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A step ahead of her, Cameron opened the door to Applebee’s anteroom and she was immediately assaulted by the delicious aromas seeping from the kitchen.

She inhaled and grinning, murmured, “I’m starved and this place has the best burgers and fries in the city.”

“What are burgers and fries?” He looked over her head at the darkened interior, the colorful signs, and lights.

“Beef and potatoes, but cooked in a way you’ve never had before. To die for, truly.”

“I hope not.”

Augh! God, she could be sooo insensitive at times. “I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me.”

“Claire, please … dinna fash. What came to pass was none of yer doing.”

“I know, but—”

“Welcome to Applebee’s. How many in your party?”

Claire swallowed the rest of her apology and told the smiling hostess, “Two.”

They were led to a front booth where they settled, sitting across from each other with menus in hand. Claire scanned hers despite having already decided on a deluxe bacon cheeseburger and fries. As she perused the selections, Cam pulled napkins from the holder and thoroughly examined the condiments nestled beside the mini placard touting Applebee’s decadent desserts. “Please order whatever you like.”

Cam opened the menu and scowled, his finger running down the far right-hand column. Ah, he was worrying about the prices, considering he was used to pennies a loaf.

Flipping to the last page he asked, “Is milk shake butter?”

Claire grinned. “No. It’s just shaken milk with flavoring—like chocolate or strawberry—but frappés are better.”

“How so?”

“Frappés are made with ice cream.”

“I’ve had iced cream … at Stirling. They’d brought snow down from the mountains and mixed it with preserves and cream.”

“It’s very much like that only richer and thicker.”

“Ah.”

Claire closed her menu to study Cam and found his brow still furrowed but his eyes clear as he pondered the menu. No one would ever guess that he’d just experienced the worst morning of his life. That he’d been wracked with grief just hours ago. The bus ride from Boston to Salem had helped. It was all she could do to keep him from hanging out the window like a dog, so stunned—or should she say enthralled? —was he by their speed coming up Route 1A. She couldn’t begin to imagine his reaction to a high-speed interstate. She’d likely have to shackle him to his seat. No, she wasn’t looking forward to it.

Cam muttered something in Gaelic under his breath just as their waitress arrived.

“Welcome to Applebee’s,” she said, her smile directed at Cam. “I’m Tammy and I’ll be your server today. What can I get you guys?”

Claire rolled her eyes. What was she? Wallpaper? “We’ll have two deluxe cheeseburgers, well done, fries, and I’ll have a glass of the house merlot.” She arched an eyebrow at Cam.

His gaze was locked on the girl’s scarlet and black outlined lips. “A tankard of ale, if ye please.”

Tammy nodded. “Guinness, Brock, or Stout?”

Cam looked to Claire, so she responded, “Guinness will be fine.”

Tammy, still grinning at Cam, picked up their menus. “Your meals will be out in a few minutes.”

When she sauntered away, Cam crossed his arms on the table and leaned forward. “My thanks. Yer English … ’tis verra confounding at times. And why was the lass painted so?”

“She thinks the makeup makes her pretty.”

“Humph. Someone should do her the kindness of telling her otherwise.”

Well, that certainly answered one question. Claire propped her chin in her hand. “I hope this witch can help us and we’re not on a wild goose chase.”

“Aye.” Cam took the article Claire had printed from her computer—another thing he found amazing and couldn’t wait to tell his father about—from his pocket to again study the photo of Sandra Mariah Power, high priestess and elder of her craft in Salem, her pretty face partially covered by a black cat mask. Would this woman have the power to break the bonds that held him here … with her?

After rereading the first page, he whispered, “I still canna believe she’s told the world she’s a witch. Had she done so anywhere in Scotland I dare say she would have been tried for heresy.”

“That’s the reason this country was founded on religious tolerance. We have no official religion. Our Constitution explicitly forbids it. Citizens can practice any religion they choose.”

“Hmm, mayhap Scotland should do the same. God knows the churches’ struggle for supremacy is at the very heart of Scotland’s sorrows.” After a moment he asked, “And what if this witch isna what she claims?”

“Then we’ll just keep looking until we find someone who is.”

“Aye, ’tisna wise to fash about what we canna change.”

