The Charm Stone Read online

  “I'm in no mood fer yer jests, imp.”

  “I couldna change me fate, MacNeil, nor that of the stone. Fate has the final say, ye know that as well as I do. Twasn't as if I could raise the trunk from the depths of the ocean floor.”

  “Yer to have the stone's interest and well-being at heart at all times. It is the heart o’ the clan, but there ye go, once again more interested in—”

  “Are ye no’ interested in what the lass intends to do with that board of hers?” Bagan said.

  Frustrating, annoying as all hell, and quite deft at shifting the focus away from himself at the most judicious times, Connal thought. But the dwarf had a point. He turned his attention once again to the water below. She was sitting astride the plank now. “What in blazes does she think she's about?”

  “I told ye. Wave hunting.”

  Connal didn't shift his attention from the scene below. “What would she do with one were she to somehow catch it?”

  Bagan hopped down from the window ledge and waddled over to stand beside Connal. “From what I understand, one rides them.”

  Connal didn't respond. His gaze was fully intent on the woman astride the painted board. She'd paddled closer to the castle ruin, where the tumble of stones from the castle walls created a seawall of sorts, which in turn created a greater water surge. She was moving directly into the heaviest part of the surf and-gods!-she was attempting to steer that flimsy piece of driftwood in the direct path of- “She is plannin’ to send herself to hell!”

  Connal was out of the tower in the flash, ignoring Bagan's pleas to stop and wait and let him explain. As if he'd believe anything the imp had to say. Man couldn't even deliver one winsome bride to his side through a bit of a storm! And now his current betrothed was trying to kill herself.

  Connal hit the beach running, so unnerved he hadn't even thought to merely appear in the water next to her. He was already unwinding his kilt and preparing himself for the bitter cold of the North Sea when he came to a skidding halt as he rounded the last pile of ruinous rubble… aghast as he spied her standing on that painted plank amidst Mother Nature's finest fury.

  But if she was intending to kill herself, she'd yet to plunge herself into the rocky depths. In fact, it looked as if she'd had a change of heart and was desperately steering the thing away from the rocks, away from certain death. Or, at the very least, severe dismemberment.

  He snapped out of his daze and rushed into the surf as she neared the beach. It was only after he'd dragged her kicking and screaming from the roiling seafoam that he thought to wonder on the fact that, close up, she hadn't seemed remotely panicked. At least not until he'd come in the water after her. In fact, she'd looked joyous. And quite a lovely countenance she had when she smiled, he thought.

  Well… she wasn't smiling now.

  Chapter 5

  What the hell do you think you're doing?” Josie sputtered, pounding at his annoyingly broad chest. “Put me down! Now, dammit.” “Ye shouldna swear, lass. Isna verra becoming.” She glared at him. “Neither is dragging me off my surfboard. Not to mention dangerous.”

  His flash black eyes widened. “Dangerous? Ye think me savin yer life to be the dangerous act?”

  “Saving my life?” She was still sputtering, but she'd given up beating on his chest. He was completely impervious to it, as if she were but a little mouse pounding on a lion. Well, she was no mouse, as this lion was about to learn. “Did you hear me scream for help? No,” she answered for him. “I was in complete control, or was until I had to flip out to avoid ramming right into you. Would have served you right, you know, but it might have damaged my board.”

  He was regarding her steadily now, as one might watch a crazy person they were wanting to placate. “What manner of sport is this wave hunting then?” he asked after several moments of enduring her glare.

  He'd caught her off guard with the question. “It's called surfing. It's usually relaxing ” she added pointedly. “You've never seen a person surf?”

  He shook his head, paused a moment, then said, “So ye put yerself in front of those waves on purpose then, but not in order to expedite your passage into the afterlife.”

  “You thought I was trying to kill myself?” She laughed, and his face reddened.

  “I'm no’ in the habit of watching lassies try to harness the power of an ocean with naught but a silver of driftwood beneath their feet,” he said tautly.

