The Mammoth Book of Scottish Romance

by Trisha Telep

  “Calum,” he said, offering nothing more. “Come on then, let’s get you out of this damp, chilly wind.” But, instead of slowly supporting her to her feet, he scooped her up fully into his arms.

  “Wait,” she said, knowing she should, though, admittedly, her heart wasn’t exactly in the protest.

  “I dinnae think ye should be walking about quite yet.” He didn’t wait for a response, but merely turned and began carefully manoeuvring through the tumble of stone and rock.

  “I—” She was forced to break off when her headache seized again.

  “Let’s get you inside,” he said, frowning now, sounding very concerned.

  She could have told him that he needn’t worry. It wasn’t like she was going to get better. Instead, she merely dipped her chin in a single nod, closed her eyes, and pressed her cheek once again against the soft linen as she instinctively sought solace. Even more surprising was that she found it in the steady rhythm of his heart.

  She paid little attention to where he was going, though was vaguely surprised to feel them climbing so soon. Had he crossed the courtyard so quickly? She concentrated on getting a grip on the throb in her head and trusted him to do the rest. It was bad enough that she was playing the swooning maiden to his gallant rescuer. In a perfect world, she’d have been bold and daring, and it would have been her vivacious demeanour and infectious laughter that would have captured his attentions.

  But her world was far from perfect. And she’d long since accepted that. So … she’d take what she could get and be happy with the serendipitous pleasure of it while it lasted.

  She was thankful he appeared to be taking her to her room on the inn side of the castle without stopping to inform anyone of her little setback. Of course, he’d seen her at her window that morning, so he would know exactly where her room was. She had been torn over whether to tell the innkeeper about her … situation, not wanting to burden anyone unnecessarily if anything were to happen to her sooner than she’d anticipated. In the end, she’d chosen not to. She really didn’t want to be the object of pity or concern, and if something happened … well, it happened.

  She hadn’t realized she was clinging to him, hand fisted in his shirt, until he bent to put her down on the bed. Only … She blinked her eyes open and looked around. This wasn’t her room! She squirmed, but he immediately tightened his hold.

  “It’s okay. We’re in the tower, but ye have nothing to worry for. I thought it best not to alarm anyone or create a scene. Unless of course ye dinnae mind them all seeing ye being carted up to your loft by a strange man.”

  He’d said it kindly, lightly, but he couldn’t know the twinge it plucked in her heart. It was the one thing on her list she hadn’t been able to manage: a passionate romance. You couldn’t just book those at the local travel agency. She’d wanted to know the pleasure of having a meaningful, deep and abiding relationship with someone. But, once her prognosis had been delivered … how, in good conscience, could she do that to someone, knowing what she was facing? Just say “yes, I want you, truly, madly, deeply … and oh, by the way, I’ll probably be dead before the year is out.”

  She didn’t think so.

  Four

  “I – I appreciate your thoughtfulness,” Abby said, carefully, as he set her gently down on the narrow bed tucked under the eave. “Where are we?” She looked around. He’d said the tower, but she’d looked up inside the tower – his tower – and none of this had been there. Not the plank flooring, the feather-stuffed mattress, the rough-hewn bedstand or the— “—Oil lamp.”

  He glanced at the brass fixture next to the bed. “Aye. Do you want more light? Or heat? Are you cold?”

  She looked towards the narrow window openings. There was no glass and the sills along the bottom looked as crumbled and falling to ruin as they did from the outside. The air swept in and swirled about, cool and damp, as it would … inside a ruin. She looked back to him. “How … how is this possible?”

  He held her gaze for what felt like the longest time, but said nothing. Instead, he stood and turned his back to her, crouching down for a moment. An instant later, there was a blazing fire. In a small fireplace. That she’d have sworn wasn’t there – couldn’t have been there – just a second ago.

  “It should warm up in a moment,” was all he said, as he straightened and turned back to face her. His gaze was smooth, his expression impenetrable. No hint of the roguish grin that had been hovering before.

