A Highlander for Christmas

by Christina Skye

  Cold eyes glittered behind a black wool ski mask. The man’s open palm moved along her hips. “What’s in that bag of yours?”

  Maggie thought of the ring that Anders had just given her. There was no way she would let her father’s last gift be torn from her like this.

  “I’ve got credit cards—money. I’ll get them,” she said breathlessly.

  He made a hard, mocking sound. The wooden barrier dug into Maggie’s back, and she felt the sweat on his palms.

  She wanted to scream. She wanted to dig her fingers into his eyes. Yet she waited, knowing she would have only one chance to catch him off guard.

  She sank slightly to one side while he ransacked her handbag. At the same time she eased her hand into her coat pocket.

  Loupe. Maglite. Polishing cloth.

  Then she felt the cold metal outline of her air canister. A full dose would blind him, at least temporarily. Silently she eased the metal tube into her palm.

  He clamped his hand over her mouth, and the sight of her pale face seemed to excite him. “What I want is money.” His eyes narrowed. “Or maybe something else…”

  Panic broke over her as she tried to speak against the suffocating pressure of his hand.

  He laughed softly. “Frightened, are you? Good. We’re just getting started here, love. It’s only the two of us now.” He shoved her flat against the wooden barrier, his hand still locked over her mouth. Then he dragged her back into the shadows.

  She felt him move behind her.

  Down went her heel, grinding into his instep. Wrestling the air canister from her pocket, she aimed it point-blank at his eyes.

  The force of the first air blast sent him backwards, cursing and digging at his face. Maggie fled in the only direction open to her, toward a mound of broken flagstones that bordered a twisting alley. Beyond lay light, noise, and the traffic of a broader avenue. Her heart pounded in a sick rush as she lurched toward the light.

  He was right behind her.

  She veered toward a row of concrete reinforcements. She pitched to her knees, then scrambled to her feet, clawing at paving stones and gravel as she fought her way toward the far side of the alley.

  Then he grabbed her. He jerked her against the grimy brick wall. His breath was hot and sharp on her face as the knifepoint settled at her neck, then slowly pressed deeper, drawing blood. Through a wave of pain she heard him laugh.

  There in the shadows his eyes glinted, seized with hot, flickering excitement.

  He didn’t want her money. He didn’t want credit cards or her passport. His hand moved over her wrist, then twisted sharply, and Maggie gasped at the sudden wrenching pain.

  “Fine little hands, so nice to touch. So easy to break.”

  His mouth settled at her ear. “What would you do to make me stop? Say what you’d do, love. Maybe I’ll stop now, while you’re still pretty.”

  She wouldn’t answer. He was toying with her, baiting her.

  He dug at her body, and her father’s ring spilled onto the ground. “Diamonds?” The man froze, staring at the muted glint against the gloom. “What other surprises are you hiding?”

  A newspaper fluttered up the alley, and somewhere behind them a car horn blared twice. Her captor swung about with a curse, giving her time to recover her ring.

  The movement brought Maggie within reach of an acetylene torch balanced on a sawhorse with the remains of a workman’s lunch. She grabbed the cold metal in shaky fingers. The torch flared to life in a blue roar of heat. “Stay back,” she said rasped. “This flame burns at 500 degrees. It will sear the skin off your face in seconds.”

  He stopped, but only for a moment, circling slowly to her left. “Clever woman. But you can’t hope to get past me, now can you?”

  In her hands the torch hissed, and the flame flickered sharply.

  The cold eyes narrowed behind the mask. “Low on fuel. Too bad for you.”

  Maggie’s hands tightened. She had at most a few more seconds. With a wild heave, she hurled the canister at his face, then ducked through a narrow hole in the wooden barrier.

  She was nearly through when hands gripped her ankle. Maggie cried out as his nails dug into her skin with cruel force

  Over the thunder of her heart she heard the crack of cobblestones. Wind rushed past her face, and suddenly her foot was free. A shout echoed dimly as she scrambled forward into the darkness.

