My Dark
Highlander
Book #2 in the
Kilted Athletes
Through Time
Series
by Nancy Lee Badger
Copyright © 2014
By Nancy Lee Badger
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system-except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the Web without permission in writing from the publisher.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. SW
Cover illustration copyright © 2014
By Nancy Lee Badger
THE BOOK BLURB
Stranded in 1603 Scotland, veterinarian Jenny Morgan is eager to get home to New England. Hiding her ability to read auras, a powerful witch comes to her aid. All Jenny will miss is the man who stole her heart, one dark night.
Laird Gavin Sinclair has a missing brother, a murderous father, and a dark-eyed beauty on his mind. When Jenny returns to a dangerous future, he sets aside his obligations and searches for her at the New England Highland Games. Jealousy and lust ravage his dark soul, until he and Jenny fight evil together.
DEDICATION
To friends and family who continue
to believe in me and my dreams,
and to New Hampshire and Scotland
for their beauty and inspiration.
CHAPTER 1
Wick, North Sea
Scotland 1603
An earsplitting gathering of raised voices shook Jenny Morgan, threatening to clear the nightmarish daydream from her thoughts. Couldn’t they see that her eyes were closed? If they’d let her dream a while longer, she’d figure out why she felt so out-of-sorts, as if something was missing. Leaning against a rowan tree, she inhaled the crisp autumn air. She licked her lips, tasting the tang of the sea as she concentrated, but only time would tell.
Time? I’m in the wrong time.
The moment a strange man appeared in her yard, one fall New Hampshire morning, Jenny knew the day had gone to Hell. He had brandished a sword at her neighbor, Isobel ‘Izzy’ MacHamish, and Izzy’s friend, Bryce ‘Bull’ Buchanan. Even before he appeared, decked out in dark leather, threatening Izzy and Bull, Jenny had sensed danger. A cold tingle had slithered down her spine as she had gazed at his wavy brown hair, and eyes as green as the needles of the pine trees in the nearby forest. In leather boots and a long black cloak, he oozed danger and sex. Too bad the adamant distain on his expressive face had put her on her guard.
Something, or someone, had attacked her inside the horse barn seconds earlier, and she’d escaped outside to find these three glaring daggers at each other. When she had managed to speak, and told the group about the creature in the barn, they had all rushed inside to investigate. An instant later, a brilliant white light and an ear-splitting whistle sent her and her companions tumbling backwards through time.
Had it been only two weeks since she’d awoken up in a meadow with a bruised head and a throng of fierce, mounted warriors heading her way? The danger had fizzled the moment the sword-wielding riders had recognized him.
Presented with the unreal, although not unexpected, confirmation that she’d been transported back in time, her breathing had eased. Whether due to the cold or fear, her body had gone numb. The Scottish Highlands, raw and cooler than the yard behind her apartment house in northern New England, was too real to ignore. Her pretty, flowered sundress was torn and filthy, and the lump on her head hurt like the dickens. Even when her breathing slowed to a more normal rhythm, she couldn’t stop shivering. The dark, leather-clad intruder, who Izzy introduced as Gavin Sinclair, had offered his cloak.
She wished she could still feel the gentle touch of his long fingers, as he draped the warm extra-long coat around her trembling shoulders. She could almost smell the remarkable scents that permeated the air around the man; leather, horse, and musk. His wavy brown hair had covered most of his face, but vividly green eyes had stared at her.
Just like they continue to do, in my dreams.
His trim body, clad neck to toe in black, couldn’t be more different than Bull’s. Gavin Sinclair wasn’t tall or muscular, and he had glanced her way like a man unaccustomed to caring for a mere woman.
At the time, it all proved too much to comprehend, and fear had given way to a wave of dizziness and a waterfall of tears. Embarrassed to have such a man witness her breakdown, she’d pulled herself together. She’d survived her ordeal, hadn’t she?
Jenny forced her eyes open. Nightmares intruded each evening, and now they gripped her during the day? The sordid truth was that two weeks passed since that fateful day, when the world she knew faded away, and she had landed in a meadow in the Scottish Highlands, nearly four-hundred years before she’d been born.
Due to the kindness of others, she was well dressed in a simple yellow peasant-style blouse and a long mud-brown skirt. So much had transpired during those handfuls of days that her stomach still lurched when she recalled the evil that had nearly killed everyone. Worrying about mercenaries and kidnappings made her skin crawl. Helping friends escape, enabled by teamwork, made her fingers tighten around her arms.
We did it. Gavin and I saved my friends, but the bad guy is still on the loose.
The dark-cloaked warrior had saved her life, and she, in turn, helped him create a diversion that brought Izzy and her cousin, Rae Wilson, to safety. What happened later was something she had not shared with anyone.
He knew.
“Besides, too much has happened during the last week. Wonderful things. Terrible things.” The crowd roared, startling Jenny out of her doldrums. For a moment, she nearly forgot where she was, but the valley rang with thunderous applause. Jenny clapped a hand over her chest, and slammed her back against the trunk of the rowan tree. Branches shook, and a scattering of dry leaves showered down. She blinked.
