Gerard Read online

  “Oh!” She whooped and cackled like a sea bird. “Lassie, he says.” Then she looked him over from head to toe and blushed again. “I do hope yer own lass appreciates yer blindness, love.”

  He plucked up her boney hands in his and kissed the backs of each. “My own lass, ye say? Do ye mean to tell me I’ve mistaken the two of ye?”

  She pulled her hands away and held them up to her hot cheeks. “Away with ye, laddie. The doctor will wonder what’s got my heart to racin’, and I’m too modest a maid to explain it.”

  Gerard laughed and looked about him. “Then direct me to the kirk, lass, so I might bend the vicar’s ear.”

  “Oh!” The woman shook her head and pointed down the road toward the Cromarty Firth in the distance. “Castle Street.” She resumed muttering to herself. “Bend his ear, he says.” Then she started cackling again like an excited hen.

  Worried both for the woman’s heart and the attention her laughter might attract, Gerard gave her a wink and went on his way.

  The smell of the Firth was unmistakable and it stopped him in his tracks. He could smell again! And with that smell came the taste of heather and broom. The pines covering the Highlands to the west might have been chopped up for a stew and poured over his tongue, the scent of them was that strong.

  “God bless ye, Soncerae. God bless ye.” And if nothing ever came of this gift of a mortal day, at least he was able to remember what it had once felt like to be alive.

  His stomach rumbled, but he had a stronger hunger at the moment, and it would need a bit of satisfaction before he worried over finding a meal and a way to pay for it.

  The Church of Scotland stood on Castle Street as promised, though he was surprised by how many other churches he passed on his way to it. His kilt seemed to attract a great deal of attention, but it only reminded him that he was alive and visible, so he met curious stares with a generous smile and a wave of his hand.

  “Would ye look at that git? He’s throwing his own parade.”

  Gerard turned his head and spied a big blond fellow standing at a petrol station filling his lorry, and smirking at him. Another man stood in the back of the truck and laughed. A third man sat inside the vehicle and grinned at his friend’s words. The slight lift of that one’s chin was an invitation for a fight, and though Gerard ached for the feel of a bone cracking beneath his fist, that happy event was even further down his list of wishes than was food. So he blew the trio a collective kiss and moved on, waving and smiling at passersby with all the more cheer, just to prove he would not lower his mood to please them.

  Finally, when he stood at the top of the kirk steps, he paused. Still feeling the trio’s eyes upon him, he glanced back. The lorry was now on the road and coming his way, so he waited until just the right moment, bent, and flipped the back of his kilt up off his bum. A mooning, they called it.

  He was rewarded with the loud blaring of a horn…and a pair of quiet gasps.

  He straightened and turned. Two ladies with matching clothes and faces teetered on the steps behind him, their eyes wide, brows as high as the blush on their cheeks.

  He hurried to them and offered each an arm. “Beg pardon,” he mumbled, and in the distance, he heard the high peal of laughter from the disappearing lorry.

  After only a slight hesitation, the ladies clamped onto his arms and allowed him to escort them inside. A half dozen apologies later, he finally felt forgiven and excused himself to search out the vicar. But one sister was slow to release his arm.

  “I have a beautiful neighbor lass ye simply must meet,” she said.

  He chuckled. “Had I the time, madam, I would love nothing more. But as it is…”

  “Time? Dear me,” said the second sister, staring at him with calculating eyes that mirrored the first one. “How much time do ye need to slip down the street and have a pint?”

  “A pint, ye say?”

  “Our treat, of course.”

  He frowned, uncomfortable with the idea of a woman paying for a drink even if he were dying of thirst in the middle of the Sahara.

  “Call it a bribe,” said the first, then the pair of them laughed.

  He shook his head. “I must speak to the vicar, ladies. And I dinna ken how long it might take.”

  The pair agreed to wait for him at the Auld Norse Hall, a pub at the far end of the street nearest the firth, as long as he agreed to come straight away, after he finished with the vicar. He gave his word and the females finally let him be.

