by L. L. Muir
Lost in her ranting thoughts, it took a minute for the vibrations to register—someone was pounding on the floor beneath her. She held completely still until she was sure she wasn’t hallucinating. Considering her situation, she thought she’d done a reasonably good job of keeping her imagination in check all these hours—or was it days? But with oxygen deprivation, mirages of sound might be just around the corner.
Then she felt it again—a direct hit on the stone beneath her cheek. Her ear rang and she cried out in a mixture of surprise, pain and hysteria. The stone jumped and she squeaked. “I’m here. Oh, thank God. I’m here!”
Then nothing.
Nothing at all.
She begged her heart not to stop, forbade her eyes from crying.
Just count to ten. Just count to ten. You can endure anything for the count of ten.
She counted to ten, backed up a couple, and counted 8, 9, and 10 again.
What was it with this place? If you cry cried out, you lost? If you kept your mouth shut, you got out? If she had to start her parole over again, there wasn’t enough air to survive it.
“Listen you, whoever you are,” she yelled at the floor. “You get me out of here right now. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but I am dying in here. I can’t breathe. So you make me an air hole and make it quick. I also need a flashlight and some water. If I were down a mineshaft you would have made sure I had those things already. Air, water and a light. Got it?”
Laughter, rich and clear, bubbled up around the stone beneath her. She blinked frantically to clear her vision as light seeped around the edges in a thin line.
“Monty! Yer daughter is English!” The man laughed again, only harder than before. But gratefully, the light kept growing.
Long moments later, the laughter stopped. The two-foot-diameter stone lifted. When the edge rested to the side of the hole, Jillian pushed it with all her might to slide it out of the way.
She was taking no chances. After one peek to make sure the tunnel floor was as she’d left it, she yelled, “Stand back,” and dropped through, leaving the darkness behind.
After her knees recovered from her landing, she turned to find the very welcomed sight of Quinn Ross standing before her. He had changed back into his kilt, which she thought odd, but it was probably daytime and the man did have a job. Other than the fact the tunnel was lit with a realistically flaming torch, everything was as she had hoped.
Talking would have to come later, Jillian decided, as she flung herself into his arms and let the Sob Fest commence. What mattered for the moment was not the how’s and why’s, but only that he had gotten her out. If he were responsible for the prank, she’d sue him later. For now, the tartan across his shoulder was the only snot rag available and she was determined to use it.
She was vaguely aware of the man pulling her legs to one side and sitting on the floor with her still in his arms. With him settled in for the duration, she had no qualms about soaking the man with tears and slobber while she exorcized the nightmare. Once it was clear, however unlikely, that she had indeed soaked a good length of his sash and was still in need of a tissue, she calmed down. It wasn’t a lace-edged handkerchief like the Muirs’, but a paper napkin in her jacket pocket finished the job nicely.
“I’m so tired. And thirsty. I don’t know if I can make it back to the Bed and Breakfast.”
“If ye’re fair certain the greetin’ has past, I can see to the rest.”
She was so tired, his brogue sounded strange in her ears. Or maybe it was his voice. But the only thing that mattered at the moment was that she had air to breathe, and someone who could take care of her while she recovered.
“And a drink. I need a drink.”
“Aye.”
Jillian took a deep breath and shut her eyes, confused at how exhausted she was considering all the sleeping she’d done. That, however, was just another thing to examine later.
She came awake for a minute when he removed her leather jacket. It was dark but for a night light somewhere behind him, and she could barely make out Quinn’s outline as he held a tin cup of water to her lips.
“Can you turn a light on, please? And leave it on? I’m sorry to be so silly, but I just need light...and water...and air.”
As Jillian nuzzled into the soft flannel pillow, she heard that other man laughing again and she couldn’t help but smile.
“God’s blood, Monty. Yer English daughter wears trews!”
Chapter Ten
Monty lowered his voice to sound more threatening. “Shut yer maw, Ewan.”
“Oh, I think no’, yer lairdship,” mocked his cousin. “I warned ye I’d no’ be kind to ye today.”
Damn it, so he had.
The two of them sat upon the top step of the keep with their elbows on their knees and their faces on their fists, reviewing their escapade of the last evening, assuring each other it had not been a dream.
For the life of him, Monty couldn’t think where he could send his cousin to keep him from brayin’ away like the ass he was. He needed some peace; he needed to think. If the lass was somehow his daughter, he was a sick, sick man and needed to be on his knees in the chapel, begging God to forgive him for his urges.
She couldn’t be his daughter. She couldn’t! And in truth, she hadn’t claimed to be. It was only the dream. In the dream, his wife had told him, but if the dream was correct about her being sealed inside the tomb, was it also correct about her being his child?
Was it also correct about his wife?
She’d been a comely thing, and even in his dream he had known her as his own. His heart and body had responded to her even though he’d only seen her take a few steps, had heard her speak but a few words. His mind had told him she was his, and he’d found no reason to question it. And her eyes...
His daughter had those same eyes—or what he’d seen of them between puffy eyelids when she stopped her greetin’. Perhaps his attraction was just the lingering of the dream, the memory of the mother.
