Weddings from Hell

Prologue

It was an ordinary Saturday afternoon. Seven-year-old Kira wore bib overalls of faded denim, a striped T-shirt, and copper-red braid that hung all the way to her butt. Her feet were bare, pant legs rolled up nearly to her knees as she waded in the lake. It was too early, Dad said, to go in for a real swim. But wading in the shallows was okay. The water felt just fine to Kira, and she wondered if she should "trip and fall" all the way into the water. Once she was wet, her parents wouldn't see any sense making her get out.

She glanced at the shore, where dandelions were like yellow polka-dots in the lush green grass. Her mom was spreading a plastic tablecloth on the picnic table. It was red and white checks. Kira thought it was silly to bother with a tablecloth at a picnic, but her mom liked things the way she liked things, so she didn't voice her own opinion on the matter. Probably, Kira thought, there were important reasons to use a tablecloth at a picnic—reasons she was just too young to understand yet.

Her dad was standing at the grill, with a big two-pronged fork in one hand and a long-handled burger-flipper in the other.

"Darlin'?" Mom called, her Scottish accent clear, even in that one word. She'd managed to get the flapping tablecloth to stay put by laying her purse on one end, and Kira's shoes on the other.

Dad turned toward her, and when he caught her eye, he smiled.

"Could ya get the cooler from the car? And while ya do, why not move the car outta the sun, so t'willna be like an oven by the time we're ready to leave."

He looked at the parking lot, just up the hill from where they were picnicking, on the shore of Cayuga Lake . "I don't see any shady spots. Do you?"

"Right there, love, beneath the shading arms of that oak tree," she said, pointing.

He followed with his eyes, and spotted the place she had in mind. "Okay," he told her. "Whatever you say."

Kira grinned, because she heard something in his voice that told her he thought moving the car was about as necessary as a tablecloth on a picnic table. But he would never say so out loud. Mom liked things the way she liked them, and there was no point in arguing.

She had skin like cream and hair the same color as Kira's, but wildly curly where Kira's was straight. Her eyes were green, as green as emeralds, her father used to say.

She'd left Scotland to find a husband, and vowed never to go back. She didn't talk about why not, or what had happened there that had made her so very unhappy. And since Kira didn't like seeing her mom unhappy, she didn't ask. She wondered, though.

Dad moved the car to the spot Mom had dictated, then got out and fetched the giant red cooler full of food from the trunk. It was as he carried the cooler around the car and down the hill, that the car began to roll forward.

It started slowly. So slowly, that Kira wasn't sure it was really moving, at first. Mom didn't notice it. She stood by the table with a roll of masking tape she'd unearthed from the depths of her purse. She tore off one strip and then another and then another, using each of them to hold the tablecloth to the table, tucking the tape underneath so it wouldn't show.

Dad didn't notice it either. His back was toward the car as he strode down the hill carrying the huge red cooler with the white top.

But it was moving. It was. It was rolling slowly—then faster, right down the hill toward Kira's parents. She found her voice, shouted, "Mamma! Pappa!"

But instead of looking at the danger trundling toward them, that only made them both look toward her.

"The car!" she cried, and she pointed at it. "Look out!"

Her father turned to look, just as the car rolled past him so close that the mirror on the side knocked the cooler right out of his hands. Mamma turned slowly, and Kira heard her dad shouting her mother's name.

She must have seen it, Kira thought. But not in time.

Kira closed her eyes tight just before the inevitable happened. And by the time she opened them again, the car's nose was in the water.

She lifted her gaze to see how bad things were, even though she was afraid to look. The red cooler lay on its side, its white lid open, their picnic spilled all over the grass. Macaroni salad and rolls and the chocolate cake she'd helped her mamma frost that very morning, lay ruined and broken. Pappa was on his feet, holding one arm across his chest as if something were wrong with it, even as he stumbled down the hill. He had the most horrible look on his face.

Kira looked for her mamma. The picnic table was crushed. She could see a bit of blue beside it, and that must be her mamma's dress. Kira came out of the water, sloshing step by step.

Other picnickers had come running by now, gathering around, looking and pointing. Someone shouted "Call an ambulance!" and others went running to obey. But mostly they were just looking.

Kira crept around the table. By then her pappa was on his knees beside Mamma. And she heard her mother's voice, weak and slurred.

"It's the curse. It's the curse. Oh, Paul, how could ya?"

"There's no curse. You're gonna be fine," Pappa said.

"I'm dying. You have to tell her, Paul. When she's older, tell her. Before it's too late, warn her. Tell her, Paul."

"Mamma?"

Kira had made her way closer, and stood right beside her parents. Mamma's middle looked almost flattened, and there was a lot of blood on the skirt of her blue dress. Her legs lay all twisted and cockeyed, and they didn't move at all. It was almost like her mamma couldn't feel how messed up they were. Her skin was so white. And her eyes looked far away.

She gazed at Kira. "It isna Pappa's fault," she told her.

"I know." Kira sniffed and wiped her nose. "I should have yelled sooner."

"No, baby. This wasna your fault, either." Weakly, her mamma lifted a hand and touched Kira's cheek.

"Stupid car."

"'Twas fate, darlin'. An' now I'm goin'. Not 'cause I wanna, but 'cause I've no choice in the matter. But I'll be with ya always, lass. Always my bonny, bonny girl."

"But Mamma, I don't want you to go."

"Like an angel, love. I'll be watchin' over ya like your own guardian angel."

"No Mamma! No!"

But Mamma's eyes fell closed, and her hand, cold and white, fell away from Kira's cheek and landed with a final thud in the grass.

For the first time in her life, Kira heard her father cry. And then there were sirens and more people. Paul Monroe wrapped his little girl in his arms, and carried her a few steps away to let the paramedics have room to work. But Kira knew it was already too late. Mamma had gone. Kira knew it, had seen it and felt it when it happened.

Mamma had gone. And she'd blamed it on a curse. Kira wasn't sure exactly what that meant, or whether it could even be true. All of the grownups who surrounded her for the next several weeks—her grandparents and aunts and uncles—all on her pappa's side, of course—she didn't know any of her mamma's family—told her that there were no such things as curses.

And for a little while, she believed them. But only for a little while. Once Pappa shot himself in the head, she realized that curses were very real, and very very bad.

Chapter 1

Present day

Kira answered the telephone without knowing that the call would change everything. She picked it up with a cheery "hello." As if everything was fine.

As if there hadn't been a shadow haunting her ever since she'd been a well-adjusted seven-year-old. As if she hadn't been forcibly ignoring the secrets that were constantly whispering in her mind, beckoning her. Come find us, Kira. We're waiting for you….

"Would this be a Miss Kira MacLellan?"

She shivered. His accent was thick and so very much like her mother's had been, that it caused her throat to close up and her eyes to burn. But there was something beyond that. Something familiar, that made her stomach clench up tight. Swallowing with difficulty, she drew a breath. "It's Kira Monroe. My mother was a MacLellan."

"And so're you, as you always will be. But that's neither here nor there, is it now?"

"I…have no idea. Who is this?"

"My name's Ian Stewart. I'm a solicitor, calling from Scotland on behalf of your great aunt Iris MacLellan. It's my sad duty to info rm you of her passin'. And sorry I am to be tellin' you of it. She was a fine woman."

"I'm sure she was, though I never met her. I never even knew I had a great aunt Iris."

"Ah, you've a raft of relations here in Scotland . An' it's long past time you should be meetin' 'em. Better late than never, I suppose."

"I'm sorry?"

"The viewing will be on Thursday next. We've delayed it a bit to give you time, what with the distance you'll be travelin'."

"I'm sorry Mr.—"

"Stewart," he said quickly. "But you must call me Ian. I'm practically family myself."

"I'm not going to be able to make it for the funeral."

"Oh, but you have to make it within two days of the funeral, at the very least. The readin' o' the will is to be held then. And it's required ye be present or your inheritance will be divided between those who are."

"My inheritance."

"Aye. It's substantial. More than three million pounds."

She blinked. "What's that in dollars?"

"Ahhh, let me see then…oh my. At today's rate of exchange, that would be six million dollars, give or take."

She pulled the telephone away from her ear and stared at it.

"Miss MacLellan? Kira? Have ye fainted dead away, then?"

Blinking, she brought the phone back to her ear. "Is this some kind of a joke? Or one of those international scams or something? Are you going to ask for my social security or bank account numbers next?"

He laughed. It was a warm, deep sound that stroked her senses through the shock and disbelief currently taking up most of her attention. "Are you as lovely as you sound, Kira MacLellan?"

"I…" Her face heated at the compliment that sounded sincere, though it couldn't be. She hadn't even met the man. He was a stranger on the phone. And yet it felt like more.

"I suggest ye place a call to a solicitor of your own choosin'. Give him my number here. He'll be quite able to verify this is all legitimate."

"I will, believe me."

"And glad of it, I am. Once you've done that to your satisfaction ring me back. I'll help you get your travelin' arrangements in place. All right, then?"

"Sure," she said, not believing it for a minute.

"All right, then. Have a lovely day."

Kira hung up the telephone and the whispers that had long since haunted her called her closer. So she turned toward the bedroom of the small efficiency apartment she rented in the small-town city of Cortland , New York . It was on Main Street , which was convenient, since her job tending bar at Hairy Tony's was only a few steps away, and her classes at the State University of New York were within bicycle distance.

Life was going the way it had nearly always gone. Boring, and slow, and with no real direction, but it was going. She made enough to pay her bills, and take the occasional class, though she had no real goals. It was as if she'd been marking time, or killing it, waiting for something to come along that would tell her what it was she was supposed to be doing. Or, more accurately, not really waiting for that. More expecting it, but not with any sort of excited anticipation or eagerness. She liked her slow, boring life. She'd had enough drama as a child to last her a lifetime.

She stood in front of the closed closet door for a long moment, before she finally worked up the nerve to open it. And then she reached up onto the top shelf and moved things around until she found the shoebox, way in the back. Warily, she pulled the box down, carried it with her to her full-sized bed, curled up with her back against the padded headboard, and stared at it.

Her mother's belongings hadn't amounted to much. Her father had sold most of them in the days following her death, probably in preparation for his own. At his funeral, there had been a woman sobbing as if her very heart had been broken. Kira asked everyone there who she was, but no one knew. She'd stayed in the back of the crowd at the cemetery, and left as soon as anyone ventured near her.

It was only in hindsight, as a teenager, years later, being raised by her father's parents, that she'd begun to understand. Her father had been having an affair. Her mother had known that at the end. She remembered her words, "How could ya, Paul?" All the signs had been there, she'd just been too young to see them.

With hands that trembled, she took the lid off the shoebox, and looked inside. A black velvet box held her mother's wedding band and engagement ring. Another held a favorite gold necklace with a butterfly suspended from its chain. There was a stack of letters and postcards, all bound together with a rubber band, and it was that bundle Kira reached for now. She'd never read them. She'd been afraid to. Something hidden, deep inside her, made her nervous about those letters.

But now, she reached for the rubber band, to remove it for the first time in eighteen years. And just as her fingers touched it, it snapped in two, and she jumped, so startled that the letters fell from her hands, and onto the bed.

She sat motionless, frightened by the way the band had snapped as if on its own, even while she told herself she was being silly. It was nothing. Coincidence.

Without touching the letters that fanned out on the bedding before her, Kira scanned their return addresses. Most of them had come from Scotland . And all of the surnames were MacLellan. She'd never met any of her mother's relatives, had never even heard her mother speak of them.

She didn't know why, but decided it was time to find out. Given that phone call she'd just received, and the constant gut-level curiosity that had dogged her for years, it was time. Her urge to delve into her mother's closely guarded secrets had always been outweighed by the irrational fear of what she might find.

Six million dollars, however, was a powerful motivator. And as much as her practical brain told her it couldn't possibly be for real, her belly told her it was.

Kira picked up one envelope, flipped it over and paused. It was still sealed. Frowning, she checked another, and then another. None of them had been opened.

What had happened to make her mother turn so completely against her own family?

Because of the curse.

She ignored the voice that whispered in her mind. There was no curse. Her mother had been dying, her brain misfiring, her words coming from some irrational place inside her. She'd asked her father. He'd said there were no such things as curses.

Drawing a breath, she chose the envelope she would open. It was from Iris MacLellan, and the postmark date was April, 1981. Before she had even been born. She slid her thumbnail beneath the envelope's fold and sliced it open, and swore a chorus of breathless whispers spilled out with the sheet of vellum.

