A Highlander for Christmas

by Christina Skye

  Maggie wondered what kind of mind could plan such horror. Surely there had to be a special part of hell reserved for men like that. “So you hurt them. I’d say you had every right.”

  “They became my new obsession. Day or night, I was always too close. They weren’t used to police who didn’t play by their rules. When all the scrutiny started hurting the bottom line, they decided I was an annoyance they could do without.”

  She covered his locked hands with her own. “They threatened you?”

  “They tried,” he said mechanically. “Twice they nearly cut me down in backstreet ambushes. But that’s the bloody thing about dying—when you don’t care a damn, it never happens.”

  Maggie couldn’t stand to think of him bleeding in the filth of a noisy alley. “They didn’t hurt you. Thank God,” she whispered, her hands sliding around his waist. At least she understood the pain in his eyes now.

  “But you’re wrong. They did … hurt me.”

  Maggie closed her eyes, afraid to hear—and more afraid not to hear. “Tell me.”

  “I disrupted their annual buying event. We ran the mothers off, then torched the building. No one was hurt, but their operation lost face. I suppose I was coming to feel I was invincible. In two years I’d only been hit once, and that was just a flesh wound.”

  “I’m sorry,” Maggie said softly.

  “Oh, don’t be sorry yet. You haven’t heard the best.” He stood stiffly, his body tense, but she didn’t let him go. “I found out where their next market was to take place, their biggest yet. I should have wondered when I found all the details so easily. But that was part of the plan. I was to be the guest of honor.” He spoke slowly, and Maggie knew he was back in the horror, part of a nightscape of greed and unimaginable suffering.

  “We were up north near the Burma border, in real frontier territory. There were already dozens of women waiting when we rumbled in from the jungle.” He shook his head slowly. ‘They’d been told their babies—girls, all of them— were going to be adopted by rich Americans and taken off to the land of golden streets. Who were we to spoil their fantasy?”

  “You saved their children,” Maggie said fiercely. “If they had known the truth, they would have thanked you.”

  “You think so? But no one likes to see their dreams trampled. We soon had a riot on our hands, with a hundred screaming mothers who refused to go away without their adoption receipt—absolutely phony—and their precious one hundred baht. That’s when the local police showed up. Of course that was part of the plan too,” he said coldly. “We were needed to close down a big heroin processing lab barely ten kilometers away. The local police were only too happy to lead us to it.” Tension gripped Jared’s body. “With each kilometer the locals grew more talkative. Suddenly they were our best friends, offering cigarettes and tea. I suppose that’s when it began to sink in that something was wrong. By twilight the road had dwindled to a footpath through a wall of jungle. Our friends led us over a hill to a scattering of lights. We closed in and I still remember that hellish darkness all around us.” Jared laughed softly, and Maggie shivered at the sound. “By then the locals had vanished, and there was no missing the stink of a setup, but of course it was too late. We were heading back to our jeep when the mountain exploded, and the buildings behind us tore apart like straw. The man I was with took twenty bullets through the chest. Then they came for me.”

  He waited, his hands twisting over the polished wooden bed frame.

  Maggie put out a hand, hating the flat impersonality in his voice. “Jared, don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Sound as if you’re talking about someone else, someone who doesn’t exist.” Her hands closed over his shoulders.

  He gave no sign at all of noticing. “You’re close there. By the time they were done with me, I didn’t exist. Jared MacNeill was dead and forgotten.” He turned slowly, and moonlight hollowed the gaunt lines at his jaw. “A year in a box will do that to anyone.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  She only stared. “A box?”

  “Four corners,” Jared said slowly. “No windows. No door. Food shoved in once a day—if you can call it food.”

  Maggie froze with the terrible weight of comprehension. “They held you in a box? But why would the Thai government—”

  His laugh was bitter.” Not the Thais, though they were glad enough to see me gone. The police were from Burma—excuse me, the Union of Myanmar. By all means let’s be correct in our terms. It would hardly do to get the name of your jailer wrong.” His hands opened and closed, as if with a will of their own. “Any more questions before we call it a night?”

  Only a thousand, she thought, feeling as if they stood on opposite sides of a cold, stormy sea. And she knew she had to hear the rest—for Jared as well as for herself. “Why, Jared? What good were you to them?”

  “A fair question. But that part, too, had been carefully arranged. You see, that building on the mountain wasn’t a drug lab at all. According to the official reports, it was a nice little village school and we had just incinerated several hundred innocent Burmese children. Definitely a capital offense.”

  “But they were lying,” Maggie blurted. “Besides, you weren’t in Burma.”

  “I’m afraid not. Our friendly Thai police had led us ten kilometers into the jungle and over the border. The explosives were real. People died that night.” He stared at the pool of moonlight on the carpet as if looking down into hell itself. “It took the British authorities six months just to find out I was alive and another three to find out what the charges were.”

  “How did you survive?” she whispered.

  Dimly, so dimly Jared heard the pain in her voice. But for whom? He struggled to remember the stranger who had knelt in the noisy darkness. “Survive? I wrote letters in my mind. I was very careful in every word, and I carved a mark on the wall for every stifling day that passed.”

  “How did they find you?”

  Jared struggled to pull his mind out of square of darkness. He hadn’t said so much to Nicholas or the professional psychiatrists he had been sent to upon his return. He wondered how much they had guessed. “They found me because of one man who understood. A man who was too stubborn and arrogant to take no for an answer.”

  “Nicholas Draycott,” Maggie whispered.

