“I don’t need anything fancy.” Mindy was getting desperate. “I’m so tired I could sleep in a broom closet. As long as the bed’s clean and there’s a bath.”
A private bath was essential.
Mindy stood straighter. She wasn’t prepared to share a down-the-hall bathroom with countless want-to-be-in-a-book, fame-seeking Scots.
But the look the woman gave her said she might not have a choice.
“So you don’t have anything?” Mindy hitched up her bag, which was beginning to slide off her shoulder. “Not even a small room with a private bath?”
“Och, there is something. And there is a bath.” The woman hesitated. “It’s just—”
“Just what?”
“It’s not here.”
Mindy blinked. “What do you mean it isn’t here?”
“Exactly what I said, my dear.” The woman looked embarrassed. “We really are booked up. So many people here to meet the author,” she said, her voice apologetic. “The other hotels and inns are all full, too. Even the smaller bed-and-breakfasts.
“But there is a small self-catering cottage down on the other side of the village.” The woman began tapping her chin again. “It’s called the Anchor and is just past an old stone jetty that no one uses anymore.”
“I’ll take it.”
“It hasn’t been cleaned or aired.”
“I don’t care.” Mindy did, but she also wasn’t going to sleep in her car.
“Well . . .” The woman threw a look at the door. “I think Jock, the owner, is over in the Herring Catcher tonight. I’ll just go make sure he doesn’t mind you staying there.”
She came around the desk, all brisk business again. “If he says it’s fine, you’ll find the key above the door. Or”—she smiled—“it may well be unlocked. We don’t much worry about such things on Barra.”
“I’m sure.” Mindy leaned against the desk, looking after the woman as she strode across the reception and out the hotel door.
It was then that she saw him.
He stood near the hearth on the other side of the reception, looking as if he were there to enjoy the fire’s cheery warmth. But there was nothing casual about the way he leaned against the door to the nearby sitting room, his arms folded and his gaze burning into her.
His big, shaggy dog sat beside him. Gibbie, too, stared at her. But the dog’s expression was friendly. He even looked as though he were grinning.
His tail swished, seeming to prove his delight in seeing her.
Bran of Barra was clearly delighted, too.
But the heat in his eyes indicated a very different kind of pleasure from that of his canine companion.
Mindy swallowed hard.
Everyone filing in and out of the Hebridean House’s busy lobby seemed to fade away. Even the noise lessened, until the only sound Mindy heard was the hard thumping of her heart and the rush of her pulse.
Bran of Barra’s lips twitched.
He also wasn’t wearing his kilt.
Mindy blinked, unable not to stare. Never would she have believed that worn corduroy trousers and a bulky fisherman’s sweater could be so sexy. But the rough-edged, windblown look suited him. With his hair in a ponytail and his beard neatly trimmed, the effect was devastating.
Nor did it hurt that he stood head and shoulders above every other man in the room. Tall men, especially big, brawny ones, had always been her weakness.
Mindy pressed a hand to her breast, sure she couldn’t breathe.
Bran of Barra’s lip twitch spread into a grin.
Gibbie’s tail wagged faster.
When the dog barked—loudly—and no one else in the reception noticed, Mindy realized that, again, she was the only the one who saw either of them.
Not that it mattered.
He was there just for her and his appearance couldn’t have been more effective if a high-paid Hollywood publicist had styled and posed him.
No, that was wrong.
Bran of Barra was the kind of man who’d laugh in the face of any such staged artifice. And it was his incredible earthiness, and the way his gaze fixed—and stayed—on her, that was making her feel so hot inside.
He absolutely knocked her sideways.
And before she even knew she’d crossed the room, she found herself standing before him.
“Why are you dressed like that?” She looked up at him, feeling silly because that was the only thing she could think to say.
“You disapprove?”
“No, I—”
“Mindy-lass.” He straightened and reached for her hand. “You are in the Outer Hebrides. There are folk here who”—he glanced about—“despite your modern times, still see things others can’t, including ghosts. So I chose to appear in a manner that won’t attract too much attention.”
