Once Upon a Highland Autumn
Author: Lecia Cornwall
Publisher: Avon Impulse
Release Date: 17 June 2014
Megan McNabb would do anything to get out of marrying a man she does not love—even handfasting for a year and a day with an English stranger.
A mysterious letter draws Lord Kit Rossington to Scotland in search of a lost treasure. But the marriage-minded females he avoided in England follow him to the Highlands, and he'll do anything—even a temporary marriage with a Highland lass—to keep his freedom while he solves a mystery that's haunted Glen Dorian for almost a century.
Legends say a curse lurks among the shattered stones of Glen Dorian Castle. Will the love that is beginning to grow between Megan and Kit be able to withstand fate? For only the living, those with bold hearts and true love, can restore peace to Glen Dorian at last.
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Excerpt
Read below for the prologue and first chapter from Once Upon a Highland Autumn!
Prologue
Glen Dorian, 1817
“Is that a true story?”
Duncan MacIntosh let his gaze bore into the child
from across the fire.
“It’s as true as any tale ever was, lad. ’Tisn’t
a story—it’s the history of your own clan. Do you doubt my word?”
“But how can a dragon eat a whole village?” the
boy asked, not half as frightened of the aged clansman’s scowl as Duncan would
have liked. So he raised his hands over his head, spreading his plaid above
himself like wings. He leaned away from the fire, letting the shadows transform
him until his eyes gleamed, and the crags and valleys of his wrinkled skin
deepened in the firelight. “He is a
dragon!” the boy cried out in terror, and clutched his mother’s skirt.
The seannachaidh
of Clan MacIntosh sat down, coming back into the light, his face benign now. He
set a gnarled hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Och, don’t be afraid, lad. ’Tis all
for fun, that tale. It’s a seannachaidh’s
job to keep the tales of the clan, and tell them—even the almost-true ones
about dragons. Shall I tell you a truly true one?”
The boy stuck his lip out mutinously. “Are there
dragons in it?”
“No. There’s a pretty lass called Mairi MacIntosh,
her brave laird, and a soldier in this tale, but no dragons—well, unless you
count the fearsome Duke of Cumberland.”
“Who’s he?” the boy asked.
“He was the wicked son of a king. He came to
vanquish the MacIntosh clan, and all the rest of the Highlanders.”
The boy’s eyes widened. “Is there blood and
swords and killing in this tale?”
Duncan’s brow crumpled. “Too much of that, I
fear. Are you afraid?”
The lad shook his head. “Is there kissing?”
The old man’s brow smoothed as he laughed. “Aye,
some—though not nearly enough.”
“How does the story end?”
“I don’t know. It hasn’t got an ending yet.”
“Haven’t you made one up?” the child demanded.
Duncan pursed his lips. “As I said, this is a
true tale, not a made-up one. True tales are long in the unfolding, lad. You
can’t just conjure the ending out of the air. Something happens to begin the
story—a dreadful thing sometimes—and then we must wait for the outcome. D’you
understand that lad?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Then you must listen closely, and learn
this story, so one day you can tell it. There have been a great many MacIntoshes
in this glen before you and me, and I intend to see to it that you know all
about every one of them before I leave this earth. Someday it will be you
sitting here by the fire, lad, telling the tales to your sons or your
grandsons, and they will do the same in their turn.”
The boy glanced over his shoulder at the loch of
Glen Dorian, named for the otters that had always lived there. The water
shimmered in the moonlight, black and deep. “Will I find the ending of this
story?” the boy asked, stepping away from his mother to set his hand on Duncan’s
knee.
“I hope you will. But for now you should know how
it started.” The old seannachaidh
took the boy onto his lap, kissed the top of his dark head, and looked out at
the rest of his audience, a half-dozen MacIntosh clansmen, women, and children
who sat around the blazing fire on this summer evening, listening to stories
under the stars, just as other MacIntoshes had done before them.
Duncan stared into the fire as if he could see
faces and events written there, and the others leaned nearer too, as he began
to speak.
“This is the story of love, and hatred, and
war—and of kindness, too. It all began many years ago, during the forty-five,
when the clans rose to fight for Bonnie Prince Charlie Stuart, and in the
choosing of sides, many things happened—terrible, sorrowful things that still
hover over this glen—including a powerful curse.”
