Everlastin' Book 1 (20 page)

“Braussaw, right?” she said
nervously, her throat parched, her breathing shallow. “Go away,
bird.” She shooed it with a hand and tried to step around the
animal. Again it moved, blocking her way. “Go away!”

Braussaw released a
deafening cattawal.

“Mr. Ingliss! It's Beth
Staples. I need to talk to you,
please!”

She clutched her purse more
tightly as she peered forlornly down the narrow decline of the
private road stretched out before her. Her heart thumping wildly,
she looked down at the peacock and drew in a long steading breath.
She eased her purse into her right hand and cautiously held it
out.

“Go away, Braussaw. Shoo!
Don’t make me hurt you.”

Braussaw stared,
unruffled.

How far is it to town?
Surely I can walk there without getting lost.

She was wearing her best
walking shoes. Her
sneakers.

I can do this,
she thought, slowly turning to her
right.

Borgie Ingliss stepped out
in front of her from between two of the rhododendrons bushes. Beth
squealed in surprise. Chagrined with her reaction, she clamped a
hand over her mouth. The man across from her grinned in an
unpleasant, crooked manner as he tipped his head in greeting.
Amusement danced in his eyes. The idea that he was inwardly
laughing at her nervousness caused her to bristle, and it was all
she could do to compose herself.

Her head shot around and her
eyes widened. Braussaw was nowhere in sight. Again a chill clawed
up her spine.

“Heard you talkin’ to
someone,” said Borgie, his gaze searching about.

“Good morning,” she greeted
somewhat stiffly. “I was hoping to catch you before you
left.”

He chuckled and removed a
red plaid cap from his head. “I just got here.”

Beth managed a quirky smile.
“I-I was hoping I could trouble you for a ride into
town.”

“No trouble at all. It'll be
a few hours—”

“No!” Beth laughed at the
edge of desperation in her voice. “I'm sorry. It's just that I have
to make a very important phone call. Please, Mr.—”

“Borgie.”

“Y-yes, Borgie. I'm willing
to pay you for your time and trouble.”

A shiver passed through her.
Borgie Ingliss was smiling pleasantly enough, but there was
something in the depths of his eyes that unnerved her.

You're being
paranoid,
she scolded herself, straining to
maintain what little composure she possessed.

“I'll be glad to drive you
to town, Miss. Let me put up this trimmer. Ma car's in front o' the
house.”

The immense relief that
washed through Beth left her feeling lightheaded and
weak-kneed.

“Thank you. Should I tell
your mother you'll be gone?”

Borgie leveled a questioning
look on Beth. “She's away. Went on vacation nearly a week ago.
Barely said a word to me.” He scratched his head before donning the
cap again. “She's a wee senile at times.” His smile broadened. “I
won’t be long.”

Beth watched the man turn
down a pathway through the hedges then released a thready
breath.

Agnes went on vacation a
week ago? She fixed me breakfast yesterday morning.

Rolling her eyes in
exasperation, she turned in the direction of the house.

Perhaps Borgie wasn't quite
right in the head, but the fact that he drove a car and was willing
to take her into town endeared her to him.

If she could only get to a
telephone, she could put this whole nightmare behind
her.

She walked directly to a
small red Volvo parked in the graveled area to the right of the
house. Opening the door on the passenger side, she was about to
climb onto the seat when a cold draft passed completely through her
body. A long gasp ejected from her throat. Straightening, her left
arm braced atop the open door to hold her up, she looked at the
towering structure.

A pulse drummed through her,
humming beneath every part of her skin like a hive of bees. Her
eyes widened with fear. As if seen through a zoom lens, the house
appeared to slide up to her, then fall back at a far distance. Her
lightheadedness intensified. A sickening sensation churned in her
stomach, its waves slapping the walls of her stamina.

Beth lowered her head and
shut her eyes. Her legs threatened to buckle beneath her as a
frightening rush of weakness washed over her. She placed her right
arm on the roof of the car, using all of her willpower to resist
the spinning in her head that was making the world go round and
round, faster and faster. Panic lanced her heart, rooted her feet
to the ground.

She looked up at the bright
blue sky above the carriage house and released a whimper. The world
began to pass her swiftly on all sides, as if she was moving with
blinding speed. It grew more difficult to breathe as the optical
illusion moved faster and faster, until there was but a gray blur
whizzing past her.

Then she experienced a
sensation of falling.

“No!” she cried.

With startling abruptness,
the phenomenon stopped.

Quaking violently, she
blinked until she could focus on the carriage house. When nothing
else occurred for several seconds, she looked over her shoulder to
the main house again. And there it stood, looming behind her, every
window seeming to be an eye of something watching her, of some
unknown, unspeakable thing waiting for her to return within its
clutches.

Heavy footfalls upon gravel
brought her head around.

Borgie approached from the
direction of a storage shed at the far end of the carriage house.
Still trying to bring her lassitude under control, she remained by
the open door, waiting for the man to look at
her—
really
look at
her—and realize that something was wrong. But he went directly to
the opposite side of the car, opened the door and flashed her a
smile before climbing in behind the steering wheel.

She waited a few moments
longer, closing her eyes and taking several gulps of air in an
attempt to steady her nerves.

Had the entire world gone
mad and deserted her on the plains of sanity?

Or would she wake up from
the strangest dream of her life and discover that she hadn't even
left for Scotland yet?

The purr of the Volvo's
engine cut through her reverie. Willing her taut muscles to loosen,
she lowered her numbed body onto the seat and pulled the door
closed. Adjusting her seatbelt, she looked at the
driver.

