A Highlander’s Homecoming

by Melissa Mayhue

  His eyes were closed, as if it took too much effort to hold them open, his face wrinkled as he gritted through the pain. “Cate warned as much. It took three of them to send us.”

  “And we’ve only two.” Leah stood at the side of the bed, twisting her fingers together. “Try again, Isa. Keep trying.”

  Try what? Isa had no idea what it was she should be doing. Think on someplace she’d never even seen? How was she supposed to do that?

  Only Robbie could see where they were to go, and he seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness now.

  “Stay with me, love. I need you to concentrate on yer home for us.” Isa grabbed his shoulders, giving him a little shake.

  When her hand covered the mark on his arm, a shaft of green light burst from between her fingers, shooting out into the room.

  “Whoa,” Leah breathed, leaning forward. “Tell me you saw that, Grandma Mac.”

  “I did,” Margery replied. “Though I’ve no idea what it was I saw.”

  “It’s those tattoo things!” Leah cried. “Robert’s Guardian Mark. It’s on the back of Isa’s hand, too. When they touched, it sparked the magic.”

  “But no enough.” Isa swept her hand over Robbie’s forehead once again, desperate to come up with an idea. Any idea.

  “Love you,” Robbie groaned, “Need to say that before I lose . . .”

  “Oh, Robbie.” Isa put her face close to his, kissing his cheek. “Dinna you die on me, do you hear? I dinna want to live without you.”

  “Soulmates,” he whispered. “I’ll find you again.”

  “No!” Isa sat up on the bed, grabbing his shoulders, sparking the shaft of light once more. “I dinna want you to find me. I want you to stay with me!”

  As the light died down the door burst open and Jamie ran inside.

  “I saw a strange light coming from yer door.”

  “Not enough,” Leah murmured. “Not enough! Of course! It’s only two.”

  She reached into the neckline of her shift and jerked, pulling a broken ribbon from around her neck. A shiny black stone dangled at the ribbon’s end she held out to Isa.

  “Take this. Hold it in your hand against the mark on his arm. You’ve two marks. This will make three. It’s worth a try.”

  Isa took the stone, sparing only a second to look at it. Carved into its polished surface was the same mark that Robbie wore on his arm. The same mark as on her hand.

  “Wake up, Robbie. Stay with me. You must see where you want to be in yer mind.”

  His eyes fluttered open. “Be with you,” he muttered.

  “Aye, with me, love. But in the future. In yer home where yer safe. See it in yer mind for me. Please.”

  She slapped the stone against his arm, holding on to it as tightly as she could. If this worked, it would be up to him where they might go, for her thoughts were centered on him.

  An odd green glow began to pulse through the room, with strange little bursts of color sparking in and out.

  “Isa!” Jamie yelled, as he nimbly slipped past Margery’s outstretched arm, straight up onto the bed beside Isa, his little arms locking around her waist.

  With her free hand, she grasped onto Jamie’s wrist, filling her mind with a new vision. A vision of the three of them. Together.

  The tingling along the back of Isa’s hand intensified and she fought the urge to slap at the invisible creatures she felt crawling on her skin as thunder rumbled nearby.

  The green light grew more brilliant, shrinking into a wavering sphere that enclosed the bed, and the sparkles of color multiplied until it looked as though there were thousands upon thousands of them shooting around inside the sphere. They dashed soundlessly against the wavering emerald walls and through Isa’s body, picking up speed until she could no longer discern individual shapes but only streaks of color swirling around her head.

  The myriad colors gyrated around them, faster and faster, and at last, as if hitting the peak of their frenzy, they merged, and the world around Isa turned to black as she felt herself being thrown through the air.

  Chapter 31

  As the black lifted, Isa found herself flat on her face, her grip holding tight to her two men. She opened her hands, trying to flex her cramping fingers before she pushed herself up to sit.

  Jamie’s body lay against hers, one limp arm, the one she’d held on to as they tumbled, still draped over her leg.

