Not Without Juliet - By L.L. Muir Page 0,50

She tried to take it from his fingers, but couldn't do so without them losing the light altogether.

"Forget it," she said sharply and turned away, leaving him holding he candle up to empty space. "And I'm not Jillian, asshole."

He stood there in stunned silence. Was she telling the truth?

Then, with no more warning than a low keening to precede it, a painful scream shot through his ears and head and ricocheted through the dungeon. Jillian’s scream. When he finally thought to shield his eyes from the candle, he found her, whimpering with her back against her cell door. She was staring at the corpse.

"I'm sorry, lass. I should have warned ye. I call him Skully.”

The pet name was no help. She didn’t seem to be listening on any account.

“He’s harmless, lass. Look at me.”

She took a few deep breaths, then turned her face. Eventually, her eyes turned too.

“And by the way,” he said. “I believe ye're not Jillian after all."

"Oh yeah?" She took a deep breath and choked, then she pulled up a t-shirt from under her blouse and covered her face. It muffled her voice. "Why? Don't I scream like her?"

"I don't ken about that,” he said. “But I do know she would have never called me an arsehole. Ever."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The replica of Montgomery Ross, the man she’d prayed for, the man she recognized in the core of her being, reached through the bars again, his hands open, palms up. The candle was perched on one.

"Take the candle, lass, but for pity sakes, look at me, not Skully."

"Who is he?" She couldn't seem to let go of the bars behind her. She'd seen her parents in their caskets, but she didn't remember it clearly, only that they didn't feel real anymore. Other than that, she'd never been around a dead body before. Except for Nikkos, she reminded herself. But Nikkos had still been bleeding.

"It doesn’t matter,” the Quinn said. “Just pretend he's but a decoration for Samhain."

"Samhain? Oh, right. Halloween. Decoration. Got it." She still couldn’t stop staring.

"Look at me, lass. Am I so disgusting you canna stand to glance this way?"

She heard him talking, but all she could do was shake her head. Disgusting? Hardly. But it was hard to face him when just a moment ago, looking at her face had somehow disappointed him. That Muir sister had noticed something that made her different from Jillian. Apparently, he noticed it too. Maybe Jillian was a real beauty or something.

"I don't believe you,” Quinn said. “I must be repulsive indeed.”

Him? Repulsive? Yeah, right.

She’d only gotten a quick look so far, but repulsive he was not. He was obviously just being nice, trying to distract her. Calling him an asshole had been a little harsh—maybe—but being mistaken for someone else was new to her and damn hard to get used to. The fact that he’d been disappointed when he’d looked at her just added insult to injury.

You idiot, said the voice in her head. He was disappointed when he thought you were Jillian!

Oh my gosh! That’s true, she answered back.

She smiled and turned. He grinned and held the candle up in front of his face. She was finally able to release her grip and move closer to the side bars to look her fill. He did look just like the picture on the website, and she told him so.

“Oh, that.” He sounded a little disappointed. "Yes, that was me. A long while ago, I'm afraid."

She caught herself licking her lips and she turned away, mortified. Why didn’t she just reach over and start running her fingers through his hair? Just because she was so intimate with the man in her dreams, didn’t mean she could jump on this guy. But there, in the darkness, it was hard to believe it wasn’t that dreamland where they already knew each other. She was just going to have to try harder to put that dream aside.

"Tut! Doona do it, lass. Just a decoration."

She nodded and brought her attention back to him, reluctantly. She’d almost forgotten about being scared shitless.

"Just a decoration," she said. "No biggy."

He nodded. "Happy Halloween, aye?"

Other than his build and his coloring, he really didn’t look that much like Jillian’s husband—at least the face she’d stared at through binoculars. There was something a little more intense about him. His cheekbones were a little higher. Or maybe it was just the darkness. Shadows do funny things to a face. She could look into his smoldering eyes forever, especially while he