IntoEternity

by Christina James

  Alexander ignored his second and stared at Duncan as he raced toward them across the training yard, shrieking his head off and waving his arms as if he would take off flying.

  “What’s got into Duncan?” Davin asked.

  “I don’t know but I intend to find out. The lad needs to learn he cannot cross the practice field while the men are working out.”

  “Alexander! I saw her! She’s camped in the glen!”

  Alexander caught his young cousin as the wee lad threw himself up and into his arms. He hugged the skinny body to his chest tightly for a moment and then set the lad back on the ground and frowned down at him.

  “How many times have I warned you about running across the practice field without heed? Your inattention will get you seriously hurt one of these days, lad.”

  Duncan hung his head and his narrow shoulders drooped sadly. As Alexander finished scolding the boy, Duncan peeked up through his lashes and grinned.

  The little imp! A harsh chuckle exploded from Alexander’s chest as he ruffled the boy’s long hair with affection. The lad tried him sorely.

  “You, my laddie, are a rascal. Now what has you so excited? Who is in the glen?”

  “Gusty!”

  “Gusty?” Alexander’s voice dropped to a whisper and he shook his head in shock and disbelief. Could this be?

  “Aye she is camped in the glen with old Hagen and Maeve. I was down there watching them. They’re witches you know. Can we invite her up to the keep? I want everyone to meet her. She saved my life you know.”

  “She’s down in the glen right now?”

  “Aye I was watching their camp because I wanted to learn how old Hagen does his magic. But he didn’t do anything except fix some mutton stew.”

  The lad sounded so disappointed Alexander had to smile. But his mind worked over the information that the mysterious woman who’d haunted his dreams for weeks, for months, was actually here on his land, so close by, and he could have his hands on her within minutes. And he would have her no matter what it took.

  “Stay with Davin, lad. I have to tend to some business. And stay out of the glen. The gypsies will carry you off one of these days and I don’t want to have to chase after you like I did last time. Understood?”

  He gave his young cousin a hard look that had the boy nodding in agreement.

  “I’ll watch the lad, Alexander. What of you?”

  “I am going to capture a selkie, my friend.”

  As he strode across the practice yard to the stables, he heard a roar of laughter behind him and he smiled widely as he entered the stables to saddle up Caesar.

  * * * * *

  Gusty walked leisurely down the narrow path that meandered through the thick coastal forest. She needed time alone to do some serious thinking and she had taken the opportunity of a late-afternoon walk to the beach to mull things over. She had been told the weather was unusually warm for this time of the year but she considered the temperature a little too brisk to be comfortable. When her grandfather told her he considered it downright balmy, she thought he was joking. But he was serious. If he considered this warm, she was probably going to freeze to death when winter arrived.

  Her grandparents had been prodding her for weeks to learn everything she could about the Scotland of this era. They had been tutoring her in the dress, speech and etiquette of Middle Age Scotland until she was filled up to her ears with it all. Their goal was to prepare her for the eventuality of her marriage. When she had first learned about their plans for her, she had immediately assured them she was not in the market for marriage or a husband. But they had been emphatic about their goal. In their visions, they had seen her married to a great clan chieftain and it was well-known that the Ross was actively looking for a wife of Sinclair birth. They had assured her she was born to be his bride. Her fate, they had said, lay entwined with his.

  She really hated the idea of being railroaded into a marriage she did not want. But her grandparents had presented the whole thing as a duty she was expected to fulfill—her destiny as the long-lost daughter of a mighty Scottish laird. But when asked, her grandparents would circumvent her questions about her father. She had not been able to get a straight answer about her childhood or his identity. They would say only that he was one of the greatest warriors in all the Highlands.

