Reunited (Book 2 of Lost Highlander series)

by Cayman, Cassidy

  “I train horses,” he said. “Breed them as well. I can find work in the city.”

  “I can draw,” she said shyly, following his lead. “And speak French. Perhaps I may tutor wee children.” Her fingers slowed and he could hear the smile in her voice.

  “Aye, that sounds like a good plan. Or ye could give massages,” he said when she started digging into his shoulders again. “That’s amazing, Bella.”

  She slapped him lightly on the arm. “That’s scandalous,” she said. “That I might do this to strangers.”

  “Am I not a stranger?” he turned so he could see her blush.

  She bit her lower lip and he wanted to press his mouth against hers, trace his tongue where her teeth were leaving small indents in the plump flesh.

  “I suppose ye are,” she said. “But it feels as if ye aren’t, somehow.” With a shrug, she gave him a gentle push to get him to turn back around so she could continue.

  She made soft sighing noises as she worked, and between that, her hands, and the soft brushes of her body against his back, he was beginning to be discomposed. Unable to control his wayward imaginings, he opened his eyes and saw that he might need a pillow for his lap, and prayed she wouldn’t notice.

  She ran her hands down his sides and took the hem of his shirt and pulled. Without a thought he lifted his arms so she could get it over his head. He felt his hair get rumpled from the neckband as she tugged it firmly to get it off.

  The cool air caused goosebumps to spring out on his touch sensitized back and though he tried to stay still, a shiver ran through him.

  For a moment she was distracted by the t-shirt fabric and he sat frozen, not wanting her to stop, but at the same time afraid what might happen if she continued. The feel of her fingers kneading his muscles was intoxicating, and doing more to him than just easing his aches and pains. The battle to tamp down his desire was lost.

  “The stitches are so fine. I can barely see them,” she said.

  When he didn’t answer her, she tossed the shirt aside and began stroking his bare skin. This time her touch was feather light, fingers trailing up the sides of his arms and down his back, and again up the sides of his waist.

  He bit his lip and tried to breathe evenly as she raised more goosebumps along his back with her fingernails, then smoothed them away with her palms. She rested her hands on the tops of his arms and he was actually throbbing with wanting to turn around and kiss her, reciprocate her touch.

  He closed his eyes and waited, thinking she would stop and get under the covers, turn away to the wall and fall asleep like the night before. Then he could go take a five mile run through the woods to get over her tantalizing rub down.

  Instead, she leaned closer. He could feel her breasts through the thin fabric of her shift and feel her breath on his shoulder.

  “Ye want me,” she said, her lips soft against his neck.

  He’d never reached for a pillow to put in his lap. It was clear as day that he wanted her. He nodded, keeping his eyes closed. She pressed a kiss into the side of his neck, under his ear. Another on his jaw. She pushed herself fully against him and with an anguished moan, he turned around and crushed her to him, one hand behind her back and the other wrapped in her hair.

  He claimed her mouth, which was open and eager for him. She flung her arms around his neck and ground herself closer to him, whimpering as he dragged his mouth away from hers so he could kiss her down the front of her throat, then through the fabric of her shift.

  With a growl, he tore at the strings that tied it shut so that it finally flew open, revealing her small round breasts and taut nipples. He traced one with his tongue and reveled in her gasp of pleasure.

  He glanced up at her and saw her eyes were wide and glazed, and a wave of lust crashed over him. She grabbed the sides of his face and kissed him with eager abandon, running her hands over his shoulders and down his chest. She shook under his touch as he took her by the hips and eased her backwards onto the mattress.

  He knelt over her, looking down at her hair all spread out on the thin, lumpy pillow, her hands reaching up to him and her eyes determined.

  He swung his leg over and leaned down to kiss her, edging the hem of her shift up with one hand while he caressed her breast with the other, teasing her nipple with his thumb.

