Free The Charm Stone by Donna Kauffman

But she was stuck here and the island wasn't big enough to hide from him. So she was going to have to find a way to deal with him and this MacNeil legend he was hung up on. He actually seemed harmless enough, unless you counted the threat to her libido. All she had to do was placate him until the ferryman came back.
    Visions of how she could simultaneously placate him
and
her suddenly active libido immediately sprang to mind. She just as immediately shoved them right back out again. She was as open to an island fling with a gorgeous Scot as the next red-blooded, all-American female, but an island fling with a gorgeous-but-wacko Scot was probably not a good idea.
    So she kept on walking.
    “Yer runnin’ again.”
    “I'm walking,” she clarified. Confidently walking.
Away from the man that I would certainly never have wild, uncontrollable, roll-around-in-his-tower sex with.
She sighed. But she kept on walking.
    “Ye canno’ challenge the Fates, lass.”
    “Oh, yes I can,” she said. Walking, walking.
    “Turn around then, and let me prove to ye that there are things with no explanation, yet they exist anyway.”
    Don't turn around. Walking, walking.
Dammit, she was turning. She propped the board on her head. “Go ahead. Knock yourself out.”
    “I beg yer pardon?”
    “It's an expression. You really have been in that tower a long time, haven't you?”
    “Three hundred years, almost to the day.”
    Three hundred years. Okeydokey. Definitely wacko. But she'd known that already, right? So why did hearing him say it depress her more than scare her?
Because you're still harboring illusions of hot tower sex, that's why.
Well, she was over that now. He didn't think he was a descendant of The MacNeil, he thought he
was
The MacNeil. So much for lust among the ruins.
    “Yeah, okay then,” she said, backing up the beach. “It's been nice.” If unreal. Backing, backing.
    “Ye doubt the Fates? Well, lass, I dinna have time to bring ye around to the truth of it slowly. So I'll just get right to the heart of it. Ye brought me the stone, and now 'tis time to—”
    “I know, I know. I appreciate the story, really I do. I'm flattered even. But I just wanted to return it to its rightful owner. That's all I signed on for, and I've done that now. So I'd really appreciate it if we can just say good-bye, okay?”
    “Why no’ just toss the thing back in the ocean then?”
    “How do you know I found it in the ocean?”
    “Bagan regaled me with the tale last eve.”
    “I told you why I kept it. I wanted to make sure it got back to its owner. That's all. End of story.”
    “How do you explain me, then? And Bagan?”
    She couldn't explain Bagan, nor did she want to. “You believe you're The MacNeil. I have no problem with that. You're out here, not harming anyone, so all's well, right?”
    “I am The MacNeil. Or, more precisely, I am the ghost of The MacNeil. Either way, we're one and the same.”
    Well, she had to keep talking to him, didn't she? She would have been safer sticking with Bagan. A ghost. Lovely. “I'm going inside now.” She would have waved, but she was holding her board, soshe smiled in what she hoped was a friendly, I'm-not-terrified-that-I'm-talking-to-a-total-whack-job way.
    “I offered ye proof, did I no’?”
    “Yep, you did, but that's okay. I'm a total believer. Not in the baby-bearing thing,” she quickly added. “But if you say you're a ghost, who am I to argue?” She was backing away more quickly now, unwilling to turn her back on him, but not willing to stand there a moment longer.
    A moment later she wished she had turned her back. Because then she could have kept right on telling herself that he was the crazy one, and that she was perfectly sane.
    But a perfectly sane person wouldn't see a soaking wet Scot disappear right before her eyes. A perfectly sane person would look at the sand where he'd been standing and see footprints. A perfectly sane person would desperately believe that it had