  He found the young, scrawny vicar in the kirkyard trying to straighten a heavy stone cross whose corner had sunk into the ground half a foot deep and threatened to topple onto another equally ancient-looking stone. Both markers were so old the names and dates had worn nearly off. All but the word “daughter” was illegible on the cross. The Celtic design in the center was accentuated with bright green moss.

  Gerard asked the young man about the parish records while he pushed the cross in the opposite direction from which it tilted. He held the corner aloft while the vicar filled the empty space with rocks and dirt, and answered between shovelfuls.

  “I’m sorry to say…the years you’re looking for…were sadly neglected…when it came to recording births. None were recorded…or the records were lost…from the years 1721 to 1742. And the death records…in the Old Parochial Registers…don’t begin until 1786.”

  Gerard refused to give up hope. “What of marriages?”

  The man’s face brightened and he set the shovel aside. “Aye. 1753 to 1854, we have.” They lowered the stone into place, but the newly resurrected side stood a bit higher. The vicar gestured at it with his chin. “First rain will see it all straight again. God will see to it, aye? Just as He sent you to my aid just now.”

  They moved back inside the kirk to finish their conversation. The vicar washed the soil from his hands and sweat from his brow and neck. Then they stepped into a small room that served as the man’s kitchen. He poured them both a drink of water and apologized for not having anything stronger to offer.

  “You say this woman would have been born around 1725 or later?”

  Gerard nodded and tried not to act too excited about a woman who had lived so long ago. “Aye.”

  “So, she wouldn’t be in our marriage records unless she married after she was thirty. And back then, that wasn’t likely. But I’ll look.” He patted Gerard’s arm. “What was the woman’s name?”

  Embarrassed, Gerard shrugged. “I only knew her…knew her name was Assa. From Dingwall.”

  “Weel,” said the vicar, “I hope ye didna come far to find her, what without a clan name at least.”

  “Nay,” he said. “Not far at all.” Only from the bus stop up the way…

  As it happened, there were two women named Assa whose marriages had been recorded in the Parochial Registers between 1753 and 1854. But one had been a mere sixteen years old, and the other twenty-one. Neither could have been his red-haired love.

  He thanked the vicar for his attention and stepped out into a rare ray of sunshine. But disappointment hit him like the cool breeze blowing off the firth. He might have appeared as cheerful as the July sun, but his heart was heavy as a rain-soaked cloud.

  The chances had been slim. Slimmer than slim, truth be told. But apparently, his subconscious mind had gotten its hopes up. The lass had been so…memorable…he’d almost expected a legend of some sort about Assa, from Dingwall. A monument, perhaps, to a brave lass who had saved her kin and clan from some catastrophe, and all with a wee dagger she’d hidden in her boot.

  But if her name meant nothing to the vicar, who else might he ask?

  He remembered the old woman at the bus stop and kicked himself for not wondering why Soni’s magic had placed him there before her. If he’d have asked her, would she have known some tale? Perhaps known of an ancestor with a name from Irish Mythology?

  If anyone would know of her, it would be the elders of Dingwall! And it just so happened he had an appointment to meet with two busy, match
making women who could surely identify the town’s oldest storytellers! Their accents had been more American than Scots, but no matter. Even if they hadn’t lived in Dingwall for long, they would know.

  And they’d offered him a pint besides.

  The cool wind whipped around him and urged him down the steps, though he needed no more urging. And rather than wish it away, he appreciated the chance to feel cold once again. He was alive! Alive and given one more chance to learn what might have become of lovely Assa—where she had lived, whom she had loved.

  And afterwards, he could help his fellow mortals with some heroic deed. If he did earn a boon, he would demand to know what had become of Nessa Kennedy. It still bothered him that Soni’s dark uncle had been able to touch the lass just before the pair of them had disappeared from the moor. And even though Gerard had never seen any of the other ghosts after they’d left on their quests, he wanted reassurance that Kennedy was…safe.

