A thousand thank-yous to Roberta Brown, the best agent in the world. She’s my closest friend, my trusted confidante, and so much more. I couldn’t do this without her. Special thanks to my fantastic editor, Kerry Donovan. I so appreciate her support and enthusiasm. And I’m especially grateful for her suggestion to include something magical to bind Bran and Mindy. Her comment about
something magical
became Bran’s sword, the Heartbreaker.
Much appreciation to my very handsome husband, Manfred. He proves every day that real-life heroes exist. As always, my sweet little Jack Russell, Em, my constant companion and greatest love. His cuddles and tail wags mean more to me than all the world’s gold. I only wish all dogs were as cherished.
Special thanks to my readers—you’re fantastic! For those wishing to visit Bran’s Barra, there is air service. The flights are unique, landing on a beach, the Traigh Mhor. But I prefer the ferry. Either way, I promise you’ll love Barra!
“While I’ll no’ argue that a man in a kilt is greater than any other, I’m here to tell you that a kilted Highlander is more. He is a god.”
—Saor MacSwain, Highland ghost, master of carouse, and kilt-wearer extraordinaire
Prologue
The Long Gallery at MacNeil’s Folly
New Hope, Pennsylvania
In a dimension not our own . . .
“Since when do MacNeils make war on women?”
Roderick MacNeil, proud fifteenth-century chieftain of his clan, hooked his thumbs in his sword belt and glared round at the other ghosts crowding the narrow, dark-paneled room they’d called their own for longer than was tolerable.
He also took immense pleasure in how his deep voice echoed from the rafters.
Unfortunately, the stubborn looks on his fellow ghosts’ faces indicated they weren’t paying him any heed.
“I say you, I’ll no’ be a part of it.” He lowered his brows and scowled until even the misty haze in the room shimmied and drew back from his wrath.
“And I say we have no choice!” Silvanus, likewise a fifteenth-century MacNeil, and Roderick’s cousin, waved his arms until the billowing mist drifted back in Roderick’s direction. “If we let the lass escape us, the saints only know how many more centuries we’ll be doomed to wallow here.”
“Bah!” Roderick whipped out his sword and used it to cut the swirling mist. “There has to be another way.”
“Nae, there isn’t.” Geordie, of the same blood, albeit of the sixteenth century, lifted his own voice. He stepped forward, the blues and greens of his kilt aglow against the room’s haze. “I’m with Silvanus. We must act now, even if the by-doing leaves a dirty taste in our mouths.”
“Hear, hear!” another kinsman agreed from the far end of the long gallery. “ ’Tis this
folly
that makes my bile rise, no’ the means we need to make things right.”
Roderick jammed his sword back into its sheath, then swung away to stomp the length of the room. He took pains to ignore his kinsmen and even more care not to glower at the rows of empty portraits lining the long gallery’s walls.
Huge, gilt-framed, and just recently vacated, the portraits, which had once been the pride of each respective MacNeil chieftain, now bore the shame of trapping them in a world they despised.
MacNeil’s Folly should still be MacNeil’s Tower.
Strong, safe, and intact.
Above all, in its original location on the Hebridean isle of Barra, not perched atop some fool hill in New Hope, Pennsylvania, carted there stone by stone by a lackwit descendant who chose not only to emigrate to America but to take the MacNeil ancestral seat along with him.
It was scandalous.
An abomination beyond bearing.
And—he had to admit—blowing steam out his ears and clenching his teeth so fiercely that his jaw ached wasn’t going to solve a thing.
His cousins had the right of it.
Mindy Menlove was their only hope.
Wheeling about, Roderick saw at once that his kinsmen recognized his capitulation. Silvanus didn’t bother to hide how his chest swelled with satisfaction, and Geordie, e’er a thorn in his side, thumped his walking stick hard on the floor. Others exchanged triumphant glances, while one or two shuffled their feet or fussed with their plaids, clearly not at ease in stirring his spleen.
Only one proved oblivious.
