“I’m not Scottish.” Mindy resisted announcing that she, like the woman herself, was American. “But—”
“I must tell you”—the woman spoke right over her—“we’re ending our trip with a gala weekend at Ravenscraig Castle near Oban. They have a state-of-the-art genealogical research center called One Cairn Village where we can reference everything we learn on the tour. They even do—”
“Ravenscraig Castle?” Mindy’s heart sank.
She’d booked her first night in Scotland at the castle hotel. It’d caught her eye because of its proximity to Oban, where she’d board the CalMac ferry to Barra. And because a castle hotel sounded luxurious and she deserved a night of pampering before stranding herself on a rocky Hebridean island that surely lacked most modern conveniences.
But she’d somehow overlooked that Ravenscraig had a genealogy center. The place would be overrun with history buffs and ancestral enthusiasts.
Mindy shuddered.
The talker was just warming up. “Yes, that’s it. Ravenscraig Castle. It’s owned by a real laird, Sir Alexander Douglas, and his American wife. I believe her name is Lady Mara. They’re known throughout the Highlands for their medieval-reenactment festivals and—”
“Medieval reenactment?”
“Oh, yes. Their ‘Medieval Dayes’ weekends are supposed to be fabulous. Very authentic, but”—she gripped Mindy’s arm, speaking with as much relish as if she were talking about attending a tournament at Buckingham Palace—“they’re just as famous for the genealogy research they sponsor. They even give out certificates verifying one’s roots. And in some cases where they have connections with the lairds, they present you with a land deed for a square foot of your own home glen!”
Mindy gulped.
It just kept getting worse.
Genealogy nuts were bad. The thought of arriving at the castle hotel in the middle of a medieval reenactment was off-putting enough for her to break out in hives.
She’d had her fill of medieval lately and didn’t want any more. Thousands of numbered and packed-in-straw castle stones were more than anyone’s share of the Middle Ages. Now that those stones were on their way to the Auld Hameland—and very likely there already—she should be able to consider her part in their history a done deal.
In fact, when a Global PA announcement rang through the concourse calling passengers to board a flight to St. Croix, Mindy decided those now-in-Barra stones were enough. She wasn’t doing anything else and neither was she flying to Glasgow, getting in a rental car, and driving left through heather and mist.
Her heart was not in the Highlands.
It was on a sunny beach where the sand burned her feet and the smell of cocoa butter tanning oil scented the air.
Almost tasting the tropics, she sprang to her feet. Unfortunately, her seat companion leapt up, as well. Once more the woman grabbed her arm, holding tight.
“I forgot to tell you the best part about Ravenscraig.” She sounded excited enough to burst. “The castle’s One Cairn Village isn’t just a research center. It also has its own Highland village with self-catering cottages for visitors, a gift and tea shop, and even a memorial cairn to the MacDougalls, who originally built the castle.
“It’s said”—she stepped closer, her eyes blazing even brighter than before—“that the village could be right out of Brigadoon!”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Mindy broke free and hastened from the waiting area.
She wasn’t going to be Brigadooned anywhere.
“Don’t be long,” the woman called after her. “They’ll be boarding soon.”
“Without me,” Mindy muttered to herself as she hurried down the concourse, dodging passengers and air crews going in the other direction.
She was good at zipping through busy airports.
But she stopped short when she reached the end of the concourse. It opened very near to one of the security checkpoints and—her blood ran cold—the three ancestral ghosts from the long gallery stood there glaring at her.
“O-o-oh, no!” Her cry caused several businessmen to stare at her.
They, of course, didn’t see anything amiss.
Mindy frowned as the men hastened past her. It didn’t surprise her that they thought she was nuts.
She knew enough from Margo and other paranormal enthusiasts at Ye Olde Pagan Times to understand that—if one believed such things—ghosts could make themselves visible, or not, to anyone they chose to visit.
Though there were always sensitives who saw them, regardless.
