My Laird's Love (My Laird's Castle Book 2) Read online

  I wrapped my arms around my chest and pulled my knees close. How on earth was I going to make it through the night? I had discovered over the past week that the Highlands were much colder at night in May than they were during daylight hours.

  I buried my face in my lap and fought back tears of frustration. Where on earth was Julie? Where was I? Was this all just a dream?

  A cold wetness brushed my right hand, and I shrieked. A dog barked beside me, and I jumped up but lost my balance and fell back against the hill. The dog barked again, and I heard a voice, a deep baritone.

  “Robbie! What ails ye, lad?”

  “Hello?” I called out. My voice came out in a sob. “Hello! Can you help me? I’m lost!”

  The moon, free of the clouds, suddenly cast a light on my surroundings, and I saw the dog, a black-and-white sheepdog, which ran up to me and gave my hand another warm lick. With a shaky smile, I reached to pet his silky head.

  A soft thudding sound caught my attention. Horse’s hooves?

  “Who goes there?” the man called out. He appeared out of the darkness, astride a large horse and dressed like some Highlander warrior heading off to Culloden. He held a bagpipe under one arm as if he had been playing it. While riding his horse?

  MY LAIRD’S LOVE

  Bess McBride

  My Laird’s Love

  Copyright 2016 Bess McBride

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the publisher and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Cover art by Tara West

  Contact information: [email protected]

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To all my loyal readers who love the combination of time travel romance and the mystique of the Scottish Highlands! This one’s for you!

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Dear Reader

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Books by Bess McBride

  About the Author

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for purchasing My Laird’s Love. My Laird’s Love is book 2 in the My Laird’s Castle series of Scottish historical time travel romances set in the aftermath of Culloden. The dialogue is laced with what I hope is enough Scottish dialect to give the reader a historical feeling, but not quite so much as Robert Burns might use such that readers have to reference their Scots-English dictionaries throughout. As I did. I hope you enjoy the story of Maggie and James.

  Maggie Scott, having recently lost her fiancé, Sam, to a terminal illness, travels to the Highlands of Scotland for a brief respite—from the arduous months of caring for a sick loved one, from the grief that now engulfs her. But instead of finding solace, she finds herself transported back in time to the 1747, the year following Culloden, a year that saw the Highlands suffer in the aftermath of the Jacobite Rebellion.

  James Livingstone, laird of Castle Lochloon, survived Culloden, and by a miracle, he survived the purge of the lairds who participated in the rebellion. When Maggie comes into his lonely life, it seems as if another miracle has occurred—that of love. But tragedy strikes just as James and Maggie find each other, and Maggie races against the clock to save the man she loves. Can James truly ask for one more miracle?

  Thank you for your support over the years, friends and readers. Because of your favorable comments, I continue to strive to write the best stories I can. More romances are on the way!

  You know I always enjoy hearing from you, so please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or through my website at http://www.bessmcbride.com.

  Many of you know I also write a series of short cozy mysteries under the pen name of Minnie Crockwell. Feel free to stop by my website and learn more about the series.

  Thanks for reading!

  Bess

  Chapter One

  “What’s going on over there? Pull in! Pull in!” I called out to my cousin. A pullout along the road held multiple cars and a tour bus.

  “What? Another stop, Maggie?” Julie exclaimed. “We can’t keep stopping if we’re going to make our hotel in Glasgow before it gets dark.”

  “I know. I know,” I said. “This is the last one—I promise.”

  In all fairness, I had made Julie stop at every pullout or marker from Inverness to Fort William since we’d left that morning. I hadn’t thought I would find myself so attracted to Scotland, but I had fallen in love with the country over the past week, with the often-desolate mist, with the inherent melancholy of the battleground at Culloden, with the gloomy history of war, occupation and despair—all emotions that suited me at the moment.

  Julie, my second cousin, was retired, and she had disposable income, not to mention a decent insurance settlement from her late husband’s estate. When she had asked me a month ago to accompany her on a trip to Scotland at her expense, I had at first declined—caught up in romancing my misery.

  But she had begged and pleaded, insisting that if I didn’t accompany her on a road trip through Scotland, she wouldn’t be able to go...ever. She knew no one else to travel with, not since her husband had passed two years ago. She had said she was working on her bucket list, doing all the things she wished she had done when her husband was still alive.

  We hadn’t spoken about Sam, but Julie had known full well how to get me to change my mind. She had only to mention death, to talk about unfulfilled wishes and dreams, and I would do what I could to make sure she had no regrets.