“Mairi’s curse,” someone whispered fearfully, and
a murmur rose with the smoke of the fire.
“Aye,” Duncan said. “Mairi’s curse. Listen now. I
will tell you all I know, but that curse remains upon our glen, waiting for the
day when someone will come at last and break it, and bring love and happiness
back to Glen Dorian.”
“And kissing?” the boy asked.
“And kissing, too,” Duncan said, and began to
tell the tale.
Chapter One
Glenlorne, summer 1817
Lady Megan McNabb stood beside the old
tower of Glenlorne and looked out across the valley. Summer was at its height,
hovering on the pinnacle between lush green perfection and the graceful slide
into the golden glory of autumn. Megan drank in every detail—the old tower
behind her, the new castle in the valley below, the loch, and the way the
clouds rested on the peaks of the highest hills that sheltered the glen, and
sighed. She would miss autumn here, but she’d be back again by spring, and then
she would never, ever leave home again, no matter what anyone else expected of
her.
She looked down at Glenlorne Castle, and her
defiance was nudged aside by guilt. She should be packing. She and her sisters
were leaving in a few short hours. They would board the coach and travel to
Dundrummie Castle to stay with their mother. The Dowager Countess of Glenlorne
had retired to live with her widowed sister-in-law now that her stepson Alec had
taken his place as Earl of Glenlorne. Alec was newly married, and it had been
decided that his sisters would spend a few months with their mother, to give
the newlyweds time to enjoy a honeymoon.
Megan understood why they must go—really she did, being in love herself. But she
could not help but envy her brother’s happiness. Megan’s love was far away, and they could not marry. Not yet at least, and
that made it seem most unfair indeed.
Oh, Eachann, lovely Eachann! She had kissed him good-bye
on this very spot, in the shadow of the old tower, pledged to wait for him, to
keep their love a secret until he returned and could honorably offer for her.
She put a finger to her lips, lips he’d kissed scarcely a month before, and
felt her heart twist with yearning.
Surely the time would pass faster if she went
away, didn’t face reminders of Eachann everywhere she looked. It was hard to
hide her sighs of longing, but she must. Her mother would forbid the match as
unworthy of an earl’s daughter. Alec would tell her she was too young to know
her own mind. Alec’s new wife, Caroline, would tell her gently that she should
see more of the world, spend a Season in London, before she made her choice and
settled into wedded bliss. Her sisters would tease her for falling in love with
the penniless son of Glenlorne’s gamekeeper. No, better it remain a secret that
only she and her true love knew. She took the tiny promise ring out of her
pocket and slid it onto her finger and stared at it with a smile. Soon, very
soon, Eachann would come home, rich, a man of the world, and no one would tell
them no then.
But now, Megan was to go to Dundrummie, then on
to London in the spring for the Season. Her mother expected her to charm a rich
English lord, wed him before summer came again, and live forever in England.
Lady Devorguilla McNabb had spent all the nineteen years of Megan’s life, and
the seventeen years of her sister Alanna’s life, and every moment of Sorcha’s
twelve years planning to marry her daughters to Englishmen, whom she considered
superior in every way to Scottish men, plain or noble, poor or rich.
Megan frowned. Her mother was going to be very
disappointed with her eldest daughter, but a lady could not help falling in
love, and Megan’s heart had been given. She loved Eachann Rennie, gamekeeper’s
son, and she was certainly old enough to know her own mind. The very idea of
marrying an English lord of her mother’s choosing—a complete stranger—and never
seeing her homeland again made her shudder.
Megan scanned the glen again without seeing it.
Her heart was sailing the high seas with Eachann as he strove to make his
fortune. Not even her mother could object to him then, surely, with gold and a
fine wedding ring in his pocket. They would be married in Glenlorne’s chapel,
build a grand house here in the glen, and live happily ever after.
“Megan!” she turned as Sorcha, her youngest
sister, struggled up the hill, her braids coming undone, russet curls askew
around her flushed and freckled face. Her gown was stained with grass and
tucked into her belt, her bare feet muddy. She wondered just how her mother was
ever going to make an Englishman’s bride out of Sorcha. But then, her little
sister was only twelve, and by the time Devorguilla frog-marched Sorcha to
London for her debut, she would be the perfect lady, fit to wed a duke.
Perhaps. She wished her mother—and the unknown lord—the best of luck with
Sorcha.
