Chapter 5

5

“Kendra, are you unwell?”

Kendra turned away from the window to find Graeme looking down at her, one dark brow raised in concern. He’d left his chair and now stood very close to her. So near that the room suddenly felt smaller than it was, as if the seafaring-memorabilia-decked walls had drawn in around them, forcing an intimacy that charged the air.

“Sorry?” Blinking, she peered up at him, her mind’s eye still seeing the fleet of herring boats coming in on the tide, their riding lights glittering like diamonds on the night-blackened water.

They had been there.

She knew what she’d seen.

And that meant the fleet could reappear any moment. Years of experience with those of the Otherworld had taught her that when the departed wished an audience, they could be as determined as any mortal who sported a flesh-and-blood body. In some cases, ghosts were even more persistent.

Anything was possible.

Now just wasn’t a good time to be confronted by an angry group of crusty, eighteenth-century herring fishermen. Much as she felt for them. So she forced an air of calm, hoping the fleet’s arrival was only a bit of spectral theatrics. That, too, wasn’t uncommon.

She’d seen ghosts in all shapes and sizes, and every kind of manifestation from barely-there shadows to full-bodied apparitions only discernible as spirits because she caught ripples of the glow surrounding them. Some didn’t even have that telltale signature. Ghosts were was varied as living people’s personalities. Their antics equally so. Nothing surprised her.

Except, perhaps, how few people saw them.

Everyone was capable of it, if only they weren’t conditioned from childhood to see and believe only what they could accept as real.

She knew better.

And sometimes, when others were caught off guard and did glimpse a ghost, they became believers, too.

“You’ve gone pale.” Graeme looked at her in a way that made her want to squirm.

“I’m fine.” She could see he didn’t believe her.

He stepped closer, placed a hand on her shoulder. “You could use some fresh air.” He glanced across the pub to the door, then back to her. “A walk along the waterfront will do you good.”

“I haven’t finished my dinner.” She wasn’t about to go out into the cold, dark night with him.

The cold, she didn’t mind.

Darkness was a different matter entirely.

The softly gleaming harbor lights, the wash of the sea and all that drifting, half-luminous mist could work on the psyche, planting romantic notions and bringing a man and a woman closer together.

One kiss was enough.

“You’ve only two bites of haddock left on your plate.” Graeme squeezed her shoulder, torpedoing her excuse.

“I…” She couldn’t finish.

Graeme saw to that, giving her a seductive smile that slid right past her defenses. “Just a short walk, lass. No more.” But even as he spoke, he curled his hand around her nape, sliding his fingers beneath her hair, caressing her gently. “Jock needs to stretch his legs.”

The dog was still sprawled on the stone floor, his snores louder than ever.

Kendra’s chin came up. “He looks comfortable to me.”

The dog cracked one eye, proving he was listening.

“It’s all show, as you’ll soon see.” Graeme pulled a few pound notes from his pocket, anchoring them on the table with his ale glass.

Jock sprang to his feet, beside them in a flash.

“My dog loves his walks.” Graeme reached down to rub Jock’s ears. Looking back to Kendra, he lifted a brow. “You’ll not want to disappoint him, what?”

Kendra glanced at the dog, knowing she was outmaneuvered.

Sensing her capitulation, Graeme grinned and reached for her hand, pulling her to her feet. He helped her into her jacket and then led her to the door, holding it open as Jock shot outside before them.

Kendra braced herself as Graeme pulled her over the threshold, pausing only briefly to close the inn door. He still gripped her wrist and—she didn’t even want to think it—if any men from the herring boats meant to seek her out, they’d have an audience of two.

Three, if she included Jock.

Everyone knew dogs could see ghosts.

But nothing stirred anywhere except the small, decidedly modern fishing craft bobbing at their moorings in the harbor. The night had turned colder, and a chill mist drifted down the empty street. Deserted, it was, except for a big, gruff-faced man in gum boots and a yellow oilskin, apparently a present-day fisher. He was leaning against the red phone box across the road from the inn, his gaze on the Laughing Gull’s cozily-lit windows.

Kendra’s nape prickled on seeing him.

He was solid and didn’t have a tinge of spectral glow edging him as ghosts so often did.

Still…

She’d encountered more than one ghost who looked as flesh-and-blood real as anyone’s next door neighbor. One never knew, and she often had to bite her lip to keep from telling skeptics that they might have seen plenty of ghosts and just not realized it at the time.

So the fisherman’s solidity wasn’t a guarantee that he was a living man.

