Loch Dragon's Lady. Christine McKay

       www.spice-books.co.uk

      Chapter One

      Of what use was a forgotten lump of land in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland? An island in the Caribbean—now there was a treasured gift. Great-Aunt Clara might as well have willed her her collection of size six shoes.

      Ellen Kildonan wore a size ten.

      The sea’s cold spray wet her cheeks, her rented boat bouncing in the choppy water like a preschooler on a trampoline. She burrowed deeper into her coat, hands clenching the straps of her duffel bag. The captain, a reedy man with wind-blotched cheeks and a nest of tomato-red hair in serious need of a shears’ touch, glanced back at her and grinned. “She’s a nasty vixen today. Storm’s brewing.”

      She swallowed hard, forcing down the remains of her lunch, and nodded.

      Ellen could count the number of words she’d exchanged with her aunt over the years. Why, as the eccentric old woman was divvying up her personal possessions, did she look at the island and think of her great-niece?

      “Can’t guess crazy people’s motives,” her friend Liddy said when Ellen had told her about the odd gift.

      Ellen leaned over the boat’s edge to vomit. Whatever her reasons, Aunt Clara must be cackling in her crypt about now.

      Robert Dunyveg lugged the bag of rubbish onto the shore. Damn tourists and their water bottles, plastic bags and whatnot. He’d spent the better part of his day scouring his shoreline and collecting trash from the last plague of day-trippers.

      His skin cast off loch water like a slicker shedding rain. He lifted his head, nostrils flaring. Speaking of which…the scent of rain filled his lungs. He didn’t mind the cold, though he doubted a good dousing would lessen his temper.

      Another scent tainted the air. His upper lip curled. Man. He sniffed again. No, a woman. The disdain didn’t lessen. What buggering fool stumbled onto his isle? And for what reason? He’d bloody Magnus’s nose if he caught the youth dropping off more vermin in exchange for coin.

      Picking up his plaid from where he’d cached it in the rocks this morning, he slung it over his shoulder and cinched the belt around his waist. Much to his dismay, the scent thickened as he approached his castle. If he found her poking around his belongings, may the good Lord stay his hand. He was in no mood to be generous.

      What he found, though, was a hunched figure crouched around a ring of stones as she desperately tried to start a fire. A haphazard pile of supplies lay on the beach, though if the storm manifested as it seemed wont to, the water’s greedy fingers would soon filch it all. He paused, hands balled on his hips. Either she was a stupid thing and stranded, or a weather witch and unconcerned about the squall. He bet on the former. The rain smelled too pure to be conjured.

      He strode toward her. “Hey there, what are you about?”

      Her covered head shot up. He caught the glint of steel as she snatched up her knife, tucking it in her sleeve. Not as dim-witted as he first surmised, then. Good. He had even less patience for the crafty. Let her bear the brunt of his temper.

      She straightened, and the first thing that struck him was her height. He stood a solid six feet and she nearly matched him. Licking his lips, he scented her fear and surprisingly, her anger. That had his eyes narrowing and his gait slowing. A knife, however small, could do serious harm to his human shape.

      “I could ask you the same. This is Dun Isle, isn’t it?” she said. In spite of her fear, her voice rang clear.

      American. That earned her yet another scowl.

      He ignored her question. “How’d you get here?”

      She shook back her hood. “I imagine the same as anyone else, by boat.”

      Despite her accent, her looks were anything but what he’d expect from an American. Though, if tourists were an indication, they were a mongrel lot. White, chocolate, pink, and ranging from blond and as pale as the winter’s sun to as black as the bottom of his castle’s well, there wasn’t a shared feature among the lot of them. Unless rudeness and ignorance could be counted. He nearly smiled at his own wit. A hazard of keeping one’s own company.

      This one dabbled in the chocolate palette, with straight dark hair that hung to her breasts, and eyes the color of polished mahogany. Her nose was wide and a bit flat, its ordinariness compensated for by her lush coral lips, both set in a perfect oval. Comely, for a human woman. If one favored that sort of thing. He didn’t. He wouldn’t let himself savor such again. Why waste emotion on something that had a shorter life cycle than his trees?

      “I don’t see your boat.”

      She bit her lip. A smidgen of her distress leaked out. “I was dropped off.”

      “Dropped off? Alone? Dear Lord, girl, are you daft?” Dropped off in the middle of a squall? And here she was trying to light a fire instead of erecting what passed for her shelter. His first assessment was correct—comely but dim-witted. A shame.

      “I’m not alone. My friend, Eric, is just over that rise.”

      He raised an eyebrow. He’d not scented a man, but he detected her lie now. “I don’t believe you.”

      She skirted his denial. “You didn’t answer my question. Who are you and what are you doing on my island?”

      “Your isle? What makes you think it’s your isle?”

      “It was willed to me by my aunt Clara. I have the deed of ownership.”

      “With you?” he challenged.

      “Of course not. I’m not daft.” She mimicked his tone and words.

      Many had tried to lay claim to his isle. He’d scared all but the most desperate away, though none dwelled here now. Those that did linger lived and died in his shadow, men without families, willing to keep his secret in exchange for peace and solitude. No women had willingly lived here for any length of time. But the feminine name Clara struggled to emerge from the depths of his memory. It sounded familiar.

      There was a man, Tom, who’d set up life on the far part of the isle in a whitewashed cottage overlooking the sea. He’d had a daughter with him. Was her name Clara? He strained to remember. Humans slipped through his life so fast, it was difficult to cling to their names and faces. Tom had died in a fishing accident—had Robert been near, he’d have prevented it—and the child had been taken away. The sea claimed the cottage in a winter squall.

      “Raven-haired, with a lilting voice,” he murmured. He remembered listening to her sing as she skipped about the isle.

      “Yes. Clara was from India.” Her eyes narrowed. “How would you know that? You couldn’t have possibly known her as a child.”

      His lips twitched. “What makes you think that?”

      “She lived to ninety-eight. You don’t look a day over thirty.”

      He humphed.

      “Whatever.” She nonchalantly took a step back, putting a little distance between them.

      He noticed the movement and her intent. “When will your boat be back?”

      She chewed on her lower lip, clearly toying with telling the