  Gusty’s ideas on love and marriage were totally different than those of a twelfth-century Scottish miss. She had been raised in another time, half a world away. She had grown up with Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. A girl was supposed to meet her Prince Charming, fall in love and be carried away in his arms on the back of a huge white charger. They’d marry and live in his fantasy castle, happily ever after or some reasonable facsimile of the old fairytales. But her grandparents expected her to give up her dreams of a loving romance now that she had landed in a time where a woman’s value was set by her usefulness as a bargaining chip.

  These last six months had been a big adjustment for her. It had taken most of that time for her grandparents to convince her of the concept of traveling through time and to help her adapt to the strangeness of this primordial era and the primitive way of life. All the everyday comforts she had once taken for granted, such as running water and indoor plumbing, electricity and television were now part of the future, her past. She wished she had some way to warn her brother to pack a few small luxuries before her grandparents zapped him from his comfortable lifestyle and deposited him in the Iron Age. She could really use a tube of toothpaste and some decent shampoo and hair conditioner.

  Ah well, I can dream…

  The here-and-now concerned her most. She had always believed she would marry for love. But she now faced this obligation that she did not know if she could accept. How was she going to make her grandparents understand she had doubts about marrying a man she did not know?

  She wanted to fall in love first. Would it be asking too much if she waited a while before agreeing to marry a perfect stranger? Get to know him. Have talks with him, walks with him, find out if he was a good man or an ogre. A shudder ran down her back at the thought. It did not matter to her if he was a powerful Scottish laird, if he had all the wealth in the world…she wanted a man who loved her. A swift memory of such a man crossed her mind. He was just a fantasy. She refused to think about the time she had spent with “her Highland laird”.

  In the last few months, her grandparents had explain to her again and again that she was destined to marry this man, this Scottish laird, and the result of the union would be an alliance between two of the most powerful clans in Northern Scotia and eventual peace.

  But she had her own agenda to follow. The fact she had not been able to get a straight answer from them about why she and Michael had been hidden away in the future as small children bothered her. And she meant to get to the bottom of the mystery. The probability of there being any danger after all these years seemed extremely remote to her. But then again, who was she to argue with them? After all, they had foreseen the danger to her and Michael when they were children and had moved them through time and distance to protect them.

  In all the years she had spent growing up in Idaho, she had never questioned her grandparents’ odd quirks and the rituals they had practiced at different intervals throughout each calendar year. But even the contents of the trunks she discovered in the attic after they had gone had not prepared her for the discovery of their true calling.

  Her grandparents were not phony “telephone psychics”. They were genuine soothsayers, clairvoyants from the Middle Ages. But until they offered her more than just “it is your destiny” or “Fate decreed it so”, she was not promising them anything.

  Earlier that afternoon, her grandmother had left for a small settlement on the other side of the Sutherland stronghold to visit another one of her friends. They had been camped in the Sutherland glen for over a week now and Maeve had been making the rounds of all the crofts in the area. She was still looking for information that might give them so
me clue as to who pulled Gusty unexpectedly into the past before it was her scheduled time.

  The reasons for her grandmother’s forays around the area were twofold. Maeve was seeking out any and all tidbits of information she could before they journeyed on to the Ross’ holdings, wanted to insure they were not walking into a trap as they traveled through unfamiliar territory. Gusty was to be introduced to Laird Ross, expecting an offer of marriage. Grandmother Maeve wanted to know all the recent gossip about the man. Gusty was anxious to find out all she could about him also. After all if she decided she could abide the Highland laird, she was obliged to become his betrothed and then eventually marry him.

  The powerful leader of Clan Ross was shopping for a wife. If she believed the gossip, King Edgar had decreed that the mighty Ross pick a wife from Clan Sinclair, thereby putting an end to an old feud. But the wily Highland chieftain had not agreed to the mandate without having a backup plan. He had let it be known that any woman, noble or peasant, of Sinclair blood would be eligible to become his wife, as long as she could pass a trial of wits that he had designed. He would accept only a smart woman as his perfect match and only when he found that woman would he agree to the marriage.