She also heard a slight, high-pitched ringing in her ears that often signaled a spirit’s presence. But Graeme was hurrying her across the street in the opposite direction. Her powerful attraction to him and the way his strong, warm fingers held her wrist sent ripples of awareness through her entire body, making it difficult to focus on the older man lounging against the phone box.

He did look their way then, bending to pat Jock as the dog trotted by him. Jock was clearly more interested in sniffing along the marina walk than stopping to greet someone who didn’t have a treat at hand. The pavement smells and the cold night air, flavored with hints of brine, and wet, oily iron, proved a greater temptation.

When the man straightened, smiling after the dog, Kendra decided she’d erred.

The man’s attention was on the Laughing Gull Inn, not her.

Even so, she slowed her feet, glancing back at him.

It was then that Graeme stopped before a small alleyway between two tiny cottages on the seaward side of the street. Small enough to be dollhouses, the low, thick-walled cottages had doors and windows that were tightly boarded and gave off the resigned air of houses so long abandoned that they’d forgotten what it was like to have someone walk in the door and greet the place as a home.

The tight space between the cottages ran straight to the water’s edge. And except at the far end, where one of the harbor lights cast a reflection on the nearby water, the narrow alleyway was dark and filled with dank, briny air.

“Come, you.” Graeme pulled her right into those shadows, leading her down the alleyway to where a broken bench sagged against the wall. “We can speak here.”

“I thought that’s what we were doing in the pub.” Kendra wasn’t keen on speaking with him here, in the cold dark of a narrow space between two centuries-old cottages that positively reeked of sorrow.

She looked past him to where Jock paced at the seaward end of the alleyway, his ears pricked as he stared down into the water, seemingly fascinated by the reflection of the harbor lights.

“Talking and”—she turned back to Graeme, not missing that the grin he’d worn in the pub was gone—“a few other things I’m still digesting.”

“I won’t kiss you again, if that’s worrying you.” He let his gaze drop briefly to her mouth. She could tell even in the dimness. When he met her eyes again, he was all seriousness. “I needed to get you out of the Laughing Gull, somewhere we wouldn’t be overheard.”

“I can’t imagine why.” That he could brush off such a kiss so easily made her testy.

He angled his head, studying her. “I would’ve thought you’d understand.”

Kendra crossed her arms against the cold and stepped away from him. “You’re a very unpredictable man, Graeme MacGrath. How can I begin to understand the motives for anything you choose to do?”

“Because”—he was right in front of her again, towering over her—“when you were gazing out the inn window, you looked like you’d seen a ghost. Or perhaps a fleet of ghost ships, as that’s what you claimed.”

“I said no such thing.” His words made Kendra’s throat go dry.

“You didn’t have to.” He took her chin, turning her face back to him when she tried to glance aside. “You said you saw the herring boats coming in on the tide. Everyone in the pub heard you.”

“So?” She jerked free of his grasp and flicked her hair behind an ear. “I saw the path of the moon glittering on the water. The boats I fancied I saw out there were an illusion, nothing more.”

She hoped he’d believe her.

The look he gave her said he didn’t. “Whether you saw a few moon sparkles on the water or whate’er, the problem is that Scots are a superstitious lot. This might be an age of air travel and instant Internet gratification, but if you scratch the surface of any Scot’s psyche, you’ll find someone who believes in second sight, the evil eye, and all manner of other things our ancestors knew lurked in the mist, including haints. We call them bogles hereabouts—ghosts to you.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts.” Kendra spoke with the lie with the ease of long practice.

Ghostcatchers International drilled their staff to always be discreet. Zack’s favorite credo was never to draw attention to oneself on duty. The business had been built on trust, not sensationalism.

Kendra’s assignments, in particular, were highly sensitive ones.

Most historic societies don’t want the slightest hint of a haunting to tinge a site’s reputation.

So she didn’t turn a hair when Graeme narrowed his eyes at her, his gaze dark and piercing. “This isn’t your America, lass. And Pennard, this whole stretch of coast, is a powerfully uncanny place.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“So I have, aye.” He glanced down the alleyway, toward the night-blackened water. “There’s aye a grain o’ truth in old folklore and tradition.”

“So you believe in such things?”

“Let’s say I’ve lived long enough to accept that this world holds more than the eye can see.” He looked at her a bit challengingly then, as if he expected her to argue the point with him.

She wasn’t about to disagree.