  She grasped him under his arms and dragged him into her lap, smoothing her fingers over his soft pink cheeks.

  “Dearling,” she murmured. “Open yer eyes.”

  “He only sleeps.”

  Robbie, his eyes smiling and alert, watched her, a smug grin on his face as he sat up straight. “You did it, love.”

  She froze for a second before reaching across the child in her lap to whip the blood-drenched bandage from his chest. It gave way easily, leaving a wet brown smear across his skin.

  Skin marked only with a thin silver scar.

  Isa ran her finger over the ancient wound, finding herself speechless for one of the few times in her life.

  “I told you. You did it.” Robbie placed his hand on either side of her face and, leaning forward, pulled her toward him until their lips met.

  What began as soft and gentle soon became desperate, and they broke apart, each of them gasping for air.

  “Let me get our lad settled.” He scooped Jamie into his arms and climbed off what had to be the biggest bed Isa had ever seen in her entire life.

  “Yer sure he only sleeps?” His breathing did sound like that of a sleeping child, but she hardly knew what to believe after all she’d seen in the past twenty-four hours.

  “Time travel is hard on Mortals. He’ll sleep for a good twelve hours or more and wake as hungry as a bear in spring.” Robbie chuckled as he walked away from the bed carrying the boy. “Dinna you move from that bed, wife.”

  Wife.

  If he’d intended to freeze her to the spot, he couldn’t have chosen a better word.

  Wife.

  It rattled around inside her head and dropped into her heart like a heavy lump of lead.

  Wife.

  What she wanted most. What she couldn’t have.

  “Ugh! Let’s get rid of that.” Robbie returned, snatching up the bloody bandage between two fingers and walking through another door with it, continuing to talk even after he disappeared. “I was thinking as I put Jamie to bed, I can only guess it’s the Guardian Mark we wear that brings us through the travel so alert.”

  Isa changed her position to try to see into the room where Robbie had gone and her knee hit on something hard. Reaching down, her fingers tightened around a small, oval object.

  Leah’s stone.

  Without this, they’d still be in MacQuarrie Keep. Without this, Robbie would be . . . She couldn’t finish the thought. After days of staying strong, her reserves crumbled and, like some dam they had broken through, tears coursed down her cheeks.

  “What’s all this? We’re fine now, love. You’ve nothing else to worry about. No ever.”

  Robbie had returned, pulling her to him. He held her in his arms, stroking his large hand gently over her hair, making little shushing noises that only seemed to elicit more tears.

  He was so good to her and she wanted to be his wife more than anything in the world. She wanted to bear the children he’d spoken of when he shared the vision of his home.

  She wanted him, but she was already the wife of another man.

  “It’s no fine. It’ll never be fine,” she finally managed to blubber.

  “Of course it is. You’ve brought us here to our home. Jamie sleeps like an angel in the other room. We’re together. What more could you ask for?”

  “To be yer wife,” she sobbed, unable to stop the tears at this point.

  “And you will be.” He pulled back from her, wiping her cheeks with his strong fingers. “We’ll have a fine wedding here on the front lawn. Cate and Mairi put on grand affairs. What? Why are you cryin
g even harder now?”

  “I already wed the MacDowylt,” Isa blurted out. She wanted to ease into the news, but her mind and her mouth were working at odds with one another. “I said my vows to him in order to . . .”

  “You dinna need to give that a second thought, love. I already know about it and why you did what you had to,” he interrupted. “I heard you tell Leah the story. It’s no in the least important now.”

  He wasn’t listening. He didn’t understand.

  “I’m a married woman.”

  She blinked back her surprise, her tears drying on her face as he laughed! Laughed as if this horrible, horrible situation were something funny.

  She tried to resist when he pulled her back into his arms, his chest still spasming with his chuckles.

  “Oh, love, yer no a married woman. If anything, yer a widow.”

  Pushing away again, she studied his beautiful smiling face for some clue as to the madness that possessed him.

  “A widow,” she repeated. “And how would you ken that to be the case?”