  His worry was foolish, he knew. But just the same, it was the boon he would request, and bedamned to the bonnie prince.

  Oh, how his fellow ghosties would mock him if they knew he was spending his precious mortal hours worrying over the fates of two women long dead.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Assa picked up the coffee pot and headed back to the small table near the door of the Auld Norse Hall. Her neighbors, the Muir sisters, had been sipping coffee and nibbling on scones for nearly an hour. They were waiting for someone, they said, so she hadn’t bothered them. But Assa was sure their coffees were cold.

  “Let me heat up yer cups,” she said, and topped off both. “Are ye sure yer friend is coming? I could have Jacky start ye something in the kitchen…”

  “No, dear,” said Lorraine. “We’ll wait for the young man if it’s all the same.”

  “No hurry, then,” she assured them. “If I don’t notice him come in, give me a shout.”

  Loretta laughed. “Oh, you’re sure to notice.”

  Lorraine elbowed her sister, then smiled at Assa. “We’ll flag you down.”

  Assa took the hot pot back to its cradle and walked the length of the long bar where she could continue into the kitchen, or turn left to wait on tables. But that day, other than the Muir twins, only one other table was occupied, and by the same crew who always occupied it.

  Her cousins sat around the back corner table where the light was dim and argued with Jacky, her brother and house cook. Their conversation stopped short as she neared them.

  She pretended not to think their argument had anything to do with her. “Don’t ye like yer food today, cousins? Would ye like the cook to make ye something else?”

  Jacky snorted. “They’ll eat it or they’ll wear it.” He gave the other three a pointed look and they all chuckled together. It was a fact, Jacky was a fine cook and rarely had a complaint. But the cooking wasn’t the most important thing on the menu for the folks of Dingwall. The liquor was. And they weren’t too particular about that—at least, not after the first few drinks.

  Hughie lifted a concerned brow. “Are ye feeling well, cousin?”

  “Aye,” she said. “I’m grand. But I won’t be for long…if folks keep asking how I’m feeling, ye ken?” The others nodded and bit their lips as if they’d been tempted to ask her the same, and she leveled a glare around the table. “If I feel another coma comin’ on, I’ll be sure to raise an alarm. Will that do?”

  Jacky frowned at his hands and nodded. “You’d worry too, if one of us had just escaped the grave.” He jumped in his seat a little and caught his breath. Ian, the largest and blondest of the three cousins had kicked her brother beneath the table.

  “Escaped the grave indeed.” She rolled her eyes. “I took a well-earned nap is all. Ye act as if I was unconscious for a decade, not a week. And my memory is improving by the minute.”

  Four faces turned to her with wide eyes.

  “I ken what worries ye,” she said with narrowed eyes, which only alarmed them more. “Ye fear the day I remember which one of ye is responsible for the fight that landed me in the hospital. Am I right?”

  Jamie looked the most guilty before he went back to eating his fish and chips. His brothers followed his lead and Jacky slid out of the booth.

  “Good thing the crowd is light today,” he said, no doubt to change the subject. “It was kind of ye to take the afternoon shift, sister, but I’m sorry ye have to deal with the Muirs.”

  Assa shook her head. “The Muirs don’t bother me. I’m sorry they make the rest of ye nervous. But I’m sure when they’re a hundred years each, folks will call them witches.”

  Jacky nodded. “Don’t let them fool ye. They’re witches now.”

  She laughed only because he’d said it with such conviction. But they both caught their breath when both sisters turned to look at them.

  “You don’t suppose they heard ye?” she asked him, then laughed when she realized her brother had taken the bait.

  He gave her a dirty look, then stomped off to the kitchen. She laughed and went behind the bar to see what cleaning she could do in the lull.

  She’d been lying, of course. Her memory wasn’t improving by the minute. It had been a long two weeks since they’d taken her out of the hospital, and she’d be damned if she could remember much of her life at all. She recognized Jacky and their cousins. The house had felt familiar, but not the Hazelnut orchards that surrounded it. She had no recollection at all of the work she’d done to keep the company running, but she had an assistant who had no problem taking care of things until Assa’s memory returned.

