Tall, Dark, and Kilted

by MACKAY, ALLIE

  After that, it’d been a nightmarish trek that had her huffing and puffing and growing hotter with each step along the almost vertical path. Only suffering the hots for him was worse. Her lungs burned, a nasty stitch jabbed her side, and the back of her shirt stuck to her skin. That last despite the shade of the dark, thick-growing trees and the earthy-damp chill of the woodsy air.

  Not that she should be surprised.

  Of course, the ancient Mackay castle builders or the Norsemen before them wouldn’t have built a defensive stronghold in an easily accessible place. She’d seen the height of the tower’s jutting headland from her window.

  She should have known it wouldn’t be easy.

  Or that piece-of-pie to her was a whole ’nother animal to Aunt Birdie.

  After all, her aunt had once spent six weeks back-packing through the wilds of Indonesia. Alone, save for the company of an equally adventurous girlfriend and—gasp!—her friend’s nine-year-old daughter.

  With the exception of a few close encounters with leeches while skinny-dipping in a pond in a bamboo wood on Bali and contracting food poisoning after dining with locals somewhere in the rain forest of Sulawesi, Aunt Birdie called the adventure a delight.

  Cilla rolled her eyes.

  Then she swiped her forehead with her shirtsleeve.

  She had to be tougher.

  But finding a bug in her sock wasn’t funny. In fact, it’d been the last straw. She could ignore ghost-induced tingles and heart flips. Even wicked thoughts like wondering if he was naked beneath his kilt.

  Bugs were something else entirely.

  She bit her lip, contemplating her options. The footpath had shrunk to a muddy thread barely discernible beneath a sea of clinging, waist-high bracken. She suspected the beetle thing had innumerable friends and relatives lurking there, each one eager to make her acquaintance the instant she plunged onward.

  She grimaced.

  A cool pint in the Ben Loyal’s Bistro Bar was sounding better by the moment.

  But she really did want to see the tower ruin.

  Besides, stomping up a mountain might just purge her of wicked, not-good-for-her-mind wanderings! So she braced her hands on her thighs and breathed deep and slow until she was no longer quite so winded.

  She straightened, her mood lifting when she caught a glimpse of the tower through the trees. Still high above her, its stones beckoned, using lichen and age to lure her on.

  “You’re hopeless,” she muttered, disgusted by the ease with which old stones won out over a pint of real ale in a pub that reeked of charm and coziness.

  Quickly, before she could think too deeply on Mr. Beetle and his pals, she tossed back her hair and struck off through the bracken.

  Barbed deer fencing soon blocked the way, but a tricky scramble up and over a rickety ladderlike stile brought her to a low hand-railed causeway across a bog and—lo—not far from the end of the wood-planked walk, the footpath rose in straight line to the ruin.

  Unfortunately, the last stretch of the way looked to be the steepest.

  She took a deep breath and stepped onto the path. Her feet slid a few times on the mud, and once a scatter of pebbles almost sent her plunging down the grassy slope into the Kyle. But then she was at the top, picking her way over a small heap of tumbled masonry to reach a jagged opening in the tower wall.

  Whether a door or just a gap caused by falling rubble, she clambered through it into the ruin’s interior.

  Little more than a dim, earthy-smelling enclosure, surprisingly small and circular, Castle Varrich’s roofless walls embraced her. Shadows shifted, then wrapped around her like a cloak, soft and beguiling. A slanting ray of sun picked out a drift of old leaves beneath the half-ruinous remains of a window embrasure.

  Halfway up the wall, the gaping niche held a sense of poignancy as if the onetime window remembered sharing its views with long-ago souls, and missed them.

  Cilla’s heart thumped.

  She could easily imagine Aunt Birdie’s Viking maid standing in the arched alcove. Or sitting on the embrasure’s stone bench, its hard contours softened by fur rugs and colorful pillows instead of blurred by smears of mold and dirt, the flotsam of ages.

  She took a few steps deeper into the tower, her pulse quickening.

