The Storyteller: A Highland Romance (Ghosts of Culloden Moor Book 45) Read online

  “You are hungry?” Her eyes darkened and a frown marred her brow then. “I should have … I was not thinking … Do you … ?” She stuttered through a few more beginnings before he waved her off.

  “’Tis nothing to worry over, lass.”

  His words did not stop her from doing exactly that. Fiona walked slowly toward the area she called the kitchen and began opening the storage closets there. He’d already had a peek in them and in any he found abovestairs as well.

  “I can offer you soup,” she said, holding out a small item to him. It was a metal cylinder with an image of food on it. This was like no soup he’d ever seen. Then he remembered the day he had followed a tourist into the center at Culloden and watched as they purchased a meal to eat. There had been soups of all kinds, but never in small tins like this one.

  “I have only the basics here now.” She shrugged then. “Since the cabin isn’t being used much, I didn’t go grocery shopping on my way here.”

  Ah, she was not planning to stay here long at all then. She’d arrived and began her plan to meet death without delay. It saddened him and he did not understand why. What would drive such a woman as she to end her life? He blinked several times to clear his vision and nodded at the tin he held.

  “What do I do with this, Fiona?” He held it closer and stared at the words printed all over it. Cooking directions? Microwave? He could read English, Gaelic and some French, but these words confused him.

  “I was offering you a choice. I have the Tomato, Chicken Noodle,” she began. Reaching up into the closet there, she grabbed a few more of the tins. “This one is my favorite,” she said, handing it to him. New England Clam Chowder, it read. “They are not fancy, but they will fill you.”

  The image on the Chicken Noodle looked the most like his mother’s cock-a-leekie soup so he pointed at that one. “That’ll do fine.”

  When she glanced over her shoulder at him for the third time, Struan stepped a pace back away from her. He made her nervous, that much was clear. And yet no matter that, she had not demanded his departure or had not tried to leave herself. His height and girth intimidated many, men and women alike. His condition—disheveled and bloodied—would give most sensible people pause. His sudden appearance and lack of knowledge about the area and times would alarm most. All those factors should have her screaming for help or calling the authorities on him. Yet she did not.

  “Yer pardon for crowding ye so,” he offered, giving her room to move about. “Do ye need any help?”

  She asked for a thing in one of the drawers and by the time he understood what she meant, she had retrieved it herself. All these strange tools and bits and such confused him. Struan watched as Fiona used some gadget to grab ahold of the edge of the tin and twist it several times. He studied her hands and saw the way one did not move as smoothly as the other. Some of her fingers did not close around the gadget as others did.

  He could tell that she was at ease in this place. With no lost time wasted searching for things, she opened the tin, poured the contents into a pan and placed it on the stove. A stove that needed no fire or flame to work. Fiona threw him a glance that examined him from head to toes and then she retrieved and added a second tin to the pot. She was a keen lass, understanding his hunger! Soon, far sooner as it would have taken his mother to do the same, a large bowl of steaming soup sat before him at the table there. A smaller bowl of a thicker stew awaited the lass.

  When his stomach let out another loud growl, he laughed, enjoying the sensations that his body felt now. After all this time feeling nothing but the relentless passage of time, ‘twas hard to believe that hunger could be a pleasure. But, he reveled in the way his belly rumbled and how his mouth watered at the delicious aroma of the soup before him.

  “You haven’t eaten recently?” Fiona asked as she took a sip from her spoon.

  “Not in more than two hundred years, lass. Not in two hundred years.”

  From the way she sputtered and then choked on her spoonful of soup, mayhap honesty was not the best path after all?

  Chapter Four

  If he had said those words with any hint of trying to make some joke or using sarcasm, she would not have reacted that way. But there was a tone of honesty in his words that made her gasp. And the gasp made her choke on the tiny amount of soup she’d been swallowing as he’d said them. The choke turned into coughing and it took her more than a minute to finally breathe without causing the cascade of spasms again.

