Free Falling in Time by Sue-Ellen Welfonder

CHAPTER ONE
     
    Talmine
Village
    Scotland’s
Far North, the Present
     
    Precious lass. You’re mine, do
you hear me?
    I won’t – I can’t - live without
you.
    Lindy Lovejoy, American tourist and
expert on all things Scottish, heard the words in her mind. But they were real
enough to make her heart thump against her ribs. Her breath caught, too, and
her stomach went all fluttery. In fact, if she weren’t sitting on her bed,
bolstered by pillows and surrounded by maps and writing paraphernalia, she was
sure she’d melt into a puddle on the plaid-carpeted floor.
    She did tilt her head and close her
eyes, concentrating.
    Her room, surely the tiniest in the
entire bed-and-breakfast inn, was quiet. Darkness came early on autumn nights
in Scotland and if anyone occupied the room next to hers, they weren’t making
any noise. Outside, the wind had risen and fluting gusts whistled round the
eaves and soughed down the narrow road beneath her window. A glance in that
direction – she hadn’t yet bothered to close the curtains – showed a steady
rain just beginning to fall.
    But she could still hear the man’s
voice. Deep, richly-burred, and dangerously seductive, his words slid through
her like smooth, sun-warmed honey.
    I’ll ne’er let you go, sweetness .
    Lindy bit her lip, listening. He’d
breathed the endearment as if he were right beside her, his chin grazing her
hair and his breath warm against her cheek.
    He was definitely a Highlander.
    And he spoke with the kind of
fill-her-with-shivers Scottish accent she thought of as a verbal orgasm.
    Too bad he was a product of her
imagination.
    Lore MacLaren.
    Hero of the Scottish medieval
romance she’d been working on for years and that had only been rejected by –
she opened her eyes and frowned – every agent and editor in the industry. At
least the ones she’d targeted so carefully.
    Not that it’d done her any good.
    Biting back a curse she was not
going to let pass her lips, she tucked her hair behind an ear and willed her
character to stop talking to her.
    Now wasn’t the time for guilty
pleasures.
    Even if she was sure that having
such a hot real-seeming, full-bodied hero – a Highland hero, for heaven’s sake!
– had to be something really special in the super competitive business of
writing and selling romance novels.
    Lore MacLaren would have to wait
until her vacation was over.
    The research trip that – she just
knew – was going to result in her big breakthrough into publishing. She plucked
at a loose thread on the bed’s tartan duvet, almost afraid to acknowledge how
much time, money, and effort she’d vested in her plans. Anyone even halfway
familiar with karma, knew how easy it was to jinx oneself.
    But still….
    Life could seem so unfair.
    Some authors hit New York running.
    She’d tried that and failed. Doing
everything right and following all the rules had gotten her nowhere. Now she
was going to take a detour.
    If Heather Aflame wasn’t
wowing the powers-that-be, she’d knock them sideways with The Armchair
Enthusiast’s Guide to Mythical Scotland. In lyrical but concise,
easy-to-follow language, she’d regale readers with insider tips on everything
from how to drive left to finding hidden away entrances to Neolithic chambered
tombs and other little known sites that most tourists never see.
    Aspiring writers and maybe even
some published authors would snatch the book off the shelves. Agents and
editors would be impressed, enquiring if she didn’t want to pour her knowledge
into Scottish romance.
    She’d sell Lore at last.
    A fantastic two-book deal would be hers. She could then quit her job at Ye Olde Pagan Times, the New Age shop in her hometown of New
Hope, Pennsylvania, where she worked such long hours some of the regulars often
asked if she slept on a cot in the back room.
    She’d never again have to urge
someone to buy a sneeze-inducing bundle of bad-vibes-chasing sage.
    Or suffer the equally pungent smell
of some of the