Her sister panted like a hound as she tried to
catch her breath. “I’ve been looking for you for nearly an hour. Muira says
it’s nearly time to go, and you’re not even half-packed. You won’t have a thing
to wear when we get to Dundrummie.”
Megan scanned the valley once more and ignored
her sister. “I’m just saying good-bye to Glenlorne. At least for now.”
“Better to say farewell to people than places,”
Sorcha said. “I’ve already been to the village, telling folk I’ll be back come
spring.” She grinned mischievously at her sister. “You won’t though—you’ll be
in London, bothered by the attentions of all those daft English lairds at your
first Season.”
Megan felt a rush of irritation. “Lords, Sorcha,
not lairds—and stop teasing,” she commanded, and flounced down the steep path
that led back to the castle.
Sorcha picked a flower and skipped beside her
sister like a mountain goat. One by one, she plucked at the petals. “How many
English lords will Megan McNabb
kiss?” she asked, dancing around her sister. “One . . . two . . . three . . .”
“Stop it,” Megan said, and snatched the flower
away. She wouldn’t kiss anyone but Eachann. But her sister picked another
flower.
“How many English lords will come and ask Alec
for Meggy’s hand in marriage?” she sang, but Megan snatched that blossom too,
before Sorcha could begin counting again.
“I shan’t go to London, and I will never marry an
English lord,” she said fiercely.
“We’ll see what Mama says to that,” Sorcha said.
“And Muira would say never is a very long time indeed.”
Megan stopped. “What exactly did Muira say?” Old
Muira had the sight, or so it was said.
Sorcha grinned like a pirate, and rubbed a dusty
hand over her face, leaving a dark smudge. “I thought you didn’t believe in the
old ways.”
Megan rolled her eyes, let her gaze travel up the
smooth green slopes of the hills to their rocky crests and thought of the
legends and tales, the old stories, the belief that magic made its home in the
glen.
Of course she believed.
She believed so much that she had decided to
become the keeper of the clan’s tales when Glenlorne’s ancient seannachaidh had died last winter
without leaving a successor. She loved to hear the old stories, and she planned
to write them down so they’d never be lost. But for now, in Sorcha’s annoying
company, she raised her chin. Now was hardly the time to be fanciful. “Of
course I don’t believe in magic. I think being sensible is far more useful to
get you what you want, not counting flower petals or relying on the seeings of
an old woman.”
“Muira foresaw an Englishman, and a treasure,”
Sorcha said, not deterred one whit by talk of sense. “Right there in the smoke
of the fire, clear as day.”
Megan felt her mouth dry. “For me?” she asked
through stiff lips.
“She didn’t know that. For one of us, surely.”
Megan let out a sigh of relief. Perhaps she was
safe. If only Muira had seen Eachann, riding home, his heart light, his purse
heavy, with that fine gold ring in his pocket. “That’s the trouble with Muira’s
premonitions. She sees things, but can’t say what they mean.”
“Still, a treasure would be nice,” Sorcha
chirped. “A chest of gold, or a cache of pearls and rubies—”
“Not if it comes with an Englishman attached,”
Megan muttered.
“Och, I’m not worried. I’m only twelve. He won’t
be coming for me, that’s certain. But you’re nearly twenty. According to Muira,
it’s far past time you were wed. Muira says you should have a dozen bairns by
now.”
Megan felt her cheeks heat. “Muira says,” she
grumbled. She and Eachann had spoken of the babes they would have—four or five
strong lads to take after their father, and two or three pretty little lasses.
She felt her heart quicken with longing. Perhaps she could ask Muira to look
again, be sure—They’d reached the path beside the loch, a cool and shady haven
out of the sun. Megan stopped and stared out at the dark water, and wondered if
Eachann was staring out across a very different body of water, and likewise
longing for her.
“D’you suppose we have time for a swim?” Sorcha
asked, dabbling her toes in the water. “’Tis uncommonly hot today.”
Megan looked at her sister’s flushed face, took
note of the smudges of dirt. Tomorrow they’d be at Dundrummie, and Mama would
expect—insist—that they behave like ladies. There’d be no swimming, no running
free in the hills. Sorcha would be kept indoors learning English, and Megan and
Alanna would be given long hours of instruction in dancing and deportment, and
be fitted for a grand wardrobe of stiff, horrid English gowns for their upcoming
London Season—and corsets, tied tight enough to cut a lass in two.
