Page 1 of The Story of his Highland Bride (Dancing Through Time #4)

1

“ W here are you?” a stern voice crackled through the phone. “Eloise? Can you hear me?”

Eloise Longman checked the screen, where a single bar of signal flickered up and down. “Harriet, I’m going to have to call you back. I’m out in the sticks. I can’t hear you properly.”

She didn’t want to, either. Not really. A holiday was supposed to be a holiday, free of interruptions, but her phone hadn’t stopped pinging since she’d hit the road three days ago. Then again, a holiday was usually supposed to be arranged in advance; this was more of a last-minute escape, so her editor had some right to be annoyed.

“Don’t you dare hang up!” Harriet barked, her impatience pushing through the limits of technology to rattle in Eloise’s eardrums. “Look, Eloise, I don’t mean to be insensitive, but where are my pages? You said they’d be with me two weeks ago, then you said last week, and then you disappeared… and I still have no pages.”

Eloise sighed and stared through the windscreen at the stark, wintry trees that guarded the entrance to the Clava Cairns. The sweet old lady at her B it could make a person mad, make a person do crazy things to try and feel something.

“Wow, that’s cold,” she hissed, bending against the gusts that threatened to knock her off her feet.

Fueled by pure rage, playing out the memory of the day everything changed, she stalked toward the path that cut between the trees up ahead.

“I’m sorry, El, but I just don’t love you anymore. I’ve tried to fall back in love with you, but… I can’t make myself feel something I don’t, and I shouldn’t have to. I can’t come second to everything else. All the dates you’ve cancelled because you had chapters to write, all the times you’ve sent me to dinners and parties alone because you had edits to do, all the times — ”

She snarled at the audacity of him. Whenever he was the one who needed to stay late at the office or hop on a call in the middle of a breakfast or dinner that she’d spent hours preparing, she never said a word. Whenever he dragged her to fancy events and then disappeared for hours to mingle, leaving her by herself, she never complained. But she knew the truth—it was her success he couldn’t handle.

At first glance, the Clava Cairns weren’t the shock of inspiration and awe that she’d been hoping for. They looked like every ruin her mother and father had dragged her around when she was a kid. In fact, now that she thought about it, she might’ve been dragged around this very site, but her childhood trips to Scotland had blurred together over the years.

She decided to give the Cairns more of a chance, and followed the gravel path, trying to imagine what it would have looked like when it was first created, way back in the Bronze Age. What were the people like? Were there young women like her, nursing a broken heart, even then?

A blanket of russet-colored leaves mulched on the ground, fallen from the bare sycamores and chestnuts that leaned in over the ancient burial site, like they were eavesdropping. As far as atmosphere went, some inspiration was creeping into her mind.

Just in front of her sat a strange, doughnut-shaped structure of piled rocks that came to head height in some places, chest height in others. Bigger boulders made the foundation, with smaller rocks carefully stacked on top, and around the perimeter were chunks of carved stone, cubes almost, that were spaced equally around the central circle like soldiers on duty.

Following the well-trodden dirt path around the odd cairn, Eloise found a narrow gap that cut into the very heart of the circular cairn, reminding her of an old-fashioned keyhole. In the round center, she saw a method to the way the stones were piled; it looked more like a drystone wall than any old rocks chucked on at random.

“Still not getting quite the inspiration I was promised,” she muttered, turning to see the rest of the site.

However, her eye was immediately caught by a taller, rectangular sentinel of stone that seemed to guard the entrance to the cairn behind her: the tail of the keyhole.

“I could do something with you,” she mused, approaching the stone.

Just then, the fierce wind that had been tossing and battering the leafless sycamores ceased abruptly, like someone had sucked the air out of the cairn site. And where the biting gusts had nipped relentlessly at Eloise’s cheeks, a warm current now caressed her icy skin, as if this corner of the Highlands had decided to skip winter and go straight to spring.

Eloise eyed the eerily still branches, wondering if she was somehow in the eye of the storm.

“What the—?” A chill prickled down her spine as starlings fluttered down from the trees, landing on each of the smaller sentinel stones that surrounded the circular cairn. They seemed to be staring at her, but that couldn’t be right… could it?

She looked back at the taller stone, jumping in fright. A starling perched at the top, and the slender, speckled bird was definitely staring at her. It even tilted his head, as if waiting for something.

