Her eyes flew open with the memory of the last few days.
Tara shot up in bed and looked around the room.
The walls were made of stone, the kind that belonged on the outside of a house instead of inside it. The fireplace across the room gave off little heat, and the smell of peat and coal embers filled the air.
Again, she smelled the rain and heard a slight patter of drops behind the curtains.
She tossed back the blankets and climbed from the huge bed. When her bare feet touched the carpet covering the stone floor, she realized how cold and damp the room was.
The hem of the full-length nightgown dropped to her heels when she stood. Tara had never seen the gown before and couldn’t remember putting it on.
Her breath started to come in small pants. She closed her eyes and wondered if she was still asleep and dreaming.
Heavy drapes framed a window with no glass.
Shutters kept out some of the cold, but not much.
Tara raised a shaky hand and opened the wooden frames. “Oh my God,” she whispered. Rolling green hills, like she had never seen before, stretched out as far as she could see. Although it was morning, gray clouds blocked the sun and filled the sky with moisture.
Tara gaped down from where she stood and saw what had to be a three-story drop. To her right a stone turret pointed toward the sky with a flag of amber and black flying from the top.
She let the drape fall back in place and attempted to make sense of everything she saw.
A knot of panic took form in the back of her throat.
“Duncan!”
She screamed his name at the top of her voice.
Her strides took her to the door of her room. Mad as hell, she threw open the heavy wood and yelled his name again.
Downstairs in the main hall, Duncan gathered with Fin and his parents to explain their tale because they’d arrived too late last night to do so then. Tara’s voice bellowed through the Keep, just as the bulk of the story had been told. Duncan dared a look up the stairwell where he heard her cursing him. Fin laughed in the face of Duncan’s pain. “I don’t envy you, brother.”
Tara rounded the corner of yet another hall, walking in circles. She bellowed his name again, positive he heard her. She followed her instincts, and headed down another corridor.
“Duncan!” She wanted to add a very colorful expletive, but found herself at a loss. “Damn it, Duncan. I don’t even know your last name!”
A young girl peeked around a door. “Where is he?” Tara sniped at the child.
The girl shrank back and pointed down yet another hall.
Tara uttered her thanks and marched in the direction the child indicated. Her path led her to a small staircase emptying into a larger hall. Once there, she saw a light flickering and heard murmured voices below.
The main stairway into the great hall was massive. Five people could walk side by side and never so much as touch one of the others. It curved in an arc Tara hardly noticed as she flew down the steps in a fury.
Duncan sat with his brother and two other people, a man and a woman, near an enormous fireplace dominating the great room.
The dogs sitting at the base of the staircase stood, stared, and then scurried out of her way as she passed.
Duncan—” Dammit-to-hell, what was his last name? She wanted to throttle him.
“MacCoinnich, Duncan MacCoinnich,” he answered her unasked question.
“Duncan MacCoinnich, what the hell is going on? Where am I? How did I get here? And who put me in this?” She grabbed a handful of the material she wore as a nightgown.
He shifted his weight from one foot to another.
His look darted from her to the couple standing beside him. The older man held a smirk behind his hand. He wasn’t successful.
Ignoring her question, Duncan pointed out the others in the room. “Tara, I would like you to meet my parents, Lora and Ian. Da, Ma, this is Tara, the one I have been telling you about.”
Remembering her manners, Tara faced the others in the room as if seeing them for the first time. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both, Mr. and Mrs.
MacCoinnich,” she replied by instinct. Once the words came out, she realized who she was addressing.
“A pleasure,” Ian said, taking her hand in his and kissing it.
Her eyes didn’t leave Ian’s, but her head nodded in Duncan’s direction. “We need to talk!”
“Why don’t we find you something more suitable to wear before—”
Her eyes darted to him, cutting off his words.
“The last thing you need to think about right now is what I am wearing.” She rounded on him, ignoring everyone else. “The only reason you are still breathing is because I wouldn’t want your parents to witness your death!”
She plastered on a fake smile and glanced at the couple in question. “All due respect.”
Without giving Duncan a minute to consider her words, she turned back. “Talk!”
“On that score,” Fin said to no one in general,
“I’m sure there is some chore which needs tending.”
“Aye. Right you are son. Let me help.” Ian followed him out, calling the dogs that appeared all too happy to leave.
Duncan and Tara stared at each other while the men filed out of the room. Lora broke some of the tension. “Tara my dear, do leave a little skin on him so I have some to remove once you are finished.”
Lora gave her son a very un-sympathetic look.
Lora MacCoinnich lifted her small frame from her chair and crossed over to them. She waited until Tara glanced in her direction before she spoke again.
“I look forward to getting better acquainted. Let me know if there is anything you need.” Lora left the hall. “Maybe we should sit,” Duncan said, stalling the inevitable.
Tara didn’t feel like sitting, but thought she should so he wouldn’t avoid his explanations any longer.
Tara took the seat his mother had vacated. She folded her hands in her lap in a display of calm she didn’t feel.
“I don’t know where I should start.” He took the chair opposite her.
A vision of Julie Andrews twirling on an Austrian hillside flooded her mind. “Start at the very beginning.”
“That might be more difficult to understand.”
Steam would surely begin puffing from her ears if he didn’t start talking. “Okay...Where am I?”
“My home, in Scotland.”
Tara stared up at the ceiling. It soared thirty feet or more above her and was made entirely of stone. Tapestries hung on the walls. The fireplace was so big it was possible she could stand up inside of it. “Because I can’t explain all of this, or what I saw outside my bedroom window, I’ll buy that.” She took a deep breath, “How?”