The loch beckoned, and Megan grinned at her
sister as she kicked off her shoes and pulled her gown over her head. “Aye, why
not?” she said. “I’ll race you to the black rock.” She dove into the chill of
the water, came up gasping, the hills wavering through the drops on her lashes.
Pleasure, pure sweet pleasure.
She grinned and dove again. Whatever the
future might hold, there was still joy to be had today.
Glen Dorian, 1817
“Is that a true story?”
Duncan MacIntosh let his gaze bore into the child
from across the fire.
“It’s as true as any tale ever was, lad. ’Tisn’t
a story—it’s the history of your own clan. Do you doubt my word?”
“But how can a dragon eat a whole village?” the
boy asked, not half as frightened of the aged clansman’s scowl as Duncan would
have liked. So he raised his hands over his head, spreading his plaid above
himself like wings. He leaned away from the fire, letting the shadows transform
him until his eyes gleamed, and the crags and valleys of his wrinkled skin
deepened in the firelight. “He is a
dragon!” the boy cried out in terror, and clutched his mother’s skirt.
The seannachaidh
of Clan MacIntosh sat down, coming back into the light, his face benign now. He
set a gnarled hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Och, don’t be afraid, lad. ’Tis all
for fun, that tale. It’s a seannachaidh’s
job to keep the tales of the clan, and tell them—even the almost-true ones
about dragons. Shall I tell you a truly true one?”
The boy stuck his lip out mutinously. “Are there
dragons in it?”
“No. There’s a pretty lass called Mairi MacIntosh,
her brave laird, and a soldier in this tale, but no dragons—well, unless you
count the fearsome Duke of Cumberland.”
“Who’s he?” the boy asked.
“He was the wicked son of a king. He came to
vanquish the MacIntosh clan, and all the rest of the Highlanders.”
The boy’s eyes widened. “Is there blood and
swords and killing in this tale?”
Duncan’s brow crumpled. “Too much of that, I
fear. Are you afraid?”
The lad shook his head. “Is there kissing?”
The old man’s brow smoothed as he laughed. “Aye,
some—though not nearly enough.”
“How does the story end?”
“I don’t know. It hasn’t got an ending yet.”
“Haven’t you made one up?” the child demanded.
Duncan pursed his lips. “As I said, this is a
true tale, not a made-up one. True tales are long in the unfolding, lad. You
can’t just conjure the ending out of the air. Something happens to begin the
story—a dreadful thing sometimes—and then we must wait for the outcome. D’you
understand that lad?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Then you must listen closely, and learn
this story, so one day you can tell it. There have been a great many MacIntoshes
in this glen before you and me, and I intend to see to it that you know all
about every one of them before I leave this earth. Someday it will be you
sitting here by the fire, lad, telling the tales to your sons or your
grandsons, and they will do the same in their turn.”
The boy glanced over his shoulder at the loch of
Glen Dorian, named for the otters that had always lived there. The water
shimmered in the moonlight, black and deep. “Will I find the ending of this
story?” the boy asked, stepping away from his mother to set his hand on Duncan’s
knee.
“I hope you will. But for now you should know how
it started.” The old seannachaidh
took the boy onto his lap, kissed the top of his dark head, and looked out at
the rest of his audience, a half-dozen MacIntosh clansmen, women, and children
who sat around the blazing fire on this summer evening, listening to stories
under the stars, just as other MacIntoshes had done before them.
Duncan stared into the fire as if he could see
faces and events written there, and the others leaned nearer too, as he began
to speak.
“This is the story of love, and hatred, and
war—and of kindness, too. It all began many years ago, during the forty-five,
when the clans rose to fight for Bonnie Prince Charlie Stuart, and in the
choosing of sides, many things happened—terrible, sorrowful things that still
hover over this glen—including a powerful curse.”
“Mairi’s curse,” someone whispered fearfully, and
a murmur rose with the smoke of the fire.
“Aye,” Duncan said. “Mairi’s curse. Listen now. I
will tell you all I know, but that curse remains upon our glen, waiting for the
day when someone will come at last and break it, and bring love and happiness
back to Glen Dorian.”
“And kissing?” the boy asked.
“And kissing, too,” Duncan said, and began to
tell the tale.