Wishing she didn’t see them, Mindy shook her head. “Oh, no,” she repeated, her chest tight with dread.
“Och, aye.” The ghostie called Roderick whipped out his sword and shook it at her.
Geordie did the same with his walking stick.
Silvanus only grinned. He also had the cheek to cut her a jaunty bow.
Then before she could make a run for it—something she did consider—the other ghost chieftains from the long gallery appeared behind them, each one brandishing a sword or spear and looking as if he’d just stepped off the Braveheart set.
When they rushed forward, their weapons lowered and their clan battle cries splitting the air, Mindy changed her mind about escape.
As if they knew, they vanished at once.
Well, all except Silvanus.
That one suddenly appeared at her side. “You made the right choice, lassie,” he said, winking at her. “You’re going to love Scotland.”
And then he, too, was gone.
“. . . Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the final boarding call for Continental flight sixteen to Glasgow. Will all passengers not yet on board please come immediately to Gate C-127.”
Mindy heard the announcement and bit back a groan.
It was now or never.
But one thing she knew as she hastened back to the boarding gate, this time going with the fast- moving stream of concourse passengers.
She was not going to love Scotland.
Chapter 5
Nearly seven hours and an Atlantic crossing later, Mindy woke from a fitful sleep. Years of flying on duty—she’d preferred working night flights—made it next to impossible to rest well on planes. Nor was her coach window seat very conducive to deep slumber. But even if the space allotted would cramp a six-year-old and the pillow that was supposed to make her more comfortable could have passed for a very thin washcloth, she hadn’t wanted to splurge on business class.
It stung enough to pay full fare.
She was, after all, used to flying first class for next to nothing.
She also had an infallible instinct for when a plane was about to begin its descent. As if to prove her nose for imminent landings was still sharp, the sound of the engines shifted even before she’d fully cracked her eyes. Moments later, the captain’s voice came over the loudspeaker, wishing the passengers a good morning and informing them that they’d just passed over the coast of Ireland. He then told his cabin crew to prepare for arrival in Glasgow.
Glasgow.
A burst of cheers and clapping rose from a few rows behind her. The going home passengers booked on the Celtic Twilight tour.
Mindy didn’t share their enthusiasm. She did feel her mouth go dry and her palms dampen. Never had a city name struck more dread in her heart. And she wasn’t even staying there. She had no ties to Glasgow at all beyond landing at its airport and picking up her rental car.
But Glasgow meant Scotland.
Mindy shivered. She didn’t believe in such things—though she had become a firm believer in ghosts—but she couldn’t shake the weird sensation that Scotland was waiting for her. She could almost feel it lurking down there beneath the fast-descending plane like some great hulking beast ready to pounce on her the moment she arrived.
Hoping to dispel the feeling, she pushed up the plastic window shade, intending to glare down at the Hebrides, which, she knew, they had to be speeding over about now. But the chain of islands that curved along Sc
otland’s west coast wasn’t down there.
Nothing was.
She saw only what looked like an endless sea of cotton batting. Gray cotton batting as far as the eye could see. Rain clouds. Mindy pressed her forehead to the window, straining to make out something anyway. Anything she could spot to prove that she wouldn’t be spending her time in Scotland living in a world of uninterrupted gloom. Unfortunately, when she did find a break in the cloud cover, it was to see sheets of rolling mist drifting across a sea that could only be called inky black. She also caught a flash of creamy white breakers and two barren islands that were so tiny they were little more than seabound rocks.
Empty, silent, and clearly uninhabited, they did have steep, dark cliffs. Deep and narrow inlets that made them even more forbidding. Secretive- looking caves in the high-walled sides of those inlets lent the isles an air of mystery. They were nothing like the Hebrides of song, beautiful, ethereal, and heart-wrenchingly romantic.
Those two specks of jagged rock were the real deal. And seeing them at their brooding, mist-shrouded worst only confirmed what she already knew.
Scotland was so not her kind of place.
