Read The Legend Mackinnon for Free Online

the one breaking my back.” She looked at the trunk sitting at her feet. “I don’t suppose you could help me out here. Like blink this thing inside. All your poofing stuff in and out ought to be good for something.”
    Well clear, he repeated silently, disgruntled to find himself actually having to take a step back to his original spot. “I’ll no’ be draggin’ a Claren trunk into my home.”
    “It’s no’ your
hoome
,” she said in a poor imitation of him. “It’s our hoome, at least for now. And since you have a whole Claren human draggin’ hersel’ into yer hoome, what difference can a measly Claren trunk make?”
    “I didna say you couldna have the trunk inside, lassie. I merely said I wouldna be helpin’ ye wi’ it.”
    She let out a heavy breath. “I guess it’s long past time for me to stop relying on men anyway.” She bent to the task of grabbing a worn leather handle, dismissing him entirely. “You’d think I’d have learned that lesson well enough by now.”
    He gritted his teeth as she pulled on the strap, the strain showing in her shoulders and in her face. A grunt escaped her clenched jaw as, with a mighty effort, she moved it two entire centimeters. She turned and grabbed the strap with both hands and pulled in another breath. Another mightytug … and she went flying back onto her rump when the strap gave way with a rending thwack. A smile twitched his lips, but he quickly tamed it.
    Without so much as a look in his direction, she stood and brushed herself off and walked to the back of her car. She bent inside and began digging about.
    He should be inside tending the fire. It was getting damnable cold outside. During his time in purgatory there was no physical sensation since he had no physical self. But for his one month annual term on earth he was essentially mortal, inasmuch as he regained usage of all the human sensations. Yet he could never seem to get warm enough and he spent the entire month chilled to the bone. Perhaps They thought to remind him of the dank cold of Stonelachen, the MacKinnon stronghold on the Isle of Skye. He rubbed his palms along his arms. In his mortal life, he didn’t recall ever feeling the cold quite like this. Perhaps a specter’s blood did not heat a man like lifeblood did.
    The slamming of the hatchback snapped his attention back to her. She stomped back over to the trunk, then walked around it once, then again, all the while ignoring him as if he didn’t exist.
    As the second son to Calum MacKinnon, he was used to being accorded the full, respectful attention of every man, woman, and child whose presence he encountered. Yet Maggie ignored him as easily as if he were a … a.… A ghost. Bah! To hell with the Clarens.
    Duncan scowled and began to turn away, then stilled, caught by the sudden change in her expression. Her eyes lit up and a smile spread her lips wide, making her features somehow glow, even on such a gloomy day. She looked little like her ancestor, but then, he couldn’t say what Mairi would have looked like had she ever smiled.
    Maggie wasn’t as delicately made as Mairi. She was broader of shoulder, a bit squarer of jaw. Her hair was a darker brown and her eyes a shade lighter blue. But it washer mouth that defined the true difference, and her beauty, if truth be told. Where Mairi’s mouth had been small and bow-shaped, Maggie’s was wide and even. Where Mairi’s usually had been cool, her lips pulled into a tight, disapproving line, Maggie’s was alive and inviting, always animated and usually moving, no matter her disposition. And in their brief acquaintance, he’d seen her in many forms.
    This look of joy, however, was a new one to him. He didn’t at all like it. It did odd things to the beat of his heart.
    She scrambled back to the car, yanking open the passenger door and diving into the glove box. She emerged triumphant, a small manila envelope clutched in her hand and, once again, turned her back to him as she knelt