  “Two hundred years? What do you mean by that?” If her voice was shrill or shaky, she could not help it.

  Was she dealing with a lunatic? Some unfortunate who’d lost his wits and found his way to her at the very second she was finally taking action to end her misery? He seemed out-of-place to her but not crazy. Right now, he paused before answering her, clearly deliberating on his reply. A madman did not think about what to say. The man before her was calm, made sense in most things he’d said, and acted, well, normal. With a few exceptions of course.

  He was dressed in a Highland kilt and looked as though he’d stepped out of a reenactment. He was not familiar with any of the modern conveniences of the house. He’d not understood her directions or how to do the most basic tasks.

  So …

  Was he mad or was she for almost believing him now?

  “Weel, Fiona Masters, it is a tale that ye might no’ believe,” he said softly. His voice sent its mellow tones through her and eased her in some way she could not explain. “Ye might think me a madman after I have told ye.”

  She thought so now. One of them was crazy. Either her for trying to end her life or him for believing he was from the past.

  “Two hundred years?” she asked once more. He placed the spoon on the table, lifted the bowl and drank down the rest before speaking.

  “If truth be told, closer to three hundred than two,” he said with a wink. An amazing, wicked, sexy wink that distracted her for a moment.

  “Nearly three hundred years then,” she accepted the words of this tale he told … for now.

  “I was born on Cameron lands in the year of Our Lord seventeen hundred and twenty-three. My mam told me I came in the darkest part of the winter and the cries of the ban-sidhe, the woman whose cry is the harbinger of death in the Highlands, echoed down the glen.” He paused then and smiled, nodding at her. “My mam thought it meant my death but instead, the keening was for my poor auntie Sarah who died that same day.”

  “Banshee?” Fiona had only heard the term used in slang, for someone who screeched out loudly.

  “Aye, the ban-sidhe,” he repeated in a way she was certain she never could. His tongue rolled the words and softened the letters until it came out on a breathy tone. “Death is coming when she cries out her song of pain and loss.”

  “So, you were born three centuries ago? And yet you look no more than …” Fee tried not to stare at his handsome face, but she thought he could not be more than … “Twenty-five. You can’t be more than twenty-five.”

  “I lived for three-and-twenty years before …”

  “Before?” Fee held her breath then, knowing that his next words would prove one or both of them was losing their minds.

  “I died on the sixteenth day in the month of April, in the year of Our Lord seventeen and forty-six.”

  He let out a breath when he’d spoken the words as though he expected something to happen then. He even glanced around the house, waited or looking for someone or something. But, a feeling of dread filled her as he mentioned that date.

  April 16, 1746.

  Anyone with any bit of Scottish blood in their veins knew that date. It was the battle that ended the Highlanders’ way of life and put the clans to the sword. It was the battle of …

  “Culloden.” They both whispered the name together and Fee could not help but shudder at the implication of it.

  He was trying to tell her he’d lived almost three centuries before and died in one of the mos
t infamous battles in all of Scotland’s history? She would have laughed then, but the dark, piercing stare that met her gaze told her that he did not joke about this.

  “So, you’re what? An apparition? Not really here at all?” She did laugh then, a nervous one that she was possibly imagining a man or seeing and speaking to someone who wasn’t there. “All part of my imagination?”

  She pushed back from the table and stumbled a bit. Her legs were always so tight after sitting still. Fee grabbed the edge of the table so tightly that her fingers lost all their color. It was hard to breathe then and she felt the panic rising inside. As he stood across from her, she backed away. Her chest tightened and her skin felt as though stretched to its limit around her body. Worse, her vision narrowed and she could see only the faintest image in front of her. Was this real? What was going on?

  “Here now, lass,” his voice came from much closer now. “Sit a spell and catch yer breath.” His hands touched hers and the warmth of his body flowed into her. “Ye look as if ye are ready to keel over. Dinna fash, we will sort this out.”

