Everlastin' Book 1

  EVERLASTIN'

  Book 1

  by

  MICKEE MADDEN

  * * *

  Smashwords Edition

  © 2011 by Mickee Madden

  ****************************************************

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover design by Mickee Madden

  * * *

  Dedicated to my husband, Steve; my brother Matt and his wife Grace; their boys, Eric, Kahl and Alby; Danny duCille; Cindy, Eugenia, and Denise.

  Special thanks to James Crawford, whose marvelous hospitality at Culgruff House in Crossmichael, made Scotland a wee mair magical!

  * * *

  For information on up-coming e-books by Mickee Madden

  please contact her at: mickeemadden@charter.net

  * * *

  About Baird House

  In 1990, my brother, Matt, and his wife, Grace, invited my husband and I to visit them in England. Matt was close to the end of his military tour of duty there and he knew I had always wanted to go to Scotland.

  On the first day we left England to travel across the Scottish Lowlands, we ran into a severe rain storm. Matt asked Grace and I to find a B&B in the travel guide. I flipped it open and there was Culgruff Manor House staring up at us, and it was only a few miles away.

  Although we spent only one night in that incredible place, it left an everlasting impression on me. I woke the next morning with a full-blown story in my head, got home, and spent two months writing the book.

  The actual bed and breakfast was built in 1883. I aged it for the book, but the rooms, peafowl, tower, surrounding lands, town and Loch Ken are all real.

  Glossary

  anither/another — aught/anything — bahookie/buttocks — canna/cannot

  corbie/crow — dinna/don't — efter/after — faither/father — fegs/damn

  ither/other — mair/more — maist/most — mither/mother — naught/nothing

  shouldna/shouldn't — thegither/together — verra/very — wasna/wasn't

  weel/well — willna/will not — winna/won't — wouldna/wouldn't

  Chapter 1

  1993

  A pale hand trembled as it drew back the last of the heavy, ruby red drapes on the tall windows. Late afternoon sunlight burst into the parlor, lending bright beams for the dust motes to dance within. The mistlike ambiance now surrounding the young woman caused a shiver to pass through her slender body.

  Carlene Cambridge was half-tempted to close the drapes, but she knew Lachlan would not take kindly to her denying his favorite room its daily kiss of light. Besides, enshrouding herself in darkness would not alter the fact that the day of reckoning was upon her.

  Tears filled her blue eyes and spilled down her cheeks in abandon. Her life had been so much simpler before she'd come to Scotland. More than ever she missed David—needed him beside her. But he had gone on, refusing to be a part of the laird's scheme.

  Why hadn't she listened to her husband?

  Because Lachlan had convinced her to aid him, that's why, damn his persuasive hide!

  Something touched her awareness.

  Although she could not see across the room for the brightness of the sunlight flooding it, she knew he was there, staring at the portrait with a look of unyielding determination in his fathomless dark eyes. Shuddering, she rubbed her upper arms for warmth. It was a futile gesture, for she would never feel warm again.

  There was no simple resolution for the predicament she'd unwittingly stumbled into. Damn Lachlan’s black heart, and his control on her proliferating conscience!

  If only he hadn't manipulated her into plunging headlong into initiating the deception!

  Tears spilled faster down her ashen face. Her shoulders sagging, she crossed the room, her despondent gaze trained to where she knew she would find him. And he was there, seeming a giant amidst the solar radiance enveloping him. She stopped a few feet away when he slowly turned his head to deliver her an assessing look. Unnerved by the suspicion creeping into his face, she shifted her gaze to one side.

  “Pull yerself thegither.”

  Carlene closed her eyes momentarily as a shiver of self-disgust coursed through her. The deep resonance of his Scottish burr still held the ability to spark some primitive cord within her sexual awareness. And she resented him for that as well. She loved David. But since her first meeting with this devil of a laird before her, she'd betrayed her husband a hundred times within the deepest, darkest recesses of her mind.

