Fire on the Island (4 page)

Chapter
Five

Isla walked
into Brodick's Pub at 5:59 and scanned the dim room for Jeremiah. She spotted
him in a booth toward the back, reading a newspaper, and her stomach did that
fluttering thing again. Catching a few dark glances from locals at the bar, she
muttered to herself, "What the hell am I doing here?"

She started to
turn around and make her escape when he raised sparkling hazel eyes to her
face. As heat coiled inside her, Isla swallowed and began to make her way
through the gathering crowd.
Oh, you're in big trouble
, she told
herself.

Isla reached
the booth and slid onto the cracked vinyl bench across the table from him. He
smiled at her and the rest of the world receded just a little.

"Hi,"
he said. "Glad you came."

She gave him a
wry smile. "Didn't get any better offers."

Jeremiah barked
out a laugh and she relaxed ever so slightly. As was her habit, Isla pulled her
legs up and sat cross legged on the bench and propped her chin on her hand.

"Want a
drink?" he asked, signaling for a waitress.

"Scotch,
neat," came her reply. He regarded her with curiosity, but ordered one for
each of them.

Although she
had visibly relaxed since first sitting down, Jeremiah noticed Isla kept
sneaking nervous glances around the room as if she were waiting for something
to jump out at her. Following her gaze, he noticed a pair at the bar looking at
them with disdain and whispering to each other.

Shrugging it
off, he turned his attention back to his reluctant date. While clad simply in
an Arran Outfitters t-shirt and skinny jeans, she was stunning. Her face was
absent of makeup, except for a touch of lip gloss, her skin naturally smooth as
marble. She had her hair down tonight, a heavy mass of midnight curls tumbling
down over her shoulders that Jere longed to sink his fingers into.

Jere cleared
his throat and leaned back as the waitress set their drinks in front of them.
He took a deep whiff of the scotch and then tasted it, rolling the amber liquid
around his mouth before swallowing. "That's incredible."

"The Arran
twelve-year malt, distilled here on the island. You should try the fourteen
year, it'll knock your socks right off," she said, laughing. "So what
really brings you to our island, doctor?"

Jere rolled his
eyes. "Oh, hell...Jeremiah, please. It's like I said. I'm a writer and I
just came off a big project. My editor and publisher ganged up on me and forced
me to take some time off."

"You poor
thing," she said sarcastically, taking a sip of her scotch and briefly
closing her eyes.

"How about
you?" Jere asked. "Were you born here on the island?"

"Glasgow.
I moved here ten years ago." Her smile disappeared and her face closed up,
so Jeremiah decided not to press her on her past. This time.

"Oi, if it
isn't Beauty and the Yank! I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with
me own eyes!" Callum hollered at them, causing several heads to turn. He
dragged Jack across the room to the booth. Callum took Isla's hand and pulled
her up, spinning her gracefully over to Jeremiah's side, and sat her down. The
two men sat down together on the now empty bench. Callum and Jack were both in
their early forties, but while Callum was slender and wiry, Jack was brawny and
compact. He had dark brown hair buzzed military style, golden brown eyes, and
an affable smile.

"I'm from
New Orleans, brother, no Yanks there!" Jere shot back good-naturedly.

"So that's
where the accent comes from," Isla teased.

"What are
you talking about? Y'all are the ones with accents," he retorted, making
them all laugh.

Callum
introduced Jack to Jeremiah and the men shook hands. He glanced over at Isla
and winked. "Doc, I can't believe you actually got our lass to come out.
She's not a very social animal."

Jere smiled at
that, but the smile faded when a man and woman walked by glaring at them and
shaking their heads. Callum and Jack exchanged worried glances while Isla
suddenly became very interested in her left thumbnail.

Turning
concerned eyes back to the couple across from him, Jere questioned them gently.
"Do y'all get a lot of trouble here, being gay and all?"

Jack shook his
head. "Not too much. It's not that...they—"

Isla shot out
of the booth like she was on fire. "Look, I have to go guys. Cal, see you
Monday. Jack, Jeremiah, good to see you. Have a good night." As she rushed
for the door, Jere thought it odd how the crowd parted for her.

"Jack!"
Callum snapped. Jack slapped his forehead with his palm. "I'm such an
idiot."

"What the
hell just happened?" Jere demanded, looking back and forth between the
two.

Callum sighed
and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Those people aren't looking over here
because of us, Jeremiah."

"Okay,"
Jere prompted, drawing out the last syllable.

"Isla has
kind of a reputation here in town," Callum said, obviously choosing his
words carefully.

"What kind
of a reputation?"

"A lot of
the people living on the island grew up here, as did their families. Isla just
showed up one day out of the blue, with no known family, while a lot of the
residents here will tell you how they can trace their ancestry back to the
Bruce himself. People fear what they don't understand. Somewhere along the way,
rumors began to surround Isla. The talk is what caused her to retreat to where
she spends most of her time either working or at her cabin. Unfortunately,
doing so just fueled the rumor mill, so she tries to avoid the popular local
spots. That's why I was so surprised she came out tonight."

"Shit."
Jere didn't know what else to say. He could tell Callum was leaving out a lot
of details, but what he'd revealed was bad enough.

"Look,"
Callum said, pegging him with a fierce stare, "the girl is tough. Tougher
than most men I know. But she's also lonely. I think it would do her some good
to get out some, maybe have some nice guy show her a good time." He
waggled scruffy eyebrows. "That's why I set you up on her tour."

"Manipulative
bastard," Jere teased.

"Damn
right. I'm hoping you'll be a friend to her and bring her out of her shell a
bit. But make no mistake, mate. You hurt her, I hurt you. Got it?"