Mindy almost choked.
His hand felt warm and calloused. His grip was strong, firm, and masculine, in a way that went through her like a bolt of high-watt electricity.
The intensity of his gaze was worse.
She fought the urge to squirm. “You’re joking, right?”
“How so?” He flashed that crooked smile again.
“Oh . . . only that I’m sure you know that you just have to breathe to draw attention.”
His eyes crinkled with pleasure. “I’m glad you think so.” He lifted her hand, kissing the tips of her fingers. “But I didn’t come here to impress you. No’ just at the moment, anyhow.”
Mindy blinked, disappointed. “Oh, I thought—”
“That I’m here to make trouble for you?” He released her hand, but leaned close to give her a hard, swift kiss on the cheek. “I told you, sweetness, when I set about making your toes curl, there’ll be no mistaking my purpose.”
“So what is your purpose?” Mindy glanced at the hotel entrance, not wanting the proprietress to return and catch her talking to thin air.
Thankfully, no one else seemed aware of her.
She turned back to Bran, her heart flipping to see that his smile had gone from crooked to smoldering.
“Must you do that?” She shot another look at the door, nervous.
“Do what?”
“Smile at me like—”
“Like I’m ready to eat you?” His grin turned wicked hot. “Och, lassie, did you no’ hear me? This isn’t the time or place for—”
“Then why are you here?” She wasn’t about to let him finish such a loaded sentence.
He put his hands on his hips. “I’m here because this is Barra. My Barra, and”—pride rang in his voice—“I want to thank you for returning my stones. I know the tower was gone and now—”
“They should never have been taken away.” The words came from somewhere deep inside Mindy.
It was a thought that had never before crossed her mind.
But it was there now.
And—she wouldn’t have believed it—some of Bran’s love for his home started welling in her breast. An unexpected and unaccustomed feeling, it was an odd, fluttering kind of awareness that made her suddenly very glad she was doing what she was, even if she’d started on this venture for very different reasons.
She almost said so, but just then she felt a paw prod her thigh. Gibbie. The dog had pushed to his feet and lumbered over to her, paw prods and wet-nosed nudges letting her know he didn’t want to be excluded.
He tilted his head at her, his dark eyes expectant.
“I don’t have anything for him.” Mindy looked down at the dog, then back at Bran.
But he, too, was watching the dog. “A few ear scratches will please him.” The look on his face and the softening of his voice as he spoke about his dog melted her. “That’s all he’s asking of you.”
“Well, then . . .” Mindy stretched out a hand, let her fingers touch Gibbie’s shoulders. His coat was coarse and shaggy, but she could feel his warmth through the fur. Encouraged, she rubbed him a bit and then—greatly daring—even fondled his ears.
Gibbie’s tail went into o
verdrive.
Mindy’s heart split wide.
“How can he be so real?” She curled her fingers into the dog’s thick fur. “I mean, both of you are not—” She broke off, embarrassed.
Bran of Barra didn’t appear at all offended. “No’ as you’d expect ghosts to look?”
“I meant—”
“I know fine what you meant.” Smiling, he took her hand again, bending low to kiss the air above her knuckles. “I assure you we are real. We only dwell in a different place.” He shrugged. “We’re among you always, just behind the veil that divides us.
“Some, like me, cross back and forth as the mood strikes us. We all have the ability.” Releasing her, he clicked his fingers to produce an oatcake, which he gave to Gibbie. “Others ne’er make use of such magic.
“Myself, I enjoy my ghostdom.” He stepped back, dusting his hands, as Gibbie crunched his treat.
“But you’re both solid.”
“Aye.”
“I always thought ghosts were thin and wispy.” Mindy looked down, nudging the tartan-patterned carpet. “You know—insubstantial. See-through.”
Bran of Barra reached to cup her chin, lifting her face. “Tell me, lass.” His blue gaze held hers, piercing. “Do I look like the kind o’ man who’d enjoy floating about like a waft o’ mist?”