  Thank God she had never brazened to test her curiosities, for she never would have stood a chance against a man like him. One kiss from his seductive mouth....

  In a quiet tone, she said finally, “If we told her the truth—”

  “Tis no' our place. Besides, tis too late to warn her.”

  Carlene looked up at the portrait hanging above the white marble fireplace. In some macabre way, she was sure Lachlan had indeed fallen in love with the woman in the portrait. She had never known him to be more attentive or subdued than when she spoke of her high school and brief college days with Beth.

  “Carlene, lass.”

  The deep, reproachful tone of Lachlan's voice drew her gaze to his face.

  Those damn, piercing eyes, so dark, the irises couldn't be seen. Black expressive pools in a rugged light-toned face.

  “I allowed you yer time o’ whinin’ yesterday. Now be off wi' you.”

  She headed toward one of the doors. Yes, the night before he had permitted her to complain and fret to her heart's desire, but none of it had made the slightest impression on him. At the threshold to the main hall, she stopped and turned, then pensively weighed the laird's indomitable stubbornness.

  “How do you think she's going to react when she learns that I betrayed her—that you planned this whole sham of a vacation to get her here?”

  “I'll worry abou' it when the time comes.”

  “You're one arrogant bastard, Lachlan!”

  Unruffled by her remark, he looked up at the portrait and sighed with deep longing. “We agreed this was best for her.” His gaze shifted to her. “Aye?”

  “It's different now!”

  “How?”

  Carlene moved her shoulders in a gesture of helplessness. “After you told me, I went into shock. I wasn't thinking clearly when you came up with this idea.”

  A tense stretch of silence passed between them before Lachlan lowered his head and gave it a shake.

  “I-I could make up some story and send her right back to the states.”

  “No.”

  “How can you hold me to a promise that is tearing me up inside?”

  The laird's head slowly lifted. His stormy gaze searched Carlene's tear-streaked face. “I'm no' heartless.”

  “The hell you aren't!” she wailed. “You have no right to play God! Dammit, Lachlan, what we're doing is wrong!”

  His nostrils flared. “Next you'll be tellin’ me the link is a gift o’ the devil, aye?”

  “I don't know anymore. Please—”

  “Dinna you understand? I can feel her stirrin’ in ma blood. Every second tha' passes, every mile tha' closes atween us, I can feel her ever stronger!

  “Carlene,” he went on, with such intensity behind his words they vibrated in the air, “I can offer her everlastin’ sunsets and dawns. I can fulfill he
r every dream, her every fantasy! For wha’ever reason, God gave me this gift! And he's given me a second chance at happiness!”

  “At Beth's expense?” Carlene flung bitterly. “How bloody convenient!”

  A moment of silence passed before Lachlan spoke in a low, guttural tone, “Mind yer words, lass.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Take it as you please.”

  Carlene held out her hands in a gesture of supplication. “I know Beth. She's going to feel betrayed and trapped. She's going to hate you for—”

  “No!” he shouted, slicing the air with a hand. “You gave me yer word, and yer word I'll hold you to.” He straightened back his shoulders with an air of determination, his chest rising on a slow, controlled breath. “I understand yer doubts, but tis ma instincts I trust in this matter. Do you fancy a notion yer conscience would be less troublesome—knowin’ wha' you do—if you left her alone like she is?”

  “I don't know!”

  “Go wash yer face. I dinna want her seein’ you in such a state.”

  “All right, Lachlan, you win. I'll carry out my part,” she promised, her tone as chilling as a Scotland winter's night. “Then I'll gladly wash my hands of you!”

  When the parlor door to the main hall slammed after her, Lachlan threw back his head and laughed. Its sound echoed within the mansion's walls, clear up into the tower that stretched skyward past the third story. As his laughter wound down, his gaze settled on the arresting features of the woman in the portrait. Peacefulness washed over him, softening the sharp angles of his face.

  His chin, bisected by a cleft, lifted fractionally. The grooves in his cheeks deepened with his solemn smile.

