The Charm Stone Read online

His gaze was so direct, so focused she felt as if it reached in and touched the most intimate part of her. “I—”

  “If ye bear me the chain, then ye bear me yerself as well, lass.” His intensity was like a live thing.

  She forced her throat to work, her tongue to move. “I don't think so. I'm really sorry.” She started backing up when the gleam in his eyes grew brighter, but he merely kept pace toward her. “I-I mean, I'm flattered and all, but… I-I can't… you know… bear you anything else.”

  “What I know is that you bear my stone.” He closed the distance and lifted the necklace toward her. “Which means yer mine now as well.”

  Chapter 4

  Three hundred years. An eternity of time, but his faith had never wavered. He'd done little but think about this moment. Yet now that it was here, Connal MacNeil scarcely knew how to act. His heart pounded and a loud roar had taken up residence inside his head. His destiny would now-finally-be fulfilled.

  “Come wi’ me,” he commanded the young woman who'd borne him the trunk. A comely lass she was, too, he thought. Short, wind-tossed curls and expressive eyes, coupled with a figure seemingly hardy enough to bear him the beginnings of the legacy he'd bargained so dearly for. Aye, she would do. Not that he could afford to be choosy.

  He'd long wondered if the gods had indeed played a role in the fate of the stone, despite knowing that once the stone was set upon its way, only Fate guided its course. Had they somehow conspired with the Fates to punish him for his brothers’ transgressions? He knew not. But his faith would be rewarded. His destiny was not to die on some bloody battlefield, his clan in ruin.

  And finally, Fate had proven his patience and faith worthy of that reward.

  He took the arm of the woman sent to fulfill his destiny and turned to make his way back to the tower. The rising tide would soon make the trip difficult.

  She surprised him by yanking her arm free. He spun about to find her staring at him in a distinctly defiant manner, arms folded. “I've waited a long time for you and I'll no’ be wastin’ any more of it. I've a legacy to build.”

  Even in the twilight, he saw those expressive eyes go dark. She had quite a prominent chin, he noticed, especially when she stuck it out so.

  “I'm not going anywhere with you,” she announced with barely a quaver in her tone.

  “A brave lass,” he said, nodding approvingly. “Our son will need one such as you to protect and defend him until he is old enough to do it for himself.”

  Her mouth dropped open, then snapped shut again as she quickly scuttled out of his reach.

  He sighed, trying to rein in his impatience. But three hundred years of waiting tended to take a toll on a man. “Ye have no say in the matter.”

  Her chin came up again, shoulders squared. Healthy shoulders he noticed, wondering if she labored in the fields of her homeland. He skimmed his gaze lower and was disappointed to find that her hips weren't cut from the same sturdy cloth. Narrow they were, almost mannish. Well, she was sturdy enough, he decided. She would have to be.

  “I've given you back your blasted stone,” she said, this time the trembling more clear in her voice, but he wasn't sure if it forged in fear… or fury. “In fact I came halfway around the world, or so it seems, to deliver it personally. But you'll have to understand if I refuse to accept your kind offer of rape as a token of your gratitude. A simple thank-you would be enough.”

  His eyes popped wide. “Rape?”

  She folded her arms, but her legs weren't braced nearly as firmly as she would have liked him to believe. “That's what they call it when you take a woman against her will, which I can heartily guarantee will be the case if you lay so much as one finger on me.”

  She was something. All spitfire and ribald bravado. He tipped back his head and laughed.

  “You're not exactly instilling any confidence in me here,” she snapped.

  He sighed, thinking it might have been better if the stone had brought him a quieter, obedient lass, but he was too overjoyed at its return to judge Fate's choice. They hadn't kept him waiting three hundred years for no reason.

  “I willna hurt ye,” he said, then took a step forward, hand outstretched, frowning when she stepped farther away.

  “You'll pardon me if I don't swoon with relief.”

  “Och, but there's no need for such a sharp tongue.”

