A Highlander for Christmas

by Christina Skye

Maggie stared at him. “You must be mad. Would you repaint the Mona Lisa? Add facial details or body tattoos to Michelangelo’s David?”

  “You might not and I might not, but for some people owning such extraordinary jewels might be worth any price. They may have no intention of showing them again in public. There are plenty of stolen Old Master paintings hanging on the walls of private estates, believe me.”

  “And you think my father would be part of that? That he took the gems away somewhere so he could sell them for a private collection?” Her voice was raw with pain and fury. “If so you’re a fool. Jewels were his passion, his very soul. When museums had questions, they came to see my father and he always had the right answers. I suppose some people would call his love an obsession, but his skill demanded total focus and commitment. He would never have destroyed the things he loved.”

  And what about his lonely daughter and ailing wife? Jared wondered if Daniel Kincade had loved them half as well as his cold, perfect jewels. How much time did a man with an obsession like that have left for his family?

  Maybe there were debts that Maggie didn’t know about, causing money pressures that had forced her father to the breaking point. A deeper check on Daniel Kincade’s finances over the last years of his life could reveal something. Next on the list would be finding out exactly who had paid the wife’s medical bills. Questions led to more questions, Jared had learned. If you were lucky, the right question could unzip all the answers.

  Of course, it could also get you killed.

  “It was just a supposition, Maggie. I’m not saying your father was involved.”

  “No? It sounded that way to me.” Her voice turned cold. “Maybe you think I’m all set to try the same thing here. Come to think of it, why don’t I sneak upstairs right now? The viscount and his wife must have a hoard of jewels that would be irresistible to a greedy little thief like me.” Her voice was ragged, her body stiff. “After all, it must run in the family. Like father like daughter.” Her voice broke as she spun toward the door.

  Jared caught her midway, his hands gentle but inflexible. “Do you think I believe that, Maggie?”

  “I don’t have a clue what you believe. Now let me go.”

  “Not until we have this out in the open.”

  She jerked at his chest, shoving blindly. “I don’t want to talk about it, not any more. Nothing ever changes. Not now, not ever.”

  “Stop fighting me, damn it.” He ducked under her fist, then caught her wrist and trapped her with his body against a bookcase of polished mahogany.

  “Let me go, Jared. I won’t be interrogated.” There was panic in her voice. Jared felt its gray chill bleeding through the contact with her rigid body.

  He stared at her wide eyes, watching her face go pale. Despite all his control, the link seized him completely and Jared felt a sudden sense of disorientation, as if the room was right, but he was wrong.

  They’d been here before, he thought. They had argued here before, just like this. Colors spun before his eyes, dancing like tiny suns reflected in the abbey’s moat, holding fragments of memories.

  He spoke then. It was a stranger’s voice that framed a stranger’s words. “I’m trying to help you, will you but see it.”

  She made a muffled sound. “All I want is to leave.”

  “You cannot.” The words came low and hoarse, almost without Jared’s knowledge. He was overwhelmed, sensing other days, other arguments that had brought equal pain.

  Break the link, he thought. But you can’t. Not with each breath driving you deeper, locking you to Maggie and her churning emotions.

  “I know that police car wasn’t requested by Lord Draycott last night.” Her voice was raw. “You knew it too. I saw it in your face.”

  Jared gripped her shoulders and turned her slowly. The woman saw too much, he thought grimly. She always had. It had brought her to greatest danger.

  He frowned. Where had that come from?

  His hands tightened as he tried to still her angry struggling. The movement sent the sheet unraveling about his waist. Then it caught between their bodies and slowly pooled onto the floor.

  She barely seemed to notice, straining against his grip. But Jared noticed, his naked body springing to angry, painful awareness.

  He didn’t want to feel the soft silk of her skin at his wrist. He didn’t want to know the warm slide of her breath at his naked shoulder. But he did. The excruciating clarity was compounded by the hunger rising through him, thick and hot. What he couldn’t understand, couldn’t accept, was that his need felt somehow…

  Familiar.

