Page 1 of Boats, Moats, & Root Beer Floats

CHAPTER ONE

LINDY

Half of my holiday home crumbled into itself. Winton Castle’s ruin stood stark against the mist that hid Inverie, the most remote town in the Scottish Highlands, from sight. Or at least, so my printed tour guide proclaimed as I clung to the rail of the Knoydart Western Isles Ferry that chugged across Loch Nevis.

Muggy air adhered salt to my skin in a way that told me I would never quite be free of it despite the frigid bite to the wind that whipped white caps across the water’s surface. The castle perched on an outcrop just offset from the town as though it wasn’t quite included on the peaceful shores of the waterway literally named for heaven. Instead, the foreboding, ancient structure nestled into the rugged, romantic landscape, a semi-ruin, if such a thing could be coined.

Either way, the castle’s bleak facade looked like the perfect place for a not-quite starving artist to secure her runaway muse for the silly season post a long overdue break from heartache.

My muse, because mine deserted me sometime around March and deigned not to return, leaving me with a studio of blank canvases in southern California and an increasingly fracturing mind.

Hence the trip halfway around the world to a place where even cars had to travel across the loch on the ferry to reach the small town. I’d be walking up to the castle and, though a fitness regime wasn’t part of my holiday outline, determination featured heavily.

A Christmas castle holiday was for me.

The brisk wind whipped up around me fast transforming into a gale as I hummed a Christmas carol that only a tone deaf sailor would recognize. The ferry’s pilot, who only reluctantly let the annoying American woman who wouldn’t take no for an answer out onto the bow of his boat in weather that would ruffle the most stubborn gerbil, waved from inside his glassed box. Retreating from the only fresh air on the vessel with a modicum of grace, I headed back inside, and waited my turn to alight the boat.

One point six miles from the town, bearing my luggage which seemed inordinately heavy at the kilometer mark according to the jaunty sign that proclaimed I only had two of thewee thingsto go, walking up the hill to the castle seemed less like a healthy option and more like my personal idea of hell.

Puffing, panting and certain I left at least one bodily organ and possibly a lung back on the gritty roadway that led up to the crag overlooking the loch I stopped at the castle’s sign that readWITNOT CASTLE. Lips pursed, I held up my guide side by side in numbed fingers. My phone confirmed the blunder. They all clearly stated WINTON CASTLE.

Ghost of Christmas Present, you better not be screwing with me.

Eyes scrunched shut and praying I hadn’t walked the last three mil—kilometers for no good reason, and that I wouldn’t have to traverse them again with all my art supplies tucked beneath my arms—I took that last step into the castle yard and stopped.

No thunder crashed. No lightning cracked against the crumbling stone structure that looked a whole lot crumblier up close. My holiday was not, in fact, doomed, no matter how it felt from this angle.

I was determined to enjoy my castle Christmas holiday. Maybe even with a sprinkling of snow if I could wrangle it.

“Hello, the haunted house,” I called, yanking my suitcase to the bottom of the paler-than-slate gray step, and stamped a boot on its unyielding surface for emphasis. “Miss Bettina Bromridge. Please tell me you’re at home.”

Mind, the castle was as big as they came, as far as castles went. If Bettina, the host I paid in advance for my stay atWITNOT—my blunders were adding up fast without transport in sight—was in residence as agreed, she could be anywhere in the stone building or grounds. Those likely extended well beyond my vocal range. I could yell at the top of my lungs, and she still wouldn’t hear me.

Nor would the town, though I assumed there were a few busybodies who might drive up later.

I hoped.

“Bettina? I’m coming in?” I warned, giving the door an experimental push.

The solid wood was the only thing I could see that looked remotely decent, but it creaked on needy hinges as it swung inward.

That’s not creepy or cliche at all.

“Bettina?” I called again, fully expecting a cow to answer me.

Somewhere along the hall, something tinkled.

“Not cool, ghostie,” I muttered.

Another tinkle that sounds too close to an answer for my liking.

Damnit, if this kept up, I'd need to find the loo and fast, stuff Bettina and her ghost’s hospitality. My practiced Brit Ipicked up at Heathrow came in handy as it overrode my natural Californian.

A final almighty haul, and my suitcase made it over the threshold like an ungainly bride on her wedding night. A drunken one, too, as the handle unraveled in my palm. The sides chose that moment to split as the entire contents of my art-inspired holiday centered around the concept ofWhat is Beauty in the Scottish Highlandsfell apart at the literal seams before my eyes. A lone wheel popped off the case and trundled its way along the gloomy hall, squeaking with each rotation until it fell sadly on its side halfway to its incomplete destination.

The epitome of my life right there.

My phone chose that moment to ring as a pair of my lacy panties floated around my ankles in an abrasive gust that slammed the heavy wooden door shut at my back. The death knell reverberated throughout the castle’s decrepit skeleton in a shudder that wracked the entire building until I was certain my life would end in a pile of gray, unidentifiable rubble.

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