Chapter One
The town was so small that it didn’t even have name. Carly had been driving for nearly an hour after the last set of ‘you can’t miss it’ directions from a helpful woman with a young goat tucked under her arm, and now she was beginning to question everything.
For example: Had she made a mistake coming to Ireland? Had everything she had ever been told about following her heart been a mistake? Perhaps her grandmother had been fibbing when she left Carly her cottage in the Irish countryside?
A joke at the reading of a will seemed to be in enormous poor taste, but Carly had to admit that she didn’t really know much about such matters. Just three weeks ago, she had been living the slightly dull life of an administrative assistant, and now here she was in Ireland, looking for the little cottage that the lawyer had told her she had inherited from one Colleen Martin, her estranged mother’s mother.
“This can’t be happening,” Carly remembered saying to the lawyer, stunned. He was an older man from Dublin, silver-haired and far too dignified to be dealing with the bewildered twenty-six year old American who was sitting in front of him.
“I can assure you it is,” he said stiffly. “My firm has been handling Mrs. Martin’s affairs for years, and there is no mistake about it. I would have come to you sooner, but there was some trouble locating you.”
The look he gave her made it clear he thought that there was at least something a little shady about it, and Carly blushed a little.
“Oh, well, I got a job offer suddenly, and that’s why I left Boston so quickly.” There was more to it than that, but it was not something she was all that inclined to go into with her late grandmother’s lawyer.
“Well, of course,” he said rather diplomatically. “Well, now all that matters is when you’re going to be taking residence.”
“Taking residence?” she asked, and the lawyer—Mr. MacGowan—gave her a stern look.
“Of course you’ll be at least planning to look at the property, won’t you?” She hadn’t been, but once the idea was planted it seemed as if it were inevitable. Mr. MacGowan booked all of her travel, and just four weeks after she found out that she was the owner of a mysterious property in Ireland, Carly was on her way.
“This is really far too much trouble for someone to go through for a kidnapping,” Carly muttered to herself. “And even if they were, I can’t imagine I’m the target demographic for that kind of thing.”
Carly was the type of girl that others called “pretty enough.” She was far from the slender sylph-like ideal she saw in magazines. Instead, she was as curvy as the rolling waves of the Atlantic, with a long dark braid that fell down her back and copper eyes that were most often described as cat-like when anyone bothered to look. She was still certain, however, that there was not such a high premium on her type that she had to worry about kidnapping.
“Oh, you’re looking for Loch Naine?” said an elderly man she met at a gas station. “You’re on the right road.”
“And that will take me to Dunn Borrun?” she asked anxiously. The last thing she needed was to be sent on a wild goose chase and end up in a random town in the middle of nowhere.
“Oh, that might be the name on the map, but you’re looking for Loch Naine,” he said confidently.
It was the best information that she had to go on, and at least when she pulled into the small town, she could get some kind of food before she resumed her search.
Carly, who grew up bouncing from city to city and would absolutely call herself a city girl, found herself unexpectedly charmed by the town. There was a kind of bustle to it that prevented it from being utterly desolate, but there was a peaceful quality to the town on the edge of the sparkling blue lake.
I’d probably be bored to tears here in a matter of days, she thought to herself.
Carly caught a battered and official sign pointing to the Dunn Borrun library, however, and that told her she was getting close. Now she needed to find her grandmother’s cottage, which Mr. MacGowan had warned her was a more difficult matter. She had a hand-drawn map to help get her to where she needed to go, however, and that could come after lunch.
She found a place to stow her car, and she started walking down the main street of the town. There were a few likely-looking places and one coffee shop that her caffeine addict soul longed for, but it was so nice stretching her legs in the cool spring air that she walked on.
Living in cities for her entire life had given Carly an enhanced sense for trouble. At any rate, she knew when she heard the sharp cry that there was someone in distress. She darted towards the sound without a second’s hesitation, and around the corner of a small alley, she found a courtyard.