  He stared at her pale face, straining to understand the chaos of his emotions. And in that second, with a furious slam of color and texture, Jared knew exactly how she would taste, how she would move beneath him in her nakedness. Locked against her, he watched the raw images burn to life.

  Her thighs as they strained against pale damask.

  Her neck encircled with a delicate chain of silver and pearls.

  Her face as he made the pleasure rise and break within her.

  Cursing, he released her and stumbled back, unable to breathe for the force of the searing visions. Even without physical contact, the memories held, flooding him with new sensations.

  “Jared, talk to me.” Her hand brushed his neck, and the force of contact swept him deeper. He saw a woman in peach silk with lace at each elbow. He felt the rich splendor of nights of passion and her hands digging at his chest, the only warmth or meaning in a world gone mad.

  How he had loved her. How he had fought for her, only to see her torn from his fingers.

  His fault, all of it.

  “Jared, what’s wrong?”

  His hands were clammy as he pulled away. Wrong? Everything was wrong. His body was wrong and the room was wrong. Most of all, loving her was wrong.

  Because loving her had killed her. Someplace in a past he could neither name nor understand they had touched like this before. As lovers, blind and reckless. There was no doubt left in his mind.

  Something lay cold in his throat, and Jared knew it was fear. For the past had not left them and the danger was yet to come.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Steady, MacNeill.

  This has an extraordinarily weird feel, even for you.

  Jared knew his odd gift didn’t extend to seeing fragments of the past. At least it never had. He took a gravelly breath. “Maggie, something’s going on here.”

  She brushed at her hair with shaky fingers. “What’s going on is that you’re trying to keep me a prisoner. You’re trapping me, giving me orders. Just like before.”

  So she felt it too, Jared thought. He said nothing, letting her final words hang with ugly clarity.

  She took a harsh breath. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “I think you did.” He felt his body lock, hard like the iron bars of his cage in the jungle hills of Thailand. The link was tight, snapping all around him. He had never felt more alive, or more out of control, and he wouldn’t stop until he had answers. “In fact, I think you meant it as much as you’ve ever meant anything.”

  “No.” She raised her hand as if blocking a blow. “I couldn’t.” She gnawed at her lip. “The words just slipped out, that’s all. I was angry and they slipped out. It didn’t mean a thing.” She repeated the words firmly.

  She was trying to make herself believe it, Jared thought. And not succeeding.

  He felt her anger and confusion.

  The oily waves of her fear. He was feeling all those things himself. “It didn’t just slip out and it wasn’t an accident Maggie. You were seeing things. Feeling things. With me.”

  Her face went starkly pale. “Stay out of my mind.” She shook her head. “Except that’s impossible.”

  He didn’t move.

  “Isn’t it?” Her hands locked into tight fists, and she was shaking. “Tell me.”

  How could he tell her what he was still struggling to understand? What a whole battery of expert
s couldn’t agree on despite hours of detailed psychological reports?

  How could he tell her that he was either a borderline madman or a cruel joke of nature, produced by human barbarity?

  “What is it you’re asking, Maggie? Can I read your thoughts? Can I slip inside your head and eavesdrop whenever I want? The answer is no.”

  Not whenever he wanted. The link worked best during physical contact—and during times of stress. Jared hadn’t lied. But he wouldn’t tell her the full truth either. He doubted she would believe it if he did.

  She crossed her arms, searching his words for truth or lies. She had always been too quick, too sharp. And it had killed her.

  Jared’s body locked.

  Killed her.

  He saw the words. Heard them.

  Sweat touched his brow. Regret, fury, desolate loss—they pounded him now in cold waves of memory.

  “Jared, what’s wrong?”

  “You’d better go.”

  Maybe with her gone, this tormenting link would snap and the bleak images would fade with it.

