Once Upon A Highland Legend by Tanya Anne Crosby

dens encircling a big hall. It was clear that the structure had seen better days, but they were busy making repairs. Already this morning the men were at work, hauling in timber, and now that they had abandoned the chieftain’s quarters, the noise level increased.
    A single door led out to a narrow pier that stretched out toward the shore. Once off the pier, Callum took her by the hand. Stunned by the gesture, Annie allowed it, wondering when the last time was that she’d held a man’s hand.
    While her thoughts were entirely pre-occupied with the strange way Callum made her feel, he led her across the vale and up a hill, apparently not caring that his kinsmen were all watching. They knew he liked her, and his actions only illustrated that fact—if only she could get him to admit it. “I really, really need my Winter Stone,” she fretted.
    “Dinna fash yerself, lass.”
    Annie had never really considered herself obsessive in nature, but clearly she was, because she seemed to have a one-track mind where Callum was concerned. “Where I come from, men only hold a woman’s hand if they like them.”
    “In that place ye say you’re from?” he asked without looking at her. “What is it? Merica?”
    “ A -merica,” Annie replied. And then she brooded, because he simply refused to confess. She couldn’t possibly be the only one experiencing these feelings? She had half a mind to throw herself at him and kiss him right here in the field. She combed her hair with her fingers and tried to find the nerve.
    In the bright light of day, the valley was gorgeous. Unsullied. The grass was still green and the sky was bluer than Annie had ever seen it. Yesterday’s storm had never come to fruition, but it didn’t appear this valley lacked for water. In fact, it was as rich and verdant as she’d ever seen it.
    She followed Callum up the hillside to an opening in a cave, where two surly men sat guarding the entrance. A sudden frisson of excitement flew through her, finally displacing her wayward thoughts. She had come here searching for a cave, and here one was…
    She turned to appraise the area, trying to calculate where she was.
    “Ye recall my uncle Brude?” Callum proffered, and the man, with his two-pronged beard, merely scowled at her. Callum gestured to the other, seated on his rump. “Angus,” he said, introducing them.
    Angus tipped his head, and cast a narrow-eyed glance at Brude. The two shared a look of surprise as Callum invited her within the cave. Neither voiced a complaint, however, and Annie surmised neither dared, despite his uncle’s dissention last night.
    “Where are we going?” she asked at his back, though she was beginning to sense she already knew, and her heart was pounding like a drum against her ribs. And for the first time since she’d arrived here, it had nothing to do with the man leading her through the maze of caves.
    Callum peered back at her, flashing perfect white teeth in the darkness of the cave—a smile any dentist would love. “I’m going to show ye what ye came to see…”

Chapter Nine

     
    The Stone of Destiny.
    Lia Fail , as it was hailed by the Irish.
    Callum’s people called it Clach-na-cinneamhain.
    Whatever it’s name, there it sat upon an altar made of rough hewn stone in the center of the deepest cave, with mist rising from unseen places.
    Even having braced herself for the sight of it, Annie wasn’t fully prepared.
    It didn’t glow with some holy light. It didn’t even look holy. It was just a big dark lump of volcanic rock…and yet…it was magnificent. Drawn to it like a magnet to metal, Annie bolted across the room. Thankfully, Callum didn’t hold her back.
    The stone, much darker than the one that sat beneath the chair in Westminster Abbey for seven hundred years, was smooth on top, polished by the years. She knew in every way that it was different because she had taken a thousand photos of that other one with her missing camera. And as she had suspected,