Moon Cursed (22 page)

She turned the corner just as a slim, dark, familiar figure approached the pub. Kris opened her mouth to call,
Liam!
but before she could, he slipped inside.

The scuff of a shoe on pavement had her glancing over her shoulder. Just past dusk, and the streetlights had not come on, but a golden glow spilled from the windows of several shops. Instead of being inviting, the contrast of flickering light and encroaching darkness made the shadows dance like demons around the bonfires of hell.

Kris hurriedly crossed the street and went in.

At MacLeod’s the lights were on and everyone was home. Except Liam. She didn’t see him anywhere.

Kris frowned. She’d watched him walk in only a few moments ago. Could he have strode right through the bar and out the back door?

Why? Unless he’d ducked around the corner to watch her from the shadows, scuffling his shoe just enough to make her paranoid.

Kris sighed. No one had to
make
her paranoid. She was already there. She glanced around again, certain she’d just missed him in the crush.

However, though Liam wasn’t tall, he was distinctive. Gorgeous shone like sun through the clouds. Right now all she saw was a storm.

Effy and Rob sat at the same table in the corner, drinking as they’d been the last time she’d seen them, and they appeared to be having the same argument, if the sloshing of Effy’s ale out of her glass and onto the table was any indication. Since Kris had been searching for them, too, she put aside the issue of Liam Grant and crossed to the Camerons.

Though people moved when she said, “Excuse me,” no one greeted her or even smiled. She felt a little out of place, perhaps because she was an American in a local Scottish bar. No one would ask her, or any other foreigner with money, to leave. But that didn’t mean they had to welcome her into
their
place.

As she approached the Camerons’ table, Effy gave her brother an evil eye that seemed so out of place on her cherubic face Kris stifled a laugh.

“No fool like an old fool,” Effy snapped.

Rob took another swig of his ale and said nothing.

“Aaah!” Effy picked up her own glass, tilting her arm with the obvious intent of tossing the contents into her brother’s face.

Rob set his down with a click, pointed a finger at his sister, and said, “Dinnae,” in a voice as calm as the loch on a windless night beneath the moon.

Effy’s glare became even more evil, but she
didnae.

Rob’s movement pulled up the long sleeve of his shirt, revealing the tattoo of a flipper on his wrist.

“Hi,” Kris said.

The two turned their heads at the exact same time, with the exact same tilt. However, Effy’s face welcomed Kris even before she saw who it was, while Rob’s held no expression at all.

Kris pointed at Rob’s wrist. “Can I see?”

Rob glanced down, then yanked the cuff of his shirt over the tattoo.

“It—uh—looks like a duck,” she said.

“If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck,” he took a hearty draw on his ale, “then it must be a duck.”

Did that mean it was a duck?

“There are a lot of tattoos in Drumnadrochit,” Kris observed.

“Is that so?” Effy asked. “Who else?”

Kris’s gaze lowered to Effy’s breast, but when she lifted her eyes Effy still appeared only mildly curious. Kris didn’t have the guts to ask about hers. Perhaps it
had
been a bruise.

“Jamaica has a snake on her ankle,” Kris blurted. “And Alan Mac has a…” She paused.
Line
wasn’t very descriptive.

“Never mind,” Kris said. What difference did it make if everyone in Drumnadrochit had a tattoo? It didn’t mean anything except the village had a high tolerance for body art.

“Join us!” Effy cooed.

Rob continued to drink.

“Actually, I’m … meeting someone,” Kris said. “I just wanted to ask—”

“Ye’ve got a man friend already?” Effy clapped her hands over her apple cheeks. “How lovely.”

“Mebe she’s got a woman friend,” Rob muttered.

Effy let one hand fall back to her pint, where she caressed the glass thoughtfully, and glared. Rob continued to drink. He didn’t appear worried. Nevertheless, Kris jumped in to smooth things out: “I wanted to ask if you’d fixed the door to the cottage?”

Effy’s face crinkled in confusion, and Kris’s heart took a quick, concerned thud. Then Rob murmured, “Ye think there’s a mad handyman strollin’ through the Highlands, repairin’ whatever he finds broke as he goes?”

Both Effy and Kris glanced at him. Rob took a slow sip of his ale before continuing. “Of course I fixed it.”

“What was wrong with the door?” Effy asked.

“What wasnae?” Rob returned.

“How did you know it was broken?” Kris asked.

“Had a note on me own door this morning.” Now he frowned. “That wasnae from you?”

Kris shook her head. Maybe it had been from—

A mere brush of his fingertips across her arm, and she knew it was him.

Kris turned, half-expecting to find no one there. A ghost of a touch from a ghost.

But Liam
was
there, and she reached out to touch him, too, releasing a relieved little
huff
when her hand encountered solid, male flesh beneath the usual dark shirt.

His hair was tied back, revealing the fine bones of his face, and his eyes blazed bright blue. He took her hand, and her foolish heart stuttered.

“There ye are. I was afraid ye hadnae come.”

Kris felt like she was in junior high and the coolest guy in school had asked her to dance.

She needed to watch herself. What if she fell in love with Liam and then discovered—

What? That he wasn’t real?

Liam was right here. She was touching him. She could see him, and so could—

Kris faced the Camerons, concerned they’d be staring at her with pity as she mooned over empty space.

But they were staring at Liam, their expressions hard to read, especially as those expressions disappeared faster than a bunny down a hole as soon as Kris saw them. She could have sworn they were shocked, but why would that be?

“You know Liam?” Kris asked.

“Liam?” Effy repeated. Rob just snorted.

“Of course they know me,” Liam said. “Isnae that right, Effy?”

When Liam said her name, she started. “Right! I’ve known him all of me life.”