  Each muddied, moss-grown stone shimmered with the past. If only they could speak. Tell tales of all they’d seen and heard down the centuries.

  Cilla shivered.

  Aunt Birdie once said that every blade of grass in Scotland had a story clinging to it, each stone and clump of heather its own mythic bit of legend and lore.

  Now she believed it.

  This was the stuff of dreams.

  Scotland as she’d always imagined it.

  To experience this kind of history live, she could handle a bug or two in her sock. Even tromping up a path that was so steep she could have bitten into the ground before her.

  None of that mattered anymore.

  Not now.

  She peered about, her shoulders relaxing and her tense, overexerted thigh muscles beginning to loosen. For the first time since passing the footpath sign, she smiled.

  No, she grinned.

  She was inside a genuine, honest-to-goodness castle ruin. And the thrill of it was almost more than she could bear.

  Carefully, with all the awe and reverence she knew she’d feel at such a moment, she placed her hands on the chill, damp stones. Ancient stones, most worn smooth by countless raindrops, some cracked and broken by constant exposure to icy northern wind.

  She pressed her palms against them, letting her fingers explore the cold, uneven surface. She tried to breathe in their essence, almost expecting—no, hoping—to feel a slight pulse or vibration.

  Nothing happened.

  But she did hear sheep bleating somewhere in the distance.

  A soft sigh followed by a slight rustling.

  She blinked. A chill sped down her spine and the fine hairs on the back of her neck lifted.

  Such a rustling noise could have been Gudrid. Aunt Birdie’s Norse maid stepping into the window embrasure. More likely, it’d have been the soughing of the wind through the ivy spilling down one side of the ruin.

  Even so, in the hopes of increasing her chances of glimpsing the maid—if indeed she’d made the noises—she studied the stretch of wall rising up to the crumbling window alcove.

  There were enough footholds to get her up there.

  If she didn’t slip.

  She glanced at the hard-packed earthen floor. Stones and fallen bits of rubble were everywhere. Not to mention what she was sure must be stinging nettle growing around the wall edges. Whatever goo and whatnot hid beneath the piles of old, dead leaves.

  Falling wouldn’t be pretty.

  And a spill in the other direction, out the window, would be even worse. She’d tumble straight down the grassy slope, roll over the cliff edge, and land right smack in the Kyle.

  Where she’d promptly drown, if she was still alive when her body hit the water.

  She took a step closer to the wall, her mind working furiously.

  Climbing up was way too dangerous. But the window was where the tower’s hall would have been. She could see the line of joist holes for the hall’s wooden floor. If she could climb that far, she could swing herself into the embrasure.

  She hesitated.

  Now that she was close, the alcove looked even higher than before. Peering up at it, she inhaled deeply. The she willed herself to be brave. After all, she was Aunt Birdie’s niece.

  She had courage in her blood.

  But still . . .

  She frowned. A rock protruded near the base of the wall, so she stuck out her foot, nudging the stone to see if it wiggled.

  It didn’t.

  She eyed the rock, considering.

  Then she heard the rustling noise again and made her decision.

  Heart thumping, she shimmied up the wall and scrambled into the alcove before fear could change her mind. Her
goal reached, she pushed to her feet. Then she braced her hands on either side of the recess and felt her heart drop.

  The window was much higher than she’d calculated, but she’d been right about one thing.

  Falling out would be worse than falling back in.

  It was a long way down to the Kyle.

  Long, rocky, and steep didn’t begin to describe it.

  It was that bad.

  Trying to pretend her knees weren’t trembling, she cast a look at the cracked stone bench against one side of the alcove. There should have been a second, opposite-facing seat, but that one had apparently done what she was determined not to do. At some point in time, it’d fallen out the window.

  Broken bits of it dotted the ground at the base of the tower.

  She shuddered and—having decided the remaining bench wasn’t going anywhere for a while—she eased herself onto its cold stone seat.

  Maybe she’d stay there forever.

  There were worse fates.

  And it seemed a better option than thinking about how she was going to get back down.

  You could have spared yourself this. . . .