  On a yearlong sabbatical from my job as a computer programmer, I couldn’t decline to accompany her because I couldn’t take the time off work. I couldn’t say no because I didn’t have the money. I had plenty of money of my own and had paid my way, no matter that she had offered to shoulder the expense.

  Julie had finally proposed she do the driving—on the left-hand side of the road—and I had agreed to accompany her, though I had warned her I might not be the most cheerful companion.

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p; And so I had left Sam behind...for a while.

  Yet Scotland had surprised me. Or I had surprised myself. It reminded me a great deal of the rainy Pacific Northwest, and I felt quite at home with the weather that could change from wet to windy to sunny to stormy within minutes.

  I admit that I had been unprepared for the occasional days and hours of sunshine, almost resistant to a lightening of my depression as the sun highlighted the bright-blue lakes and emerald-green slopes of the Highlands. But there it was. Scotland—complicated, beautiful, mysterious, enigmatic, tragic and joyful. I had fallen in love.

  Julie nudged our little rental car into an empty space, and I hopped out of the car and hurried up to the mortared rock barrier that kept hapless tourists from falling down the hillside into the valley below.

  I heard the sound of a bagpipe to my right, somewhere in the pullout.

  “A bagpiper,” I said reverently as Julie approached my side to look down into the valley. I hurried along the wall and found the bagpiper standing in front of the barrier, surrounded by numerous tourists. I assumed the vast majority of them came from the tour bus.

  Middle-aged, with a thick auburn mustache that curled to a point on either side of his face, the piper’s reddened cheeks puffed as he blew into his elaborate instrument. A festively decorated gold-buttoned jacket fitted his stocky form snugly, tapering over a tomato-red kilt. White knee socks, black dress shoes, a sporran and an impressive pseudo bearskin hat completed his ensemble.

  I stilled, mesmerized as I listened to his medley of Scottish songs. Although I had heard bagpiping in the past in the United States, never had the melancholic sounds agreed with me more so than they did in Scotland. The haunting melody of the piper’s music drifted out over the valley to the mountains beyond, enveloping them in a moment tenderly evocative of Scotland’s tumultuous history.

  Julie, now at my side, whispered in my ear.

  “Clock’s ticking, Maggie! Look, he’s putting his pipe away.”

  My heart sank. The Scot was indeed stowing his bagpipe. Many of the onlookers turned to file back onto the bus or into their cars.

  “Shoot!” I exclaimed. “I would have liked to hear more!”

  “It’s about 4:00 p.m.,” Julie said. “That sort of explains why he’s leaving. Are you ready?”

  I watched my magical bagpiper move toward a small beige sedan, where he removed his huge ornamental hat and shoved it and his bagpipe case into the backseat. Rubbing his thinning reddish close-cropped hair, he climbed into his car with the most extraordinary normalcy—a far cry from the fabulous spectacle he had presented only moments before.

  With a sigh of regret, I turned to survey the valley. A small river ran the length of the valley, beckoning me.

  “Wait!” I said hastily. “Do you mind if I run down there for a minute? I’m not sure I’ll come back here, and I’ve been wondering if I’ll ever get a true sense of the aura of Scotland—the land, the scenery, the feel of Highland heather under my fingers, the temperature of a cold Highland stream.”

  Julie, a short blonde with the softened body of a retired widow who enjoyed cooking and eating, sighed and gave me a gentle push.

  “Go on then, hurry up. I’m not going down there—too steep for me—but you can.”

  “Okay, I’ll be real quick!” I said. Even from up on the roadway, I could see a few people ascending a dirt trail that led down to the valley. A trail along the valley floor paralleled the river and looked perfect for hiking, not that I hiked much, but I understood that the British enjoyed it.

  “I’d say take your time, but I wouldn’t mean it,” Julie said. “Daylight’s a-burning.”

  I hurried back along the rock wall until I reached an opening that led to the trail. Julie returned to the car, presumably to finish the rest of the tea and scones she had picked up at a cafeteria/gas station we had passed when we left Fort Williams.

  I trotted down the trail, nodding to the people returning to their cars. The redness on the cheeks of some climbers, and huffing and puffing coming from others, told me the trail was much steeper going up than it was coming down. But I was undeterred. I wasn’t sure I would ever return to the Highlands again. While I was here, I wanted to touch stuff, to feel stuff, to be as one with the elements.

  My lips parted in a grin at my hokey words as I reached the bottom of the hill. I looked over my shoulder to see our rental sedan with Julie in the driver’s seat. As I suspected, she was eating. I waved at her, and she smiled and waved back. Most of the cars had left the parking lot, and I knew Julie was right. We had to get going if we were going to beat the darkness. I knew Julie didn’t want to drive on the left-hand side in the dark.

