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“Bloody hell.”

Ian McCullough glared at the telephone receiver he had slammed into place. Nothing was going as planned this week. He needed to be in London, following up on the latest threat. Instead here he was at Thistle Down Manor, waiting to play innkeeper to some stressed-out American while Henry lay in a hospital bed recovering from knee-replacement surgery.

How many times had he tried to discourage Henry from renting out the cottage? He’d lost count decades ago.

“This one needs to be here, Ian,” Henry had told him on the way to the hospital. “I know it displeases you when I let the cottage, but rarely does it have any impact on you or yer responsibilities.”

“Well it does this time. Honestly, it isna like you need the income. I’ve seen to that many times over. These guests of yers always need watching. You know the primary responsibility is to protect the Portal.”

Henry had given him a sheepish grin. “I know, I know. But I have my own gifts, and I canna ignore them. I could feel it when I spoke to this woman. I believe her soul has been wounded. The peace of Heather Cottage, and the nearness of the Portal, will do much to help her.” He’d grimaced in pain as he shifted in his seat. “If no for this damn knee, I would no have troubled you with this.” He’d smiled then, his wrinkled face reflecting his inner calm. “Dinna worry. I’ll be up and around in a few days. Peter and Martha will be there to help keep an eye on her as well, and you can get back to the things you need to be about.”

Ian continued to glare at the telephone, his dark eyes narrowing, as if that inanimate object held full responsibility for his latest problem. Peter and Martha. They were the only hired help at Thistle Down Manor, although they were more like family than employees. Peter had taken over the position of caretaker after his father retired. When he married Martha, she came to work there as well, as housekeeper and cook. They really did shoulder most of the day-to-day care of the grounds and house. And now they wouldn’t be returning until early tomorrow morning.

Their daughter had gone into labor early this morning. Her husband’s call had come out of the blue, so there had been no time to prepare the cottage for their guest’s arrival before they left. Now, thanks to the weather, they were staying at the hospital overnight.

Just one more thing to complicate his life.

The intensity of the storm raging outside only added to Ian’s irritation. The downpour that had begun hours ago would probably flood the valley below. That would most likely mean power failures again. From what little news he’d heard, the storm front was huge, extending north well beyond Glasgow.

Surely the American wouldn’t try to navigate the narrow backroads in weather like this.

“Perhaps this storm is good news, after all,” he mumbled to himself as he rummaged through the hall closet searching for the emergency supply of candles. He glanced at the clock. She was an hour past due. Chances were she had stayed in one of the larger cities once she’d run into the storm.

“Thank the Fates for that, at least.” The very last thing he wanted was to deal with the vacationing American on his own. Now it appeared he wouldn’t have to.

Ian smiled to himself, and, feeling somewhat relieved, he carried the candles back into the library. After building a large fire in the fireplace, he settled back into his favorite chair to read, relaxing for the first time all day.

***

“Good Lord!”

Sarah Douglas slammed on her brakes to avoid the cows in front of her car. It wasn’t the first time in the last three hours she’d almost collided with livestock. She had known driving would be a challenge here. After the first hour or so, even traveling on the wrong side hadn’t been so bad. But since leaving the A76, she’d also had to contend with wandering animals and roads that were narrower than her driveway back home. By the time she added in the rain coming down in buckets for the last few hours, her nerves were almost completely frazzled.

Driving conditions alone would have been bad enough, but that was on top of twelve hours spent either on planes or in airports waiting for planes, not to mention the most horrible flight ever from Toronto to Glasgow. The woman seated next to her was traveling with two small children, one or the other of which was crying from the moment of takeoff until they’d landed. Sarah had literally been without sleep for more than twenty hours.

She should have stopped at one of the hotels she’d passed near the airport. Or even the one she’d noticed as she’d turned off the main highway, if you could call it that, at Dumfries. But she hadn’t.

“Get a grip,” she muttered, and then chuckled in spite of her circumstances.

Oh, she had a grip. On the steering wheel. So tight, in fact, that her fingers were starting to cramp.

