A Highlander for Christmas

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without the written permission of publisher or author, except where permitted by law.
 

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.

Originally published as THE PERFECT GIFT

Copyright ©
1999 and 2013 by Roberta Helmer

First Avon Books Edition: Oct 1999

First Steel Magnolia Press Publication: Oct 2013

W
armest thanks to every reader who loves magic, mystery and the haunting beauty of Draycott Abbey.

With warmest thanks to all of the inspired booksellers who keep the wheels humming, the books moving, and the stories flying off their shelves.

A special thanks to those guardian angels in human form:
Carla Watland,
Suzanne
Barr,
Daniel Garcia, Kathy Baker, Andrew Hobbs, Beth Anne Steckiel, Pat McGuiness, Becky Meehan, Debbie Neckel, Damita Lewis, Tanzy Cutter, Suzanne Coleburn, Jeannie Heikkala, Vicki Profitt, Kathy Hendrickson, Jolene
Ehret,
Lisa Clevenger, Mark Budrock, Mary Clare, Cindi
Streicher,
Jenny Jones, Jennifer Martin, Kathy Campbell, Terry Gowey, Mary Bullard, Merry Cutler, Annie Oakley,
Jana Tomlinson,
Tim Lowe, Mickey Mans, and Sharon Murphy.

You are all solid-gold wonderful!

Loch Maree, Scotland

Late autumn

HE STOOD ON THE HIGH SLOPE
, knapsack on one shoulder and gaunt face turned to the wind. The stony heights did not deter him, nor did the late October chill. He welcomed both wind and cold as the old friends they were.

His name was Jared Cameron MacNeill, and he had come home to die.

It had seemed a good plan long months ago, when he’d stood squinting at the beach beneath a baking Asian sun. Now the Scotsman wasn’t so sure.

The first snowflakes of winter danced around him as his feet brushed the edge of the cliff, where granite fell away to cold air and biting wind. The seventh after seven of his line, MacNeill knew every inch of this land and his eyes glinted with pleasure at the sight of the mountains snowcapped and bright in the gathering dawn. 

He turned his face to the wind and forced all thought from his mind. He simply
felt
.

How green the world seemed. 

How soft the heather.

Rounded slopes swelled from loch to bright loch. Even the air was different here—light and sharp. Pungent with peat and sea salt.

The great loch had been home to his clan for generations of gain and loss, warfare and peace. Jared stared over the steep slopes, remembering old tales of heroes and dark blood rivalries.

The brooding hills rose unchanged. If only the rest of his life were the same.

Don’t look back.

Lines of exhaustion traced his cheeks, and his gray eyes were empty of emotion. Perhaps he had felt too much, crouched in the midnight streets of Rome, Bogota, and Kowloon. Or perhaps he had not felt
enough
. Not in the ways that mattered, with heart and spirit.

He stared at the rain-veiled peaks to the north.

He saw Ben Slioch. The Fannich heights and remote Sgurr Mor towering over the cold glass of Loch Fannich. Out to the west An Teallach Tay, bleak and dark, wrapped in perpetual mists.

The names came to him in the old tongue, Gaelic learned at his father’s knee. The rich phrases rippled through his mind like sunbeams off stormy water. The old sounds had not changed and he whispered them now. Every breath bit at his throat, sharp with pine, peat, and the tang of the cold Atlantic.

Jared looked down where blue water clawed against the curving arms of ancient green hills and golden bays. Once again he remembered his brother’s warning:
Don’t look back.

Sound advice. But it had come from a man who’d been too proud to heed his own warning. Probably that pride had killed him.

Wind whipped at Jared’s long hair and lashed at his face. He realized he never should have returned to this beautiful loch full of mystery and brooding silence. The secluded hills held the bones of warriors and saints, and he was neither. From here his journey led in only one direction. Death. Death before the snows of Christmas.

His shoulders tensed beneath the folds of worn Hebridean tweed. Even the wind could not shift the heavy MacNeill tartan at his knees. He was the latest of his line to stand on this high hill, the latest to watch the sun paint tracks of gold over the great loch.

He would also be the last.

So be it
.

The curse was fixed over centuries.

A whine split the air at his elbow.

He ignored the shrill burst from the phone in his knapsack. He knew he should have left the cellular back in his car, but staying in touch was a habit hard to break.

