[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

through three closed doors, her eyes distinguished every shade of gray dancing on the
LOVE NOT FORGOTTEN Ellen Ashe 32
wall, and the taste--she touched her lips--she could still taste the sweetness of that kiss.
Sleep would be impossible now. She grabbed her robe, dug toes into tattered
slippers and had a firm grip on the latch when she stiffened--the dream gone, her mind
clear, yet the urge to go to the window welled up from within like an inexplicable gush of
spring water from a stone. Alone, with only the impenetrable peace of early morning,
that delicate eerie place between severe darkness and brilliant daylight, she heeded the
call and drifted to the window.
The orange glow of the moon, tipping towards the blurred edges of the horizon,
cast shadows over the purple moor. Nothing moved. No creature stirred beneath the
small flowers, no bird preened its feathers in preparation for the day ahead, no puff of
wind to wake the sleeping inhabitants. Kate felt that she was the only witness to a
desolate lonely world, the only member who could not rest. But already there was the
faint pale streak of a triumphant birth. The night s back was broken.
A dark spot, far off on a mound of shadow beneath the moon, moved and then
vanished into a basin of earth. And when the image reappeared it was larger, looming
closer at an alarming speed. Certainly distance on the moors was deceiving. A glade or a
hill, seemingly a stone s throw away, turned out to be unreachable. But this--this was a
panic-driven speed regardless of distance, and Kate stiffened at the urgency. Within
seconds there would be a burst of noise.
But, no. Gone. The calmness returned. The landscape sighed, relieved to fall
into a few more minutes of rest before& .
The horse s scream shattered illusions of peace. Hooves frantically pounded into
the earth, its mane rippled with each frenzied jolt of the shivering mass of muscle. The
head rolled at unseen danger and foam filtered from the bit, which clanked in rhythm to
its command to draw closer.
The rider was indistinguishable. Between lack of light and distance the face was
featureless, an obscure mask of nothingness. His wide shoulders, however, were bent in
determination, inches away from the horse s neck, translating the need for haste. Life
itself depended on it.
Kate automatically stepped to one side hiding behind the curtain without breaking
her stare. What was going on? Why would Alexander MacTavish be out riding the
moors this time of the day, or night? She squinted to find the dark features she had first
seen the evening she arrived.
Electricity crackled in her ears. A rush of blood bashed into her temple.
The rider had no face.
Thick black rings of hair bounced over his shoulders, pale white of exposed flesh
around his neck and forearms. There was an instant glimmer of steel by his side, thighs
thick and tense clamped into the horse s belly, and the stark contrast of red against the
cold hue of blue. A kilt. The slash of color wrapped around his waist and one shoulder
and flapped into the hair that waved straight down his back.
But no face.
Closer. Soon she would see with clarity. She had to. Logic and sanity depended
upon it. The horse neared the outer edges of the garden.
Despair, terror, loss. And then nothing. No horse. No rider. No sound.
Kate s blood ran cold. Flesh on her arms and neck shivered fine hairs to
attention.
LOVE NOT FORGOTTEN Ellen Ashe 33
One cheerful twitter shattered the trance and Kate answered with her own short
shriek. Palm over her mouth, solidly fixated, she listened as the moor immediately
sprang to life with the answering chorus of birds.
Cautiously she leaned over the casing. Did he ride past the corner of the house?
Why could she no longer hear the horse s excited snorting?
Vanished. Both the horse and the rider.
The garden was alive with tiny voices and Kate s acute vision saw even the
slightest of scurrying within the hedges. Beyond this the moors, too, was abuzz with
noise to greet the day, which had suddenly burst to life. Yet there was no creature larger
than a hare.
Stricken with a pain in her forehead, Kate wrapped her robe more securely around
her middle. Her first impulse was to wake Mally and tell her the vision that unfolded on
the stretch of moor, but she would have to make the whole thing sound casual and
normal. Her shattered nerves would betray the façade and the last thing she wanted, or
needed, was Mally s  I told you so in regards to a mystic Highlander galloping toward
the house and then disappearing.
But disappear he did. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]