Day-dreaming on my feet, again.
Under control, and knowing she was safe for the moment, the noise that pulled her from her daydream, grew. Clapping hands and high-pitched whistles made her turn away from the athletic competition and surrounding celebration. The whistles were too similar to what she’d heard weeks ago, just before she landed… “Here.”
Jenny gazed over an adjacent field filled with grazing Scottish ponies and puffy black-faced sheep, anywhere but at the crush of villagers and warriors having fun. She walked around the outskirts of the crowd, and a little closer to Castle Ruadh.
The square castle stood high on a cliff in the Highlands of Scotland, near the town of Wick. Massive red sandstone walls created a buffer between her and the North Sea’s nippy breeze. Even so, a chill brushed the thin linen covering her shoulders, and slipped beneath her full-length skirt. She was a long way from New Hampshire.
Considering this is a different century, and Scotland.
High above her, warriors hefting longbows walked along the balustrade, ever watchful. “I bet they have the best view.”
A few waved, but she was too irritable to respond. She shouldn’t be here. Villagers had gathered to watch warriors draped in muted plaids wrestle tanned farmers. Other competitors ran races, or threw a number of odd-looking weapons for distance. Of those competing, she suspected the thunderous cheers were for her favorite athlete, Bryce Buchanan. Bull, as his friends called him, must have beaten all the other participants in another feat of strength or endurance.
H
e was an athlete from her time, more than four-hundred years in the future. He was larger than many of the Highlanders that lived in the shadow of the castle. She preferred tall, lean men, not muscular warriors as big as Bull, but he was smart, handsome, and wore an ancient kilt, what the locals called a plaid, very well. He belonged to Izzy, which made sense. Jenny was alone in this world, and she couldn’t wait to get home.
Another rousing cheer went up from the far side of the field. The crowd had swelled, and more villagers, and several warriors, hurried from inside the castle. As they passed, they closed in around her. Nausea gripped her middle.
Keeping her cool, she held her breath and stretched up onto her toes. She gazed over the thickening crowd of spectators at the various athletes until she spied Bull. Suddenly envious of the men of this time, her toes curled inside her borrowed doeskin slippers with the urge to run onto the field and join them. Instead, she sighed, because women in this century don’t compete.
Besides, she wasn’t in the mood to run a mile, throw a huge boulder, or wrestle. Instead, she concentrated on a life-altering decision she had to make, and soon. She’d love to talk to someone who could understand her predicament, but the few people she knew, in this time, had scattered. They had their own lives to live.
The crush of people stole Jenny’s breath again. With reluctance, she surrendered her viewing spot and squeezed through the villagers. When some distance away, she inhaled a deep, cleansing breath. Crowds affected her in an unpleasant way, which is why the empty cliffs in the distance beckoned.
Gathering up her skirt, she walked as fast as her delicate footwear would allow over the uneven terrain. What she wouldn’t give for paved roads and sidewalks! The ocean breeze and its salty spray diluted the odor of horses, hay, and spilled ale. She could live with those smells, but she couldn’t live here.
Without shops, restaurants, or indoor plumbing? With him?
What would she do if she never returned to her job as a veterinarian at the Lincoln Highlands Animal Clinic? She had enjoyed two weeks of autumn afternoons in Scotland, yet she’d never forget she’d been threatened by a power-hungry, evil Scottish laird and his blood-thirsty mercenaries. Bloody battles and injured people also made her realize she missed the safety of the twenty-first century.
Raucous applause pulled her attention back to the festival, the sixteenth-century equivalent of the modern Highland games. She paused to listen. Listening to crowds wasn’t the problem.
If the deafening ovation was any indication, the spectators must have witnessed Bull break a village record by turning the caber. To take a log more than three times your height, and half your weight, carry it pressed against one shoulder, then toss it end over end, was madness. The villagers loved it. Bull participated in athletic events at the New England Highland Games back home. Jenny never thought to buy a ticket and go watch the modern games. “Maybe when I get back home I’ll--”
“Have you seen Balfour?”
Jenny jumped. Jake, her friend, and former neighbor back home, walked toward her. He’d tied his dark hair at the nape of his neck with a strip of brown leather. His black leather pants weren’t as sexy as a kilt, but more practical for a blacksmith. She couldn’t help admire the vest of stitched wedges of brown leather that resembled dragon scales, but his naked chest beneath, made her mouth go dry. His clean-shaven face, brightened by a quick smile, gave way to a slight frown.
Jenny coughed, and found her voice. “What’s wrong? Lost your horse again?”
When his booted feet stopped beside her, worry furrowed his black brows.
“It’s not funny. That old fart wandered off. Never used to do that, back…”
Jenny understood. He was thinking of his former home in New Hampshire, and Balfour’s barn and paddock. The small brown horse, with a short-cropped dark mane, was the oldest of Jake’s three horses.
“I can see your problem, Jake. No fences around here.”
“This is serious! He could fall off the cliff, or eat himself sick in the apple orchard.”
“Stop worrying. Balfour is grazing in the meadow on the far side of the athletic field.”
Jake cupped his hand above his eyes. “How did he get way over there? I swear I left him in the stable.”