Chapter One
Glenlorne, summer 1817
Lady Megan McNabb stood beside the old
tower of Glenlorne and looked out across the valley. Summer was at its height,
hovering on the pinnacle between lush green perfection and the graceful slide
into the golden glory of autumn. Megan drank in every detail—the old tower
behind her, the new castle in the valley below, the loch, and the way the
clouds rested on the peaks of the highest hills that sheltered the glen, and
sighed. She would miss autumn here, but she’d be back again by spring, and then
she would never, ever leave home again, no matter what anyone else expected of
her.
She looked down at Glenlorne Castle, and her
defiance was nudged aside by guilt. She should be packing. She and her sisters
were leaving in a few short hours. They would board the coach and travel to
Dundrummie Castle to stay with their mother. The Dowager Countess of Glenlorne
had retired to live with her widowed sister-in-law now that her stepson Alec had
taken his place as Earl of Glenlorne. Alec was newly married, and it had been
decided that his sisters would spend a few months with their mother, to give
the newlyweds time to enjoy a honeymoon.
Megan understood why they must go—really she did, being in love herself. But she
could not help but envy her brother’s happiness. Megan’s love was far away, and they could not marry. Not yet at least, and
that made it seem most unfair indeed.
Oh, Eachann, lovely Eachann! She had kissed him good-bye
on this very spot, in the shadow of the old tower, pledged to wait for him, to
keep their love a secret until he returned and could honorably offer for her.
She put a finger to her lips, lips he’d kissed scarcely a month before, and
felt her heart twist with yearning.
Surely the time would pass faster if she went
away, didn’t face reminders of Eachann everywhere she looked. It was hard to
hide her sighs of longing, but she must. Her mother would forbid the match as
unworthy of an earl’s daughter. Alec would tell her she was too young to know
her own mind. Alec’s new wife, Caroline, would tell her gently that she should
see more of the world, spend a Season in London, before she made her choice and
settled into wedded bliss. Her sisters would tease her for falling in love with
the penniless son of Glenlorne’s gamekeeper. No, better it remain a secret that
only she and her true love knew. She took the tiny promise ring out of her
pocket and slid it onto her finger and stared at it with a smile. Soon, very
soon, Eachann would come home, rich, a man of the world, and no one would tell
them no then.
But now, Megan was to go to Dundrummie, then on
to London in the spring for the Season. Her mother expected her to charm a rich
English lord, wed him before summer came again, and live forever in England.
Lady Devorguilla McNabb had spent all the nineteen years of Megan’s life, and
the seventeen years of her sister Alanna’s life, and every moment of Sorcha’s
twelve years planning to marry her daughters to Englishmen, whom she considered
superior in every way to Scottish men, plain or noble, poor or rich.
Megan frowned. Her mother was going to be very
disappointed with her eldest daughter, but a lady could not help falling in
love, and Megan’s heart had been given. She loved Eachann Rennie, gamekeeper’s
son, and she was certainly old enough to know her own mind. The very idea of
marrying an English lord of her mother’s choosing—a complete stranger—and never
seeing her homeland again made her shudder.
Megan scanned the glen again without seeing it.
Her heart was sailing the high seas with Eachann as he strove to make his
fortune. Not even her mother could object to him then, surely, with gold and a
fine wedding ring in his pocket. They would be married in Glenlorne’s chapel,
build a grand house here in the glen, and live happily ever after.
“Megan!” she turned as Sorcha, her youngest
sister, struggled up the hill, her braids coming undone, russet curls askew
around her flushed and freckled face. Her gown was stained with grass and
tucked into her belt, her bare feet muddy. She wondered just how her mother was
ever going to make an Englishman’s bride out of Sorcha. But then, her little
sister was only twelve, and by the time Devorguilla frog-marched Sorcha to
London for her debut, she would be the perfect lady, fit to wed a duke.
Perhaps. She wished her mother—and the unknown lord—the best of luck with
Sorcha.
Her sister panted like a hound as she tried to
catch her breath. “I’ve been looking for you for nearly an hour. Muira says
it’s nearly time to go, and you’re not even half-packed. You won’t have a thing
to wear when we get to Dundrummie.”
Megan scanned the valley once more and ignored
her sister. “I’m just saying good-bye to Glenlorne. At least for now.”
