Chapter One
The mist parted for a brief instant, and I saw Dun Eistean emerge like an island lost in time. Then the fog closed over it again, and all I could do was follow Debra’s back as she stepped onto the metal bridge that connected the intertidal sea stack to the mainland.
“Careful,” she said in an American accent. “The bridge is slippery when the fog is this thick.”
“No kidding,” I said, stepping carefully. I heard waves crashing below, but thankfully I couldn’t see them. I was terrified of heights. I had known that I would have to traverse a steep drop to the ocean floor below every day when I volunteered for the dig. But I loved the idea of coming to romantic Scotland, and although I would have preferred an archaeological site in the Highlands within the Cairngorms National Park, Dun Eistean was the only thing available.
“The Highlands!” My boyfriend, Josh, had laughed outright at my small dinner table two days before. “With your fear of heights, you want to go to Highlands? You get how weird that is, right?”
“Well, I don’t think I’ll be hanging on the precipice of cliffs or anything. It’s not like Highlanders were cliff dwellers. There are plenty of moors and meadows and lakes in the Highlands. But that point is moot because there aren’t any digs there. The only dig I could get is Dun Eistean, which is on a sea stack off the Isle of Lewis.”
“That sounds interesting! A sea stack?”
“Yes, it was used as a fortress by the Clan Morrison during their ongoing feuds with the Clans Macleod and Macaulay. It overlooks a strait called The Minch between mainland Scotland and the Outer Hebrides. It should be pretty interesting.”
“So, do you have to get out there by boat?
“No, they told me a bridge was built in 2002 to connect the sea stack to the mainland.”
“A sea stack off of an island off of a bigger island. That sounds pretty remote, Cyn. Are you sure you’re up for that? That’s pretty cold up there, isn’t it? You hate the weather here in Buffalo.”
“I know! I do hate the cold here. But I have to do it to finish my degree, so I’m off!”
“When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow morning!” I gave him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. I know this is last minute, but if I want the dig, I have to go now!”
“Tomorrow?” he exclaimed. “For how long?”
“Just six weeks. The digging season is short because of the weather. You knew I had to go somewhere this summer. It just came up unexpectedly, and I jumped on it. It’s Scotland or Guatemala. I picked Scotland!”
“I thought you were studying Mediterranean archaeology.”
“I am, but there’s nothing available over there this year. Funding problems, I guess. Anyway, I’m actually looking forward to this! I’ve got to read up on late medieval Scotland on the plane, I guess. I know nothing about it!”
I couldn’t help but grin. Highland warriors and clan feuding and Viking boats and Celtic mythology! It would have hardly interested my archaeologist father, whose passion had been Greek civilization in Turkey, but I thought it would be a wonderful break from worrying about the Greeks, Romans and Ottomans. I had already done a couple of undergraduate digs in Turkey and Greece several years before, and frankly, I wondered if I wasn’t burning out on the area.
“Okay,” Josh said pensively. “The thing is...” He paused.
I waited to hear what he was about to say, simultaneously admiring his closely cropped well-groomed medium-brown hair and clean-shaven face. I had once teased him about his preppy look, but I actually liked his meticulous grooming. I wasn’t a fan of ill-kempt men or those with unruly beards and hair that didn’t look like they had been professionally cut in years.
Josh drew in a shaky breath, and my heart skipped a beat. Was he about to break up with me? He’d been a bit quiet over the past few days. What better time to move on than when I was leaving town for an extended period?
I didn’t want to ask, but I forced myself to do it. My father had always taught me to face my fears. As an archaeologist, he had been largely absent from my life while he traveled the world, but I remembered the lesson he had taught me.
I also remembered that he had been one of those men who cared little how long his hair or beard grew. How he could stand that scraggly mess, I’d never understood.
I spoke up as Josh hesitated.
“What is it, Josh? Are you breaking up with me?”
His jaw dropped, and his eyes widened.
“What? No!”
Relief flooded through me. I really wasn’t up for an upheaval in my personal life at the moment. I had to pack and leave early in the morning to catch my flight to Glasgow and then on to a tiny airport in Stornaway on the Isle of Lewis.
I leaned across the table and laid a relieved hand on Josh’s cheek. He took my hand in his and lowered it, staring at my fingers.
“Well, actually...”
My shoulders slumped.
“I could probably have waited till you got back—”
I snatched my hand away and jumped up.
“Yes, you could have!” I said, storming into the bedroom to grab my suitcase from the walk-in closet. I hauled the case out and threw it on the bed.
“I’m sorry, Cyn.” Josh followed me to the bedroom, pausing to lean against the doorsill.
“Don’t be sorry. These things happen. Men leave all the time. You are leaving, right? I mean...you don’t plan to live in my apartment while I’m gone, right?”
“Well, I didn’t mean today exactly!”
“Oh, what? We’re going to break up in a week, is that right? When I’m gone, lost on some remote island in Scotland? You’re just giving me a heads-up?”
“Oh, come on. Be reasonable. I can’t just move out today! I have to find a place!”
