HIGHLANDER: FOREVER
a novel by
Lisa Beth Darling-Gorman
ONE
April 20
Present Day
The stars sparkled brightly in the hot Australian night. A quiet hush descended in
the air as the moon shed its silvery light over the dilapidated farm house. The sheep in the
coral slept peacefully in the air of the coming autumn.
Inside the ramshackle farm house the man did not sleep as peacefully as his flock
did outside. With his heart racing inside his powerful chest, he tossed and turned in his
sleep. His swarthy complexion covered with glistening beads of his own sweat. The old
down quilt fell to the bare hardwood floor of his bedroom. His breathing became heavier
and quicker as his lungs filled with the stale Australian air.
Running blindly straight ahead through the grimness which surrounded him. He
forced his strong legs to go farther, go faster. His heart raced in his chest with all the
power of a run away horse. It was cold. Oh! It was so cold here. Still, he charged
onward. His mind told him that she was here . . . somewhere. He had to find her.
For one merciful moment while the dream changed inside his mind, Duncan
MacLeod's breathing slowed. His heart eased off from its break neck pace. He laid,
almost peaceful in his bed once again.
Now he could see himself. He knew where he was instantly. His eyes scanned all
that he surveyed as he stood on the hill between the main house and the gate keeper's
cottage on Simon Cooper's property. He knew what day it was, May 1, 1734 and he had
never been so happy in all his long life. Duncan looked down to see that he held a
champagne bottle in one hand and glasses in the other. The setting sun tossed all of the
brilliant colors of the rainbow through the fine crystal in bright sparks and long tendrils,
they spread out and danced behind him.
Suddenly there was Sarah. She was screaming, begging.
Duncan's heart began to race once again as his desperately tried to run toward
her but his long legs failed him and he found that he could not move.
"Duncan!" She screamed. Her voice filled with terror as were her deep doe eyes.
Her beautiful gown was gone. She stood by the door of the gate keeper's cottage clad
only in her petticoats, which were torn and covered with blood. All he could do was
stand there on top of the damn hill and watch as the cold flash of steel came up from
behind her head.
"No!" Duncan yelled as he sat bolt up right in his bed, his body and sheets covered
with sweat. His heart thundering inside his chest. He grabbed at it to be sure that he was
still whole. He certainly did not feel whole, he felt as he had all those years ago, as though
part of him had been ripped to shreds and lay bleeding in some far away place that he was
forbidden to enter.
As he sat in his bed alone, grabbing his chest and feeling the pounding of his own
heart he found himself unable to believe that she had been there again in his dreams. She
had been calling out to him begging him for his help. For her very life. Again he had been
unable to give it. "Oh, God, what's happening?" He asked aloud to the darkness. He felt the tears
of long buried hurt and anger come to him again they stung his eyes and dampened his
well-chiseled face.
Duncan reached down and retrieved the quilt from the floor. Slowly he laid back
in his bed and gathered the quilt around his naked still shaking body. He tried to take
warmth from the covers, they would give none. Or maybe his body just would not receive
it. He closed his discerning brown eyes and tried to return to sleep, tomorrow (today by
now, it was well after midnight) was going to be a long and hard day. He needed to rest
but sleep was not going to be kind tonight and soon Duncan realized he did not wish to
sleep anymore. He was afraid to return to that in between land where reality and fantasy
overlapped and became one. Afraid he would see her again, hear her scream . . .
He shut his eyes tight against the image that wanted to flood itself through his
mind. His was racked by another shaking spell. Icy fingers began their descent from the
top of his head, down his neck and shot through both shoulders heading straight for his
heart.
For the first time in more decades than he cared to remember he felt the sorrow and
despair, the sheer weight on his heart. In frustration he tossed the covers completely off
and planted his feet on the smooth wood floor. The bare floor was cool and helped to
wake him from his daze. He sat on the side of his lonesome bed with his head in his hands
wondering if it were possible for an Immortal to just go mad. Dark Quickenings aside, he
didn't believe he'd ever heard a tale of an Immortal who had simply lost his or her mind
one day. He wondered if he was going to be the first. Was this what it felt like? Insanity?