  She saw her attacker twist against the wooden wall, moonlight playing over his black mask.

  Her attacker struck the wall and swayed, then was tossed across the paving stones. He landed facedown in the dirt, where he lay gasping and twitching.

  A step behind her.

  A hand at her back.

  Then Jared’s familiar voice with its low, rolling accents of the north. “Finally,” he muttered. “I thought I’d never track you down.”

  “You followed me?”

  “I was at the hotel waiting for you to cross the street. Then you disappeared.”

  Maggie felt an overpowering need to lean on those strong shoulders and hold on tight, but she fought it down.

  He touched her hair gently. “Okay?”

  When she nodded, he swept up her bag and slid it over her shoulder. “How did you hold him off?”

  “With a discarded acetylene torch. I threatened to burn off his face if he touched me again.”

  “We’d better get him to the police,” Jared said grimly. “Then I’ll ask him a few questions myself.” He raised Maggie’s face to the dim, filtered light. His voice tightened. “Did he hurt you?”

  “He scared a good ten years off my life. Otherwise, no.”

  “Fortunate for him or I wouldn’t let him forget it. Come on.”

  As Jared turned back to the alley entrance, a car loomed into view, blocking their exit. “Better not risk that way out,” he said tightly. “We’ll have to go across.”

  “What about him?” Maggie frowned at the motionless man on the damp earth.

  “We’ll call for a police car once we’re clear. Right now I don’t like the feel of things.” He pulled her up a slope of mud and broken roof tiles, his face grim.

  Maggie guessed Jared hated the idea of leaving him behind. She wasn’t thrilled about it herself.

  A dozen steps brought them to a barrier of discarded truck tires. “Hurry,” he said. “There will be more of them headed this way.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Call it a hunch.” They were at the far edge of the alley. A streetlight cast jagged shadows over the ground.

  Tiles clattered behind them, and they turned to see Maggie’s attacker stumbling back toward the alley and the waiting car.

  “Jared, he’s—”

  Her sentence was drowned out by the roar of a motor. The car backed up sharply and a door slammed. Lights flared.

  Then they were left alone in the night.

  Maggie’s hands shook. Her knees were bleeding, and the gash on her throat burned. Suddenly the enormity of the attack struck home. She stood rooted to the cold pavement, staring blindly at the mouth of the alley. She might have bled here. Died here.

  If not for Jared.

  Something that had been drifting at the edge of her mind swam into sickening focus. In her terror she had barely heard the word her attacker had muttered.

  Her name.

  Dear heaven, had the man whispered “Maggie” just before he’d pressed his knife against her throat?

  Jared’s hands slid around her shoulders. “What is it?”

  She bit back the words she’d been about to say. There was no reason to make things more complicated. In her confusion and panic, she must have misunderstood that single, muttered word.

  She managed a low laugh. “Nothing that a long, hot bath won’t cure.”

  He stared at her in silence, eyes narrowed. Then he pulled her toward the bright lights beyond the alley. “That can be arranged.”

  Suddenly Maggie didn’t care where he took her, as long as it was aw
ay from this place. Her mind shut down, frozen and exhausted.

  Even then a sense of violation made her stare into every shadowed doorway.

  ~ ~ ~

  She opened her eyes to the slap of water and a wall of unrelenting black. Memory returned at the same moment as wakefulness, and she sat up with a gasp, only to relax at the feel of Jared’s shoulder against hers.

  His hand settled impersonally at her shoulder. “Relax.”

  Maggie felt a pitch and roll beneath her feet and realized they were on a small boat. “I must have dozed off.” She peered out at the darkness. “Where in the world are we?”

  “Someplace safe.”

  Light flickered through a wall of trees. “Not the abbey, surely.”

  “Closer. My place on the Thames.”

  “An odd place for a home.”

  A lonely place too, she decided as a steel-and-glass structure loomed out of the trailing mist. Was home a rundown warehouse in sore need of paint?

  Only up close did she see that the building had signs of recent renovation. The metal doors were new, and the cement steps from the narrow wooden dock were freshly painted.

