This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Originally published as THE PERFECT GIFT
Copyright © 1999 and 2013 by Roberta Helmer
First Avon Books Edition: Oct 1999
First Steel Magnolia Press Publication: Oct 2013
Warmest thanks to every reader who loves magic, mystery and the haunting beauty of Draycott Abbey.
With warmest thanks to all of the inspired booksellers who keep the wheels humming, the books moving, and the stories flying off their shelves.
A special thanks to those guardian angels in human form: Carla Watland, Suzanne Barr, Daniel Garcia, Kathy Baker, Andrew Hobbs, Beth Anne Steckiel, Pat McGuiness, Becky Meehan, Debbie Neckel, Damita Lewis, Tanzy Cutter, Suzanne Coleburn, Jeannie Heikkala, Vicki Profitt, Kathy Hendrickson, Jolene Ehret, Lisa Clevenger, Mark Budrock, Mary Clare, Cindi Streicher, Jenny Jones, Jennifer Martin, Kathy Campbell, Terry Gowey, Mary Bullard, Merry Cutler, Annie Oakley, Jana Tomlinson, Tim Lowe, Mickey Mans, and Sharon Murphy.
You are all solid-gold wonderful!
CHAPTER ONE
Loch Maree, Scotland
Late autumn
HE STOOD ON THE HIGH SLOPE, knapsack on one shoulder and gaunt face turned to the wind. The stony heights did not deter him, nor did the late October chill. He welcomed both wind and cold as the old friends they were.
His name was Jared Cameron MacNeill, and he had come home to die.
It had seemed a good plan long months ago, when he’d stood squinting at the beach beneath a baking Asian sun. Now the Scotsman wasn’t so sure.
The first snowflakes of winter danced around him as his feet brushed the edge of the cliff, where granite fell away to cold air and biting wind. The seventh after seven of his line, MacNeill knew every inch of this land and his eyes glinted with pleasure at the sight of the mountains snowcapped and bright in the gathering dawn.
He turned his face to the wind and forced all thought from his mind. He simply felt.
How green the world seemed.
How soft the heather.
Rounded slopes swelled from loch to bright loch. Even the air was different here—light and sharp. Pungent with peat and sea salt.
The great loch had been home to his clan for generations of gain and loss, warfare and peace. Jared stared over the steep slopes, remembering old tales of heroes and dark blood rivalries.
The brooding hills rose unchanged. If only the rest of his life were the same.
Don’t look back.
Lines of exhaustion traced his cheeks, and his gray eyes were empty of emotion. Perhaps he had felt too much, crouched in the midnight streets of Rome, Bogota, and Kowloon. Or perhaps he had not felt enough. Not in the ways that mattered, with heart and spirit.
He stared at the rain-veiled peaks to the north.
He saw Ben Slioch. The Fannich heights and remote Sgurr Mor towering over the cold glass of Loch Fannich. Out to the west An Teallach Tay, bleak and dark, wrapped in perpetual mists.
The names came to him in the old tongue, Gaelic learned at his father’s knee. The rich phrases rippled through his mind like sunbeams off stormy water. The old sounds had not changed and he whispered them now. Every breath bit at his throat, sharp with pine, peat, and the tang of the cold Atlantic.
Jared looked down where blue water clawed against the curving arms of ancient green hills and golden bays. Once again he remembered his brother’s warning: Don’t look back.
Sound advice. But it had come from a man who’d been too proud to heed his own warning. Probably that pride had killed him.
Wind whipped at Jared’s long hair and lashed at his face. He realized he never should have returned to this beautiful loch full of mystery and brooding silence. The secluded hills held the bones of warriors and saints, and he was neither. From here his journey led in only one direction. Death. Death before the snows of Christmas.
His shoulders tensed beneath the folds of worn Hebridean tweed. Even the wind could not shift the heavy MacNeill tartan at his knees. He was the latest of his line to stand on this high hill, the latest to watch the sun paint tracks of gold over the great loch.
He would also be the last.
So be it.
The curse was fixed over centuries.
A whine split the air at his elbow.
He ignored the shrill burst from the phone in his knapsack. He knew he should have left the cellular back in his car, but staying in touch was a habit hard to break.
Yet, his employers would soon learn to forget him, just as Jared meant to forget them. He closed his eyes at the thought, willing himself to ignore the shrill peals.
In a split second the Scotsman was carried back to a night two years before when his world had changed forever. Caught in a nightmare of heat and unrelenting pain, trapped in a box in the stifling jungle, captive of a hostile government, he had discovered the boundaries of his own strength. Only through a miracle had he escaped death, tortured by the nightly visits that had left his body bleeding and wracked with pain.
Now he was home, and it was two months before Christmas, but what did that mean to him? His broad shoulders carried the marks of old wounds, and his heart carried a heavier weight than memories. He had come to Scotland looking for some hint of home, only to find that the great loch and the high hills were no longer enough to soothe his soul.
Another peal jolted his reverie.
Jared cursed. The careful men in careful suits would soon forget him. He was of no further use to them.