  Even as she shivered with desire at his touch, and his own need almost blinded him, her husband lurked in the back of his mind. He knew if he went forward he truly would be killed if they were caught.

  Her shift was all the way up at her waist and he could feel her knees trembling at his sides. He’d never wanted anyone this way before, where the risk of being murdered hardly gave him pause. Could he allow her to be in that same danger? He regretfully tore his hand from her breast and pushed himself up.

  “Should we stop?” he asked.

  She blinked and grabbed his arms, jerking him back down on top of her, and wrapping her legs around his hips.

  “No,” she said urgently, almost angrily. She bit her bottom lip and arched into his throbbing need, running her fingers down his arm and guiding his hand back to her breast. “I want ye so.”

  She lifted her chin and kissed him softly, sighing against his mouth.

  “Okay,” he said, completely undone. “Yeah, okay.”

  Chapter 12

  So, this is our first fight, Piper thought.

  After he told her he was leaving, she’d stood there, aghast. When he tried to take her in his arms, she shrugged away, stomping up to the house, trying not to cry, rage and fear and sadness all warring to take center stage.

  Here he had risked everything to find her again, to save her, and he was going to leave because he may have forgotten to turn off his stove? She wanted to punch him, and stopped mid-stride, turning around swinging her bunched up fist. He grabbed her hand and held it.

  “Piper, it is no’ that easy to explain.”

  “You’re not leaving without me,” she said, wrenching her hand away and trying again to take a swipe at him.

  With a mournful look, he sidestepped her attempt. “But ye canna go with me, my love. We tried.”

  She slammed into the kitchen and contemplated pouring herself a whiskey. Sam kept bringing over different kinds, trying to get her to develop a taste for it.

  No, she needed her wits about her to make this hard headed man understand what he was up against.

  “We’ll do it the other way,” she said. “We can.”

  Lachlan sat down on a barstool and rubbed his forehead before he looked at her with dawning realization.

  “Did ye keep her things?” he asked in a low voice.

  Her heart sank at his tone. The accoutrements to her ancestor Daria’s way of time travel were sick and evil. Human bones, blood. A spell book that made her take leave of her senses. The one time she’d done it, she’d been scared witless. The book had taken over and she was merely a mouthpiece, not understanding what she was doing or saying during the ritual. It was dangerous to the point of being deadly.

  Daria had given her lover Brian a special amulet, a gold pendant, to protect him when she’d sent him forward. Lachlan had been sent forward accidentally, and without an amulet had become sick and weak.

  After she sent Lachlan back to his own time and was able to bring back Sam and Evie, everyone had begged her to destroy the book, bones and pendant, but she hadn’t. She couldn’t.

  “I would never have used them,” she said. “I wanted to everyday. I wanted you back. It was like there was a hole in my life and it wasn’t getting smaller, but I still never used them.”

  He put his head on his folded arms and sighed. Her hands itched to smooth his hair or squeeze his shoulder, but she reminded herself he was set on leaving and kept still.

  “I am sorry,” he said, turning his head to look at her.

  His eyes were so filled with anguish, she gasped, but didn’t move.

  “Then stay.”

  Her heart hurt at the remembrance of the last tim
e she’d asked him to stay. He hadn’t. If he left now, how could she carry on again? The last six months had been a frenzy of busy work, getting her great-grandmother’s estate in order, and she’d felt like the walking dead the entire time.

  “Just stay,” she said again.

  “I cannot.” He sat up and slammed his fist on the bar.

  She jumped at the suddenness of his anger, then steadied her nerves. “Then I go with you,” she said, pulling herself up to her full five feet of height.

  He glared at her and she glared right back, going so far as to raise a challenging eyebrow at him. His face softened but she remained firm.

  “The thing in the past, in your time,” she said. “Can’t it just stay there? It’s so far away now.”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. “It is nothing to me. A walk to the woods. There are things I left undone. Not just yer ancestor, though I will find him, I swear.”