  No odd fluttery rustle, but the purring voice of her old nemesis, Dawn Paterson, seemed to brush past her ear.

  Cilla swallowed. She could almost see her rival before her. How she’d preened in the front room of her parents’ Charm Box Antique and Jewelry Shoppe. Haughty and snide, she’d sneered the words that squelched Cilla’s livelihood.

  You always did act without thinking. A shame you didn’t consider how poorly your wares were selling before bothering to make more. . . .

  Cilla closed her eyes and blocked her ears.

  She didn’t need to be reminded that Vintage Chic had gone down the tubes. Or that she was presently stuck on an ice-cold medieval bench that might crumble beneath her any minute.

  Just because it looked solid enough didn’t mean it was.

  Hardwick looked and felt solid, but he was still a spook.

  Cilla leaned back against the wall, trying to squelch the wish that he wasn’t. To that end, she snapped open her eyes and lifted her chin, giving her jaw just enough thrust to make her feel bold.

  And she did . . . until two things happened at once.

  The weird rustling returned with a vengeance, this time sounding like the flapping of big, leathery wings. And then he was there, too!

  Once again disguised as the devil, he hovered in midair, leering down at her from just above the top of the roofless tower.

  “Waaaaa!” She leapt to her feet.

  He swooped lower, his horned visage bobbing crazily against the broken ridge of the tower’s rim.

  His eyes glittered, black as coals.

  With eye-blurring speed, he popped over the rim, dropping a few feet into the tower before whooshing back up again.

  “It won’t work!” She shook a fist at him. “I know it’s you and you can’t scare me away. Not kilted, not red-deviled, and not even if you show up as a werewolf!”

  The words made her feel good.

  Brave.

  But her foot slipped on the edge of the window recess and she slammed onto her knees, nearly toppling over the side to the rock-strewn floor.

  “Arrrggggh!” She grabbed the bench, holding tight.

  “Have a care, lass.” His soft voice sounded low, deeply seductive.

  More surprising, it came from beneath her, while his red devil face soared ever upward, finally swinging back and forth high above the tower.

  “I dinna think I can catch you a third time.” He spoke again, his burr sliding around her like a caress. “No’ here, anyway.”

  “Then we’re even.” Cilla braced herself against his honeyed words, kept her gaze on his devil disguise. “I don’t want to be caught by you anywhere. Your ventriloquist skills don’t impress me.”

  “My what?”

  “The word isn’t important.” She tightened her grip on the bench, her pulse skittering. “It means the ability to make your voice sound as if it’s coming from somewhere else. Any two-bit magician can—”

  Auk-auk-auk!

  A set of powerful pinions rose from behind the devil’s curving red horns. Cinnamon-brown with a narrow band of white, the wings beat furiously as the entire ferocious-looking bird came into view.

  The devil mask dropped several feet, only held aloft by a red cord clutched in the bird’s talons.

  Cilla gasped.

  Beneath her, near the tower doorway, stood Hardwick, eyes narrowed and jaw fiercely set. A breeze tossed long, silky black hair around his powerful, plaid-draped shoulders as he stared up at her, his shield clutched in his hands.

  His gaze held hers, dark and intent. “So that’s what you meant by red-deviled.”

  “I—” Cilla flushed. She started to deny it, but just then the rustling came again, now recognizable as the bird’s rapid wingbeats.

  Auk, auk, he screeched, keen eyes watching them as he made several high-speed swoops around the tower. Then he soared upward, the devil mask trailing after him like a surreal red-painted kite.

  Clearly enjoying himself, he looped back to dive at them, his wings almost completely closed. Coming fast, he sped over the tower rim with barely an inch to spare. He shot up again, this time twirling and spinning in a series of aerial acrobatics before once again sailing around the tower. He released the mask on his fifth pass.

  Overlarge and unwieldy, the thing fell like a stone, landing with a loud thwack near Hardwick’s feet.

  Another auk and the bird beat away over the Kyle.

  He bent to pick up the mask and carefully propped it against a heap of nettle-covered stones.

