Free Midnight's Promise by Donna Grant Page A

lips and looked up at him. “Are you here to throw me out?”
    “No’ yet.” Touching her would be a very bad idea. “It may come to that, but I’m hoping your good sense will prevail before then.”
    She gave a loud snort and typed something without looking at the screen. “Doubtful.”
    “Who are you hiding from?”
    Wariness stole through her eyes. “I’m not sure exactly.”
    “Then how do you know you need to hide at all?”
    “I just know.” She sat there for a second, her head tilted to the side, before she asked, “Can I trust you, Malcolm?”
    “Nay, Druid. You can no’.”

 
    CHAPTER
NINE
    Evie wasn’t sure if anyone had ever been so honest with her in her life. The stones didn’t like Malcolm about. It was obvious he didn’t want to be in Cairn Toul either.
    She gazed into eyes so blue it almost hurt to look at them. A lock of his golden hair fell over his forehead to tangle in his lashes, but he didn’t seem to notice.
    With a deep breath, she set her laptop and pillow on the coffee table and folded her hands in her lap. He was one of those rare men she could look at all day. It seemed every time she saw him there was another side of him.
    Today he seemed calmer, more intent on approaching her another way to get her to leave. He would learn soon enough she wasn’t going to budge. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t enjoying him being about.
    He was gorgeous with a magnificent physique that made her mouth water. To be so attracted to him was baffling. He was aloof, cold even, and his emotionless eyes would be off-putting if she hadn’t heard his seductive voice or felt that hard body beneath her palms.
    The problem was she had. “I want to know more about Deirdre.”
    “Why? So you can copy what she’s done?”
    “No,” she said and rolled her eyes. He was always thinking the worst. “I want to know because you can barely stomach to say her name, and the stones think she’s the greatest thing since the invention of whisky.”
    Was it her imagination or had there been a hint of a smile upon Malcolm’s lips? By his stoic expression, she had to have imagined it. Which was sad. She’d like to see him smile.
    “You’re in a bad place, Druid. Is that no’ enough for you to know?”
    She shook her head and got to her feet. Just as she hoped, Malcolm followed her into the bedchamber. She stopped at the wardrobe and looked over her shoulder to find him leaning against the doorway once more.
    Damn him for being so good-looking.
    Evie flung open the wardrobe and held out her hand to the garments within. “These clothes look pretty recent. How long ago was Deirdre here?”
    “She occupied this mountain for a thousand years. In the seventeenth century she jumped forward in time to present day. She was here a few months before she was killed.”
    Well. Evie hadn’t expected an answer, but she also recognized there was much more Malcolm wasn’t telling her. “Thank you. The stones say she was betrayed.”
    “She was.”
    “You know by who?”
    His nostrils flared. “I do.”
    “Will you tell me?” she asked, frustration edging her words.
    “I doona think you really want to know. Deirdre was evil. She sold her soul to Satan to become drough . Is that really someone you want to know?”
    Evie softly closed the wardrobe’s doors and faced him. “I don’t want to know because I want to emulate her. I want to know so I can make my own decisions about Deirdre, Cairn Toul, and my future. That isn’t too much to ask.”
    It seemed all Evie did was watch for some emotion, some sign that Malcolm felt anything. He was like a wall of stone, immovable and unmoving. What could turn a man so … cold?
    Somehow the reason for Malcolm’s animosity against her being in the mountain was in the telling of Deirdre’s story. But would it be enough to make her depart?
    “You willna leave no matter what I tell you,” he finally said.
    Evie looked around her. To some, the granite might seem