Highlander's Charm (Highlander Heat #3)

“Lila?” The doctor nudged her. “Are you all right?”


“Yes.”

She was pregnant, by a warrior named Calum.

Her heart ached for him.

“I can release you as soon as you’re ready now we’re aware you’re healthy and well.” The doctor slid her chart from the rail at the end of her bed and wrote on it.

“Thank you. I need to leave.”

“Then I wish you well with your pregnancy. Take this to reception.” She folded the paper, passed it to her and left.

Wishes, yes wishes.

More memories assailed her.

Calum set his hands on her hips and slowly, carefully, moved between her legs. He nudged his cock along her slick folds. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes, hurry. I’m burning up for your touch.”

He kissed her then pushed against the barrier, tore through and plunged inside. They were joined so deeply. “We’re one, and none shall ever tear us apart. You’re my charm,” he whispered. “There is no escaping me now.”

Calum waited for her, and she wanted the real man, not memories. She had to find him.

She thrust the bedcovers away, grabbed a pair of slim black jeans from her bag that Zayn and his father had brought from her hotel and wriggled into them. She slipped her favorite white t-shirt over her head, shoved on a pair of leather sandals and nabbed her brass charm.

With her bag in hand, she marched to the front desk and paid her bill.

Outside, she caught a cab and asked the driver to take her to the ferry terminal. She’d bypass Mingary and go straight to Duart Castle. That was where he’d be. She was certain of it.

Once onboard the sleek, white-paneled ferry, she darted around the passengers and at the bow, gripped the polished wooden handrail. Above, heavy gray clouds swept the sky.

As they cruised down the sound, they passed the sheer cliffs of Mull and hers and Calum’s bay. Their cave was half hidden by scraggly bushes, but it was still there. How could she have forgotten him?

They made berth at Craignure, the small settlement no longer hidden beyond the trees, but nestled right up to the water’s edge. Seagulls circled the fishermen’s boats and water sloshed against the thick round wharf pilings as they moored.

She hurried toward a tour coach as the driver made his last call for passengers to Duart. With her ticket paid, she sat and clutched her charm during the short drive.

Duart appeared, standing high on the rise of a craggy hill, the moors a lush green surrounding it. The castle appeared larger than life, and canons now graced the front grassy area, pointing toward the loch, relics concreted in place from an era long gone.

She disembarked, paid her entrance fee at the booth and dashed inside.

Every moment they’d spent together returned to her. He was hers, and their souls were bound.

Inside the great hall, heat pulsed from the lit fireplace. The flames shot up the stone flue and sent a wash of golden light across the MacLean clan’s silver shield strung above it. It was still here as it had been in the past.

The castle’s uniformed guide called everyone to gather closer, but she snuck up the winding stairs to the second floor. The gleaming dark wood of Calum’s door beckoned, and she grasped the brass knob and shoved it open.

A chill hung in the air, and a draft swept in where the window remained an inch open. She ducked under the roped off portion and moved toward Calum’s side table. It still held a pitcher and basin, the beautiful set unchipped although not the one gifted to him.

She drifted to his bed, rolled onto it and caressed the soft brown fur.

“I love you, Calum. I’m sorry I left you. If there was any other way to have remained with you, I would have taken it.” She pressed her charm to her chest and her heartbeat pulsed against her palm. All went eerily quiet. “I wish, with all my heart, to find a way back to the man my soul cries out for. Please return me to Calum.”

Out the window, thunder boomed and blackened clouds rolled in. A mist rose from below, and from one second to the next, surrounded her. She scrambled to the end of the bed, but only a black void appeared below. The wind swirled and a dark force sent her sprawling into the murky abyss.

Terrified, she screamed.

Then slammed into a wall of water.

She kicked and fought the churning current, her lungs burning for air.



Pacing the castle’s battlements, Calum clasped his charm. Three days had passed since the fortuneteller had left and he’d seen the woman’s image in a vision. She haunted him, as if a ghost from his past. Why couldn’t he remember her?

At least Colin was due to return on the morrow from Tobermory. He’d seek his counsel.

The moon’s glow cast a silvery hue over the stillness of the loch, with not even the slightest breeze to draw a ripple.

The earth shook and he gripped the thick stone crenellation. Thrice this day the ground had moved so.

Starlight flashed off the water in a blazing display.

Hell. He had to get down to the loch. Now.