  She should be scrambling off the bed, trying to find her way out of this – dream? Hallucination? – she really had no idea. Maybe when she’d fallen she had struck her head and she was now on some kind of wild mind trip, still lying, unconscious, down on the rocks. Or maybe she really had passed over. Because none of this made any sense in the mortal, real world.

  Whatever the case, whatever the explanation, she wasn’t going anywhere until she found out. Because this was, by far, the most intriguing thing to have ever happened to her. Certainly the most fantastical. If she didn’t count the fact that she’d come down with a systemic disorder so rare there wasn’t even a name for it as yet. That was pretty fantastical, she supposed.

  This, at least, had the potential to be fun. Besides, it wasn’t like she had anything to lose by pursuing it.

  “Will you answer me?” she asked, quite calmly, she thought.

  He continued to regard her, then finally said, “What did you think, this morning, when you saw me here, inside this tower.”

  “That I’d finally seen the Gillean ghost,” she responded easily. As if this were the most natural conversation to be having.

  “Do ye believe in such things?”

  She lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “I’ve never really had cause to think about it. I’ve spent time lately, thinking about what happens after a person dies, but it never really extended to ghosts and haunting things.”

  She thought she spied a hint of amusement hovering around that oh-so-perfectly formed mouth.

  “What’s funny about that?” she asked, deciding she might as well go for broke. In fact, she couldn’t recall ever feeling so … invigorated by her own potential. Not that he’d looked at her with desire in his beautiful blue eyes, or even male appreciation, really. But when he looked at her, as he was now, she felt like he was reaching down somewhere quite deep. She felt like no one and nothing existed inside that moment, except for her. It was quite heady stuff. Empowering, even. So … she went with that.

  “You’re … unexpected,” he said.

  “I think we can safely say we’re both a little bit of that.”

  The amusement flickered into his eyes this time. “Aye.”

  “So, are you going to explain what – who – you really are?”

  “Ye dinnae believe I’m a ghost then?”

  “You seem pretty real to me.”

  “You’re American,” he said, instead. “What region? I’m no’ familiar with the accent.”

  “I grew up just outside of D.C. across the river, in Virginia.”

  “D.C.?”

  “Washington. Our capital city.”

  “Columbia,” he said, nodding.

  “The District of Columbia, yes.”

  His expression smoothed again, and she’d have sworn something flashed across his face. Something like sorrow. Or … pity.

  “You don’t think much of Washington? Or is it all of America that you disdain?”

  He looked honestly surprised. “What makes you say that?”

  “Your expression just then. It was less than … appreciative.” She shifted her weight on the bed, turning to face him more directly. “That’s okay. I understand global sentiment being what it is. We’ve had some relatively … uneven representation.”

  “It wasn’t that.”

  She lifted a brow in question, but when he didn’t elaborate, she said, “Then, what was it?”

  He hesitated, then said, “What do you think about, when you think about your future?”

  She
grinned then, and watched as he blinked, and his throat even worked a little. Hunh. She wasn’t sure what to make of that, but it made her feel good. “I think I’ll miss finding out what happens next. I guess if I got to pick what happens after we die, my hope is that there is a heaven, and that I get to look down and watch. Or …” she added, trailing off for a moment, then deciding, what the heck. “Or … perhaps I’ll be like you, haunting a particular place, and seeing what happens to it over time. Will you tell me? What it’s like, I mean?”

  “I was speaking of your future while here on earth.”

  “So was I,” was all she said.

  Abby wasn’t sure why she thought he should know about her circumstances other than, she supposed, this felt to her like he was some kind of angel, or archangel even, sent to shepherd her from this realm to the next. It was as good an explanation as any. And seemed to have more going for it than the whole ghost thing. Except he’d been seen as one, on these very grounds, for so very long … how could he be anything else? Surely no angel needed to be sent to this desolate, remote place so often as to become some sort of folklore hero.

