Highland Guardian

by Melissa Mayhue

  “And how do you suppose Sarah will respond when she learns? Are you sure this would be her choice as well?”

  “This is no her choice to make. It’s mine.”

  “We each of us choose turns along the path to our destiny. She must make choices as well as you. Have you thought to discuss it with her?”

  Ian shook his head. “I told you what will happen, what I saw happen, if I stay. You know my dreams always come true. If I stay, if I’m here with Sarah, she will make her choice and she will die. I’ll no be responsible for that.”

  “Your dreams do indeed give you accurate visions of bits of the future, Ian. But as such they’re open to interpretation. What if it’s your absence that triggers the events you saw?”

  “That’s ridiculous. I was there. I held her dying in my arms. It canna happen if I’m no here. My father warned I’d have to make a difficult choice to prevent what I saw. I’ve made that choice. She’s safe here at Thistle Down. They canna cross the waters without being invited over, and they’ll never be invited here. She’s promised she’ll no see them again.”

  “So. You’ll give her up. Just like that. Turn your back and walk away.” Dallyn turned to pluck a rose from the vine entwined about the gazebo. Lifting it to his nose, he inhaled deeply before turning back to Ian, pinning him with a stare. “Is she the one, do you suppose? Your Soulmate?”

  “No,” Ian denied. “That soul was torn from the body it occupied centuries ago, cast into the chaos. Lost to the Fountain forever.”

  Dallyn shrugged. “They’re never lost, Ian. Only out of order.” He smiled sadly. “You’ve lived a long time since then. It could have happened, you know, the next cycle.”

  Ian glanced down. Spotting Sarah’s sandals on the floor, he stooped to pick one up. He wouldn’t consider it. Couldn’t. It would only make it harder to do what he must. If he stayed, she would die. He had seen it. And those dreams, those visions, were never false.

  “It makes no difference. Even if yer right, I canna stay. I’d only lose her again, and this time it would be my own fault. I canna live with that.” Clutching the sandal tightly, he turned and walked away.

  He wouldn’t look down the path toward the cottage. He feared catching sight of her. He’d rather hold the memory of her as he’d seen her last, her face soft and distracted from his kiss.

  His father’s words rang in his mind. “If you love her enough, you will make the right choice.”

  Reaching the car he’d already packed, he got in and closed the door. He laid the sandal he carried on the seat next to him. Pulling out of the drive, he didn’t look back.

  He was making the right choice, the only choice he could.

  * * *

  Sarah’s stomach growled, drawing her attention from the glowing laptop screen and the world growing there at her fingertips. She glanced out the window and was surprised to find it was dark. How long had she been sitting here? She glanced at the clock, shocked to see the whole day gone by.

  She stood and stretched, her back stiff and sore from leaning over the desk all day. The rest of her sore from last night. She smiled at the memory.

  Rolling her neck, she shuffled to the bathroom and turned on the water. She hadn’t even changed today, was still dressed in Ian’s shirt. She pulled it off and, from the doorway, tossed it onto her bed before returning to the bathroom and her shower.

  The warm water poured over her head and down her body, washing away the haze that cocooned her when she wrote. She moved farther from the world of her own creation and firmly back into the real world.

  All those months without having written a single word worth keeping and now, suddenly, as if someone had flipped a switch or unlocked a door, it was back.

  She felt good; for the first time she could remember, everything in her world was right. And everything, she quickly acknowledged, included much more than her writing. It included Ian.

  Ian. Where was he?

  Rinsing her hair, she wondered if he’d come to the cottage and she’d been so involved in her writing she’d simply not heard him. Surely he would have come inside. It didn’t matter. She was certain he’d be here shortly. He’d told her he was coming back this evening.

