Several copper milk cans artfully arranged in a corner toppled over, crashing into an equally ancient butter churn. The clatter—with ensuing echo—was deafening and brought a huge grin to Margo’s face.
“See?” She scissored her legs gleefully. “The castle spirits don’t want you disturbing them. The Folly is their sanctuary. They’re letting you know they want to stay here. They consider Bucks County their home now.”
Mindy snorted. “The
Caspers
in the long gallery made it clear what they think of Bucks County and”—she glanced at the door arch, half expecting to see them huddled in the shadows, eavesdropping—“where they want to be. I’m taking them there, to Barra, and then I’m heading for Florida.”
“Florida?”
Margo sounded horrified.
Mindy quite agreed, but kept the sentiment to herself.
She did cross the kitchen to fetch a platter of locally made farmhouse Cheddar, sliced salami, and a loaf of crusty French bread.
“Here”—she plonked the tray down on the table, next to her sister—“eat something before hunger puts any more crazy notions in your head.”
“But . . . Florida?” Margo popped a salami slice into her mouth. “You wanted to go to Hawaii. Settle on Maui or, at least, Oahu’s North Shore.” She swallowed the salami and reached for another piece. “I even caught you scanning the Internet for homes in Haleiwa and Waialua. You—”
“My budget won’t allow a North Shore rental, much less the kind of house I was hoping to buy.” Mindy started to cut a piece of Cheddar, then set down the cheese knife.
Not surprisingly, she wasn’t hungry.
She did frown. “Florida is my only option. It’s sunny, warm, and affordable. I can stay with airline friends in Tampa until I’ve saved enough to rent a place of my own. If Global will let me start flying anywhere near my old salary, I should do okay.
“I’ll visit Hawaii on my vacations.” She shrugged, the prospect making her heart sink. “It won’t be so bad. As long as I’m away from rain and cold mist, I’ll be—”
“You’ll be miserable.” Margo jumped off the table. “I have a better idea. You stay here and let Ye Olde Pagan Times take advantage of your ghosties. Look how many people flock to our Gettysburg tours. The tours are booked solid months in advance, sometimes a whole year. A cadre of angry Highland ghosts in a real Scottish castle will make you a mint. And”—she waved a piece of bread in the air—“you’ll be able to keep every dime of the fortune Hunter left you.”
Mindy waited until her sister ran out of steam. “This might be a real Scottish castle, but it’s in the wrong place. And the angry ghosts are going to be volatile, livid ghosts if I don’t do what they want.”
“But—”
“There aren’t any buts.”
“You’re making a huge mistake.” Margo adjusted the silk paisley scarf wrapped stylishly around her neck. “We could also call in some of the TV ghost-busting teams. Hollywood might even engage the place for film settings. Or you could lease turret rooms to recluse writers. The possibilities are—”
“A moot point.” Mindy remained firm. “And the only mistake I made was helping Hunter with his seat belt.”
“Then walk away.” Margo proved she was just as relentless. “Let the castle fall to romantic ruin and take the money he’s left you and run.”
Mindy went to make more coffee. She needed caffeine. She wasn’t about to tell Margo that she had tried to leave. Her sister would thrill to hear about how the ghosties had flanked the treelined drive down the castle hill. How they’d shaken their swords at her and, worst of all, how the three gang leaders, Roderick, Geordie, and Silvanus, had waited for her at the bottom of the road. Her car’s headlights had picked them out standing in front of the wrought- iron gateway between the twin entrance lodges.
They’d armed themselves with long spears.
Deadly, wicked- looking, fourteen- foot-long, steel-headed lances that looked as if they’d come straight off the set of
Braveheart
.
Worst of all, just when she’d thought to plow right through them, the gate’s remote sensor refused to work. She’d been effectively locked inside the property, much to the three ghosts’ amusement.
The one called Silvanus had thrown back his head and laughed.
Then he’d disappeared into thin air.
Only to reappear in the backseat of her car!
She’d seen him grinning at her in the rearview mirror, the memory curdling her blood even now.
Her car radio had blared bagpipe music all the way back up the castle’s graveled drive.
The radio wasn’t turned on.