  Gusty had to give the laird credit for his wit. He was not going against his king’s wishes but he found a way to postpone choosing a bride, indefinitely. According to the gossip, he had been searching for well over a year and the women who arrived at his castle in droves had been culled down rapidly, most sent packing. With fewer offerings arriving weekly, the great laird Ross was running out of candidates. Grandmother Maeve seemed to think Gusty would be the perfect mate for the man. Her grandparents had, without her realizing it until recently, been preparing her since her childhood for just such a possibility. They’d mentally and physically groomed her and Michael to survive in this primitive environment. The old couple knew what their grandchildren would have to endure and had seen to it that their charges were well prepared. Who was she to question Fate? What was the chorus of that old Doris Day song?

  Oh yeah! Que sera, sera; whatever will be, will be.

  So Gusty would meet the man and size him up. There could be no harm in that, right? If she didn’t like what she saw or if the man turned out to be a horrible person, she already had her grandmother’s word they would leave the holding, Fate or no.

  Since the day after she had literally landed in their soup pot, Gusty and her grandparents had been making their way slowly southward along the coast of Scotia, leaving Sinclair territory behind them. She had not minded keeping a leisurely pace. It was a pleasant change, not having to arrange her life in accordance with her alarm clock. And best of all she had finally been able to get some well-deserved rest! She had been sleeping soundly at night despite the hardness of her bed, which was a pile of furs on the ground. The dark circles beneath her eyes had faded and she had actually begun to put on a little weight. Her grandmother assured her that in this century men liked their woman with a little meat on their bones. Skinny was considered a sign of sickliness and poverty and that would not do for the lady of a great laird.

  If that was the case, then the men in this country were going to love her. But if her grandmother fed her up any more, Gusty was going to have more than just pleasing curves. She was going to be downright plump. Good thing she had found the opportunity to do a little swimming now and then. The exercise helped to burn off pounds and she loved the water. They had always made time to visit the Oregon coast when they lived in Idaho. It had been a favorite tradition of hers. She couldn’t get enough of the sea.

  As they had been traveling south along the coastline, she had spent many hours just standing on the beach, watching the rough, wild ocean crash in against the shore. The sounds of the gulls and starlings, which soared high overhead, and the strong breeze blowing off the water all combined to soothe and mesmerize her. Every evening she could manage to get away she took a walk down to the seashore. She did not always indulge herself by bathing in the sea—some evenings the temperature was too cold. But she enjoyed strolling on the beach no matter the weather. Her grandmother told her pointblank she was crazy for skinny-dipping in the frigid water. But the temperature had not bothered her overly much. In fact she never felt as alive as when she cut through the cold, salty water, tiring herself out with the brutal pace she set for herself.

  Tonight would be no different. She was looking forward to a long, tiring swim as she hurried down the path to the beach. The late-afternoon swim would help clear her head of all her worries. Perhaps she could even rid herself of the nagging feeling of uneasiness that had been plaguing her for the last few days. A premonition of sorts, that something was going to happen and she was not going to be able to prevent it. She was beginning to wonder if maybe some of her grandparents’ peculiarities were rubbing off on her.

  The shore along this part of the coastline was rocky with a few interspersed stretches of sandy beach. She made her way down to where one section of white sand extended out to greet the rushing waves. As she reached the water’s edge, Gusty kicked off her shoes and ran into the shallow water to meet the incoming tide. She hitched her skirts up around her knees to keep the hem from getting wet as the water rolled in around her. She gasped as the cold water whirled around her bare ankles and shrieked as she ran back up the beach. Gusts of wind blew in from the sea, taking hold of her long black hair and whirling it up and around her shoulders like a soft, dark cloud. She hugged the wool shawl she wore tighter across her breasts in an attempt to stay warm. Her dark woolen dress whipped about her body. Her bare feet peeked out from underneath the hem, a sign of just how rebellious she felt.