  She climbed from the shower, wrapped herself in a warm, fuzzy robe, and considered for the first time that exhaustion might be a stronger force on her body at the moment than even hunger. Padding barefoot to the kitchen, she poured a glass of milk. The sofa beckoned her, but before settling in, she opened the front door, straining to see if Ian approached in the darkness. Satisfied he wasn’t on the path, she gave in to the lure of the comfortable sofa and curled up to wait for his arrival.

  She took a couple of sips from the glass before setting it on the end table. Her eyes burned from long hours at the computer and lack of sleep. If she closed her eyes for a bit while she waited, it would help.

  Any minute now.

  He would be there soon, flooding her with the warmth of his emotions. She reached out with her feelings, concentrating on Ian.

  She closed her eyes and leaned back against the soft cushions of the sofa.

  * * *

  Sarah awoke with a start, her heart beating out a rapid tattoo in her chest.

  Had it been a dream that woke her? No, more like the opposite of a dream, as if in her sleep she’d experienced a complete absence of everything.

  A total void.

  The last thing she remembered from the night before was trying to reach out and connect with Ian. Obviously the higher powers that controlled her feelings—Faeries, if she were silly enough to believe Ian and Will—didn’t intend for her to do that. As she thought on it now, she hadn’t felt him earlier when he’d kissed her good-bye. So lost in the wonder of her own feelings, she hadn’t realized at the time that she’d felt none of his.

  She shivered and sat up stiffly from where she’d been slumped in the corner of the sofa. Sunlight danced in the windows and through the open door. She glanced to the clock. Noon. She’d slept for hours.

  As she rose and walked through the cottage, checking for signs of Ian’s presence, a tiny seed of doubt took root in the back of her mind.

  No indication of his having been there through the night.

  She stopped at the door of the bedroom, her eyes and thoughts settling on the bed, still rumpled and unmade from the last time she’d slept there. With him.

  A small nervous giggle bubbled to her lips as the seed of doubt sent up fresh shoots. What if he wasn’t coming back?

  Shake it off. Save that imagination for the book.

  “Damn!”

  Two steps from the bed, she stubbed her toe on something hard. Ian’s shoes, the one she’d just found and the other peeking out from under the edge of the bed. She remembered he’d left barefoot. Of course he’d come back for those.

  She picked up the shoes and placed them on the dresser, avoiding the eyes of the woman reflected in the mirror. The woman in the mirror looked frightened and unhappy. Sarah didn’t want to deal with those emotions right now. No, better to avoid that woman. Normalcy, routine—that would soothe her.

  She straightened the bed and carefully folded the shirt she had tossed there last evening. Ian’s shirt. She lifted it to her nose and inhaled deeply before tucking it under her pillow and walking to her closet.

  The doubt was still there, eating away at her. No amount of mundane house chores was going to end it. What she needed was to end the wondering, silly as it was. There was a perfectly good reason he hadn’t come to her last night as he’d said he would. She’d get dressed and walk up to the manor house to return his shoes. In the process, she would see what was keeping him. He’d simply been busy, no doubt.

  With a plan and a purpose, she set about getting ready.

  * * *

  “What do you mean, he’s gone?”

  Sarah sat stiffly on the edge of the sofa, clutching the heavy shoes to her chest. She had known something was wrong, felt it the minute Martha answered the door and
insisted she come into the library for tea with Mr. McCullough.

  Especially when it was Henry, not Ian, who joined her there. The little seed of doubt had blossomed into a full-grown tree, branches arcing all through her stomach, leaves blowing about, making her feel ill.

  “Gone where?”

  “To…um…to London.” Henry fidgeted with the handle of his teacup, not quite making eye contact. “Some business he needed to deal with right away, I believe. Quite important. Verra important.” His voice trailed off.

  “When will he be back?”

  She tried to keep her voice light, detached. But when she glanced up and caught Henry watching her, she didn’t need to touch the older gentleman to pick up his emotions. His discomfort and pity flowed freely through the air washing over her in waves.