  “Well, get used to it. These aren't the best tubes in the world by any stretch, but if I have to be stuck here for a few days, they're definitely going to get ridden.” She pushed her stringy wet hair from her forehead. “So, now that you and I have an understanding, I would appreciate it if you would put me down. Pretty please,” she added with a fake smile.

  “I'll put ye down when I'm good and ready.”

  Undeterred, she tried a different tack. “You must be cold. Don't you think you should go get into something dry?” Providing you don't take me with you while you do it, she added silently, wishing she'd thought that one through a bit better.

  “The cold doesna bother me. Nor the damp.”

  “Oh.” Well. Of course, now that he'd gone and mentioned it, she became hyperaware of that damp chest she was clasped against, covered in a white cotton shirt that now clung transparently to his skin. His muscles were clearly defined, as was the scattering of dark hair that swirled over his pecs.

  She shifted her gaze away only to find him smiling at her. Caught. How mortifying. She forced herself not to squirm, but there was no denying her body was responding quite enthusiastically to her current predicament. All the more reason to end it immediately. She blurted out the first thing that came to her mind. “I could teach you. To surf, I mean.”

  Bingo.

  He let her feet drop to the sand, then steadied her with one hand, before taking a step back. “I dinna share yer enthusiasm for taming the waters.”

  She cocked her head and studied him. “You're not telling me you're afraid of the water, are you?”

  “I'm no’ afraid of anything.” He plucked at his shirtsleeves, pulling the soggy fabric from his biceps and momentarily distracting her. “I simply dinna care to flounder about in it. I leave that to the fish.”

  She dragged her gaze from his arms, but his face was just as arresting. In full daylight he was even more imposing. His dark hair fell to his shoulders, his face was all hard angles, but they were relieved by what had to be the most seductively curved lips she'd ever seen on a man. And those eyes. So dark, even now in the sunlight, she swore they were fully black. But they were far from cold. In fact, it was as if they sucked up all the available heat, then focused it in one tight beam… a beam currently directed right at her.

  She shivered, but it had nothing to do with the chilly sand.

  “Yer cold,” he said. “Ye should change before we move yer things to the tower.”

  Oddly touched by his obviously sincere concern, her guard dropped. “That's okay, really. I just-Wait a minute! Did you say move? I'm not moving anything.” She popped her board off the sand with her foot and grabbed it with both hands. If he came so much as a foot closer, she was going to clobber him with it.

  This made the second time in two months she'd been forced to think of her board as a weapon. Well, they didn't call them guns for nothing, she thought. But they were for shooting waves. “All I wanted to do was surf,” she muttered. She lifted the board over her head and started off with very determined strides toward Gregor's place. “I'm going inside. Do not follow me.” Keep walking, act like you own the world.

  She wanted to run. All the way back to Parker's Inlet. But she was stuck here and the island wasn't big enough to hide from him. So she was going to have to find a way to deal with him and this MacNeil legend he was hung up on. He actually seemed harmless enough, unless you counted the threat to her libido. All she had to do was placate him until the ferryman came back.

  Visions of how she could simultaneously placate him and her suddenly
active libido immediately sprang to mind. She just as immediately shoved them right back out again. She was as open to an island fling with a gorgeous Scot as the next red-blooded, all-American female, but an island fling with a gorgeous-but-wacko Scot was probably not a good idea.

  So she kept on walking.

  “Yer runnin’ again.”

  “I'm walking,” she clarified. Confidently walking. Away from the man that I would certainly never have wild, uncontrollable, roll-around-in-his-tower sex with. She sighed. But she kept on walking.

  “Ye canno’ challenge the Fates, lass.”

  “Oh, yes I can,” she said. Walking, walking.

  “Turn around then, and let me prove to ye that there are things with no explanation, yet they exist anyway.”

  Don't turn around. Walking, walking. Dammit, she was turning. She propped the board on her head. “Go ahead. Knock yourself out.”

  “I beg yer pardon?”

  “It's an expression. You really have been in that tower a long time, haven't you?”

  “Three hundred years, almost to the day.”

