Blinking back the dream, she drew in a deep breath and looked at her phone. Amelia. Her friend and a fellow professor. She swiped and tapped the speaker. "Hey, Amelia."
"Dani? Are you okay?"
"Yes. Why?" She tried to sound normal.
"Munoz told me about your tooth. How is it?"
"Oh, fine. I came home, took a pain pill, and went to bed." Dani hoped lightning didn't strike her for the lies.
"You should've gone to a dentist."
"My dentist closes at five. I'll call tomorrow."
Dani couldn't tell happily married Amelia about her lucid dreams. She'd already tried to fix Dani up on three blind dates, which she'd refused. She detested the awkwardness of blind dates.
"I'm worried about you, Dani. You're in a fog half the time."
"That's crazy. I'm focusing on my career." Oh, crap. She didn't realize anyone had noticed she spent so much time daydreaming.
"Are you seeing someone?" Amelia's voice rang with suspicion.
"No. Why?"
"I don't know. You seem like you're in love or something. You're not seeing a married man, are you?"
"Are you kidding? That would be stupid." But probably not as stupid as obsessing over an imaginary man.
After talking for a few more minutes, they said goodbye. Dani rolled over in bed and closed her eyes, relaxing back into the daydream. The sexy scent of his skin settled over her like a fine mist. She loved the warmth of his hard body lying next to hers. He covered her with a woolen plaid and pulled her tight against his solid muscled chest.
"If only you were real," she whispered, then looked up into his eyes to ask his name and where she could find him, but he started loving her all over again.
Chapter 4
Western Highlands of Scotland, July 1630
Opening his eyes in the predawn darkness, Gavin awoke from yet another lust-filled dream of a bonny, dark-haired lass. Who was she?
He'd had the dreams almost every night for the past couple of months. Damnation! It had been too long since he'd bedded a woman.
But none wanted to lie with the devil.
He shoved himself out of bed, strode to the basin, and washed his face with cold water. Drying it on a piece of linen, he glanced out the open window at the craggy peaks of the Highlands and the first rosy trace of dawn glimmering over the eastern mountains.
It wouldn't be long until the curse ensnared him again, as it did every day at sunrise.
Over a year had passed since Wilona had cast her foul spell, and each day his life grew more dismal. He didn't see a way out of this hellish predicament, despite seeking help from a wise woman and a physician. Torr and Brodie suffered similar dilemmas, though their situations differed from his.
A yell echoed from down the corridor, the ravings of a madman—his father. One day that would be Gavin, talking to ghosts and shadows. But likely, when he sank to that level, he would have no roof over his head. Or else his sparse clan would lock him in the dungeon to die alone. Since he had no heir, his greedy, grasping cousin would become laird.
By necessity, his father had ceded the chieftainship to Gavin last year when the madness intensified. Da could not even leave his bed most days.
"Damnation!" Gavin smashed his fist against the lid of the trunk. 'Twas the worst part of the vile spell to see his father suffering so. There had to be a way out of this pit.
'Twas Alpin's fault Gavin, his da, and the whole MacTavish clan had been burdened with so much misery and misfortune. "The craven whoreson." Gavin threw back the trunk's lid and drew a plaid from inside. After belting the fabric around his waist, he strode from the bedchamber and down the corridor toward his father's room.
"There you are, lad… er, I mean, m'laird," Crocker Loch said, his sparse gray hair sticking out in all directions in the candlelight. "Thanks be to God. He's a right lunatic this morn. Asking for you, he is."
"What the devil is wrong with him?" Gavin stepped inside the chamber.