  Now she snorted with what he supposed was a laugh, though quite an unfeminine version of it. “You announce you're going to force yourself on me and I've offended you with sarcasm?” She bowed. “Please accept my humblest apologies, my lord.”

  “I'm laird, no’ a lord.”

  She straightened and sighed. “Whatever. Listen, I'm tired. It's been an amazingly long day. I'd really like to go inside-alone-and settle in for the night. We can take up this discussion again in the morning, okay?” She didn't wait for him to answer, she simply turned her back on him and began hiking up the rutted lane to Gregor's old place.

  He was so unused to being treated in such a manner-no matter that he'd lived alone for so long-that it took him a moment to react. “See here, we have much that needs discussing.”

  “If you want to talk to someone, put the necklace on,” she called out over her shoulder, not bothering to look back. “I'm sure the dwarf won't mind listening to you.”

  “Bagan?”

  That stopped her, but she didn't turn around. “You know him?”

  “Aye. He's the guardian of the stone.”

  She stood stock-still for a long moment. “Not a very good one,” she said finally, no longer so strident.

  “You've seen him then? You know what became of him?”

  Her spine stiffened and she started moving again. “Put the stone on and ask him yourself.”

  She was at the door when he spoke again, this time more softly. “If ye've met Bagan, then surely you know ye canno’ escape what lies in store for us.”

  She did turn then, a trick of the waning light illuminating her face clearly to him. “Two months ago I would have said there was no such thing as Fate or Destiny. I'm still not a real fan of either.”

  “I'll convince ye otherwise.”

  Was that a smile curving her lips? He couldn't be sure, but he heard the music in her voice for the first time. “You're not off to a real great start.”

  “Are ye challenging me, then?”

  There was a long pause. So long he fully expected her to disappear inside without another word. When she did finally speak, what she said surprised him. “What is your name?”

  “I'm The MacNeil.”

  “Your given name.”

  What was she up to now? “Connal.”

  That seemed to give her pause. “Family name?” Then she waved her hand. “Never mind. I really don't want to know. Night.” Then she was gone.

  He let her go, looking down instead to the trunk he held tightly against his chest. The stone had been returned. He could scarce believe it was true. He glanced at the closed door. And with its return, another challenge.

  It made sense, he supposed. Nothing had ever come to him easily. He'd had to bargain his soul to get this far. Gods knew what else was expected of him. But he'd waited this long, he'd do whatever it took, make whatever sacrifice was necessary. She was finally here… and she would be his.

  A yellow light glowed to life behind the window-pane. “I am up to this challenge, fair one,” he said. “And any others ye care to lay in my path. See if I'm no’.”

  Josie sat up in bed with a start, breathing heavily as the last vestiges of the dream misted away. “Oh, thank God,” she whispered, pressing a hand to her racing heart. She'd been dreaming, that's all. Dwarves and magic stones and demanding men with long black hair and flashing black eyes… she'd made it all up. Then her vision cleared and she realized she was not in her own bed, or her own house. Hell, she wasn't even in her own country. She hadn't been dreaming after all. Dammit.

  She flopped back on the feather down and frowned at the beamed ceili
ng. The beamed ceiling in Gregor's croft. In Scotland. “Why me?”

  Thankfully no one answered that question. She wasn't up to any more supernatural discussions at the moment. Or discussions with supernaturals, for that matter.

  She peered out the small loft window. But as it never got fully dark this far north in the summertime, it was hard to tell what time it was. She rolled over, looked at her travel clock, and groaned. “Why am I awake at six o'clock?”

  Well, she wasn't staying in bed. That would lead to more sleep… and more dreams. She rubbed at the goose bumps on her skin as recollections of the exact nature of some of those dreams drifted through her mind… and her body. She really didn't want to think about that… or the fact that, in her dreams, when he had put his hands on her, she'd responded in a way that had given a whole new meaning to the term “consensual sex.”