  It was all so frustrating, like she’d stepped into a depressing movie—except for the little flashes of dreams that slipped into her mind throughout the day. The doctors said it was normal, and that those flashes would eventually go away.

  But what if she didn’t want them to?

  That was the question that upset her the most. It made her wonder if she had hated her life so much that, subconsciously, she would prefer the life she’d spent wandering through dreams.

  Though she had lost her parents and younger brother—which she couldn’t remember clearly—she had still been surrounded by loving family. She had a successful business to give her purpose in life. And she was still young enough to have a family if the right man came along. But there was something missing from the pretty-picture-of-a-life she’d awakened to…

  Unfortunately, that missing something might be a missing someone. And that missing someone only lived in those coma-induced dreams. So how could that be?

  Was he real? Or was he imagined? And if he were real, why was he not there with her? Why did none of the boys mention him? And if he were imagined, what good was he to her real—though temporarily forgotten—life?

  Surely, she would go mad trying to reconcile it all.

  Assa suppressed a sigh as she reached for a bin beneath the counter. Her cousins had finished eating and were preparing to leave, and she was glad there would be some dishes to wash.

  Ian stepped into the back while his brothers waited at the bar, so she hurried to bus the abandoned table. Just as she rounded the bar again, Ian stepped out of the kitchen, using the wrong door, and she had to side-step to keep from crashing into him.

  In the midst of the chaos, the bell clanged above the front door. But it wasn’t Ian’s sudden appearance that caused her to drop the bin and send dishes and utensils crashing. It was the Highlander who had stepped directly from her subconscious into the Auld Nordic Hall. His silhouette, his kilt, even the way he planted his fists on his hips and surveyed the place like he owned every inch of it, was much more familiar to her than her own bedroom.

  He’s here!

  The crash drew the man’s attention and his head turned toward her. He took a step and cocked his head as if waiting for his eyes to adjust. Then something…registered.

  His hands left his hips and reached out to her. He fell to his knees and gasped her name as if he hadn’t expected her to be there at all. “Assa?”

&nbs
p; CHAPTER SIX

  A few minutes before…

  Gerard’s steps weren’t nearly so light after leaving the kirk. He still held out hope that some old-timer might have heard Assa’s name before. But he braced himself for another disappointment.

  What would it matter, truly? Whether or not he found dates marking her life, whether or not he discovered her last name, she had lived, and he had been witness to it. Though he’d forgotten much of their conversations, he clearly remembered holding her in his arms, kissing her lips. And together, they’d played the doting newlyweds for a pair of nosey Red Coats.

  Then he’d left her…

  Heaven help him, he could still see her standing in the shadows of the larder, holding her breath as he chose Culloden’s almost certain death over remaining with her. Though the features of her face were no longer as clear as they had been for the first hundred years of his haunting, that shadowed image had never left him.

  Assa, of Dingwall…

  Perhaps he shouldn’t have requested Dingwall as a destination after all. With such a distraction on his mind, he might miss the opportunity he’d been sent for. Or perhaps there was no specific deed awaiting him. If he found no one in Dingwall to help, he might look for a boat in need of a strong back and work his way to another port. It might be refreshing to feel the motion of the sea beneath his mortal feet again.

  He looked toward the firth for such a boat, but instead of waves he saw nothing but a thick, gathering fog blocking his view.

  A cold shiver ran up his spine and he laughed. “Dingwall it is,” he said quietly, just in case a certain wee witch was listening.

  A strange piece of construction stood at the end of the street. A bit apart from the other buildings, it was a cross between a church, with arched walls, and the hull of a large Viking ship set on its head.

  Though it had a stone facade, the rest of the pub was made from beams of wood. And if it weren’t for a strange need to see what the inside of the place might look like, Gerard imagined the sight of it might put the average man off his drink.