As the phone rang on, he turned to the west. At the edge of the loch, he saw three men load wooden crates onto a battered green lorry. A pair of schoolchildren chased a herd of wary sheep.
Something brushed his face.
Early snow? Or was it regret?
The phone finally slid into silence. Perhaps his resignation had finally been accepted. Jared could well imagine the shock it caused..
What to do now? He supposed he should follow the weathered stone fence up to the house of his youth. Taigh na Coille. House in the woods.
But he hadn’t the heart to see the gray stone walls or the tiny leaded windows. He certainly didn’t want to walk among the old graves in the kirk. He would see them soon enough, and not as an idle guest. His visions since Thailand were clear in that respect.
His death would come when he least expected it, walking beside a lichen-covered boulder beneath a tree with a broken branch.
The vision had come over and over since his return from Thailand. First the rock, then the tree, and then the feel of his own body slick with blood. Falling. Falling.
He was almost glad for the distraction when the phone jolted to life once again. He answered by reflex as anger flared in waves. “No more,” he growled. “It’s over, damn it. Haven’t you had enough of me?”
Silence hung. There was a low cough, partly lost in static. “Jared, is that you?”
He frowned. This was the last voice he wanted to hear, but old debts made this man impossible to ignore. “So it would seem.”
“I suppose you didn’t hear the calls. I’ve tried twelve times now. Not that anyone’s counting.”
Nicholas Draycott was Jared’s oldest friend and he sounded tired and worried. “Where in hell are you?”
“Taigh na Coille. Straight along Strath Bran and a right at Achnasheen.”
“Forget that. Come here for Christmas. We’ve got rooms and more at Draycott Abbey, and there will be no other visitors, so you needn’t worry about tripping over anyone’s feet. You can come and go at your pleasure.”
“I’ve been there already, Nicholas. You and Kacey have done all that was possible. The rest is up to me.”
“Damn it, man, you’ve got friends. Don’t turn that hard Scottish back on us.”
“I needed to come home. To watch the dawn and walk the Highlands.” One last time, Jared thought bitterly.
“There’s nothing for you there, Jared. Not now. Besides, I need you down here.”
Jared would have laughed except the emotion was beyond him. “You need what I was, Nicholas. Not what I am.”
“I need both, you fool. Now get yourself down off that brooding hill. There’s a car waiting for you in Kinlochewe.”
“Why?”
“We’ll talk when you get here to the abbey.”
“No. I’m done with that work.”
“This is a personal favor I’m asking of you.” Papers rattled, but they didn’t quite cover Nicholas Draycott’s curse. “Since it would be bad form for me to remind you who saw to your release from that hellhole in the jungle, I won’t. I’ll only say that I need you now.”
“Just as a point of curiosity, do you ever take no for an answer?”
“Never.”
Jared stared to the west. The sun perched blood red over Gairloch, above the distant curve of the sea. “I can well believe that. But with all due apologies, you’ll have to this time.”
“I’ll come track you down, and I warn you I’ll make it damned unpleasant. Remember, I know exactly what you’re going through. I’ve suffered too.”
The sea churned. Jared remembered that place of darkness and pain and nights too long for hope.
Forget the box. Forget Thailand, he thought tensely. But he couldn’t. Nicholas Draycott should have understood that.
Jared cursed himself for his next question. “What is it this time?”
“A woman.”
“Isn’t it always?”
“She may be in great danger.”
Something dug at Jared’s chest. There were rules, and hurting a woman broke all of them. “Why?”
“Her father appears to have fallen in with the wrong sort.”
“Let him help her.”
“He disappeared about seven months ago, after an airplane crash in Northern Sumatra. He might have been carrying a fortune in historic jewels at the time.”
To his irritation, Jared felt a pang of curiosity. “None of them were his own, I take it?”
“Most were from the Smithsonian, but a dozen or so were on loan from the royal family’s private collection.”
For a moment the world hazed black before Jared’s eyes. Death felt close enough to touch. Even the high glens and the silver lochs could not hold the darkness at bay. But perhaps death was always close in this bleak, chaotic world. “Why are you so interested in the daughter of a criminal?”
“A possible criminal,” Nicholas corrected. “And no matter what the father did, he was brilliant, just as his daughter is. I want her here at the abbey for a project I’m planning.”
“The daughter of a possible criminal? Bad choice, my friend.”
“Too late. I’ve made up my mind.”
“Then maybe you’ll be lucky and she’ll refuse. Either way, I can’t help you, Nicholas.”
“A very sophisticated set of criminals is involved, Jared. From what I’ve picked up in London, the matter goes far beyond simple theft.”
What theft was ever simple? “Drug world involvement?” Jared’s hands locked on the telephone. He knew better than most what rules that world played by. If drugs were involved, all the more reason to refuse his oldest friend, no matter the debt Jared owed him.
“Still too soon to say. If so, they’re fishing far out of their usual waters. That’s never a good sign.”
“What do you expect of me? Surveillance and explosive work are my skills, Nicholas. Nothing of that sort appears to be required here.”
“I need your eyes, Jared. I need your hands, your reasoning power and that damnable Scottish tenacity. I’ll need surveillance, too.”