  “Because MacDowylt was a Mortal. A fine man, by my guess, based on the improbable spate of luck we encountered in our escape from Castle MacGahan, but a Mortal nonetheless. And I’ve yet to meet the Mortal who can live for over seven hundred years.”

  “Seven hundred . . .” The future. Of course. Leah had told her Robbie had lived in the future. It was the whole point of what they’d done.

  “Aye. My condolences, Mrs. MacDowylt, but yer husband’s long dead.” He touched his lips to her forehead and then her cheek. “Yer mine, Isabella MacGahan, as you were intended to be from the beginning of time. All mine.”

  He lowered her to her back, covering her with the warmth of his body, crushing his lips to hers.

  Her mind soared to that wonderful place he took her when they kissed and her need for him crashed down over her, hot and heavy.

  He lifted his head, obviously aware of his power over her, grinning like a madman.

  “I’ve so many things to show you. So much yer going to enjoy. In fact . . .” His eyes lit up and his grin turned seductive. “Oh, I’ve a grand idea.”

  He backed away, off the edge of the bed. Standing beside her, he began to unwrap the plaid he wore around his hips.

  “Grand idea indeed,” she agreed, fumbling with the ties on her overdress.

  “Arms up,” he ordered, and when she complied, he pulled the layers of her clothing up over her head and tossed them to the floor. “Thankfully here you’ll no be wearing so many things all at once. It will make life much easier on both of us.”

  “Much easier,” she agreed breathlessly, not giving any thought to what he blethered on about.

  As easily as he’d appeared to lift Jamie earlier, he picked her up in his arms and started toward the room where he’d taken the bandage.

  “What is this place?” she asked.

  “This is the master bathroom.”

  Nothing in this chamber looked in the least bit familiar. A see-through box filled one side, and on the other a cabinet jutted from the wall, made of a fine, polished stone. Above the cabinet hung what had to be the largest, clearest, most wonderful mirror in the world. The largest one she’d ever seen before had been no bigger than the width of her two hands.

  She felt her face heat as she looked at their reflection in that amazing mirror, a disrobed woman in the arms of an equally bared man.

  He obviously noted her fascination with the mirror and set her on her feet in front of it. Standing behind her, he wrapped his arms around her, fitting his palms over her breasts and pulling her back up against him.

  He dropped his lips to her neck, running his tongue from her collarbone to her ear while she watched his movements in fascination.

  “Funny,” he whispered. “I thought that piece of glass good for nothing but my morning shave. Until now.”

  He captured her eyes in their reflection and held them as he placed his hands on her shoulder and slowly slid them down her arms. Grasping her wrists, he lifted them above her head, draping her wrists over his shoulders.

  Tiny chill bumps sprang up along the path he traced down her sides, his fingers so delicate, his touch feeling as if it rippled along her skin. From her breasts down to her stomach and back up again his hands skimmed along, igniting a pulse in her body that she felt to her toes.

  His fingers traced the contour of her nipples, and she watched them pucker and harden as she felt her breasts grow heavy. It was as if the little circles he drew had the magic to change the very makeup of her body.

  “I could look at you forever,” he whispered, his eyes dark with his need.

  Grasping her waist, he turned her and lifted her at the same time, sitting her up on the countertop facing him.

  The mirror must have lost its fascination for him because he stared into her eyes as he slid his hands under her bottom and pulled her toward him. The movement spread her legs apart and he fit himself into that opening.

  The cold smooth stone beneath her bottom was a stark contrast to his heat pressing into her, and when he took her breast into his mouth, a magnificent pressure burst through her body, demanding more.

  She wrapped her legs behind his back and pressed against him.

  A noise sounded from somewhere low in his throat, part chuckle, part growl. As if her movement was all he’d waited for, he grasped her hips and drove into her, pulling her forward to meet each of his thrusts.

  When her release came, it felt as though every muscle in her body spasmed it’s delight in unison. His release came almost immediately after, filling her as he clutched her body to his.

