Highlander in Her Bed by Allie Mackay Read Free Book Online Page B

would cross his mind.
    Raising his arms above his head, Alex set his jaw and cracked his knuckles, readying himself.
    Aye, her arrival was imminent.
    And the moment night fell and she sought the comforts of his bed, he would treat her to an appropriate welcome.
    One she'd not forget for the rest of her days.
     
    CEUD MILE FAILTE!
    "A Hundred Thousand Welcomes!" proclaimed a large banner stretched across the entrance to Ravenscraig's gatehouse. A warm-hearted Gaelic hello, fastened with a flourish to the raised portcullis, its unexpected appearance making Mara's breath catch and her heart thunder.
    She stared at the sign, surprise and delight whirling inside her. A giddy blend of emotions promptly followed by a hot rush of self-consciousness when Malcolm gave her a quick, audacious wink and slowed the car to a snail's pace.
    Not that she would have missed the flapping streamer.
    Indeed, with its bright blue lettering, each word at least a foot tall, the thing quite caught her eye. And the closer they came to it, the huge block letters staring right at her, the more difficult she found it to breathe.
    Speaking was out of the question.
    "They've been in fine fettle about your arrival for days," Malcolm declared, saving her the trouble as they passed beneath the banner and through the tunnel-like interior of the gatehouse. "True as I breathe, they'll be gathered in front of the castle, waiting."
    Mara swallowed, the image only increasing the fluttering in her stomach. "But how—"
    "How will they ken we're almost there? Ah, well, I could say they've been waiting since daylight, but, truth is, every croft we've passed will have rung up to report our progress." He slid a glance at her. "Did you know this is the first time the lady of the castle has been at Ravenscraig in over twenty years?"
    Mara's jaw slipped. "Lady Warfield didn't visit?"
    Malcolm shook his head. "Never came back save once or twice after she married. Lord Warfield didn't much care for Scotland. Folk say he fussed he could ne'er get warm, and that he despised the mist."
    But Mara scarce heard him, for they'd left the deepest part of the wood, and Ravenscraig Castle was coming into view through the trees.
    Tall, parapeted, and more impressive than any likeness she'd ever seen, her ancestral home stood on the far side of a wide, emerald green lawn, and its appearance presupposed everything she'd ever heard about the romance of medieval Scotland.
    More startling still, the castle seemed perched on the edge of the world, the lawn ending abruptly behind, with nothing beyond but a huge swath of endless blue sky.
    "Oh-my-gosh," Mara gasped, staring.
    Malcolm chuckled. "A bonnie sight, no?"
    She glanced at him, a ridiculous sense of unreality snaking round her ribs and squeezing so tight, she wondered her heart still had room to beat. She certainly couldn't find words.
    A nod was the best she could do.
    Her father would have been much more eloquent, his eyes growing as round as saucers, and just imagining his eye-popping delight sent a flood of bittersweet warmth to join the constriction in her chest.
    Nothing in her wildest dreams had prepared her.
    She doubted anything could have.
    And although her nerves were a bit frazzled, the dryness of her mouth and her skittering pulse assured her she wasn't spinning fantasies.
    Ravenscraig loomed as solid as day before her, complete with two rounded towers flanking a massive iron-studded door, above which she could just make out the MacDougall coat of arms carved in stone.
    Not a dark, scowling pile, forbidding and mysterious, but a turreted wonder of pink sandstone, where, true to Malcolm's prediction, a knot of people stood waiting.
    One of them, a bandy-legged old man in a kilt, came strutting forward the moment she stepped from the car. He made a grizzled appearance with his lined face and faded blue eyes, but his gaze was alert and his expression friendly.
    "Hah! The lady herself—at long last," he greeted her, his voice