  “Do you always come and go by boat?”

  “Mostly.” He laughed shortly. “It keeps persistent salespeople from the door.”

  “And everyone else, I imagine.”

  “I find company when I need it.”

  The door opened with a well-oiled hiss, and he pointed her through a narrow corridor of steel girders. They climbed two flights and then he keyed a number into a high-tech keypad and pushed open a metal door.

  Maggie had a sudden impression of red and black against walls of brushed steel. In the sudden glare of overhead lights she saw towering squares of white with slashing brushwork of almost Oriental simplicity. “Are these yours?”

  “A friend made them.”

  With a hushed sound of surprise, Maggie moved closer, reaching out to the rich, textured paper bordered by a frame of exquisite silk tapestry.

  “Careful. That one is still drying.”

  Maggie turned slowly. “They’re yours, aren’t they?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Maggie watched him slide a kettle of water onto a gleaming electric cooktop, then flick on a laptop computer perched on a granite countertop nearby. There was competence in every movement, just as there was competence in the hands that had laid paint in such slashing, beautiful lines of color. Here in this quiet room she felt her panic begin to fade.

  The pictures were good, Maggie thought. In fact, they were marvelous. But she still couldn’t believe that he had painted them.

  Her attention was caught by a long gash of crimson and black. Mountains in mist? A river twisting through low hills? “Where have you exhibited?”

  “Nowhere. Nicholas keeps trying to harass me into a show, but I’m not interested.”

  “You should be. They’re—well, marvelous comes to mind.”

  Jared set two stoneware mugs on the counter as the kettle began to hum. “Not interested. I paint for myself and no one else. If some musty critic started in on me, I’d probably shoot him in the head.”

  Maggie started to argue but was distracted by a glimpse of the far wall. Hinged cabinets of intricately inlaid cherry framed floor-to-ceiling windows before an unbroken expanse of night sky and restless water. “It’s … beautiful,” she said softly.

  “I like looking out at the water. It puts things into perspective.” He offered her a steaming cup. “I hope you like tea with your brandy.”

  “Strong, is it?”

  “Fair warning.”

  Maggie took a sip, coughed, and was glad he’d given her advance notice. The hot mixture seared her throat but left a very pleasant afterburn.

  ‘‘Why don’t you get some rest? The guest room is across the hall.” Jared was already bent over the humming screen fast filling with animated images. They appeared to be some sort of architectural designs.

  She looked closer, only to find his hands closing over her shoulder.

  “What? Don’t tell me it’s top secret.”

  He turned her around and aimed her toward the first door beyond the kitchen. “The guest room’s that way. You’ll find extra towels in the bathroom and whatever else you need in the closet.”

  Maggie realized he hadn’t chuckled at her comment. He was serious about the screen contents’ being secret. And that reminded her how little she knew about the man who had just rescued her.

  ~ ~ ~

  Distant thunder.

  Rain pattering on the window.

  The sound of horses at the gallop and angry, shouting voices.

  Can’t stay.

  Have to leave. Please, not too late, too late.

  ~ ~ ~

  Maggie sat up with a start, a cry on her lips and fear clawing at her chest. Nothing moved around her. The night was silent, save for the slap of water and the distant rumble of a foghorn. She lay back slowly. Her legs were twisted in a blanket, and one hand was trapped in the sleeve of the oversized pajamas she’d found in Jared’s closet.

  Which explained why she felt suffocated. With a shaky laugh, she pulled free and padded to the window.

  The view was beautiful, a swirl of black and pearl gray. It had to be nearly dawn, judging by the light that touched the horizon where the river snaked east. Maggie could understand why Jared loved this place. There was an unbroken serenity in being surrounded by sky and water.

  Idly she checked the bookshelves. Computer books by the dozens. An original play script with notes of Olivier and Leigh performing Macbeth. Sun Tzu’s Art of War in Chinese with an English translation and scribbled comments in the margin.

