Beyond the Highland Mist Read Free Page B

must be adaptable to strange events. It wouldn’t do to bring her to him and have her brain addled. She must believe in a bit of magic.”
    The fool nodded. “Too true. Remember that tax accountant we took back to the twelfth century? She turned into a raving lunatic.”
    “Exactly. The woman you find must be somewhat inured to the unusual so she can accept time travel without coming undone.” Finnbheara mulled this over a moment. “I have it! Look in Salem, where they still believe in witches, or perhaps New Orleans, where the ancient magic sizzles in the air.”
    “Perfect places!” the fool enthused.
    “But most important, fool, you must find me a woman who harbors a special hatred for beautiful, womanizing men; a woman guaranteed to make that mortal’s life a living hell.”
    The fool smiled fiendishly. “May I embellish on your plan?”
    “You’re a crucial part of it,” the King said with sinister promise.

    Adrienne de Simone shivered, although it was an unusually warm May evening in Seattle. She pulled a sweater over her head and tugged the French doors closed. She stared outthrough the glass and watched night descend over the gardens that tumbled in wild disarray beyond the walk.
    In the fading light she surveyed the stone wall that protected her house at 93 Coattail Lane, then turned her methodical scrutiny to the shadows beneath the stately oaks, seeking any irregular movement. She took a deep breath and ordered herself to relax. The guard dogs that patrolled the grounds were quiet—things must be safe, she assured herself firmly.
    Inexplicably tense, she entered the code on the alarm pad that would activate the motion detectors strategically mounted throughout the one-acre lawn. Any nonrandom motion over one hundred pounds in mass and three feet in height would trigger the detectors, although the shrill warning would not summon the police or any law enforcement agency.
    Adrienne would run for her gun before she’d run for a phone. She’d summon the devil himself before she’d dream of calling the police. Although six months had passed, Adrienne still felt as if she couldn’t get far enough from New Orleans, not even if she moved across an ocean or two, which she couldn’t do anyway; the percentage of fugitives apprehended while trying to leave the country was shockingly high.
    Was that what she really was? she marveled. It never failed to astonish her, even after all these months. How could she—Adrienne de Simone—be a fugitive? She’d always been an honest, law-abiding citizen. All she’d ever asked of life was a home and a place to belong; someone to love and someone who loved her; children someday—children she would never abandon to an orphanage.
    She’d found all of that in Eberhard Darrow Garrett, the toast of New Orleans society, or so she’d thought.
    Adrienne snorted as she surveyed the lawn a final time then dropped the drapes across the doors. A few years ago the world had seemed like such a different place; a wonderful place, full of promise, excitement, and endless possibility.
    Armed only with her irrepressible spirit and three hundred dollars cash, Adrienne Doe had invented a last name for herself and fled the orphanage on the day she’d turned eighteen. She’d been thrilled to discover student loans for which practically anyone could qualify, even an unsecured risk like an orphan. She’d taken a job as a waitress, enrolled in college, and embarked on her quest to make something of herself. Just what, she wasn’t sure, but she’d always had a feeling that something special was waiting around the next corner for her.
    She’d been twenty, a sophomore at the university, when that special thing had happened. Working at the Blind Lemon, an elegant restaurant and bar, Adrienne had caught the eye, the heart, and the engagement ring of the darkly handsome, wealthy Eberhard Darrow Garrett, the bachelor of the decade. It had been the perfect fairy tale. She’d walked around