Hearts In The Highlands

Hearts In The Highlands
Ruth Axtell Morren

“Tomorrow I’ll show you some of the highlands’ landmarks.”

Mr. Gallagher pointed to the west, where the sun was beginning its slow descent behind the mountains beyond the loch. “The highest peak is Ben Lawers. I’ve always wanted to climb it.”

Maddie looked at him curiously. “Why?”

“Why not?” He smiled, a smile that began in his blue eyes and slowly reached his lips. “Think of the view from the summit. On the other side of the range lies Glen Lyon, one of the loveliest glens in all the highlands.”

“It sounds spectacular.” She was no longer looking at the mountain, but at Mr. Gallagher. He was a man of action, like her brothers. While she was…What did she have to show for her life?

“Would you like to climb it, too?” His eyes met hers once more.

“Yes,” she found herself saying. “Has any woman ever climbed it?”

There was a challenge in his blue eyes. “What does that matter? You could be the first.”

RUTH AXTELL MORREN

Ruth Axtell Morren wrote her first story when she was twelve—a spy thriller—and knew she wanted to be a writer. There were many detours along the way. She studied comparative literature at Smith College, spent her junior year in Paris, taught English in the Canary Islands and worked in international development in Miami, Florida, where she met her future husband, who took her to the Netherlands to live for six years.

She first gained recognition as a writer when her second manuscript finaled in the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart contest in 1994. Ruth’s first two Steeple Hill novels, Winter Is Past (2003) and Wild Rose (2004) both won awards in contests sponsored by Romance Writers of America. Wild Rose was selected as a Booklist Top 10 Christian Novel in 2005.

After living several years on the down east coast of Maine, Ruth and her family moved back to the Netherlands, to the polderland of Flevoland, where she still lives by the sea. Ruth loves hearing from readers. You can contact her through her Web site: www.ruthaxtellmorren.com.

Ruth Axtell Morren

Hearts in the Highlands

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

For Susan,

Remember, it’s never too late.

And let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

—Galatians 6:9

Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

—Robert Burns,

“Farewell to the Highlands”

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Chapter One

London, 1890

“Imagine waking up, a knife at your throat—”

Since Reid Gallagher stepped into his great-aunt’s parlor, Maddie had been transported to another time and place.

He leaned forward in the velvet upholstered armchair, rumpling the lace covers on each arm with his strong hands.

“It was touch and go for a while there.” Humor underscored the quiet rumble of his words. “They stormed us on horseback, surrounding our camp in the dead of night, brandishing their knives and cudgels. All we could do was fumble for our weapons in the dark—”

Maddie sat riveted, listening to the rugged man with the lean, deeply tanned face, sun-bleached sandy hair and thick mustache a shade darker. His words evoked a kaleidoscope of images—a British surveying party in the midst of the lonely desert, the night air cool, the stillness broken by a band of rebels, the neigh of horses and bray of camels….

“Oh, dear heavens!” Lady Haversham left off stroking her Yorkshire terrier. “Was anyone killed?”