Chapter 1 #2
Although the way the big guy looked at her was definitely like a man in dire need of a hookup, he just held her in his arms and pressed her against his magnificent body.
Every way in which he touched her seemed as if she were someone precious to him.
His hands made all her nerves flare to full, shrieking awareness.
Nothing was as wonderful or arousing as the highlander’s hugs.
She could even smell him. Given what he was doing he should have been sweaty and smoky, but instead his scent was warm and sweetly piquant, like vanilla chai with a touch of peach.
She’d give several years of her life to know if the dreams of him would turn out to be visions of a future relationship. Yet how could they be real? The guy had been working in a castle hammering swords and stuff.
The only time the giant heartthrob had spoken was when she’d thought about him on the plane coming back from the UK.
While she’d been faking a nap, an image of him had popped into her head.
He’d been sitting slumped on the ground, a big stone wall behind his back, with grime and soot streaking his ungodly handsome face.
For a moment her heart skipped a beat, because she thought he was dead.
Then he opened the most beautiful blue eyes she’d ever seen, and looked directly at her.
My lady, we need you. Hurry. Come to me.
Holding the last corner of her second sandwich in her mouth, Harper unstrapped her fanny pack and reached in to take out the old stone, which was black and carved with two colliding spirals that made one circle.
Her fingers tingled as she examined it again.
While walking through the forest, the stone had literally dropped out of thin air and bounced off the toe of her boot.
Although the temperature had been a brisk forty degrees, when she’d picked up the rock it had been warm to the touch.
Later she looked up the intricate spiral carving on one side, and learned that it was a rare druid double-shielding symbol.
The ancient design appeared to have been recently chiseled into the stone as well, and yet there was no one living within thirty miles of the old castle’s original site.
According to the rumors she’d read online, no one local would go anywhere near the place, either.
That patch of ground’s been haunted since the Yanks stole the castle.
The spirits of the Clan McKeran still hunt for their lost home.
Go there and die young, laddies.
“Hey little rock,” she murmured, turning the stone over to stare again at the pink crystal on the back side. “Who threw you at me?”
The stone didn’t answer her, or maybe it did. How would she know? Her fingers started to do the pins and needles thing, so she placed the rock on top of her filing cabinet.
While she fed sim cards to her computer tower Harper opened another window to check her e-mail.
Athena usually handled that, but there was no telling how long she’d be stuck in San Diego trying to mediate between her parents.
Scrolling through the subject lines of the 638 unread messages suggested to Harper that most had been sent by overly amorous fans, product makers hoping for an endorsement, and the growing number of disturbed loonies who hated her.
My bed is haunted can you come over and debunk me baby
Endorsement request: Double Duty Holy Water/Pepper Spray for Lady Ghost Hunters
Hope You Like Satan’s Fear-Faire ‘Cause You’re Gonna Meet Him in Hell Soon You Evil B*tch.
She started skimming through the messages one by one.
After reaching five million subscribers on the Fear-Faire channel, Harper had reached the rank of mega influencer on social media.
Along with the boatload of income, it brought more craziness than she had ever expected.
She got as many marriage proposals as she did death threats, and sometimes worse.
She’d set up a P.O. Box early on in her vlogging career, which she’d had to close when she’d passed a million subscribers; that was when her anti-fans had started mailing maggot-covered dead animals to her.
Now everything they sent went first to a mail screening service; Athena usually handled the electronic flood.
They had a short, polite form response that they sent out to everyone whose correspondence didn't break the law; the dangerous messages they turned over to the cops.
“They love me, they hate me, they want to make money off me,” Harper murmured as she reached for her other sandwich. “Be nice if the norms would just say thanks for the vids.”
A blue light flashed over her monitor, which meant someone was calling on the telephone. She rolled her office chair over to the desk by the window, where her text phone display showed Athena’s name and number. She punched the button that answered the call and put the device on speaker.