  “Enough.” She flung the quilts off and forced herself out of bed. Gregor's place was small and sparsely furnished. The Spartans would have been right at home, she thought with a smile. The lower level was actually one large room that comprised both living area and kitchen. The loft was all bedroom with a small bath tucked in the alcove. She stepped closer to the little window, pushing open the cantilevered panes so she could see more clearly. She stilled when she realized the view from the loft was focused directly on the castle ruins.

  Part of her wanted to pull away, tug the windows shut, close the curtains, and pretend none of it had happened. She could drive to town, beg a room or sleep in her car at the dock until the next ferry arrived. She didn't care where it was heading. The stone had been returned, she'd done what she set out to do.

  And yet she couldn't turn away from the window, or stop from searching out the tower windows for a glimpse of him. She scanned the beaches, but there was no sign of him there either, not even footprints left behind from an early-morning stroll. She spent a moment or two wondering if she really had dreamed the whole thing. Maybe the blasted trunk was still tucked in the boot of her car.

  But she knew it wasn't. It was tucked in that tower. In the possession of The MacNeil.

  She wrapped her arms around her middle. Why hadn't anyone told her the tower was still inhabited? Maybe that was the real reason Maeve had been so leery of her staying out here. Maybe he was some kind of eccentric descendant who thought he was laird of the nonexistent MacNeil clan.

  “Except he knew about Bagan,” she murmured beneath her breath. She didn't know what to think of that. She supposed it was possible that tales of the clan guardian had been passed down from generation to generation. Still, she'd spent two months convincing herself the dwarf had been some kind of delusion and she wasn't as relieved as she'd thought she would be to hear his existence confirmed by someone else.

  She turned her gaze to the shoreline, then out to the water. Now that she was here, somehow things that seemed fanciful-okay, certifiable-back home in the States actually seemed possible, even probable. There was definitely something magical about these islands. Especially Glenmuir, where crofts and sheep dotted the hills, and the one small town was inhabited with kindly older folk who could claim to have fairies living under their stoops and seem perfectly plausible.

  For all that she'd flown to Scotland on a plane, driven to this very croft in an automobile… she could step outside and easily believe it was centuries earlier. The fact that the croft she stood in now was likely older than most structures currently standing in the United States was not lost on her. Glenmuir was definitely a place out of time.

  Her thoughts strayed again to Connal. Connal. Just thinking his name gave her the shivers, made him seem all too real. It was the same name Bagan had mentioned, the name belonging to man who'd lived three hundred years ago. It had to be a family name passed down from MacNeil to MacNeil.

  Yer now mine as well, lass.

  His words mixed with the dreams she'd had about him and she shifted uncomfortably, thinking once again of running. But there was nowhere to run. She was stuck here, in this land that was both dream and nightmare, for three days.

  And yet… escape from all this confusion lay just outside her window. The beach was beautiful, the waves, though small, were breaking perfectly, and the sky was clear and sunny. She could sort this out later. The siren call was upon her. And she was going to lose herself in the rhythm of the ocean, the one place she always felt at home.

  Connal stood at his tower window and watched her as she made her way down the path to the beach. She was clad in a black garment that clung to her like a second layer of skin. He found himself rethinking his opinion on her hips. They didn't sway overly much, but her purposeful stride stirred him nonetheless. Och, he'd been far too long deprived of a woman's softness. But his thoughts and energies had been focused only on the return of the stone… and the return of prosperity to Glenmuir.

  Now that the stone lay securely inside his tower walls once more, his thoughts were on her. And little else. She'd followed him into his dreams last night, whereupon his subconscious had placed a far greater emphasis on how he'd gone about siring his future heir than on the importance of the heir himself.

  She crossed the beach at an angle, heading toward the water. What is she about? His attention was pulled from those compact curves to the brightly colored plank she carried tucked beneath her arm. It was longer than she was. He once again marveled at her strength as she carried the beam quite easily. Was she perhaps planning to hunt him down and thrash him with it? He smiled then, thinking that while her refusal to accept Fate's plan was frustrating for someone who'd waited as long as he had, her feisti-ness appealed to him. He'd need a strong woman to carry on once he was gone.