Taking a deep breath, she consciously relaxed her hands and slowly accelerated as the last of the cows cleared a path in front of her.

It shouldn’t be much farther now. Panic returned briefly as she again considered that she might be lost, but, taking another deep breath, she regained control.

The directions that nice Henry McCullough had emailed her were very thorough and she’d been careful. Well, except for starting off in the wrong direction when she’d left the airport. Once she’d gotten that figured out and headed back the right way, she’d been very careful. That little scenic detour had only increased her driving time by an hour or two.

It was simply exhaustion wreaking havoc with her emotions now. Exhaustion and the storm. And the dark. It was intensely dark. Between the late hour and the weather, she could only see those areas lit up by her headlights or brief flashes of lightning.

As if on cue, lightning sliced through the sky, striking directly ahead of Sarah’s car. Illuminated in its flash was the figure of a man, staring straight at her, his face a mask of surprise. Once again she slammed on her brakes, but this time she accompanied the action with a scream, as her car began to slide slowly toward the man. He stood as if frozen for only a moment more before leaping—actually leaping—over her vehicle.

The automobile came to a gentle stop, nestled against a high rock wall. Breathing hard, Sarah peeled her fingers from the steering wheel and looked around. There was no man anywhere to be seen.

Closing her eyes, she let her head drop back to the headrest, the sound of her pounding heart filling her ears. He must have been a figment of her imagination. Real flesh-and-blood men did not leap over moving vehicles and then completely disappear.

Slowly she opened her eyes. Through the rivulets of rain running down her window, she read the plaque on the wall next to her. Thistle Down Manor. At least she wasn’t lost.

The car, firmly stuck in the mud, refused to move either forward or back. Sarah turned off the ignition. The absence of noise from the engine only magnified the sound of rain beating on the metal above her head. Now what?

Choices and decisions. She could sit here all night, waiting to be rescued, or she could get out and walk.

How ironic. Wasn’t that really what this whole trip was about, choices and decisions? After all those years of having no choices, of following others’ decisions as was required of her, she’d finally chosen to change her life, to take charge. She’d decided for the first time in her life to embrace, rather than ignore, the intuitive feelings that had plagued her from childhood. It was one of those feelings, a driving need to do something before it was too late, that had landed her in this very spot.

Now it was time for her to act. Certainly not the most convenient time to realize that action doesn’t come easily to a natural-born coward.

Peering through the gates, Sarah could faintly make out the looming form of an enormous old mansion, across a bridge and down a long drive. The little cottage she’d rented would be somewhere nearby on the estate, though she couldn’t see any sign of it from where she sat.

The distance would make for a pleasant walk on any normal day. It didn’t, however, look very pleasant right now. Of course, it wasn’t a normal day. It was late at night in the middle of a storm. Not to mention the man she thought she’d seen earlier.

Taking one last look at the rain pouring outside the car, Sarah sighed and reached back for her shoulder bag and purse. Her choice made, she opened the door.

The rain’s icy chill hit her as she emerged from the car. She’d left the headlights on to illuminate the path. The battery would be dead by morning, but that was the least of her worries right now. If that figment of her imagination showed up again, she wanted to see him coming since she doubted she would hear him over the noise of the storm.

She scanned the trees and shivered. The back of her neck prickled, as if eyes watched from those woods. The feeling grew in intensity and she started to run.

The bridge was much longer than it had looked, and not until she’d crossed over it did the panicky fear of being followed leave her. She stopped, leaning over to catch her breath. Glancing back, she saw nothing through the rain except the wavering glow of her headlights.

If this whole thing weren’t so frightening, it would be funny.

Shifting the heavy bag on her shoulder, she turned toward the house and started walking up the long drive. She hoped Henry McCullough was still awake.

***

Ian awoke with a start. He’d been dreaming. Dreams were rare for him and, to his way of thinking, that was a good thing. He learned long ago—very, very long ago—that when he dreamed, it always meant something. The “something” was always a very accurate warning of the future and, more often than not, it warned of something bad.