  “Wash yer hands o’ me, Carlene. I've waited too long for a new bride to care abou' wha' you think o’ me.”

  With the gentleness of a lover, he touched his fingertips to the portrait's breasts. “And ma bride you shall be, Beth Staples.”

  For some time, he stood with his hands clasped at the small of his back, his softened gaze studying every stroke of the painting. He could have easily stood there until Beth's arrival, lost in the impressions of her filling him, lost in his dreams of the days to come. But an image invaded his reverie with the sleekness of a well-aimed knife.

  His face a contorted mask of rage, he ran from the room, up the stairs to the third floor, and burst into one of the bedrooms. Carlene guiltily bolted up from her bent position over an antique desk. Her eyes wide with fear, she peered at him as though expecting some horrible consequence for her attempted betrayal of his trust. She stood frozen as he stormed across the room and snatched up the pink parchment paper she'd been writing on. Her gaze never left his livid countenance as his eyes scanned the hastily written message. Only when he looked at her with raw accusation, did she avert her eyes.

  Crumpling the note in a white-knuckled fist, he drew in a fortifying breath. “Do I deserve this...this disloyalty?” he grated out, shaking the fist in front of her face.

  Anger doused Carlene's fear, and she glared at him defiantly. “This isn't about you. But if you must know, my first loyalty lies with Beth!”

  Lowering his fist to the desk, he leaned to, placing his face inches from hers. The sheers covering the open windows began to flap with the advent of a strong breeze.

  Thunder rumbled above Baird House.

  The sky darkened.

  Lightning lowered from the heavens, seeming like massive white fingers about to pluck the mansion into its grasp.

  “You'll no' rest a day if you betray me, lass. Do yer part...then be off. Do you understand me?”

  “Perfectly.”

  Lachlan straightened up, a storm of emotions building again within his dark eyes. Then an ecstatic sigh passed his lips.

  “She's arrived,” he murmured.

  All color drained from Carlene's face. The dam of her tears burst as she fled the room, her sobs lingering behind. Lachlan stood as still as a statue. Eyes closed amid an oddly rapt expression, he homed in on Beth's image.

  “Sweet Jesus, she's lovely,” he moaned. “Ah, Beth, ma darlin’. At long last we meet.”

  * * *

  Beth Staples landed at Preswick Airport after a grueling nine-and-a-half hour flight in coach. Exhausted to the bone, her feet and ankles swollen, her loafers tucked into her shoulder purse, she deplaned with less zeal than most of the other passengers. Although she had to admit the invite from Carlene to visit for a couple of weeks couldn't have come at a better time, she wished she was feeling up to par. A mild headache left her in apprehension of a larger one to come.

  Indifferent to her barefoot status, she kept up with the hectic pace of the others traveling the concourse. Thoughts of her best friend and all they had to catch up on after eight long years, helped her to ignore the ache in her back and legs.

  After retrieving her luggage and going through customs, she anxiously traveled the terminal looking for Carlene. What she found instead was a portly little man holding up a placard bearing her name.

  Walking up to him, she hesitantly said, “I'm Beth Staples.”

  A flash of white teeth beamed at her from between ruddy cheeks. Tucking the placard beneath an arm, he pushed back a navy-plaid cap from his brow. “From Washington, Miss?”

  Running the back of a hand across her moist brow, Beth made an absent attempt to brush the riotous curls of her light brown hair back from her heart-shaped face. “Yes.”

  “Miss Cooke paid me to fetch you, Miss.”

  “I don't know anyone by the name of Cooke.”

  “Are you here to visit Kist House?”

  Beth smiled patiently. “Kist House...?”

  The old man grinned, his eyes youthful, full of sparkle. Two curly locks of snow-white hair rested on his creased brow. “Does the name Carlene mean anythin’ to you?”

  Perplexed, Beth gave a single nod.

  “Ah.” Without haste, the old man pried the two suitcases from Beth's hands and started to turn toward one set of the exit doors. “Then ye’re the right Beth Staples. Miss Cooke said to mention the name o’ Carlene if you seemed wary o’ me. Come along. We've a fair drive ahead o’ us.”

