He sat on a small tumble of stones and brooded. He wasn’t used to brooding since there was little in life left for him to ponder at any length or with any real emotion.
That ceased to be true the moment he’d spied the woman standing in the middle of the cemetery, blonde wisps of hair blowing on the wind, transfixed as if by some unknown force.
She had disturbed him. Enough to make an appearance, to actually engage her in conversation, something he rarely did anymore. Who the devil was she?
She meant trouble for him, even if he couldn’t say why, or how. Maybe it had been the shocked expression when she’d read the name on the stone she’d gripped.
Calum MacKinnon, clan chief, Laird of Stonelachen. He shook his head, surprised to find himself fighting a smile. Still turning ladies’ heads after three hundred years. The old man would have liked knowing that, he would.
His mouth tightened as he stood and surveyed the small cemetery below. He’d returned to this spot on occasion, yet this was the first time he’d stayed. He’d followed the siren call of the earth until there was naught but a few wee notes left in her horn. Something had called him home. Maybe he would find peace here.
An odd supposition given how many men had found only death on the rocky ground beneath his feet. But then, that was the one thing he was assured of. He’d never find death … no matter how long and hard he searched for it.
Cailean took her time, driving slowly as she headed into the jagged pinnacles and cliffs of the Quiraing. She told herself the leisurely pace was so she could appreciate the view. But that was bull and she knew it. She was taking her time because she wasn’t in any hurry to find what she’d set out this morning to look for.
The Remote.
Cailean swallowed hard as the looming pinnacles of the Quiraing came into view. The sky was cloudless today, a stunning vivid blue. The sun highlighted the grass, which clung like velvet to the harsh landscape that looked too rocky and unforgiving to grow anything so bright. The brilliance of the green was muted by the patches of heather, brown and twisted now that fall was turning to winter.
She turned up the single track road that twisted through the Quiraing to the graveyard … and perhaps to proof of The Remote’s existence as something more than a hallucination or night specter.
She had always liked secluded places, feeling more at ease in areas where the only people around were the fossilized remains of the ones being dug up for analysis under her microscope. They were safer than people. She didn’t have visions about fossils.
Cailean pulled into the lot and looked up the steep incline behind the cemetery. He’d have had to come from that direction, she thought, but she couldn’t see how. Even the sheep weren’t up this high. There were no obvious tracks or trails and with no knowledge of the area, mounting even a cursory climb alone would be foolish, even dangerous.
Blowing out a sigh of disappointment, she grabbed her notebook. She’d come all this way, she wasn’t going back without some tangible progress.
She began near the gate and started listing the family names and birth and death dates. After several pages, she decided to change her tactics and began listing the information by dates first, rather than cross reference later. She wasn’t surprised to discover that Lachlan was the only burial in the twentieth century.
Cailean found herself drawn deeper into MacKinnon history. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it—wary? Especially when she considered that this was a MacKinnon cemetery and she was a Claren. To that end, she’d avoided physical contact with any headstones for the first two hours.
Then she came across the tiny stone for one Sarah MacKinnon, born 1868, died 1870. She found herself brushing her fingers gently over the stone face before she realized what she’d done. No visions assaulted her, but a strange melancholy had. Poor wee babe, she found herself thinking as she made note of the dates and those of her parents. Both of them had died young. She couldn’t help but wonder what the wife’s maiden name had been. She didn’t want to know, yet in some corner of her heart she feared she already did.
She began crisscrossing her way back and forth through the stones, working from the latest dates back to the earliest. The stones were positioned in concentric oval loops, with a worn stone path circling the entire pattern. The open center appeared to have been a small garden at one time, judging by the pitted stone bench and bare scrabble of ground surrounding it. What an unforgiving place to be buried in, she thought, but then, this area was an entirely unforgiving place to have lived as well.
Cailean sat down on the stone bench, wondering if those who had sat here before her had appreciated the isolation and solitude of this remote place, or felt abandoned by it.