“I don’t have any bread or seeds or… whatever it is they feed you, with me,” she said quietly, feeling a little silly for talking to the creature.

Evidently offended, the starling flew off, back up to the nearest tree, and Eloise took a breath.

Seems I’m pissing everyone off today, she mused grimly.

But there was something about the ancient place, where people from the Bronze Age were dead and buried, that unnerved her. Or maybe it was just the fact that she was alone, freezing, nursing a broken heart, fighting an uphill battle with a deadline and her future, and now a bunch of starlings were about to descend on her if she didn’t cough up some breadcrumbs.

“This was a stupid idea,” she muttered, turning around.

The whole holiday had been a stupid idea. Did she really think she could run from all the problems she had back in London? After all, they’d still be waiting for her when she got back. Some wouldn’t even wait that long.

She was about to head back to the car, her foot halfway across the invisible perimeter formed by the standing stones, when the wind picked up again. She froze, looking at the branches that still weren’t moving and the sleek, unruffled feathers of the expectant starlings. There was no breath of wind on her face, either. Yet, she could hear it, whispering around the cairns.

“Okay, you know I’m not writing a horror novel, right?” she said aloud, to comfort herself.

Your palm upon the stone, the wind seemed to reply.

“Great. Didn’t think I’d be starting my descent into madness so soon,” Eloise continued, glancing back at the tallest standing stone. “When in Scotland, I guess, do as Macbeth would do. See apparitions, go mad, take your litter with you.”

Your palm upon the stone, the wind urged, growing louder though the trees still wouldn’t move. Nothing moved. Not even the birds. Your palm upon the stone… your palm upon the stone… your palm upon the stone, the air chanted, as that warm current of early spring circled around Eloise, herding her back toward the standing stone at the tail of the cairn’s keyhole.

“Is someone playing a trick?” Eloise scanned the surrounding area. “Halloween is way over. Believe me, I know. So, if you could pack this in, I’d appreciate it.”

Your palm upon the stone, came the reply, making her whip her head around. That time, it had sounded like there was someone right behind her ear, breathing the words down her neck.

Too terrified to disobey, though there was no logic in what she was hearing or seeing, she placed her hand against the stone, hoping that the trick would end once she did.

She gasped in shock. “It’s warm—”

Torn between recoiling and trying to see if there was some hidden panel to freak out tourists, left behind by stewards who weren’t paid enough, Eloise pressed her palm harder against the stone. The warmth took a turn for the fiery, until the heat began to burn… but when she tried to draw her hand back so she could anxiously laugh off the big joke, she couldn’t. Her palm was stuck, and the stone was getting hotter by the second.

“Help!” she cried out, certain that there’d be a groundskeeper or a ranger wandering somewhere nearby. “Someone, help!”

The ground trembled beneath her, and the trees that had been still for so long began to shake violently, desperate to shed leaves that had already fallen. The starlings shot up into the sky, joined by hordes more, beginning the rolling waves of a murmuration; perfectly, chillingly choreographed.

Help! Eloise cried again, but no sound came out. The scream was in her head; her lips as stuck as her hand on the stone. Help me! Oh God, please help me!

Frantically, she pulled and pulled, her breaths shallow and panicked as the standing stone held fast to her palm. All the while, the earth groaned and shuddered under her feet, splintering a crack up the stone facade.

Determined to free herself even if it meant ripping her skin, Eloise yanked with all her might. With one final, desperate wrench, the stone released her. A gasp of relief hissed from her lungs as she staggered backward, but it was short-lived. The standing stone, whatever it was, was not done with her.

A loud boom thundered through the ground. The blow knocked into Eloise like a ton of bricks, and it was all she could do to stay on her feet as it blasted again and again, pushing her down the narrow passageway of the rounded cairn until she was standing in the very center of it.

She was vaguely aware of her head hitting something hard, as she was pushed off her feet, but whether it was the drystone wall that circled the cairn’s inner ring or the hard ground or a loose rock that had tumbled free of the pile, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that it hurt, there were black spots dancing in her eyes, and there was a cold, liquid feeling running, somehow, over the inside of her skull.

No one is going to find me, she realized, as those black spots spread out into a veil of darkness, shrouding the sky and the murmuring starlings from sight.

As she’d said herself, who would be mad enough to venture out in the middle of winter, alone, to a secluded spot in the Highlands, where hers was the only car in the parking lot? By the time anyone noticed that she was missing, it would likely be too late.