  She sat upright and drew her knees in to her chest. A shield perhaps? She couldn’t say. Or what she thought she needed shielding from. “I’ll be discovering those answers soon enough,” she told him. “So … naturally, I think about it.”

  “A rather morbid outlook for one as young as yourself.”

  She smiled again. “Hardly. Just pragmatic. By nature, I’m a sunny optimist. But nature, as it turns out, had something else in store for me.”

  “Meaning what, exactly?” He moved closer, but when she thought he might perch next to her on the bed, he instead pulled up a heretofore unseen footstool and crouched down on that instead.

  It put his face closer to level with hers … and sent her heart rate doubling. It wasn’t an entirely unwelcome response. “Meaning I may be young, but I don’t have much time left,” she said. “In fact, coming here is probably the last thing I’ll get to do.” Her lips curved. “That’s why I was out there stumbling around the rocks. I wanted to figure out what you were, or who you were – or weren’t – while I had the time and energy. I was – am – enjoying the mystery and playing detective.”

  His expression faltered, just briefly, and she was rather stunned by the flash of grief she saw on his face. He didn’t even know her. Maybe he was just particularly sensitive to the plight of others.

  “It’s okay,” she told him. “I’m at peace with it. I’ve had the time – plenty of time – to consider all of it. I’m focused on enjoying what time I do have, and not wasting it belabouring or whining about what I won’t.”

  “You’ve quite a brave spirit,” he said, still sounding quietly stunned.

  “Hardly,” she laughed. “Trust me, I wasn’t okay at first, and not at all brave. But, at some point, you have to reconcile yourself with it. Or, at least, I did. And I have.” She felt the overwhelming need to lean forwards, touch him, reassure him that she was truly at peace with herself, and her imminent, brief future. She had to curl her hands into her palms to keep from doing it. “Don’t look so sad for me,” she said, a thread of pleading in her voice. Though why it mattered what he thought, or felt, she hadn’t a clue. It was just, in that moment … it felt vital that she reassure him somehow. That it mattered. That he mattered.

  “I’m afraid I’m far more selfish than you,” he said. “I am sad for you, as I would be for anyone in like circumstance. But I’m also sad for myself.”

  “I can go, if being around me—”

  “No,” he said, quite abruptly, even going so far as to reach out a hand to stop her, had she tried to make a move.

  She hadn’t, and his outburst should have alarmed her. But it just strengthened that need in her, to soothe his fears. “I don’t want to go,” she told him. Her lips curved. “I haven’t solved the mystery of you, yet.”

  He opened his mouth, then shut it. “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Abby. Ramsay.”

  His gaze flashed up at hers. “Ramsay.”

  She nodded. “My ancestors are from your bonny shores.”

  “You’ve been here before, then?”

  She nodded. “Not here on Skye, to Sligachan. I wanted to see the Cuillins. I used to climb, and …” She shrugged again. “The pictures I saw of their dark peaks called to me. I know they’re not the tallest or most challenging, but … they spoke to me. And when I saw this castle, found it had been turned into an inn … I don’t know. I felt drawn here, compelled somehow.”

  “Is it what you’d hoped? Being here?”

  She nodded, her smile spreading slowly. “More so all the time.”

  His lips twitched, but there was still such sadness in his eyes, and she hated that.

  “Tell me,” she said, “why you’re sad for yourself.”

  He paused, looked down, then seemed to take stock as he looked at her again, always with that direct, steady gaze that reached so far past the surface. Or so it felt. She couldn’t have said why, but there was no denying the connection she was feeling with him.

  “I’ve been here many times,” he began, then paused, but went on again before she could comment. “I’ve seen, and been seen, by any number of people.” He leaned just a fraction closer, but it felt as if he’d somehow pushed deeply into her personal space, so probing was his gaze. “You were the first one I wanted to be seen by. The first one who made me look back.”