“Good thinking. Now to find her.” They’d left the house before Ms. Power had apparently had a chance to respond to their e-mail query. Claire spread the map she’d taken from the bus stop across the table. “We’re here,” she tapped the map, “and that red box is the House of Seven Gables. It’s the closest historic site. We can ask there. Surely they’d know where we can find her. If not, we can walk to the Salem Historical Society and ask them.”

“And if they dinna ken her whereabouts either?”

“There are more places where we can ask. See, they even have a witch shop that sells potions, witch’s balls, and the like.”

“Ye canna be serious?”

She laughed. “Oh but I am. You can even buy a broom there according to their Web site.”

“This place never ceases to amaze me.”

“Oh, good, I’d hate for you to get bored.”

“That, my dear lady, couldna happen should I be trapped here for life … which I have nae intention of being.”

No, he was hellbent on getting home and she couldn’t blame him. But she’d miss him, despite all the aggravation he’d caused her. The simple truth was having him here had brought her back to life, one she hadn’t even realized she was missing. Tracy had been right. All work and no play had made Claire MacGregor a very dull girl indeed. And speaking of Tracy …

“What did you think of Tracy?” She introduced them, then realized she’d left the computer printout with Sandra Power’s information on it upstairs, so she hadn’t seen them interact.

One corner of Cam’s lips tipped up. “She’s fair and fulsome, to be sure.”

“And … ?”

“The lass struck me as being a bit of a kelpie, neither fish nor fowl.”

Huh? “I don’t understand.”

“I dinna mean to be unkind, for she is yer friend, but she appears to be of two minds. On one hand, she’s verra much taken with herself—one need only take one look at her to ken that. On the other, she dislikes herself, mayhap for what she’s become inside. I wouldna be surprised to learn she wishes to be someone else entirely.”

Oh my God. “And you sensed this how?”

He shrugged. “Mayhap it was the way she sought mirrors as she talked, then fidgeted before them. Mayhap it was the way she stood, flirted.”

“Flirted.” Well, what else did she expect? Maybe a little loyalty from a friend? A little hands-off-the-best-friend’s-merchandise? Grrrrrr. Not that she and Cam were an item, but really.

She looked up to find Cam grinning at her, deep dimples making caverns in his cheeks and accentuating the cute dimple in his chin. “Does something ail ye?”

“I’m fine. Just fine.” Not.

“Tell me of yer parents.”

“My parents. Mom committed suicide eight years ago. I was the one who found her.”

“Ack, lass.”

“She overdosed on her antidepressants … her medicine. She’d been fighting so much sadness for years, but I hadn’t realized just how far out of control her world had spun. I found a letter of termination and an eviction notice when I was cleaning out her apartment, that dingy hell hole I grew up in. Apparently, the dry cleaners that she’d worked at for the last fifteen years had closed and with her being sixty and riddled with arthritis and on medication, she couldn’t get any work.”

Claire scraped the confetti that had once been a paper napkin into a neat pile. “More than once I’d begged her to come live with me, but no, she was too damn proud to live off her daughter.” Claire brushed a truant tear from her cheek. “She should have told me.”

Cam reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “Yer Mam was a widow then?”

She guffawed, an ugly sound coming from somewhere deep and dark. “No, my father’s in prison. Burglary, drugs … you name it, he did it.”

“Ack, lass, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. I hope he rots in there.” What he and his addictions had done to her mother had killed her as surely as if he’d held a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. It was just too bad she hadn’t been able to convince the courts that he’d committed murder. Although God knows she’d tried.

Augh! She’d just spewed out stuff she’d never even told Tracy. What the hell was the matter with her?

Claire gave herself a good shake and embarrassed, reluctantly pulled her hand from beneath Cam’s, regretting the loss of contact the minute she did it. Thank God he’d had the wisdom to mask any pity he might have felt.

“Now that I’ve totally ruined your day, enough about me.” She looked about for something, anything, to divert his attention and spotted their waitress balancing a large tray on her shoulder. “Oh good, here comes the food.”

He looked away as she’d hoped and straightened. “Ye promise I’ll like this?”

She grinned. “If you don’t, then there’s something seriously wrong with you.”

Ten minutes later Cam had cleaned his plate—ketchup apparently his newfound love—and was surreptitiously eyeing her French fries. Already satiated, she slid what fries remained on her plate onto his. “I take it I didn’t lie?”

