The Heather and the Plaid, page 1
Table of Contents
Books by Raven McAllan
Title Page
Legal Page
Book Description
Dedication
Trademark Acknowledgements
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
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Diomhair
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With Cassie O’Brien
The Scots and the Sassenachs
The Earl of Callander’s Secret Bride
Castle on the Loch
THE HEATHER AND THE PLAID
RAVEN MCALLAN
The Heather and the Plaid
ISBN # 978-1-83943-582-9
©Copyright Raven McAllan 2022
Cover Art by Erin Dameron-Hill ©Copyright March 2022
Interior text design by Claire Siemaszkiewicz
Totally Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2022 by Totally Bound Publishing, United Kingdom.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorised copies.
Totally Bound Publishing is an imprint of Totally Entwined Group Limited.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book”.
Book two in the
Castle on the Loch series
History, family, fate. Accept it or deny it at your will. To have a future, they need to make peace with the past.
Condemned to a half-life for helping to protect Bonnie Prince Charlie, the only way Lachlan Stuart can live properly is to find someone who trusts and believes in him in the present day.
That person is Bonnie Drummond, who is not best pleased at having her peaceful life disturbed.
Especially when she discovers just what he wants her to do—and that it appears there are more powerful entities who will stop at nothing to ensure she doesn’t succeed.
Can Lachlan and Bonnie achieve what’s needed and get the happiness they both deserve, or is he condemned to forever be on the outside?
Dedication
To Paul, Ann, all at Totally Bound
and The RavDor Chicks—
Thank you all for your support.
Trademark Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Pinocchio: Carlo Colladi
Google: Google LLC
I Am What I Am: Jerry Herman
Evanescence: Lee, Amy
Lost in Paradise: Amy Lee
Dead March: George Frideric Handel
Saul: George Frideric Handel
Flower of Scotland: Roy Williamson
Prologue
Scotland 1746
No birds sang, no animal scurried in the undergrowth. Even the air was silent.
The world shrank to be her and the man she loved. Just the two of them.
She watched as the boat sailed away. With him. Not with her.
Away from their future.
He stood in the stern, legs apart to steady himself. His plaid—tattered, bloodied but still worn with pride—unmoving around his legs, as if in mourning. His long hair danced in the wind, and one hand lifted in farewell.
His words floated over the water to her.
“Until the yellow’s on the broom and heather blooms on our isle and we meet again, my love.”
She sighed and blew him a kiss. “Stay safe, my love. I’ll wait for you.” Brave words, even then she knew she would be waiting until the day she died. He fought and aided their prince. That came first.
She cradled her stomach where their unborn child—or children—kicked, secure in the knowledge he or she was wanted and loved. Their father might need to be absent from Scottish shores, but their mother would be with them.
And she, witch that she was, would be sure no harm befell them.
She might not be able to protect her lover on Scottish soil, but their children, and she knew there was more than one in her womb, were a different matter. They, she would defend with her life if need be.
A few months previous the ’45, the Jacobite Rebellion, had ended with their defeat at Culloden, and those spared now scattered far and wide. Chased by the English.
For the women whose lives were shattered it wouldn’t be easy.
For her, it meant a whole new way of life.
She climbed onto her horse and set a course south. For the Castle on the Loch. Where she knew without doubt the heather would never bloom or the yellow come on the broom.
But where she would be welcomed, and her children be loved and safe.
Morven, her guide and mentor, told her so.
Chapter One
Present Day
“No, no and even more so no.” Bonnie Drummond folded her arms and glared at the tall, long-haired man in front of her. “Get that into your thick head. Watch my lips. N…O… No.”
His dark, almost black, grey eyes twinkled as he laughed at her, lifted her and swung her around in a circle. Her multi-coloured scarf tangled about her neck and arms, and one tasselled end hit her on her nose. It stung.
“Ooft, no.” She blew a rogue tassel off her cheek. “Yuk, noooo.”
“Bonnie, my love, you’re awfy fond of that wee word and you don’t mean it. Yes, yes and even more so yes. We’ll do it. You’ll love it.”
“Lachlan Stuart, don’t you dare.” Brave words, because she knew he would. “I’ll be sick.”
“Sick? My brave Bonnie? Never and if you are then…”
Then?