Yet, his employers would soon learn to forget him, just as Jared meant to forget them. He closed his eyes at the thought, willing himself to ignore the shrill peals.

In a split second the Scotsman was carried back to a night two years before when his world had changed forever. Caught in a nightmare of heat and unrelenting pain, trapped in a box in the stifling jungle, captive of a hostile government, he had discovered the boundaries of his own strength. Only through a miracle had he escaped death, tortured by the nightly visits that had left his body bleeding and wracked with pain.

Now he was home, and it was two months before Christmas, but what did that mean to him? His broad shoulders carried the marks of old wounds, and his heart carried a heavier weight than memories. He had come to Scotland looking for some hint of home, only to find that the great loch and the high hills were no longer enough to soothe his soul.

Another peal jolted his reverie.

Jared cursed. The careful men in careful suits would soon forget him. He was of no further use to them.

As the phone rang on, he turned to the west. At the edge of the loch, he saw three men load wooden crates onto a battered green lorry. A pair of schoolchildren chased a herd of wary sheep.

Something brushed his face.

Early snow? Or was it regret?

The phone finally slid into silence. Perhaps his resignation had finally been accepted. Jared could well imagine the shock it caused..

What to do now? He supposed he should follow the weathered stone fence up to the house of his youth.
Taigh na Coille.
House in the woods.

But he hadn’t the heart to see the gray stone walls or the tiny leaded windows. He certainly didn’t want to walk among the old graves in the kirk. He would see them soon enough, and not as an idle guest. His visions since Thailand were clear in that respect.

His death would come when he least expected it, walking beside a lichen-covered boulder beneath a tree with a broken branch.

The vision had come over and over since his return from Thailand. First the rock, then the tree, and then the feel of his own body slick with blood.
Falling. Falling
.

He was almost glad for the distraction when the phone jolted to life once again. He answered by reflex as anger flared in waves. “No more,” he growled. “It’s over, damn it. Haven’t you had enough of me?”

Silence hung. There was a low cough, partly lost in static. “Jared, is that you?”

He frowned. This was the last voice he wanted to hear, but old debts made this man impossible to ignore. “So it would seem.”

“I suppose you didn’t hear the calls. I’ve tried twelve times now. Not that anyone’s counting.” Nicholas Draycott was Jared’s oldest friend and he sounded tired and worried. “Where in hell are you?”

“
Taigh na Coille
. Straight along Strath Bran and a right at Achnasheen.”

“Forget that. Come here for Christmas. We’ve got rooms and more at Draycott Abbey, and there will be no other visitors, so you needn’t worry about tripping over anyone’s feet. You can come and go at your pleasure.”

“I’ve been there already, Nicholas. You and Kacey have done all that was possible. The rest is up to me.”

“Damn it, man, you’ve got friends. Don’t turn that hard Scottish back on us.”

“I needed to come home. To watch the dawn and walk the Highlands.”
One last time
, Jared thought bitterly.

“There’s nothing for you there, Jared. Not now. Besides, I need you down here.”

Jared would have laughed except the emotion was beyond him. “You need what I
was
, Nicholas. Not what I am.”

“I need both, you fool. Now get yourself down off that brooding hill. There’s a car waiting for you in Kinlochewe.”

“Why?”

“We’ll talk when you get here to the abbey.”

“No. I’m done with that work.”

“This is a personal favor I’m asking of you.” Papers rattled, but they didn’t quite cover Nicholas Draycott’s curse. “Since it would be bad form for me to remind you who saw to your release from that hellhole in the jungle, I won’t. I’ll only say that I need you now.”

“Just as a point of curiosity, do you
ever
take no for an answer?”

“Never.”

Jared stared to the west. The sun perched blood red over Gairloch, above the distant curve of the sea. “I can well believe that. But with all due apologies, you’ll have to this time.”

“I’ll come track you down, and I warn you I’ll make it damned unpleasant. Remember, I know exactly what you’re going through. I’ve suffered too.”

The sea churned. Jared remembered that place of darkness and pain and nights too long for hope.

Forget the box. Forget Thailand
, he thought tensely. But he couldn’t. Nicholas Draycott should have understood that.

Jared cursed himself for his next question. “What is it this time?”

“A woman.”

“Isn’t it always?”

“She may be in great danger.”