Emma took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled in slow controlled bursts through her nose. Please let there be shutters or thick curtains. Stretching her pained smile even tighter across her clenched teeth, Emma struggled to filter the anxious tremor out of her voice. “I’m sure it’s lovely. But you really shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble. An apartment in the center of town would’ve been just fine since most of my time will be spent at the clinic.” A windowless apartment squirreled well away from the sound of waves would’ve suited her so much better. If she went online tonight, ordered industrial-strength earmuffs, and paid extra for express shipping, maybe she could block the slightest hiss of the waves before the sound drove her crazy.
“Posh, no.” Moira clucked as she bumped an ample hip into an unsuspecting Alfred and pointed him toward Emma’s waiting pile of luggage. “There’ll be nothing but the best for the fine pediatrician who’s come to help Dr. Mac set up our new clinic.”
“Dr. Mac?” That name didn’t sound familiar. Emma groped through her tote in search of another clump of paperwork Seacrest had included in her packet. “Who is Dr. Mac?” Dragging out the dog-eared sheaf of papers, she flipped through the pages, scanning through the paragraphs of names. Those were just details of the grant for setting up a specialized children’s clinic in the town of Stornoway.
Emma folded back another handful of stapled sheets. Here was where she had agreed to dedicate at least a year of her life to the remote island. The foundation had led her to believethey were short on medical facilities and hoped to attract more doctors to the isolated region. If they already had a physician on staff, she didn’t want to horn in on anyone else’s territory. The uneasiness of second thoughts telegraphed the foul taste of dread through her system. Sometimes local doctors tended to get a bit territorial about their patients, and Emma didn’t blame them. She tended to get a bit protective and defensive when it came to the patients in her neck of the woods.
Alfred grunted as one of Emma’s bags squirted out from under his arm and hit the floor with a heavy thud. “Sorry, Doc.” With a muffled expletive, Alfred stooped and hitched the strap back over his shoulder while juggling the weight of another bulging bag against his barrel chest. “Dr. Alexander Mackenzie brings all the bairns into the world what will be coming to that clinic ye are plannin’ on settin’ up. All the women on the island fair flock to the man. Ye’d think they were all starving dogs, and the man had a juicy lamb chop hangin’ about his neck. If ye be single, I’m sure ye’ll be tempted by him as well. All the lasses clutch their folded hands against their hearts and babble on about how the silly man is so easy on their eyes.”
“Alfred!” Moira batted Alfred across his bent shoulders with the rolled-up map she’d just pulled from the stand beside the airline counter. “Ignore him, Dr. Emma. The old fool’s mouth takes off long before he spares the time to shift his mind into gear.”
Emma stifled a chuckle as she snatched the map from Moira’s tight grip before the woman swung at scowling Alfred again. “So, what you’re telling me is that Dr. Mackenzie is the obstetrician on the island?” Emma clamped her lips into a flat line and swallowed hard against the laughter begging to burst forth. These two were worth the price of admission. Although having a conversation with the pair was much like watching atense tennis match. Wait till she told Laynie about them. Her sister would immediately want to meet them.
“Family practice.” Moira huffed and puffed through slightly off-kilter, brightly tinted lips while her short chubby legs churned into high gear to keep up with Emma’s long-legged stride. She pulled a lace hanky from the abundant crease of her neckline and lightly patted it to her reddened cheeks. “My goodness but the day has turned verra warm.” Blowing her curls away from her damp forehead, she wheezed in a deep breath as they pushed through the double glass doors leading to the deserted parking lot that stretched across the front of the tiny terminal. She ducked her well-powdered chin as she swallowed hard, wet her pink lips, and waved a crinkled hanky toward a dilapidated truck parked beside a freshly painted fence. “We’ve no’ got a lot of specialists here. If there’s a need for special care then we must travel to the mainland.”