  She grabbed his hands then and let him guide her back onto the chair. He knelt at her side, not pulling away, and Fee finally looked at him. Closely. He was flesh-and-blood. He’d bled when she’d shot him. He’d eaten food. He drew in breaths and exhaled them even now. She studied the way the pupils of his eyes flared as she stared at him and then contracted, making the green colors swirl.

  “You are a man,” she said. “A man.” She repeated it several times because she needed to convince herself before he said anything to unravel the apparent thin grasp on reality that she had right then.

  “Aye, a man, flesh and blood,” he said back to her. He flexed his arm, the bandaged one, as if to prove he had blood in his body. The way he canted his head to one side just before he continued told Fee he was about to upend everything she believed. And then he did just that.

  “A man now, but I have existed since Culloden, at Culloden, as a ghost.”

  Though the words should have unnerved her or frightened her—not the thought of a ghost but because she believed him—instead Fee felt a calmness fill her. She understood what was happening to her now. She released her hold on his hands and slid back against the wooden chair and nodded.

  “A ghost,” she said. “A ghost.”

  In that moment, she understood. She’d read about people who had died or were dying and the moments of clarity or vision they experienced. This was her moment of clarity, perhaps a chance to examine her conscience or review her life, before dying. Maybe she had fired the gun and had hit her target? Maybe she was dying or dead already? And like Dickens’ Christmas Carol, he was the ghost sent to guide her through that?

  Somehow, that made sense to her. Though in the movies and shows, the being looked like a ghost, this one retained his human appearance. Touching his hand for a second, she smiled. He also felt and looked alive.

  “That explains a lot.”

  “It does?” he asked, frowning. He shook his head and shrugged and the movement drew her gaze down to his naked chest. He sat so close she could touch him if she wanted to.

  “Your lack of knowledge about most things here. You cannot open a can or turn on the water.” And his sudden appearance on the cliff. And his clothes. And his speech. And … and … and … She would have to suspend her every belief to accept this.

  Or was he some kind of second chance for her? Sent to remind her of all she’d lost and would lose by ending her life? A way to cleanse her spirit before she passed? Whichever or whatever he was, Fee was aware of him in a way she’d not been aware of men since the accident. Not even Stephen affected her like this man did. Still …

  “I must be having that moment,” she said, watching his expression change from dark and serious to serious and confused. “That moment when your life flashes before you when you die. A moment to review your choices before you face …”

  “The Almighty?” Fee swallowed deeply and nodded. “And ye think I am an examination of your conscience as ye die?”

  “It’s a better explanation than …”

  “Better than what?”

  “Well, better than I’m going stark raving mad and so is the stranger I’ve let in my house.”

  Silence swirled around them. Then, he leaned his head back and laughed loudly. God, but the sound of it sent chills through her. It was so natural and unforced. Not polite in the least, for he was laughing at her, but the way his body shook with it, well, it made her want to laugh, too.

  Struan laughed until he thought his lungs would burst and as tears streamed down his face. He understood the lass was not trying to be funny or make light of her, their situation, but her dour expression as she spoke such an admission just made him laugh. He wiped the back of his hand across his face, coughed and then nodded.

  “I ken that feeling, lass. I do.” He pushed back on the wooden chair next to her and nodded. “When I awoke the morning after the battle and could see everything and everyone around me, but they couldna see or hear me, I thought I was mad, not dead.”

  Her lovely blue eyes startled then, meeting his gaze as he explained the lunacy of that day.

  “I remember the sharpness of his blade as the sword hit my arm. I remember the blood, dear God, the blood. The field was soaked in it. Toward the end, ‘twas hard to find a dry place to make a stand.” Struan regretted the words as soon as he’d spoken them. The lass had a weakness about blood and here he was blathering on about it.

