Free The Enchantress by May McGoldrick

unceasing demands for a plan to do this and a plan to do that, served to stir life within him.
    The stinging wind hammered him as he rode down onto the beach. The sea and sky--what he could see of either--were a fierce gray-green color, and he shook his head, feeling himself growing angry at the direction his thoughts were going.
    William had left in the morning to avoid this. He’d left her sound asleep, a heap of cloak and blanket, because he knew he needed to get away. Distance--that’s what was called for--before she awakened and he fell further under her spell. She was a damned enchantress.
    Aye, distance was the answer. His own past--a past that still gnawed at him--had taught him that this was only one way to deal with the likes of her. True, she was not Mildred, but the woman came from the same privileged life and upbringing.
    Reaching up, he felt the lumps and the clotted blood beneath his tam. Then again, for a wee thing she could swing a rock as well as any Scottish lass.
    “By Duthac’s Shirt,” he swore out loud. He’d been away from women too long! That was it. That was the whole problem. “Dread, we’re going to pay a visit to Molly at the Three Cups once we’re free of this arrogant court chit.”
    Aye, he nodded, turning the steed toward the hut. That was all he needed to forget Laura Percy.
    Leaping from the horse, William quickly brushed the worst of the snow off Dread and shook himself. Looking up, he realized the snow was falling even heavier than before.
    The Highlander pushed open the door flap and began to lead the horse in. But Dread was only halfway inside the hut when William realized that Laura Percy was not there.
    He called out to her, but the sharp whistle of the wind was his only answer. Pushing the horse back out the door, he called again. Nothing.
    Searching the ground, the Highlander could see now the soft impressions in the snow. A single track of footprints showed that she had indeed left the hut on her own.
    Following the tracks back down onto the beach, the Ross laird looked about in frustration. The waves were crashing high on the beach, and the spray filled the air. He could see nothing. As soon as he was beyond the protection of the bluffs, the footprints disappeared, obliterated by the snow and wind. She had not passed him on the beach, and the bluffs would not have offered an easy climb in the best of conditions. Her only route led to the north.
    “Damn the woman!” William swore, running back to the hut and leaping onto his waiting steed.

CHAPTER 7
     
    Laura stood in stunned disbelief beside the broad gray-green river and stared at the churning, wind-whipped froth of white on its surface.
    No longer even aware of the shudders that were wracking her body, she lifted her gaze gloomily to the towers of Rumster Castle rising in the distance beyond the impassable stretch of water.
    Seeing the river jolted her for only a moment out of the numbing weariness that had crept into her body. She vaguely recalled being cold, but now she could not even feel that. As her disappointment dissipated, she realized she simply wanted to lie down on the soft white ground and sleep.
    Nay, a nagging voice called out. Follow the river until you find a place to cross. There must be a place to cross. There must be a place.
    But Laura’s body was growing too numb to respond immediately to the commands from her brain. She stood, her body slumped and shaking, her eyes hardly even able to focus on the great stone edifice across the water.
    After leaving the hut, she had stubbornly pushed on through the storm, always keeping her destination in mind, always certain that the castle would suddenly appear. But as she trudged on with increasing fatigue, the wetness of the snow and ice had gradually seeped into her clothes, chilling her until her thoughts began to grow fuzzy, until the world around her began to take on a vague, distorted, dreamlike quality. Until it slowly registered in her brain that she