She had spent her adult life looking upon burial grounds as work, a place to be examined as a source of potential information to the lives and culture of those buried beneath. She’d never related to burial grounds personally. She’d been too young to remember anything of her parents’ deaths, and when Adele Trent, the woman who’d raised her, had died, Cailean had been on a remote dig in northern Africa and had missed the funeral by the time word reached her. She’d been to the grave, but had never been able to connect the cold marble stone to the woman buried beneath it, or to herself.
So why did she feel such a strong sense of connection thousands of miles away from the land of her own birth?
She walked over to Lachlan’s headstone and stared at the words etched there. “You stirred up something that should have been left alone, Lachlan Claren.” She stepped closer. “I was doing just fine until you dragged me into it. And I’m damn sure I don’t want to care.”
“Now there is a sentiment I can relate to.”
Cailean gasped and whirled around. Her night visitor sat on the stone bench she’d just vacated.
“This is a private conversation,” she said.
He was wearing the same duster he’d had on earlier, but his head was uncovered. Dry now, his hair was still dark and unruly. In the sunlight his face was still unholy. That was the word that came to mind when she tried to describe the unusual beauty of him. It made no sense. His features were every bit as harsh as the landscape he seemed to arise from, all sharp angles and slashes. He should have looked angry, hard, defiant, anything but beautiful.
But he was beautiful. Enough to make her stare. If there was anger in him, or defiance, or any emotion at all, he kept it cloaked. He simply … was. The word came to her again. Unholy.
Cailean resisted a shiver. “Why are you here?”
“You called me here,” he said simply, when there was nothing remotely simple about any of this.
She did shiver now. She had come here looking for him, so there was no reason to feel so defensive, so intruded upon. So scared. But she was.
“And how do you figure that? I am not lost, nor am I stuck, and, as you can see, there is not a cloud in the sky.”
“I didna say you required my assistance, lass, merely that your presence called tae me. Commanded me actually.”
He said that last part as if it bemused him. He shook his head slightly and stood.
Taller than average. And the shoulder cloak was not enough to make him seem so broad if he wasn’t naturally so. He took a step toward her and she reacted viscerally. He moved with an innate grace to even the smallest of movements. How did a man appear so smooth and unthreatening and strike such a soul-deep terror into her at the same time?
“Stop right there,” she said, damning the quiver in her voice, one she had no doubt he’d picked up. She let out a slow breath. “You’re a Scot?”
“Aye.”
“I didn’t notice your accent before.”
“It comes and goes.”
“As do you,” she responded.
His lips twitched ever so slightly. “Aye, that is also true. One of the benefits of land ownership, a man can come and go on it as he wishes without drawing questions.”
“You own this land?”
“In all ways that matter. No man can own the earth. At best he can lay claim to it for a time.”
“It is the only one I have to offer you.”
“You own this cemetery as well, then?”
“It exists within the land I claim. I am its caretaker I suppose.” His lips did more than twitch then, though there was no humor in it. “Laird of the dead, that would be me.” He shook his head, an hollow laugh carrying softly over the ground. “Just when you think there are no more ironies left in life.”
His smile had transformed the harsh lines of his face, making him look all the more like a fallen angel. His laugh had pulled at something inside her. She didn’t think she’d ever heard anything so achingly empty.
An empty angel.
She tried to ignore the growing sense of panic. He was important to her in some way and she wasn’t prepared for him to be anything to her, important or not.
Are you merely walking among the dead, she wanted to know, or are you one of them yourself? “Are these your ancestors?”
The question seemed to still something in him for the space of a second, but again, he answered smoothly. “Most. In one way or another, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“I don’t keep track of the comings and goings of each and every clan member who has the misfortune to be needing a burial.”
“Well, from the looks of it, except for Lachlan, there haven’t been many ‘goings’ of late. In fact, it doesn’t appear anyone has been needing a burial in your family in some time.”