For a moment, she went still, looking around the room as if in search of those whisperers. But of course, there was no one there.

Straightening her spine, she unfolded the letter. A scent of lavender wafted from it, touching her face along with what felt like the slightest breath of a breeze. Impossible, of course. Her emotions were heightened, and the long sense of dread and fear of curses were making her imagination play tricks on her.

Adjusting her focus, she read the letter.

My Dearest Mary,

I write you in this, the month you are to be wed, to beg of you, child, do not make this mistake. Do you not recall how your own ma, my own dear sister, met her end? The way her poor, drowned body washed up on the rocks below the cliffs? And how your Da disappeared, never to be seen again? And never still, not to this day. The curse of the MacLellan brides is real, Mary. You cannot run away from it, even if you run halfway 'round the world. It will find you, lass. And you'll die at your husband's hand. Please, listen to me. Come home, dear Mary, and resign yourself to living the life of a spinster. 'Tis the only way to ensure you'll live at all.

Your loving aunt,

Iris MacLellan

Blinking slowly, Kira lowered the paper to the bed.

Her mother hadn't been hallucinating or out of her mind as she'd been breathing her last. She'd been speaking of something that was real—at least to her it was. Maybe she hadn't believed in this curse of the MacLellan brides before the accident. But once that car had rolled over her body, crushing the life out of it, she must have believed then.

And apparently, she thought the curse would be handed down to her, to Kira. And if that was the case, Kira thought, she really needed to know exactly what it meant. Was every MacLellan woman who married, destined to die by her husband's hand? Could it be true?

Scooping all the letters into a pile, she dumped them back into the shoebox, shoved on the cover, and stuffed it back into the closet. Then she went to the telephone like she should have done in the first place, called her boss, and asked him for the name and phone number of his lawyer.

Chapter 2

Three days later, Kira stepped out of the airport in Edinburgh and into overcast weather. There was a heavy mist in the air. It hovered and hung, wet and clingy, like a living fog that attached itself to your face and hair and clothes as if trying to claim you for its own.

Silly thought.

Hairy Tony's legal eagle had been able to verify that Ian Stewart was indeed an attorney in Scotland , and that Iris MacLellan had indeed died. That was enough for her. She'd phoned the man back, and he'd taken care of all the arrangements for her. He'd booked her flight—the tickets had been waiting at the airport as promised. He'd said a car would be waiting to take her to her accommodations. And the entire time his voice had stroked her senses like a lover's caress. It gave her chills, his voice. And she didn't know why.

She peered through the wet air. It was evening, just past sunset, and everything was swathed in shades of gray. But there was a small, boxy black car sitting at the curb, and even as she started toward it, a man got out, and came closer.

"Kira?" he asked.

She nodded, getting a better look at him as he drew nearer, but knowing already who he was. She recognized that voice. It had appealed to her on many levels, from the first time she'd heard it, from its resonance and tone, to its friendly, honest nature, to the accent that so reminded her of her mother, to the feeling it gave her that he was always teasing, just a little.

She was unprepared, however, for the way he looked. He was taller than she'd imagined, and seemed broad in his tan trench coat. His hair was a mass of black curls, all of them wet now where they lay on his forehead. He smiled, and when he did, his velvet-lashed eyes crinkled at the corners and his sensual mouth curved in a way that made her stomach tingle.

"Ian," she said.

"Aye. I'd know ye anywhere, Kira." His eyes, when he said that, probed hers with an intensity that was out of place. He seemed genuinely glad to see her. So glad, she almost expected him to hug her right off her feet at any moment. But he seemed to forcibly restrain himself. "You're a MacLellan, through and through."

"I hope that's a compliment."

"I'll shower you in them, if you like." And then he did hug her. Didn't ask or wait around for permission, just wrapped his arms around her and hugged her hard, as if he'd been doing it for years. Maybe that was the way of things here, she thought. So she hugged him back just as enthusiastically, and she didn't even have to fake it all that much.

And she felt something in that embrace, because it seemed to change, from friendly and welcoming, to something decidedly more intimate.

When he released her and stepped back, he looked as shell-shocked as she felt. He had to avert his eyes as he took her arm and turned toward the car.

"Oh, my bags—"

"I'll be getting the bags into the boot, lass. You first, though." He didn't slow his pace, then opened the passenger door, which was on the wrong side of the car, and held her elbow as she got inside. He closed her door, and rushed away to get the bags, stowing them in the trunk—er, boot, she corrected mentally.

And then he was back, climbing behind the wheel, putting the car into motion, and turning his high-beam smile on her as he did. "You're about to become a very wealthy woman, Kira MacLellan. And it's not the money alone of which I'm speakin'."

"No?"

"'Tis the heritage of the Clan MacLellan. The family you've never known. The history and the lineage—'tis as rich and colorful as any tapestry you could imagine."

"I suppose it is. But I'll be inheriting more than that, won't I, Ian?"

"Aye, there's the money as well. And some of the holdings, I would imagine. I only know in general the plans your great aunt made for you. My father handled the details."

"Yes, but that's not what I meant. I was speaking about the um…the curse."

He jerked the wheel in unison with his head. The car veered as he gaped at her, and then he quickly righted it again, clearly shaken.

"So you know about the curse, then?" she asked him.

"Of course I do. It's surprised I am that you know of it."

She shook her head. "I know very little. I have only my mother's dying words, begging my father to warn me about it, and a letter from my dearly departed great aunt Iris, begging my mother not to marry and bring the curse upon herself."

His lips thinned. It was the first time she'd seen him not wearing a smile. "I dinna believe in curses," he said.

"But you know about this one. More than I do, at least."

"Well, now, that would depend on how much you know, Kira."

She shrugged, turned her gaze inward. "I take it that every MacLellan woman who gets married is destined to die at the hands of her husband, in one way or another." Lifting her gaze, letting it roam over his cheek, and battling the way her insides clenched with raw desire as she did, she said, "Is that about the gist of it?"

"There's much more to it, or so they say. But as I said, I dinna believe in it."

"Still, I'd really like to know the rest of it."

He nodded. "I've no doubt o' that. But as it happens, we've arrived." He pulled the car to a stop, and she looked through the windows at a sprawling castle. Not the kind you might see in a fairytale, but more like something out of a nightmare. Its stone was such a dark gray as to appear nearly black in places. There were barred windows in some sections, spikes lining the uppermost walls, towers on either end that stood like menacing sentries.

"Welcome to Castle MacLellan," he intoned as she stared. And then he touched her shoulder. "Dinna look that way, love. 'Tis much nicer on the inside than it seems from without." He got out of the car, came around to her side, and opened her door. "Shall we?"

She got out, and shivered at the cold, wet embrace of the fog. Or maybe it was at the cold appearance of the stone monstrosity in front of her. Or maybe, she thought, it was none of those things. Maybe it was the certainty that she was about to step right into her mother's secrets, and the gut feeling that once she did, there would be no turning back. Not ever. And life would never be the same.

And then Ian took her arm, held her a little closer to his side, and a warmth suffused her, and gave her the strength and courage to walk with him up to the door.

Chapter 3

The woman who greeted her at the door was fat and pink. Those were the two things most noticeable about her, those and her friendly smile. She'd let her hair go silvery, but still wore it in long curls that tumbled unfettered to her shoulders.

She was dressed in a pewter-colored, quilted house coat, and a pair of what looked like ballet slippers.

She gripped Kira's hands in both of hers, beaming at her. "Lassie! Oh, I'm so glad to see you at long last. Welcome home!"

And then before she could reply, Kira found herself wrapped in soft, squishy arms, and pulled into a bosom that could have housed several small children.

"I'm your aunt Rose," the woman told her. "Your grandmother's youngest sister."

When she could pull her head back enough to allow her to speak clearly, Kira said, "It's wonderful to meet you too. And thanks for the warm welcome."

"Oh, come with me, child. You, too, Ian! You know we can't get along without you."

Glancing back at her handsome driver, Kira lifted her brows, not quite sure how he fit in to the scheme of things here.

And there was no time to find out, as she was led through a massive entry hall and into some kind of great room that had been filled with modern furniture in the most classic Queen Anne style, everything feminine, delicate, even lacy. The sofas and chairs had curved clawed arms and legs and floral prints. There was a fainting couch, or at least she thought that's what it was. The decor seemed to Kira to be in direct contrast with the architecture, which was big and dark and masculine.

In one of the most elegant of the chairs, a woman sat. She was bone-thin, and her hair was jet black, except for the stark white at the very front. It hung long and straight. Again, unbound.

It seemed strange that women of their age would wear their hair long and loose, rather than cutting it or perming it or pinning it up. Maybe it was a cultural thing.

She rose, the thin one. She wasn't smiling as she extended a boney hand. "Hello Kira. I'm your great aunt Esmeralda."

Kira took her hand and gasped at how cool it was, how frail it seemed, despite the vibrance in the woman's dark blue eyes.

"You don't seem quite as glad to see me as Aunt Rose is," Kira said.

Esmeralda's finely arched brows rose. "You're as frank as your mother always was."

"I don't see much point in being any other way," Kira said. "Would you have preferred I not come?"

"You have every right to be here."

"Is it the money, then?"

The woman just stared at her, as if waiting.

"Well, Ian told me if I didn't show up for the reading of the will, my share would be divided among the other heirs. And it's a lot of money, after all."

"I already have more money than I'll ever be able to spend," Esmeralda said. "We all do."

"Well if it's not the money, then—"

Slow, rhythmic footsteps—high heels crossing the marble floor interrupted her, and she turned to see a third woman. This one was utterly stunning. Her hair was like shiny copper and her figure, hugged in a skin-tight black halter dress, was to die for. Her skin was nearly flawless. Try as she might, Kira couldn't see a wrinkle or a line.

"Hello, Kira," she said. And even her voice was sultry and beautiful. "I'm your aunt Emma. Your mother was my sister."

"You look like her," Kira said, extended a hand.

The beautiful one smiled but it was shaky. "So do you."

"You don't have an accent."

"I've taken lessons to get rid of it."

"I can't imagine why anyone would want to," Kira said. "I love the lilt of the brogue."

"To each her own," Emma said. Then she looked around. "This is all of us, dear. The entire family, or what remains of it."

"Oh." No children. And no men.

"I'll show you to your chambers," Rose chirped. "Ian, be a dear and bring the bags along." She gripped Kira's arm, and tugged her through the massive place. "We could talk with you all the night through, child, but you'll be wanting to rest after such a journey. And there's time a plenty before dinner."

She smiled a good-bye to her great aunt Esmeralda and her aunt Emma, then followed Aunt Rose up a curving stone stairway and into a vaulted and echoing hall above. All the way, Ian was right behind her, bags in his hands. He was oddly quiet now that they'd arrived. Rose threw open a set of double doors, stepping through them as she did. "And here you are, lass. A bedroom fit for a princess."

She stepped in and looked around. There was a huge canopy bed with silky fabric draped all around it. It was so tall she thought she'd have to get a running start to get into it. The comforters looked like satin, and were the color of French cream. They matched the curtains in the tall narrow windows that lined one entire wall, like a row of soldiers. One of them was open, admitting a breeze that smelled of the rain, and made the curtains dance and sway.

The wardrobe and dresser and nightstands were all made of rich, dark wood. Walnut, she thought. The floor sported the same kinds of boards, but they only showed around the borders of the gigantic area rug, which was pale green in color with cream celtic knot-work patterns all over it.

On the walls, there were portraits. Family portraits, she realized as she stepped closer to one of them.

"That was your grandmother, my dear sister Violet, dead these past forty years."

Kira studied the woman's face, an older version of her mother's. And her own. "She must have died young."

"Aye. Far too young. Thirty and five, she was. Left her two dear girls, Mary and Emma, to Esmeralda, Iris, and I to raise."

"Really? Why not their father? My grandfather, I mean. Shouldn't he have been the one to—"

"Now the bath is straight through the door there," Rose interrupted. "That other is a closet, big enough to be a room all its own, I vow."

"Thank you. The room is breathtaking, Aunt Rose, it truly is." She looked back toward the doorway, but Ian had vanished. Only her bags remained.

"I'll send up a tea, lassie. You need a good tea to bolster you after such a journey as you've made." She turned to leave.

"Aunt Rose?"

"Aye, child?"

"I really do want to know about…the family history. And…and the curse."

Rose pressed a palm to her ample chest and sucked in a breath at the same time. "Then our Mary told you of it, did she?"