Mindy flushed. “No, but—”
He laughed. “There you have it! I enjoyed life too much to spend my afterlife drifting on a cloud.”
“And now . . .” Mindy couldn’t finish. It bothered her to think about his now. And it disturbed her even more that it bothered her!
It really shouldn’t.
Especially not in a crowded hotel reception area, where, sooner or later, someone would notice her and see that she was having a conversation with a ghost, regardless of how solid he might or might not be.
She started to say so, but just then a tall, heavyset man in a kilt came out of the sitting room. His tweed Argyll jacket was slung over one shoulder and he wore a white, open-necked ghillie shirt. The shirt’s old-fashioned Jacobite styling and his fur-covered, three-tasseled sporran made excellent foils for his brisk, confident stride.
Only his paunch and somewhat thinning red hair detracted from the image of Highland magnificence.
And—Mindy noted—perhaps, the glint of arrogance in his small, piggy eyes.
“Bluidy windbag.” Beside her, Bran of Barra drew his sword, holding it menacingly.
Mindy blinked.
She was sure he hadn’t been wearing it a moment before. His clothes were, and still appeared, totally modern. Except, and her heart began to race, for the low-slung sword belt now circling his hips and the great, gleaming length of steel he held in his hand.
“Who is that?” She watched a crowd gather around the newcomer, some people oohing and aahing, as the man drew to a halt.
He put back his shoulders, nodding regally as people fawned over him. Then someone moved and light from a wall sconce shone fully on his face and Mindy gasped, recognition hitting her like a bucket of ice water.
The pseudo Jacobite was the author.
Wee Hughie MacSporran.
And if the sound—almost a furious growl—coming from deep inside Bran’s chest was any indication, her brawny Hebridean chieftain didn’t think much of the man who styled himself the Highland Storyweaver.
“You don’t like him, do you?” She glanced at Bran, only to find herself staring into the dark eyes of a big, bulky man with a shock of curly black hair and a weather-beaten, seaman’s kind of face.
Bran of Barra—and his dog—had vanished yet again.
Mindy swallowed her gasp, not wanting the fisherman to think she was nuts. She hitched the shoulder strap of her bag again and then smoothed her hair, trying to look normal.
“Thon windbag?” The man jerked his dark head in the author’s direction, his use of Bran of Barra’s title for the writer making him instantly sympathetic.
“Nae, I don’t like him.” The man looked as if he’d spit on the carpet—were they standing anywhere but in the finely decorated reception of the Hebridean House.
“He’s no’ come here to put people in books.” He hooked his thumbs in his belt, keeping his gaze pinned on Wee Hughie. “It’s all show, I say you.”
“Show?” Mindy’s attention, too, was fixed on the writer.
It was clear that he was a performer.
“Aye, that’s what he’s about, that one.” The fisherman’s tone was cynical. “He’s here hoping he’ll find the Barra sword, he is. That’s what he’d put in his book! After”—he glanced at Mindy, still looking so ready to spit that she almost jumped backward—“he’s made a fool out of all these good, trusting people.
“Then he’ll sell the sword to some museum down London way and have a fine laugh at us all.”
“Sorry; I’m not following you.” Mindy didn’t want to be rude, but she couldn’t stop looking past the man, hoping to see Bran and Gibbie reappear.
And she didn’t understand what he meant about a sword.
Until . . .
She went hot and cold, grabbing the fisherman’s arm when he started to move away. “What’s this about a Barra sword? I just got here and haven’t heard anything about—”
“That’s because there hasn’t been a sword here for centuries.” The man turned, but his gaze kept flashing to the writer. “No one except a historian or archaeologist would know it was ever said to exist.
“If it even did,” he added, lowering his voice. “The sword belonged to the old Barra MacNeils and was half-mythic. Had strange powers, it did.
“Sword done went and vanished in the mists o’ time, like so much from the auld days. But”—his eyes glinted—“there’s some who believe it might be hidden in with all the stones some rich American has brought back to Barra.”
