What lovely colors he emitted and such a unique aura.Swirls of passionate reds vibrated into spiritual purples then flickered out into rich loyal blues. Even though his aura was laced with strange, inexplicable sparks of what appeared to be golden shooting flames, Graham was safe, emanating the strongest and highest traits of each color spectrum she had come to know and respect. And Granny and Trulie had sent him. She could at least hear what he had to say.
She gave Vivienne their long-ago agreed-upon signal that everything was okay for the time being: the stand-down wink and nod. “Why don’t you and Alberti take Angus across the way for drinks while Mr. MacTavish and I have a chat?”
“Are ye certain, pet?” Vivienne fixed Graham with the look that Lilia had affectionately labeledthe stink-eye curse of Vivienne.
“Hmpf.” Graham jutted out his chin and returned Vivienne’s warning scowl with a dark look of his own.
“I’m sure,” Lilia said, pointing across the brick street to a lantern-lit grouping of tables. “Head on over to Lottie’s Close and save us a table. We’ll be there in a bit.”
Angus’s countenance visibly brightened. He wet his lips and agreed with a quick bob of his head. “Aye. I could use a pint or three.” He hooked his thumbs into his belt and rolled to the balls of his feet in a quick bounce. “Take yer time,” he said to Graham.
“Very well then,” Alberti said. Ever the leader, he deftly herded Vivienne and Angus toward the outdoor bar. With a backward glance at Lilia, he raised his voice to be heard over the boisterous crowd enjoying the mild summer evening. “I will have my phone on the table. You know what to do if need be.”
Lilia reached down into her cleavage, pulled her phone out, and waved it at Alberti. “Gotcha.” Alberti would rally every able-bodied officer in Scotland and not a few friends to save her if she speed-dialed him for help.
Returning her phone to her nature-made cleavage-holster, Lilia turned back to Graham’s wide-eyed stare. The poor man looked as though his eyes were about to explode out of his head. She patted her chest. “I don’t have pockets in this outfit. It’s the only place I can carry it.”
“Aye,” he reverently whispered as his gaze dipped back down to the designated spot between her corset-plumped breasts.
“Let’s walk while you tell me what this visit of yours is about.” Lilia motioned for Graham to follow her out into the street. The sidewalks were too crowded to allow any semblance of a conversation. The cordoned-off brick stretch of the Royal Mile leading to Edinburgh Castle would serve much better. It was still crowded but not as impassable as the walkways in front of the shops and pubs.
He extended his bent arm for her to take, frowning when she refused with a shake of her head. “Why don’t you start by telling me about Granny’s vision,” she said. The man could play the ancient gallant all he wanted—they were staying on topic.
With a sound that could only be described as a cross between a gutturalharrumphand an irritated growl, Graham fell into step beside her, visibly paring down his strong, long-legged stride to keep her from having to break into a hopping lope to keep pace with him. “I wasna privy to the details of yer grandmother’s vision. I dinna ken what the woman saw other than the fact that I was needed here—by you.”
“By me?” Lilia repeated, her irritation prickling when Graham’s only response was a curt nod. “So, what are you? A miracle worker or a healer?” She flinched at the bitterness in her tone. She hated being the shrew with an innocent bystander but the only thing she needed right now was someone who could help Eliza.
“Nay. I am neither,” he said, his voice rumbling patient and deep as he walked along beside her, seemingly nonplussed by her tone. “But I do ken the way of things and what must be done to survive. I can help ye battle the darkness that oft attempts to overtake the light.”
Something in his eyes as he spoke touched a deep part of her soul. She forced herself to look away, break his hold. But then she just as quickly looked back and locked into his gaze. She couldn’t help herself. There was so much . . . so much what? She didn’t know what she saw in his eyes but she needed it—badly.
“I ken verra well just how cold and wicked the darkness can be,” he gently assured. “Ye need but trust me, lass.”
Darkness. Funny he should say it that way.Lilia struggled to keep from warming to Graham but her deepest instincts refused to listen to common sense, mocking her with the futility of building any semblance of separation or dislike for the man. The unseen vibrations emanating from him reassured her he was genuine—he cared and she might as well stop trying to harden her heart against him. She shook herself free of the annoying inner voice. She didn’t care if the man had a heart of gold. She had to keep him at a distance—a safe distance—at least until she figured out why Granny sent him.
“So, you came here to take me back as soon as Eliza dies?” That had to be his angle. Lilia stopped walking, turned to him, and forced herself to lower her shields. She needed the raw truth of it all and the only way she could trust a single word this man said was to take a chance and set her sensors on wide open to read his feelings.
He stopped walking and faced her, widening his stance as he clasped his hands behind his back. “I didna come here to return ye to the past. I came here to stay wi’ ye—to learn yer ways and do my best to help ye and protect ye.”
He was telling the truth—at least most of the truth. She didn’t miss the thin wavering of uncertainty vibrating at the deepest level of his aura. “What are you not telling me?” She could plainly tell he wasn’t lying but he wasn’t telling her everything he knew about what she’d asked either. “Graham?”
He didn’t say a word, just resettled his footing, lifted his stubborn chin a notch higher, and smiled.
Fine. So, that was how he was going to play it.AnI ain’t telling and you can’t make meattitude was the quickest way to piss her off. She spun around and started back down the street to the outdoor pub where Alberti and Vivienne waited. No more games and dancing around the details with a heart-stirring man she had just met—a man she was inexplicably drawn to and suddenly missed now that he wasn’t walking beside her.
“Ye canna run from me, lass,” Graham called out above the noise of the crowd.
She huffed out an irritated growl but didn’t bother looking back. He had it all wrong. She never ran.Granny obviously hadn’t warned him who he would be dealing with. She didn’t give a rat’s ass if it was August. She was heading back to the house to crank up the woodstove and Granny was going to give her some answers. Granny had meddled and manipulated Trulie, Kenna, and Mairi into returning to the thirteenth century to find their Highland husbands. She had too much going on right now to be next up on Granny’s playlist.
CHAPTER5
“Iam not leaving ye alone. I know ye are . . . different.” Vivienne shrugged as she plopped down on the overstuffed settee in front of the floor-to-ceiling bookcase. “I don’t care that ye are odd as an American two-dollar bill. Weird shit doesna frighten me; ye should ken that well enough by now. Ye are my friend, pet. I worry after ye.” She plumped a pillow behind her back and crossed her ankles on the arm of the chair.
Lilia shoved crumpled paper up under the crisscrossed sticks then took a long-stemmed match, struck it, and dotted the flame along the edges of the wad. The yellow flame took hold, melting into the thin sheets and dancing up into the bits of wood. She pulled out the silver knob, opening the damper as wide as it would go until the delicate yellow flames became a roaring white blaze. “I think the world of you, Viv, but I don’t want to run you off when you realize I am not batty—all theweird shitI’ve told you about is real.”
And she didn’t want to lose Vivienne’s friendship. If not for her and Alberti, she’d either be locked up in a psych ward by now or pushing up daisies in the local cemetery. She ran a thumb along the white scars on her wrist. They’d found her that night after she’d finally signed the papers to prosecute her lowlife business partner David Sommers for embezzling and identity fraud. That son of a bitch. She had trusted him, called him friend, and the bastard had nearly ruined her.
Hertruefriends, Alberti and Vivienne, had found her crouched in front of the television, drunk as hell, covered in blood and sobbing her heart out at the evening news and all the pain her battered emotional shields had allowed to attack her soul.
