriel smiled and gave a nod. “Aye. One of my perks to being a spirit. Conjuring. But one must concentrate on keeping the image intact.” He ducked his head. “I thought I’d become rather expert at it over the centuries.”

  Paige shook her head and opened the door. She chuckled. “Seems like you might need a refresher course. You can’t imagine how you scared me, standing so close to me wearing just,” she glanced from his eyes, to his boots, then slowly back to his face, “that.”

  He gave her a mock frown. “Does my plaid offend?”

  Her face darkened with blush. How easily he could make her do that.

  “Not at all,” she said quietly. Opening the door, she stepped inside and turned. “You’ll be here when I wake up?”

  Gabriel thought the innocence in those words would remain emblazoned in his mind forever. “Aye. Good night, Paige MacDonald.”

  She smiled. “ ’Night.”

  With that, she gently shut the door.

  Gabriel stared at the solid slab of oak for several seconds, then shook his head. He lowered himself to the floor across from her door and sat.

  He’d not budge an inch until the lass rose in the morn.

  Resting his head back against the stone—or at least going through the motions of it, since he felt nothing behind his head at all—he let his thoughts drift back to the full, lush lips and wide blue eyes of his intriguing castle guest.

  ’Twas a good thing he couldna sleep.

  With Paige MacDonald on his mind, he doubted heartily that slumber would have ever come.

  Chapter Five

  Paige lay awake for the longest time, staring at the canopy above her. She had blown out the candles except one on her bedside table and kept the flashlight nearby in case she woke up with her nose hurting. That wouldn’t happen if she couldn’t fall asleep in the first place . . .

  Images of Gabriel flashed behind her lids, even when she did close them and try to drift off. She still couldn’t believe it had all happened; was happening. Her brain simply couldn’t accept it, and yet somehow she did. Naturally. As if she were meant to come to Scotland, to rent a car that would break down within walking distance of Gorloch B&B, and become trapped by a fierce, out-of-the-norm snowstorm.

  All so she could encounter the ghost of a warrior from centuries ago.

  Who was she fooling? Not only had she encountered him, but she’d become acutely attracted to him in a very short period of time. And it wasn’t just his shocking good looks, either. It was everything. That never happened to her. Ever. With a live man, or a not-so-a live one. She just wasn’t the kind of girl who attracted guys. She wasn’t unattractive—at least she didn’t think so. She just wasn’t flashy, didn’t stand out in a crowd. Blended right on in actually. She wore khakis and Smithsonian collared shirts to work, and during after-h our research projects at the museum, she wore jeans. Just not a guy magnet, so to speak. She lacked that certain something that other girls had.

  But she’d just made a pact with a ghost that they’d spend Christmas together, so that was something. And he’d called her beautiful . . .

  How very real Gabriel looked. Even in the shadows of a candlelit castle, he looked more alive than spirit. So tangible, in fact, she had to resist reaching a hand out to touch him. A faint, vague line of aura shone around him at times, and only that reminded her he was actually a spirit. Dead but not-so-gone for centuries and centuries upon end, he looked as though he strolled straight in from the movie set of Highlander or Braveheart—only better. More authentic, perhaps. Or maybe it was because she knew Gabriel was for real and not an actor portraying a medieval hero. No offense to Mel Gibson or Adrian Paul, of course.

  But Gabriel? Good grief, he made her stomach do flip-flops anytime he came near. She’d never seen hair so long on a live man before, and it hung loose, wild and beautiful, all at once. The color of black ink, like his brows and lashes, it was a stark contrast to his fair skin and green eyes. One could take all of that in if they got past his enormous size. She figured, going by her height of five feet four inches, that Gabriel had to be at least a foot taller, maybe more. Narrow hips supported by heavily muscled thighs, and thick veins crossed the tops of his hands, snaked up his bulky arms and over his chest. It amazed her how alive he looked, right down to the light dusting of dark shadow on his jaw, and the minute detailing of his intricate tattoos.

>   In her wildest dreams could she have invoked a sexier Christmas companion? She highly doubted it.

  Pulling the thick down-filled coverlet up to her chin, Paige closed her eyes and allowed the darkness to swallow her, and the howling wind screaming through the cracks in the stone finally lulled her to sleep.

  By the devil’s bloody horns, why wouldna the girl wake up? She must have been wearier than he’d thought. It had been nearly ten hours since he’d left her bedchamber.

  Gabriel continued to pace the passageway in front of her door.

  “Gabriel? Are you still out there?”

  His heart jumped in its cage. Damnation, he felt like an inexperienced lad round the lass. He cleared his throat. “Aye. Are you ill?”

  The door cracked open, and Paige’s head appeared. She grinned. “No, I feel fine. I’ll be out in just a bit.”

  Gabriel stared, and sucked in a breath.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked hesitantly.

  “You’ve a fine pair of blackened eyes, lass,” he said, and gave her a stern look. “Think you broke your nose?”

  Paige shrugged. “I thought I might have. I’ll be right back.”

  He gave a short nod. “Verra well. I shall await you here.”

  With her cheeks flushing, she closed the door.

  How adorable he thought her to be, with her skin turning hot at the least little thing. ’Twas something he found vastly endearing about Paige MacDonald.

  Among other things.

  Gabriel shook his head in amazement as he continued to stare at the ancient oak door. Christ, the girl had broken her nose. Those two black eyes and slight swelling gave it away. Yet she handled it without being squeamish. Never before, in his real life or his ghost “unlife” had a woman so thoroughly captured his attention. His mind hadna left Paige alone the entire night as he recalled every word, every movement the girl had said and made. He’d been around mortals in the past, although he hadn’t interacted all too much with them. Yet Paige MacDonald intrigued him, forced his lecherous mind to wander areas it hadn’t wandered in centuries.