And—Mindy knew—her sister wasn’t going to listen to reason. But she did understand cold, hard facts. Margo might dress like a model out of the pages of
English Country Living
, but Ye Olde Pagan Times paid her peanuts. Margo’s chic look was pure good taste and a healthy dash of bargain hunting, combined with secondhand thrift.
So while Mindy waited for her coffee to brew, she scooped up an armful of papers and scribbled notes and carried them back across the kitchen. She dumped them on the table, then stepped back and wiped her hands.
“Here’s why I can’t run anywhere.” She snatched a yellow-lined notepad and handed it to her sister. “I’ve told you how the ghosts threatened to follow me anywhere I go. These figures”—she tapped the top sheet of the notepad, indicating lines of numbers and her own looping script—“will show you exactly how much it’s going to cost to have the Folly dismantled, transported across the Atlantic, and then reassembled on the Hebridean isle of Barra.”
Mindy folded her arms, waiting as Margo scanned the jottings.
It didn’t take long for the color to drain from Margo’s face. “This is an astronomical sum.”
“Uh-huh.” Mindy nodded. “Once all the costs are tallied, not much will remain. Now you see”—she went to pour their coffee—“why I have to go back to flying and why I’ll be moving to Florida and not Hawaii.”
“But this is so unfair!” Margo waved aside the coffee Mindy offered her.
“Everything happens for a reason.” Mindy took a sip of her own Kona blend. “Maybe it isn’t my karma to be rich and independent and live the good life in Hawaii. Isn’t that what you always say?” She set down her cup and summoned what she hoped was an untroubled smile. “That all our ups and downs are part of the big karmic cycle?”
“Yes, but—”
Mindy pressed a finger to her sister’s lips. “No buts, remember?”
Margo swatted her hand away. “Well, it’s just that—”
“No
it’s just that
s, either.” Mindy sighed inwardly. She knew better than to let her sister get on a tangent. “I love flying, anyway. It isn’t as if—”
“These quotes can’t be right.” Margo frowned at the notepad. “You could send the castle to the moon and back for this kind of money.”
Mindy shook her head. “I checked everywhere imaginable. Those figures are the most competitive and they came from the experts. One of the Global captains I know has a brother who works on the Acquisitions Committee at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. No one knows more about such things.
“They buy up everything from Tuscan villas to entire French palaces and bring it all back to New York, stone by stone. Apparently”—she paused to glance over her shoulder, half certain she’d felt someone standing behind her, listening—“they even keep secret warehouses throughout the city to hold such treasures until they decide what to do with them.”
Mindy tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, remembering her phone conversations with the museum’s luminaries. “The Metropolitan’s board of trustees kindly recommended several removal firms best suited for”—she looked at her sister and forced a smile—“such a monumental task as I’m about to undertake.”
Margo brightened. “Maybe the Metropolitan will want the Folly? Let them deal with—”
“The castle isn’t for sale.” Mindy drained her coffee. “It will be dismantled, each stone and every stick of furniture and what have you packed in straw, acid-free paper, and Bubble Wrap, then shipped
home
in at least ten thousand crates.”
“I still say you’re making a mistake.” Margo glanced at the very spot where Mindy was sure someone invisible was standing. “Even Madame Zelda said it was your destiny to live in this castle. She didn’t say anything about you getting rid of it. She—”
“That was in the early days when I’d just met Hunter.” Mindy couldn’t believe Margo would bring Ye Olde Pagan Times’ resident fortune-teller into it. “Besides, we both know she only tells people what they want to hear. And”—she couldn’t resist raising a finger—“her name isn’t Madame Zelda of Bulgaria. She’s Marta Lopez and she’s Puerto Rican.”
“She’s accurate all the same.” Margo helped herself to another salami slice and then slung her oversized leather handbag over her shoulder. “You did move in here not long after she read your tarot. And”—she went to the door arch, pausing just outside the shadows—“she was right about Hunter. She said your one true love would be a big, burly Scotsman who favored kilts and was a notorious ladies’ man.”
Mindy tried not to snort.
She started to remind Margo that the fortune-teller also said the Highlander would carry a sword, but she caught herself in time and just glared.