"No. She only mentioned it with her dying breath, Aunt Rose. I thought it was the trauma, that she was delirious. But…but Aunt Iris mentioned it in a letter she sent to my mother long ago. I only just read it last week. So I know it's real."

Aunt Rose nodded. "Your tea. And then you'll rest. 'Tis na the conversation a lass needs to be havin' without bein' strong, rested, and well nourished. And so it'll come. It'll all come in due time. An' you've nowhere to go just now, have you?"

"No, I suppose not."

"Patience, then, lass. Patience."

Kira took a nap to help with the jet lag, then an invigorating shower to help her toughen up for the dinner ahead. She fully intended to confront her aunt and great aunts and insist they tell her about this alleged curse of theirs. Not that she believed in curses. Not for a minute, but still, it was her family history. And she had a right to know about it.

She dressed as she always did, in a pair of snug-fitting jeans and a tank top, then pulled a NY Giants sweatshirt over it in deference to the damp chill of this place, which seemed to seep into her very bones.

She avoided looking at the haunting portrait of her grandmother, Violet, that hung on her bedroom wall like a gargoyle. She wasn't ugly—far from it, in fact. She had been a beautiful woman with raven hair and deep blue eyes. But there was something menacing in them, some vague message of doom that seemed to hit her every time she met those eyes.

Maybe she should ask Aunt Rose to move it to another room. She wondered if that would be out of line, then put the thought aside at a tap on her bedroom door.

"Come in."

The door opened with a vague creaking, and Ian stood there. The rush of emotion that washed through her at the sight of him was way overblown. And yet she smiled a welcome all the same. He wore a suit and tie, and looked incredibly handsome. She got the creeping feeling that she might have underdressed for dinner, though. "Rose sent me for you. It's nearly time for dinner." He met her eyes, briefly, and something powerful seemed to pass between them before he averted his.

"Good. I'm not finishing this meal without knowing the whole story about this curse nonsense."

His all-seeing gaze shot to hers again. "Oh, that's unlikely tonight. There are guests."

She lifted her brows. "Guests?"

"Aye. My own father, Gregory, the Reverend MacDougal and his wife, Jane."

Blinking, she let her eyes move from his head to his feet and back again. "Are they all dressed up like you are?"

"Your aunts enjoy dressing for dinner," he told her. Then he looked her up and down. "And while I daresay you could make a feed sack look like a ballgown, I might suggest you'd be more comfortable changing into something a bit more…er…"

"Fancy?" she asked.

"Just slightly."

Sighing, she turned toward where her suitcases sat, still packed, on the floor near the bed. One was open, its contents spilling out from her recent search for the jeans and sweatshirt. "I don't even think I own anything—oh, wait, there's a sundress. It's casual, but—" Dashing to the suitcase, she dug into it, and finally pulled out a pale blue sundress. It was knee length, with a faint floral pattern to it and a ruffled hemline. Spaghetti straps and a sweetheart neckline were not going to keep her very comfortable in this oversized refrigerator, though.

"Very nice," Ian said, when she held it up for his scrutiny. "An' I've just the thing to keep you warm."

She smiled up into those sky-blue eyes. "I'll bet you do. Tell me, Ian, are you a mind reader?"

He blinked, his face colored, and he cleared his throat. "If I am, lass, it's only since I met you."

They held each other's eyes for a long, tender moment. Then he cleared his throat. "Put the dress on, then. I'll uh—I'll be back momentarily."

She frowned as he left the room, wondering why he seemed afraid of whatever it was simmering beneath the surface between them. Ah, well, whatever. She peeled the sweatshirt off, then the tank top, and then shimmied out of the jeans. The sundress was on a second later, and she was bending over her bags rummaging for a pair of shoes when Ian knocked again.

"It's okay, I'm decent," she called.

She heard him come in, and kept on with her digging. Then she finally found a pair of white sandals, straightened up, and turned.

His face told her all she needed to know. He was turned on. The big fraud, pretending to be all shy and uncomfortable with the attraction she felt between them. Maybe men were different here. Maybe he was just different. But he had definitely been checking out her butt just now. And her butt was one of her best features, in her not-so-humble opinion.

She marched up to him, clapped a hand to his shoulder and used him to steady herself while she put on the shoes. When she finished, she looked up at him. They were standing very close. She could feel his breath on her face.

Damn, he was attractive. She didn't know when she'd been this attracted to a man. Maybe never.

He moved his hands toward her shoulders, and for one blissful, exciting moment, she thought he was going to wrap his arms around her and kiss her. But the soft touch of fabric on her skin told her otherwise. He was draping a shawl around her, a deep blue silken thing that felt like heaven.

He adjusted it, and his fingers brushed the skin on her upper arms as he did. She shivered a little, closed her eyes against it.

"It was your grandmother's," he said softly.

And that gave her another chill, but not the good kind like his touch had given her. This one was decidedly unpleasant.

"Most of her belongings remain in her chambers," Ian went on. "I'm sure no one will mind should you wish to make use of them during your stay."

"I think I prefer my own things." That sounded cold. And she didn't want him to think it was because of him, so she added very quickly, "Thank you, Ian. That was sweet of you."

"You're most welcome." Then he turned, and extended his elbow for her.

She hooked her arm through it and let him lead her from the room and through the endless corridors, walking far more closely to his side than was really necessary. He didn't seem to mind it. In fact, his arm tightened on hers a little, pressing it against his side as they moved onward. As they approached the stairs, she smiled up at him. "Tell me, Ian, are you married?"

She saw his Adam's apple move as he swallowed. "No."

"Seeing anyone?"

"No."

"Neither am I," she told him.

"It's glad I am to hear that, Kira." He met her eyes and held them for a long moment as they stood there, halfway down the staircase.

A throat cleared from below, and they broke eye contact, turning at the same instant.

Aunt Esmeralda stood at the food of the stairs, and the look she was sending Ian should have wilted lettuce. "We're waiting, you know," she said, but her tone said far more. It said "Hands off."

Kira bristled at that tone. These women may be blood relatives, but they were also strangers. And they certainly didn't have any right to go meddling in her love life—or lack thereof.

She was going to have to set them straight on that, and soon, she decided. Because, as odd as it was after such a short acquaintance, she liked Ian. And she was drawn to him in a way that went far beyond anything she'd felt for any man before. To make her point to the aunts in the meantime, she snugged her body a little closer to Ian's side, hooked her arm more tightly through his, met her aunt's eyes as they slid to hers, and smiled at her. "I've never been very good at marching to the beat of someone else's drum, Aunt Esmeralda. I'm sorry if I held up dinner, though. From now on, maybe it would be best to just start without me if I'm a little late."

"That is not how we do things at Castle MacLellan."

"Then maybe I should find a hotel." Ian's arm clutched hers tighter to his side, as if in warning.

The woman's eyes widened, but held Kira's, and she met the subtle challenge head on. "There's not one for miles. So I suppose you'll have to adjust, Grandniece. And perhaps show a bit of respect for your elders."

Chapter 4

Esmeralda was positively icy all through dinner, but the conversation was carried on by Ian's father, Gregory, who entertained them all with stories of the old days when he was a boy and the mischief he used to get into, all in a brogue so endearing that it melted the tension from Kira's shoulders.

The Reverend MacDougal was humorless. He didn't laugh at jokes, and didn't speak unless it was to correct some factual error or add a serious bent to the topic at hand. His wife, Jane, was a meek little mouse, silent and obedient, and she waited on him hand and foot.

Ian's attention was on Kira throughout the meal, though whenever she looked his way, he shifted his gaze. And Esmeralda seemed to be watching them like a hawk, noticing every exchanged glance, bit of banter, or intimate smile they shared. And they shared a lot of those.

"Well, then, the readin' o' the will takes place tomorrow evenin'," Gregory announced. "Nine o' the clock."

"Why so late?" Kira asked.

"'Twas at Iris's request, lass. She left explicit details. I suggest you prepare yourself, though. She was a rather…unusual woman." He turned toward his son. "I would suggest, Ian, that you spend the day showin' our new friend about her family's homeland."

"I really don't think—" Esmeralda began.

"I'd love that!" Kira said, cutting her off. "Will, you Ian? My stay isn't all that long, and I'd hate to miss seeing some of the countryside while I'm here."

Ian's father stared at him, and so did Esmeralda. But his eyes never left hers. With a soft smile, he nodded. "Of course I will. It'll be a rare pleasure." And without looking away, he added, "You needn't worry yourself, Esmeralda. You've known me all my life. Your great niece will be perfectly safe in my company for the day."

She didn't argue, but Kira got the feeling Ian was going to hear about this later—and maybe his father would, as well.

"Nothing to fear in these parts, anyway," the minister said. "It's a perfectly safe area. God-fearing folk. Good people."

As the table was cleared, the guests took their leave, Ian and his father pausing at the door. "'Twas a sheer delight to meet you, lass," Gregory said, clasping her hand warmly.

"It was mutual, Mr. Stewart."

"Gregory, please."

She nodded, then looked up at Ian. "Good night, Ian. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow."

"I'll come around for you after breakfast. All right, then?"

"More than all right." He took her hand, and gave a surreptitious squeeze that made her heart flutter in her chest. Seemed he was getting over his shyness, or whatever his issue had been.

Or maybe he was just as much a rebel at heart as she was. Perhaps she owed Aunt Esmeralda a thank you for pushing his buttons.

Kira fell asleep with a smile on her face. But when she heard someone whispering her name, the voice penetrating her girl-with-a-crush dreams, that smile faded. She opened her eyes, blinking in the utter darkness of the bedroom, instantly aware of the chill that hung heavy in the air. This place always seemed cold but this was different. It was bone deep and drew goosebumps on her skin as a shiver rippled up her spine. She tugged the covers higher, hugging them tight.

"Kira…" the whisperer breathed. "Kiiiiiiraaaaaaa."

She sat up fast, one hand shooting toward the bedside lamp, then freezing in mid-air as her eyes widened. There, at the foot of her bed, was…something. A wisp of fog, in the vague shape of a woman.

"What the hell!" She resumed her groping for the lamp, found it and turned it on.

In the cold light of the sixty-watt bulb, there was no fog. No form. No ghostly apparition looming over her. The chill retreated, too, as the room returned to its normal state of clamminess.

She hadn't been dreaming. She'd been wide awake, she assured herself of that, even as she lunged out of the bed, snatching up her robe and pulling it on clumsily while heading for the bedroom door.

This was ridiculous. There were no such things as ghosts. And yet she was driven from the room. She needed to find her aunts, demand an explanation. Maybe it was Esmeralda, trying to scare her away. Maybe it was…hell, she couldn't think of any other explanation.

She yanked open the bedroom door and dashed into the dark hallway, turned in the direction of Esmeralda's bedroom, and saw it again. That foggy, misty form, floating a few yards down the hall.

"Kira," it whispered.

She turned and ran through the pitch darkness, heading in the opposite direction from the thing, feeling pursued and too afraid to look behind her to find out for sure. She rounded a corner toward the staircase, barely able to see in the pitch blackness of this place. And then it was there, ahead of her again. A segment of mist rose, like an arm, reaching toward her.

The stairs were just to her right, and she turned to race down them, tripped on the hem of her robe, and tumbled headlong. The impact of every stone stair drove screams of pain from her lungs, and when she hit her head at the bottom, she lay there, hurting, dizzy, hovering on the very edge of consciousness.

She forced her eyes open, only to see them, several of them, she couldn't count, but they were floating all around her, reaching toward her, so close now she could feel the iciness of that mist that seemed to embody them, all of them whispering her name over and over.

She screamed, and then she passed out, the scream dying as her eyes fell closed.

"There, there, lass. You're all right now. You're fine."

Kira blinked her eyes open, and stared up at the faces that surrounded her. Her great aunt Rose and her aunt Emma gazed down at her. Rose held a cold compress to one side of Kira's head, her ample rump perched on the edge of the bed. Emma stood on the other side, bending over her, stroking her hair. A little further away, Esmeralda sat in a hard-backed chair. They all wore night clothes, long nightgowns, housecoats, slippers.

Kira closed her eyes, pressing a hand over Rose's, to her head, which ached monstrously. "What happened?"

"You took a tumble, lassie. Right down the stairs. 'Tis a miracle you didn'a break every bone in your wee body," Rose said. "Whatever possessed you to go wanderin' about the castle in the dark like that, bonnie girl?"