  “Well, you see…that is, I’m…um…not quite sure of that exactly. It depends on how long the…uh…important business takes him to…”

  She rose to her feet, interrupting his stammering attempt at an explanation. She wouldn’t put either one of them through this.

  “Thank you, Henry.”

  She headed for the door, but stopped and walked back to her host, holding out the shoes. “When—if—Ian returns, you should give these to him. They’re his.”

  She didn’t look at the man, couldn’t bear to see the pity she knew would be reflected in his gaze. She simply turned and started for the door. The few sips of tea she’d managed to swallow before she’d heard the news soured in her stomach, threatening to reappear. She had to get out of here.

  “Sarah,” Henry called after her. “Wait.” Then a muffled “Where is that bloody cane? Martha, hurry!”

  By then she was out the door, pulling it shut behind her.

  She needed to get to the cottage. To be alone. She had to get away. She couldn’t stand the thought of anyone seeing her raw emotion on display, yet she knew she had no way to control it right now. Her swift strides quickly accelerated until she was running.

  She should have expected this.

  After all, hadn’t she been the one who said it wouldn’t work?

  * * *

  Sarah curled up on the bed in the little cottage she’d come to think of as home in the short time she’d been here. It was late evening; she had no tears left. Clutching Ian’s shirt to her like a substitute teddy bear, she sought some sort of comfort. There was none to be found in either the shirt or the cottage. Or her thoughts.

  Her grandmother always told her not to take herself too seriously—that there was nothing special about her. If men were after her, it was either for her money or a quick roll in the sack. And once she gave them whichever they wanted, they’d be gone. Grandmother may have been right after all. She should have known better. Did know better. But, given the chance, would she change what had happened?

  No, she wouldn’t regret what she’d done. Couldn’t regret Ian. Everyone deserved one great love in their lives, even if they didn’t get to keep it. At least she’d known him and what real love was. That was enough.

  Or so she would tell herself every time it started to hurt. Once it quit hurting all the time. If it ever quit hurting all the time.

  “It will stop. Eventually.”

  She crawled from the bed and stumbled to the bathroom, turning the faucet on full blast. She splashed the warm water over her face and dried off on a soft yellow towel while she breathed in the mist steaming up from the basin.

  She’d survived and gone on before.

  Glancing up, she wiped the steam from the mirror and stared at the puffy face that returned her gaze. She acknowledged the loss and sorrow she saw reflected there. She had freely chosen to allow Ian into her heart, in spite of the risk. Even though she had known he was perhaps the one person in the world who would have the power to do this to her, she’d still chosen to hand over her heart to him.

  “Never again,” she promised as fresh tears rolled down the cheeks of the woman she watched. The face in the mirror disappeared behind the curtain of steam gathering again on the mirror until the droplets of water forming there began to roll down, making it look as if the mirror itself joined her in shedding tears, trying to wash the pain away.

  Yes, she would survive this. She would go on. But she would never again choose to open herself up to the kind of pain that accompanied love.

  She promised herself that she had taken her one and only risk on love.

  Twenty

  The persistent pounding finally caught Sarah’s attention, pulling her back to the real world, out of the story in which she had immersed herself for almost two weeks. She wanted to stay there, where life didn’t hurt with every memory. But the knocking wouldn’t stop.

  “Just a minute,” she called irritably, straightening from the chair she had occupied for hours. Ruthlessly tamping down any hope it might be Ian waiting on her steps, she unbolted the latch and threw open the door.

  “Oh my.” Martha stepped back, running her hands down her crisp white apron as if smoothing imaginary wrinkles. “Are you feeling all right, dearie?”

  Disappointment welled in Sarah’s chest, even though she had known it wouldn’t be Ian knocking at her door.

  “I’m fine, Martha. Is there something I can do for you?” She didn’t want to visit or discuss how she felt. She didn’t have the energy for it. It was much better to work and let her mind fill with the story and the characters. In their world, she felt no pain.

