Read Online Highlander 04 - Some Like It Kilted (2010) by Allie Mackay - Free Book Online
Authors: Allie Mackay
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night’s dream. Margo didn’t need to know everything. And she chose to credit the incident to nerves.
She rubbed her arms, determined to suppress the chills sweeping her.
No mean feat, considering.
Mindy swallowed, her gaze sliding briefly to the wall next to the kitchen hearth. A collection of the last century’s cooking equipment hung there. Highly polished copper pots and kettles, preserving pans, and jelly molds winked brightly, attracting the eye. But nothing stirred. No dancing shadows and certainly no man’s silhouette. But the fire glow did cast a weird reddish tint on the basket of aromatic juniper branches that the castle staff enjoyed tossing onto the flames to scent the room.
Even so, Mindy knew what she’d seen.
The big man’s outline, insubstantial and fleeting as it’d been, had reminded her instantly of Bran of Barra. The castle’s burly, fourteenth-century builder hadn’t exactly accosted her as the other MacNeil ghosts had done, but he had glared at her from inside his portrait.
Heaven help her if he really had invaded her sleep.
Her pulse quickened just to remember.
She also recalled that his portrait sword was the longest, most wicked looking of all Hunter’s fierce oil-painted-cum-real-live-ghostie forebears. It might have been her imagination, but she was pretty sure the silhouette man had worn an exceptionally long blade low by his hip.
A chill sped down her spine.
Had there really been a time she’d romanticized men with swords? Foolish days when she’d secretly thought of kilted men with swords as walking orgasms?
She closed her eyes and bit her lip, knowing it was true.
Wishing it weren’t, she trailed her fingers along the thick, age-smoothed edge of the table. A ploy to keep her sister from noticing that her hand trembled. She glanced toward the nearest window, not surprised to see rain beginning to pelt the ancient leaded panes. The stone mullion window surrounds already gleamed blackly with damp.
Mist curled through the nearby pines, hovering low, and making the dark woods look even bleaker than usual, the wet morning drearier than need be. Mindy stifled a grimace. For all intents and purposes, the Folly might already be on some godforsaken Scottish island.
Only Scotland, she was sure, would be much worse.
“You should have phoned me.” Margo was in her face again. “I would’ve come right away.”
Mindy started. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Bother me?” Margo’s brows arched.
Mindy flicked a toast crumb off the table. “I knew you were busy.”
She also knew that if she’d called Margo in the middle of her four-day Ye Olde Pagan Times-sponsored Gettysburg Ghostwatch Tour, she would’ve risked having her sister arrive on the Folly’s doorstep with an entire busload of camera-happy, EMF-meter-toting paranormal zealots.
It would’ve been like living inside a goldfish bowl.
With the Twilight Zone theme music piped in to set the scene.
“You didn’t want me showing up with ghost hunters in tow.” Margo proved how perceptive she was. “That’s why you didn’t call me.”
“And if it was?” Mindy flipped back her hair. “You know what I think about woo-woo wackos.”
Margo laughed. “Does that include me?”
“You’re my sister.”
“Yes, I am.” Margo tapped her with a French-manicured fingernail. “The very one who always smells candle grease and woodsmoke in here no matter”—she wrinkled her nose, sniffing—“how much bacon you fry for breakfast or how many gallons of Kona coffee you brew.
“This kitchen is trapped in the past and always will be.” She glanced around, her eyes lighting with excitement. “It doesn’t matter how many snazzy stainless steel fridges and whatnots you haul in here. This room is a portal—I’ve always known it.”
Mindy flicked another toast crumb off the table.
It was an invisible one this
She rubbed her arms, determined to suppress the chills sweeping her.
No mean feat, considering.
Mindy swallowed, her gaze sliding briefly to the wall next to the kitchen hearth. A collection of the last century’s cooking equipment hung there. Highly polished copper pots and kettles, preserving pans, and jelly molds winked brightly, attracting the eye. But nothing stirred. No dancing shadows and certainly no man’s silhouette. But the fire glow did cast a weird reddish tint on the basket of aromatic juniper branches that the castle staff enjoyed tossing onto the flames to scent the room.
Even so, Mindy knew what she’d seen.
The big man’s outline, insubstantial and fleeting as it’d been, had reminded her instantly of Bran of Barra. The castle’s burly, fourteenth-century builder hadn’t exactly accosted her as the other MacNeil ghosts had done, but he had glared at her from inside his portrait.
Heaven help her if he really had invaded her sleep.
Her pulse quickened just to remember.
She also recalled that his portrait sword was the longest, most wicked looking of all Hunter’s fierce oil-painted-cum-real-live-ghostie forebears. It might have been her imagination, but she was pretty sure the silhouette man had worn an exceptionally long blade low by his hip.
A chill sped down her spine.
Had there really been a time she’d romanticized men with swords? Foolish days when she’d secretly thought of kilted men with swords as walking orgasms?
She closed her eyes and bit her lip, knowing it was true.
Wishing it weren’t, she trailed her fingers along the thick, age-smoothed edge of the table. A ploy to keep her sister from noticing that her hand trembled. She glanced toward the nearest window, not surprised to see rain beginning to pelt the ancient leaded panes. The stone mullion window surrounds already gleamed blackly with damp.
Mist curled through the nearby pines, hovering low, and making the dark woods look even bleaker than usual, the wet morning drearier than need be. Mindy stifled a grimace. For all intents and purposes, the Folly might already be on some godforsaken Scottish island.
Only Scotland, she was sure, would be much worse.
“You should have phoned me.” Margo was in her face again. “I would’ve come right away.”
Mindy started. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Bother me?” Margo’s brows arched.
Mindy flicked a toast crumb off the table. “I knew you were busy.”
She also knew that if she’d called Margo in the middle of her four-day Ye Olde Pagan Times-sponsored Gettysburg Ghostwatch Tour, she would’ve risked having her sister arrive on the Folly’s doorstep with an entire busload of camera-happy, EMF-meter-toting paranormal zealots.
It would’ve been like living inside a goldfish bowl.
With the Twilight Zone theme music piped in to set the scene.
“You didn’t want me showing up with ghost hunters in tow.” Margo proved how perceptive she was. “That’s why you didn’t call me.”
“And if it was?” Mindy flipped back her hair. “You know what I think about woo-woo wackos.”
Margo laughed. “Does that include me?”
“You’re my sister.”
“Yes, I am.” Margo tapped her with a French-manicured fingernail. “The very one who always smells candle grease and woodsmoke in here no matter”—she wrinkled her nose, sniffing—“how much bacon you fry for breakfast or how many gallons of Kona coffee you brew.
“This kitchen is trapped in the past and always will be.” She glanced around, her eyes lighting with excitement. “It doesn’t matter how many snazzy stainless steel fridges and whatnots you haul in here. This room is a portal—I’ve always known it.”
Mindy flicked another toast crumb off the table.
It was an invisible one this
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