The buzzing in his ear was Ewan’s voice, droning on about something or other. His cousin was uneasy. Monty could tell by the speed of his speech. But the man sounded more fashed than Monty’d ever known him to be.
A sudden understanding made him smile—Ewan was worried Monty would put the lass back in the tomb to rot, as he’d vowed to do the day before.
He’d not tell Ewan his plans for the lass for he didn’t have any. His main worry was how to rid himself of his odd feelings when he watched her sleep, which was why he was outside now, sitting on the cool stone steps, as far away from his bedchamber as he could be and still feel as if he could protect her.
Ewan took a long needed breath.
“So, ye’ve a child.” Ewan punched his arm. “And ye’ve kept it from me.”
“Don’t be daft. She’s no’ my child.” Monty felt heat rising in his face. Ewan’s keen intuition was a flighty thing. Sometimes he kenned exactly what Monty was thinking, and other times he needed a good knock to the jaw to understand.
“Ye’re right, I suppose, and more’s the pity. Ye’d have had to sire her at no more than ten, I would think.”
Just then, the widow Murray walked before them and gave the slightest nod in the direction of her house. Monty gave her an equally subtle shake of his head in answer. Whether she wanted a conversation or a tumble, he had no mind for either—with her at any rate.
God’s blood but he was a sick man.
“Do ye not reckon?” ended Ewan.
“Reckon what?”
“Were ye no’ listenin’? I said ye’d have had to sire her at no more than ten summers yerself, ye ken?”
His heart lurched. She was a grown woman, to be sure. And he was all of nine and twenty. She could not possibly be his daughter!
He was so relieved he could shout, but he only stood and frowned at the world as befitting a man who had just missed his wedding night. He was becoming quite the talented player.
Ewan popped up as well, edging hi
s way between the large door and his laird. Monty knew Ewan was itching to protect the lass and he couldn’t help but tease.
“I am going inside. I want ye to keep watch. I want no one contradicting my orders.”
At the mention of orders, Ewan paled.
Good.
“Mont— Laird Ross.” Ewan cleared his throat. “I think it would be a mistake if ye punished that lass as ye planned to do yesterday.” He lifted his chin and waited.
“She’ll not go back in the tomb, Ewan. I’d already decided. Did I not tell ye so?” Monty raised an innocent eyebrow.
The relief on his friend’s face did not last long.
“No, ye foosty skunner. Ye’d not told me so. I’ve been gumming my jaw all morning…”
Monty did not wait around to hear the rest but laughed and pushed his way past the grumbling fool and through the door. In truth, he couldn’t have stood still much longer, so anxious was he to return to his chamber above stairs where that lovely woman, who was definitely not his daughter, lay sleeping.
Her face flashed before his eyes as his legs made quick work of the stairway. Straight black hair tucked becomingly around her shoulders. Odd length, that, but it was charmingly odd. Her eyes were clear and bright—when they were open—and suddenly his dream came back to him.
His wife. He had assumed the daughter to whom she referred would look much the same, so when the lass dropped out of the hole looking just as expected, he’d never considered her to be the mother. He’d been too weary last night to consider anything as more than it appeared.
His footsteps scratched and thumped clearly in the silence of the deserted hall. His quick steps echoed his mood as he flew up the stairs. As he turned toward his chamber, his fingers ran lightly over the stones of the outer wall, the rocks worn smooth by hundreds upon hundreds of similar touches. Her cheeks would be smoother still.
His wife.
He couldn’t wait to tell her—just as soon as he found out who had put her up to her shenanigans.
Chapter Eleven
Jillian came fully awake in an instant, but she didn’t so much as twitch. She’d already suffered from this backward plane of existence where one suffered longer the more one complained. If she were awake when she shouldn’t be, no one else would know.
Was that light coming through her eyelids, or just the hope of light? If she opened her eyes to blackness, would she go mad?
A man cleared his throat—the loveliest sound on earth. She was not alone.
She sat up and drank in the sunshine, throwing her arms wide, exalting when her fingers brushed against nothing at all. The cup of water was there. Light, water, and air...
...and Laird Quinn Ross, dressed in a less formal kilt for today’s tourists. She beamed a smile at him for lack of something appropriate to say, but the grin he answered her with was a bit unsettling. Her chest expanded and felt tight in the same instant. Please God, don’t let him have any more games to play with me.
Her smile fell away. So did his.
“Laird Ross,” she greeted tentatively.
“Lass,” he answered, but nothing more. He only stared at her as if he waited for some sort of apology. She’d spent who knows how long buried alive in his stupid tomb, could very well have died while he was taking the time to change his clothes and who knows what else, and she had done something wrong? Not likely.
“Well?” she prodded. He should be falling on his knees begging her not to go to the police.
“Well, what, English?”
Surely he had meant to call her “American” in that less than flattering tone, but he didn’t look like he was in the mood to be corrected. In fact, the scowl brewing on his face was so fierce she would even waive her need for his apology.
For now.
She opted for casual conversation—anything that might end the tension in the room.
“Where are the Muir sisters?”
His scowl turned to surprise, then back to a scowl. “So, the Muir twins. Why I should be surprised I dinna ken, but at least it was no’ a Gordon.”