  Three hundred years. Okeydokey. Definitely wacko. But she'd known that already, right? So why did hearing him say it depress her more than scare her? Because you're still harboring illusions of hot tower sex, that's why. Well, she was over that now. He didn't think he was a descendant of The MacNeil, he thought he was The MacNeil. So much for lust among the ruins.

  “Yeah, okay then,” she said, backing up the beach. “It's been nice.” If unreal. Backing, backing.

  “Ye doubt the Fates? Well, lass, I dinna have time to bring ye around to the truth of it slowly. So I'll just get right to the heart of it. Ye brought me the stone, and now 'tis time to—”

  “I know, I know. I appreciate the story, really I do. I'm flattered even. But I just wanted to return it to its rightful owner. That's all I signed on for, and I've done that now. So I'd really appreciate it if we can just say good-bye, okay?”

  “Why no’ just toss the thing back in the ocean then?”

  “How do you know I found it in the ocean?”

  “Bagan regaled me with the tale last eve.”

  “I told you why I kept it. I wanted to make sure it got back to its owner. That's all. End of story.”

  “How do you explain me, then? And Bagan?”

  She couldn't explain Bagan, nor did she want to. “You believe you're The MacNeil. I have no problem with that. You're out here, not harming anyone, so all's well, right?”

  “I am The MacNeil. Or, more precisely, I am the ghost of The MacNeil. Either way, we're one and the same.”

  Well, she had to keep talking to him, didn't she? She would have been safer sticking with Bagan. A ghost. Lovely. “I'm going inside now.” She would have waved, but she was holding her board, so she smiled in what she hoped was a friendly, I'm-not-terrified-that-I'm-talking-to-a-total-whack-job way.

  “I offered ye proof, did I no’?”

  “Yep, you did, but that's okay. I'm a total believer. Not in the baby-bearing thing,” she quickly added. “But if you say you're a ghost, who am I to argue?” She was backing away more quickly now, unwilling to turn her back on him, but not willing to stand there a moment longer.

  A moment later she wished she had turned her back. Because then she could have kept right on telling herself that he was the crazy one, and that she was perfectly sane.

  But a perfectly sane person wouldn't see a soaking wet Scot disappear right before her eyes. A perfectly sane person would look at the sand where he'd been standing and see footprints. A perfectly sane person would desperately believe that it had all been some kind of trick of the sunlight and water.

  “No, a perfectly sane person would faint,” she muttered. Unfortunately, she had never been a fainter. Even more unfortunately, she was pretty sure she could no longer think of herself as perfectly sane.

  Only the insane would believe in invisible little people and sexy, kilt-wearing ghosts. Her gaze drifted to the tower, drawn there by a force she couldn't explain.

  Connal grinned down at her from a tower window.

  No way could he have made it up there that fast. In the next instant, he vanished again. She swallowed hard, might have even whimpered a bit, trying hard not to recall how swiftly he'd moved from the beach to standing right behind her on the night they'd first met. She wondered if Gregor had any whiskey stashed in his croft as she slowly turned back toward the path leading to his house… only to find Connal perched on a large boulder at the top of the hill.

  He looked incredibly unghostlike to her. His damp kilt clung to well-developed thighs, his shirt was unlaced midway down his chest, his hair danced a bit in the shore breezes… and his smile was knowing and not a little smug as he faced the sun. And her.

  “I don't believe in ghosts,” she said flatly.

  He levered himself off the rock and walked down the path toward her. “Rather hard to deny what is before your very eyes.”

  She let her board slide to the sand and raised a shaky hand toward his chest. His shirt was cold and damp, but the skin beneath it was warm and vibrantly alive. As were the eyes she lost herself in when she lifted her gaze to his. “You don't feel like a ghost.”

  He grinned again, and her body was having no problem making the leap of faith. “What is a ghost supposed to feel like, lass?”

  “I-I don't know. Cold. Dead.”

  “Och, my mortal self is dead, yes.” He lifted her hand and placed it back on his chest. “But my soul still burns with life.”

