Dougal Read online

  Judging from the brilliant globe of light hovering near the outer wall, he assumed that was the last kiss he would ever feel against his mortal cheek.

  “‘Tis time, Dougal Cameron. Ye’ve a fine, brave soul, and it is high time ye were rewarded for it, aye?”

  “And Hannah?”

  Soni tisked. “Hannah has a great many lives to bless before she’s through, Dougal. Dinna be selfish.”

  “But I will see her again.” He tried to sound confident.

  The lass shrugged. “What am I, a fortune teller?” But her wink told him she was just that. And a mind reader. A dream walker. And the savior of Culloden’s 79.

  He bent and kissed her forehead, gave her hands a squeeze, and bid the lass a fare-thee-well. Then, with no burdens left to bear, he turned toward the outer wall.

  The clouds scuttled away and the day grew lighter with each tentative step until such brightness could not be attributed to the natural sun. Even so, he had no need to hesitate and stepped fully into the brightness that awaited him.

  EPILOGUE

  An old woman of 87 years lay eerily still in the bed she’d known for nearly as long. Her fingertips passed lightly back and forth over the tiny pink rosebuds raised in the pattern of her bedspread. She so loved the tiny rosebuds. They brought to mind a dozen happy memories, but one most of all—the memory of a brawny Scottish Highlander with open arms, stretched out on a homely couch of pink rosebuds on a field of red.

  She still possessed a small pillow made from the awful fabric, though she suspected it now sat forgotten in the bottom of a toy chest in another room. It would have been a comfort at the moment, but she wasn’t quite up to asking for it.

  Whoever thought pink and red went well together, except at Valentine’s?

  She chuckled, then coughed, which brought Madeline to her side once again. Her cousin’s daughter, eleven years old, tried to distract her.

  “Tell me again, Hannah, about the witch in the painting.”

  Beyond the foot of the bed, hanging above a small mantel, hung Witch’s Mist. The Nile blue mist was woefully out of vogue and matched nothing but her memories now. Though it clashed with the warm, sunny colors of her bedroom, she’d been determined to leave the painting where it was until the day she died.

  Tomorrow, she thought, someone could finally take it down.

  “The witch’s name is Soncerae. A beautiful young Scotswoman who introduced me to the only man I ever loved.”

  “And his name was Dougal?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  A strange thing to say, since the girl had heard the story a dozen times.

  “Why?”

  “Because you named all your dogs Dougal.”

  Hannah laughed, coughed only once, then settled again. Her coughing upset the girl, so she did her best not to do it. “At least I never forgot his name,” she teased.

  Madeline wrinkled her nose and in doing so resembled her late grandmother, Zilla. “If I fell in love with someone, I would never, ever forget his name, even if I never saw him again.”

  Hannah gave her a wink. “Oh, Maddie. I would never have forgotten.”

  “Then you were teasing me?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you did name all your dogs Dougal.”

  Hannah sighed. The urge to cough was powerful, but she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She just didn’t have any more to give.

  “Yes,” she whispered, “I did. So I would have an excuse to say his name twenty times a day.”

  Maddie was still unimpressed. “What good would that do?”

  Hannah shrugged weakly. “I figured, if I called him to me a million times, he’d have to come back.”

  The little girl rolled her eyes and watched her for a moment. She pretended to fall asleep so the child could find something more exciting to do. A moment later, Maddie tip-toed from the room. But a heartbeat later, someone else entered.

  Hannah’s eyes opened at the sound of boots on the floor. A young Highland Warrior with a familiar Mohawk and rumpled kilt stood beside her with a gentle smile on his face.

  “Hannah, lass. It’s only been half a million times ye’ve called my name, aye? So kiss me and thank me for not making ye wait twice as long.”

  She pushed herself to her elbows, then sat up easily, no longer weighed down by her bag of bones. Her long blond hair that she’d missed for decades fell around her shoulders and tickled her cheek.

  “Dougal Cameron, I thought you’d never come!”

  He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers in a long wished-for embrace. “Silly woman,” he said. “I’ve snuck into yer room thousands of times to watch ye sleep, aye? Had ye never sensed me?”

  Hannah pretended to be surprised. “That was you? I thought it was Deputy Donny. He never did get over me.”

  Dougal grunted and took her hand. “Come with me, Hannah Cameron. I’ll make certain ye never have room to doubt me again.”

  She laughed against her hand, hopped down off the bed, and spared a short but solemn glance at the old body she left behind. Now that her Highlander was back, she was glad for the time she’d had on this earth, the time to love and be loved by many, like Maddie and her mother before her. And now, she was content to be loved by the one who had watched over her, day and night, for decades.

  Together, she and Dougal rose on swirls of pale mist toward the unknown. Somewhere below, her fragrant peach orchard waited for another day of sunshine. In a studio full of empty canvases, Madeline hid from her mother and picked up a paint brush. On the porch, a beloved wooden chair waited for the next generation to paint it, and a broken tread needed mending. But none of it needed her…

  Except the Scotsman holding her hand…who would never again let go.

  THE VERITABLE END

  Next will be LIAM’s story, by Diane Darcy. KENNEDY will soon follow.

  If you want to read Wickham’s insane story, What About Wickham, you can find it here.

  Links for the other ghost romances can be found on the book list page.

  Sign up for my newsletter at www.llmuir.weebly.com to be notified when all the ghosts get their turn. And if you care for any of Culloden’s 79, be a sport and leave a review.

  The lads have a website.

  www.ghostsofcullodenmoor.weebly.com

  And they have a Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/GhostsofCullodenMoor

  Seriously, thank you for playing!

  About the Author

  L.L. Muir lives on the Utah side of the Rocky Mountains with her husband and family. She appreciates funny friends, a well-fed campfire, and rocking sleepy children.

  A disturbing number of almonds were consumed while writing DOUGAL.

  If you like her books, be a sport and leave a review on the book’s Amazon page. You can reach her personally through her website— www.llmuir.weebly.com , or on Facebook at L.L. Muir.

  Thank you for playing!

  Amazon KDP Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. The ebook contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or stored in or introduced into an information storage and retrieval system in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This ebook is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to per
sons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.