Glaring was good.
She did so until her sister waved an airy good-bye and disappeared into the narrow corridor’s gloom. But the instant the tap-tapping of Margo’s heels on the stone flags faded and she heard the castle door fall shut with a muffled
thunk
, the glare slipped from her face.
Damn her sister for reminding her of Marta Lopez/ Madame Zelda’s predictions.
And double damn herself for remembering the bit about the sword.
Hunter wouldn’t have touched one with a ten-foot pole.
He’d claimed they gave him the willies and he’d even considered selling the Folly’s entire armory collection of medieval weaponry. Something he would surely have done if his parents’ testament hadn’t forbidden the sale of artifacts they considered part of their family heritage.
Mindy shivered, the fortune-teller’s words echoing in her mind.
They were coming back clearer by the moment, reminding her of things she’d rather forget. Like how Madame Zelda’s eyes had widened when she’d professed to see the Highlander’s sword, claiming she’d never seen one quite that long.
Then she’d gone all coy. She’d smiled secretly and lowered her voice, looking at Mindy from beneath her lashes as she’d declared that other parts of this Scottish paragon would be extralong, as well.
The remembered words hit Mindy like a fist to the gut.
Hunter had been one of the least endowed men she’d ever seen.
He was tall and dashing. His smile wicked enough to charm women out of trees. He knew his way around a mattress and was so skilled with his fingers and tongue that he should have carried a license. But big and burly wasn’t an apt description.
However, the plaid-draped, coppery-haired man standing in profile to her near the kitchen fire, eating what looked like a beef rib, was definitely big and burly.
In fact, he defined the words.
At least this time he wasn’t naked save for a medieval pillow.
Even so, Mindy felt her world begin to spin.
She blinked and knuckled her eyes, but he didn’t go away. Far from it, he simply munched on his beef rib, staring into the fire all the while. Mindy pressed a hand to her breast, unable to look away from him.
Huge, powerfully built, and rough-hewn, he had the somewhat crumpled appearance of a man who’d just crawled out of bed. Or, she was sure in his case, off some scratchy medieval sleeping pallet. Without doubt, the thick, ancient wool of such coarse bedding, or even the prickly bits of straw on the floor, wouldn’t have bothered him.
He looked that tough.
He was also a ghost.
Though there was nothing see-through, flimsy-whimsy about him. He had an air of brute strength, positively oozed power, and unless Mindy was mistaken, his nose was just a tad crooked. He looked real, solid, and—so far—wholly unaware of her presence.
His entire attention seemed focused on devouring his beef rib. An activity that disproved her assumption that ghosts didn’t have appetites. This ghost clearly did. And he wasn’t just any ghost, either. She didn’t need to see the wicked-looking, overly long sword at his hip to speculate as to his identity.
She knew exactly who he was. He was Bran of Barra.
“Oh, God—it’s you!” Mindy backed up against the refectory table, shock and recognition slamming into her like the punch from an iron fist.
The ghost whipped around to face her, his beef rib flying from his fingers. A torch—
a torch!
—flared on the smoke-blackened wall behind him and a shower of iridescent blue sparks burst from the crystal pommel stone of his sword. The bright glow of the sparkles, and the blazing torch flame, illuminated a kitchen that wasn’t the one Mindy knew.
Bran of Barra knew it well.
Possession—and fury—stood all over him as he fisted his hands on his hips and gaped at her. “By the rood!” he roared, his warrior’s body bunching with muscle. His stare flashed down the length of her, then snapped back to her face, his own wide-eyed and incredulous.
“You shred my last nerve, wench! Can a man no’ eat in peace?” He shot a glance at the half-gnawed beef rib.
Mindy glanced at it, too, feeling sick.
Her heart might be racing, but there was nothing wrong with her eyes. It was plain to see that the rib rested on icky, matted rushes and not the kitchen’s so-clean-you-could-eat-off-it highly polished stone floor.
She gulped.
Bran of Barra took a step forward. “I dinnae ken how you found your way in here, but you’d best be gone before someone else sees you.” He came closer and flung out an arm, indicting the door arch.