“What are you talking about? What have those two done now?”
He crossed to the small window and looked out. Wondering if he was looking down at Lorraine and Loretta, she tossed the covers off and joined him. Her shoulder bumped his arm as she sought what had caught his attention, and he turned to give her more room.
“Sorry,” she said, then froze. He stood so near, his chin only inches away since his attention had turned to her. Her shoulder now pressed against the center of his enormous chest. It felt like a wall of rock beneath folds of flannel, and heaven help her, it was bare beneath.
The sisters were forgotten as she became mesmerized by his right hand slowly snaking up in front of her, sliding around her neck and burying itself in her hair. She had no power to resist the turning and tilting of her head, and although there was no pause in his movements it was surely an entire minute before his mouth pressed against hers.
Never before had Jillian experienced such a romantic kiss, nor been held so gently, yet firmly. Her toes curled inside her cowboy boots as she resisted the urge to pull herself against him, and she savored the seconds until the kiss would end.
But it didn’t end.
He took a step into her, pressing his body forward, causing her to turn to face him. A second later her attention rested again on their unbreakable kiss. After a deep breath, he moved again and she felt like they were dancing; his lips held hers, his right hand remained on the back of her head, his left was at her waist. Her hands rested on his chest and her feet had a mind of their own. She opened her eyes to find his closed and she wondered, as she allowed her lids to fall, who was going to watch where they were going?
He led. She followed beautifully...until they reached the bed.
Jillian was finally able and willing to stop his momentum and pushed him away long enough to get her boots beneath her. Reluctantly, she eased her mouth from his, but for the life of her, she couldn’t think of the right thing to say. She only knew that she had no intention of lying down with the half-dressed Scotsman. Before that moment, he’d never shown much romantic interest in her.
Jillian was probably little more than the tourist on today’s menu and it was that insult that gave her the energy to fight her racing hormones. She would set aside today’s chemistry lesson to examine later, along with everything else she wasn’t ready to deal with.
One reality, however, was ready now, nudging its way into her misty mind, pointing out that he was probably trying any means possible to keep her from suing his ass.
“Are ye married?” he whispered, bending to press his warm, soft mouth against her neck.
“No,” she said clearly, answering more than his marriage question and trying to banish the chills that made her want to curl up like a cat. At least he should have understood her meaning when she put all her muscle into shoving at his knotted shoulders.
He was as immoveable as the statue in the great hall, but she did manage to get her carotid beyond the reach of his teeth.
“Then I claim ye.”
If it weren’t for the authority in his voice, she would have laughed. But he sounded dead serious, and she would have to make a dead serious effort to get out of his arms.
Now, being raised in Wyoming did not mean she had lived a backward life, but Jillian admitted she had, on more than one occasion, chased a greased pig and ridden an uncooperative animal or two. Little did she see them as life skills, but the agility from such experiences came to her aid then—only this time she played the part of the greased pig.
When Laird Ross lifted his left arm to get a better hold, she swung on it like a trapeze bar and escaped to his side. Then, making the most of her momentum, she spun and pushed him face first on the bed.
He bounced once before flipping onto his back. Fortunately, he stayed there, propped on his elbows. Apparently his laughter sapped all his strength.
Warily, Jillian shuffled backward, wai
ting for the next attack.
“I fear ye’re opposed to me claim, English,” he said, “but ye’d best get comfortable with it. I’ve set me mind, aye?” He waved a hand impatiently between them. “Just what is yer name, lass? The word English does no’ sit lightly on me tongue.”
“Very funny, Mr. Ross.”
“Laird,” he growled.
“Oh, really? Are you really the laird of the Ross clan, or do you just use the title for the tourists?”
Amazing how fast a man could cover a ten-foot distance. He had her back against the wall without even touching her.
“I dinna ken tourists, but I know an insult when I hear it.” His voice was deceptively quiet, and for the first time since meeting the man she believed him capable of violence.
Touchy subject. Got it.
But she was a bit touchy too. Hadn’t she the right to be? Had she not gone through Hell, and all because of her name? Her blood?
“Well, the old man can’t remember my name. Imagine that,” she jeered. In all honesty, he looked younger than when they’d first met. She had guessed him to be nearing forty. Up close and personal, and in the light of day instead of the light of a flashlight, he looked maybe thirty.
A reluctant smile tugged up one corner of his mouth before he took the smallest step back.
“I’m sore pressed to remember meetin’ ye afore, English. So I beg ye take pity on yer elder and tell me.”
A chill ran up her spine, chasing the path of some imaginary, but very cold, fingers. Something wasn’t right. Her hand remembered the feel of a penny in the dark. Had she relocated to the previous decade? He did look awfully young. But then again, he knew Lorraine and Loretta, so maybe not.
“How long?” she choked out. “How long was I in there?”
Thankfully he did not pretend to not know what she was talking about.
“In the tomb, aye? It will be sext, the nooning hour, in a wee while. I would say yer wailin’ began this same time yesterday. But only ye know how long ye were there afore ye cried out, away, away, and ruined my perfectly fine weddin’.”