Read Online Spellbound by Michelle M. Pillow - Free Book Online Page A

are.”
    Jane furrowed her brow. Her accent was thick, so perhaps something was being lost in translation? “Who I am? I’m Jane. I’m a landscaper and I run a small nursery.”
    “And your parents?”
    “No longer with us. My father was an engineer. I didn’t know my mother.”
    “Lost her young?” Cait asked.
    Jane nodded. That was a polite way of putting it.
    “Ya don’t know about her?”
    “She liked old things,” Jane said. She’d found a few of her mother’s belongings when she was a teenager. Nothing spectacular though. Her father had never wanted to talk about it. “Antiques.”
    “Give me a moment.” Cait stood and again left the room. She took longer coming back, but when she did she carried two glasses. “Here, drink this fast. It’s an old family recipe to help keep away infections.”
    Cait drank from her own glass as if to show it was harmless.
    Jane obeyed. Hard liquor burned a trail down her throat to her stomach. For a second, she couldn’t breathe. She opened her mouth.
    “That would be why I said fast.” Cait chuckled.
    Jane managed to gasp, and the fire eased. She had no doubt the five-thousand percent liquor would kill any infection in its path. She gasped several more times.
    “I can see by your palm this is not the first time ya have cut yourself.” Cait reached to take her hand again and traced one of the old scars. There was no judgment in her tone. Leaning over, she placed her nose close to Jane’s wrist. “Ya see death, don’t ya?”
    “Are you a…” Jane furrowed her brow in confusion. Her head spun a little. “Are you a palm reader?”
    “Something like that.” Cait traced another scar, appearing completely unconcerned with blood contamination as she concentrated on the lines.
    “Is it bad?” Jane asked. She blinked heavily, mesmerized by Cait’s tracing finger. “It’s coming soon, isn’t it?”
    “Ya know?” Cait looked up at her. Her blue eyes shone with a combination of concern and pity.
    Jane nodded. “Yes. For years now. The doctors have run tests, but they don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
    “Doctors?” Cait let go of her hand as if confused.
    “Yes, because I’ve been sick since I was a preteen. The last three years were actually pretty good, so I can’t complain.”
    “There are many times when medical doctors have no use,” Cait said after a long moment.
    “I suppose,” Jane allowed, “although I’m very glad to have them in our society.”
    Cait again grabbed her hand and said nothing as she finished cleaning and bandaging the wound. When she’d finished, she stood. She opened her mouth to speak when an excited shout interrupted them.
    “And she’s not a bean nighe! She just smells like nature. I like it. We’re in love.”
    “I swear, I did not encourage—” Jane explained.
    “Oh, we know,” Cait put forth, hurrying for the dining room door. “He is going to wake the house.”
    Jane followed. How could she not?
    “Cait kidnaped her, but I don’t care that Shelly stole the water,” Raibeart was saying.
    “Who cast the drunkard spell on Raibeart again?” a young woman with an English accent demanded.
    The answer came by way of snickering laughter. “Don’t glare at me, Malina. He shouldn’t have gotten into my private liquor supply. I told ya someone was stealing my bottles of the good stuff.”
    As they came back to the front hall, it was to find the stairs and second-floor railing filled with MacGregors in various states of sleepiness.
    “There’s my Shelly!” Raibeart spread his arms wide as if he expected her to run to him.
    “Jane?”
    Her eyes found Iain on the second-floor landing. He wore a pair of plaid cotton pajama pants and nothing else. Taking the stairs barefoot, he came down to greet her.
    “I thought ya said your name was Shelly,” Murdoch demanded.
    “No, Raibeart called me a shellycoat ,” Jane corrected.
    Murdoch scratched his beard as if trying to remember if that is what had actually