Frustration slammed down hard. “Sorry, but I can’t.”
“We’ll discuss it when you get here. Kacey has stocked enough salmon for an army, and I’ve put away a stash of very fine single malt whisky. There’ll be no more matchmaking, I promise you.” There was a sound on the other end of the line. “Oh, yes, my daughter has a gift for you.”
Jared closed his eyes, remembering Nicholas’s young daughter, full of life and a thousand questions. But he wanted nothing more to do with their smiling faces and caring eyes. He wasn’t fit for calm, polite society anymore, and he didn’t want people to care for him.
Normalcy terrified him. Maybe a year in a box did that, too.
Nicholas should understand, if anyone could. He had endured his own months of hell in Asia, captive at the hands of a crazed warlord flush with blood money from acres of opium fields. So why was he playing hardball now?
“I can’t, Nicholas. You’re not listening to me.”
“Because I don’t hear anything but rubbish. Kinlochewe, MacNeill.” The twelfth viscount Draycott’s voice was curt. “One hour. Look for the blue Rover. No more excuses.”
The phone clicked dead.
Jared scowled at the sleek cell. Damn the man. Damn a world where death struck with relentless frequency and absolutely no fairness.
Slowly he put away the phone and shouldered his knapsack, while the wind drove over the cliffs and seabirds soared above him, clumsy atop the churning silver loch.
Jared could picture Draycott Abbey clearly. The hereditary home of centuries of blue-blooded Draycotts held a legacy dating back to the age of William the Conqueror. The shadowed rooms were heavy with history and a tangible sense of magic. Jared had felt welcome there, even when he couldn’t escape a twitching at his neck and the sense of shadows moving just beyond his vision.
Haunted, so it was said. Even Nicholas didn’t deny the legend. It was said that a surly Draycott ancestor still walked the parapets on moonless nights, warding off danger from his beloved granite walls.
Purest nonsense, of course. Had there been any ghosts wandering about the abbey, Jared would have seen them. But of course that was one secret even Nicholas didn’t know.
Jared looked north to the snowcapped peaks, feeling their great age and vast silence. A cold wind brushed his face like ghostly fingers.
He should have known that coming home would be a mistake. There was nothing to hold him here in this place of dead warriors and forgotten saints. He couldn’t go back and he couldn’t forget. The tension never seemed to leave him now.
So he might as well go and lend Nicholas a hand. After all, Jared had nothing else to do. Considering the clarity of his visions, he had only time—and a very little of that—to kill.
~ ~ ~
Draycott Abbey
Sussex, England
Two days later
The fire crackled softly, casting golden light over a row of Italian crystal paperweights and shelves filled with books. Jared waited, unmoving while Nicholas Draycott paced before the study’s high windows. “Will you have a drink? There’s sherry here, or I have whisky if you prefer.”
“Neither, thanks.” Jared waited with impatience for Nicholas to get down to business. He owed his friend that much.
Nicholas finally cleared his throat. “First of all, let me make one thing clear. This has got nothing to do with fame.”
“What hasn’t?”
“The Abbey Jewels collection.”
Jared frowned. “Have I missed something? Are you and Kacey going into the necklace b
usiness?”
“Hardly.” Nicholas rubbed his jaw. “It’s an idea Kacey and I have had for quite a while now. We want to re-create the pleasure that art has brought to us, and this seemed a good way to begin.”
“By making jewelry?”
Nicholas shook his head impatiently. “We are planning an international art exhibition that would begin here at the abbey, then travel to a dozen venues in England and Europe. The displays will show the history and the magic of metal and stone We want cases that take a design apart, piece by piece, and show how gold is etched and silver forged. There will be photographs of emeralds in situ in Colombia and jadeite boulders from Afghanistan, showing how the stones are polished, studied, and shaped to final form. These things are part of our heritage, but they are also the heritage of the world. These skills must be shared, studied, and documented before they’re lost to modern technology.” Draycott gave a low laugh. “Does that sound pompous?”
Jared studied his friend over steepled fingers. “It sounds like a remarkably good idea. But I still don’t see how that involves me.”
“We’ve chosen our first artist. She’s an expert in classical metalwork, and her skill is remarkable, especially in view of her age.”
Jared’s eyes narrowed. “And she also happens to be the daughter of a criminal. I believe you mentioned that.”
“A possible criminal. No charges were ever brought against her father.”
“Is she under criminal investigation?”
“Not at all.”
“Then what’s the problem? Send out the invitations and get the exhibition on its way.”
Nicholas sighed. “It’s not that easy. For this project to succeed the way Kacey and I envision, we’ll need support at the highest level, both culturally and politically. We’ve gotten commitments from the British Museum, and an American foundation has just given a sizeable pledge of support. Two museums in France have requested the show next year, and the royal family has indicated their interest in participation. Discreetly, of course.”
“Of course.”
“But as we both know, this will mean multiple security clearances. To succeed, every aspect of the project will have to be high profile, and the art world can be damnably cutthroat. The scrutiny will be fierce, and once Maggie Kincade’s connection to her father comes out—” Nicholas made a tight sound of anger. “But she’s the best designer alive. We want her.”
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