He paused, wincing.
For a proud man who considered himself as having a way with the ladies, it didn’t sit well with him that he’d deliberately set out to intimidate Mindy Menlove.
That he’d had little choice did nothing to banish his guilt.
Equally damning, when he’d sifted himself back to Barra—returning to the cold and misty forecourt outside his keep and not the cheery warmth of his hall—he’d revealed that he’d turned into a coward, as well.
Never in all his long centuries of making occasional forays from Barra had he hesitated to remanifest in his crowded, boisterous hall. He relished the cozy familiarity and all the well- kent faces waiting there to greet him. Souls who—if he’d reappeared in their midst—would immediately see that something was amiss.
They’d hound him good-naturedly, not relenting until they pried the truth from him.
So for the first time in his afterlife, he found himself avoiding his own hearthside.
His frown deepened.
Furious, he strode across the bailey and climbed onto the curtain wall, where he glared across the night-blackened water at the dark smudge of hills rising behind Barra’s inner shore. For once, he regretted that he’d built his tower on its own rocky little isle in the middle of the bay. It would suit him fine to be up on the larger island’s highest peak, letting the icy sea wind blast away his cares.
He fisted his hands on the cold ledge of the wall. He was fooling himself and knew it well. Even the fiercest gale wasn’t strong enough to chase the lass from his mind.
Her hold on him appeared as inescapable as a flood tide he couldn’t outrun.
Bran shoved a hand through his hair and glanced at the heavens. Although a light drizzle fell, there was no sign of the teeming rain that had drenched Ravenscraig, and a sliver of moon peeked through the clouds.
Gibbie was leaning into him, his great bulk heavy against Bran’s legs. He reached down to pat the dog’s head, glad for his company. Thin wisps of mist curled around them, chill and damp. And below the curtain walls, huge waves crashed over the rocks, filling the air with spume.
It could have been an ordinary night, if only . . .
“Damn American.” Bran felt his jaw clench.
He wished she’d been afraid of him. Experience had taught him that most moderns feared the unexplained, men and women alike. It didn’t matter if ghosts appeared solid, as Bran prided himself on being able to do. The cold shivers rippled down their spines all the same.
Yet Mindy had faced him with courage, even challenging him, his right to be at Ravenscraig. A place he visited not infrequently, as did many others of his ilk.
Ghosts knew where they were welcome.
Just as Mindy knew when she didn’t wish to be bothered.
The image of her lifting her chin and flipping back that shining blond hair flashed across his mind. As did the sparking anger he’d seen in her eyes and—damn his blundering hide—how she’d nipped around the sofa and tried to ward him off when he’d meant to kiss her.
Nae, he corrected, he’d planned to swing her up into his arms, hoist her over his shoulder, and carry her to her bed, hoping she’d faint from fright before he was forced to toss her onto the mattress and pretend he was about to have his way with her.
But she hadn’t swooned and her bravery—something all Highlanders honored—had stirred his admiration.
Gods pity him.
The last thing he needed was to feel sympathy for her.
That esteem had ripped his intentions to shreds so that he’d stared at the pulse leaping at the base of her throat and felt the ridiculous urge to soothe her. He could have pulled her to him, crushing her mouth beneath his.
Instead, he’d smoothed his knuckles down her cheek and brushed his lips against hers so lightly that the intimacy of the kiss had set his heart to thumping in a way it’d never done before.
He’d never kissed a woman with such care.
Nor had he ever stomped about in the misting rain, hours later—in truth, centuries apart—and tortured himself with recollections of how very soft her skin was. Or how much her sweet, lush lips tempted him, blinding him to reason and making him wish . . .
He leaned harder against the wall and sighed.
Gibbie gave a disgusted groan and trotted away to investigate the shadows and smells on the far side of the bailey, clearly finding them more interesting. But as soon as he disappeared into the mist, a firm hand clamped down on Bran’s shoulder.
He started and reached for his sword, but a familiar laugh stopped him.