He flashed great dimples at her as three of her fries disappeared into his mouth. “Nay, lass, ye spoke God’s honest truth.”

“Good. Next time you’ll have to try pizza. There’s a nice little Italian place right around the corner from us that makes the best pepperoni and sausage in all of Boston.”

Had she just said us? Yes, and she’d better knock it off. Thinking in those terms would put her in a world of hurt should this witch really be able to undo what she had done.

With the realization that Cam could be gone—could just disappear as miraculously as he’d come within the hour—black spots suddenly appeared before her eyes and with them came the erratic thuds beneath her ribs.

Don’t panic, Claire. You know what to do. Take a deep breath. That’s it. Now let it out slowly.

The last thing Cam needed right now was for her to black out.

Deep breath, relax. That’s good. It’s only a stress-induced arrhythmia, like before, just like the doctor said. It will go away just as it always does if you just stay calm.

As she focused on her breathing and seconds ticked by, the thuds became less frequent and her heart slowed; the scary irregular beats that had started the runaway rhythm giving way to normalcy, to her heart resuming its silent rhythm she never gave thought to. Okay. See you’re okay.

She took a deep breath.

Wow, her heart hadn’t gone that crazy since she’d stood at her mother’s open gravesite. Victor and Tracy, thinking she was having a heart attack, had raced her to Massachusetts General, where she learned what was really wrong. “More commonly seen in women, nothing to worry about, unless it continues,” the doctor had told her.

“Are ye nae feeling well, lass?”

“I’m fine.” She smiled, having done another mental systems check. “I’m fine.” And she was. She would handle his going away just as she had every other disaster in her life. By taking it one day at a time.

As their waitress passed, Claire held up her arm. “Tammy, would you please bring us one of those brownie desserts?” Cam couldn’t leave without having at least tasted that.

“Sure. Be right with you.”

Claire turned her attention back to Cam and found his elbow on the table, his chin resting in his hand, grinning at her. “What?”

“Ye’re truly remarkable.”

That compliment came out of nowhere. “Thank you.”

“Aye. Ye find a naked stranger looming over ye in yer bedchamber one day, ransom and clothe him the next, and now ye’re gallivanting all over kingdom to see his needs met. Quite remarkable.”

She laughed. “It’s not like I have a lot of choice in the matter.”

“Ah, but ye do. You could have kicked me to the street that first day or told the sheriff who summoned ye that ye didna ken me from a hole in the ground. Ye did neither.”

“To tell you the truth I was too frightened to think and just reacted. You are a bit intimidating.”

The right corner of his mouth twitched as he arched an eyebrow. “Me? Never.”

She laughed again. “Ya right. I’d hate to meet you in your element—in your world—with a sword in hand.”

“Ack, ye’d have naught to fear. I do so admire fine hurdies.”

“And what pray tell are hurdies?”

“Ye’re sitting on them.”

“Oh.” Her ass. “Thank you … I think.”

“Ye’re most welcome.” He looked about, studied the other diners for a moment, then told her, “I need tell ye I’m a bit torn, uncomfortable with leaving ye.”

“Why?” Just an hour ago he’d been hellbent on returning to Rubha.

“I’ll be leaving ye defenseless against the deevil’s buckies, and I dinna like that. Not a bit.”

“Oh.” Not because he’d miss her, was feeling the same emotional tug she was feeling, but then she should have expected as much. “I’ll be fine. Mr. Brindle will speak with the police. See if he can get more police presence in the neighborhood.”

“But what if they come in, Claire? Ye’re not strong enough to fend off one, much less several. Ye could do with one of those stun guns. A pistol at the least.”

The very thought of a gun under her roof caused her skin to pebble like that of a plucked goose, and she rubbed her arms. “There’s no need to worry. The alarm will go off if anyone so much as touches the doors or windows.”

“Humph.”

Hoping to change the subject, she asked, “What will you do when you get home?”

“Find Da and convince him to hie home. That our joining the Jacobite cause will only prove disastrous. Then get the women and bairns up into the mountains with enough stores to get through the coming months. Only then can I—we—turn our attention to fortifying Rubha.” He blew through his teeth. “ ’Twillna be an easy task, believe me.”

“How many women and children are you talking about?”

“Hundreds.”