The dreams were vivid, intense, real. He could not deny the idea that they were
more than just the ordinary sorting of the days events in the sleeping mind. No, there was
something going on with him. Something . . .
. . .someone . . .
Trying to communicate with him in his sleep.
Duncan shook his dark head to clear the thought away. He thought for sure that
must be the thought of a mad man. Duncan MacLeod, although Immortal, was not a
believer in things esoteric or magickal.
Soon the distant sound of sheep braying in the yard came to his finely tuned ears,
he rose and looked out the window, it was still dark but sunrise would come soon and the
sky was beginning to glow with its light. Duncan knew it would be a fine early autumn
day. The braying came clearer to his acute ears, there was an undeniable urgency to
it. A dingo, he thought, there's a dingo in the barn yard. He ran outside as he jumped
into a pair of faded blue jeans.
The cool air of early morning washed over him as he sprinted onto the
ramshackle porch. His eyes searched the large but barren yard and saw no signs of
dingo. Suddenly the braying of the sheep quieted, became almost contented. The
midnight hair on the back of his neck stood up. His Immortal frame tingled with a
thousand pricks of electricity. Slowly he walked off the porch in his bare feet and began
to make his way toward the sheep corral to the left of the old house. With every step
he took his breath seemed to hold in his chest and turn cold. The hairs on his body
stood straight out, rigid with the steely electricity and felt as though they were trying
to pull themselves free of the follicles that held them in place. His wintry body filled
itself with fear. With the last lead laden step he peered around the side of the house and
stopped dead in his tracks.
He rubbed his eyes thinking that there must still be sleep in them. He looked up
again and this time he closed his eyes and shook his dark head to clear the image before
him. When he opened his eyes for the third time, the image was still before him.
Duncan stood stone silent on the corner of the house and watched.
A woman stood there, dressed in a flowing mint green gown, her auburn hair
hanging past the small of her back. Her diminutive hand stretched out before her to
pet one of the lambs. She tilted her face in his direction as she sensed his presence.
"Duncan?" She called in soft flowing tones as she gazed upon him. Her soft
doe eyes filled with so much love that he could not only see it but he could feel it as
well. It made his heart ache with longing. He was unable to speak or to move. "Don't
you remember me?" Her voice turned sad.
Everything went from ice to hells fire in his body in a matter of milliseconds.
Everything tingled and his vision became clearer than the crystal goblets he'd been
holding in the dream not twenty minutes before. "Sarah?" His dark voice with its
muddled European accent was nothing more than a hushed whisper.
"Yes, my love I've come back for you." Her large doe eyes suddenly turned
heavy with tears. "I never stopped loving you." She said, her voice hushed.
The sun exploded from behind the trees and surrounded her petite body in
brilliant color. It shot through her dress and her small body. He watched in awe as she
tilted her head toward it, catching the warmth of the sun on her alabaster skin. She
turned to him and smiled. "Please," she begged quietly, "there isn't much time, my
love. She needs you. You must go to her." With the rising of the sun behind her Sarah
began to fade not from his view exactly but actually into the light.
"No, don't go." There was no mistaking the urgency in his plea as he was
finally able to gain control over his legs and make them race at his command. He ran
to the spot where she had stood only a moment before.
Too late. She was gone.
"Sarah!" Duncan bellowed to nothingness. He buried his princely face in
his strong hands as he sank to his knees in the early morning light and began to weep.
Tears buried deep for more than a hundred years rose to the surface and would no
longer be denied their right to flow. His soul screamed for her to return to him.
TWO
The annual Spring Break had come late this year and it was going to last
a bit longer than usual. Word came yesterday that the pipes had burst in the basement and
it would be at least another week before everything was ready for the children to return
to school. Sarah didn't mind at all. It gave her more time to get Cooper's Inn into shape
before the arrival of tourist season.