Furious, hurt and all too happy to hate men again, I rummaged through dresser drawers and threw shorts and tank tops into my suitcase before I realized what I was doing. I pulled them out again and leaned over my suitcase, fighting back the all-too-familiar tears of abandonment.
“You’re right. You’re right,” I whispered. “Take whatever time you need. But please be gone by the time I get back.”
I retreated to the closet to pull myself together. I stared at the storage shelves with tear-filled eyes. Warm clothes. I needed sensible waterproof warm clothes for June in the Western Isles. Summer had just come to New York, the days had finally warmed up, and I didn’t want to think about the need for cold-weather clothing again so soon after the recent harsh winter.
Josh appeared at the door. I turned my back to him so he wouldn’t see my tears.
“I’m really sorry,” he said.
“I know.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him turn to leave, but then he paused.
“Don’t you want to know why?” he asked.
“Why you’re breaking up with me?”
“I hate to say it that way.”
“Well, that’s the way it is.”
“Okay, but don’t you want to know why? You didn’t even ask.”
I shrugged helplessly. Men left. That was what they did, at least in my world. I tried to drag myself out of the world my absentee father had left me in, and I refocused on Josh again. He looked sad, not happy or relieved. His expression even suggested guilt. Busy with school, I must have missed something. I hadn’t been home a lot, but had he been gone quite a bit as well? I couldn’t remember.
“You’re seeing someone?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“No, not really. It’s just...I don’t think we have a future. I don’t think you love me.”
Hope sprung up in my chest, and I whirled around.
“I do love you, Josh. I do! Is that all this is about?”
“Just the way you ask ‘is that all this is about’ tells me a lot about how you feel about me, about what I’m saying. This isn’t trivial. I’m ready to settle down. I want a wife who loves me. I want kids, a house. And I haven’t even gotten the first part yet—a wife who loves me. Admit it—you don’t really love me. Sure, you like me. I know you like me, but you don’t love me.”
“What do you want from me?” I cried out. “I’ve been faithful to you. We’ve had fun times. We get along. What’s missing?”
Josh seemed to think about it, and I swallowed hard against the knot in my throat. I wasn’t really serious about asking how I had failed him.
“Passion, I guess,” he responded. “I want a girlfriend, a wife, who would love me beyond all reason, who would give up everything for me if she had to.”
“That’s unfair, Josh! What should I give up? Have you ever asked me to give up something? What is it that you want me to give up to prove I love you? Going to Scotland? I have to go there for my degree. Should I give up my degree?”
“No, no, that’s not what I want at all, Cyn. I’m proud of you and all that you have achieved. I just want you to let go once in a while and lean on me, let me believe that I am the most important thing in the world to you.”
I stared at my no-nonsense, sensible, intellectual preppy boyfriend. What had gotten into him?
“Josh, this isn’t some wildly improbable Scottish Highlander romance novel! Despite where I’m going. This is real life. People don’t really give themselves completely up to another human. What if that person left? Well, look at you! You’re taking off. It’s a good thing I didn’t fall for you body and soul, as they say.”
Josh shook his head. “Ouch! That hurt!”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t mean to hurt you. Look at me, apologizing. I’m not even the one breaking up with you.”
“No, but back to your point. Wouldn’t it be great if this was some wildly improbable Scottish Highlander romance novel? If you could let loose and love me like that?”
“Josh, if I wanted to lose myself in another human being, I wouldn’t have started living with you anyway. I love that you’re so put together, so calm, so rational, so predictable. You’re the complete opposite of that crazy father of mine, and I love that about you.”
Josh crossed his arms and shifted from one foot to the other as he continued to lean against the doorsill.
“That’s the part of me I actually hate, the part my parents instilled in me. I remember seeing a picture of your dad on a dig in Turkey. Remember? You were looking at it once? What a wild man! His long hair was curly like yours when you let it hang loose to your shoulders, which is rare. His beard was down to his chest, his clothes sweaty and dusty. He looked like he was having fun.”
I pressed my lips together. “I wouldn’t know. If he had fun, it was somewhere else far away from his only daughter apparently.”
“I know that has hurt you, Cyn. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize. He loved me. My mom loved me. They didn’t much love each other, but that’s okay. They’re both gone now, and I’m a big girl whose boyfriend is breaking up with her right before she leaves for a six-week dig.”
Josh said nothing but looked at me with sympathy. I didn’t want his sympathy. I just wanted things to be the way they had been only a short hour before.
“Look—I’ve got to concentrate on packing,” I said bitterly. “I wouldn’t care if there was a store near where I’m going, but I don’t think there is, so I have to make sure I have enough warm clothing.”
I turned my back again.
“I’ll let you get to it,” Josh said quietly.
“Fine,” I said, trying to push memories of my parents out of my mind. I didn’t need to add more grief to my plate. I had lost my parents to death and now I was losing my boyfriend to another kind of death.
He paused again. Why didn’t he just leave?
“I really have to focus,” I said in a breaking voice.