Mindy looked at him. “And you think Wee Hughie MacSporran is hoping to find it?”
She shot another glance at the author.
He looked arrogant, true.
But she doubted he was a sword thief.
The fisherman shrugged, the inborn reticence of the Highlands settling over him, closing his expression. He was clearly sorry he’d said as much as he had.
“Aye, well.” He couldn’t quite hide a trace of indignation. “If that’s his plan, we’ll be hearing soon enough if he finds the sword.”
“But you’re hoping he won’t?”
“That I am.” The man nodded solemnly. “There’s some things shouldn’t be disturbed.”
The words spoken, he cut across the crowd, exiting through the hotel door to the dark night beyond.
Mindy started after him, sure that the sword he meant was Bran of Barra’s. But before she made it halfway to the reception desk, the blue-cardiganed proprietress sailed up to her, the woman’s beaming face heralding success.
“You’re in luck!” The woman halted before Mindy. “I’ve just run down Jock and he’s agreed that you can let the Anchor. In fact, he’s heading there now to put on fresh linens and lay a fire for you.”
Mindy blinked. “That’s wonderful.”
She hoped it was!
She’d forgotten all about the Hebridean House not having a room for her.
The Anchor hadn’t sounded very inviting.
But beggars couldn’t be choosers.
And if the little cottage wasn’t exactly luxurious, she’d at least have a roof over her head. Better yet, according to the proprietress’s earlier description, the Anchor also boasted its own bath.
She’d have privacy.
Much-needed alone time to relax and—her heart skittered—to think about Bran and the mysterious Barra sword, an ancient MacNeil heirloom.
Mindy’s pulse skittered.
She was certain the two were connected.
When she stepped outside the Hebridean House and saw that the night had cleared, any doubts that might have remained left her. She’d never seen so many stars, and even from here, high up on a hill
above the village, the lights along the waterfront twinkled brightly, reflecting in water that looked as still and glassy as a black mirror.
It was a beautiful night.
And with a surge of buoyancy that would have astounded Margo and the others at Ye Olde Pagan Times, she almost believed that the disappearance of the pea-soup fog was a sign.
A good portent.
And one that meant she was supposed to be here.
So she pulled her jacket tighter against the cold and started down the road toward her car, happier than she’d been in a very long time.
She inhaled deeply as she walked, filling her lungs with the chill night air. She relished how it smelled not just after-rain fresh, but also of the sea. And, she was sure, a trace of heather and woodsmoke. Enchanted, she tilted back her head and smiled up at the glittering heavens, hoping that a certain burly and too- full-of-life-to-hold-with-cloud-floating ghost would soon pay her another call.
Mindy grinned as she reached her car, surprised to find herself almost eager to left-drive down to the Anchor. The tiny village suddenly struck her as cozy. And with the rain stopped and everything so peaceful, she couldn’t help but recall the noise and hecticness of the Newark airport that had been her last glimpse of America—plus the auto-fumed stink of the taxi stand and the crush of passengers and airport personnel in the always-crowded check-in area. Security had been a nightmare she refused to relive, even as a memory.
As for the concourses and boarding gates . . .
She shuddered.
Then she looked around, feeling the quiet like a living, breathing presence. It felt like heaven, she decided, fumbling in her bag for the car keys. Her hand actually shook when her fingers closed on them. And it wasn’t because she was upset. She was feeling quite good, almost deliriously so.
Margo would say it was Highland magic.
And until this moment, Mindy would have scoffed at the very idea.
But now . . .
One night in the Hebrides and she was a changed woman.
Who would have thought it?
Chapter 10
Mindy’s elation began to evaporate as she drove through the village. Although the lights still twinkled, many reflecting prettily in the night-blackened water, there wasn’t a sign of life anywhere. The entire waterfront and harbor stretched full of emptiness. Across the bay, she caught the flash of white breakers on the rocks edging Bran’s islet. She also saw the great piles of stone from the Folly, the sight making her breath catch.
Some Like It Kilted Page 17
