by Diane Darcy
Calum
A Highlander Time Travel Romance (The Ghosts of Culloden Moor Book 52)
Diane Darcy
Contents
Books In The Series
A note about the series:
Book description
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Author note:
New releases
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also By Diane Darcy
www.DianeDarcy.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Calum: ©2020 by Diane Darcy
The Ghosts of Culloden Moor series ©2015 Lesli Muir Lytle
All rights reserved.
Cover Art design by Kelli Ann Morgan
Created with Vellum
Books In The Series
The Ghosts of Culloden Moor
1. The Gathering
2. Lachlan
3. Jamie
4. Payton
5. Gareth
6. Fraser
7. Rabby
8. Duncan
9. Aiden
10. Macbeth
11. Adam
12. Dougal
13. Kennedy
14. Liam
15. Gerard
16. Malcolm
17. Cade
18. Watson
19. Iain
20. Connor
21. MacLeod
22. Murdoch
23. Brodrick
24. The Bugler
25. Kenrick
26. Patrick
27. Finlay
28. Hamish
29. Rory
30. MacBean
31. Tristan
32. Niall
33. Fergus
34. Angus
35. Bram
36. Alexander
37. Ronan
38. The Blacksmith
39. Ross
40. Alistair
41. MacNabb
42. Rhys
43. Gregor
44. Jack
45. The Storyteller
46. Moodie
47. Chisholm
48. Dallas
49. Fisher
50. The Reckoning
51. Wyndham
52. Calum
A note about the series:
Although the individual stories of Culloden’s 79 need not be read in strict order, The Gathering should definitely be read first to understand what’s going on between the Muir Witch and these Highland warriors from 1746. The Reckoning, Number 79’s story, will finish the series.
The names of Culloden’s 79 are historically accurate in that we have used only the clan or surnames of those who actually died on that fateful day. The given names have been changed out of respect for those brave men and their descendants. If a ghost happens to share the entire name of a warrior, it is purely accidental.
Book description
She’s having a baby …
After struggling for years to find the one, Wyoming girl, Mandy Calhoun, has given up on love. All she’s ever wanted was a family of her own, but just because she hasn’t found a husband, doesn’t mean she needs to give up on motherhood. She’s having a baby, and no father need apply. Now, if she can just get her grandfather to stop trying to find her a husband.
He’s longed for a chance to do the right thing …
Calum Milne, a Highland ghost returned to mortality was a bastard born. He believes no child should be without the protection of a father’s name, and so, sight unseen, he’s determined to make Mandy his own. But when the dark-haired beauty stirs emotions he never knew existed, making him feel like a man again, it cements her fate. He’ll gain Mandy’s trust if it’s the last thing he ever does.
Can a solitary ghost prove that love is worth fighting for? Can a girl with dashed dreams take that chance?
Prologue
He was a man filled with regrets and that thief, time itself, had given him the chance to remember every one of them.
He was mooning about again, remembering lost opportunities, when his friends approached.
“What are ye doing out here by yerself?”
Calum Milne shrugged at the anger in Harry’s voice and from his seat on the log, watched him pace on the other side of the fire. Harry was probably worried, and when his former fellow ghost felt any strong emotion, it usually came out as anger.
The trick was to decipher said emotion, and defuse it before the man exploded.
Fortunately, Calum had years of practice. “Just thinkin’. Will ye no’ have a seat?”
Sweeney ignored Harry and settled in on one side of Calum to gaze appreciatively into the flames. He held his hands out toward the warmth. After several months, they were still having a hard time getting used to sensations like hot and cold. “Have ye made yer decision yet, laddie? Where ye are tae go?”
“We’ll see,” was all Calum said. He’d long ago been labeled a liar, deserter, and honorless, even before they’d risen upon the moor. He wasn’t going to hope for a better life, and recent events had simply left him feeling down. “The stars are bright tonight,” he said, in another attempt to distract Harry.
Harry looked up, and then finally moved to sit on his other side. He almost took a seat, then jumped up to pace once more. “I cannae abide the waitin’! Decisions need tae be made!”
He threw a glare in the general direction of the house, still filled with lost Highlanders, though clearing out more and more as the days went on. “What is takin’ so long? I’ll not stand about like a jackanapes while others get their turn and I do no’!”
“I’m sure ye’re to be one of the next called,” Calum said soothingly.
“Or, it could be ye,” Sweeney inserted once again, laughter in his tone. One never knew the cause of Sweeney’s amusement, so it was useless to take offence. He could be laughing at Harry’s impatience, or at Calum’s lack of direction, or at something else altogether.