She opened her eyes, looking from Rose to Emma, and then spearing Esmeralda with a steady gaze. "I saw something. Someone was whispering my name, and then I saw…something."

Rose sucked in a breath. Esmeralda pursed her lips, lowered her gaze.

"I think they were supposed to be ghosts. I think someone is trying to scare me away from here."

"I didna think the ladies would bother you, Kira. Most assuredly not so soon," Rose said.

"The ladies?"

Rose and Emma both looked toward Esmeralda, as if seeking her permission to speak further. Esmeralda got to her feet, moving to the table beside her, where Kira saw a tea service that hadn't been there before. She poured from a delicate china pot, filling a cup that matched, and then brought it to Kira in the bed.

"I suppose it's time we told her," Esmerelda said. She handed the cup, balanced in the center of its tiny saucer, to Kira.

Kira sat up before taking it, and Emma quickly adjusted the pillows behind her. She took the tea, sipped it. "Don't even tell me they were ghosts. I don't believe in ghosts," she said. And then she sipped some more because the tea was warm and sweet and it felt good going down.

"Aye, they were lass. They linger here. All of them," Rose said.

"All of who?"

"The MacLellan women, the ones who died at the hands of their husbands," Esmeralda said. "Your own dear mother lives among them now. They're trapped between the worlds. We've no idea how to put them to rest, though the dear lord knows we've tried."

Kira pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes tight. "Maybe you'd better start from the beginning."

"Aye, perhaps we should," Rose said.

But she didn't speak. Instead, she looked to her sister to do that. And with a deep sigh, Esmeralda began.

"There is a curse on the women of the MacLellan clan, lass. It began more than a century ago, when Miranda MacLellan was wed to the love of her life, Robby Stewart."

"Stewart?" Kira asked.

"Aye, an ancestor of Ian's, just as you've likely guessed," Esmeralda said. "The marriage, it is said, was blissful for her. But her bliss was built upon a lie. For Robby soon found himself in the arms of another woman. And when Miranda returned a day early from a journey to visit a cousin, she found Robby and this harlot, locked in a passionate embrace in her own wedding bed."

Kira closed her eyes briefly. "Men suck."

When she opened her eyes again it was to see her aunts' surprised and somewhat perplexed faces. "It just means they're horrible," Kira clarified. And then she looked at Esmeralda, the elected storyteller. "What happened?"

"Oh, she was devastated, as you can imagine. She raced from the room, crying and hysterical. Robby sprang from the bed, pulling on his clothes to go after her. But he wasn't fast enough. She took the shotgun that hung above the mantel, beneath their wedding portrait. Two barrels, fully loaded. And when he came down the stairs for her, she blasted a hole in his chest. Then she calmly stepped over his body, climbed the stairs and shot the woman, one of her own maids, who was still in bed, shivering and clutching the covers to her chin."

"Some say," Rose put in, "that the woman was also Miranda's dear friend, though we've never heard her name."

Esmeralda nodded slowly. "When her rage was sated, Miranda went to the tower room, bolted herself inside. The noise had roused the servants, but no one could get to her. Inside the room she penned a letter to her descendants, a curse really, for though few knew of it then, many of the MacLellan women were powerful witches. Miranda was, it is said, the most powerful of any of them. She wrote the curse in her journal, her diary, and then she calmly set the pen aside, performed some secret spell that involved, they say, the killing of a dove and the removal of its heart, and when it was done, she threw herself from the tower window to her death on the rocks below."

Kira's throat was tight, her skin, chilled, as she whispered, "What did she write?"

"Read it for yourself." Esmeralda pulled a small, leatherbound book from one of her robe's deep pockets, and handed it to Kira in the bed.

A ribbon marked the passage in question, and Kira opened the book skimming the parts Esmeralda had already related, and beginning on the facing page.

"I would have far preferred he had simply murdered me in my sleep, that I might have died believing in his love. For the pain of his betrayal is a fate far worse than death could ever be. And in the end, he has killed me just the same. For surely my life ended when my eyes beheld the man I adore in the arms of another. And so I leave a gift to my daughters, and to their daughters, and to theirs, and on to every MacLellan woman born to my line. And that gift is this. When you wed, if the man betrays you the way mine betrayed me, you will never learn of it. For I curse him in this manner. I curse him to bring about your death by his own hand, for it will be an act of mercy if you die never knowing the truth. And it will be his punishment to live with his deed for the rest of his days. So mote it be, now and forever more."

Kira blinked and looked up at her aunts. "So anytime a MacLellan woman's husband cheats on her, he ends up killing her before she ever learns of it? That's the curse?"

The three woman nodded sadly.

"It's ridiculous! It's ludicrous!"

"Is it, Kira? Do you not recall how your own dear mother met her end?"

She did. All too well. "It was an accident."

"It often is. It was with your grandmother, as well."

She was almost afraid to ask, but she forced herself. "How…how did it happen?"

"Your grandfather was bedding one of the local girls," Esmeralda said, her face a grimace.

"You know that's not what she meant," Emma said softly. She patted Kira's hand where it rested upon the bedcovers. "He took Grandmother sailing. The boat capsized in calm waters and she drowned."

Kira lowered her eyes. Something about Emma's hand on her own brought a tightness to her throat. Memories of her mother's lilting voice and ready smile came rushing back to her. "Did he know about the curse?"

"Aye, but like you, he didn't believe in it. Until it claimed her, at least."

"And what became of him?"

Emma sighed deeply. "He went mad. He's been in an asylum ever since. Doesn't even know his own name, most days."

"The curse is real, Kira. It's the very reason none of us have allowed ourselves to fall in love, to take a husband. To do so is only to invite the curse to take us as well."

"Only if he cheated, though," Kira said quickly. "What if he didn't? What if you could find a man who loved you, one who would be true to you?"

"How could you ever know?" Rose asked softly. "It would be a terrible risk, Kira."

"Love is always a risk. God, wouldn't it be better to take that risk than to live your life alone? Wouldn't it be better to know love once, and die young than to live to be a hundred and never know it at all?"

"No." Esmeralda said it firmly. Emma and Rose, though, seemed wistful for a moment. "Most certainly not. Why do you think the ghosts of our ancestors haunt these walls?"

"I don't know. Did Miranda die here? Is this castle where it all began?" she asked.

"No," Esmeralda said. "They were staying in the cottage, near the shore, at the time."

"Well then why do you think they haunt this castle?" Kira asked.

"To warn us. To make sure we don't forget," Esmeralda said with a firm nod.

It rang false to Kira. Weren't spirits supposed to move on into some Eden-like paradise after death? Weren't ghosts generally believed to be trapped souls, unable to move on due to some sort of unfinished business? She wasn't sure the women of the MacLellan clan would choose to remain in this drafty castle of their own volition. She wasn't even certain they could.

But at least she had the answers she sought. She sighed, and lay back on the pillows. "How can I get them to let me sleep?" she asked. "How do you?"

"You get used to their visits. If you ignore them, they stop bothering after a bit," Rose told her.

"I'll try."

"You should. You have a big day tomorrow."

She smiled at Aunt Rose at the reminder of her plans with Ian.

"Nothing is to happen between you and Ian, lass," Esmeralda said. "We don't need another MacLellan woman dying at her husband's hand, and while Ian is a good man, he's also a Stewart. It would be courtin' disaster. And he doesn't deserve the stain of your blood on his hands."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Aunt Esmeralda. It's one day touring the countryside. I'm not going to fall in love and marry the man." And yet just saying the words made her feel inwardly giddy. Thank God she could spend the day with him tomorrow, and get a break from all this superstition and paranoia.

"See to it you don't."

The women rose, and left the room, Esmeralda flicking off the light and closing the door on her way out.

Kira lay still for a long moment, before she noticed the wisp of luminous mist glowing from a far corner of the room. She sat up in the bed. "Miranda?" she asked. "Are you trying to tell me something?"

There was no sound. No movement, other than the gentle swaying and swirling of the mist.

"You've been trying to tell them, haven't you? But you've given up. Is it because they got the message, or because they just won't listen?"

Again, no words. No movement.

"I think they're wrong," Kira said. "I really think they're wrong. And if there's a way to set your spirits free, and I can find it, I'll do it."

Promise.

Frowning, Kira strained her ears and her mind. Had she just heard the word promise, or had it all been in her imagination?

She thinned her lips. "Yes," she said softly. "I promise."

And just like that, the mist vanished. Gone as if it had never been there. And it had been so thin, so insubstantial, that she might never have truly seen it at all.

But she was pretty sure she had.

Chapter 5

Ian arrived, and made his way into the sunny breakfast room, where Kira sat in a window seat, sipping tea.

She glanced up as he came in and couldn't help the instant smile that spread across her face. "Good morning, Ian," she said, rising to her feet.

"Morning, lass." He clutched her shoulders, and leaned in to kiss her cheek. It was polite and impersonal, that peck. But the gentle squeeze of his hands on her shoulders suggested something just a little more intimate. Something private, just between them.

As he straightened, he frowned, and sniffed. "Mint?" he asked, nodding at her teacup.

She nodded.

"Rose only brews the mint when someone's queasy. Are you ill, Kira?"

"Queasy is a good word for it. I couldn't eat breakfast."

He tipped his head to one side, a sudden worry clouding his face. "Why are you queasy then? Nerves or jet lag, or have you come down with something more serious?"

"I saw a ghost last night." His brows rose, and he searched her eyes. "Several of them, actually. They kept whispering my name. And like an idiot, I went wandering into the pitch-dark hall to get away from them and wound up falling down the stairs."

He sucked in a breath and his expression shifted from worry to full-blown fear. "And you're all right?" He swung his head toward Aunt Rose, who'd just reentered the room, carrying her china teapot with wafts of minty steam floating from its spout. "Did you phone the physician? Are you sure she's not sufferin' with some hidden injury or—"

"We checked her over quite carefully, Ian. She's fine, I assure you, save for the tummy ache, an' I daresay that's more from stress than anything else. It's unsettlin' the first time you come face to face with the dead."

He looked horrified as his gaze slid back to hers, but Kira only rolled her eyes. "I'm ready to leave if you are," she said. She took a final sip of her tea, and then set the cup on Aunt Rose's tray.

"Should we expect you for dinner, then, Kira?"

"No," Ian answered for her. "We'll return by nine, for the reading of the will. Don't expect us a minute sooner." He met her eyes as if seeking approval. She gave it with a nod and a blatantly grateful smile.

They moved quickly through the castle, into the entry hall, and out the front door. She was nearly running for the car she saw waiting at the end of the drive, and Ian kept pace, opening her door for her and then circling the car to get behind the wheel.

As soon as he got the thing in motion, he looked worriedly her way. "If you're not feeling up to a day on the town, Kira—"

"I am, don't worry."

"Can't help but worry. I've always believed your aunts to be a wee bit…well, dotty, where their ghost stories were concerned. I hope you don't mind me sayin' so."

"I don't."

"But you saw them with your own eyes, though?"

She frowned. "I saw…mist. Or fog. Vaguely tall and narrow, almost human shaped. It could have been anything. The humidity here, a trick of the light, or even some kind of illusion set up by my aunts."

He shot her a quick look. "They're honest women, Kira."

She met his eyes. "Are you sure about that? I think they're a little bit—how did you put it?—dotty. Who's to say they're not dotty enough to try to prove to me that what they believe is true, and to go to any means to do so?"

"I just don't think they'd do that."

She lowered her head. "Esmeralda doesn't like me."

"Esmeralda doesn't like anyone," he told her.

"Do you think she might be orchestrating all of this to try to scare me away?"

"But why would she want to do that, Kira?" he asked.

"For the money? You said I had to be present for the reading in order to inherit. If I leave, they get my share."

"They've more money than God already, lass. They'll never live to spend it all. They couldn't want for more."

She pursed her lips. He rounded a curve, and pulled the car into a pulloff alongside the dirt track that passed for a road. Then he shut off the engine and got out, opened her door, and took her hand.

Smiling, she followed where he led, over lush grasses, meandering through a few trees, until they came to the shore of a glimmering blue lake, its surface just as still as glass. "It's beautiful," she whispered.

"Aye, and just the thing to relax you." Taking her hand, he led her closer to the shore, and she saw the little dock, with the rowboat tied to one side. A picnic basket sat in its bow, and oars stood at the ready.

"We're going out on the water?"

"Aye, and I've packed us a lunch as well. I hope your appetite returns to you by midday ."