  “What things?” she asked, her voice rising in frustration.

  She was willing to walk away from everything without a backward glance for him. What in the past would he leave her for?

  He looked at the refrigerator, the clock on the wall, above her head and over her shoulder, but wouldn’t meet her eye. A muscle worked in his jaw as he avoided answering her.

  “Your wee many times great-granny. I ran off her husband. I canna’ leave her there withou’ finding the right one.”

  “History might work itself out.”

  “And it might no’. I am no’ willing to take the chance.”

  Piper wanted to slam her own fist down on the bar. He was being obstinate and obtuse, and she knew he would leave again, no matter how long she argued.

  “Are we together?” she asked, swiping away angry tears.

  “Aye,” he said. He reached across the bar and gripped her arms.

  “Then we stay together.”

  “Piper …” he looked tortured.

  A knock on the door caused them both to turn and give the stable lad who was edging into the kitchen murderous looks. The boy cowered and started to leave.

  “What?” Piper growled, knowing he wouldn’t have come up if wasn’t something important. Something else, something new. She was starting to feel put upon. “What is it, Danny?” she repeated in a kinder tone, hoping this one really was Danny.

  She had three stable boys who were brothers and close in age, with the same freckled faces and mops of shaggy hair.

  “Beggin’ yer pardon, Miss Piper,” Danny said and she wished he wouldn’t talk to her like she was a villain from a Charles Dickens novel. No matter what she did, the stable boys wouldn’t stop being nervous around her. “I’ve got some news.”

  “Oh dear,” Piper said, pouring him a glass of juice. “That sounds ominous. Good news? Or bad? Give me the bad first.” She handed him the glass and smiled encouragingly, feeling like she might scream.

  Danny gripped the glass and looked miserable. “I think it’s all bad news, miss,” he said.

  She sat down and sighed, motioning for him to continue. “Give me the worst, then.”

  Lachlan moved behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. Danny looked at him as if he had just hit the gossip jackpot, and Piper was glad she had sown the seeds of Lachlan being a visiting historian with a passion for reenacting historical battles and dressing in tartan. The fact that she had a man at all up here would have already spread like wildfire throughout the village.

  “Ah, well, it’s terrible, it is. Four of the sheep have been killed.”

  Piper had only had the sheep for a month. She’d bought a dozen fat Merino sheep from a neighbor to try and restore the estate to what it had been in its former glory, or at least make it look a bit more authentic for the tourists.

  She’d grown to love seeing their fluffy white and black bodies dotting the landscape. While in the throes of one of her mad tangents, she and one of the ladies in the village made big plans to dye and spin the wool into artisan yarn. She’d even learned to knit, though she was horrible at it. Four of her wooly lambs killed?

  “Are your brothers okay?” she asked. The boys took turns dealing with the sheep since there wasn’t enough of them yet to warrant a real shepherd. “Was it a wolf?” She remembered one of the lads had gone tracking a wolf the day the barn burned.

  “Aye, Shane is fine, and I dinna think it was a wolf.” The boy stopped and swallowed, his face full of fear. “Not unless wolves have learned to use a knife.”

  “Are ye sayin’ the sheep were killed apurpose?” Lachlan said.

  Danny took a step back and nodded.

  “Someone killed them with a knife?” Piper asked, full of fear. She asked Danny if he was completely sure.

  He nodded again. “Gutted, miss.”

  She groaned and pressed her knuckles into her eyes. She didn’t want to cry in front of Danny, but those poor sheep. She recalled with a sinking heart that there was more news and looked at Danny for the final blow.

  “What else?”

  “Pietro’s gone missing,” Danny said.

  Chapter 13

  “That must be what it feels like to fly,” Bella said, writhing against him.

  He laughed, enjoying the feel of her silky bare skin against his side, her leg thrown wantonly across his thighs. They were covered in a sheen of sweat, and the cool night air seeping through the cracks in the hut caused him to shiver delectably.