Tourist season? She thought and then snickered to herself. She wondered if she
was ever going to give up dreaming that this old Inn would some day turn a profit. She
stood in the Cooper Family room looking at the portraits of long dead ancestors and asked
herself why she was going to all this trouble again this year? It wasn't as thought she was
about to have a deluge of guests at any moment. There wasn't so much as one single
reservation in the book for the coming season. Sarah understood why that was, the Inn
was set too far off the beaten path of Upper state Vermont, in the little Knot Hole Town
which called itself Covington. Not many people knew the town existed, never mind the
Inn. The Goddess' and Gods knew there was no money to advertise the place. Sarah had
put a tremendous amount of effort and work into fixing the old mansion and running the
Inn since she returned here from Los Angeles almost three years ago. The Inn had made
barely enough money to justify keeping it open each season. Last season was pitiful at
best with only two guests for three months.
Sarah gazed at the portrait of Simon Cooper, lost in her own thoughts. She didn't
really care about the money that she wasn't making, she loved this old mansion, cleaning
it polishing it and make sure everything shined and was in its proper place. It was a labor
of love for her. The mansion had been built by her ninth grandfather Simon Cooper as a wedding
present for his new bride Hannah Potter when he brought her to America from South
Wales in 1707 . The Cooper family was originally from Scotland, but Simon's father
Daniel Cooper and his wife Sarah Bean had lived briefly in South Wales before coming to
the New World. It was there that Simon and Hannah had met and fallen in love. Or so
the family story went and the rest as they say, is history. Sarah's family line had occupied
the home from that time until Sarah's father, Adam Cooper a banker, had taken a job in
Burlington and moved his family away from simple country life to the busy city.
Thank the Goddess for Momma, Sarah thought and as she made her way into the
main parlor, she had made Daddy keep this place when he had repeatedly insisted upon
selling it. Sarah smiled, as she began to think of the wonderful summers she had spent
here as a child, helping her mother to ready the Inn for tourist season. The hours she had
spend in the warm spring sun ripping up old flower beds and sowing new ones, weeding
around each carefully placed plant and giving each its daily dose of water and fertilizer.
Polishing all the fine mahogany and cherry wood in the house. Tossing off the old sheets
which covered the furniture in the guests room. How the dust flew from them when they
were first removed in early spring. It danced in the spring sunlight. She thought of how
her mother, Sally, had always welcomed each guest personally and made each feel
at home in her home. Sally had been the kind of woman who always made you just want
to kick off your shoes and settle in for a nice long visit. The kind of woman who made
sure that everyone always had something to eat or to drink and they all felt as though her
home were theirs. She never turned anyone away from the door no matter how late it was
or how tired she was. If someone she knew (and sometimes someone she didn't know)
needed her help, she was always there to give it, no matter what.
All of those wonderful things had stopped the year that Sarah's brother Randy had
been killed in Beirut, Sarah had been sixteen then. Sally Cooper had already lost two
sons by then. Charlie had been killed in Vietnam when Sarah was no more then four and
Teddy had been killed while working undercover for the DEA in Colombia not two years
before Randy died. The light in Sally Coopers eyes died with Randy. Sarah hardly ever
saw it again. The thought still brought sadness to Sarah's heart, her mother had been so
full of life, almost as though she were a little sprite sent from the netherworld to bring joy
to those she touched. But in the few years which remained in her life after the death of
Randy she had only gone through the motions of living.
Since that time the Inn had sat empty and silent for almost a dozen years. Sarah
was silently glad that her mother had not lived long enough to see Steven, Sarah's
youngest and most beloved brother die in Sarajevo as part of the 'peace keeping ' mission
the UN had attempted. Sarah's mother, father, oldest brother Joseph and his family were
all killed in a drunk driving accident on July fourth weekend in 1990. After Steven died
that left her and her brother James as the only living descendants of Daniel Cooper and
Sarah Bean of Scotland and South Wales.
Sarah brushed the sad thoughts from her mind and looked around the main parlor
which served as the reception area now. She was thankful that the house was still in its'
original state, or as close as it was going to get to it. Most of the furnishings were the
original pieces Simon and Hannah had brought with them from South Wales or had
custom made once they arrived in the New World. Even though Sarah had occupied the
gate keeper's cottage for some time now walking into the Inn was always like stepping
back in time. Yes, it must have been a grand home before her great-grandfather turned it into the
Cooper's Inn and split the wings into crazy subsections. Some of which her grandfather
had been forced to close off because of shoddy workmanship. Sarah had never even seen
the suite on the third floor, it had been closed off by her grandfather just after she was
born.