  Gone. He could scarce believe his time here was close to an end. He'd had a very narrow view of the world, trapped as he was here, but it had been the only view he'd desired. Very few ever strolled these shores. In fact, more had left than had ever come. He'd borne the pain of his bargain in silence, forcing himself to watch the final decline of his clan, his home, as a reminder of why his faith must never waver.

  Yet, it had. Such a long stretch of time, with nothing to do but ponder one's actions. He'd remained in seclusion, not revealing his spectral self to anyone for a very long time, nursing the pain of the brutal end his fellow clansmen had come to at the hands of other, more powerful clans. Nursing also his faith that, in the end, Fate would deliver what she had promised. The stone… and the woman who would help him return prosperity to what was left of Glenmuir.

  After a century of time, he'd finally sought out company. It was that or go mad. Gregor's ancestors had erected the croft and their small farm holding by then. He'd taken to visiting late at night, when the master of the croft was well in his cups and unlikely to question the reality of his unearthly guest come morning. Gregor had been a particular favorite. Quite verbose in his opinions of… well, most everything.

  Those visits had afforded him not only knowledge of the world beyond this place, but of what was happening about the island itself. He'd begun to feel his faith slip as he watched his homeland near its final years. There was no new life on Glenmuir, and those who inhabited it weren't long for this world. Once they were gone, Glenmuir would fall to its final ruin. As much a ghost of her former self as he was.

  Then he had come to realize Fate's reasoning. If he was being punished somehow for his brothers’ refusal to accept the promise of the stone by being forced to witness the slow, torturous result of their careless choices, then his reward for keeping faith would logically be saving Glenmuir once and for all. Snatching it back from the yaw of ruin and death.

  Now that time was blessedly, mercifully at hand and he was more than ready for the task that lay before him, regardless of the challenges yet to be met. But was he really ready to leave this place once and for all when he'd achieved his goal?

  “Good God, yes,” he breathed.

  She was heading directly toward the water now. He was drawn from his musings and moved to the next opening in the tower wall. Sh
e certainly didn't plan to raft her way to the mainland, did she? She'd be heading in the wrong direction, if that were the case.

  He watched in amusement. She was not a Scot, which had put him at a bit of a loss. Why had the Fates tossed a foreign-born woman into his path? Perhaps she had Scots blood somewhere in her ancestry. He shrugged off his curiosity. Destiny was often a puzzle, one not to be solved by mere men. He knew from centuries spent trying.

  It wasn't until she waded out into the water, with the beam held aloft, that he began to grow concerned. “Gods, she's planning on drowning herself!”

  “Nay, she's out to hunt waves.”

  Connal's spine stiffened at the arrival of his newest companion. “I don't recall requesting your guidance, Bagan.” Their discussion last eve had done little to raise the guardian in his estimation. Connal turned to find him seated precariously in a window opening and had to forcibly resist the urge to send him toppling out of it. Not that it would do any good. Blasted guardianship protected him. Had it protected the stone as well, he might not have spent the past three centuries stuck in this bloody tower.

  “Ye needn't scowl at me so,” Bagan said, apparently unfazed by his chilly reception. “I've explained about the storm. Ye can hardly hold me accountable for that. Even Josie said so.”

  “Josie?” So that was her name. He hadn't thought to ask last night. It sounded… odd on his lips. Foreign. “Short for Josephine, then.” Josephine. Yes, he liked that better. “Another MacLeod is she?” That would help explain the choice.

  “Nay, no’ a MacLeod. Griffin is her surname. And 'tis simply Josie. Something to do with being named after a family cat.” Bagan waved a stubby hand. “A long story.”

  Connal frowned. “Yes, I can imagine. I'll hear it from her.”

  “Have yer way then,” Bagan said dismissively.

  “Had I my way, I'd have been married to the Lady Elsinor, sired a castleful of hardy bairns, and been long dead by now.”

  Bagan offered a cheeky smile. “Ye got half yer desire anyway.” He shrank back when Connal advanced on him, grabbing hold of the window to keep from falling out.