“Your point being?”
“Nothing. I just guess I assumed you’d know something of who was buried in a cemetery you’re responsible for, especially if it’s a family plot. I mean, you’ve had at least a hundred or so years to check them out.”
He visibly stiffened at her last words.
“Dead is dead,” was all he said. “What matter is it if I know their names or their relation to me? Their stones remain upright and the gate opens and shuts. Beyond that my responsibility to them is done.”
Though his tone held only the barest edge and his posture was still relaxed, there was no denying his defensiveness. She felt it roll off of him in waves.
“Have you lived out here long?”
“Long enough.”
Cailean swallowed her frustration. “If you don’t want to have a conversation, then why do you persist in showing up and beginning one with me?”
“As I said, you—”
“Summoned you, yes, yes, I heard you. Well, now I summon you to leave, okay?” She turned around. “It was more productive talking to a dead man.”
“Is that what you were doing out here the other day?” he asked quietly. “Talking to the dead?”
She stilled. Had he been spying on her then? Had he seen—?
She turned slowly back around. “It is customary to show respect when someone dies,” she said carefully.
“You have an unusual way of paying your respects.”
Her eyes narrowed. “In what way am I unusual?”
“No flowers,” he said smoothly.
She didn’t even blink. “I wouldn’t know where to purchase any. I felt it was most important just to be here.”
“Why is that?” He took another step forward.
Her heart was pounding and her skin dampened in a cold sweat. He will harm you. The words echoed in her mind. He is your guide.
“Who are you that this dead man might need your words and your presence?” He took another step.
Crazy, she thought, that’s who I am. Cailean locked her knees against the urge to step back. “I’m not here for him.”
A smile ghosted across his lips. “In that you are quite right. The dead don’t care who stands over them.”
“You don’t believe that the spirits of the dead somehow know who mourns them?”
“I believe it makes no difference. They are gone and you are here. You can do nothing to alter their existence, whatever it may or may not be. The only reason for talking to the dead is because the living soul believes he or she will benefit from it somehow.”
“What a cynical view you have of human kind, Mr.…?”
There was the barest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “MacKinnon.”
“I suppose I should have known that.” This was The Remote, the man she hoped would provide some answers to the questions she had about her great uncle. This was the guide, sent to help her find those answers.
This was the empty angel who would haunt her. Harm her.
“Perhaps the only thing the living hope to attain is comfort,” she said. “Is that such a bad thing to seek?”
“Not bad perhaps,” he conceded. “Pathetic maybe. Foolhardy certainly.”
Anger bubbled up through the fear. She didn’t even want to be here, much less be lectured on the selfishness of her actions! “The fact that you actually believe that explains why you live out in the middle of nowhere with several dozen sheep as your only comfort. Anything with a higher intellect would search for comfort elsewhere, perhaps from someone who isn’t too cold and harsh and full of himself to give it.”
He seemed wholly unaffected by her outburst, which only served to further infuriate her. She blew out a harsh sigh. “Look. I’m sorry,” she said, though she was truthfully anything but. “I’m not usually given to emotional outbursts. It generally takes more than one opinionated cynic to provoke me into a display of temper.”
He moved again, only this time he didn’t stop until he was standing a few feet from her. “I suppose I will have to work on that.”
“It certainly wouldn’t hurt,” she responded evenly. “You might be surprised. You might actually make a friend or two.”
“Oh, I’m no’ interested in makin’ friends, lass,” he said. The smile this time was a slow transformation, the impact even greater as he gradually, calculatingly unleashed its power. He closed the distance between them.
Cailean was riveted to the spot. She couldn’t run. She could barely breathe. Swallowing was impossible.
“I meant I’d have tae work on provoking ye,” he said, ever so softly. “I find yer ‘display of temper’ and yer ‘emotional outbursts’ quite entertaining.” He reached up and ran a single fingertip down along the side of her face. “And I have no’ been entertained in a verra, verra, long time.”