  She yanked her hand back as if it had itself been burned. “I've lost my mind. Completely gone.”

  “Ye no have ghosts where yer from, then?”

  “Other people have ghosts. Just like other people see UFOs. Iam not other people.”

  “I'd say ye are now.” His lips quirked again and she couldn't manage to look away. God, the man had a mouth made for sex.

  She looked away then. But the sex part stayed in her brain. “If you're dead, then how exactly did you plan on making babies?” As soon as the words left her mouth she realized she'd blundered. Badly.

  If she'd thought his previous smiles sexy, this one was downright carnal. As was the way he reached out to stroke her cheek. She should pull away. She should run. Fainting would even be welcome at this point.

  She did none of those things. His fingertips were blunt and rough, but his touch was gentle. And yet it was his gaze, far too alive for someone claiming to be dead, that held her in thrall.

  “Upon my death, I made a pact with the gods. They've allowed me to play ghost of the tower as I awaited the charm stone's return. Fate has tested me long, but I knew if I kept faith it would be rewarded. It was the only way to prove my clan worthy of being saved.” He stepped closer. “Year upon year I waited.” His voice deepened to where it resonated along her skin… inside her skin, until she felt as if her body had somehow come alive in a whole new way beneath his fingers. “And now you're here.”

  It was some kind of madness, she thought wildly. And yet, she didn't try to escape it. She couldn't.

  He leaned down and she realized his intent immediately. A sane person would have screamed, kicked, or shoved. She stood perfectly still as his mouth descended on hers, so slowly her body ached for the contact by the time his lips brushed against hers.

  Not cold, and far from dead. And neither, she soon realized, was she. She didn't lift her hands to his chest, or do anything to involve herself in the kiss in any way. She merely accepted his mouth on hers… and marveled at the way a single kiss brought her entire being singing to life.

  When he lifted his head, she wavered slightly as her eyes blinked open again. She hadn't even been aware of closing them. “Pretty good for a dead guy,” she managed. But her raw attempt at humor didn't negate what had just happened to her. Or the fact that, if she were honest with herself, she wanted it to happen again.

  He smiled and pulled her fully into his arms. “ Tis only the beginning.” And with that
he bent her head back, dove his fingers into her hair, and kissed her so thoroughly and with such passion that she gave up trying to remain passive. In fact, it was almost gleeful the way she joined the melee that was the tangle of their mouths and bodies.

  It was only when his hand slid down over her shoulder and closed around her neoprene-covered breast that she swam back to the surface of reality. She yanked away, or tried to, but the movement was enough to break their kiss.

  He didn't force his attentions further, but neither did he let her go. Which was just as well as she was fairly certain she'd drop to a limp heap on the sand if he did.

  “I-we-um…”She lifted a shaky hand to her mouth. “We shouldn't… I can't… really. It's not-I don't—”

  “Does kissin’ always leave yer tongue tied so?”

  She tried to laugh, but it sounded more like a croak. “Not usually.” Just the way you do it, she thought.

  His arm was still about her waist and he tugged her a bit closer. No amount of neoprene could prevent her from feeling the extent of his arousal. “Do ye still question my ability to have ye the way a man has a woman?”

  She gulped. “No.” It was a rasp. She cleared her throat. “No,” she said more clearly, “but I—”

  He silenced her by pressing a finger to her mouth. She felt a distinct dip in the knees. What was wrong with her? It was as if she was in heat.

  “I know yer no’ prepared for what I'm offering you,” he said. “I've waited this long, I can wait a bit longer.” He slid the finger from her lips down along her jaw, then over her chin to her throat… and lower. “But I willna wait forever.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but he just shook his head. “We're fated, Josie, you and I. It will happen.”

  Before she could absorb the impact that hearing her name on his lips had on her… he'd vanished.

  She stumbled backward and almost landed in a heap on her surfboard. Deciding that might not be a bad idea, she slowly lowered herself on shaky legs until she sat firmly on the sand. Solid ground. How was it that it had felt more like quicksand a moment ago?