The words distracted Harry’s gathering wrath as he settled his attention upon Calum, and finally sat next to him. He picked up a long stick to poke at the burning wood. “Tis true, laddie. It could be ye as well as any of us.”
Gratitude swelled within him. Were it not for his friends, he’d have long gone mad when he’d been shamed twice over, and then risen upon the moor to live in his sins forever.
Now, after a second rising, he was more lost than ever.
Labeled a womanizer and a deserter, his reputation had been twice destroyed. But with Harry nearby to tell everyone to eff off if they dared to mention it, and Sweeney to joke, laugh, and poke fun at the others, or even at Calum if he was too serious, they’d saved his sanity.
Truer friends he could not have asked for.
The cold, windy evening was a time for memories apparently, and his thoughts turned grim as they floated to the past again, and another friend.
He’d gone to war, then heard from others that arrived later that his childhood friend, Eleanor, had named him the father of her child.
He’d not known she’d been expecting a babe, though he could guess who the father was, and it certainly wasn’t him. Before he’d
left, he’d met the honorless wretch always hanging about, turning heads with his pretty face and ways. Calum would have haunted the scoundrel if he’d been able.
With only his grandparents to call him kin, she’d been like a sister to him as they’d grown, running wild in the village, the forest nearby, telling secrets, hanging from trees, sharing the best hiding places.
A natural son himself, he knew well enough that if she’d named him the father, she’d been in desperate circumstances.
He’d never denied the claim, though many in his regiment thought him a villain for leaving her in such straits.
He’d sneaked away to marry her, hopefully before the babe was born, but he’d been caught, dragged back, and his comrades never quite trusted him again.
Deserter, degenerate, rogue. Add those to bastard as he’d been called all his life.
The worst of it was he’d died before he could make it home to Eleanor and save her from shame, leaving the only person who truly cared for him, without support.
He’d agonized over the years about what the circumstances would have done to her reputation.
About how she and the babe had fared.
It caused him sorrow that his mother’s situation had been visited upon his childhood companion, the one he confided in, the one who knew the pain he’d suffered, perhaps visited upon her own offspring.
The back door swung wide and thwacked against the side of the house and Wickham, tall, dark, and otherworldly came striding toward the three of them.
Blasted warlock.
Calum didn’t trust the man. Wickham had started him drinking one night, and then taken him off to God knew where. A house of pleasure perhaps? He winced, his gaze going to the ground. Though Calum didn’t remember any women, and had only the vaguest recollections, as ever he shoved the memory aside. He just knew he wanted to keep his distance from this man’s magics.
“What are ye doin’ out here?”
Harry jumped up, his fists clenched. “What do ye think we’re doin’? Sitting around, waiting on ye to help us figure out what we’re tae do!”
“Ye went back home again?”
The three of them nodded, solemn.
“I told you there was no goin’ back, didn’t I?”
Harry made a growling noise, and punched his fist into his hand, no doubt to avoid punching the warlock’s face.
Never a good idea.
Sweeny chuckled. “Tis so nice of ye tae grace us with yer presence, Wickham,” his tone was mocking. “And lest we forget how wise ye are, ye’re here tae remind us.”
Wickham glanced at Sweeney, his face impassive. “I understand ye’ve been in town, flirtin’ with all the ladies. From what I hear, they didnae stand a chance against ye.”
Calum’s gaze dropped once more.
“No’ true,” Sweeney chuckled. “Were they against me, they stood all the chance in the world.”
Wickham snorted. “Come inside, and we’ll see about getting ye where ye wish tae go.”
Where they wished to go. If that didn’t scare the pants off the three of them, Calum didn’t know what would.
Harry resumed his seat. And the three of them looked at Wickham as the firelight seemed to flicker shadows and secrets across his face.
After they’d risen upon the moor, one last time, fully flesh and blood, Wickham had loaded them in the back of a pickup truck, in groups, and brought them here to his place.
Many of the former ghosts eventually wandered off, headed for home. But home wasn’t there anymore, and Scotland was much changed. Buildings, cars, noise. Calum hadn’t found his grandfather’s grave, and had no idea what became of him, Eleanor, nor the babe.
Not knowing what else to do, they’d visited Harry’s former home, and then Sweeney’s, with much the same results.
They finally wandered back, drawn by the promise of help in establishing a new life.
Harry talked of going to London. He still had fight and hatred in him for the English, and wanted to see for himself how it had all turned out.
But Calum had no desire to find more noise and mayhem.