“I know. It’s just—” He paused. “Nothing permanent is going to happen while you’re gone. I mean, I’m not going to get engaged or anything, so if you think absence might make the heart grow fonder...”
“You’re not going to get engaged?” I squeaked, whirling around. “Are you actually seeing someone?”
“No. Not really.”
“That’s the second time you said that. Is that code for ‘yes’?”
“It’s code for there is someone I might date, but I won’t be married when you get back, so if you discover that you actually love me as much as I want you to love me, then I’ll be here!”
“Not here!” I looked around the bedroom.
“No, not in your apartment, of course. You know what I mean!”
“I do. Now, please leave me alone.”
“Text me when you get there. I haven’t stopped caring about you.”
“I know,” I said tightly. “I care about you too.”
“I have to go to work now. I wish I could take you to the airport, but my shift at the hospital starts in an hour. Are you taking a taxi to the airport?”
“Yes, I’ll be fine.”
I felt him approach from behind.
“Please don’t,” I said.
I heard his hands drop to his sides, and he turned around and left. By the time the apartment door shut, I was in a ball on the closet floor, crying. Oddly, it was the image of my father’s handsome face smiling at me that brought on another round of sobbing.
I brought my attention back to the present as I heard Debra’s voice.
“Here we are!” she said. “Dun Eistean! I know you can’t see the remains of the keep yet, but it’s there—I promise you. Isn’t this great? You’re going to love it here! It’s one of the reasons I’m studying at the University of Glasgow.”
We had crossed onto the sea stack, and my heart slowed now that I stood on terra firma once again.
“Is that you, Debra?”
I heard a male voice. A tall, slender man appeared out of the mist like a mythical figure.
“Dylan! Good morning! Let’s hope this fog breaks today.”
“Aye, it is thick. And who is this?”
“This is the new student, Cynthia Dunnon. Say hello to Dylan. He’s the field team leader.”
I stuck out my hand, admiring his handsome Nordic blond looks.
“Just call me Cyn. How do you do, Dylan?”
“Very well, thank you. Welcome to Dun Eistean. I hope you enjoy your time here. Are you all set up at the MacIvers’ then?”
“Oh yes, they’re lovely. Thank you!” I was boarding with a sweet older couple nearby.
“I know that Ann found the MacIvers to be very hospitable last year as well,” Dylan said.
“Ah, Ann Borodell!” Debra said. “Another American student. Yes, there was some mystery about her. I never did figure it out, and Dylan won’t say.”
“Really?” I asked, slightly intrigued. “What mystery?”
“She disappeared for a while, or was it permanently? Like I said, Dylan won’t say, will you?”
“Nonsense,” Dylan said. “No mystery at all! Come. Let us show you around, Cyn. Stay away from the edges of the tabletop, mind. It would be easy to get lost in the fog and fall off the cliffside.”
“He’s right. Stay close,” Debra said as she fell into step behind Dylan.
I closed in, following them single file through the fog. Though I couldn’t see much of the tabletop at that moment, I had already seen photographs of the ruins of Dun Eistean and knew that a series of grassy mounds covered the remains of crofts, several boathouses, a kiln and the keep from which the fortress took its name. The tower, once standing about sixteen feet high, had stood guard over the small sea stack as the Morrisons sought refuge from rival clans bent on destroying them.
Now little more than a mound itself, the keep lay buried in the centuries of dirt and turf that had grown up over it. The stones forming the upper half of the tower had been carried away over the centuries, and archaeologists climbed down into the hole that formed the walls of the keep rather than climb stairs to the top.
“You can set your backpack down here,” Dylan said, arriving at a set of folding tables weighted down from the wind by stones. He set his own pack underneath. “I’m going to pour myself a cup of coffee. Would you like one, Cyn? Debra?”
“Yes, I’ll have one,” I said. “I’m a bit jet-lagged.”
Debra declined. I watched as Dylan picked up a thermos and poured out two cups of coffee.
“I’m just going to go peek over there,” I said, pointing to the largest mound near where the tables had been set up. I suspected that was the keep.
“Don’t stray near the edge, Cyn,” Dylan said again.
“Check,” I said. I wandered over to the mound, remembering that the keep was toward the western edge of the sea stack but not so far as to be on the cliff edge. I stepped carefully as I climbed the hill. I couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of me in the fog, and the sensation was disorienting.
I paused for a moment to get my bearings. Rotating, I was unable to spot Dylan or Debra or the tables through the thickness.
“Hello?” I called out, searching for a sonar ping more than anything.
“Hello up there! All right?” Debra responded.
“Oh, yes! I’m fine. I was just wondering where you were.”
“Are you at the top of the keep?” Dylan called out. “I should have told you to mind your step up there. It’s a bit of a drop—”
Those were the last words I heard as I took a step forward and into air. I scrabbled for a hold as I fell, my fingertips scraping painfully across the jagged and wet stonewalls of the keep. I caught hold of something cold and metal protruding from the wall, but my weight dragged the rod loose, and it fell with me.