Highlander’s Curse by Melissa Mayhue Read Free Book Online Page A

forever imprinted in his mind of Abby standing there, bereft of clothing, snow drifting down around her. It took no effort to imagine the icy flakes coming to rest on her soft skin, melting together to form droplets that would roll down the heated curves and valleys he’d witnessed only moments before.
    He wiped a hand over his mouth and onto his chin, more undecided than ever as to how he should proceed. Surely this was some intimate ritual he had no right to interrupt and yet he needed more.
    Slowly, he lowered his barriers, allowing the magic to flood his senses. He flinched, his breath catching in his chest as the pain of hundreds of souls cried out their need all around him. Meticulously, he filtered through them, blocking them in great swaths until all that was left was Abby.
    Pure and golden, her aura surrounded her, its ragged edges revealing she’d not yet bonded with her Soulmate. The relief he felt was short-lived.
    “What do you think yer doing?”
    Mairi’s hoarse whisper unnerved him. Intently focused on Abby’s aura, he’d completely missed her approach.
    “They’ve a name for this,” she hissed over his shoulder and into his ear. “Peeping Tom is what they’dcall you. And they’d arrest you for it and haul yer arse off to jail. And wouldn’t we be in a fine mess then, trying to explain who you were and where you came from? Come on with you now.”
    Reluctantly, he allowed his cousin to lead him away, back down the alleyway and to her automobile, neither of them speaking again until they were seated and she’d started the engine.
    “When you said you’d a need to see that woman again, I thought you meant you wanted to speak with her.” There was no missing the accusation in his cousin’s voice.
    He’d thought so, too. Had, in fact, had every intention of doing just that. But he’d been wrong. As it turned out, he’d needed only to see her again, to simply reassure himself, after all the dreams, that she was real. Having seen her with his own eyes, he could leave for Wyddecol, satisfied that one day soon they would meet again.
    Abby sipped from her glass before sinking down into the relaxing bubbles of the hot tub. This one feature more than any other had convinced her to come up with the extra cash to rent this place last year. Steamy wisps danced up to meet the falling snow, carrying her frustrations with them.
    Maybe half an hour in here and a large glass of wine would relax her enough that she might actually get some sleep tonight. Peaceful sleep, uninterrupted by dreams. Or at the very least, uninterrupted by dreams of
him
.
    The thought of her mysterious Highlander had her upending the goblet.
    What was it about that man? As if it wasn’t bad enough she’d dragged him home with her in the first place, now her subconscious tormented her with visions of him, serving him up in one dream after another, night after night. It had gotten so bad, in fact, she was beginning to expect him to actually show up again.
    Expect or hope?
    Hope was more like it. Just tonight she could have sworn she’d felt him somewhere nearby. Too bad her weird ability to find things didn’t extend to people.
    She lifted the glass to her lips again, only to realize she’d already emptied it.
    “Damn.”
    Just as well. It was already late and she needed to be at the museum early in the morning to start work on organizing the new Celtic exhibit she hoped to have up and running before she left for her summer on the dig. With barely over three months left to prepare, she hadn’t the time or the energy to waste on anything that wasn’t absolutely essential.
    The exhibit this month, meeting with the organizer of the dig next month, and then training her replacement—those were her priorities. She had a million things to do before she was ready to board that plane to Scotland.
    A million things, none of which included wasting time on some schoolgirl crush, moping over a gorgeous Highlander who’d walked out of her