She nodded, and he got into the boat, then held out a hand and helped her board it as well. When he clasped her hand, she caught her breath, and met his eyes. Neither of them had spoken of this—this thing between them. But they were both fully aware of it. She knew he felt it just as much as she did.

She sank down onto the seat. He'd put a velvet cushion atop the hard metal of it. He took his seat as well, facing her, and gripped the oars.

"Did they say anything to you?" he asked.

"Who? The aunts?"

"The ghosts."

She pursed her lips. "I don't believe in ghosts, Ian. And I don't believe in curses, either."

He blinked. "So you finally made your aunts tell you about the curse."

She nodded.

"And you don't believe in it?"

"No."

"How do you explain the way the women of the family have died, then?"

"My mother's death was an accident. A freak accident, yes, but an accident all the same. They happen."

"And your grandmother?"

"Sailing is risky. Or maybe it was murder, did you ever think of that?"

"No, lass, it was an accident. I saw your grandfather after. It was clear as day. He loved her. Now, the death of your great grandmother, Lily, that one may well have been murder. A gun in the hands of your great grandfather, Angus, that went off accidentally. He fully expected to inherit her fortune, or so the story goes. But even then a Stewart was employed as the MacLellan women's attorney. My own grandfather. So the will was iron clad, and there were provisions excluding him from a penny should his bride die, even by accident, at his hand."

Kira leaned back on her hands and watched the ripples his oars made in the crystalline water with each stroke. And then she lifted her gaze to watch the way the muscles in his arms did likewise.

"She knew that if she died at his hand, that would mean he had been unfaithful," Kira mused.

"Aye."

"And had he been?"

"Aye. He ran off with the baker's wife, as soon as the courts ruled the will valid, and non-contestable. Local gossip had it they'd been seeing each other all along."

She sighed, her stomach relaxing as she listened to the steady, gentle splash of the oars in the water, and watched the sky slinking slowly past overhead. Blue, blue sky, with puffs of white cloud, fragrant air that smelled of flowers she couldn't hope to name, and the fresh, slightly fishy aroma of the lake. And beneath it all, the cologne he wore, so subtle she only caught faint, tantalizing whiffs of it when the breeze moved just so. She wanted to bury her face in the crook of his neck and inhale deeply.

"Do you know of any others?"

"Others?" he asked.

"Other MacLellan women who've died by their husband's hands."

He nodded. "There were three others. One died in a fire, after her husband rolled over in his sleep and tipped the oil lamp. One choked to death when he fed her a bit of fish that turned out to have a bone in it. One was crushed by a castle stone. She stood on the grounds looking up as her spouse worked on repairs. He knocked the stone free and it flattened her." He shook his head slowly. "And then of course, there was the first one. Miranda, the MacLellan witch who cast the curse."

She nodded. "I can see why the aunts are so convinced."

"I canna' see why you aren't, lass. One or two deaths might be coincidental, but six, since the MacLellan witch penned those words?" He shook his head slowly. "Were I a MacLellan female, I might be more inclined to give it credence, even just as a precaution."

"I feel sorry for them," she said.

He stopped rowing, pulling the oars in and settling them into their brackets along the inside of the boat. Then he dropped a small anchor over the side. "The ghosts?" he asked.

"No, my aunts. Aunt Emma, especially. She's beautiful. She's too young to lock herself away from any possibility of love."

"Aye. Frankly, my father's been pining for her for nigh on ten years now."

Her brows shot up in surprise. "Really?"

"You didn't spot it, then? I always find it so obvious when he's near her."

"I guess I was focused more on his son," she said softly.

He reached out and took her hands in his. "Aye, I found myself quite distracted as well. Have been since I first heard your voice on the telephone, lass."

She smiled shakily, as he held her eyes with his.

"Your Aunt Esmeralda—she's warned me nothing is to…transpire, between us."

"Ian," she whispered. "Are you really going to let my Aunt Esmeralda tell you what to do?"

His gaze lowered, focused on her lips. "I donna think I could, even if I tried. An' I've no desire to try, Kira."

"I'm very glad to hear that, Ian."

He leaned closer, and she did too, their faces, their mouths, moving nearer, and still nearer, until at last, they touched. The kiss was tender, barely more than a whisper, at first. And then it changed as his arms crept around her waist, his hands tugging gently. She slid off her seat, and onto her knees, between his thighs. Her arms hooked around his neck, and his tightened around her waist, pulling her against him until the only thing between their bodies was their clothing. And she resented even that thin barrier.

He kissed her more deeply, more passionately, his mouth parting, his tongue dancing and plunging. Her hands buried themselves in his hair, holding his face to hers as she opened to receive him. God, this was good, Kira thought. This was insanely good.

It was as if she'd known him forever.

It was as if she'd been waiting, just for him, all her life.

When they finally came up for air, he stared into her eyes, panting, breathless. Her heart pounded like a jackhammer in her chest, and she was dizzy, giddy, and her skin, she was convinced, had become hot to the touch.

"I've never felt anything this powerful before," she whispered.

His eyes were utterly sincere as they stared into hers, more emotion swirling in their depths than she had ever seen before. "Nor have I. Not ever, lass. And I don't mind tellin' you, I want you so badly right now I can barely contain myself."

"I want you, too, Ian."

He nodded. "I'm…I'm not an American, lass. This isna the sort o' thing I take lightly."

"Ian, I may be an American, but that doesn't mean I take sex lightly."

"I didna mean to suggest—I only wanted you to know I'm not like other men you may have known. When I make love to you, Kira, it'll mean somethin' to me."

Her heart was melting in her chest.

"An' it will'na be today," he went on. "We have to give it some time, to be sure this is real. 'Tis far too soon, and far too powerful a feelin' to be treated lightly."

"It's also," she said, staring up into his eyes and imitating his brogue, "far too powerful a feeling to be ignored."

"I won't be ignorin' it," he promised.

She nodded, though she wanted to push a little harder. A little harder, hell, she wanted to push him down in this boat and climb on top of him.

And yet, something held her back. She didn't know what this feeling was, burning her up from the inside out. It wasn't like her. It was almost as if something beyond her were feeding the fires.

He pulled her across his lap, and snuggled her close in his arms. She nuzzled his neck, and relished feeling more cherished than she ever had. "I can wait for you, Ian. But please don't make me wait too long," she whispered.

"If I wait too long, Lassie, I think I may well die from the wanting." And then he lowered his head and kissed her again.

Chapter 6

The great room was crowded with strangers. Family, Kira thought, but strangers to her. She wanted to stick close to Ian, would have felt a little more comfortable at his side, but he was at the front of the room with his father.

The aunts had set things up as if this were some kind of a party. Every surface of the great room, all of the ornate tables and stands, were laden with food. Trays of finger sandwiches and hors d'oeuvres of every imaginable sort lined one. A five-tiered silver serving tray held fresh fruits, with dishes of sweetened cream for dipping. Serving platters overflowed with raw vegetables and a variety of dips. Crystal punch bowls with fountains spewing in their centers stood at the room's four corners. The dishes were fine china. The napkins were linen.

They'd dragged in more chairs than had been in the room previously, though there had already been plenty, sofas and love seats and thickly cushioned easy chairs and the like. Now there were several rockers and some folding chairs added to the mix. And there were people in every one of them, and others standing, nibbling from their oversized plates, and sipping from their crystal punch glasses.

The focal point was the fireplace, at the front of the room. Gregory and Ian sat in easy chairs that were situated at angles on either side of a small table. In the center of that table was a large manila envelope.

As Aunt Esmeralda led Kira from one group of strangers to the next, introducing her with lists of names and family connections she would never remember in a million years, she looked his way every little while. Not so much for reassurance—she wasn't the shy type. But more because she so loved looking at him. And every time she did, she found him returning her gaze, his eyes always smiling, the dimples in his cheeks always there. There was more, too, in the way he looked at her—more than just a smile. There was desire, and a tenderness with it that tended to make her throat want to close up a little, and her heart to race a bit faster.

Gregory cleared his throat, and the steady hum of voices fell instantly into silence. "If you would all find a place to sit, we can begin."

People moved, then, meandering around, finding chairs or convenient corners in which to stand, refilling their glasses one last time, or snatching a few more snacks from the offerings to carry with them to their places. Within a few more moments, everyone was quiet again, and still, and all eyes were riveted to Gregory.

He reached for the envelope, tore it open, and extracted from it a sheaf of papers, their length longer than the standard size. He tugged a pair of bifocals from his breast pocket, perched them on his nose, and then looked out over the tops of them. His steady gaze skimmed everyone there, lingered for a long moment on Kira's aunt Emma, but when it finally settled, it settled on Kira herself.

"Being that I was Iris's personal solicitor, I already know the contents of her will. But I am the only one who knows it. She assured me of this." He glanced at his son as he said that, and Kira saw a tiny frown appear between Ian's brows. As if he were suddenly worried.

But why would he be?

"Iris was," Gregory went on, "something of a rebel. I'm sure those of you who knew her are aware of that. She resented some of the restrictions placed upon her by MacLellan family traditions and certain—er—beliefs. And in her final act, she attempted to strike a blow against them."

Esmeralda tensed. Kira saw it from the corner of her eye. Rose and Emma both moved closer to her, standing on either side as if they'd appointed themselves her personal protectors.

"I, Iris MacLellan," he read, "being of sound mind and body, do hereby bequeath all of my worldly possessions, assets and wealth, indeed everything that I have accumulated throughout my lifetime on this planet, to my great niece, Kira MacLellan."

A gasp went up. Every eye turned to Kira. She blinked rapidly, shooting a questioning look from her mother's sister Emma, to her Aunt Rose, and finally sliding her gaze past them both to see Esmeralda. She didn't look shocked or stunned or disappointed. She looked as if she was still waiting. Her face was an impatient, troubled expression of expectation.

"But I thought she was going to divide her assets among all of her relatives," Kira said. "That's what you told me, when we first spoke on the phone, Ian, isn't it?" She met his eyes, saw his solemn nod.

"It's what's always done in the Clan MacLellan," Ian told her. "I had no idea Iris had broken with that tradition."

"It's a sizable bequest, Kira," Gregory said. "Iris owned this castle and all the properties attached to it, which includes more than a thousand acres, much of it overlooking the sea. There are several houses and cottages within the tract as well. Not to mention vacation homes in Spain and Italy . Then there are the other assets. Her bank accounts, stocks, bonds, investments, savings."

Kira pursed her lips and swallowed hard. Then she shook her head slowly. "It's not fair," she said softly. "It's not fair to all the other members of her family." Lifting her gaze again she said, "What if I don't want it? Can I refuse to accept it?"

"Oh, I'm getting to that, lass. There are two stipulations in this will, and they are iron clad. The first is that should you refuse to do as your great aunt requests, in order to accept the inheritance—"

"Do as she requests? What—?"

He held up a hand, "Should you refuse to do as your great aunt requests in order to accept the inheritance, the properties will be sold, the stock liquidated, and the entire estate donated to several charities your aunt has listed within this document."

Stunned, Kira just stared at him, then looked at her aunts. "But it's their home."

"We're not poor, Kira," Esmeralda said softly. "We certainly have accumulated a great deal of wealth on our own, although the deeds and such to our ancestral homes have always remained in the name of the eldest surviving daughter. Still, we would not be destitute." She then shifted her stern gaze to Gregory again. "What is the other condition, dear friend?"

Gregory licked his lips, and tugged at his collar. "I tried to talk her out of this. I vow, I tried. But there was no give in her. Not even a bit." He glanced toward Ian. "I couldn't tell you, son, though it nearly did me in keeping this to myself." With a sigh, he lifted the documents and read on.

"In order to inherit the estate, and thus preserve it for her family, both those who came before her, and those who will come later, Kira MacLellan is required to marry Ian Stewart within one week of the reading of this will."

Ian leapt to his feet, his mouth opening as if he were going to shout something, but no words emerged. Kira felt tears burning in her eyes. No one spoke. And then Esmeralda broke the stunned silence.

"No. It canna happen."

"But Es," Rose began.

"'Twould mean her life," Esmeralda stated flatly.

"I resent that remark, Esmeralda," Ian said, speaking at long last. "You know me far better than to think so little of me."

"Aye," his father agreed. "'Twas Iris's firm belief that the MacLellan family curse could be broken, and she vowed she would be the one to set that eventuality into motion. She's been convinced, for years, that the ghosts who haunt these castle walls do not remain of their own free will, nor as a constant reminder and warning to the women of their line. But rather, that they are trapped here, unable to move on to the heaven they so richly deserve. And that they will remain so until the curse is broken."

