A Kind of Magic by Susan Sizemore Read Free Book Online

she gave him a wary glance, he went on. “I’d love for them all to go to the devil for just one night and leave us in peace.”
    Her reaction was a blank stare. When he reached out to put his hand over hers, she promptly folded her hands into a tight double fist in her lap. He accepted this rebuff by settling back in his chair. Rowan tried to ignore the woman and retreated into his more usual morose silence.
    Maddie almost smiled at her captor’s frustrated comment. She understood about large, interfering families, she came from one herself. If he hadn’t been talking about spending the night with her, she might have made some equally sardonic, understanding reply. As it was, she really didn’t have anything to be sardonic or understanding about. She thought she should treat the temptation to respond to the man on any level as some kind of aberration on her part. It was just because he looked so much like someone she loved and desired. That the aberration also probably took place on some basic, hormonal, female response to dominant male level was downright embarrassing.
    Besides, it would be like teasing a tiger. He might be sleek and beautiful to look at, but a person could get killed mistaking a quiet beast for a kitty cat.
    So she tried to stay as inconspicuous as her place beside him would allow. Being in the middle of a crowd only made her feel a little more secure. As Rowan pointed out, the crowd consisted of his extended family, and this strange, boisterous group was gathered in the cold, shabby hall for a wedding party. Though Maddie neither understood nor liked the reason for the gathering, she hoped it went on all night.
    Though the people were strange, the setting was downright bizarre. The wide room took up the second floor of a stone tower. They’d entered via a ladder that led up to the outside door of the tower. The ladder had been pulled inside and a heavy door fastened in place as soon as all the Murrays were within. Maddie felt claustrophobic at being so closed in. Not only was she enclosed with a bunch of crazy people, she knew there was no escaping once the log-sized pole was lowered into massive brackets that held it across the door. She’d been shaking with terror at this realization when Rowan led her off to sit beside him at one of the tables. It had taken her quite a while to compose herself enough to survey the room, if not the situation, calmly.
    Only wall torches and a bonfire in a central hearth gave any light or warmth, and not much of either. The place was smoky, the low rafters covered in soot since the tiny windows up near the ceiling let in more air than drifted out. It looked like a whole cow was being roasted over the fire. The smell was not particularly appetizing. A dignified 32

    A Kind of Magic
    man stood near the fire, his graying hair glimmered in the firelight as he sang. His rich baritone voice rose easily above conversation and the clatter of dishes. The whole setting made her feel as if she’d fallen into an illustration for a Walter Scott novel.
    She had seen the ruins of several medieval Highland fortresses in the year she’d worked in Scotland and had talked a lot with her archaeologists friends. She knew there were no intact castles like this one in Scotland. That this place, these people, existed made no sense. That she was sitting in a dark, smoky room with them made less sense.
    The airplane on the mountainside was impossible and telling herself she was hallucinating was just a cowardly way of trying to cope with this altered reality. She was too uncomfortable for it not to be happening.
    “I wish someone would explain it all to me,” she said, unable to not voice her frustration no matter how much she didn’t want to be noticed.
    Rowan leaned forward and poured a cup full from the pitcher Rosemary had set before him a few moments before. He passed it to his bride. “This might help.”
    She sniffed the contents of the cup, gave him one of her skeptical looks