“I really appreciate
this.”

Borgie grinned broadly as he
backed up the car. Now that the vehicle was in motion, she released
a thready sigh of relief.

“Wha' was tha',
Miss?”

“Oh...nothing.”

Forcing herself to relax in
the seat, Beth raked the fingers of one hand through her hair. Then
a thought occurred to her.

“Is there somewhere I can
exchange American money for British?”

Borgie glanced at his watch.
“It's only seven-thirty. Won't be a bank open till ten.”

“I'll just wait around until
one opens.”

“For the call,
Miss?”

Beth looked at his profile.
“Yes. I need to contact the airport and change my departure time.
Would you happen to know the name of the taxi service that picked
me up at Preswick? The driver said his name was Calum. I'm afraid I
didn't notice the name of the company.”

Borgie took several seconds
to think on her query. “Afraid I can't help you.”

There was a stretch of
silence while the driver pulled out onto the main road. Then he
looked at Beth, and again she saw something in his eyes that
troubled her.

No,
she chided herself. She was letting her nerves get the better
of her.

“I have a phone at ma
cottage. Ye're more'n welcome to use it.”

The drumming pulse returned
to invade Beth's body. “Thank you, but I don't mind waiting for the
bank to open.”

“As you wish.”

Beth shriveled within. It
was obvious by his taut features that she had insulted him by
refusing his generosity. And was she really up to hanging around
the small town until the bank opened? Although she didn't know the
man beside her, he'd certainly been the least complicated person
she'd met since her arrival. And the most friendly.

Not that Lachlan hadn't been
friendly in his oblique way.

Lachlan.

Why did her heart ache at
the thought of leaving him?

Remembrances of her previous
night's experience in the parlor blared in her mind with such force
that she unknowingly flattened herself against the back of the
seat.

Logic dictated that what she
thought had happened, couldn't have happened. And yet it had been
as real as anything she had experienced in her life.

Was she going
mad?

Were the headaches in fact a
symptom of something that was affecting her mental
perception?

“Borgie, I'd like to accept
your offer,” she said on a rushed breath. It was imperative she
return home and find out what was wrong with her. “That is if it's
still good.”

The man at the wheel turned
his head and smiled kindly. “O' course, Miss. I just thought it
made more sense than you hangin' around town for more'n two
hours.”

Sighing, Beth thoughtlessly
said, “I hope your mother isn't upset that I ran out on
breakfast.”

Borgie gave a snort. “I told
you, ma mum's been gone for a week.” He turned his attention to the
road ahead of them and frowned. “First holiday she's taken in many
a year. It's tha' house and its curse on us.”

“Why do you work at the
place if you hate it so much?”

Borgie waited until he had
completed a turn onto the main avenue in town. “He threatens
us.”

“Lachlan? Threatens you
how?”

“Hard to put to words,”
Borgie sighed. “He's got a long arm. The last folks to try to rent
tha' place, died in a motor wreck no' a mile from the house.
They're buried in a field at the back o' the house. I say he did it
to them. He doesn’t like anyone to leave unless he's the one to run
them off.”

Beth's heart constricted.
Lachlan might be a lot of things, but she was sure he was not a
murderer.

“Carlene and David trust
him,” she said defensively.

“Do they now?” Borgie asked
with an eerie undertone. “Might be they've changed their
minds.”

Suddenly, Beth was sure
going to the man's cottage was not a good idea. She knew Agnes had
not been away on holiday for a week, and she was as sure as she'd
ever been about anything that Lachlan wouldn't deliberately take
someone's life.

For whatever reason, the
Ingliss clan was determined to blacken Lachlan's name. She might be
confused and unnerved by Lachlan's mysteriousness, but she refused
to accept that he possessed this darker, heinous side to
him.

“I think I'll wait for the
bank to open,” Beth said, trying to keep her tone as light as
possible. “I need to pick up a few things in town,
anyway.”

“Too late,” Borgie said
matter-of-factly as he steered the Volvo into a driveway. “We're
here.”

The engine was turned off,
and he was climbing out of the car even as his last words were only
beginning to penetrate Beth's mental haze. Then her door opened and
he was reaching in to help her out.

“Come along. I don't bite,”
he laughed.

I do,
Beth fumed as she straightened up in front of him.

“Home sweet home,” he
intoned, gesturing toward a white, thatched-roof cottage with brown
shutters. “The place is a wee messy. Pay it no mind.”

Beth inwardly revolted at
the firm hold Borgie had on her elbow. She couldn't help but feel
like a lamb being led to slaughter, and when he opened the unlocked
door to his home, a spasm of fear sparked off her nerves. At the
instant she was to wrench herself free, turn and flee, the man
released her and went on inside ahead of her.

Releasing a quavering
breath, she lingered at the threshold. Her mind told her to go on
in and make the call to the airport before her emotions dissuaded
her from leaving. But her heart told her to run and not look
back.

Forcing herself through the
doorway, she entered a cozy parlor and closed the door behind her.
A sweeping glance revealed Borgie was not in the room, and she
stepped further inside and scanned her surroundings.

The room was by no means
messy. Simple furniture. Country-print curtains on the two windows.
The wainscoting was a deep, dark color and highly polished.
Magazines were neatly piled on a pine coffee table.

It was a nice, rustic room
with a definite homey ambiance.

“Have a lager?”

Borgie's appearance startled
her and she stared wide-eyed at the bottle being proffered to her.
“No...no thank you. Your phone?”