  Her legs had become too heavy to hold up so she lowered them and they leaned there together, his head on her shoulder, each of them panting as if somewhere along the way they’d forgotten to breathe for several minutes.

  “Nothing,” she managed to say at last. “Nothing could be more wonderful than that.”

  He grinned, his manly pride obviously well pleased, and lifted her off the countertop and to her feet.

  “As they say in this time, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.”

  Leading her to the clear box in the corner, he pulled open the door and turned a handle, sending water spraying out.

  She didn’t realize her mouth hung open until he dipped his head down for a kiss, darting his tongue into the opening.

  “It’s called a shower, and the water is hot whenever you want it.”

  She stepped inside and stood under the flow, warm water cascading onto her shoulders and down over her body. Surely this was heaven.

  Or it was when he joined her under the spray of the water.

  “You think yer going to like yer new home?” he asked, pulling her close to nibble on her earlobe.

  “Without a doubt,” she breathed, all but losing her train of thought. “This is what I would call the perfect home.”

  “Yeah?” He lifted his head and grinned at her. “It’s what I’d call the perfect homecoming.”

  Home. Their home. Together.

  He chuckled as he dipped his head for another kiss. “If yer sold on it now, just wait till you meet my dog.”

  Epilogue

  1293

  “You believe the man?”

  Malcolm MacDowylt strode down the dark hallway at his brother’s side. It was a legitimate question that Patrick posed.

  “I do. The MacQuarries sent him with the message. They’d have no reason to tell us a falsehood and the rider says he looked upon the graves with his own two eyes.”

  It saddened him to hear of Isabella’s death. And the warrior who had been her self-appointed guardian. Though their presence had been naught but a hindrance to him, he’d hoped that in engineering their escape he’d given them a chance for long life together. Apparently the injuries the warrior had suffered at the hands of Lardiner had been too great for him to survive.

  “The lad as well?” Patrick’s question brought him back to the present.

  “Aye. The c
hild dinna recover from the beating, I suppose.”

  “Bastard,” Patrick hissed, picking up his pace.

  Malcolm placed a hand on his brother’s forearm. “He’ll be dealt with. Keep yer anger in check, Paddy. We’ve a plan to carry out.”

  His brother nodded, keeping his thoughts to himself until they reached their destination.

  “I only hope the worthless whoreson tries to run,” Patrick muttered, pushing open the door for Malcolm to enter.

  Malcolm didn’t mind admitting, at least to himself, that the same sentiment had crossed his mind more than once in the last hour. His hands fairly itched to mete out some well-deserved punishment.

  He nodded to the men who stood guard duty outside the room as he entered, stopping to verify all was as he’d asked.

  Patrick had gathered everyone together in the laird’s solar—his solar—before coming to get him. Roland Lardiner lounged in a chair by the fire, with two of Malcolm’s best men on either side of him, of course. His lackey, Shaw, fidgeted in the corner, also guarded by two men.

  The lovely Agneys had taken a seat near the wall, as far away from her father as she could get.

  Malcolm opted to stand, Patrick at his left shoulder.

  “I’ve called you here to share with you my decisions about yer future.”

  “You’ve no right to be passing judgment on me,” Lardiner snarled. “As Agneys’s father, I’m the rightful laird here. When she delivers the old laird’s male child, it’ll be me who sees to the lad’s training and welfare.”

  “Truly?” Malcolm asked, managing to keep his voice light and pleasant. “Would you be seeing to his welfare in the same manner as you saw to the old laird’s?”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?” Lardiner asked, straightening in his chair

  “Only that you murdered yer laird. Pushed him down the stairs, according to his granddaughter and her witness.”

  “Her witness?” Lardiner sneered. “A child she claims saw this happen. And her naught but a madwoman at that.”

  “Perhaps. But the lad survived the fire and told us of what he’d seen in his own words. And even had he not, since I married that madwoman a fortnight ago, I am forced to give credence to her word.”