“Would you like to do the honors?” she asked Em, turning to hand her the old, oversized key she’d picked up from the estate administrator. But the girl stood back, her attention riveted on something in the side-yard.
“Em? I thought you wanted to go in?”
“That man’s holding his head,” Emily whispered. “Do you think he’s hurt?”
“What man?” Tessa asked.
“The one sitting on that bench.” Emily pointed toward the big tree. “He just appeared there. Like magic.”
“Magic, huh? It’s been mere seconds since I looked at that bench, Em. No one was there. If you’re pretending this place is haunted to tease me, nice try. But I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“That’s okay,” Emily shrugged. “ ’Cuz, I don’t think he is one.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Tess stepped out of the enclosure and turned toward the bench. “I know there isn’t a…” She gasped, grabbed Em’s arm and shoved her into the niche. “Stay there until I tell you otherwise!”
Tessa’s breath hitched as she glanced at the car.Too far away.They’d never make it.The only thing she had to defend Emily or herself with, was the house key and her car keys. She curled the fingers of her left hand around the big house key, ready to wield its ragged end if necessary, and poked the car ignition key between the second and third fingers of her right hand, like she’d seen someone do in a movie. She prayed for the courage to jab his eyes, if necessary.
Her stomach fluttered.Could she actually do that?
What was he doing here? Had he followed them? But from where? She looked around for his car, or any mode of transportation.Nothing.
His clothes, his kilt and shirt looked old and decidedly worn. A vagrant, perhaps? She hadn’t anticipated that to be one of the problems she’d face, if they decided to stay. He really didn’t look well. But she couldn’t let that influence her actions until she knew his intentions.
Even though the man’s elbows were propped on his knees, his head in his hands, in a completelyunthreatening manner, she marched forward with all the bravado she could muster. Which wasn’t much.
“This is private property, mister.” She winced at the tremor in her voice. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
* * *
Darach’s headbuzzed as he waited for the dizziness to fade. Eyes closed, he focused instead on the long-forgotten feeling of dragging breath into his lungs and pushing it back out. The entire process took far more effort than he remembered.
But what captured his attention was the cold sharpness of the air. He’d forgotten what a wonderfully delicious sensation that was. He grinned and raised his face, eyes closed, to the heavens, letting the feathery snowflakes land and melt on his face. Hiswarmface!
He wanted to laugh out loud. He couldnae remember anything, ever, feeling so good.
Finally, the scents of dew-dampened grass, bark, leaf, and rich, moist earth, entered his consciousness, followed by the moldy odor of dead and decaying vegetation. After centuries of nothing, ’twas almost overwhelming.
No’ quite what he’d expected Hell to smell like. Or sound like.
Finally, he opened his eyes to see where Soni had sent him. The ghost of a long-forgotten garden surrounded an equally neglected house, in direct contrast to the nearby call of a bird and cattle lowing, in the distance. The parallel of something out of the past colliding with the present was no’ lost on him.
He dropped his gaze to the ground, watching the snowflakes build, one atop the other and puzzled over Soni’s decision to send himhere. She’d mentioned fate and circumstance already in play. What could she possibly have meant? Was all this intended as a torment, mayhap to remind him what mortality felt like, before takin’ the mortal sensations away, forever?
Sounds of outrage, filtered through his thoughts, becoming louder, clearer.
“I asked you what you’re doing here!”
His head snapped up. From his vantage point, the tall, raven-haired woman striding toward him looked to be an interesting foe, indeed. But no’ a terribly threatening one.
Quickly, he glanced around, seeing nothing that posed the slightest danger, save the lovely lass with the long legs, eating up the ground between them.
She stopped just out of reach. “Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”
Och! American! He recognized the accent from observing the American tourists who’d visited the moor. ’Twas a bonny one, to be sure. More so, he imagined, if she’d stop scowling long enough for him to get a better look.
Though this wasnae the moor, he was sure ’twas still Scotland. The land looked and smelled like Scotland. After nearly three centuries on her soil, he felt confident he’d ken the difference, if ’twere no’.
’Twas most definitely no’ Hell, either.
