When Irish Eyes Are Haunting: A Krewe of Hunters Novella Read Free

2
    “Devin?”
    The grip of cold that had settled over Devin immediately broke; she felt Rocky’s warmth and turned back to him.
    “Hey, my love, forget me already?” Rocky asked softly. “Any ghosts yet?” His eyes, as darkly green as a forest in the campfire light, held concern.
    “No,” she whispered back and forced a smile. “But, of course, I have heard the story about Brianna and Declan before.”
    “No self-respecting castle would be complete without a tragic love story,” Rocky said softly. “You’re worried. It may all be fancy. Collum, from what I understand, was a very big man who loved red meat and ale and might well have been a prime candidate for a heart attack,” he said gently.
    She nodded, squeezing his hand. “We’ll find out, won’t we?”
    She meant her words to be a statement. There was a question in them instead.
    Rocky pulled her back against him. “We’ll find the truth,” he said with assurance. “And we’ll see that Kelly is fine.”
    She nodded.
    Tragically, Kelly’s mother—Devin’s Aunt April—had been killed in a car crash when Kelly had been ten and Devin just nine, but Seamus and Kelly and Devin’s family had maintained a close and caring relationship, despite her death, and despite the fact that Seamus wasn’t actually Devin’s mother’s brother but her brother-in-law.
    Devin and Kelly had both been way too young to understand the difference in how a person was an aunt or an uncle—they just were.
    Devin had always adored her uncle Seamus and even when she’d been older and known the difference, he’d been just as good as any blood relation as far as she was concerned. Seamus kept their young lives filled with wonderful tales at all times, many of them, naturally, about Castle Karney.
    Devin’s family had joined Seamus and Kelly once, when the girls had been young teens. Devin had met the two older Karney brothers, Collum and Brendan, at that time.
    Collum, the oldest, had inherited the castle. He and Brendan had lived and worked there together—neither having married—and both discovered that in modern times, castles demanded a lot of love and elbow grease.
    But neither Collum nor Brendan had procreated—which left Seamus Karney and then Kelly Karney to inherit the estate, a complicated state of affairs, or it might have been had Ireland not made many changes in the past decades and if Seamus had not seen to it that his daughter had carried dual citizenship from the time she was born.
    Kelly had loved her Uncle Collum dearly—just as she loved her Uncle Brendan.
    Devin loved Kelly and Seamus—and that was why they were there.
    Brendan had called Seamus and asked that he and Kelly come to Ireland after the death of Collum.
    He didn’t like the way that Collum had died.
    Not that anybody liked it when someone died, but Collum had died strangely, to say the least—in Brendan’s opinion.
    In a way, that seemed to make Gary’s stories especially chilling.
    They’d heard the banshee wailing at midnight, or so Brendan had told Seamus and Kelly.
    And the following day, Collum had been found in the old master’s chambers, sitting in one of the antique, high-backed, crimson chairs—eyes open in what was surely horror—just staring at the hearth.
    A heart attack, the doctor had said. No nonsense, a heart attack.
    And it might have been.
    But Brendan hadn’t thought it was right, not one bit. So Seamus and Kelly had come. What they’d found when they’d arrived and all they’d been told had been enough to set the wheels in motion that had brought she and Rocky to where they were right now.
    “We have to find the truth,” Devin said, her voice low but passionate. “Kelly and Seamus are very precious to me. Of course, so far, we’ve not had much chance to see or speak with the living—much less, um, anyone else. All we’ve done is drop off our bags. We haven’t even seen Kelly and Seamus yet. Just Brendan.”
    Kelly and her father had been down in