Not that it was likely Bran of Barra even knew of their quandary. If he did, chances were he’d be displeased. The unavoidable disruptions might annoy him. Unlike the rest of them, the fourteenth-century MacNeil of MacNeil didn’t haunt his portrait. He chose to remain in his chiefly hall, celebrating nightly revels with other like-minded spectral friends who appreciated his skill at maintaining MacNeil’s Tower as it was in his day.
Bran of Barra’s ghostly conjured tower, that was.
The true tower was
here
, across the great wastes of the Atlantic. Exactly where it shouldn’t be. And whether Roderick liked it or not, it was up to him and his kinsmen to see every last stone returned to Barra.
Curling his hand around his sword hilt, he scowled at Bran’s portrait, the burly chieftain’s grin and his air of joviality deeply offending him.
He looked as if he were about to throw back his head and laugh.
Roderick felt his own face turn purple with fury. “You, Silvanus!” He flashed a look at his cousin. “I’d hear what you said earlier. Mayhap you were mistaken and the lass—”
“Och, I heard her right enough.” Silvanus tossed back his plaid with a flourish. “I might be on the wrong side o’ the living, but there’s naught amiss with my ears! She’s bent on selling the castle, she is. Wants to hie herself to a place called Hawaii.”
“Haw-wah-ee?”
Roderick’s brows shot upward.
Silvanus shrugged. “That’s what it sounded like, aye. Said she’s tired o’ rain and dark woods and gloomy old piles and wants to go someplace where the sun shines and”—he raised a dramatic finger—“where she’s sure she won’t be meeting any MacNeils!”
“Pah-phooey!” Geordie made a dismissive gesture. “She just met the wrong MacNeil.”
“Indeed!” Roderick jumped on his chance. “Which is why I’m no’ for this fool plan! Scaring the wits out of her will only make her think less of us.”
“Nae, it’ll make her help us.” Geordie wagged his walking stick for emphasis. “If we tell her we’ll follow her to the ends o’ the earth, haunting and pestering her all her days, she’ll surely see reason and agree to have our castle sent back where it belongs.”
“And if she refuses?” Roderick frowned at him. “Are you prepared to chase after her to some heathenish place with a name we can’t even pronounce?”
Roderick shuddered.
MacNeil’s Folly was shameful enough, but the thought of having to endure a place called
Haw-wah-ee
was even worse.
The very notion jellied his knees.
“Well?” he thundered, pinning his wrath on Geordie. “I’ll ask you again. What say you if she refuses?”
“She won’t.” Geordie set down his walking stick with a
clack
. “She’s already afraid of us. You can’t deny how she hastens through here, always glancing over her shoulder as if she expects us to jump down out of our portraits and whisk her away to some harrowing fate.”
“Geordie speaks true,” rumbled a voice from the back corner. “She’ll do anything rather than risk having us hovering around her.”
“I ne’er thought of myself as a man to set women cringing.” Roderick’s pride bit deep. “If you’d know the way of it, the ladies were e’er fawning all o’er me. And I sure didn’t mind their attention! Mindy Menlove is a fine lassie. She didn’t deserve what was done to her and she doesn’t need—”
“ ’Tis the only way, Roderick.” Silvanus clamped a hand on his shoulder. “If we lose her, it may be another hundred years before someone else as likely to help us comes along.”
“You know it as well as the rest of us.” Geordie spoke the inevitable. “We have to do it.”
Roderick harrumphed and jerked free of his cousin’s grasp.
Then he nodded.
He’d be damned if he’d voice his assent. A head bob would have to do.
Still fuming, he went to stand beneath his portrait frame. “When do you propose we confront her?”
“It must be soon.” Silvanus looked at the others. “She’s already speaking with estate agents.”
The mist swirling around Roderick went cold and glittered darkly.
He folded his arms, ignoring the chill. “How soon?”
“I’d suggest tonight.” Geordie glanced at the long gallery’s tall, diamond-paned windows. “The full moon will lend a dash of eeriness to our appearance.”
Roderick snorted.
Ignoring him, his kinsmen cheered as one, and then the otherworldly haze in the room began to shimmy and swirl, individual wafts spinning back into the portrait frames whence they’d come.