He lifted the sheets, read further. "It was the disastrous marriage of the MacLellan witch to a Stewart man that set this curse into being," he read. "Only the successful marriage of another MacLellan to another Stewart can break it. And having set eyes on them both, I've no longer any doubt these two are the ones who can do it. I've watched Kira from afar, kept tabs on her life. She is a good woman, and in possession of the legendary MacLellan beauty. Moreover, she's a strong woman. As for Ian, I've never known a man more honest or true. Should these two wed, should they be ever faithful to one another, should he live out his life knowing only his bride, it is my belief that the curse will be broken. MacLellan women will be free to wed forever more, and the spirits of our mothers and theirs before them, will at last, be set free."

There was stunned silence, but it was followed soon by whispering and muttering that grew steadily louder.

Kira turned her head left and then right, only to see eyes on her. Some of them seemed speculative, curious, nosy. Others appeared hostile. She saw greed in several faces, pity in others. Aunt Rose was one of those who seemed to feel sorry for her. She closed a chubby hand on Kira's shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. Aunt Emma was speculative, looking from Kira to Ian and back again, with a tiny frown between her brows.

But it was Aunt Esmeralda who brought silence down hard on the room again with her nearly shouted declaration. "It willna be. I willna have it. And that's all there is to be said on the matter."

"But Aunt Es—" Kira began.

"Gregory, you are to begin seeing to the process of selling the holdings and liquidating the investments. First thing tomorrow, I want it underway. There'll be no more of this nonsense."

"I think that's up to Kira to say, don't you Esmeralda?" Ian asked.

His strong voice drew her eyes to his. He moved through the crowd of relatives toward Kira, and all those present parted to open a path for him.

She held onto the strength in his gaze, locking her own with it and seeing there a steady reassurance. Everything would be all right.

"Ian!" Esmeralda barked. "You canna tell me you intend—"

"This matter is now a very private one." He stood beside Kira, so close beside her that his body touched hers, and the warmth and power of it made her blood heat. "'Tis a decision that will take some time to make, and one that needs to be made in private, between Kira and myself. We'll let you know when we've decided what's to be."

Esmeralda lifted her steely brows and sent him a look that could have wilted a cactus. Rose wrung her hands, and pressed her lips tightly together. Emma, though, tipped her head to one side, looking at them both, exchanging a long glance with Gregory, and then finally, she nodded. "Ian is right. It's no longer our business."

"He didn't mean that," Kira said quickly. "Of course it's your business, it's your home. But…yes, it really has to be up to me now."

She said me, not us, and she hoped Ian picked up on the emphasis she'd placed on the word. She had no intention of letting anyone—not her aunts, and not him—decide her life for her.

"Understood," Emma said. "Now, guests, we have enough food to feed half the township, so dig in. We feast, and then we sleep, and in the morning, things will look decidedly better."

"Things do tend to look better in the morning," Rose muttered.

"Always," Kira agreed.

Ian took her arm, and leaned in close. "I think we should talk. Don't you?"

She met his eyes and nodded once. "Yeah, I guess I do."

Chapter 7

"So, pretty Kira, we've been placed in a hellish situation, yes?"

He'd led her into a small study on the first floor, closed the door behind them, and flipped its lock. She crossed the room, which she'd never seen before, and sank into a soft leather chair. She wished she could keep on sinking, right out of sight.

With a sigh, Ian crossed his arms where he stood, near the door. "I'm sorry this happened, lass."

"So am I," she said softly. "And I certainly don't expect you to marry me just to protect the family fortune."

"Of course you don't expect it. But are you willin' to do it?"

She lifted her head with a snap, and felt her own eyes widen as they found his. "What?"

He moved across the room until he stood just in front of her chair, and then he dropped down onto one knee in front of her. "Will ya marry me, lass?"

"Get up, Ian." She shot to her feet as she said it. "Get up and stop being ridiculous."

He rose to his feet as well, but kept trying to hold her eyes with his. And even though she kept averting her gaze, she found it drawn back to his over and over.

"I donna find it ridiculous at all, Kira. There's…somethin' between us. Somethin' more powerful than makes any sense, given the brevity of our acquaintance. You canna deny it."

"I don't deny it. I've felt it too. Hell, it took my breath away from the first time I set eyes on you—I even felt it when we spoke on the phone, but Ian, how will we ever know where it might have led, given time? If we're forced to marry now, our relationship will never have a chance to develop in a natural way."

"It felt pretty natural on the water yesterday, love." As he said it, he slid his arms around her waist, pulled her a little closer, until their bodies were touching.

"It's insane, Ian. No, I can't do it. I'd like to keep seeing you—I'm compelled to. I don't think I could stop if I tried. But we can't get married. Not like this. We barely know each other."

"And yet it feels as if I've known ya forever," he said.

She lifted her head in spite of herself, and he lowered his, kissed her, folded her up in his arms and held her hard as she opened to him, kissing him back as the heat flared between them. Her entire body began to tremble, and she felt an inexplicable, overwhelming rush of emotion that tightened her throat and burned in her eyes.

When he broke the kiss and she melted against him, she felt his heart pounding as rapidly as her own. And she didn't doubt he felt the same mindless need that she did. And yet it made no sense.

"There's no such thing as love at first sight," she whispered, because she was incapable of speaking more loudly than that.

"We've a week, Kira, a week in which to make this decision. I've lived to be near forty, and never felt the likes of this before. I've no illusion I'll be feelin' it again with another woman. But it makes sense to take the time we've been given before makin' any decision. At least, donna refuse me until our time expires."

He stroked her hair, and she clung to him. "I just don't understand any of this. Not what I feel with you, not this curse—"

"I can promise you one thing, Kira. That curse will never harm ya, not if I'm the one you trust to keep ya safe."

She lifted her gaze to his. "I'm afraid."

"Aye, an' so am I. But I've a suggestion."

She stared into his eyes, wondering if the caring she saw in them could possibly be real.

"Try to pretend it's just us, just the two of us, with a week to spend together. Forget the will an' the curse and all the rest of it. An' just focus on the two of us."

"How am I supposed to do that, Ian? How can I, with the aunts, and the castle and all of it, looming over me like a big blade waiting to fall?"

He lowered his hands and clasped both of hers. "Come away with me. Your family owns a cottage on the coast, which they've given my family the right to use at will. It's close enough that you can visit your relatives if you wish it, and yet far enough away to give us time and privacy to…to see where this may lead."

She looked down at their clasped hands, and sniffling, she nodded. "I couldn't say no if I wanted to."

His hands tightened on hers. "I'm glad to hear it. I can think of nothing else but you, and I want nothing more than to be with you."

"I know. I feel exactly the same way. I just wish I understood why."

He licked his lips, lowered his head, and for the first time she had the feeling he was keeping something from her.

"What? What is it?"

He met her eyes again, and shook his head, as if whatever thought had crossed his mind didn't matter. "Go and pack up some things. I'll info rm your aunts of our decision."

She did as he suggested, packing a week's worth of things into one small suitcase and snatching up her makeup bag, and then she headed down the stairs to meet him. But as soon as she reached the bottom, the sounds of raised voices caught her attention.

Slowing her pace, she crept nearer to the room, the very study where she and Ian had spoken only moments before.

"You promised me you wouldna get involved with her, Ian," Aunt Esmeralda said, her tone ice-cold and clipped.

"That was before I met her. Esmeralda, what I feel for her—"

"Is exactly what I warned you against. I've feared this very thing, Ian. Do you not see that it's unfolding just as I predicted?"

"Maybe it's supposed to," he said softly. "At least if we spend some time together, we might—"

"Aye, aye, fine. Spend time together. But not there. Not at that cottage, of all places. Ian, it's certain to end in tragedy."

"It willna," he said, his tone grave. "Not this time."

She heard his footsteps coming toward the closed door, but they stopped when Esmeralda spoke again. "If she knew all of it, Ian, she wouldna choose to go there with you."

"Aye, indeed, what the lass needs is more of her spinster aunts' silly superstitions clouding her mind."

"The curse is real, Ian, and it culminates in the two of you. How can you not believe that when you've seen it with your own eyes?"

His hand clutched the door knob, began to turn it. "If that's true, then it's with us the curse will be broken. I would think you'd want that, Emeralda. To finally be free of this dark belief that you've allowed to keep you prisoner your entire life."

"I canna watch her die at your hand, Ian."

"I promise you," he said. "That will never happen. More likely the moon would turn to dust than I would harm a hair on Kira MacLellan's comely head."

The doorknob turned, and Kira backed up rapidly, suitcase in hand, to the bottom of the staircase, and stood there as the door opened. Ian exited the room, and saw her there, met her eyes and quickly pasted a warm smile over the troubled expression on his face.

"Are you ready, then?"

Trembling, and reminding herself that she did not believe in curses, she nodded.

He came closer, and took the bag from her hand, then touched her cheek gently. "You look frightened, Kira. Are you having second thoughts?"

"I just…I just have the feeling there may be something you haven't told me."

He glanced back toward the study door. Esmeralda stood there now, watching them. Ian faced her again, and said, "There is something. But I'll tell you all of it, lass, once we're alone, and have time and privacy."

She held his eyes.

"Hysteria and superstition needn't be a part of the conversation," he said. "I far prefer calm and logic to those things."

Kira felt herself nodding. "That makes sense. Frankly, another night here with the ghosts of this place haunting me isn't something I've been longing for."

Esmeralda stomped away, muttering, "And you think the cottage will be better?"

Chapter 8

The "cottage" was bigger than most houses she'd seen. Two stories, with peaks and gables, and a widow's walk, perched on high, looking out over the sea. Its siding was pale blue, its trim white, its driveway a worn dirt track. The grass was higher than it should have been, with tufts of weeds and rushes standing higher than the rest, here and there, waving softly with the ocean's breeze. Beyond it was a rocky beach, and the sea, its waves rolling in endlessly. Seagulls cried and swooped in every direction. The place was beautiful. But dark. Something about it gave Kira a chill right down her spine.

"It's been a while since anyone has used it," Ian said. "The aunts wanted to have it torn down years ago, but my father was able to talk them around. They considered selling it then, but it's been in the family longer than nearly any other holding, besides the castle itself. They couldn't bring themselves to see another owner take possession."

"But they could have brought themselves to demolish it?"

"It didn't make any sense to me, either." He got out of the car, reaching into the back seat for her bag before coming around to open her door.

She opened it herself before he got there, however, and stood staring at the house with the wind blowing through her hair. There was something niggling in the deepest part of her mind, like a word on the tip of one's tongue. It was calling to her, nagging at her to dig around and figure out what it was, but she wasn't certain how.

"I can't wait to show you the place," he said. "Come." Taking her hand, he led her up the walkway, made of flat fieldstones, fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle. There were three steps up to the front door, and they dashed up them, then paused there at the top while Ian unlocked the door. He swung it wide, and she stepped inside and then gasped, overwhelmed with the most incredible sense of déjà vu she'd ever felt in her life. She stood there, almost nauseated with the surreal rush that swamped her. She pressed a hand to her forehead without being aware she was doing it.

"Kira?" Ian dropped her case inside the door, facing her and taking hold of her shoulders. "Are you all right?"

"I just…feel so strange." She frowned, and looked around the foyer. The floors were hardwood, narrow boards in rich maple tones. The walls were covered in floral paper, and crown molding painted white gave the place an elegant, antique look. The windows stretched from ceiling to floor, with wide sills, and sheer curtains. It smelled like old wood and the sea.

As Ian led her from room to room, she began to relax. Except when he showed her the room on the third floor, the only room there, in fact. It was a tiny room, that led out to the widow's walk. There were candles and a book of matches upon a dusty table in the room's center.

"What is this place?" she asked.

"I don't know." But he did, she knew he did.

She'd push him on it, later, she decided, as they made their way back to the ground floor and through the kitchen. As they approached the back door, she found herself knowing already what she would see when she got there. A steep, rickety staircase that zigzagged its way down to the rocky shore far below. And suddenly, as Ian reached for the doorknob she gripped his shoulder and whispered, "I'm too afraid to go out there."

He frowned at her, searching her face.

"The stairs are too steep and they can't be safe, not with the weather and the ocean and all the years…"

He nodded. "The stairs were torn down fifteen years ago. There's a deck now, a wide one. Look." And as he said it, he pushed the door open.