“All the women still flock to the man,” Alfred interrupted with a snorting grunt as he ambled up beside them. “Ye’d think he’s bespelled them or some such nonsense, and I’m sure a woman such as Dr. Emma will be certain to catch his eye.” Alfred tossed Emma’s bags into the back of the truck; all the while casting a disgruntled glare back over his tweed-covered shoulder.
“If ye don’t mind my askin’…” Pointedly turning her back to Alfred with a curt twist of her round little body, Moira cleared her throat and lifted her powdered chin higher in the air. She folded her hands atop the floral printed ledge of her tummy and gently tapped one foot. As her glasses slid to the end of her nose, Moira gave Emma an appreciative glance up and down. “Would ye happen to be single? Completely unattached? I’m sure Dr. Mac would find a willowy redhead such as yourself quite fetching.”
Willowy redhead? Who was this lady kidding?Emma had never thought of her five foot nine frame as willowy. More like gawky and out of proportion—nothing but elbows and knees that didn’t corner well in cramped areas.
She fished her sunglasses out of her bag and tightened the scarf holding back the tangled mass of curls struggling to flutter in the breeze. The wind had picked up and yanked her long ponytail free of its confines, lashing it in her face. Moira’s questions had taken the wrong direction and she’d seen thatI’ve got a man you need to meetlook too many times on Laynie’s face to not recognize it when it gleamed in Moira’s eyes. “Since you asked, yes, I am single, but I’m entirely too busy for all that nonsense. I’m here to get our clinic started. That’s it. I’m afraid there won’t be much time for socializing.” That notion needed to be nipped in the bud before it ever got started. That universal matchmaking glint on Moira’s face had to be doused before it blossomed into a full-blown mating beacon. The last thing Emma needed right now was the distraction of dodging a series of catastrophic blind dates.
She swallowed a groan as the calculating tip of Moira’s tongue darted excitedly across her lower lip. The woman looked like a plump gray cat about to pounce on an unsuspecting canary. An Emma canary. Moira’s eyes twinkled. The woman was definitely plotting. One corner of Moira’s mouth curled up into a knowing twitch, clearly indicating that Moira’s unite-two-lonely-souls gears had shifted into overdrive in less than a nanosecond. Emma would bet her best stethoscope on it. Whoever this Alexander Mackenzie was, he better run like hell.
“Well.” Moira arched a silvery brow, giving a gentletsk tskwith a toss of her head and a disappointed shrug. “Whatever ye say, Dr. Emma. We’ll see what we shall see.” Moira beamed a smug glow as she yanked open the door to the truck.
“Ye’ve doomed yourself to a certain visit of no peace. Ye do realize that, do ye not?” Alfred gripped her hand in his calloused grasp and helped her climb up onto the worn fabric seat. Moira whacked him on his backside, and he turned to her with a chilling scowl.
“I heard that, ye old goat. I’m standing right behind ye.”
Emma settled into the sagging cushions of the truck and pulled her bag to her chest. First thing on the agenda was definitely a rental car. She could tell right now that ping-ponging between these two would prove exhausting. But wouldn’t they make for tons of great conversation whenever she got Laynie on the line? Closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose, Emma bowed her head and fought back a grin as Moira and Alfred dove into another tirade.
Chapter
Five
Destruction. A rumble of satisfied laughter bubbled up through the depths of Arach’s coils and fanned the red-hot coals simmering in his gullet. He rolled the word off the tip of his forked tongue as though savoring the flavor of a fine, robust wine. Such a delightful word:destruction. It even tasted good when he spoke it.
Arach filled his lungs with the stale, dank air of the blood-soaked cave and waved away annoying carnage flies buzzing about his face. This world had turned out to be quite nice indeed. A bit on the dull side of late, but all in all, not a bad place to spend a few millennia.
He dipped his head with a single nod of certainty.Yes.He definitely considered his time here well spent. He would most assuredly rate the prey of this world as one of his favorite races to hunt. Arach chuckled. The confused lot was even more enjoyable and entertaining than warming his scales beneath the scorching sun once a feeding frenzy was over.