  She stopped at a highlighted phrase.

  All warfare is based on deception.

  Frowning, Maggie moved to the broad table running along the window, where half a dozen canvases were turned to face the wall.

  Works in progress.

  She itched to look, but the artist in her balked. Looking unasked would be an unforgivable violation. A studio was not just where your hands worked, but where your soul worked. Curious or not, Maggie had no right to peek without an express invitation.

  Still, it was strange to think of the man with the hard jaw and the careful eyes as an artist capable of the emotion she’d seen captured on those great, flaring canvases.

  She peered along the corridor to the kitchen, where a single light burned above the cooktop. Jared was asleep beside the computer, his head on his arms and cold electric light flickering over his face. His shirt was open and he was barefoot, long legs encased in frayed denims. He looked exhausted, Maggie thought. Yet even in sleep there was a power to his body that made it hard for her to look away.

  She tried to pull her gaze from the long lean legs and the open button at his waist-band. There was no reason to stare. There was no reason for her pulse to spike and her body to feel heavy with sensual awareness He was just a man and she had seen men before, hadn’t she?

  None like this one, a voice whispered.

  Abruptly a phone rang down the hall.

  Maggie hesitated, waiting for Jared to wake. When he gave no sign of hearing, she moved down the hall and picked up the receiver warily. “Hel-lo?”

  “Jared?” A woman’s voice poured silkily over the line. “I tried your main number and only got your machine. Why didn’t you call?”

  Maggie stared at the receiver.

  “Jared, are you there?” Petulance warred with the warmth in the unknown voice. “No, don’t answer. Let me apologize first. I was—well, completely off the other night. You have your job and I understood how it would be. But I’m lonely, so come over, won’t you? It’s so lovely and warm here in bed.” Sheets rustled softly. “And there’s nothing but me. I want you in the most appalling way, Jared.”

  Maggie swallowed. What should she say?

  “Jared, why don’t you answer me?”

  Maggie took a deep breath. “This is Mr. MacNeill’s answering s
ervice. I’m afraid he is unavailable right now, but I will see that he gets your message. What name shall I give Mr. MacNeill, please?”

  “To hell with my name.” The woman muttered something else, hot and unrepeatable, then slammed down the phone.

  No, it wasn’t the sort of message you could leave with a third party.

  Maggie wandered back to bed, only to toss restlessly. She fought a jab of jealousy at the thought of Jared wrapped in warm sheets with another woman. Some instinct told her he would be a masterful lover, as careful in pleasure as he was with the other details in his life. He would be a man who took time with a woman, overwhelming her with his intensity and his control.

  The thought left her cheeks flaming.

  Not with her, he wouldn’t. She didn’t know the man well enough to be jealous, and she wasn’t ever going to.

  But her hand rose to her mouth, retracing a faint thread of memory.

  Then with a hiss of anger, she mounded her pillows over her head and closed her eyes.

  ~ ~ ~

  Maggie blinked, waking to bright sunlight.

  Outside, the river was a road of beaten silver banked by dark trees. She was still absorbing the beauty when she heard the sound of feet and a knock at the door.

  “Awake yet?” Jared was wearing the same soft jeans, but now a dark sweater hugged his chest.

  “Possibly. It depends on that lovely smell.”

  “Coffee. Eggs. Fresh scones.”

  “Don’t tell me you cook.”

  His brow arched. “Purely in self-defense. Chasing people through dark alleys always leaves me with an appetite. Now up with you or everything will be ruined.”

  Maggie fought back a wary smile as she tugged on a robe that was miles too big and followed him into the kitchen. Jared set a full plate before her, then sat back to watch.

  She paused with a fork halfway to her mouth, oddly disturbed by his scrutiny. It was almost as if he was trying to slip past skin and bone to find the heart of her. “You aren’t eating?”

  “I’ve already eaten:” His eyes narrowed. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Umm.”

  “Is that a yes or a no?”

  “It’s an umm.”

  He studied her over the rim of his teacup. “Have any new memories surfaced?”