Jake’s appearance, and all that they’d been through these past weeks, reminded her that time is fleeting. If she went home to her century, Jake’s empty barn would greet her every morning. She’d grown used to the muted whinnying of horses and the clanging of Jake’s anvil, since the barn doubled as his blacksmith shop. She’d miss him, if she returned home.
When I return home.
The clang of broadswords drew their attention. He cupped her elbow, leading her closer to the crowd lining the athletic field. Jenny focused on the far side of the field, and did her best to ignore the people.
“After the battles you and I survived, this festival is a happy excuse for Highland warriors to practice their craft, while lovely lasses watch.”
“Speaking of lasses, where’s your wife?” Jenny teased him. He’d found the love of his life, and would stay here, by Skye’s side.
“Look! Bull is taking on three swordsmen at once,” Jake said, ignoring her question.
A melee of plaid-wrapped warriors filled the center of the meadow. War cries, and the ring of steel hitting steel, made her insides lurch. The warriors fought in controlled combat, but the swinging swords looked seriously scary. Men in an adjacent field roared. Fierce wrestling matches between half-naked warriors made women hoot lewd comments as children ran in circles, screaming with glee.
Had everyone, except her, forgotten the death and destruction that had recently terrorized these people? They celebrated the autumn harvest with Highland games, acts of strength, and faux battles, as if nothing had happened. The devilish Angus Sinclair was still at large. The damage one man and his paid henchmen had caused still left a bad taste in her mouth. She wished she could forget the events of the last two weeks.
Well, not all of it.
The image of the dark and mysterious Gavin Sinclair, the devil’s youngest son, rose up and stole her breath.
“Bull has gotten really good. With a sword, I mean,” Jake said, chuckling.
Was he thinking about how Bull had swept Izzy off her feet? Jenny smiled, “Yes, he is a true Highlander, but he doesn’t want anyone calling him that.”
“Ain’t that the truth. He’s more reluctant to be a part of all of this than me.”
“He has more than enough reason to shun this place. He endured several life or death battles, had mythical creatures chase after him, and nearly died in a burning barn.”
Bull slashed and parried against another of Mackenzie’s warriors. Named the laird of Castle Ruadh, Marcus Mackenzie commanded well-trained warriors. Bull’s back muscles flinched, and steel clanged with each fearsome strike. When Bull suddenly fell to one knee, Jenny’s throat tightened.
“Don’t worry. He’ll be fine.” Jake said.
“I’m not worried. He’s a natural.” Stretching up on her toes, she searched in vain for another familiar face. “Where’s Gavin?”
When Jake didn’t respond, she glanced his way. He crossed his arms over his chest, and his gaze bore into her. A black eyebrow lifted.
“What?” she asked.
“Why are you interested in Gavin Sinclair’s whereabouts? I hope he’s gone. Good riddance. That guy gives me the creeps.”
“Well, according to Izzy, I might have a way to get home. Accident or not, my future lies back home; my apartment, my job, everything. Gavin saved my life. I want to say goodbye.” She returned her attention to Bull, praying he wasn’t accidently injured. Izzy’s heart would break.
Unlike mine. I’ve no one in my life.
“Would it be so bad if you stayed?” Jake shouted. A few clouds had moved in, and the wind had picked up, so he leaned closer.
Jenny rubbed her palms up her chilled arms, and quietly cursed the borrowed short-sleeved peasant blouse,
as she contemplated his words. “I’m not like you. You have Skye. Your wife is a well-loved healer who some call a witch. She’s part of a powerful family. Her brother is the Gunn clan’s laird, for Pete’s sake. Rumor has it you’re pretty special, yourself. Something about wings, scales, breathing fire? Ring any bells?”
Jake winced, but didn’t deny the villagers’ gossip. Keeping magical abilities concealed prolonged ones’ life, which was why she told no one about her ability.
She went on. “You help keep these people safe. I have nothing to contribute. Besides, I have a job waiting for me back home.”
“I’m sure we could find you something to do.”
When she glared at him, he changed the subject. “Well, don’t leave without saying goodbye to Skye and Izzy, okay?”
She nodded, then watched him walk away. She liked Jake. Everyone did, but she was a stranger dumped into their midst. No one would miss her.
Shivering at the thought, she slipped her suddenly chilled hands into her skirt’s hidden pockets. She fingered the mobile phone that she had carried to the past, in the pocket of her ruined sundress. She couldn’t get a signal. She’d tried. A desperate act, but the feel of a piece of her future life had a calming effect, that she didn’t even share with her friends.
Izzy and Bull had a life here. Izzy owned a small farm, and planned to offer housing to several displaced people who had escaped Angus Sinclair’s tyranny. Jenny didn’t need a man in her life to succeed. Her heart ached for no one.
Liar.
Dark and mysterious, Gavin was guilty of hiding secrets he didn’t care to share, same as her. After their one night in the barn, where they had huddled for warmth, Jenny couldn’t sleep at night. Not when his image filled her dreams. He was secretive, wary, and filled with anger. She had no room in her life for a man like him.
Doesn’t mean I don’t wish he fit.
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