Saor MacSwain lifted his voice above the wind. “Since when do you return from Ravenscraig looking as if you’d swallowed a jug of soured ale?”
“Perhaps I have?” Bran whirled to glare at the other chieftain, the only soul who’d dare disturb him when he so obviously desired to be left alone.
To emphasize that point, he turned back to the wall and stared down at the sea. “Truth is I do regret making the journey. I doubt I’ll visit our old friends again.”
“The devil you say!” Saor stepped closer and angled his head to peer into Bran’s face. “What will come of Ravenscraig’s Ancestral Balls if you weren’t there to add a dash of honest Highland authenticity? The visitors who recognize you as a ghost are thrilled to have their belief confirmed that all Scottish castles are haunted. And the ones who see you as a man”—he flashed a wicked smile—“perhaps the many American lassies who stay at Ravenscraig, well, they—”
“They can content themselves with the other Highland ghosties who beat a track through the heather to attend such fests.” Bran gave his friend a narrow look. “I have far more weighty matters on my mind than playing the gallant to kilt-crazed tourists.”
Saor arched a brow. “What, then? Are you fashed about the three MacNeil chieftains Serafina—”
“This has naught to do with Serafina or thon ghosties, whoe’er they were!” Bran scowled.
It had to do with a modern female he wasn’t about to mention.
And—the thought jellied his knees—it was about something so incredible, he’d been doing his damnedest not to think on the possibility, because if it proved true, the wonder of it might just stop his heart.
“Och, well . . .” Saor considered his fingernails. “If no’ our lovely little Saracen or our mysterious visitors, it can only be a wench plaguing you.” He looked up quickly, his dark eyes glinting with amusement. “A maid I’ve yet to meet, I’m thinking.”
Bran kept his mouth clamped in a tight, hard line.
Saor looked ready to split his sides. “Perhaps ’tis I who should sift myself to Oban and see what fetching lassie has turned your head.”
“You’ll no’ be going anywhere.” Bran shot out a hand to grip Saor’s arm. “And”—his brows snapped together—“do you truly think I’d be scowling so fiercely if some bonnie bit o’ fluff had caught my eye?”
Saor jerked free, grinning. “Aye, that I do!”
“Well, you’re wrong.”
To Bran’s annoyance, his friend threw back his head and howled with laughter.
Ignoring the lump’s hooting, Bran folded his arms. “If you must know, you long-nosed gawp, my foul humor has to do with Barra.”
“You?” Saor stopped laughing.
“Nae, it isn’t me. Though . . .” Bran glanced across the bay to the dark outline of the island that was as much a part of him as the air he breathed. He was Barra. And in so much more than his mere title.
There were times he’d walked across those hills and moors, or along the Traigh Mhor, Barra’s great cockle strand, and would have sworn he felt the isle’s heart beating steadily beneath his feet.
He swallowed, remembering.
Saor followed his gaze. “The isle, then?”
“Close, but I mean this wee rocky islet where we’re standing.” Bran flung out an arm, gesturing to the quiet bailey and the sturdy gray bulk of his tower. “It’s my home that’s troubling me. Yon keep that is my
pride and that gives refuge to my friends.”
Saor leaned back against the curtain wall and crossed his long legs at the ankles. He didn’t say anything, just lifted one brow, waiting.
“It’s gone, my friend.” The admission tasted like ash on Bran’s tongue. “MacNeil’s Tower is no more. This”—he flicked a hand in the direction of the keep, knew the other chieftain would understand he meant the world he kept alive through ghostly contrivance—“is all that remains.
“A conjured shadow of what once was.” Pain sliced through Bran like a knife. “Nary a stone remains in the day of the moderns. Not one crumbled bit of walling nor even a lichened piece of rubble.”
Bran felt his throat thicken, but he didn’t shame his feelings.
He loved Barra that much.
“It’s all vanished, Saor. This spit of a rock, wiped clean as if my tower never stood.”
“How can you know?” Saor was staring at the keep, his gaze on one of the narrow slit windows. Dim yellow light glimmered there, showing that one of Bran’s friends had claimed the room for the night.