  Humid heat greeted Beth as she passed beyond the doors of the terminal. Yesterday, she'd left behind a heat wave in Kennewick, Washington, expecting the drizzle of Great Britain's rainy season as Carlene had described the previous week.

  “Calum's ma name,” the old man offered while loading Beth's luggage into the trunk of a blue Volvo with a taxi sign on the roof. He opened the left front door for her. When she was seated, he closed it and sprightly went around to the driver's side. “Buckle up, Miss.”

  A film of perspiration coated Beth's lightly tanned skin. Her white jersey and pale blue slacks clung to her. With the seatbelt secured, she laid her blue jacket across her lap and placed her purse atop that. As the vehicle left the multi-leveled parking lot, she removed her shoes from the purse and snugged them back onto her feet.

  “Comfortable, Miss?”

  “Yes, thank you. How far is Crossmichael?”

  “Abou' an hour's drive. Don’t mind ma silence for a bit, Miss. The traffic here needs ma full attention. You Yanks get frantic wi’ our motorways and roundabou's. Don’t want to risk takin’ the wrong exit.”

  By the time they had reached Ayr on A79 and were heading southeast on A713, Beth's heart was in her throat. The two-lane highway was narrow, winding and somewhat of a rollercoaster in places, but fellow travelers were brazen and swift in passing at every opportunity.

  To give respite to her nerves, she smiled wanly at the driver, and asked, “You do this for a living?”

  “I've been a cabbie near twenty years. And I plan to drive till I've got one foot in the grave.”

  “You must have nerves of steel. I thought Seattle was bad.”

  Chuckling, Calum adjusted the visor of his cap to just above his bushy eyebrows. “I don’t usually go as far as all this, but Miss Cooke paid me handsomely to fetch you.”

&n
bsp; “She must be a friend of Carlene's. Do you live in Crossmichael?”

  “Castle Douglas.”

  “You live in a castle?”

  Calum's laugh was smooth and cheery. “Tis a burgh, Miss, but we do have a castle to boast o’. Castle Threave—”

  Calum winced as a small car whizzed past his taxi, just missing the oncoming traffic by a narrow margin.

  “Where was I? Oh, Threave. It's the remains o’ a keep...a war castle tha' sits on a grassy island in the River Dee. “When the House o’ Stewart decided to overthrow the Black Douglases in 1450, Threave was the last stronghold to fall. King James II went wi' his army to overthrow it, and brought wi' him a huge cannon called Mons Meg. Threave withstood a two-month siege in the summer o’ 1455 then the garrison surrendered. The Black Douglases were destroyed and their estates were forfeited.”

  Winking at Beth, he added, “Memorized the tour speech, I did. Oh, Threave's no' fancy like Culzean or Edinburgh, but it has a strong feelin’ o’ history abou' it. Perhaps you'll get the chance to visit it durin’ yer stay.”

  “I hope so. That sign back there? What does 'Give Way' mean?”

  “Yield. Is this yer first visit to Scotland?”

  Beth sighed and dreamily gazed out the window to her left. “Yes. It's certainly a beautiful country.”

  Green rolling landscape stretched out in every direction. Now and then Calum pointed out three-foot-high stone walls separating the properties, walls, he explained, that had stood for centuries without benefit of mortar. Sheep and cattle grazed in some sections. Tiny clusters of towns dotted the land, more perfect than anything an artist could depict in a painting. Wildflowers of every imaginable color grew in sections along the roadsides. Occasionally, Beth saw a building owning of a thatched roof.

  “We're nearin’ Crossmichael.”

  The cabbie's declaration snapped Beth from her reverie and she cast the driver a look of apology. “I'm afraid I wasn't much company, was I? Your scenery bewitched me.”

  “Yer words warm ma heart, Miss. You know, the estate ye're goin’ to has quite a history itself. Know any o’ it?”