  “Oh, yes…there’s a telephone call for you. Up at the manor house. I came down to fetch you.” The woman looked at her expectantly.

  “Who is it?” Sarah could barely force the words out past the building emotion. Would he call her? Explain what had happened, why he’d just up and left with no word?

  “I’ve no idea, dear. She’d no give her name.” A look of irritation passed across her face. “She asked that I run get you while she waited.”

  A second wave of disappointment rolled over her. “Oh, well, hold on a second.”

  She looked around the room. Her shoes had to be somewhere. There, under the chair. She slipped them on and hurried to follow Martha back, concern building as they neared the house.

  Only her agent knew she was here, but it didn’t sound like Laine to refuse to give her name. Still, perhaps there was a problem with the deadline for the book. She almost smiled. For the first time in months, she felt certain the book would not only be on time, it would be finished long before it was due.

  They entered the kitchen through the back door and Martha handed her the telephone, walking a discreet distance away and turning her back to wait while Sarah took her call.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Sarah Douglas?”

  She didn’t recognize the woman’s crisp voice. “It is. Who’s this?”

  “Hold please.”

  In the space of a heartbeat, another voice sounded on the line.

  “Sarah?”

  A deep, cultured voice that she recognized immediately.

  “Ramos. What a surprise.”

  “Surprise? But I told you I’d see you again.” He chuckled. “Have you so little faith in all men or is it just me?”

  If he only knew.

  “I’m surprised you found me.” Or that he’d even tried.

  The chuckle again. “Not such a task, my sweet. I knew you were a guest at McCullough’s estate and it took very little effort to track that down.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Edinburgh. Have you had an opportunity to see the sights here yet? It’s a lovely old city.”

  “No. I’m afraid I haven’t seen much of anything. I’ve been totally involved in my work.”

  “Do you mean to tell me you haven’t seen anything of the countryside since you’ve been here?”

  “Well, I drove here from Glasgow when I first arrived. And then from here down to Glaston House and back.”

  “Those don’t count. Have you gone out and met the people, seen the sights, looked at what the country has to of
fer since you’ve been here?”

  “No. I haven’t really had the time.”

  “Then you’re overdue. Please. Allow me to show it to you. Tomorrow. I’ll come get you early and we’ll play tourist, take in some local color, enjoy ourselves.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  She’d promised Ian she wouldn’t see Ramos or his brother again. But Ian was gone with no word. And somehow that seemed to indicate that any promises made between them were no longer binding.

  “What’s wrong? McCullough standing there glaring at you?”

  No. That certainly wasn’t the case.

  “Edinburgh is rather far away for you to run over and pick me up, don’t you think?”

  “Not at all. Barely a couple of hours. And we can enjoy the sights on the way back to the city or find something else entirely to do. We’ll make a day of it.”

  “Well…” She knew for a fact Ramos was no threat to her, in spite of what Ian had said. She’d felt the sincerity and the good in him when she’d touched him.

  “Come on, Sarah. We’ll have a great time. All work and no play makes Sarah a dull writer.”

  Why not? She’d done nothing but sit at her computer for the past week, trying not to wonder what had gone wrong. Why not enjoy herself having a day out with a handsome, attentive man?

  “Fine. Do you know how to get here?”

  “I’ll manage it.”

  “What time should I expect you?”

  “How’s eight? That will give us plenty of time.”

  “Eight it is. See you then, Ramos.”

  “Until then.”

  She held the receiver in her hand for a moment after his end went dead. What was she getting herself into?

  Hanging up the phone, she looked back at the housekeeper who was industriously straightening the contents of a drawer. “Thanks, Martha.”

  “You’re sure yer all right, dearie? I could whip up a quick lunch for you if you’d like. No a problem.”

  “That’s really sweet of you, but no thanks. I have to get back to work.”

  She smiled at the woman as she let herself out the back door and headed down the path toward the cottage, thinking about the telephone call and the man who’d made it.