“You swore you’d never visit Barra in the present day.” Saor glanced at him, questioning.
“Well, I did.”
Saor’s eyes rounded. “When? I didn’t notice you’d slipped away.”
Bran snorted. “Do you think I’d tarry long? Seeing what I did, or”—he shuddered—“I should say, what I didn’t see!”
“You didn’t say when you went.”
“Does it matter?”
“I’m curious.”
“It was the night you told me about Serafina and the three MacNeil chieftains. The ghosties who weren’t knocked sideways by her charms.” Bran flicked his fingers to conjure a cup of ale, took a deep swig, and tossed the cup aside.
It disappeared before it hit the cobbles.
He wiped his mouth, remembering the night was the same e’en Mindy had appeared in his kitchens.
“With so many odd goings-on, I reckoned something must’ve stirred an interest in Barra.” He kept as close to the truth as possible. “It seemed likely such a disturbance would have happened in the present time. As chief, I saw it my duty to have a look.”
Saor gave a low whistle. “Now you know why our mothers e’er preached that it did no good to peek beneath rocks.”
“Aye, that is the way of it.”
“Then why did you go sifting yourself off to Ravenscraig?” Saor rubbed his brow. “I’d think you’d have had enough of the modern world for a time.”
“Pah!” Bran turned to gaze out at the sea again. “That place is as familiar as our own isle-strewn waters. Alex was once one of us, if you’ve forgotten. I wanted a distraction and having a good craic about Ravenscraig’s next Ancestral Ball seemed a good one.”
“Then why did I find you looking so grim?”
“Because”—Bran spun around—“I heard some interesting tidings from a guest there.”
“A female guest?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Bran snapped, realizing too late that his curt tone confirmed Saor’s suspicions.
“What’s important”—he felt a rush of emotion—“is that I was told the tower’s stones have been returned to Barra.”
“Havers!” Saor stared at him. “You’re no’ making sense. First your guts twist because the tower’s gone and now you’re for telling me it’s back again.”
Bran curled his hands around his sword belt so he wouldn’t ram them through his hair. “I cannae say if the castle stands or not. Nor do I know if the woman spoke true. Or if she did, what was done with the stones upon their arrival here.
“Sakes, where did they disappear to in the first place?” He flashed a glance at the keep, unable to keep the frustration out of his voice. “We’ve both seen enough present-day ruins of once-mighty strongholds to know that even when they fall, something remains.
“Yet”—he frowned—“when I sifted myself to modern Barra, it was as I told you. I found myself surrounded by desolation without even a speck o’ dust remaining. I say you again, even if MacNeil’s Tower fell, those stones should have been lying about. They didn’t sprout wings and fly away. So where did they go and how—”
“Why didn’t you ask the lassie?” Saor made it sound so simple.
Bran took a deep breath and knew he was about to embarrass himself. “Because, you loon, I was so startled when she mentioned the stones that I accidentally sifted myself back here.”
“Then perhaps you should return?” Saor leaned back against the wall again and folded his arms. “Go back to Ravenscraig and find peace. Or”—he angled his dark head—“hie yourself to present-day Barra and have another look.”
Bran snorted.
“You already went once,” Saor pressed. “Another peek won’t matter now.”
Bran glared at him. “I’m needed here.”
“Och, aye.” Saor stretched out a hand to rub Gibbie’s ears when the dog joined them. “There isn’t another bluidy soul amongst us able to use a wee bit o’ ghostly trickery to maintain the good life we enjoy here.”
Gibbie sat and barked, clearly in agreement.
Bran scrubbed his hands over his face and ignored both of them.
It was a poor excuse.
But he couldn’t risk the damage to his heart if he returned and had to suffer discovering that his beloved home had indeed faded from memory.
As for seeing Mindy again . . .
Bran glanced at the Heartbreaker’s pommel stone and then away. Praise God the charmed crystal hadn’t chosen this moment to blaze blue and torment him with jabs of white-hot pain to his side.
But he was struck with sudden inspiration.
