DevilsHeart Read Free Page A

her with
curiosity. The man she had been speaking with patted the head of the
dark-haired little girl who grabbed his black tunic. He smiled down at her.
    All right, maybe this guy wasn’t so bad. He was gentle and
affectionate with the girl just as he had been with the woman and boy earlier.
“Come with me and I’ll show you.”
    He nodded and tucked the girl’s hair behind her ear. He
motioned to the blond man to follow him. Leah pointed out the path up to the
cabin and fell into step behind them, glancing over her shoulder now and then
just to make certain no one snuck up behind her.
    Wait. Where was her sweater? She paused along the shore to
search for it.
    “What is it, lass?”
    “My sweater.” She had dropped it before diving into the
loch.
    “Sweater? What is that?”
    Leah glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, resisting
the urge to sigh her annoyance. Yeah, yeah. The word sweater originated in the
nineteenth century and wouldn’t have been used in the medieval era. Whatever. “It’s like a shirt or a coat, but knitted out of yarn. Mine is a cream color.”
    He nodded and called the other men over as well to join her
in her search.
    After several minutes, the man approached her empty-handed.
“I am sorry, lass, but it appears to not be here.”
    She hated giving up but nodded. It must have gotten dragged
into the loch as she ran and became so waterlogged it sank or something. It
wouldn’t have just disappeared into thin air.
    The man started up the pathway leading up the hill and into
the woods again. She fell into step behind him and thanked him for helping her
to look for her sweater.
    Her water-soaked jeans tightened across her thighs, chilling
her skin as the cool, late summer breeze chased her. With every step deeper and
deeper into the woods, however, disquieting thoughts plagued her. The trees
somehow seemed older, the foliage denser, the path more rugged. A chill raced
down her spine and she pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders.
    A strange warmth from her front pocket seeped into her right
hip. She reached inside and her fingers wrapped around the pendant the old lady
had given to her. It heated her palm and then chilled.
    The dark-haired man stopped as he reached a clearing. “Is
this the spot, lass?”
    She stepped out from the trees, her hand brushing along a
large stone. The mottled-gray color tugged at something within her memory. She
lifted her eyes and froze as the two men stared back at her in earnest with
nothing but a line of trees about twenty feet behind them.
    The cabin was gone.
    She stumbled toward the rock and braced against it. The
cabin was right there just a half-hour ago. The rock and general terrain seemed
accurate, but maybe she’d been confused. Maybe she’d led them the wrong way.
    “As you can see, there is no house here, Leah.” The
dark-haired man crossed his arms as he stopped within a few feet of her.
    “This has to be the place. I was just here. But then I went
down to the loch and met this old woman. And she…”
    The stone warmed in her hand again. She opened her fingers,
allowing it to rest upon her upturned palm, and it glowed for a brief second.
As soon as she gasped, the light dulled.
    The man’s eyebrows arched in a mixture of wonder and
suspicion as he made the sign of the cross. Had he seen it glowing too?
    “May I, lass?”
    She nodded and he lifted the pendant from her hand. He held
it up before him, twisting it around as he studied it.
    “Did the old woman give this to you?”
    She swallowed the fear creeping up her throat and nodded.
    His lips thinned with tension and a glint of knowledge
flashed in his eyes. “You have no family here? Not even up in Thurso?”
    “No. I am just a visitor.”
    A wisp of sympathy passed across his features as the
trepidation eased from his shoulders. “You saved my son. Come with me and I
will find a place for you.”
    Her eyes widened. “What are you talking about? I’m sure the
house is