Tair (Immortal Highlander Clan MacRune #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

L ucia Brooke arrived early for the final inspection appointment with her client. There was just enough time to do a quick walk-through of the property.

“I want nothing that reminds me of New York City,” corporate comptroller Pamela Frazier had told Lucy when she’d hired her to design the landscaping for her new central Florida property. “If it’s drab, made of concrete, or smells like pee, don’t put it in my garden.”

Lucy knew Pam would be delighted with the pocket paradise she’d built, which offered not only lush, abundant greenery but many cool, sweet niches to escape the ever-present heat.

Countless green tree leaves interlaced to sieve the intense sunlight into dappling, glowing beams, casting lacy pools of amber light throughout the garden.

Slowly making her way through the lush dogwood and yaupon holly trees, and checking the beds of vivid blue mistflowers and soft violet tropical morning glories, Lucy’s own tension evaporated.

The scents from the flowers mingled with the crisp freshness of the greenery to perfume the air with a naturally soothing fragrance.

It's the ultimate haven for a weary soul. Maybe I should design a garden like this for myself.

Everything matched the designs Pam had approved, and had been installed to appear in perfect harmony with the existing scenery.

That lent the property a look of having grown the garden naturally, which was one of Lucy’s specialties.

It would provide the newly retired owner with a sense of being in her own tropical rainforest hideaway, something she desperately wanted after spending her entire adult life working in New York City’s concrete jungle.

Everyone needs a sanctuary, lass, James Craig, her father’s Scottish secretary and an avid gardener, had told Lucy. Create the loveliest, and they’ll flock to you.

James had taught her everything he knew before encouraging her to major in landscape architecture at his alma mater, the University of Edinburgh.

Lucy’s parents didn’t care what she’d wanted to do with her life, as long as she stayed out of their relationship and the media spotlight.

Going to college in Scotland let her live like other people for the first time ever, and made Lucy all the more determined to hang on to her anonymity when she came over to the US and went into business for herself.

Thanks to her determination, hard work and a lot of luck, she had been able to turn her dreams into reality. Even now, ten years after opening what had at first been a one-woman landscape design shop, she never got tired of developing functional yet dreamy outdoor spaces.

This is going on the web site gallery, she thought, smiling as she ducked under the fronds of a lush buccaneer palm.

The two and a half acres Lucy had transformed here contained her finest work.

Located behind a renovated old farmhouse that her client had bought as a retirement home, the property itself had once been a citrus orchard abandoned after a big freeze forty-two years ago.

After clearing the mostly-dead grove and its tangled mess of weeds, Lucy had planted a gentle labyrinth of trees, shrubs, flowering plants and ground cover, making sure to use only native species.

Even the reddish-brown Seminole chip stone and white coquina shell rock that formed the swirling walkways were indigenous.

Seeing everything for one last time made her smile with satisfaction .

What a shame I don’t have anyone to show this to besides potential clients.

Lucy valued her independence, but since spending the holidays alone she’d wondered if it was time to start dating again.

She had never done well with men on either side of the pond, but at least now she knew what she didn’t want.

She simply wasn’t sure if companionship and tedious sex were worth the trouble of trying again.

Ending her last relationship had gone pear-shaped, forcing her to abandon everything she’d built in order to escape her ex.

Chiming from her phone made Lucy stop by the lichen-splotched wooden split rail fence dividing Pam’s property from a neighboring horse ranch. She didn’t recognize the number, but it might be her client, so she answered with “Hello?”

“Limey, so good to hear your voice,” her ex-boyfriend Justin Brant said, his phony heartiness making it sound as if he were giving a campaign speech. “I’ve been trying to get in touch since you left Miami.”

“Have you.” Lucy couldn’t believe he’d gotten her phone number again.

Justin had been the reason she had shuttered her business and sold her condo to relocate to central Florida.

It had been that or get a restraining order, which would have attracted the media sharks.

