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eyes rounded. Waves of disbelief shot through her entire body. Worse, she could hear the rush of the wind and the crash of the sea. She also felt the scorching heat of flames all around her, the air even smelling of burnt ash and terrible things.
    Somehow—in the space of an eye blink—the illustration had come alive. Margo suspected Patience’s magic had gone awry again. Not that it mattered why she was seeing what she was. At the moment, it seemed real. Leaping flames were everywhere, raging up behind the enraged Highlander and even consuming the pages, the heat scalding her fingers.
    “That’s it!” Margo flung the book aside.
    She pressed both hands to her cheeks and stood, breathing hard. She would not accept the crazy spiral of madness whirling inside her.
    She didn’t care how many demon-shadows lurked in the aisles between the bookshelves or how often a painted Highlander chose to stride into the surf in his own illustration. She especially didn’t want to consider how drawn she’d felt to the hot-eyed chieftain. She’d not just felt the fires burning around him; she’d also experienced a flare of pure molten heat all through her body.
    And she was having none of such nonsense.
    Patience’s skills weren’t that formidable. And her mistakes brought on visitations from frogs, frost, and suchlike. Sexy, hot-eyed Highlanders with swords were not in Patience’s range of talent.
    Margo knew what ailed her.
    She simply had a vivid imagination. And, today, she’d also had a lethal dose of Dina Greed-itis.
    But she was okay now.
    The rain was lessening and already she could hear the muffled voices of people passing along the sidewalk, and the swish of car wheels on the road’s wet pavement. It was a perfectly ordinary October afternoon and even the shop seemed warm and welcoming again.
    Feeling better, she gave herself a shake and went to fetch the Viking book. It’d landed near a tiered display of tinkling tabletop fountains. And when she picked it up this time, nothing happened.
    No tingly thunderbolts burst into her fingers.
    The light didn’t dim and the floor stayed steady beneath her feet.
    Even so, before she returned the book to the shelf, she thumbed through its pages. It wouldn’t hurt to take one last peek at the illustration. She wasn’t surprised when she didn’t find it. In fact, there wasn’t anything even similar to what she’d seen.
    Margo let her fingers slide down the book’s spine.
    Its glossy-smooth cover felt so normal. Cool and smooth to the touch.
    She really had imagined everything.
    Too bad she was sure that the fearsome Highland warrior and the wild and rugged seaward coast where he’d stood would haunt her forever.
    And wasn’t that the story of her life?
    She might know Scotland better than anyone else.
    And her heart was certainly in the Highlands. But she only ever went there in her dreams.
    Now they’d never be enough again.
    She wanted that Highlander on the shore.
    A man the illustration’s caption had called Magnus MacBride, Viking Slayer.

Chapter 2
    Badcall Bay, the Northwest Highlands
    A chill autumn day, 1255
    “Did you know, Greer, that Norsemen say fate is inescapable?”
    Magnus MacBride, famed as the Viking Slayer, glanced at the big man standing near him at the water’s edge. Built like an ox and with a huge red beard, Godred Greer couldn’t know the fury coursing through Magnus’s veins. Though if the traitor had looked close, he might’ve seen a muscle twitch in Magnus’s jaw. Or the murder in Magnus’s eyes when he turned his gaze back to the dark blue line that marked the edge of the sea.
    As it was, Godred merely spat onto the sand. “I make my own path.”
    Magnus nodded. “So men say.”
    He stepped closer to the surf, pretending to watch the waves rolling in. In truth, the bloodlust was on him.
    Soon he’d do what he did so well, take vengeance and right terrible wrongs. Eager to begin, he opened and closed his fists and let his lips curve