  “Well it’s now or never,” she muttered as she moved back up the beach. Once she reached a dry spot, she dropped her shawl onto the sand and began to undo the fastenings of her bodice. Soon her dress—followed by her undergarments—lay in a pile on top of her shawl. It took only a matter of moments for Gusty to strip down to her bare skin. She stood hesitantly, staring out over the sea. The water sparkled with golden and fiery-red swells as the sun dropped behind the hill at her back. She mentally prepared herself for the inevitable shock of the cold water. Tossing her head, she inhaled the sharp tang of the salty sea air.

  “No more stalling, you coward,” she said, chiding herself.

  Gusty stood on the edge of the water, her arms thrown wide as she worked up the courage to take a dip in the cold sea. The air chilled her skin, leaving her covered with goose bumps. She felt more alive than she ever had before.

  “Oh!”

  Strong, muscular arms wrapped around her, pulling her back against a hard chest of a male body.

  “Hey!” She cried out.

  Survival instincts kicked in. She thrashed and screamed, fought to get loose, but the arms around her only squeezed her tighter. With no air left in her lungs, she struggled to breathe. Her vision blurred and darkness descended over her.

  “Are you finished then?” a deep voice in her ear demanded softly.

  Gusty nodded and fought for one good breath. She recognized the voice so close to her ear, shocked to find she was again in the arms of the one man she had thought about for so long. This man had been in her dreams nearly every night for the last six months, his voice and his touch, and now he held her captive once again. As he loosened his hold on her and she looked up to meet his eyes, her forehead knocked into his strong chin. She winced.

  “What are you doing here?” She queried breathlessly, her heart beating so hard she feared he could feel it knocking through her chest.

  “This is my land.”

  His grip tightened around her once again as she attempted to wriggle away from him. For a moment Gusty wondered if he intended to crush her to death but then he eased up.

  “You own this land? Then you are one of the Sutherlands?”

  “I am the Sutherland.”

  “The? You mean to say you are the chieftain of Clan Sutherland?”

  “Aye that I am,” he stated with prid
e. “What are you doing here?” He turned her question back upon her.

  “Swimming,” she informed him.

  He dropped his gaze down over her body, a devilish twinkle in his eyes, and she flushed hot with embarrassment as she remembered where she was and why she was there.

  Oh God! Oh God! I’m naked!

  She had momentarily forgotten her clothing lying on the beach behind them. Her long hair gave her little covering and the wind tossed it about brazenly. His muscular arm clenched about her naked waist and he slowly moved a large hand up to cup her breast, kneading it slightly with his long fingers. The caress brought a moan from her lips. Embarrassed that such a sound came from her throat and shocked that she wanted more of his touch, Gusty pushed at his hand but he refused to release her. If anything, his grip seemed to tighten. Her bare back and buttocks were plastered against his chest and the hard bulge beneath his kilt. This was not good! She took several deep breaths to quiet her racing heart and over-zealous libido.

  Oh God!

  Gusty had always been sensible, modest and she’d sure as hell never thrown herself at a total stranger. This barbarian might be too gorgeous for words but he was presenting a huge danger to her ability to think clearly.

  Help!

  “Were you perhaps thinking of escaping back to your Isle, beautiful selkie?” His unexpected question brought her attention back to the problem at hand.

  “Isle? What the h—? Of course not, don’t be ridiculous.”

  “What are you doing here on my seashore? Do you think to taunt me deliberately with your womanly wiles?”

  He turned her in his arms and Gusty found her breasts brushing against the wide expanse of his massive bare chest and her belly pressed against the hard swell of his erection, with only the cloth of his kilt between them. Her nipples tightened at the contact. A shiver coursed through her body and she bit back a whimper of pleasure. She placed her hands on his bulging arms and pushed, trying to put some space between them. Her body was not cooperating with her mind. She did not want him to know just how much she wanted him to take her in his arms and kiss her the way he had those many months ago.