Highlander Unraveled (Highland Bound Book 6) by Eliza Knight

anymore.  A plaything that he kept locked up and only let out when he wanted to jab at me with his words or body.
    “I’m going to call the shop. There’s a lass there who works for Shona and Moira, been running it since they left. She’ll know best what to do about the yard. I admit to knowing next to nothing about keeping plants.”
    I didn’t know what to say. I had no way of proving whether or not these people were actually helping me or hindering me. The best I could do was stay on my toes. Not let my guard down.
    “How about some supper?” Mrs. MacDonald asked, breaking the silence.
    “It smells delicious,” Mr. McAlister said.
    My stomach grumbled, but I still felt too jumpy to eat a thing, afraid it would all come right back up.
    “How about a glass of wine?” he asked me, walking toward the counter. He lifted a bottle of red. “I brought this in hopes Moira would be home. She has great taste in wine.”
    “When was the last time you talked to either of them?” I asked.
    He let out a long sigh. “I’ve not seen or spoken to Shona in years.” He eyed me, perhaps trying to decipher how much I knew. “Moira says she ran off with a man.”
    Moira had spent the last few years before coming to 1544 thinking her sister had gone missing—coincidentally at the same time Rory had also gone missing. No one had been able to find her; the authorities had labeled her disappearance a cold case.
    I nodded, not wanting to give away that up until now, I’d been living with Shona at Castle Gealach.
    “And Moira?” I asked.
    “She’s been gone just a couple weeks now.”
    Long enough for her plants to die, but not long enough for anyone to really take note? Except the neighbor…
    “Did you alert the authorities?” I asked.
    Mr. McAlister sighed again, rifling through a drawer to find a wine opener and Mrs. MacDonald stared at him, willing him to say yes, I supposed.
    “She’s not missing,” he finally answered, peeling the foil from around the top of the bottle and screwing the opener into the cork.
    “Then where is she?” Mrs. MacDonald asked, her hand fluttering to her throat, the spoon left dipped into the pot, all thoughts of serving dinner gone.
    The cork popped from the bottle and Mr. McAlister stared me right in the eye, a knowing look. He grinned and said, “Emma knows.”

Chapter Six

    Logan
     
    The woods echoed with night sounds. Creaks and howls, chirps and buzzes. A warm breeze blew around my ankles, covered in a mist that glowed from the light of the moon.
    My body still stirred with the memory of my wife, her touch, and her kiss.
    Mo chreach , I missed her with a fierce passion.
    Appearing to me in the glen had been real. I’d never fallen asleep, and I was fairly certain I wasn’t hallucinating.
    My boots crunched roughly over the forest floor, disturbing small creatures that scurried to hide. I cared not who heard me. Nor did I care if I woke any of my enemies who lay in wait for just such an opportunity.
    In fact, I welcomed anyone to dare tempt me into battle. I couldn’t wait to unleash the fury that drove me forward.
    I had enough anger swirling with the ache in my veins that I was likely to murder a man with my bare hands should he leap in front of me.
    Down the mountain I stormed, toward the loch at the bottom. Hacking at tree branches, overgrown weeds that stuck onto my breeches like tiny, clinging fingers of irritation.
    I broke through the trees, the loch gently lapping at the shore, mocking me with its peaceful sound.
    A beam of moonlight shone on my rowboat, beckoning me to climb back in. But I didn’t want to.
    I stood staring at my castle across the water. The turrets jutting from one end of the sky to the other. The walls were high, thick. Torches blazed along the walls. The moon shone on the irons spikes of the portcullis. The structure was fortified to an extreme. No sane man would dare scale its walls or attempt to breach its gates, unless death was what he wished