Highland Rake by Terry Spear Page B

her sleep, she wouldn't know about it, would she? Only others who might have heard her would realize she did such a thing. Watching the men in front of them to avoid looking at Dougald and giving herself away, she shook her head. "Nay."
    "That is true," Dougald said, agreeing cheerfully with her. "If you talked in your sleep you most likely wouldna remember."
    "I dinna talk in my sleep," she said, as if saying so would confirm that that's what it had to have been.
    "One time, I thought she was talking in her sleep, my sister that is, but she wasna," Dougald continued.
    Alana looked at him. His sister couldn't have spoken to ghosts, too, could she?
    Dougald's expression had darkened, but he didn't say anything further to explain what had happened.
    "'Tis going to rain," Connell warned.
    She glanced in Angus's direction but Connell was riding his borrowed ghostly horse next to her. He motioned to the sky. "They willna want to risk you getting sick. They will have to take you to the nearest village. It will be hours before you can travel again. Mayhap no' until the morrow. You could attempt to leave then. I could help you get home. Mayhap this is the verra reason I am here. To see you home like Da did."
    She opened her mouth to say something to him when he vanished, and she realized Angus was studying her. She clamped her lips shut and focused on the sky. The wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped several degrees. The sky had progressively darkened from a pale gray to ominous blue-gray, the clouds shifting and reshaping into mountains.
    "We willna make it," Angus said to Dougald.
    "Aye, but we are close now."
    "To Craigly Castle?" Alana asked. It was early morning. They weren't supposed to arrive there until nightfall.
    Dougald shook his head. "To a village near here. They have a tavern. We will stay there until the storm passes."
    So her brother had been right about Dougald taking them to the village.
    "The rain doesna bother me. We can keep riding," she said, afraid her brother would convince her to try to steal away from the tavern, and she'd get herself in more of a mess than she was in now.
    Dougald gave her a small smile. "It pleases me that you are so eager to reach Craigly Castle. But Angus, here, might catch his death. James would have my head for it. So we shall stop at the village."
    "Are you no' going to defend your honor against such a remark?" Alana asked Angus.
    He laughed. "Oh, aye, 'tis a bonny barmaid Dougald wishes to see. But I dinna mind that he uses me as his excuse."
    She gave Dougald a smug knowing smile, thinking back to his comment about women and loving one to the exclusion of all others to the lad. "Just one?" she asked Angus.
    He smiled back at her, and she realized he had the most wickedly charming smile just like Dougald. She imagined then all the brothers were the same.
    Within the hour, they were drenched, the rain coming down is such thick sheets, the men stayed close together so they would not lose sight of one another as they made their way to the village.
    Dougald had even taken hold of her reins to ensure he didn't lose her. She didn't believe he thought she'd run away, but that he might lose sight of her in the deluge.
    By the time they reached the tavern, she felt as though she weighed a hundred more pounds as wet as her clothes were. The ground was slippery and muddy, and Dougald gave up his reins and hers to one of the men, then helped her down from her horse, only he wasn't letting her go.
    She didn't mind. It was bad enough that she was soaking wet all the way to the skin, but she didn't want to add a layer of mud to that.
    He hurried her inside with all haste, his brother and Gunnolf leading the way, his cousin and a couple of the other men following behind them, the rest taking the horses to be stabled.
    As soon as they walked inside, the laughter and talking subsided and every eye was upon them. The place smelled of ale and mead and of something cooking, roasted boar, she