She knew better than most that sometimes things weren’t as they appeared on the surface. And that mist often held more than air currents.

But she held her tongue. She didn’t trust herself to speak rationally to him.

He’d pronounced world as warld, his soft, deep voice pouring through her, his sexy Scottish burr getting the better of her.

She tucked her hair behind an ear, trying to keep her gaze steady on his, her expression neutral so he wouldn’t guess that even now, just listening to him speak was enough to melt her resistance.

It was true.

And each word he spoke, every lilting syllable, set off curls of warmth low in her belly. Now, at last, she understood why so many American women swooned over Scottish men. It wasn’t the long, proud history and heritage, all the flashing plaid and swagger. Nor was it the swinging kilts and the age-old mystery of what was or wasn’t beneath them.

Above all else, it was the accent.

Such an accent employed by Graeme MacGrath was beyond distracting.

His dark good looks didn’t hurt, either. Tall and broad-shouldered was always good, but his long black hair and thick eyelashes made him all the more irresistible. The harbor lights glinted in his ponytail, making the sleek strands gleam like ebony silk.

That she noticed, now especially, really irritated her.

But she couldn’t help it.

Graeme wasn’t just a man. He was a force of nature. No one had ever affected her so swiftly. She doubted anyone ever would again. And she couldn’t believe that up until just a short time ago, she would’ve said, if pressed, that an English accent was the world’s sexiest.

Little did she know…

She took a deep breath, straightening her shoulders. “I don’t see what my comment about lights at sea has to do with all this.” It was the only thing she could think to say. “Surely anyone who heard would have known I was mistaken. As you said at the time, there was nothing out there.”

“Aye, there wasn’t.” He slid his fingers over her cheek, clearly meaning to underscore his words, but serving only to send delicious shivers across her nerves. “Even so, your talk of ghostly ships could stir trouble. I’d warn you no’ to mention the like again.”

“I didn’t say anything about spectral ships,” Kendra reminded him. “Are the locals are so frightened of bogles, as you call them, that one slip of the tongue by a tourist could upset them so badly?”

“So it is, aye.” He was deadly serious. “Mainly because the boats as you described seeing them exactly matched the ghostly herring fleet said to sail these waters. The tales arise now and again, though most folk credit the sightings to phosphorescence in the water. Thing is”—he leaned forward, his handsome face mere inches from hers—“there have been a few odd happenings here lately. Some folk are worried that the fishermen of yore are returning and creating havoc to show their displeasure with Scotland’s Past’s plans to turn the village into a living history museum.”

He stepped back, gesturing to a lamppost at the seaward end of the alleyway. Even through the mist, enough light fell across the poster tied to the lamppost for the large black words to be legible.

SAVE PENNARD. STOP SCOTLAND’S PAST.

Kendra read the sign twice, guilt pinching her. No, the big hand-painted letters felt more like a solid kick in the gut, a blow executed with steel-tipped boots.

“What kind of havoc has been going on?” She looked back at Graeme, seeing his anger in the hard set of his jaw, the glint in his eyes.

“Little things at first, they were.” He took her arm, leading her to the end of the alley and out onto the marina walk. Jock had moved off and was now shifting about near the stone slipway, sniffing seaweed and a large, wet pile of fish netting. “Old Widow Wallace, who has the last cottage on the opposite end of the village from mine, found all her washing off the line and down in the burn beneath her back garden. At the time, she thought it was the wind, but a week later a large stone quern she keeps propped against the wall beside her door went missing.

“It was found in the same place.” Graeme glanced at her. “Such a grinding quern is so big”—he extended his arms, showing her the width—“and so heavy a single man couldn’t lift one.”

“I doubt a ghost could, either.” Kendra knew well that spirits could move things. But even she doubted that their capabilities could match the weight of a large, super-heavy stone quern of earlier centuries. She’d seen them often enough and was sure of it.

“Sounds like teenage pranksters to me.” That she could believe. “But”—this bothered her because she’d always thought of Scotland as a place apart, a world unto itself, and exempt from such troubles as Graeme described—“why would anyone target a helpless old woman?”

His lips twitched. “Widow Wallace might be on the far side of eighty, but she’d bristle if she heard you call her helpless. She’s as feisty as they come and proud of the vinegar in her veins, as she calls it.

“Could be she was harassed because she was the first local to say she’d consider Scotland’s Past’s offer for her cottage.” Graeme shrugged and then called a quick “No” to Jock, who’d started pawing at the fish nets. “She doesn’t like her daughter-in-law, and thought she’d outfox her family by taking the money and living the high life for what years she has remaining. Her son and his wife, whom the widow speaks of as the shrew, wouldn’t inherit her home.”