Kira peered outside. No rickety, deadly looking stairs sloped dangerously down to the rocks below. A giant redwood deck stretched out instead. At the end of one level, were a few steps down, followed by more decking, and more steps, and more decking. What had been a steep and dangerous descent to the beach was now a gradual walk over the multi-level deck, with only a small set of steps at the end of the final level, that led down to the shore.

Each level had built-in benches and safety railings, some of which were lined with flower boxes, devoid of any growth. It was modern and pleasant, and friendly. The only part of the entire house that didn't give her goosebumps, in fact.

"You see?" he asked, as they walked out over the redwood planks.

"It's wonderful. It's the best part of the house."

"Mmm. Those staircases were treacherous, you're right about that. I argued with the aunts for years to get them to make this change." He led her to a bench that overlooked the beach, and she sank onto it, facing the ocean. "How did you know?" he asked. "About those stairs, that is."

She turned her gaze to meet his. "I don't know."

"Perhaps Esmeralda was right."

Kira held his eyes steadily. "She didn't want you to bring me here."

"No."

"She said if I knew the whole story—"

"You heard that, then?" She nodded and he said, "Aye, I thought you might've. But we've only just arrived, lass. I'd hoped for one happy evenin' together before we turn our minds back to those aunts of yours and their ghost stories."

She sighed. "It feels as if you're putting off telling me something you think will change my mind. Have a little faith in me, Ian. I'm not as easily frightened as you seem to think."

"If you were, you'd have turned tail and run home by now." There was a chiming sound, a doorbell, she realized, and Ian got to his feet. "That'll be the groceries. I phoned in an order before we left the castle. I'll see to it. You just relax."

"All right."

He left her alone on the deck, in the sunshine, and she basked in it. Slowly it burned away the chill that seemed to have settled into her bones from the moment she'd set foot in this country. She closed her eyes, felt the sun's warmth, and in a moment, a smile pulled her lips into its hold, and her mind told her how ridiculous all the rest of it was. Curses. Ghosts. A billion-dollar inheritance. An enforced marriage.

Ridiculous. She didn't have to do anything she didn't want to do. And no curse was going to run her life. It would neither force her into marriage nor keep her from it. And it certainly wouldn't bring about her early demise.

Curses only had the power their believers gave to them. If you didn't believe, they couldn't hurt you. And she didn't believe.

A hand smacked against the window glass from inside the house. The sound was unmistakable, and she sat up, popped her eyes open, and glanced in the direction from which it had come, fully expecting to see Ian smiling at her from the other side of the glass.

Instead she saw her own reflection, only…it wasn't her.

She sucked in a breath that hurt her chest as she realized it. The woman with her face wore different clothes, and her hair was up, and her eyes were red as she stared intently through the glass at Kira. And then Kira moved, just slightly, to get a better angle, and the vision vanished.

On her feet now, Kira moved closer to the glass panes. They belonged to a set of French doors that led into a room she hadn't yet seen. "I don't believe in ghosts," she whispered, as she hesitated, then, gathered her courage, and cupped her hands around her face to peer through the glass.

She saw no woman. "Probably just my own reflection like I thought at first." Tricks of light and shadow could explain the differences. Couldn't they?

Within the room, which appeared to be a large living room, she saw no woman. There was a fireplace, a lot of furniture. It was dim inside.

She tried the door handles, and found they gave when she twisted them. Pulling them open, she stuck her head in, looked left and right. "Anyone here?" she asked, feeling silly. Because really, who could possibly be there, besides ghosts, and she didn't believe in them.

Since no ghosts answered her, she stepped the rest of the way inside, but left the French doors open onto the sunny deck. And then, as soon as she spotted them, she moved from window to window, yanking open the heavy, dark draperies that shrouded each of them. Clouds of dust erupted, and as she opened the last set, she brushed her hands against each other, and turned to survey the room in the newly admitted light.

And then she froze, because there, above the fireplace mantel, above the shotgun that was resting on its hooks there, was a huge portrait, as perfect and fresh as if it had just been finished yesterday.

A couple, side by side, his hand on her shoulder, stern faces staring out from the canvas into the room, in that serious pose that was considered appropriate in times gone by.

Her face, Kira realized, was the same face she had seen peering out the window at her. It was her own face. Looking at the portrait was like looking into a mirror.

And then she forced her eyes to move to the male subject, and she felt her heart trip over itself in her chest. He was Ian. He was absolutely Ian.

"Kira? Lass, where've you gone?"

She heard him calling to her from some other room in the house, and she walked toward the closed door. "I'm in here," she called, and she closed her hand on the doorknob, twisted, but it didn't give. "I think the door's locked."

He was right on the other side, gripping the knob, twisting. "Odd," he said. "Do you see a way to unlock it?"

"No, just a keyhole. I guess you need a key. That's all right, though, I'll just go back out the way I came in. Meet you on the deck."

She turned and started for the French doors.

They slammed closed so hard she jumped and screeched. Then she dove at the doors, gripping the knobs, rattling and shaking and tugging on them.

Even as she did, the drapes yanked themselves closed, one set after the other. Spinning around, her back to the doors, Kira stared around the room. "There's no point in this," she whispered, as her chest heaved with the force of her rapid breathing. "You can't frighten me—all right, you can, but what good is it going to do? What do you want from me, and how the hell do you expect to get it if you can't even manage to let me know what it is!"

Behind her, the French doors opened, and she almost fell outside as they did, but Ian's arms came around her from behind. He held her, burying his face in her hair. "What happened, lass? What was the noise? You cried out, and doors slammed, and—"

"Look, Ian. Look at that portrait."

From the open doors, the sunlight spilled over the face of the painting. Ian looked, and then couldn't seem to look away. "Aye, it's uncanny, is it not?"

"Then you've seen it before? You knew?"

"I knew. I'd intended to tell you about it before you saw it. In fact, the portrait was in the attic. I put it there myself. I've no idea how it got back down here."

"Someone wanted to make sure I saw it." She turned into his arms, let him hold her as she whispered, "Is that the thing Aunt Esmeralda thought I should know about?"

"That, and her theory. Her ridiculous, outrageous theory that you and I—"

"That you and I?" she prompted when he fell silent.

"That we're," he nodded at the portrait, "them. Reincarnated. Doomed to relive our past."

Shivering, Kira looked around the room. "This is where it happened, isn't it? Where she found him in bed with the maid? Where she killed him?"

"Aye," Ian said. "With that very weapon. I packed away the shotgun in the attic by my own hand. I donna know what's about here, Kira. I donna ken how these items came to be replaced in this room. But you're right, this is where it happened. She shot him, and then she cast the spell, from the tiny room at the top, the room where 'twas said she cast her spells, and then she threw herself from the widow's walk, down the cliffs to the rocky beach below."

"Then I only have one question, Ian."

He faced her squarely.

"Why the hell did you bring me here?"

Chapter 9

"Because I donna believe it. Not any of it, Kira. 'Tis a family legend, a superstition that's gained power purely because so many generations have believed in it. That belief is the only power it has."

"You sound awfully sure about that."

He nodded, searching her face. "You said you didna believe in it either, lass."

She nodded, acknowledging her own words. "I'm not so sure anymore. I mean, this place feels so familiar to me. And the ghosts—I've seen them and their antics firsthand." She let her eyes roam throughout the room, and they got stuck on the portrait that looked so much like one of her and Ian, in period costumes. All except for the unbearable sadness in their eyes. "What if it's all true, Ian?"

He moved close to her, clasping her shoulders and drawing her eyes back to his face. "Coming here is the only way to prove that it isn't. An' that's why I brought ya. I feel something for you, Kira, something powerful. I think I might love ya. But we can't know what's between us while this shadow's hanging over our heads, can we now?"

"No. But…what if what we feel for each other is just further evidence that all of this is true? What if…it's leftover from some past life?"

"What if it's not?" he asked. "What if we responded to each other so readily because we're meant to be together? Soul mates?"

She lowered her gaze. "One doesn't necessarily negate the other."

She shivered a little, and he ran his hands up and down her outer arms, then pulled her into his. "At the very worst, lassie, at the very, very worst, suppose it is true. Then it's up to us to set it right. Here and now. We can put the fate of your family back on track for the countless generations to come."

His whispered words about generations to come made her think of the children she wanted to have one day. A vision of a little girl hovered in her mind. Big blue eyes and dimples and silken curls. She could risk passing along the family curse to that child, putting her through all the angst that Kira herself was suffering right now. Or she could risk everything to ensure that would never happen.

Lifting her gaze to Ian's she met his eyes and nodded once. "All right. I'll stay."

"You'll be safe, I promise."

Kira sat alone in the large living room, staring up at the portrait, and the shotgun. Ian had offered to return them to the attic, but she'd told him to leave them. She wasn't sure why, it had just sort of slipped out and once it had, it felt right.

He was in the kitchen now, preparing dinner. She'd wanted to spend more time in this room, though logic seemed to suggest she should want just the opposite. Maybe to block the doors, and not enter it again for the duration of her stay. But instead she wanted to remain.

Once Ian left her alone, reluctant as he was to do so, Kira bent to the hearth, removed the ornate screen, and began to build a fire. There was a stack of old newspapers nearby, and a tiny pile of kindling beside the circular log holder.

She crumpled papers, positioned kindling carefully over them, and used one of the long matches from the matchholder, striking it on the red brick and watching as it flared to life. Touching the match to the papers, she sat, mesmerized as the fire took hold. Then she tossed the matchstick into the fire, and replaced the screen.

As the fire spread, adding warmth to the chill of the room, Kira sank into a comfortable chair and watched the flames, gradually shifting her focus to the portrait up above. "I want you to stop messing with me, okay? Ian and I need this time together."

The eyes of her ancestor seemed to glare at her.

"I think I love him," she went on. "And I think he loves me, too."

She paused, listening, as ridiculous as that was, for some response. Of course there was none.

"If we can make this work, maybe the curse will finally be broken."

The fire snapped so loudly she jumped out of her chair, and beneath the sound she could have sworn she heard the word "Never!"

Kira swallowed hard, rubbing her arms and looking around the room. "You placed that curse on your family out of hurt and anger and unbearable pain, Miranda. But it was a mistake. You need to recognize that. You made a horrible mistake and your descendents have been suffering for it ever since. But I'm going to be the one to set it right. Since you're not able, or maybe just not willing to do it yourself, I'm going to do it. Ian and I. True love will break this curse of yours. I know it will."

In her mind she heard a heartbroken whisper. There's no such thing as true love.

She wondered, later, if Miranda had granted her request to be left alone with Ian. Because she didn't feel the troubling, unsettled presence lurking, and there were no further incidents of flickering lights or slamming doors or snapping flames that sounded like voices.

Ian made steaks, luscious and cooked to perfection, with baked potatoes, mixed baby vegetables, sweet red wine. He suggested they eat on the deck, and so they did, at a small round table on the far end, overlooking the sea.

The wind was cool, but refreshingly stiff, and it matched the pattern of the waves rushing toward the shore below. They ate, and they drank. They talked and laughed, touching on every subject imaginable from religion to politics to the environment to philosophy to favorite foods, colors, and places. She told him in painful detail about her childhood, and the pain of losing her parents. He told her about losing his own mother to cancer when he was barely thirteen, and being raised by his father since then. And he elaborated on how woefully smitten his father was with Emma, but knowing of her firm belief in the curse, he dared not ever let on.

They were still sitting there, sipping the last bit of wine, as the sun sank beneath the horizon, and the skies turned to purple and deepened into blue. Then as they stared out at the darkening sky and the sea below it, a flash of lightning lit the night just briefly.

A second later, thunder rolled slowly across the sky.

"That's close," Ian said. "We'd best get inside before it hits."

She frowned at the clouds that seemed to come boiling out of nowhere, and wondered why she hadn't seen them before.

Ian picked up their plates and Kira took their empty glasses and the bottle and ice bucket. Big droplets began pummeling them before they made it to the door, and she laughed at the cold kiss of the unexpected storm. In the kitchen, she set the glasses and bucket down. Ian deposited the plates in the sink, and turned to face her.

Smiling, his eyes intense, he reached up to brush the wetness from her face. But his hand stilled there on her cheek, and then he was leaning closer, and his lips were pressing to hers.

She opened to him, curling her arms around his neck as the fire he always managed to ignite in her took hold. He buried one hand in her hair, cupping her head and angling her for his invasion. His other hand curled around her bottom, pulling her tighter to him. The heat grew and spread. Her breaths came shorter and faster, and her entire body tingled with longing and need.