  Looking away then, he continued to tell her of that day. How he’d trudged across that field yelling and waving with no effect. How he’d seen his friends and compatriots lying there, dead as he was but then not. Then he made his admission, saying the words she needed to hear.

  “Sometimes, I would be there. There on the moor, seeing and hearing things as clearly as I do now. I could see the others and, if I made myself concentrate, I could speak to them.”

  “Others?” she whispered, drawing his gaze back to her.

  “I ken,” he said, nodding at her discomfort. “I ken it sounds madder than my old Uncle Geordie, but I remember it all. There were seventy-nine of us left there on the moor after the battle cleared. Seventy-nine of us through all these years. And the worst of it all? I would speak and no’ be heard. I would move but no’ feel or be felt. No matter my actions, I was there and yet no’. I screamed once, trying to gain the attention of someone, anyone yet alive, but it did no’ matter. ”

  He dragged his hands through his unruly hair and rested against his palms. Nothing had mattered. Nothing they did in all the passing years changed or affected anything or anyone … but the young lass Soni.

  Fiona’s hand, warm and soft, on his arm surprised him then. With that small gesture, she reminded him of all he’d lost that day. And how much he missed this—the touch of another, the soft words of a woman, the concern of … He cleared his throat, trying to ease the tightness there.

  “Mayhap we are indeed both mad?” he said softly. Even after he lowered his hands, hers remained there on his arm. Struan covered it with his and was somehow pleased when she did not pull away.

  “Mad as old Uncle Geordie?”

  “Och, aye. Him and his brother Dougal,” he said. “They were born together and ended up the same way—daft in the head.”

  She smiled then. ‘Twas the first he remembered seeing and it brightened her face so much it hurt him. No lass this lovely, this young, should be bereft of a smile or a laugh. He lifted his free hand and slowly reached out to touch her face. Struan moved slowly, waiting for a sign to stop, but none came.

  With the edge of his finger, he touched her forehead and followed the curve of her cheek down to her chin. Her eyes drifted shut and he continued on. He did not trace the line of the scar, but instead, his finger glided around the edge of her face. Then, he touched the softness of her mouth, using the pad of his thumb, sliding it along the fullness of her bottom lip. That lip that drov
e him mad when it quivered or when she spoke.

  “I am mad,” he whispered as he leaned his head closer and touched his mouth to hers. She did not startle as he anticipated her to and so he rubbed his lips over hers. Good God, but they were as soft as he’d expected. He drew back and realized her eyes were no longer closed.

  “What am I to do with you, Struan?” At that question, all sorts of things to do raced through his thoughts. And, to a one, they involved pleasures of the flesh—a thing also long denied him.

  “What do ye wish to do, lass?” He’d uttered the words in a voice deepened with arousal. Her eyes flared then, not missing his meaning or his desire. “With me.”

  Chapter Five

  Fee had never been an overly-intimate person. And maybe that was part of what drove Stephen away or, at least, made it easier for him to leave her. And yet, with little effort if any on his part, Struan Cameron made her blood boil. He did not hesitate as he touched her, even looking on her scars did not turn him away. His lips were warm and wonderful and she wanted more.

  If they were both mad, she might be okay with it. If he was a ghost from a long-ago time and place, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing? Impossible and unbelievable, but not bad.

  The danger was that, when this madness or reprieve from death ended, she would lose him as sure as she’d lost all the others. And she would face her end alone, once again. Whatever crazy desires surged through her ended at that realization and she straightened up away from him.

  “I didna mean to overstep, lass.” He smiled and she wanted to reach out and trace that mouth. He used the tip of his tongue then to lick his lower lip and it was mesmerizing to watch. “Ye looked like ye needed a kiss just then.”

  “I’m not sure what I need right now,” she said, letting out a sigh. “I thought I knew. I thought I knew what I needed to do. But now? Not now.” She shook her head and leaned back then, tugging her hand free and giving herself some space from this tempting man or ghost or whatever he was.