He tried to recall the dream now. He’d been in the forest and there had been a woman, although he hadn’t been able to see her clearly, and some type of danger. And that blasted pounding.

Pounding, he suddenly realized, that continued even now that he was awake. He stood up, feeling disoriented. The book he’d been reading fell unheeded to the floor.

Where was that noise coming from?

Moving into the hallway, he followed the sound, his senses coming fully alert.

“Hello? Mr. McCullough? Is anyone there?” Muffled words reached him, followed by more pounding.

A woman’s voice.

Damn. The American had come, after all.

What was wrong with the woman? Didn’t she realize how dangerous driving in one of these storms could be? Didn’t she have any sense at all?

He strode to the door and threw it open, fully intending to give his visitor the tongue-lashing she deserved for her reckless behavior.

“Do you bloody well realize what time it is?” He’d begun to yell when the sight of her on his doorstep struck him speechless.

Standing there in the pouring rain, with her hair plastered to her face, she was completely drenched and shivering hard enough the movement was visible to him even in the dark.

At the sound of his voice, she drew back sharply, losing her footing in the puddle that had formed on the stoop. Only his grabbing her elbows prevented her taking a nasty spill down the steps.

“Sorry. I’m sorry.” Her teeth chattered so violently he could barely understand her mumbled apology. “I…I didn’t think about the time. The drive took so much longer than I’d planned.”

She feebly tried to pull her arms from his grasp.

Rather than letting go, he tightened his grip, drawing her inside the entrance hall, where she stood, dripping, her eyes cast down as if studying the intricate patterns on the marble floor. She made no move to stop him when he slipped the strap of the heavy bag from her shoulder, and dropped it at her feet.

She glanced up then, almost furtively, and their eyes met.

Green, like the deep forest. Her eyes were an intense green that sucked him in, captured him, prevented him from looking away. They widened an instant before darting back down to resume their examination of the floor.

The contact broken, Ian gave himself a mental shake.

How unusual.

“Stay right here. I’ll get something to dry you off and soon we’ll have you all warmed up.”

He raced upstairs and grabbed an armful of towels, stopping only to pull a blanket off the foot of his bed before returning to his guest.

She stood as he’d left her, huddled into herself, shivering as a small puddle formed at her feet.

Wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, he guided her toward the library. She’d be much better there. Thanks to the fire he’d built earlier in the evening, it was the warmest room in the place.

“Here are some towels. I’ll pop into the kitchen and find something warm for you to drink. Is tea all right, or do you prefer coffee?” She was an American, after all.

“Tea would be wonderful, thank you.” Only a whisper.

She took the towels and began to dry her face and hair as he left the room.

While he waited for the water to boil, he let his thoughts drift to the woman drying off in his library. She intrigued him. A great deal. Which was most unusual in and of itself.

The old saying about eyes being windows to the soul hadn’t become an old saying without very good reason. It was absolutely true. Catching a glimpse of what lived behind those windows, however, was extraordinary. Souls valued their privacy.

Looking into this woman’s eyes, he’d felt an unusually strong energy pulling at him. Her windows had been wide open, her soul leaning out, demanding his attention like the French harlots he’d seen so many years ago, hanging out of the Barbary Coast bordellos.

He couldn’t recall having run across anything like it in all his years. She was something entirely new.

A thrill of anticipation ran through his body. “Something entirely new” was a rare experience for Ian. After six centuries spent shuffling between the Mortal Plain and the Realm of Faerie, he often thought he’d seen it all.

During that time, he’d also learned countless valuable lessons. One of those lessons was that the rare experiences were usually the best. Certainly the most important.

Yes, he was quite intrigued by Miss…

“Damn.”

What was her name? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t even remember if Henry had ever told him her name. He’d spent so much time thinking of her as “The American,” her name had been of no importance.

That was certainly changed now. Playing innkeeper to his little American tourist had unexpectedly become a much more stimulating prospect.

***