He scooped her up into his arms and carried her through the house, still feeding from her mouth, up the stairs, into a bedroom. And then they fell together to the bed as he tugged at her clothes and his own, and she struggled to help.

Naked, at last, tangled in each other, they stopped, suddenly, and Ian backed away just enough to look at her. His eyes devoured her from her head to her toes and back again, and the look in them told her everything she needed to know.

And then he was kissing her again, touching her, rubbing and caressing places that were already thrumming with heightened awareness. Her nipples screamed with pleasure when he squeezed them. And when he kissed and suckled them, it was all she could do not to cry out loud. As he ravaged her breasts, he slid his hand lower, fingers dipping into the hot moistness between her legs, exploring her there, probing and pressing until she thought she'd lose her mind with desire. She touched him in return, shocked at the rigid length of him, that he was that aroused, that throbbingly hard, for her.

"I need you now," she whispered. "Ian, I need you."

"Yes," he muttered, sliding his mouth to her neck, to her ear, nibbling and suckling every bit of skin he encountered. "Yes, lassie, it's been too long."

It was an odd thing to say, and yet felt perfectly natural, as he slid himself inside her, and began to move. And when he entered her, it felt right. It felt like the fulfillment of a longing she'd held forever, yet never been able to name. It felt familiar and perfect.

And as they moved together it was as if they'd been sexual partners for years. She knew what he wanted, what he liked, how to please him. He seemed to read her mind, because he knew all the same things about her. He knew how to push her right to the edge, and let her hover there as he played her, drew it out, made it last, made her want to beg and plead for release. And then he knew how to push her over, into ecstasy, driving into her to keep it going and going.

He even knew how to hold her closer and tighter as she came back down, how to make her feel safe and protected in his strong arms while her body slowly stopped trembling. And he knew exactly what to say to make it absolutely perfect.

"I love you, Kira MacLellan. I love you."

Tears springing inexplicably into her eyes, she whispered, "I love you too."

And as he held her there, it seemed the sky grew darker. Wind she'd been oblivious to before howled and moaned around the corners of the house. The bedroom door smashed open, and an unearthly keening wail filled the room.

Kira sat up in the bed, stunned. And she heard, beyond it all, footsteps, dragging their way up the stairs.

"No!" she cried. Scrambling from the bed, she snatched Ian's shirt from the floor, pulling it on. He was beside her, yanking on his shorts.

"What is it?" he asked. "What the hell is happening?"

And she knew, right to her gut she knew. Miranda had seen them, somehow, seen them making love, and was reliving that night when all of this horror had begun. The night when her heart had been shattered so badly that neither death itself nor the centuries that had passed in between had been able to heal it.

"This isn't your husband!" Kira cried. "This is Ian!"

The windows smashed inward, and the wind and rain surged into the room. Kira gripped Ian's hand as terror clutched her heart, and tugged him with her out of the bedroom.

It was dark, but she sensed Miranda's spirit to her right, near the bedroom door. Dashing past her, pulling Ian in her wake, she headed for the stairs, racing down them as fast as she could manage.

And she sensed it. The pursuit.

"Kira, where are we goin' lass?"

"Out. You have to get out of here. Don't you see, Ian, she's going to kill you!"

He stopped on the landing, gripping her shoulders hard, staring into her eyes in the darkness. "Lassie, it's only the storm. You're in a panic, but I promise you, it's only the storm, and—"

His words cut off mid-sentence, turning into a cry of alarm as he was shoved bodily. He sailed down the stairs, hitting the landing below as Kira turned to stare in shock at the form that stood beside her now. Misty, with a faint glow and the dimmest hint of her own features staring down at Ian.

And then slowly, the ghost's focus shifted to her.

From the corner of her eye, Kira saw Ian move. He was alive, the fall hadn't been a deadly one. She couldn't let Miranda realize that her task was not yet accomplished. So as the woman turned to her, she wracked her brain. In the story, Miranda had murdered the faithless maid as well. And there was definitely murder in her eyes as she stared at Kira.

"My turn now, is it?"

Mist like tendrils extended toward her. Kira bolted up the stairs. "Come and get me, then. Come on, Miranda! You want to do this, let's do it!"

She hit the top of the stairs, glancing over her shoulder to see that the shape was following. And then she tripped over something, and scrambling to her feet, realized it was the shotgun that had hung on the wall above the fireplace, beneath the portrait. Miranda must have managed to bring it with her, but discarded it. Too hefty for mist to manage? Or was it simply unloaded and useless?

It didn't matter. She got to her feet and kept running, even with the chilly essence of the ghost touching the back of her neck. She hit the second stairway, and raced up it, bursting through the door at the top. The door that led to the room where the MacLellan witch had allegedly cast her deadly spell. Kira flipped the light switch, but nothing happened, so she raced to the odd little table at the room's center, and fumbled for the matches she'd seen there earlier. Wooden matches, and God only knew if they were any good. She struck one, struck it again, and again, and finally it sparked and flared. She touched it to the candles on the table, all of them, and she noted there were more than there had been before.

Frowning, she looked at the table in the dancing light of the candles. There were five of them, four forming a circle and one in the center. All black. Dishes of herbs she couldn't identify rested there too, along with a dead dove, three hat pins sticking out of its chest.

Kira caught her breath, stepping backward, away from the table.

And then she felt Miranda behind her, and turned.

Miranda stood there, staring at her. And while she was still translucent, she was also far more fully formed than before. Kira could see the waves of her hair, the tears in her eyes, the greens in the gown she wore.

"Miranda," she whispered.

"How could he? How…could…he?" the heart broken spirit whispered.

Kira stood there, frozen. "Why…don't you ask him?" she suggested.

"I've killed him. I wish he'd killed me instead. I wish he'd spared me this pain. Better he put a knife in my heart than betray me this way. I'll see to it none of my descendents ever hurt the way I do now." She looked at the table.

"No you won't." Kira swept an arm over the table, scattering the dishes of herbs. Then she snatched up the murdered dove, yanking the pins from its poor wounded breast, and racing to the doors that led onto the widow's walk, she flung them open.

"No!" Miranda cried.

Kira hovered there in the doorway with the dove's still warm, limp body in her hands. "I'll toss it unless you ask him yourself, Miranda! I will!"

"How can I? He's dead."

"So are you."

The wraith went silent, her eyes seeming to focus inwardly. She remained that way for a long moment.

"You're dead, too, Miranda. You took your own life, and you died in pain and anguish. But before you did, you cursed your entire family. No MacLellan woman has known love since. The few who've tried have died at the hands of their husbands. The rest are too afraid to give love a chance. You're destroyed your daughters, and theirs after them, for generations to come. And soon the line will die out. All because of your actions that night."

The ghost's brows rose, her eyes lowered, her head moved slowly from side to side.

"Talk to your husband, Miranda. Call out to him. He'll hear you, I know he will."

The winds of the storm raged on. Lightning flashed, and the curtains flew as the rain slashed inward.

"Victor?" Miranda whispered on a broken plea. "Can you hear me?"

To Kira's amazement, a form appeared in the room then. A man's form. He took shape slowly, growing more solid before her eyes. Two of the candles went out as the wind-driven rain spat at them.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Victor, why? Why?"

"I got very drunk, my love. I was missing you, and drinking, and she came to our room. I took her into my arms, thinking it was you. And even as I realized in my drunken state that she was not my beloved bride, you burst into the room on us. You never gave me a chance to explain."

Miranda's form fell to its ghostly knees, her head lowering, sobs wracking her frame. "But I…I k-k-killed you!"

"I forgive you, my love. I forgave you long ago. And I've waited, all this time, for you to forgive me, and yourself, to free yourself of the bondage you created for your soul, and to join me on the other side."

Her head came up slowly. Kira felt tears pouring from her own eyes as it did.

"You forgive me?"

"I love you, lass. It's unendin' what I feel for you. Let it go, my beautiful Miranda." He held out a hand. "Join me, my love. I've missed you so."

Rising slowly, Miranda lifted her hand and took a single step toward him.

"Wait!" Kira cried. "Wait, please. Remove the curse first."

Both heads turned toward her. Miranda nodded slowly, and held out a hand. "Give the dove to me."

Swallowing hard, Kira handed her the lifeless bird, feeling the cold touch, like heavy fog, touching her hand as Miranda took it from her. Cupping it between her ghostly hands, Miranda bent her head close to the bird, whispered something, and then straightening, she moved to the open doors, lifted her hands, and opened them.

The dove soared from her palms, and even as it entered the storm, the winds died. The rain ceased. The lightning and thunder ended. Kira stared skyward as the black clouds skittered away, making a clear path to the new moon that was a thin silver sickle in the sky.

"Thank you, Miranda," Kira whispered. "Thank you."

She turned to look at the couple, but there was no one there. It was over. It was honestly over.

And then she remembered. Ian!

Racing from the room, and down the stairs, she headed through the hallway, and saw him lying on the landing below. Rushing down to him, she took his shoulders, pulling him upright. "Ian, darling, are you all right? Talk to me! Please?"

He lifted his head, blinking at her as she searched his face. "I'm…fine. I think. What happened?"

"It's over, Ian. It's over, the curse is broken."

"Thank the Lord," he muttered, and pulling her into his arms, he lay back down, snuggling her close, right there on the floor. "Now let's go back to sleep, love."

Kira frowned, because she wasn't lying on the stair landing. She was in the bed, in the same bedroom where they'd fallen asleep. Ian had rolled onto one side, and was breathing deeply, steadily. Sound asleep.

Kira threw back the covers. She was naked, not wearing Ian's shirt. It was on the floor right where it had been before.

She got up and put it on now, then looked around the room. The windows were not smashed in. There was no rain. The storm outside had abated. The bedroom door was still closed.

She opened it and stepped out into the hall, trying a light switch. It worked fine, flooding the corridor with light. Kira traversed it, seeing no shotgun lying on the floor near the top of the stairs.

She kept going, to the second staircase, and up it, to the spell room at the top. Its door opened easily, its light switch also in working order. The table in the room's center was empty, except for the thick coating of dust, the two candles and the matchbook that had been there earlier in the day. The doors to the widow's walk were closed. But she could see the sliver of moon just as she had seen it before.

Had it all been a dream? Was the curse truly broken?

She left the room, shutting off its light and closing its door, then headed all the way down to the first floor, to the living room. The fire she'd left burning there was only a soft bed of red-orange coals now. Again, she turned on the lights, and again, they worked as they should.

Then she stood, staring up at the gun, that hung right where it should have hung, above the mantel. And above that the portrait was just as it had been before.

Or was it?

Kira moved closer, staring up at the painting. No, she realized, it wasn't the same. The couple—their eyes were different. And their mouths. It seemed they were almost smiling now.

Something tapped the window behind her and she turned quickly, startled.

The drapes were parted, and there on the other side of them, she saw a dove. It stared back at her for a minute, then spread its wings and took flight.

"Darlin'?"

She turned to see Ian in the doorway, looking at her worriedly.

"You had a bad dream, lass," he said. "Is everything all right now?"

"Yes, Ian." She moved into his arms, and felt them close around her. The most incredible feeling of rightness washed through her, and she relaxed against him. "Everything's really all right now. I'm sure of it."

She lifted her eyes to his. "I want to marry you. I'm sure of that too."

His brows lifted in surprise, and then a smile appeared on his handsome face, a smile she loved with everything in her. "But what about the curse?"

"There is no curse, not anymore," she told him. "But even if there were, I'd marry you anyway. It would be worth the risk. Love is worth any risk, Ian. I understand that now."

He stared into her eyes for a long moment, and then he kissed her, more tenderly, more gently, than he ever had. And Kira knew then, that her life was perfect.

About Maggie Shayne

It was a sleepless night spent caring for a sick baby that jump-started New York Times bestselling author MAGGIE SHAYNE's writing career.

Now she is the author of more than forty novels, ranging from stories about witches, vampires, psychics, and ghosts to bone chilling, edge-of-your-seat romantic suspense and beyond. Maggie has appeared on the New York Times, USA Today, Amazon.com, B. Dalton, Booksense, Ingram's, Barnes and Noble, and Walden-books (where she reached #1) bestseller lists.

What would she be doing if she wasn't so accomplished a writer? Maggie maintains she'd be equally happy as a rock star. "I have a karaoke machine, and I'm actually damn good," she says. "Furthermore, Sheryl Crow and I are the same age, so I figure if this writing thing doesn't work out, there's still time."

http://www.maggieshayne.com/