“Oh.” Picturing herself holed up in a damp cave with several hundred women and children, all worrying themselves sick over what was going on below for months on end, living on the bare necessities of life, fearing being discovered, she shuddered.

“Here you go,” Tammy said as she set their dessert and two forks in the middle of the table. Again looking at Cam, Tammy asked, “Can I get you anything else?”

“Nay, thank ye.”

“You’re from Scotland, aren’t you?”

Apparently shaking off his dismal thoughts, he hit Tammy with a thousand-watt smile. “That I am, lass.”

Tammy, not the least immune, beamed back. “I knew it!”

Duh.

Her attention still on Cam, Tammy asked, “Are you here for the psychic fair? It’s a lot of fun. All the witches will be there.”

Both she and Cam straightened. Claire asked, “Where?”

“At the Museum Mall in the center of town.”

As she gave them directions, Claire scribbled on her place mat. “Thank you, Tammy. We’ll just take the check whenever you’re ready.”

“Oh, okay.”

When she walked away, Claire grabbed a fork. “Eat up, MacLeod. We have a fair to go to.”

A minute later, Cam was grinning from ear to ear. “This is pure decadence.”

Pleased that he liked it, Claire mumbled around a mouthful, “Absolutely.”

Their dessert devoured and the check paid, Cam tossed his tartan over his shoulders, she donned her coat and they headed for the door.

Just as they entered the anteroom, a stream of laughing teenagers rushed through the exterior door leading to the parking lot. Beyond the glass stood a tour bus and dozens more teenagers heading for the door.

Cam’s arm wrapped around her as he backed up, pulling her out of the way and into a corner as kids, mindful of no one but themselves, continued to push in. In the process, she stomped on his foot.

“Sorry.”

“Dinna fash. There’s no help for it.” He relaxed, settling his hips on the windowsill, his legs spreading, his face now only a few inches above hers. “We’re going to be here a while.”

She looked left into the restaurant where the frazzled hostess was trying to gain control, then over her shoulder to the long line still trying to press through the doors and out of the wind, pushing her closer to Cam. Unable to back away, she looked up and found him studying her through lowered lids, his expression thoughtful.

“Sorry about this.”

“I’m not.” He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear before his hands slipped beneath her gaping jacket, his long fingers splaying across the small of her back, sending a shiver up her spine.

Uhmm, she wasn’t sorry either, but …

Then, despite there being no space, more kids piled in, and Claire was forced between Cam’s spread legs. As the volume of chatter grew, he said something. Unable to hear, she shook her head in response. He bent and pressed his lips to her ear. “Are ye warm enough, lass?”

Oh, ya. Too warm, in fact. Her hands on his chest, pressed belly to groin now, she could feel his growing arousal. Yup. Right there before what appeared to be the entire sophomore class of Waterboro High, Sir Cameron MacLeod was turned on. Just thinking about it sent heat racing to her cheeks and into her lower belly. God, he felt so extraordinarily good. And nice to know he felt something for her beyond the gratitude he’d expressed earlier while they were eating. Not that this would be going anywhere, but still, it was nice to know before he disappeared … to face God only knew what hardships and dangers over the coming months.

Her Highlander. Please, God, keep him safe.

She was staring at the beautiful curve of his lips, marveling at the shape when he said, “I’ll miss ye, Claire.”

Oh, how sweet of him to tell her. “I’ll miss you too.” More than she would have thought possible when he first appeared, his hand clamped across her mouth to keep her from screaming. “Doesn’t seem possible we’ve known each other only a few days, does it?”

“Nay,” he murmured into her ear, “but then we’ve shared a year of experience in these few days.”

She nodded. More like a lifetime. “Every time I think about you sliding down that escalator I can’t help but laugh.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners as his dimples took shape. “Yer world is a wondrous and confounding place, Claire.” His right hand slipped from beneath her jacket, leaving the place where it had rested cold and desolate and came to rest on her jaw. As his thumb brushed her lower lip, he asked, “Will ye promise me ye’ll be careful?”

Her heart racing, feeling fuzzy-headed with the intimacy of his touch, she murmured, “I will.”

Without warning he leaned forward and his mouth gently came in contact with hers, hot and soft.

Oh, yes, Cam. Do.

She’d been hoping—no, praying—he’d kiss her again, wanting to relish the taste and feel of him a final time.