He unsheathed one razor sharp claw and hooked it into the meatiest part of a smoldering carcass spread across the sticky stone floor. Impaling the body on the extended tip of one talon, he lifted the dripping corpse into the air, threw back his head,and dropped the charred body into his mouth. Ah yes. Delicious.And the lovely screams the humans released as they realized they were about to die could not be matched anywhere else in this universe. What could be more musical than the shrieking cries of a begging victim blubbering for something as ridiculous as mercy? Silly fools, these simpering mortals. What in the world could ever make them believe he would succumb to their pitiful begging? It must have something to do with that strange thing he had heard one of their women wailing about while she clutched her mate’s dying body. What was the word the female had used? Arach slowed his chewing and thoughtfully tapped a greasy claw against his blood-spattered chin. Hope. Yes. That was it.He snorted. Their highly prized hope was as useless a ploy for saving their lives as was their incessant pleading.
Snugging his barbed tail around his scale-covered body, he crunched down on the last bits of dismembered body piled between his stubby front legs. Such sweetness.Human bones made such a delectable pop when properly toasted before enjoying.
He cocked his head and brought his grinding jaws to an abrupt halt. A disgruntled gurgle bubbled at the back of his throat as he unsheathed a fore-claw and slid it into the side of his steaming mouth. Curling his leathery lips back in a sideways sneer, Arach probed along the third ridge of molars and pried a particularly worrisome bit of rib bone out from between two stumps of his hardest to reach back teeth. Apparently, he’d not scorched this one quite long enough. It still had a bit of fight left in it. The bone shard popped free and ricocheted off the glistening black walls lining the rear of the cave.
There. Much better.Smacking his slime-covered lips together, Arach pulled them back in a revealing grimace and examined his reflection in the pool of blood surrounding a pile of swollen torsos. Good. It looked as though he had finally scrapedall the bits of the man from between his yellowed fangs. After all, one never could be too careful. A left behind piece of rotted meat or sliver of gristle could make for a miserable soreness in one’s mouth.
Arach scratched his delightfully full belly with a bloodied claw and slithered the cumbersome length of his body to the opening of the cave. Life was indeed quite decent since coming to this reality. He only wished there was a bit more challenge when it came to the hunt for fresh blood. Boredom did tend to grate on his nerves in the most tedious way.
He smacked his lips and sucked at his teeth as he groaned in a gut-stretching breath. He adored the plentiful food of this place, and the humans had been quite good at rebuilding even more lovely structures for him to destroy. As a matter of fact, the buildings of this era exploded and burned with the most glorious billows of black smoke he had ever seen. Arach exhaled as he mindlessly tapped a claw against the limestone shelf. If only these mortals would learn how to fight back. It had been eons since he’d faced an interesting battle or found any victims worthy of well thought out torture.
A distracted sigh escaped him. Still, this hunting ground had lasted much longer than the last worlds he’d plundered. Of course, he’d been several millennia younger at that time and hadn’t known to pace himself as he’d done here.
The crashing sea roiled past the mouth of the cave. Greenish-gray waves spewed seaweed-filled froth across the sharp outcropping of stained black rocks protruding from the fissures of the cliff. Arach stretched himself out on the windswept ledge. With a sweep of one paw, he scattered sun-bleached bones out of the way and rested his sticky, blood-spattered chin atop the crossed cushion of his meaty forearms. Yes. He’d learned much since burning through the last reality much too quickly. It was a great deal wiser to take things slowly. Savor the killings for thedeepest possible enjoyment. After all, one must allow the prey time to breed and repopulate the land. Rather like when those silly mortals allowed the fields of their farms to lie fallow and gave their world a bit of a rest. These odd little beings tended to be quite prolific if given the time and the short-lasted comfort of a few quiet decades. Once the mindless fools relaxed in the belief that their world was safe, they replenished their numbers quite readily. Arach smiled as he nestled his snout to a more comfortable angle in the crook of his crossed arms. Silly mortals. So easily picked off one by one when he resumed the scourging of their lands.