“If her daughter-in-law is a pill, more power to her.” Kendra liked the old woman, sight unseen. “Has anything else happened?”

“Not to Widow Wallace, and that’s as well because the trouble escalated soon after the incident with her quern.” Graeme glanced to where her cottage must be, at the far end of the small fishing village. High above, on its ledge halfway up the bluff, the lights of Gavin Ramsay’s Spindrift glimmered through the mist. “You may have noticed the blue-painted benches everywhere in Pennard?”

He turned back to Kendra, and her heart raced at his nearness, making it hard to concentrate. “I have, and they’re lovely.”

She looked toward the nearest one, set directly before the water some yards beyond the slipway. With wood-slatted seats and backs but swirled, wrought-iron sides painted royal blue, the benches appeared a hallmark of the small fishing village. They were placed at regular intervals along the waterfront and also stood beside several cottage doors, such as at Graeme’s home, the Keel.

The benches were just one of the notes of quaintness that made Pennard special. The haar obscured all the benches except the one by the slipway, but that same mist shimmered along the rocky foreshore like curtains of luminous silk, softening edges and giving a quiet, wistful feel to the small fishing hamlet. Kendra pushed back her hair and took a deep, calming breath, trying to remain unaffected. Just as she avoided getting involved with locals on assignment, she strove not to fall in love with a work site.

Yet…

Despite the dark undertones and bits of desolation like the two empty cottages framing the alleyway they’d just left, Pennard did have the kind of charm that she could so easily allow to wrap around her, catching hold and stealing her heart before she knew what had happened. And then it would be even harder to leave.

A warning flickered across her mind, cautioning her that Pennard and its local seal man might prove more than she could handle.

In the space of a very short time, Graeme had ripped away her usual restraint. He’d excited and fascinated her, challenged her, and even closed his door in her face. Yet he’d rescued her twice, once at the top of the cliff road and again in the Laughing Gull when Gavin Ramsay had come on to her. With one look from his compelling, dark eyes and the single flash of a dimpled smile, he’d swept her off her feet. He’d made her desire him, surprised her with a kiss she’d never forget, and, worst of all, he made her feel and want things that just weren’t good for her.

She could drive away in the morning. Her bag wasn’t even unpacked. There was still time to phone Zack and ask him to put someone else on the Pennard assignment. Leaving was an option and probably her best and most sensible plan. No work went well when the heart became involved, the mind distracted. And yet if she left now, she knew that more than Pennard’s ghosts would haunt her.

She glanced again at the bench by the slipway, her heart thundering.

“Don’t be fooled by the pretty blue paint.” Graeme’s rich Scottish voice came from right beside her. “Thon bonnie benches began the worst terror we’ve seen in these parts in many long years.”

Glancing at him, Kendra met his gorgeous, dark eyes and knew she wasn’t going anywhere. Not even if he declared that the benches turned into Pictish warriors at midnight and went on bloodthirsty killing rampages while the innocent villagers slept.

“Benches can’t hurt anyone.” Kendra turned her gaze back on the water, not wanting him to see her face and guess how strongly she was attracted to him. “I think”—she clasped her hands behind her back, striking a casual pose—“you’re just trying another tactic to scare me away.

“If so, it won’t work.” She kicked a pebble into the water and then glanced at him. “I don’t frighten easily.”

“Except”—he smoothed strands of hair from her face—“when challenged by a plunging Scottish road?”

“That’s different.” She resisted the urge to close her eyes and lean into his touch, for he kept his hand on her face, his fingers lightly stroking her cheekbone.

Any moment, she would melt into a puddle at his feet.

Instead, she collected herself, purposefully ignoring the sensations stirred by his caress. “So, what’s with the benches? Why should I worry about them?”

“You shouldn’t.” He lowered his hand, his face serious again. “The benches were instruments only. Someone?—”

“They all landed in the burn behind Widow Wallace’s cottage?”

“Nae, but you’re close.” He paused when Jock trotted up to them, nudging Graeme’s jacket pocket until he retrieved a bit of dried meat and gave it to the dog. “Someone threw all the village’s benches into the bay from the end of the marina’s longest pier. One of the benches”—he dusted his hands, looking back at her—“had a dummy chained to it, the words Scotland’s Past painted in black across the mannequin’s forehead. The inference was plain.”