“Hey, you okay?” Harper asked, and watched the display scroll with words.
Fine I forgot to tell you before I left that I did get hold of bow mont but he said no one can tour mack care on’s castle guy wouldn’t answer any of the messages I left him after that I sent you his number if you want to try dad would you stop yelling at me harp I have to go before I kill this grumpy old man remember dee mee tree can help if you get in a bind.
“It’s fine, A. E-mail can wait until you get back. Love to the folks.” She switched the button to off before she said, “I bet you’d switch places with me right now, huh?”
Did that sound smug, or commiserating? Harper wasn’t sure. She couldn’t hear her own voice anymore because she had grown almost completely deaf.
After uploading her videos Harper finally went to take a shower.
Like the kitchen, the bathroom had been renovated to suit her size.
For the first time in her life she didn’t have to worry about breaking things; she’d picked out the tall, heavy quartz counters, high oak cabinets and sturdy steel fixtures to accommodate her height, weight and occasional clumsiness.
She loved the shower stall she’d personally designed with gold-streaked gray marble tiles.
She spent a lot of time in it when she was home, sometimes taking two or three showers a day.
She never got tired of scrubbing herself down before she stepped under the hot, pounding spray.
You are the cleanest person I know, Athena had said once. Why do you bathe so much?
Go six months without washing your hair, or a fresh change of clothes, Harper advised her. It turns you into a soap junkie.
Harper rarely talked about that time in her life.
Twenty years ago it had taken the police six months to catch her in a Pacific Grove children’s park.
The very dirty, homeless girl sleeping there had finally been noticed because at the time she had been over five and a half feet tall, and visiting parents thought she was a teenager and possibly a prostitute.
A sharp-eyed doctor at the hospital where the police took Harper to be examined noticed the indications that she appeared much older than her actual age.
They brought a child psychologist to talk to her, but it had been the friendly orderly who brought her food who had finally coaxed her to tell him that her mother had put a number eight candle on her birthday cupcake in July.
I’m not in trouble, am I? she’d asked the man.
No, honey. He’d smiled, but in a sad way. Everyone here just wants to help you.
Harper explained to him that she had been staying in the park to wait for her mother, who had left her there to play but had yet to come back.
She told him that they liked to move around a lot, and had travelled all along the California coast. Harper had never been to school, but she’d learned how to read and do math by watching children’s programs on television.
She knew what “neglected” meant, and assured him that when they were together Cheryl Ensley took very good care of her.
She didn’t tell the orderly everything, because even at eight years old she knew there were things you didn’t tell the norms, even the nice ones.
A month after that a hiker had found Cheryl Ensley’s skeletal remains in the woods.
Harper hadn’t cried when her case worker told her about it.
She’d then talked to the psychologist, but just made up a bunch of stuff that he told her was perfectly natural.
The doctors—especially the head kind—always wanted to know what bad things did to her.
She never showed how frightened she was to anyone, and when night came she stayed indoors.
Her mother’s drunken warning sometimes made her have nightmares, but when she woke up she scrubbed the tears from her face and made herself think about dozens of puppies.
The monsters, they’ll hunt you down and eat you alive.
Fortunately, Cheryl Ensley had left Harper in a town that had some better options for kids in foster care.
After staying briefly in the hospital she was placed in a group home run by a religious group.
The people proved responsible and kind, and made sure Harper attended school and got the dental and medical treatment she needed.
Even having to go to church three times a week, the next ten years of her life proved much better than it had ever been with Cheryl.
She never went hungry or got cold, and she always had her own bed.
The real problem was her condition, which had surfaced when she was nine.
You have what’s called an acoustic neuroma, the audiologist had typed out on the computer screen he’d had her read at fourteen.
It’s a tumor that is growing on a nerve that helps you hear.
You also have damage to your other ear from infections that were never properly treated when you were an infant.
The two things combined are what make the ringing and buzzing sounds you hear. Eventually you’re going to become deaf.