  Her gaze ran along his body, and then she looked away, flushing deeply. “There’s more. There are things you aren’t telling me. But if you decide to talk, if you need something…”

  She let the words trail away.

  “I won’t.”

  “You’re wrong, Jared. And I was wrong too. That’s where we begin. Or it’s where everything will end.”

  As the door closed behind her, Jared realized that a woman like Maggie Kincade could make a man forget nightmares with a single smile. Her touch could banish all pain.

  He knew that with absolute certainty.

  Because she’d done it for him once, long before.

  ~ ~ ~

  His hands had stopped shaking by the time he found the number he needed. Five minutes had given him time to toss on worn jeans and calm down. Then he placed the call.

  The receptionist was brisk and professional. “Dr. Freed’s office. May I help you?” Cold and detached. Used to dealing with neurotics and suicides, Jared thought. A bloody sort of job to have.

  “Jared MacNeill. I need to speak with him.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation. Papers rustled. “I’m afraid he’s unavailable, Commander MacNeill.”

  “Who’s on to cover for him? From the official ministry list?” Jared added grimly.

  There was clear protocol for a case like his. Miles of it With the security aspect factored in, he couldn’t speak to just anyone—not with the things he knew.

  More paper rustled. “That would be Dr. McNamara.”

  Jared’s hands tightened.

  Elizabeth Hanson McNamara. Four years of neurology at Royal Edinburgh Infirmary. Two years at Mass General, followed by more specialty training at Johns Hopkins. A woman who loved being in control and hated her patients quite passionately.

  Jared had seen all that in a brief five-minute interview and a lingering handshake. He could have lived with that—but not with the rest of what he’d sensed.

  That Dr. Elizabeth McNamara was keeping secrets from both her current lovers, one a high-level attaché to the prime minister and the other the wife of the Danish ambassador. She was also feeling undue personal interest in her newest patient.

  Interest that was patently sexual.

  Jared had thought his mind was a wreck. Then he’d stared into the darkness of hers. One appointment had been more than enough for him.

  “Commander MacNeill, would you like her number? She can call up your case file if you’d like.”

  “No, that won’t be necessary.”

  “Is there a specific problem? I’m sure Dr. McNamara—”

  “No problem. I’ll try Dr. Freed next week.”

  He hung up before there were any more questions. Every instinct warned against further contact with this woman, although she was one of the team of three medical experts assigned to oversee his case after his return from Asia. Next week he would try the others, and until then he would navigate this particular storm on his own. His sensitivity was growing, enhanced by every moment of contact with Maggie, but he could deal with that. What he couldn’t accept was the possibility of failing her.

  He’d failed himself in Thailand and he’d failed his partner, but Jared would remove himself from the game before he failed Maggie. And it was a game, he sensed. A very deadly game with a madman. If Maggie or her father had something he wanted, there were easier, more direct ways to claim it than this.

  But their unknown enemy wasn’t taking the direct approach. He was taking his bloody time, goading. Waiting.

  Jared forced his hands to stillness. He did the same to his turbulent thoughts.

  Maggie Kincade didn’t need a confidante or an inventive lover. What she needed was a guardian. A hero.

  For now, he was the only one available.

  ~ ~ ~

  A half-eaten grapefruit lay next to an untouched scone on Maggie’s plate. She stared at both, not really seeing either.

  She had no appetite, and she probably looked like the walking dead. Hardly surprising, given her restless sleep and upsetting encounter with Jared. She had woken twice, startled by the creaking of wood and the cry of the wind while her heart pounded wildly.

  Dreams, she told herself. Images caused by high stress and an artist’s overactive imagination. Staring out at the moat, blanketed with sunlight, Maggie almost believed it. When she finished her tea, she rose briskly, determined not to wait for Jared. He had made it clear that he wasn’t interested in her help with whatever problem was bothering him, and his refusal hurt her.

  Forget it, she thought. He probably already has.