  His gaze was so intent, there was such … specificity in his tone, it made her breath catch and her throat tighten. “Why?” she managed. “Why me?” She knew herself to be nothing special, at least outwardly. She wasn’t memorable in that striking way some people had. Her charisma was more subtle and quiet. Someone had to take the time to get to know her, to appreciate her. To remember her. He’d had but an instant, the span of a gaze – however heated it felt on her end – to look at her. And that was it. How could she matter to him?

  And, why did it matter so much to her?

  “I dinnae rightly know,” he said, which should have deflated her hopes entirely. Only it didn’t, because he went on to say, “I only knew that I wanted to talk to you, listen to you, know you, somehow … It felt important, vital. Urgent, even. Like … I couldn’t miss the opportunity.” He trailed off then, and glanced away. “Ye must think me deranged. I’m talking like a mad man.”

  “I thought you were a ghost inhabiting a tower ruin, so there isn’t much you could do to unnerve me beyond that.”

  He glanced up then, a definite flash of a smile curving his lips. “I suppose you have a point. Well, I can assure you I willnae keep ye here beyond what you’re willing to stay. And that my desires, while not entirely under my control, are not mad in any way that presents any danger to you.”

  “Pity,” she said, shocking even herself with the clearly intoned entendre.

  His gaze caught hers squarely again and, in the moment that immediately followed, there was a shift in the air between them. And she felt like she went from being curious specimen to … desirable woman. At least, that was how she was interpreting the sudden flare in his eyes, the way his jaw tightened, and his body leaned further forward, seemingly of its own volition. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but …

  She was leaning forwards, too, before she could give it any thought, or save herself the embarrassment if she’d misread him. But her heart was pounding so hard she couldn’t focus her thoughts, could only act. She’d think on it later.

  He slid forward off the stool to his knees beside the low bed frame. He took her hands into his, and they were broad, and strong, and so warm. “I’m supposed to be the ghost, and yet it’s you who’re haunting me.”

  “Calum, I—” She didn’t know what to say. Her entire body yearned to feel … something more. To feel … him.

  He tugged her hands and she lowered her knees, let her feet slide off the edge of the bed. He rose just enough to move in and, letting go of her hands, slid his arm o
nce again under her legs, bracing the other at her back.

  “What are you—?”

  “Just … let me,” he said, quietly. “Please.” He shifted his weight to the bed, and settled her securely across his lap. “Abby, I don’t know you,” he said, as he tucked her in there, in his arms, against his chest, “and yet, the thought of losing you is – I canno’ stand the thought of it.” He cupped her cheek, drew her face up so he could look into her eyes. “How is that possible?”

  She was living a dream now, surely she was. Once again the pain receded and she felt nothing but an infusion of warmth … even to the point of heat. Flaring in her belly, clenching the muscles between her thighs, making her nipples ache. Mercifully, for once, it had nothing to do with her weakened condition. In fact, it made her feel all too vital and alive, experiencing such an intensely female response.

  She lifted a shaky hand to his face, her need for him spiking more sharply with the feel of his warm skin brushing her palm, the slight roughness of his cheek. “So real,” she said. “But this can’t be. Any of this,” she said, making a short gesture to the room around her. “Can it?”

  “Abby, I—”

  “I’m dreaming this, aren’t I?” she said, hoping to never wake up.

  He turned his cheek, so his lips brushed across her palm. “I canno’ explain this,” he murmured against her skin, then shifted his face so their gazes met once again. “But … I can explain myself. How I’m here. Why I’m here.”

  She traced her fingertips along his jaw. “Not a ghost,” she said, seeing the truth of it already in his eyes even before he shook his head. “Then … what?”

  “A traveller,” he said, then, after a long pause, added, “through time.”

  Five

  Calum held her gaze, and tried not to think of the possible catastrophic events he could, right then, be putting into motion, by revealing the truth. By touching her, holding her, wanting her. The strength of it was beyond anything he should rightfully be feeling, and yet, that didn’t change the fact that he was.