The Dark Highlander
Page 6

But she especially loved all things Scottish, as they reminded her of the grandfather who’d raised her. When her parents died in a car accident, Evan MacGregor swooped in and took the broken four-year-old to a new home in Kansas. Proud of his heritage, endowed with a passionate Scots temperament, he imbued her with his love for all things Celtic. It was a dream of hers to one day journey to Glengarry, to see the town in which he’d been born, to visit the church in which he’d wed Gran, to stroll the heathery moors beneath a silvery moon. She had her passport ready, waiting for that lovely stamp; she just had to save enough money.
It might take her another year or two, especially now with the cost of living in New York, but she would get there. And she couldn’t wait. As a child she’d been lulled to sleep on countless nights by her grandfather’s soft burr, as he’d woven fantastic tales of his homeland. When he died five years ago she’d been devastated. Sometimes, alone at night in The Cloisters, she found herself talking aloud to him, knowing that—though he would have hated city life even more than she did—he would have loved her choice of career. Preserving the artifacts and the old ways.
Her eyes narrowed as Tom’s laughter shattered her reverie. He was chuckling over her swift transition from outrage to wonder. She caught herself and pasted a scowl on her face again. It wasn’t hard. A stranger was going to be touching a priceless text. Unsupervised. Who knew what might happen to it?
“Yes, I have them already, Chloe. And I didn’t ask your opinion of my methods. Your job is to manage the records—”
“Tom, I have my master’s in ancient civilizations and speak as many languages as you do. You’ve always said my opinion counts. Does it or doesn’t it?”
“Of course it counts, Chloe,” Tom said, sobering swiftly. He removed his glasses and began polishing them with a tie that sported its usual accumulation of coffee stains and jelly-donut crumbs. “But if I hadn’t agreed, he was going to donate the blades to the Royal Museum of Scotland. You know how stiff the competition is for quality artifacts. You understand the politics. The man is wealthy, he’s generous, and he has quite a collection. We might be able to coax him to draw up some sort of bequest upon his death. If he wants a few days with a five-hundred-year-old text, one of the lesser-valued ones at that, he’s going to get it.”
“If he so much as gets one popcorn smudge on the pages, I’m going to kill him.”
“Precisely why I coaxed you here to work for me, Chloe; you love these old things as much as I do. And I acquired two more treasures today, so be a dear and deliver the text.”
Chloe snorted. Tom knew her too well. He’d been her professor of medieval history at the University of Kansas before he’d assumed a position as cocurator. A year ago he’d tracked her down where she’d been working at a depressing excuse for a museum in Kansas, and offered her a job. Though it had been hard to leave the home she’d grown up in, filled with so many memories, a chance to work at The Cloisters was not to be missed, no matter the extreme culture shock she’d suffered. New York was sleek and hungry and worldly, and in the sophisticated thick of it, the girl from rural Kansas felt hopelessly gauche.
“What, am I supposed to just walk outside with this thing tucked under my arm? With the Gaulish Ghost running around out there?” Lately there’d been a rash of thefts of Celtic manuscripts from private collections. The media had dubbed the thief the Gaulish Ghost because he stole only Celtic items and left no clues behind, appearing and disappearing like a wraith.
“Have Amelia package it up for you. My car’s waiting out front. Bill has the man’s name and address. He’ll drive you there and circle the block while you run it up. And don’t harass the man when you deliver it,” he added.
Chloe rolled her eyes and sighed, but gently collected the text. As she was walking out, Thomas said, “When you get back I’ll show you the blades, Chloe.”
His tone was soothing but amused, and it pissed her off. He knew she would hurry back to see them. Knew she would overlook his spurious acquisition methods one more time.
“Bribery. Abject bribery,” she muttered. “And it won’t make me approve of what you do.” But already she was aching to touch them. To run a finger down the cool metal, to dream of ancient times and ancient places.
Nurtured on Midwest values, an idealist to the core, Chloe Zanders had a weakness, and Tom knew it. Put something ancient in her hands and she was seduced.
And if it was ancient and Scottish? Sheesh, she was a goner.