books piled on her tiny desk across the room.
Research for her next assignment: My Three-Month Marriage to a Yeti .
Suppressing a groan, she threw back the covers and stood. â Destiny Magazine pays well enough for me to cover my monthly bills. Andââshe shoved a hand through her mussed hairââwriting for them lets me stretch my imagination. The readers who buy the magazine are entertained and I can pay my rent.â
âMaking up tales of alien abductions.â
âIf need beâ¦yes.â Kira shot another glance at her stack of Yeti books, not about to admit that she, too, was growing weary of penning such drivel.
But not weary enough to barter her soul by working with the kind of wolf pack presently prowling the Castle Apartments parking lot. They were still there, the snarkies, as a furtive glance out her window revealed. If she werenât mistaken, they might even have increased in number overnight.
Like the plague of the giant toadstools sheâd written about a few years ago.
Cringing at the memory, she turned away from the window and dropped onto the edge of her bed, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
âKira, child, Carter Williams isââ
âNot all my stories are about aliens,â Kira cut in, thoughts of aliens and mutant toadstools making her testy. âThe Norse longboat is an important discovery. The excavation has drawn some of the nationâs top archaeologists. Destiny understands my special gift. No other magazine or paper would let meââ
âCarter Williams is single.â
That did it.
Kira shot to her feet. âAnd so am I. Happily so.â
Her gaze slid to the glittery clump of granite sitting in a place of honor beside her computerâs keyboard. At once, Aidanâs face flashed before her and she could almost hear his deep burr again.
You are mine .
I will neâer let you go. Noâ if I must search to the ends of the earth to find you .
Crossing the room, she picked up the stone. âCarter Williams will just have to do without me,â she said, closing her fingers around the piece of granite. âYou know Iâve gone off men for a while. I told you that the last time you tried to set me up with someone.â
Her mother made an impatient sound. âThere was nothing wrong with Lonnie Ward. Your father says heâs certain Lonnie will be the next manager at the Tile Bonanza. You could have done worse.â
Kira glanced at the ceiling. âLonnie Ward doesnât like dogs.â She tightened her fingers around the granite. âYou should have seen him brushing at his pants after a dog ran up to him and sniffed him in the park. You know I could never be happy with a dog-hater.â
âYou donât have a dog, dear.â
âI will someday.â
As soon as she didnât live in an apartment the size of a fishbowl.
Her mother drew a breath. âI believe Carter Williams has a dog. Iâve seen him about town with a spaniel. And his mother has twoââ
âIt wonât work, Mom.â Kira puffed her bangs off her forehead. âIâm not biting.â
âYouâre still mooning over that Highland chieftain,â her mother said, and Kira almost dropped the phone. Sheâd never told anyone about her dreams. Not even her sisters. And especially not her mother. âIt isnât healthy to obsess over someone who lived centuries ago, poring through history books and decorating your apartment like the set of Brigadoon .â
âLots of people love Scotland,â Kira returned, relief sweeping her that her mother hadnât somehow guessed the truth about Aidan. âEven Kerry and Lindsay devour romance novels set there.â
Blanche Bedwell sighed. âYour sisters are also well-balanced young women who have other interests.â
Kira rolled her eyes. Her younger sister, Kerryâs, only goal in life seemed to be squeezing into