  Cilla cleared her throat. “It’s a mask.”

  He shot an annoyed look at her. “Aye, so it is.”

  He touched a finger to one of the glistening horns, examining its curve. A muscle ticked in his jaw and his eyes held an unreadable expression.

  It could have been anger.

  Watching him, Cilla knotted her hands against the stone bench and pushed to her feet. She could feel hot color blooming on her cheeks. Her heart began a slow, shame-driven thumping. Ghost or not, she’d wronged this man. Every inch of him screamed that he knew it.

  Knew she’d suspected him of guising himself as the devil to frighten her.

  Her gaze again slid to the mask. Hideous with its black glitter eyes and leering smile, it reminded her of the getups worn at Carnival in New Orleans and Rio.

  I’m sorry. The apology stuck in her throat.

  She owed him one, for sure.

  Big time.

  But he’d stepped into the shaft of light slanting into the tower and he looked so rock-hard solid and gorgeous standing there that she just knew if she opened her mouth she’d babble something she’d regret.

  Something like oh, my, oh, my.

  She moistened her lips, knew she was blushing.

  He set down his shield and folded his arms. “I’ve been called many things in my time, but ne’er red-deviled.”

  “I—” Cilla glanced briefly out the window arch. The bird was now a black speck above the moors on the other side of the Kyle. “I wouldn’t have called you that either if—”

  “Nor—until this day—has anyone e’er suggested I might enjoy sprouting fur and growing fangs.” He sounded highly insulted.

  “As for my kilt—”

  “Oh, please!” Cilla tossed back her hair. She didn’t want to hear about his kilt.

  Not when, just a short while ago, she’d wondered about what she’d see if she peeked beneath it.

  “What was I supposed to think?” She indicated the mask with a flick of her hand. “I open the shutters to see that thing sailing toward me. Behag Finney—or whatever the cook’s name is—fainted from fright after it appeared at the kitchen window. Then I come up here to . . . to get away for an afternoon, and there it is again, popping up out of nowhere.”

  “And you thought it was me.”

  “Of course I t
hought it was you!”

  He remained unmoved. “I see.”

  “No, you don’t.” Cilla glared at him. “But you should. It’s uncanny the way you’re here, there, and everywhere.”

  “That, sweetness, is what ghosts do.” He said that as if she should know it. “After seven hundred years, it’s become a habit.”

  “Exactly, and that’s just what I meant. You’re a ghost. Since meeting you”—she waved a hand, struggling to find the right words—“I have to believe anything is possible.”

  “Even flying red devils and werewolves?”

  Cilla swallowed. “Even them.”

  “Then, lass, I must correct you,” he stated, an odd note of regret in his voice. “There are some things that are not possible.”

  Cilla started to argue the point—if he was possible, then anything should be—but he was suddenly directly beneath her, having crossed the tower without her having even seen him take one step.

  “That’s another thing ghosts do, isn’t it?” She pointed out the obvious. “Move across a room in the blink of an eye.”

  He shrugged. “Being a ghost does have some advantages. Moving quickly is one of the little things that amuses. It helps break the tedium of our daily . . . lives.”

  “You call it a life?” The words slipped out before she could stop them.

  He blinked. Then he ran a hand over his head and his chest as if assuring himself that he was really there.

  Heat seared the back of Cilla’s neck, embarrassment scalding her as he held his arms out to his sides and wriggled his fingers. He examined first one hand and then the other, before looking back up at her.

  “Aye, I call it a life.” His mouth quirked. “Such as it is. I am here. That is enough.”

  “But how did you get here? You haunt Dunroamin.” Her brow knit. “I thought ghosts were bound to a particular place. Did you follow me here?”

  He clapped a hand to his chest and pretended to reel backward. “So many questions,” he jested, his dark eyes twinkling. “Why don’t we get you down from there and I’ll answer them for you?”

  Cilla blinked. She’d completely forgotten she was still stuck in the window recess. Even more startling, that one quick glimpse at his humor did funny things to her knees.