Only Roderick waited, looking on in disgust as they assumed their usual poses, their faces once again turning as cold and silent as the oiled canvas that held them.
“So be it.” Roderick spoke to the empty room. “I ken when I’m outnumbered.”
Then he, too, slipped back into his heavy gilt frame.
And as he settled into place, he glared out into the quiet of the long gallery, absolutely refusing to think about what would happen when the moon rose.
He just knew it would be a disaster.
Chapter 1
MacNeil’s Folly
New Hope, Pennsylvania
Definitely our dimension . . .
Mindy Menlove lived in a mausoleum.
A thick-walled medieval castle full of gloom and shadows with just the right dash of Tudor and Gothic to curdle the blood of anyone bold enough to pass through its massive iron-studded door.
Once within, the adventure continued with a maze of dark passageways and rooms crammed to bursting with rich tapestries and heavy, age-blackened furniture. Dust motes thrived, often spinning eerily in the light that spilled through tall, stone-mullioned windows. Some doors squeaked delightfully, and certain floorboards were known for giving the most delicious creaks. Huge carved-stone fireplaces still held lingering traces of the atmosphere-charged scent of peat-and-heather-tinged smoke. Or so it was claimed by visitors with noses sensitive to such things.
Few were the modern disfigurements.
Yet the castle did boast hot water, heat, and electricity. Not to mention cable TV and high-speed Internet. MacNeil’s Folly was also within the delivery area of the nearest pizza shop. And the daily paper arrived without fail on the steps each morning.
These luxuries were made possible because the ancient pile no longer stood in its original location somewhere on a bleak and windswept Hebridean isle, but on the crest of a thickly wooded hill not far from the quaint and pleasant antiquing mecca of New Hope, Pennsylvania.
Even so, the castle was a haven for hermits.
A recluse’s dream.
Only trouble was that Mindy had an entirely different idea of paradise.
White sand, palm trees, and sunshine came to mind. Soft fragrant breezes and—joy of joys—no need to ever dress warm again. A trace of cocoa butter tanning lotion and mai tais sipped at sunset.
A tropical sunset.
Almost there—in her mind, anyway—Mindy imagined the castle’s drafty drawing room falling away from her. Bit by bit, everything receded. The plaid carpet and each piece of clunky, carved-oak furniture, and even the heavy, dark blue curtains.
She took a step closer to the window and drew a deep breath. Closing her eyes, she inhaled not the damp scent of cold Bucks County rain and wet, dripping pinewoods but the heady perfume of frangipani and orchids.
And, because it was her dream, a whiff of fresh-ground Kona coffee.
“You should never have dated a passenger.”
“Agggh!” Mindy jumped, almost dropping the mint chocolate wafer she’d been about to pop into her mouth. She’d forgotten she wasn’t alone.
All thoughts of Hawaii vanished like a pricked balloon.
Whirling around, she returned the wafer to a delicate bone china plate on a tea tray and sent a pointed look across the room at her sister, Margo, her elder by all of one year.
“What of your watercooler romance with Mr. Computer Geek last year?” Mindy wiped her fingers on a napkin and then frowned when she only smeared the melted chocolate, making an even greater mess. “If I recall, he left you after less than six weeks.”
“We parted amicably.” Margo peered at her from a high wingback chair near the hearth. “Nor was it a
watercooler affair
. He only came by when the computers at Ye Olde Pagan Times went on the blink. And”—she leaned forward, her eyes narrowing in a way Mindy knew to dread—“neither did I move in with him. I didn’t even love him.”
Mindy bit the inside of her cheek to keep from snorting.
It wouldn’t do to remind her sister that she’d sung a different tune last summer. As she did with every new Romeo that crossed her path, whether he chanced into the New Age shop where Margo worked, or she just stumbled into him on the street.
Margo Menlove was walking flypaper and men were the flies.
They just couldn’t resist her.
Not that Mindy minded.
Especially not when she was supposed to be mourning an unfaithful fiancé who’d choked to death on a fish bone during an intimate dinner with a Las Vegas showgirl.