Sweeney wanted to tread the boards once more. He’d been fascinated by the telly, and the actors on the screen. He, more than the rest of them, spent many a night peering over a guard’s shoulder, watching stories play out, yearning for another chance.
Now that he had it, the only thing keeping him here was Harry and Calum.
He’d said he’d not leave until they were settled.
Again, that life did not appeal to Calum. If he was to have a second chance, he wanted it to be for himself this time. His own wants and desires had been much overlooked the first time around.
“Number 61?”
He admitted, if only to himself, he’d been giving it some thought. “It’s just Calum now.”
“Calum, then. Come then, let’s get ye settled.”
This time around, he wanted a shot at honor. He wanted to be known as someone who could be counted on, someone who placed duty, compassion, honesty and courage before all else.
With a bit of Scottish bluntness, of course.
If he wanted to be that person, he might as well start now. He was the one holding his friends back from what they wanted, and he needed to have the gumption to move on, once and for all.
When he stood, his friends did too.
Wickham started back, and then turned to see the three of them hadn’t moved.
“Are ye coming? Don’t ye wish tae look at the map and decide where you want tae go?”
“I know where I wish tae go,” Calum said in a rush.
Wickham’s eyebrows rose, dark slashes on his forehead. “Oh? And where might that be? The Highlands? Back to Aberdeenshire?”
Calum took a breath. “Wyoming.”
Wickham’s lips twisted into a smirk. “Wyoming, is it?” He gave a short, knowing sort of laugh. “What on earth do ye hope tae find there?”
Calum finally smiled and something seemed to unclench in his chest, to relax inside him at the rightness of it.
Sweeney hadn’t been the only one to watch the telly on cold winter nights.
Calum had seen viewings of Longmire, and the setting had left an impression. Wide-open spaces, men who worked with horses, cattle, and carried guns. Big expanses of starry skies.
Men of character who valued God, country, family, honesty.
Men who were admired for what they did, rather than where they came from.
Calum was going to be a cowboy.
Chapter 1
Wyoming
“I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve made up my mind.”
Having stated his position, Red Calhoun crossed his arms over his large chest. All right, maybe slightly shrunken chest would be more accurate at his age, but with his wife long gone these many years who was around to notice?
“All I’m saying,” Frank Williams, longtime friend and confidant, leaned forward, almost spilling his beer before righting it, “is that the horse has left the barn at this point. And you can’t put it back, so to speak. So, you’ve got to take the bull by the horns, because there’s no use crying over spilled milk, is there?” Frank’s wheedling voice, not attractive on a pastor, grated.
Red compressed his lips. And platitudes? Really? At a time like this?
Anyway, that just wasn’t going to happen in this case.
He glanced around his bar and wondered how all of his hard work had come to naught.
Just down the road from his ranch, the local watering hole, Red’s, as it was called, was a gathering place for folks outside the Fort Bridger, Wyoming, vicinity.
It sported a long bar down the center with a mirror behind it, tables situated throughout that could be used for lunch, dinner, or pulled back for the dance floor on Friday and Saturday nights.
In the middle of a Friday afternoon, it wasn’t too busy, giving a man a chance at food and conversation with his friends.
But it wasn’t going as planned. Was it too much
to expect a bit of support? “Pete? What do you say?”
Pete shrugged. “He’s right,” Peter Saxton, a grizzled ex-lawyer with thinning gray hair and a love of polo shirts spoke in his usual matter-of-fact tone. “The girl’s going to have a baby, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Pete shrugged again, as if to throw off the problem. “In this particular situation, you can’t grab a shotgun and force the man to marry her. Legally, you can’t even know his name.”
“And that’s just not right, is it? None of it is!” Red slammed his hands down on the table, forcing himself not to wince at the sting, his voice coming out louder than he’d intended. When other patrons in the bar turned their direction, Red made an attempt to lower his voice.
“All I’m saying is we have an opportunity here. Mandy’s been hurt in the past. That’s why she’s gone and done this! Now, who better than the three of us to find her a man who’s got the gumption to stick around?”
He glanced at both his friends in turn, convinced that between the three of them, they could come up with the perfect solution.
Frank dropped his gaze and bent his head until the bald spot in the back showed. He let out a sigh and tapped his fingers on the table. “Red, you’ve been trying that for years. Sons of friends, the local country club, even a newspaper ad that one time. Look how that turned out. You’ve never found the right man for her, and chances are you probably never will. Stop torturing yourself, and just accept that you’re going to have a great-grand child, and you’ll likely be the only father he ever has.”