“Don’t ye mean ye’ve known me all
my
life?” Liam asked quietly.

“Yes. Of course. Since ye were a wee, sweet lad.”

“Rob would let me trail around after him while he worked,” Liam continued. “Learned at his knee just how to use a hammer.”

“Mmm,” Rob said, and lifted his nearly empty pint.

“Let me get ye another.” Liam snatched it from the man’s hand, sweeping Effy’s up, too. “Would ye like one, Kris?”

Kris nodded, unable to stop her gaze from flicking back and forth between Liam and the Camerons, searching in vain for a reason their conversation seemed so weird.

Liam left. Effy and Rob contemplated their empty hands.

“Liam grew up here?” Kris asked.

The Camerons glanced at each other, then back at their hands.

“Aye,” Effy agreed.

“In Drumnadrochit?” she clarified.

“Aye,” Rob said.

Kris looked over in time to see Johnnie lean across the bar so he could hear what Liam had to say. The man straightened, glancing in Kris’s direction, then nodded.

“Strange,” Kris murmured, and turned away.

Effy lifted her wide, startled gaze. “Why?”

Kris didn’t answer immediately, thinking back on whom she’d questioned about Liam and what they’d said. It had all been pretty much the same.

“I asked several people in the village about Liam Grant, and no one had ever heard of him.”

“That’s because most people in Drumnadrochit call me—”

Effy took a quick, sharp, audible breath that had all of them turning toward her. But she put her hand over her mouth as if she’d hiccoughed and said, “ ’Scuse me.”

Liam set three pints on the table. “Billy,” he finished.

“Most people call you Billy?” Kris laughed. He looked
nothing
at all like a Billy.

“‘Liam’ is short for ‘William,’” he said. “And when I was young…” He handed her a pint.

“Billy,” she finished, lifting her brows at the Camerons.

Rob shrugged and picked up his fresh drink, but Effy nodded, fluffy white hair bobbing. “Aye. Billy he was.” She frowned. “Is?”

“I prefer ‘Liam’ these days,” Liam said.

“I bet ye do,” Rob murmured.

Effy gave her brother a sharp glance and reached for his pint. He slapped her hand.

“Dinnae,” he said, and she sniffed. But she took her hand back, and she didn’t try to touch his ale again.

“Liam!” a voice called.

Johnnie held up another glass, smiling widely. Liam crossed over and took it, then reached for his back pocket. The owner appeared horrified and waved away the offer of payment.

“I’m glad you two are keeping company,” Effy murmured.

Were they? Kris supposed that was as good a term as any. Or at least one she was willing to acknowledge.

“Why’s that?” she asked.

“He’s been too long alone. It isnae right.”

Rob muttered something that sounded a lot like: “Is, too.”

But when she would have asked him to repeat it, Effy continued, “He’s had a sad and lonely time. When he sees you, he smiles.” Effy glanced past Kris. “Everyone should have a reason to smile.”

Liam joined them, and he did smile, which made Kris smile, too.

“You don’t have to pay?” she asked.

Rob snorted again. This time Liam cast him a quick glance. The old man tugged his ale closer and crooked an elbow around it as if he were in a prison cafeteria protecting his last piece of meat.

Liam returned his gaze to Kris. “I help out when they need it. Johnnie wouldnae charge me for a few pints.”

A slow, easy melody replaced the faint trill of bagpipes, and a few couples drifted onto a portable plank dance floor in one corner of the pub.

“Dance Wednesday,” Liam explained. “They try to get folks in for the middle of the week.” He set down his pint, then reached for hers. “Would ye?”

“Dance?” Kris let him take the glass. She wasn’t much for dancing. Hell, she wasn’t much for bars or gatherings or even men.

Liam took her hand again, and she was lost. What was it about him that made her do things she normally wouldn’t?

The other couples shifted to the side when Liam and Kris stepped onto the floor, though the movement seemed more deferential than polite. She tried to catch someone’s eye, to smile, to fit in, but they were all too involved with each other to notice. An instant later, so was she.

She went into his arms, and he pulled her close, until her cheek rested against his shoulder just right. He had a natural grace, and where he led it was very easy to follow. Where he led she wanted to follow.

Kris lifted her head, disturbed by the thought. She was not the type to follow anyone, let alone a man she’d just met, in a country she was only visiting. She couldn’t let great sex fry her brain, although she could see now, when she’d never been able to before, how that might happen.

“Thug mi gaol,” he whispered. “Thug mi gaol.”

As he slowly twirled her about the floor, she found herself lost in the beautiful lilt of that voice. She wanted to press her cheek back to his shoulder and listen. So she did.

“Thug mi gaol don fhear bhan.” His chest vibrated as he sang. She rubbed her skin against his shirt, and the scent of him surrounded her.

“Wicked,” she murmured, and he kissed her hair. How was she ever going to leave him?

The song continued, and so did they, around and around, captured in each other’s arms. Kris wished the music would last forever.

She had found few occasions to dance, and she wasn’t very good at it. But Liam was an exquisite dancer, and with him she became one, too. They never brushed another couple, never bumped butts or tangled heels. They seemed shrouded in a bubble of music and warmth that existed only for them.

“Agus gealladh dhusta, luaidh,” Liam murmured.

Kris lifted her head. “What does that mean?”

“‘I will never let anyone harm ye while I am here.’”

The music ended, but they stood in the center of the floor, staring into each other’s eyes. She wanted to kiss him. But the way her skin felt—buzzing, humming, calling out for his—she didn’t think she could stop at a kiss. From the blaze of his eyes, she didn’t think he would, either.

She slowly became aware of their surroundings. The pub was quiet, the dance floor empty but for them. She glanced to the right, then the left.