Two hours later as she drove—drove left!—through sheets of teeming rain along Scotland’s supposedly scenic A-82, she was ready to carve that opinion into stone. Thankfully her rental car was small. Otherwise she would have had serious problems navigating the pencil-thin road that ran in a series of hairpin twists and turns along the western shore of Loch Lomond, which she assumed was somewhere to her right.
She couldn’t see the famous loch through the curtains of rain.
An interminable downpour that, at the very least, worked wonders for her jet lag.
There wasn’t anything more powerful than a fear of hurtling off the road and into a loch she couldn’t see to keep her eyes peeled and her every sense alert.
Anger kept her going, too.
Driving left was worse than she’d expected. It was a living nightmare surely designed to keep down the influx of right-driving tourists. But she’d be damned if she’d concede defeat by heading back to the airport and returning the car. So she kept her hands tight on the wheel, gritted her teeth, and tried very hard not to cry out each time a coach tour bus zoomed up behind her. Even worse were the rolling houses on wheels, otherwise known as recreational vehicles, that kept roaring past her from the opposite direction.
She’d stopped counting those buggers when she hit twenty.
Who knew all the blasted road-hogging nightmares called Scotland’s A-82 their home?
She knew it.
And she also knew that if she stopped at one more promising-looking inn or bed-and-breakfast only to be turned away with a “Sorry; we’re booked full,” she was soon going to have a major nerve meltdown.
She did not want to spend the night at Ravenscraig Castle.
Regrettably, it was beginning to look as if she had no choice. And no way was she sleeping in her car. It didn’t matter that if she left the A-82, she’d no doubt find herself surrounded by hills and moors that went on forever with no sign of human habitation and no one to object to an exhausted and irritable American woman roughing it for the night.
No, that wasn’t for her.
Even bonny Scotland had ax murderers, she was sure.
She already knew it had ghosts.
Bran of Barra came to mind.
But thinking of him only made her flush. She was certain that the big, burly Highland ghost with the slightly crooked nose and lopsided grin had almost kissed her. And that just served to rile her even more.
She didn’t want to think about spooks.
And she especially didn’t want to think about kissing one of them.
So she set her jaw and kept going, trying to ignore the horrors of left driving, the wind buffets that could easily rival a hurricane, and the ceaseless drumming of rain on the roof of her car. She also did her best not to start laughing hysterically at the image of Scotland as portrayed on all the travel posters. She saw nothing of the castles and kilts and bagpipers playing their hearts out on some lonely, heather-covered hill.
In fact, if the rain didn’t soon lessen, she’d need swim goggles to see anything at all!
She was also lost.
At least she thought she was until she reached the junction of Crianlarich. The tiny blink-your-eyes-and-it’s-gone village was the crossroads where the rental-car agent had told her she’d need to start watching for the A- 85 turnoff. That road would veer west, taking her through Glen Lochy and the Pass of Brander toward Gateway-to-the-Isles Oban and then straight to—the name sat like an iron weight in her stomach—Ravenscraig Castle of genealogy and medieval-reenactment fame.
Two strikes against the place in her jaundiced opinion.
She refused to think about the Brigadoon slant.
But then, after what seemed like an endless stretch of twisting coast road, she spotted Ravenscraig’s double-turreted gatehouse. She also saw an enormous gray dog sitting just inside the entryway’s tunnellike arch. Shaggy and fearsome-looking, the dog appeared to be watching the road. That wouldn’t have bothered her normally—she loved dogs, after all—but this one had glowing amber eyes that she’d swear were staring right at her. Yet when she slowed the car, he stood and loped away into the deep woods behind the gatehouse.
Mindy blinked.
She didn’t think Scotland still had wolves, but it wouldn’t surprise her.
The dog, or whatever it’d been, certainly could have passed for one.
She shivered, chilled despite the heavy all-weather jacket she’d bought for the trip. A Barbour waxed jacket that Margo had insisted was a classic and an absolute must for travel in Britain.
It did make her feel rather posh.