  “I can fly,” he said. “That was better.”

  Her hand had been stroking his chest and it stilled. He wanted to punch himself for the slip. He had to be more careful.

  While being a pilot may have impressed some women where he was from, this one wouldn’t have a damn clue what he was talking about and he’d already screwed up with his mention of trains.

  “Ye made me feel like I could fly,” he amended, mentally rolling his eyes at himself.

  When he looked at her, though, with her dewy skin and the sleepy, sated look on her beautiful face, he realized he meant it. Pushing himself up on his elbow, he grew serious.

  “Why didn’t ye tell me?” he asked.

  A blush overtook her from her breasts to her forehead, and she burrowed down into the quilt. When the moment of truth occurred, he’d realized, too late of course, that she was a virgin.

  He’d nearly lost it, in more ways than one, and she’d gripped him tightly and begged him not to stop.

  Hating himself and with a terrible sense of foreboding, he’d carried on, careful and meticulous, nearly driving himself mad holding back while he made sure she had no regrets. He was determined if he was going to hell, the road would be paved with his good intentions.

  Pulling back the covers, he kissed her collarbone and nudged her chin up with his nose, smiling encouragingly.

  She returned his smile, her face still blazing. She shrugged. “I was ashamed. On our wedding night, my husband locked us up in our room and crashed about and swore, then cut his hand and shook the blood on the sheets and stormed out. He didna return for three days, and then he was madder than before. But he never touched me, not in anger nor lust.”

  Her eyes glistened with tears and he kissed her, pulling the tatty quilt up over them.

  “He will never touch ye, or look at ye again, if I have any say about it,” he promised.

  Once again, he realized he meant it, for whatever that was worth. Ever since he found himself in the wrong barn on the wrong estate, he’d felt like he was playing an elaborate video game. It was so real, it was unreal. He was actually saving a damsel in distress. He pulled her closer, sliding his hands down her back.

  “I’ve never done that before,” he mused.

  “I daresay ye have,” she said with a muffled giggle against his chest.

  “No, I mean, I’ve never, erm, with someone who hasn’t.”

  “Not even when ye were a virgin?” She craned her neck back to look at him. “Ah, did yer uncle or someone pay for a whore?”

  “No!” he said, mortified she c
ould think that so calmly. “My first girlfriend was experienced. We were in the same year, and she was going out with a football player until he dumped her right before end of term. I was what ye call a rebound. I think she was trying to pretend I was him the whole time. We were roughly the same build. She’d keep her eyes shut tight and tell me ‘no, not like that, like this’, and was always slightly disappointed, I think.”

  “That sounds terrible.”

  “Aye, but I learned a lot.”

  She sighed. “I liked it verra much. Perhaps we can do it again?”

  “Oh, aye. As much as ye like.”

  She wiggled closer and he let his hands roam lower.

  “What’s football?” she asked.

  He laughed and nibbled her earlobe. “A game where ye run about and kick a ball.” He leaned down to kiss her. “This is better.”

  ***

  The morning barrelled in on them too soon, and when the rooster shrilly woke him, he rolled over and tried to find a position where he wasn’t being poked with sharp bits of straw.

  Seriously, it couldn’t take that much advanced technological capability to find a softer substance to stuff a mattress. He thought if he had to stay here he could build an empire making comfortable beds.

  Bella rolled over at the same time he did and they faced each other, smiling shyly.

  He could count on two fingers the number of serious relationships he’d had in his twenty-seven years, not including the minor flings and disastrous casual dating he’d done since he’d been back from active duty.

  He had never felt the heady mix of desire, protectiveness, and curiosity he did for this wee disheveled beauty lying next to him. About the only thing he knew for certain right now was that he wanted to keep her close.

  He kissed her languorously until she flopped back onto the mattress, throwing her arm over her head.

  “We must leave soon. Granny Jinty’s lads will return, and if they find me here, I’ll have to go back.”