Where are we?
She strained to see him, twisted and turned and…
Woke up as she fell out of bed.
“Of all the stupid, idiotic, ridiculous…argh.” Bonnie unwound the sheet—she’d been too hot to use the duvet and had put a sheet over her instead, which somehow was wrapped around her like a shroud—kicked it away and stood up, yawning. “Enough is enough. Give me a break.”
Yet another night of broken sleep. Of dreams and conversation with someone called Lachlan. Lachlan Stuart. “Why Lachlan Stuart? What’s it all about? Whose life was I in?”
The name seemed familiar—probably from being told it in her dreams—but she didn’t know anyone called that in reality. “Crazy statement,” she muttered. “In fact, the whole thing is.”
“Not at all.”
That was all she needed. The mystery voice in her head adding its tenpenn’orth. Shut up, and don’t butt in where you’re not concerned.
“Oh, but I am. Concerned. Really, Bonnie. Use your senses.”
She ignored that. She was using them, wasn’t she? How else would he have invaded her mind?
The laugh that echoed round the room made her scowl. Something screwy was going on and she didn’t like it one bit. Bonnie admitted she hated not being in charge of every part of her life. Why, when she acknowledged she was a ’seer’, someone who could hear voices, sense things, see happenings—in both the past and, she assumed, though it was never verified, the future—did one new voi
Bonnie accepted her thoughts and dreams as part of her. Until recently those thoughts and dreams had been positive, mild even. Rarely about herself, more often about her close family. Sometimes about people she didn’t know and subsequently met. Those, though, didn’t unsettle her like this one had. Enough to wake her up sweating.
All her life she’d had conversations in her mind. Chatted to herself, so to speak. Argued and got the conclusion she wanted. Usually. The times she hadn’t she tried to rationalize.
Now, though… Now she couldn’t explain what she heard and thought. Nor, she decided, could she share those conversations with her parents. It was fine as a teenager, asking why she had silent conversations, could magic things to move—sometimes—and see and hear what other people thought—on occasion. But not why you were convinced you’d made love with someone who spoke softly to you in a language akin to but not the same as Gaelic, and you understood them. Experienced the sensations of heat and arousal as they caressed you. Sensed them fill you and rejoiced when you moved together as one hot, aroused and powerful entity. Saw stars as you climaxed and heard him shout his completion.
Not the sort of information she chose to share with anyone—especially her parents.
Her dad would have a conniption, her mum ask for more details, and if they passed the information on to her brother, Baird, she daren’t think what might happen. He was a bit ‘act now, think later’ when it applied to his sisters. How Marcail, the eldest, had managed to meet, make love with and marry her husband was one of life’s unsolved—or untold—mysteries.
Bonnie headed for the shower and ruminated over what she needed to achieve that day.
First thing on her mental list was to decide on the colours of the plaid she was making for her nephew’s first birthday. Once she had a rough idea about that, she intended to get stuck in and write a synopsis that made sense for her next paranormal mystery and romance book series. For a week or so it had been simmering in the back of her mind. Now she thought—hoped—she had the plot fixed, and a rough idea of how her characters looked. Tier traits and characteristics.
“Like me.”
Where had that thought popped up from? ‘Like me’ who? She mentally shrugged. In general her heroes came out of her imagination and not from seeing someone in the papers or walking down a street.
No one had been more surprised than Bonnie when a dare by Baird—to enter a competition where you wrote a thousand-word hint-of-intrigue snippet for a magazine competition—had culminated in her being asked to expand the story, and subsequently being offered a three-book contract. She hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, except Baird, and he had been sworn to secrecy. When the first book had come out, under the name of Belle Scott, she’d casually asked her mum—who had been kneading dough—if she’d read it.
Her mum had shaken her head and put her dough to prove. ‘Should I have?’
Bonnie’s heart had sunk. ‘Just wondered.’
‘Ah, okay. The book club are interested. I’ve read an excerpt. It sounds great, and I’ve got it on my ‘buy next time I go online’ list. I reckon it will be right up my street. Hope to get it in the next day or so.’
