RETURN OF THE HIGHLANDER, AVON, AUGUST 2006

ISBN 0-06-079540-9

Synopsis

The Black Maclean Returns…What is this world he has awoken into—where metal “monsters” roar down smooth stone paths and people parade in unfamiliar costumes?  Where is the home that once stood on this pile of ancient rubble?  And who is this woman who sees him when no one else can…and who stirs the fire in his soul?  

 Her research into the legend of a notorious 18^th century Highland chief has brought Arabella Ryan to Scotland’s storm-swept Loch Fasail.  And now the Black Maclean himself has invaded her dreams.  The sensuous caress of her mysterious “ghost lover” is no mere fantasy, lifting Bella to heights of ecstasy she never imagined existed.  But fate has a reason for bringing them together across the centuries—a perilous mission that could change history as it tests the power of their desire and their love.

Excerpt

He felt it first.  The warmth.  A sensation he could remember but had not experienced in a long, long time.  His fingers uncurled, feeling, stretching out.  He was in a cold and silent place, with the faint echo of breathing.  He felt marble, smooth and icy.  It was beneath his body, an unbending slab of stone, and he was lying upon it.

He opened his eyes.

Sunlight poured through the windows on both sides of the building, golden shafts that intersected as they reached the floor.  The rest of the interior was dim.  Gloomy and splendidly solemn.

Cautiously, wondering if he should, he pushed down with his palms and sat up.  He was in a great cathedral, the architecture soaring above him, the stained glass of the windows brilliant as they were struck by the light outside.  The air was cool, scented with incense and age.  Beneath him was a marble tomb, only there was no effigy on the top of it. 

He was the effigy.

As he turned his head, gazing about him, he saw the others.  They lay upon their marble tombs, still and pale, as if they had been sculptured.  But they were men, living men, with only the faint lift of their chests to tell him they were still breathing.

Nothing else moved.

The Highlander swung his long legs over the edge of the tomb and stood up.  He felt remarkably strong and fit for a man who had been sleeping for . . . but how long was it?  He did not know.  And he did not really understand why he had been awakened now, at last.  He was grateful, of course he was, but a sense of unease flickered across his senses.

“Your time has come.”

The voice was closeby but it seemed to echo all about him.  The Highlander turned swiftly to face his foe, his kilt swinging about his powerful legs, the claidheamh mor at his hip ringing as he drew it from its scabbard. 

There was no one there. 

Now the Highlander turned, slowly, holding the blade before him.  The chapel was empty, and beyond it the effigies who were men did not move.

“Who is there?  Show yourself!” he demanded, with all the arrogance natural to him in his previous life. 

Once he knew he would have been obeyed instantly, and in his heart and mind he still expected that immediate response.  The voice came again, above him this time.

“The world has moved on.  Things have changed.”

The vaulted ceiling soared overhead, but it was empty.

“You must change, too, Highlander.”

“Where are you?” he spoke through his teeth.  His dark hair swung loose about his shoulders as he turned from side to side.

“Once you were too blind to see, now you will learn what it is not to be seen.”

A step behind him, the swish of cloth over stone.  The Highlander turned and there, at last, was his adversary.  He blinked in surprise.  He may even have smiled.  But he kept his sword between them.

It was a woman, and though he knew it was a fact that women weren’t any match for a man like himself, this one increased his tension rather than eased it.

She was a small woman, her face round and sweet like an angel, her hair as red as flames.  She wore a cloak, silver fur that gleamed like ice in the sun where the light from the windows touched her.  Her eyes were ocean blue and calm, and yet when he caught her gaze there was something dreadful in it that made his breath hitch in awe.

He knew that this was no ordinary woman.  This was a Fiosaiche.  A Gaelic Sorceress.

“I can only give you one chance to make recompense.  To show me you are the man I think you are.  To redeem yourself and cast off the burden you carry upon your soul.”  She shook her head at him, her expression fierce.  “So many unnecessary lives lost, Highlander.  You must right the wrong.”

The Highlander’s brain was turning over her words, trying to make sense of them.   

“Why?” he asked, and though he would not beg, he would never beg, his voice was husky with pain and inner turmoil.  “Where am I?  What must I do?”

“You have been asleep in the between-worlds for over two hundred and fifty years, neither living nor dead,” said the woman with the eyes that could see into his soul. 

“The between-worlds?”  He cast a quick glance about him, at the chapel, the windows, the sunlight outside.  The between-worlds was dark and frightening, nothing like this, he remembered that much.

“I have created this place from memories of my own past,” she said, with a little smile.  “It is not what you think.  Nothing is as you think it, Highlander.”

“I am dead then?”

“You last walked this earth as a mortal man in 1746, but you will do so again.  You are going home.”

The Fiosaiche smiled.  He felt dizzy and shocked at the same time, as if he had looked upon something he should not.  “Take the chance I give you, Highlander,” she whispered.  “Use it.”

There was a flapping, a whirling of the still air in the cathedral.  A large eagle brushed past him and he ducked down, suddenly afraid.  The Fiosaiche was gone, and so was the bird, and he was once more alone with the effigies.  Other men, sleeping as he had been.  Only now he was awake.

The Highlander slid his broadsword back into its scabbard.  There was a doorway through the thin arches that formed a path forward.  He began to walk toward it, his boots ringing out on the stone floor.

He didn’t understand what he was doing here.  The Fiosaiche’s words meant nothing to him.  What wrong must he right?  The Highlander never admitted he was wrong, not about anything.  Such admissions meant weakness and the Highlander had never been weak.  He was a chief, a leader of his clan, a king to his people.

He pushed the half open door and stepped out and suddenly the light was too bright, blinding him, and he covered his eyes with a cry of pain.  When he felt able, he peered through his fingers, and realized the brilliance was gone.  He looked about him at the grim deserted hills.  He took a deep breath and the air was chill and sweet.

And it smelt good.

It smelt like home.