When Carly stopped to take in the scene, her heart sank. There were two large men, flashily dressed and somehow already red-faced and drunk. There was a small girl no older than seventeen pressed with her back against the wall, fear and dread on her face.
“Oh, shut yer yap, we just wanted to have a word, love,” crooned one man, and the other simply laughed nastily. Their intentions were plain, and Carly felt a hot spike of anger drive through her. She slipped her hand into her purse, and without thinking twice, she stepped forward.
“Oh my gosh, Amanda!” she exclaimed. “There you are! Mom and I have been looking everywhere for you!”
The men pulled back, but Carly saw that the first one hadn’t let go of the girl’s wrist. He held on to her with ease, but she could see the girl struggling, birdlike to get away.
“This your sister?” he said suspiciously, looking her up and down. “Really?” The girl was as pale as paper with a shock of red hair. With black hair and darker skin, not to mention her American accent, Carly had to admit that they didn’t look much alike. However, both men now had their attention focused on her, and that was far better than whatever they had had planned for that poor girl.
“Really,” Carly said with a smile that she knew probably looked terribly fake. “Same mother, different fathers, that’s all. Thank you for finding her, Mom’s been wondering where she got to.”
The whole time she was talking, Carly was moving closer, trying to make it to the girl without looking as if she was scared or angry. She put a careful lid on the anger because it could always come out later. Right now, she had to act the part of the concerned sister.
It was a strange thing she had discovered years ago. Men who would do terrible things were still nervous about making a fuss or drawing notice to the things they were doing. If someone showed up and simply imposed an alternate reading on it, sometimes, she could change how they acted.
Right now, these two idiots were watching her as if confused as to where she had come from. They allowed her to get close enough to their would-be victim so that she could reach for the girl’s free hand, tucking it firmly into hers.
“Again, thank you so much,” she said as smoothly as she could. “Amanda and I really do need to be going.”
She felt a meaty hand wrap around her upper arm, clenching painfully tight.
“Well maybe we can make this a family affair,” the man started, and then he screamed as Carly sprayed him in the face with a can of mace.
“Why you little bitch,” growled the other man. He started for her, but the important thing was that he let go of the girl. He grabbed her arm hard before she could spray him as well, but that was enough for Carly to draw in a lungful of air and scream.
“Fire!” she screamed, “Fire, fire!”
A few things happened at once. First, the girl she had rescued took off running down the road, and Carly had a moment of relief before she had to look up at the monster who held her now. There was murder in his eye, and she winced as he drew back his fist. Then the man's face melted in agony, and his grip on her loosened before dropping off entirely.
“What—”
“Dog and son of a dog,” spat the tall man who was twisting her assailant’s free arm behind his back. “The hell do you think you’re doing?”
Carly’s rescuer was a big man, tall and blond, dressed in a suit that her mind numbly counted as being worth at least a thousand dollars. His face was set in a snarl, but there was something terrible living in his eyes. It was as if there was a demon there that had finally been allowed to hunt, and now it was relishing the chance. She shivered, and the man glanced at her.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “They did not harm you?”
“No, not at all,” she said. “But the girl–”
“Here,” said a soft voice. The girl waved from the head of the alley, where she was keeping her distance from the men who had accosted her. “I’m ringing the police.”
“Good girl,” the blond man nodded. “And then we’ll make sure that these two are well taken care of. Though I have to admit, little American, you were doing a fine job when I turned up.”
For a moment, she had no idea that he was speaking to her, and then she blushed.
“I was about to get my face punched,” she said with a shaky laugh. “I owe you one for a rescue.” He still held the man in a punishing grip, and just for good measure, he stomped hard on the prone man’s wrist. Carly hadn’t even noticed the man she had maced trying to get to her feet.
As casually as if they were standing in a bar, the man smiled at her, a real smile, and despite the adrenaline that was shooting through her system, Carly felt her heart flutter in a strange way.
His eyes are such a beautiful gray, she thought. The man was almost absurdly handsome, and she wondered if her time in Loch Naine had just gotten a little more complicated.