Especially with the apricot cashmere turtleneck and matching paisley scarf that Margo had made her pick up to go with the jacket. As long as she ignored her clunky walking boots, she could have stepped out of one of her sister’s English Country Living magazines.
Quite a turnabout for a girl who dreamed of living in a bikini and pareo.
She could have laughed, but . . .
The wolf-dog creature had put a major crimp in an already bad day. His penetrating stare made her feel as if he’d been waiting for her.
Not just watching the road, but looking for her.
Mindy blew a strand of hair off her face, determining not to worry about it.
At least Ravenscraig seemed to greet her kindly. The gatehouse’s wrought-iron gates stood wide, and—she couldn’t believe it—just as she approached and swung into the imposing entry, the rain stopped.
It still drizzled. But she wouldn’t expect anything else from such a cold wet place as Scotland. At least now she could see where she was going without the windshield wipers swishing back and forth at light speed. Too bad the first thing that caught her eye was a sign indicating the way to One Cairn Village.
Curiosity made her stop. She let down the window and was immediately treated to a blast of chill air that smelled of pine, damp loamy earth, and the sea. In fact, she was sure she could hear distant waves crashing over rocks.
Mindy’s pulse leapt. She remembered from booking online through the castle hotel’s Web site that Ravenscraig stood on a bluff.
She did love the sea.
Too bad—in this dark and misty setting—the sound of pounding surf only reminded her of the spooky old Celtic tales she’d heard at Margo’s Ye Olde Pagan Times. Strange, hair- raising stories of long Atlantic rollers rising up to shape-shift into fiery-eyed, horselike sea serpents as the foaming waves raced to shore.
Mindy frowned and jabbed the button to raise the window again, blotting the sound.
It was a good thing she didn’t believe in shape-shifters.
Now, ghosts . . .
Her scowl deepened and she tapped the accelerator, glad to drive away from the turnoff to One Cairn Village. She might not have seen the village—clearly it was nestled too deep in the woods to be spo
tted from the main drive—but she’d felt its power.
A weird something that lifted the fine hairs on her nape and made her almost feel as if she’d entered an older, forgotten-by-time kind of place when she’d left the coast road and passed through Ravenscraig’s gatehouse.
At least she hadn’t seen them anywhere.
The Long Gallery Threesome, as she now thought of the trio of ancestral ghosts from the Folly.
But when she drove out of the trees and caught her first glimpse of the castle hotel, she was sure they’d be here somewhere. Ravenscraig could have leapt out of the pages of a fairy tale.
It had to be a haven for ghosts.
Mindy swallowed, unable to take her gaze off the castle. The Folly was—and would be again—a sturdy, square-shaped medieval tower. This place looked like a castle confection suitable for Disney World.
It was tall, parapeted, and built of pink sandstone that gleamed red from the recent rain, with narrow-slit windows that seemed to stare at her from across a sweep of well-manicured lawn. Mist rose from the grass, hovering low and adding to the sense of otherworldliness. And—she wasn’t at all surprised—dark rain clouds filled a huge swath of sky directly behind the castle, proving that Ravenscraig indeed perched on the very edge of a cliff.
Not that it should matter to her where the castle stood.
All she wanted was a clean and comfortable bed, a hot shower, and, in the morning, a substantial breakfast to see her through to Barra.
She did like to eat.
So she followed the curving drive around the lawn toward the two rounded towers that guarded the castle’s massive iron-studded door.
A door that swung open the instant she stopped in front of Ravenscraig’s broad stone steps. Mindy’s heart leapt to her throat. For one crazy moment, she expected the Long Gallery Threesome to rush out, yelling their slogans, swords and walking stick at the ready.
With great caution, she climbed out of the car, her gaze pinned on the castle door.
But the only souls to rush to greet her were three dogs.
Two lively Jack Russells who flew down the steps at breakneck speed and a border collie whose slower gait and whitened muzzle marked him as a senior dog.
Some Like It Kilted Page 9