“Oho—I’ve an idea!” He grabbed Saor’s arm, gripping tight. “You can sift yourself to modern Barra. Have a wander about, and see if the lassie was telling tall tales or if she really did have my stones sent back here!”
“Me?” Saor’s bluster left him. “I cannae—”
Gibbie barked again and looked up at Saor with an adoring doggy grin, his tail swishing back and forth across the wet cobbles.
“Bah!” Bran released him and stood back, pleased. “You just praised your own skills, man. Even Gibbie”—he jerked a look at the dog—“knows you’re just the one to find out the truth for us.”
“I meant to say I cannae sift myself anywhere just now.” Saor cleared his throat, threw a glance at the darkened keep. “I told Serafina I’d join her—”
Bran laughed. “You’ve been out here with me too long for her to have waited. That one’s hotter than a glowing coal snatched off the fire. She’ll be warming someone else’s bed about now and well you know it.”
Saor’s scowl said he did.
He began to pace. “I’ll no’ stay long, mind. Only a quick peek and I’m out o’ there. Thon modern time is too crowded and loud for my liking.”
Pausing to swipe a raindrop from his brow, he glanced at Bran. “Have you e’er seen or heard”—he shuddered—“those things they call leaf blowers?”
“You’ll find Barra still as the grave.”
“Fie, man.” Saor whipped about to glare at him. “If you’re so sure nothing’s there, why ask me to go?”
“Because I am Barra and can.” Bran thrust his chin, unbending.
It wasn’t often he pulled chiefly superiority.
“And because”—he turned away, not wanting Saor to see his expression soften—“you are the only one I know will tell me true.”
He’d lost his other trusted friends to Americans!
Feeling a sudden pang of loss, he clasped his hands behind his back and waited for Saor to argue. He kept his gaze fixed on the bay, where gusting wind was sending up spray from the choppy, whitecapped waves.
Behind him, all was silent.
Bran’s conscience began to twitch and squirm. The Barra MacNeils might be, well, the Barra MacNeils, but as chief of the MacSwains, Saor claimed a long and proud bloodline of his own. Bran shifted and let out a long b
reath. He shouldn’t have lairded it over his friend.
Wishing to make amends, Bran turned, but Saor was already gone.
The bailey was dark and empty.
Only Gibbie remained.
And his tail was wagging, his excited gaze fixed on a spot of nothingness that still crackled with the air shimmers left by Saor’s swift departure.
“So he went, eh, Gibbie?” Bran didn’t bother to say where.
The dog knew.
And since the beast—who Bran suspected was as intuitive as any Highland seer—didn’t appear troubled, he hoped his friend would return with good tidings.
Bran refused to consider anything else.
But when the waiting stretched into what seemed an eternity, he began to have some doubt. Saor wasn’t a MacNeil, but he loved Barra and Bran’s tower with the fullness of his heart.
He was a MacNeil in spirit.
And as such, he’d be as troubled as Bran to see their well-loved bit of home reduced to nothing more than an echo in the dark.
Saor would return at once.
Unless . . .
“Odin’s balls!” Bran’s pulse leapt. Were he a lesser man, he would shake all over. As it was, he clapped one hand to his plaid-draped chest and clenched the other into a tight, painful fist.
There could be only one reason for Saor’s tardiness.
Mindy hadn’t lied.
The air shifted then, a mere ripple quick as winking, and Saor appeared. “You heard rightly,” he announced. “Barra, this wee islet in the bay is mounded with stones. I gave them a good keek, and am sure they’re your own. And”—he grinned—“from what I saw of them, they’re looking no worse for centuries of wear.”
Bran stared at him. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe or speak. A wave of light- headedness gripped him and he heard the roar of blood in his ears.
He felt his chest tighten. “The tower’s stones . . .”
“And the ones from the walls and the chapel, the outbuildings, and the saints only know what else.” Saor rolled his shoulders. “There were that many piled hither and thither. I think I even saw the old stone bollard we used to moor our galleys.”
Some Like It Kilted Page 13