Bonnie had grinned. ‘No need. Here you are.’ She’d handed a paperback to her bemused parent. ‘I reckon if you think about it, you might realise you know the author.’ Then she’d headed home in a hurry and immersed herself in weaving a cloth she’d decided to use to make Christmas presents. As ever, the simple repetition of working her loom had soothed her and as she’d weaved, she’d plotted, so by the time her mum had appeared at her door several hours later, she had almost forgotten she’d handed the book over.
‘Bonnie, its fabulous,’ her mum had exclaimed as she shared one of her gorgeous and jealously rationed homemade loaves with Bonnie. ‘You did write it, didn’t you? I wasn’t sure at first, but little things gave it away.’ She’d grinned. ‘Now I want it signed.’
‘How did you guess?’ Bonnie had chuckled and resisted the impulse to punch the air.
‘Your choice of words. Often those we use as a family for one, and then Belle for Bonnie and Scott because you’re Scottish?’
Bonnie had nodded. ‘Baird bet me to enter a competition. I couldn’t believe it when I was offered a three-book contract. I’m plotting book three now.’
‘Book three? What about book two?’ Her mum had appeared confused. ‘What’s happened to that?’
‘That’s gone off for editing. This next one is the last in the series. Hot, sexy hero. You’ll love him. He’s everything any woman wants all rolled into one sex-on-legs body.’
“Thank you.”
Bonnie almost jumped. A new voice in her head? I was going to say like my dad.
“That sounds dodgy.”
Not to my mum, and who are you anyway?
“You’ll soon discover that.”
‘Bonnie?’ Her mum had looked at her in concern. ‘Are you okay? You look a bit peely wally.’ A Scottish expression for pale. ‘I was saying how proud of you we are. And to keep it a secret. Amazing. You’ve never been able to do that before. You and secrets were like water in a leaky bucket.’
Damn it, she’d been away with the fairies—her family expression for deep in thought. Or was that thoughts? ‘Gee, thanks, Mum. I’ve been called a lot of things but never a leaky bucket before.’
‘Sorry, love, but you just…went. And not as if you were in seer mode, if you get me. Sort of…’ She’d paused, obviously trying to find the right words.
‘Peely wally, I get you. Sorry, thinking about lots of things at once. Probably forget most of them.’ Especially pesky new voices.
“Ouch.”
Her mum had laughed. ‘I’ll buy you some notebooks.’
Bonnie still used notebooks for emergency ideas and when she was out and about. ‘Great stuff, I’m on my last one. The one that says watch it or you’ll die a gruesome death in my next book.’
“No gruesome deaths needed any more. I’ll remind you.”
That had been a while before.
To her annoyance, that sexy voice in her head was now a regular occurrence. When she’d started to think about her series, which she had decided was to be set on an imaginary island in the same loch as she lived on, one name had kept coming to mind.
Lachlan. Lachlan Stuart.
She had no idea why. Her hero she had decided to call Frazer, her heroine Louise.
“Lachlan is better.”
For my heroine? She had to be perverse. I don’t think so.
“Ha, silly, ha. You know what I mean, or if not, you will. Soon. Know what I mean and know me.”
It wasn’t helpful being told that with no explanation as to why. Even so, Bonnie scribbled the name in her notebook, along with bairns, bodies, books and bribery. Where had all that come from? Used to the vagaries of her wandering mind, she mentally shrugged and carried on making an omelette. It would or wouldn’t be clear before long. Meanwhile she’d eat then go out in the boat to decide where to put the island and see if any colours hit her for her plaid.
It might have sounded daft to some people, but it made sense to her. The water, the scenery, helped her so often. She often thought she could have been a water sprite. It had made her laugh when she was told, very firmly, no chance—she liked chocolate too much.
“I need the purple of the heather, the blue of the loch on a misty day, the yellow of the broom and the green of the pines.”
It was time to put Mr New Voice into his place.
Well, it’s not up to you, whoever you are. You’ve never told me that before so tough. In fact, you’ve told me b. all. You just issue orders. Which I tell you, I’m going to ignore. This is my creation for my nephew so butt out and bugger off. She sneezed. Bloody pollen.
“Naughty. Bless you.” Male laughter echoed around her kitchen. “I haven’t said much, have I? You’ll find out soon enough.”
She didn’t bother to reply. The last thing she wanted was to start arguing with a voice in her head, especially when she had no idea what the darned voice was all about.