“Better to say farewell to people than places,”
Sorcha said. “I’ve already been to the village, telling folk I’ll be back come
spring.” She grinned mischievously at her sister. “You won’t though—you’ll be
in London, bothered by the attentions of all those daft English lairds at your
first Season.”
Megan felt a rush of irritation. “Lords, Sorcha,
not lairds—and stop teasing,” she commanded, and flounced down the steep path
that led back to the castle.
Sorcha picked a flower and skipped beside her
sister like a mountain goat. One by one, she plucked at the petals. “How many
English lords will Megan McNabb
kiss?” she asked, dancing around her sister. “One . . . two . . . three . . .”
“Stop it,” Megan said, and snatched the flower
away. She wouldn’t kiss anyone but Eachann. But her sister picked another
flower.
“How many English lords will come and ask Alec
for Meggy’s hand in marriage?” she sang, but Megan snatched that blossom too,
before Sorcha could begin counting again.
“I shan’t go to London, and I will never marry an
English lord,” she said fiercely.
“We’ll see what Mama says to that,” Sorcha said.
“And Muira would say never is a very long time indeed.”
Megan stopped. “What exactly did Muira say?” Old
Muira had the sight, or so it was said.
Sorcha grinned like a pirate, and rubbed a dusty
hand over her face, leaving a dark smudge. “I thought you didn’t believe in the
old ways.”
Megan rolled her eyes, let her gaze travel up the
smooth green slopes of the hills to their rocky crests and thought of the
legends and tales, the old stories, the belief that magic made its home in the
glen.
Of course she believed.
She believed so much that she had decided to
become the keeper of the clan’s tales when Glenlorne’s ancient seannachaidh had died last winter
without leaving a successor. She loved to hear the old stories, and she planned
to write them down so they’d never be lost. But for now, in Sorcha’s annoying
company, she raised her chin. Now was hardly the time to be fanciful. “Of
course I don’t believe in magic. I think being sensible is far more useful to
get you what you want, not counting flower petals or relying on the seeings of
an old woman.”
“Muira foresaw an Englishman, and a treasure,”
Sorcha said, not deterred one whit by talk of sense. “Right there in the smoke
of the fire, clear as day.”
Megan felt her mouth dry. “For me?” she asked
through stiff lips.
“She didn’t know that. For one of us, surely.”
Megan let out a sigh of relief. Perhaps she was
safe. If only Muira had seen Eachann, riding home, his heart light, his purse
heavy, with that fine gold ring in his pocket. “That’s the trouble with Muira’s
premonitions. She sees things, but can’t say what they mean.”
“Still, a treasure would be nice,” Sorcha
chirped. “A chest of gold, or a cache of pearls and rubies—”
“Not if it comes with an Englishman attached,”
Megan muttered.
“Och, I’m not worried. I’m only twelve. He won’t
be coming for me, that’s certain. But you’re nearly twenty. According to Muira,
it’s far past time you were wed. Muira says you should have a dozen bairns by
now.”
Megan felt her cheeks heat. “Muira says,” she
grumbled. She and Eachann had spoken of the babes they would have—four or five
strong lads to take after their father, and two or three pretty little lasses.
She felt her heart quicken with longing. Perhaps she could ask Muira to look
again, be sure—They’d reached the path beside the loch, a cool and shady haven
out of the sun. Megan stopped and stared out at the dark water, and wondered if
Eachann was staring out across a very different body of water, and likewise
longing for her.
“D’you suppose we have time for a swim?” Sorcha
asked, dabbling her toes in the water. “’Tis uncommonly hot today.”
Megan looked at her sister’s flushed face, took
note of the smudges of dirt. Tomorrow they’d be at Dundrummie, and Mama would
expect—insist—that they behave like ladies. There’d be no swimming, no running
free in the hills. Sorcha would be kept indoors learning English, and Megan and
Alanna would be given long hours of instruction in dancing and deportment, and
be fitted for a grand wardrobe of stiff, horrid English gowns for their upcoming
London Season—and corsets, tied tight enough to cut a lass in two.
The loch beckoned, and Megan grinned at her
sister as she kicked off her shoes and pulled her gown over her head. “Aye, why
not?” she said. “I’ll race you to the black rock.” She dove into the chill of
the water, came up gasping, the hills wavering through the drops on her lashes.
Pleasure, pure sweet pleasure.
She grinned and dove again. Whatever the
future might hold, there was still joy to be had today.
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