“That Scotland’s Past’s representatives would meet a similar fate?” Kendra couldn’t repress a shudder.

“So it was believed, aye.” Graeme’s voice was low and calm, but his anger was evident. “Not long thereafter, once the benches had all been retrieved, repaired, and returned to their places, one of the historic society’s workmen reported a missing compressor.

“It, too, was found in the sea.” He reached down to stroke Jock’s head when the dog leaned into him. “I found it at low tide not from a wee cave at my end of the village. The thing was around the bluff from the cave, half hidden in the rocks. Whoever threw it there did so with enough might to put some good-sized dents into the machine.”

Kendra frowned. “That doesn’t sound possible. I’ve seen plenty of compressors back home.” Her apartment complex had undergone a horrid and lengthy refurbishment during the past year, and she’d grown to hate the boxy, infernally loud compressors used by the construction workers. “I can’t imagine anyone being able to throw such a thing with enough force to dent it.”

“Aye, well…” Graeme leaned toward her, his gaze intent. “Some would say that would depend on who or what did the throwing.”

“Don’t tell me the locals think ghosts from an eighteenth-century fishing fleet did it?” Kendra imagined they did believe just that.

“Some do, aye.” Graeme confirmed her guess. “But then…”

He paused to drag a hand down over his chin. “Then,” he continued, “other things started happening, and to locals who have been especially vocal in their protests against the Pennard Project. Cow manure was poured down the chimney of Agnes Leith’s cottage, the woman who makes the anti-Scotland’s Past posters tacked about the village. And tar and feathers were smeared all over the new double-paned windows another protestor had just had installed at his cottage.

“The man was Seth Walker, and he’d used his just-received retirement bonus to pay for the windows.” A muscle jerked in Graeme’s jaw. “We all pitched in to replace the windows and helped clean up the mess. But the goings-on have unsettled folk. With the like happening to those supporting Scotland’s Past and also those against the project, it’s hard to say who’s responsible.”

“So people think it’s supernatural?” Kendra glanced at him to see his response.

“That’s why I had to get you out of the Laughing Gull.” He slid an arm around her, pulling her close when the wind renewed its gusts, blasting them with chill, salt-laden air. “Tempers are frayed enough without the innocent quip of a tourist setting them all off again.”

“I understand.” Kendra tried to pull away, but he only tightened his hold on her. “We’re not in the pub now. You don’t have to pretend?—”

He still didn’t let go. “Once you’ve been here a while, you’ll know why I just reached for you. And”—his lips quirked in a brief smile—“that all Scots have eyes in the backs o’ their heads.”

“Pardon?” Kendra’s pulse raced to feel his strong, solid warmth pressed against her.

“The lace curtains of at least two cottages across the road twitched just now.” He glanced at her, clearly bemused. “We’re under observation, lass.”

“Oh.” Kendra’s heart dipped. She’d thought he was being gallant because of the wind.

Or that he just might be attracted to her.

As it was, he just wanted it to look that way.

“I hope you’re not going to kiss me again.” She wished he would.

“No worries. I promised you I wouldn’t.” He made it sound as if she should be glad.

“Of course. I’d forgotten.” Kendra swallowed her disappointment.

“Then I hope I’ve reassured you?” He lifted a brow.

Kendra could’ve groaned.

“You have.” She gave him her brightest smile.

“Good. Then you won’t have any qualms about going out with me on the Sea Wyfe tomorrow.” He gave her a wink and hurried her across the road, back toward the inn. “I’ll call for you after breakfast, around nine, as Iain serves early.”

“Wait…” Kendra pulled back, stopping just before he could open the inn door for her. “Isn’t the Sea Wyfe your boat?”

“Aye, she is.” He smiled and pulled her close, lowering his head as if to kiss her. Instead, he just rested his head against her hair, speaking in her ear. “Folk will wonder if we’ve just been reunited and I don’t take you out on the water with me tomorrow.

“Consider it a free boat outing to see some really special seals.” He straightened, looking pleased with himself. And—Kendra just looked at him—as if the matter was all set and arranged.

“Nine sharp, America.” He squeezed her shoulder and then turned on his heel, disappearing into the mist before she could argue.

And it was as she stared after him that she saw the big, gruff-faced fisherman again. As before, he was leaning against the red phone box across from the Laughing Gull. Still wearing his yellow waterproof jacket and gum boots, he was once again staring fixedly at the inn’s windows.

There was only one difference.

This time, Kendra could see right through him.