Aside from his obsession with handguns, his constant need for praise and his disinterest in anything but his own pleasure in bed, it turned out that the fledgling filmmaker had only been dating her in order to use her.

He’d even admitted as much after telling her about the latest movie he wanted to make.

“With your parents’ connections and financial help I can do it right the first time, and sell it to a major studio,” he’d assured her. “I wrote the script myself, and I’ve lined up the camera crew and all the actors. All you need to do is introduce me, and I’ll take it from there.”

At the time Lucy had kept her expression blank, but she’d almost expected this moment would come.

Justin was always and forever all about Justin.

While he bragged that his latest film would sweep the industry awards, he had never actually finished any of the films he’d attempted to make.

She’d long suspected he was nothing but a poser who wanted only to use her, and he’d proven her right.

Tamping down on a deep surge of anger over all the time she had wasted on this man, she said, “My parents never invest in overseas projects.”

“They’ll love me and my idea so much they won’t be able to resist,” he assured her.

“It’s a skiffy story about old people like them getting their brains transplanted to young new brain-dead bodies before they die.

To pay back the government for their second chance at life, they have to join the military and serve for twenty years. Then interstellar war breaks out...”

Her boyfriend’s movie premise wasn’t original or even very interesting, but at least now she knew his true motive for dating her.

When he finally stopped droning on about it Lucy had politely but promptly broken up with him.

She had then suffered through six more months of constant phone calls from—and uninvited appearances by—Justin at her home, office, and job sites before she’d gone to the police to see what her options were.

“The laws protecting women are a little better now,” the detective she spoke to assured her. “The best thing you can do is document everything, get a lawyer and file a complaint.”

Once she did that, Lucy learned that she could go to court and get an order of protection.

That could possibly result in criminal charges against Justin—all of which would end up putting her back in the media’s crosshairs.

While she was considering talking to her parents about it, she’d walked out of her home the next day to find her car’s tires slashed and all the windows shot out.

Suspecting that Justin might decide to shoot her next, Lucy finally packed up and left south Florida.

“How have you been, Limey?” her ex was asking now, as if they were nothing more than good old friends. “Do you like the new place on Red Bird Road? How’s business?”

The way he kept using that nickname for her, which she’d always despised, set her teeth to clenching. Still, she needed to keep things civil, especially as he’d found out where she lived now along with her new phone number. Otherwise this could go from bothersome to seriously dodgy very fast.

“What do you want, Justin?” Lucy asked.

“Only for you to know how much I love and miss you, of course.” His voice softened as if with genuine affection.

“You know that we had something special, babe. Now that you’ve cooled down and taken some time to reflect, I won’t hold a grudge.

It’s time we get back together so we can move on with my plans for our future.

I can relocate to central Florida, of course.

There are plenty of prop shops and film services there, thanks to Disney and Universal. ..”

Justin had such thick skin he could have qualified as part rhinoceros, but he had become so oblivious he might have been existing in another dimension.

As he uttered more nonsense about her forgiving herself and being in the right place to rekindle their romance, her gaze shifted.

Something colorful she hadn’t noticed before now lay hanging from one of the fence rails about three yards away .

Had someone left a scarf on the site? She doubted it; her crew knew more about seeds and weeds than fashion accessories. Also, her client would be arriving soon, so why was she still talking to this plank?

“We broke up over a year ago, Justin, and I don’t fancy getting back together,” she said, cutting off the last of his narcissistic babbling. “I’m at work now, and must get on. Cheers.”

“Don’t you hang up on me.” His tone shifted from jovial to shrill as he added, “I didn’t want to get nasty, Lucia, but my patience is about to run out.”

After what he’d done to her in south Florida, did the man really expect her to give into him? He’d all but ruined her life. “That won’t help your cause. It’s a dead horse, Justin. Please stop flogging it.”

He uttered a huffy sound. “Again with the snotty jokes. You hate the media, but I don’t. Remember that entertainment reporter from the Times who kept trying to interview you? I have him on speed dial. Bet he’d love to hear about your twisted relationship with Sir Anthony.”