She closed her large doe eyes and breathed deep of the musty smell, allowing her
mind began to wander back to that long ago time but only for a moment, there was work
to be done. In the corner of her mind she caught a glimpse of the stranger from her dreams.
He was standing by the stone hearth in white knickers and ruffled shirt, his powdered wig
slightly askew to reveal deep black hair beneath. He was very majestic. The gleam in his
mahogany eyes seemed to reach out and capture her. If she closed her eyes just a little
tighter, she could almost touch him as he stood there mystically starring back at her.
"Hum, that's quite enough." Sarah laughed to herself, glad that no one was
around to see her indulging in the foolish little fantasy. She breathed deep and opened her
eyes letting go of the strangers image and set herself back to work. She was almost
completely finished with the first floor, later on today she would begin on the second floor.
The Inn sat cold and empty for nine months out of the year, locked in a different place and
time waiting for her to come along and throw open its doors and windows and bring it into
the present for three precious months out of the year.
Sarah began to dust the large roll top desk that served as the information center
for the Inn. She rubbed the deep cherry grains with scented lavender oil until the wood
shone with crimson hues. Of all the pieces of furniture in the Inn Sarah always loved the
desk most. She loved the way it looked and smelled after it had been polished, the way
it made her reflection look soft and glowing. Even the way it rolled so easily with just the
touch of a finger. Sarah had long wanted to move the desk down to the cottage but it was too heavy
for her to move by herself it would have to wait until James came up from New York City
for his traditional week's visit in July. Maybe the big shot prosecutor wouldn't mind
getting his hands dirty this time. Sarah laughed to no one, the thought of James working
up a sweat really was comical. He never did anything unless he absolutely had to and even
then he might attempt to hire someone else to do it for him. Momma had always called
him her "lazy boy."
"Mornin' Sarah."
She jumped and let out a small cry as she turned to see Maebelle standing there.
Then she smiled "You scared me, Mae." Her voice was still faint from the mild shock of
the intrusion but soon she recovered. "I want to move the desk down to the cottage, what
do you think?"
"You ain't gonna to move it by yo'self, I'll tell you that for nothing child. The
blasted thing must weigh two hun'red pounds if it weighs an ounce." Mae smiled to reveal
old and yellowed but still even teeth, she was very proud of the fact that the age of 74 she
still had all her own teeth. Her wise hazel eyes twinkled as she reached into her satchel
with a liver spotted hand. "Cuppa Joe, Sassy?" She pulled two cups and a bag of donuts
from Emma's diner down in town from her bag.
"You're a gift from the Goddess, Mae." Sarah took the warm brew being offered
to her. She settled her diminutive form into one of the high back chairs by the hearth
and uncapped the cup.
"I don't know why you bother with this place child. You should give up and go
back out into the world. This ole place ain't a duty. Young pretty woman like you
should be enjoyin' life, not hidin' yo load under a bushel with this crumbling' ole mansion."
Mae claimed as she settled herself into the chair opposite Sarah. Mae's elderly bones gave
out creeks and pops as she eased herself back into the cushions.
"Outside world, huh? You mean like guns, crime, and murderers?" She quipped.
"No thanks I'll stay right here, where I belong." She drank deep of the dark brew.
"Besides, it's not like I've been locked away here all my life. I have been out there."She
hitched her thumb in the direction of the main entrance to the Inn as she took a second
swallow. She did not want to get on this subject this morning. She had already put it
away for the day. Sarah knew in her heart that one day in the not to distant future she
would have to sell the old mansion. Not just yet.
"I can't argue with you belonging here but dares mo' then the bad stuff out there.
What about your singing? That Chris Lawless fella, he'd take you away with him in a
heartbeat, all you have to do is say the word." Mae's eyes narrowed as they focused on
Sarah. "I know you still keep in touch with him." She said in a low voice.
Sarah sighed as she placed the cup on the coffee table. "His name is Jareth and you
know it. Chris Lawless is his stage name. And yes, Jareth and I still E-mail a few times a
month. His wife, Colleen, just had a baby girl. Did I tell you that already?" Sarah smiled
as she reached for the cup again. "Kinda fun knowing a famous rock star." She admitted
without looking at Mae. "I'm not ready. I can't go back out there yet."