  Sunlight played over the leaded window panes. Rainbows cascaded from the acres of crystal displayed along the great hunt table. The sight reminded Maggie that she was inside one of the most famous houses in England. Chessa or Faith would be unflappable, absolutely at ease and confident. So why couldn’t she do the same?

  Footsteps echoed behind her. She spun around, one hand to her chest. “Marston, you frightened me.”

  The abbey butler was immaculate in a black worsted waistcoat and jacket. Only the electric blue running shoes left Maggie blinking.

  “I am sorry if I disturbed you. I did knock, but you seemed rather … absorbed.”

  “I was thinking about this amazing house. It must take a whole battalion of people to wash the crystal after a party, and I don’t even want to think about the windows.”

  The butler smiled faintly. “Entertaining does pose certain challenges, but nothing that has proved insurmountable. Of course, the days of weekend shooting parties for two hundred are over. Some would say just as well.”

  “Two hundred?” Maggie shook her head. “Unfair odds against the poor pheasants, if you ask me.”

  Marston refilled her teacup, his expression unreadable. “I suppose the world was a different place then. In my grandfather’s time it was nothing to bag a hundred deer and half as many pheasants. I believe that two of your presidents enjoyed doing just that.”

  “Touché.”

  “No offense was meant,” Marston said calmly.

  “And none was taken. It’s just that … this house is so overwhelming. Every corner hides an Old Master painting or what I’m certain are priceless Chinese porcelains. I keep expecting to pass a Van Gogh or two.”

  “That would be the small canvas in the Long Gallery,” Marston murmured.

  “A real, honest-to-goodness Van Gogh?” Maggie gave a shaky laugh. “This isn’t the kind of place where I feel comfortable.”

  Marston frowned. “I would expect that you fit in superbly in any company or any environment. I would venture to say that it is one of your many skills. If you will forgive the familiarity.”

  Maggie saw the faint smile he wasn’t trying to hide. “That’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me, Marston. And if this is your way of being familiar, the thought of your formal treatment terrifies me.”

  “Absol
utely killing,” he agreed. “Or so I’m told.”

  “You probably tyrannize the viscount and his wife shamelessly.”

  “I?” The butler’s brow rose. “That would be most improper. I hope I am never improper in any of my duties, although an occasional bit of guidance is in order.”

  Maggie chuckled. “So you don’t deny it.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Deftly, Marston arranged a handful of freshly cut roses in a silver vase. “Will Commander MacNeill be taking you to tour the abbey today?”

  Maggie’s smile faded. “I have no idea. Why did you call him commander?”

  “Once a Royal Marine, always a Royal Marine. He was one of the most decorated in his company, I believe.”

  Maggie digested this bit of information, frowning. “Why did he leave active duty?”

  The butler paid intense attention to the placement of his last rose. “I do not believe I have an answer to that, miss.”

  “Something happened, I know it. Sometimes when he looks at me, I get the strangest sense that he can—”

  “In that case, you’d better ask me that question.” Jared stood on the threshold, clad in well-worn flannels and a perfectly cut charcoal turtleneck. On him, they looked elegant, informal, beautifully tailored in their simplicity.

  Heat jackknifed all the way to Maggie’s toes. He didn’t look like a soldier. In fact, he could have been in movies. He had the unflinching calm that pumped-up male stars strained to achieve and generally failed at.

  Maggie decided to tell him that one day. She was certain it would annoy him. But first she wanted answers. “You were in the Royal Marines?”

  “I was.”

  “And you left?”

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “For several reasons.”

  She tried to read his eyes and failed. “Don’t overwhelm me with answers here, Commander. Just try one or two for starters.”

  “I needed to spend more time at home.”

  “Where’s home?” Maggie zeroed in on the opening.

  “To the north.”

  “That’s a huge help. North of London? North of Manchester? North of—”

  “Edinburgh. Near Skye.” He said the words slowly, and Maggie realized how little he was in the habit of talking about personal things.