  I turned to admire the mountains on the other side of the stream. They hadn’t appeared quite as lofty when I’d first seen them, but they now towered above the river and me. How that little bit of water could have carved such a large opening through the mountains was beyond me, but it seemed quite likely that it had done so, albeit millions of years earlier.

  I knelt down on the edge of the bank to catch some water in my hands. Frigid and brisk, I assumed this was still some runoff from winter snows, given that the month was May. I had seen a few patches of white crowning some of the mountains.

  I let the water slip through my fingers, surprised at the tingling sensation in them. I hadn’t thought the water particularly glacial, but tingle it did.

  I was tempted to bring some water to my lips, but hesitated. How could such chilly water harbor bacteria? Still, I knew it wasn’t wise, and I resisted, satisfying myself with a splash of water across my forehead and cheeks—just to say that I had.

  The coldness hit my face with a sensation of pins and needles, and I reared back, falling sideways onto my backside. I blinked and turned to look up toward our rental car, but saw nothing through a black swirling mist. I felt myself slumping even closer to the ground.

  Chapter Two

  A chill breeze blew over my cheeks, awakening me, forcing my eyes open. The sky, no longer the blue gray of late afternoon, showed streaks of purple and black, as if twilight had descended.

  “Julie!” With a gasp, I pushed myself upright and pivoted on my hips to scan the road above but saw no signs of our rental car. I scrambled to my feet, wobbling as I tried to straighten, my head woozy.

  Had I fainted? Why hadn’t Julie come to get me?

  I hurried toward the trail leading up the hill, but in the failing light, I couldn’t find it. I ran back and forth along the base of the hill but spotted nothing that looked like a trail.

  My heart pounded as I stared at the hill. No matter! I would scramble up the hillside without the aid of a trail. Where on earth was Julie? Had something happened to her? Had someone come along and carjacked her? Kidnapped her?

  I began my ascent, clutching at tufts of heather and other shrubs as I climbed, all the while trying to calm myself. No, Julie was just fine. She had probably just moved the car, for some reason. No one was going to abduct her in the Highlands of Scotland.

  But my self-talk failed to stop the fear that exacerbated the thudding in my chest as I scrambled up the hill on my hands and knees. I reached the crest of the hill but saw no rock wall. Where was I?

  Still clinging to the side of the hill, I shifted my body and turned to survey the valley. Everything looked the same, albeit darker than it had been only a short while ago. The river flowed below, and I was directly above where the trail should have been. Where was the rock wall that guarded the pullout where we had parked?

  I pulled myself over the edge and straightened to look around. Where, for that matter, was the pullout? The only thing I could see was a rutted path where the wide two-lane highway should have been.

  I shook my head and turned toward the mountains. Was I lost? Had I wandered off and ended up in another valley?

  The mountains looked the same insofar as I could remember. I hadn’t exactly memorized their shapes, but remembered only that they had been majestic.
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br />   I willed a car to come by, to pick me up and give me a lift to Glasgow. I had no idea where I was, no idea even what time it was, but I knew Julie would be worried, and I hated to do that to her.

  It seemed likely that I hadn’t fainted but had probably gone into some kind of fugue state and wandered away from the pullout. For all I knew, I could be on the other side of the mountains, far from the highway. I shoved my hands in my pockets, searching for my phone, but realized with frustration that I had left it in my purse in the car.

  The faint wailing of a bagpipe caught my ears, and I spun around, looking for the source. The melancholic sound brought me back to a sense of reality. The bagpiper! The middle-aged man who had played for the tourists. Did he live nearby? Was he playing somewhere?

  I turned back toward the mountains, toward the valley. The sound came from that direction. I couldn’t see the piper, but he was down there somewhere. Maybe there was a town, or a house, or a pub or something where a piper might play.

  I worked my way back down the hill, often having to drop to my backside in the waning light, grateful that I’d worn my sturdy blue jeans instead of some light-colored cotton slacks. I had thought I’d be sitting in the car most of the day, not climbing around the Highlands of Scotland.

  I reached the bottom of the hill. I remembered that the hiking trail along the river did indeed exist. I turned my head to the right and then the left, trying to decipher the direction of the piping. I decided on the right and struck out in that direction, hurrying, sometimes stumbling in the growing darkness. The temperature had dropped, and I grew cold. I wore only a blue cotton blouse, my jeans and my athletic shoes, having left my jacket in the car, given the pleasant late-spring day.