"You can't wait here for your dream lover forever." Mae knew she shouldn't prod
Sarah so much, (the young woman had one hell of a temper if you got her going, they
didn't call her Sassy for nothing). This subject was a definite sore spot with her. Sarah
had not volunteered much information on her life in California to Mae or anyone that Mae
knew since she had come back to live in Covington. There had been evenings when Sarah
had a little too much to drink and she would open up and talk about her singing and her
guitar playing. She would even talk about the infamous Chris Lawless and when she did
her eyes shined like black diamonds and there was a flush in her cheeks. She would never
even hint at why she had just dropped it all one day and suddenly appeared back here.
Since Sarah refused to disclose the information gossip abounded in town about what it had
been that made Sarah Cooper give up her recording contract and her big life in the big city
to open the dusty old Inn in this one horse town. Did they talk? You bet! Their tongues
were always wagging about Sarah and just what did she do up there at that creepy old
mansion all by herself.
That was nothing new. This town had always talked about Sarah Cooper. Always.
Sarah had been good to Mae (and everyone else whoever needed so much as a
teaspoon of salt!) since she had come back to Covington. She had done the grocery for
her on the days Mae couldn't get out of bed on account of the arthritis which afflicted her
so painfully. Sarah even let her hang around the Inn all she wanted on the days she felt
good and help out. Mae knew Sarah only pretended to need her help to get the Inn into
shape that Sarah wanted her to feel useful now that her husband, Don, had passed and
her children lived so far away.
She really shouldn't chide the young woman.
"I'm sorry I told you that." Sarah huffed. "I know it's stupid, don't you think I
know it's stupid? It was two dreams, Mae. Two foolish dreams." She rose quickly from
the chair as she felt the fever of the blood rushing into her face. Why did it seem that Mae
could always read her mind? Why did she always want to talk about the two things Sarah
did not want to discuss in any detail? Sarah turned quickly on her heels and began to make
her way to the stairs.
"Don't you go stormin' off on me, Missy." The old woman demanded. "Your
Momma never wanted you tied to this place working' all your days just to make sure the
damn thing doesn't crumble to the ground."
Mae knew how Sarah felt about this lovely old mansion, she felt it too. It had
history, it was warm and inviting but at the same time it was cold and lonely. Set out on
the four hundred acres that used to be the Cooper farm way back before the Revolutionary
War. Now that once fruitful land stood empty except for the vegetable and herb gardens
Sarah kept. Small potatoes compared to the once grand amounts of corn and wheat that
once poured out of this land. Set back from the road more then half a mile, it was hard
to see with the hill in front of the Inn and people who ventured this far never even noticed
the place most times. Mae worried about Sarah here all alone, so far away from the pitiful
excuse for a town that they lived in, (if there were all of six hundred people living in
Covington at any given time they were doing all right). She did not want to see Sarah
stuck here for the rest of what could have been, should have been a grand and glorious life
in the city.
"Momma's dead just like Dad and all the rest of them, don't you tell me what they
wanted for me. If that big shot brother of mine ever bothered helping me instead of just
coming to get his cut maybe I would . . . " She stopped and caught her breath, she looked
down into the old woman's eyes. "If I'm going to be a spinster so be it. I don't need a man
to make me happy. Not in my life or my dreams."
"No?" Mae asked with a sly smile. "What about that nice young man from the
mortgage company?"
"Denny?" Sarah sighed more audibly this time as her shoulders drooped. " He's
nice. We have fun together. And I suppose . . . " Sarah shrugged her slender shoulders,
"But he's not . . . "
"Your dream lover?" Mae finished. "Reality never comes close to dreams, child.
Not that I want you to settle mind you, it's just that . . . "
"There are rooms to ready." Was all Sarah said to that and then she turned and
trudged up the large mahogany staircase to the guest rooms on the second floor.
"Poor child," Mae muttered as she watched Sarah go, her small body struggling
with the mop and pail full of cleaning supplies. "It must be horrible to be born out of
time."
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