Highlander's Charm (Highlander Heat #3)

“Elderly. Black hair with a touch of gray. She wore unusual clothing the eve she arrived. What she called pa-ja-mas.” He twisted his tongue around the word, as if finding it foreign. “I was in the chief’s solar when Lachlan questioned her. She was found wandering this beach, lost and confused.”


The hair color was right, and the pajamas were a good sign. Nanna had disappeared during the night after she’d gone to bed, but that had been in Edinburgh, not this far across the country. “What was her last name?”

“Cunningham. After discovering she’d arrived on Mull, she spent some time with the chief’s wife. Margaret too was a Cunningham afore she wed and they enjoyed each other’s company. She was no’ here long, mayhap a sennight afore she continued on.”

“To where?” Even though their last name was MacIan, Nanna’s maiden name had been Cunningham. It could well be her.

“No’ a soul saw her leave. She vanished into the night just as she’d come.”

Yes, the timing was perfect, never mind the location. She couldn’t let this information slip by without being fully checked over.

“I need to make a call. The person you’ve described sounds like my grandmother, and she’s been missing for the same length of time.” Excited, she tugged her flippers off, grabbed his wide shoulders and hauled herself up. Oh, he was hot, hard, and heavily muscled. At his wrist a sheathed dagger glinted, and lower still, his leather pants clung to his powerful thighs. Definitely authentic. She wobbled on shaky legs. “Nice warrior attire.”

Frowning, he offered her a hand. “Does your head feel clear? You were under the water for some time.”

“My head is—” Her thoughts swirled, and an image flickered through her mind. She grasped hold of the vision.

This man walked beside her across the moors. The late afternoon sunshine bathed his tanned forearms as he opened his hand and stroked a brass coin. “This is mine, so I may keep you close,” he said.

“Can I hold it?” she asked him. “Only for a bit.”

“Nay, you have your own, and this one I need to keep you close.” He glanced ahead at a fallen log barring the trail, scooped her into his arms and carried her over it.

“Calum, you’re very good at keeping me close, whether you hold that charm or not.” She breathed in the fresh air, picking up an alluring scent. “Where are you taking me?”

“To a place of great beauty.” He set her back on her feet at the top of the rise. Spread out in the meadow below, a wash of yellow and red wildflowers swayed in the gentle breeze.

“This is beautiful.”

“Aye, though this was a place of great sadness so few years ago.”

“What happened to cause that?”

“A great battle. Many of our warriors perished in this field, but now the wildflowers remind all who walk here that our lost kin still live, even though no’ among us.”

She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. “You have a soft heart.”

“Nay, I am a warrior.”

“That too, but your heart’s a gooey mess and it’s all mine.”

“Lila.” He growled her name. “You must take care with your strange words. We spoke about this.”

“Yes, you spoke and I decided not to listen. Nothing unusual there, and by now, you should be used to it.” She grinned, and the sweet fragrance in the air teased more memories to stir. “Nanna used to take me to the markets every Monday morning to buy hoards of fresh stock for the shop she managed. I love flowers, particularly roses.”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “As I—”

“Lila?” Calum gripped her arms. “You appear in a daze.”

“Sorry, my imagination keeps getting away on me today.” Never in her twenty-one years had she experienced a doozy of a vision like that one. She didn’t even know this man, yet had recalled a conversation with him as if it were real.

“We must speak.” His golden gaze flickered with determination. “I was drawn outside to the loch this eve, as I have the past three nights since I returned from Skye. A fortuneteller told me a woman would come. That I should aid you, and keep you safe from the sea.”

“What?” If he truly wished to aid her, all she needed was the use of a phone. She shook the sand from her flippers. “I need to call the authorities. You don’t mind telling them about seeing my grandmother, do you?”

“Since my chief’s capture, I’m the only authority on this isle. Come.” He strode toward the sand dunes, fetched a sword tossed atop a plaid and belted it over his hips. It glinted razor sharp in the moonlight.

“Knowing Nanna might have come through here after her disappearance is the best news. I have to make that call then be on my way.”

“’Tis too late to be making calls, and ’tis now my duty to see to your welfare.”

“But the police are available twenty-four hours a day.” Well, they were in Australia. Surely that was the same in Scotland.

“Again, come. We’ll speak inside.”

Yes, they would speak.

He’d seen her grandmother and she had to get to the bottom of this.

The way she’d arrived and these visions she’d experienced weren’t right.

She needed to sort this. Now.





Chapter 2