"Understood."
Jere thought about all he had learned that night and became even more
determined to find out more about the mysterious Isla MacAllan.

~~~

When Isla
settled into bed that night, her mind was racing. All she saw when she closed
her eyes was Jeremiah's devilishly handsome face. Frustrated, she yanked the
quilt tighter around herself, dislodging Atticus and earning a hiss. She
slapped at the covers with both hands, trying unsuccessfully to get
comfortable.

"I do
not
need to get involved with a tourist!" She said aloud, causing Smitty and
Atticus to look at her curiously. It was a complication she just didn't need.
Eventually she would have to tell him why she never wanted to go into town, if
Callum hadn't already, and that would only lead to more questions. Maybe he
would even shun her like the rest of the people on the island.

Something told
her that the intelligent Dr. Rousseau would not jump to conclusions so easily.
And just like that, he was back on her mind again—his sexy mouth in particular.
She drifted off to sleep imagining what it would be like to press her own lips
against it, just once.

Isla was jerked
awake by a loud thud coming from the front of the house. She sat straight up in
her bed and listened for a few seconds, but all remained quiet. While she
needed to check things out, she prided herself in not being an idiot, so she
grabbed her twelve-gauge shotgun from her closet and loaded four cartridges.

She
methodically explored every corner of the tiny cabin and checked the locks on
all the doors and windows. When she found nothing, she unlocked the front door
and cautiously poked her head out, looking first left toward the rocking
chairs, then right toward the wood pile.

At first, she
didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, until her gaze rested on the porch
in front of the wood pile. Two logs appeared to have rolled off the top of the
pile—which was now taller than Isla herself—and toppled to the ground.

What the
hell?
The logs were
probably ten pounds each and the night air was still as a grave. There was no
reason for the logs to have fallen, unless something had knocked them down.
Isla scanned the tree line around the clearing that housed her cabin for any
signs of life.

Seeing nothing
but foggy darkness, Isla gave up and turned to go inside. She had just leaned
the shotgun against the wall just inside the door when she heard an unusual
sound. The distant music of children's laughter echoed faintly through the
trees. Startled, Isla turned sharply back around, just in time to catch a
glimpse of a bright red shirt of a little boy disappearing behind a hazy shrub
of rhododendron.

Alarmed for the
child, Isla quickly shut the front door and took off into the trees after him,
no longer concerned with her own safety.

She chased the boy
through the murky forest for what seemed like hours. Occasionally he would stop
and wait for her, a gap-toothed grin splitting his pale face, only to dart away
again when she got close. She almost caught him once, her fingers barely
grasping the collar of his thin shirt, but it slipped away just as quickly
around the bend of the path.

When Isla
didn't see him again for a few minutes, she almost gave up, hoping the boy had
sense enough to go home to his parents. She had just decided to turn back when
she stepped into a clearing and saw, not the boy, but a man casually leaning
against a tall pine.

Mildly confused
to find another person out in the middle of the night, Isla approached
cautiously, hoping the man was somehow related to the little boy. Her surroundings
began to go out of focus as the grey fog closed in around them, and Isla tried
to hang onto the memory of what she had been doing. Her mind suddenly felt as
foggy as the clearing.

She stared at
the man as he stood there, watching her watch him. He was so handsome, with
black hair and pale blue eyes set deep in dark sockets, skin smooth and white
as the driven snow. His face was sharp and chiseled, cheeks hollow. His full,
red lips quirked up in an easy half-smile. Trying to pull her gaze away from his
mesmerizing, shadowy eyes, she shook her head and forced her brain to think.

"Did you
see the boy?" she asked, her voice sounding strange to her own ears.

The man merely
smiled. And watched.

Inexplicably,
Isla found herself compelled to approach him. A hint of alarm caused her
stomach to clench because she didn't want to fight the urge—she wasn't normally
so cavalier about her own safety.

Pushing off
from the tree, the stranger walked forward to meet her. He stopped a couple of
feet in front of her and waited. Isla was dimly aware of her state of dress,
pajama bottoms, tank top, and bare feet, but she couldn't bring herself to
care.

Her eyes met
his and she saw shadows twisting and turning in his opalescent gaze. She felt
as if she were being pulled in, her mind being separated from her physical
body. Frightened, Isla tried to back away and found that she was no longer able
to move. Panic blossomed and Isla tried to break eye contact with the stranger,
but she wasn't able to do that either.

As she stared,
unable to break away, the man's face began changing. Before her eyes, a sign
manifested on his forehead, a primitive glyph that resembled a human eye. It
looked eerily similar to what the Celts called an “evil eye.” His eyes flashed
and his lips pulled back into a deadly snarl.

Isla trembled
uncontrollably, knowing that she was in danger, but unable to move a muscle to
do anything but shiver. The malevolence reached for her face with bony fingers
and began to caress her cheek, making her skin crawl. She could practically
feel the evil rolling off of him in waves.

Just when he
extended razor sharp claws from the tips of those corpse-like fingers, a
horrific howl pierced the night, and she was jolted out of the trance the
creature held her in, feeling those claws slicing her skin just as the vision
dissipated.

Suddenly fully
aware, Isla looked up to find that she wasn't in a clearing in the woods, but
on one of the moors where she stood in front of a primitive stone circle. She
had believed herself familiar with all of the ancient ruins on the island, but
she didn't recognize this one.

She turned in a
slow circle, taking stock of her new surroundings, wincing at the pain in her
bare feet. She froze when she locked her jade green gaze with the wolf's pale blue
one. Remembering the howl that had broken the creature's hold on her, she had
the feeling that the wolf meant her no harm. As she watched it, the wolf cocked
his head at her, and then slid down until his belly rested on the cold ground
and bowed his head.