  “A rare man. I can never repay him for his help. So now you know all of it.” He shrugged, caught between moonlight and darkness by the window. “Rest well. You’ll be safe here, I’ll see to that.”

  “And who,” Maggie whispered,” will keep you safe, Jared?”

  Slowly his big hands uncurled from the wooden post. “Irrelevant.” Without another word he started for the door.

  “Who, Jared? Because you damned well need someone beside you when the memories return.” Her chin rose in stormy defiance. “You’ve tried it alone. Now try it with someone else.”

  “There’s nothing more to say. The adventures are over, Maggie. The rest is just a performance. There’s no one inside to care, no one at all. Don’t waste your arguments and your anger on a ghost.”

  She caught his shoulders and spun him around. “Put the past to rest, you told that officer. Good advice—so why don’t you take it yourself?”

  Their bodies were chest to chest as she glared up at him, her eyes blazing.

  Extraordinary, he thought, watching moonlight dust her angry cheeks while emotion poured off her in waves. But the force of her feelings couldn’t change the truth. He had a job to finish, perhaps two or three. Then fate would bring him through a misted glen to a lichen-covered boulder and a tree with a broken branch.

  There, sometime before Christmas, he would find death waiting.

  “There’s nothing more to find. All the singing’s over, Maggie.”

  “I think you’re afraid to hope.” She stood rigid, her hands opening and closing at her sides. “That means you’ve let them win, Jared. It means you’re still caught in that box.”

&nbs
p; “I can see my own death, Maggie. The man who came back can see just about anything, if he puts his sight to it,” he said harshly. “Just one little unexpected bonus from a year in hell.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He felt his pulse hammer at his jaw. She had dug and prodded, and now here he was, ready to tell her the truth.

  But Jared realized he’d gone too far to stop. “Sight. A vision passed down in my bloodline for fourteen generations. By family legend it passes only to the eldest son, but with my brother’s death, it moved to me. At the time I was crouched in the Burma jungle trying hard to remember my name,” he explained grimly.

  Her head rose. Very slowly she touched his cheek. “What you’re saying is you can see the future?”

  “No. I sense … intentions. Words that haven’t been said. Emotions and secrets. Mostly it comes through touch.”

  “Touch.” She blinked. “You mean like some kind of psychic?”

  “Not like.” His mouth hardened. “Not that I can control the focus, although I seem to be getting better at that with practice.”

  Maggie shook her head sharply. “You expect me to believe that you are—that you can…”

  “Yes,” Jared said simply. “Because it’s true.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “In that case, what are you seeing now?”

  “Parlor tricks? I think not. Either you believe or you don’t,” he said coldly. A MacNeill had his pride, and he had already explained more than he should have. He wouldn’t deny what he was, not even for Maggie.

  He set his shoulders and looked away, stung by her tense silence. He wouldn’t give another word of explanation. She was the one who’d squeezed and probed until she’d gotten answers. If she didn’t like what she heard, it was too bloody bad.

  “Fair enough. No parlor tricks.” Her hand crept up the front of his sweater. “I won’t ask what you’re seeing now or if you can read my mind.” She smiled, a mix of challenge and female recklessness as she slid her arms around his neck.

  Instantly he saw.

  Dear sweet heaven, how he saw. The play of hands across heated skin. The surge of blood when clothing fell and no barriers remained. The clarity of what she was offering made his body harden with need.

  His hands tightened on her shoulders. “You’re playing with fire, Maggie.”

  Her smile was smooth and slow. “I thought that was your job, Commander. Dismantling volatile devices.”

  “You haven’t been listening. It stops here. There aren’t going to be any fireworks, Maggie.”

  “You want to know your problem, Commander?”

  “I’m fairly certain you’re going to tell me.”

  “It’s right here.” Her finger jabbed at his chest. “There’s supposed to be a heart in here, something that makes you take risks and dream dreams. My father taught me that. He might have been impossible at business, but he damned well knew how to dream. You’ve forgotten how. At least silver can catch the light. At least cold metal reflects the fire of all that’s around it and—”

  He was tired of arguing.

  His hands shot down over her wrists. With a low curse, he yanked her against him and sealed her mouth beneath his.

  He’d show her fire if she wanted it, and he’d bloody well make her feel all the dreams locked inside him.

  She sputtered as the bedpost caught her back and held her motionless. Jared closed his eyes and drank in the taste of her mouth. Wanting filled him, blind after so many weeks of denial, and his hands speared down her spine until he found the warm curve of her hips. His mouth twisted on hers, driving and savage. He was amazed at how she trembled, amazed at how much he wanted her to tremble.

  Her hand opened at his chest. “I thought you didn’t want this.”

  “Oh, I want, Maggie. I want so much it terrifies me.” He wrapped his hands in the warm silk of her hair and forced her head back. “You should be running right now, shaking in fright about what I’m thinking.”

  She met his hot gaze squarely. “Should I What exactly have you told me? That you have some sort of unusual skill? I haven’t seen anything unusual yet.”

  His hands tightened. “Is it proof you want?”

  She didn’t back down, didn’t relent by the merest inch. “Yes.”

  “Then you’ll have it,” he whispered. He snared her wrist. Eyes closed, he nipped the creamy skin.

  And then slid deep, swimming down through her touch to find the electric flow of her emotions.

  In colors they came. Boldest red and flaring blue. Yellows and golds racing over molten silver, as fine and rich as her singular designs. The force of it left him panting, shocked.

  In that same rich flow, Jared found the rest of her secrets.

  That she wanted him no matter who or what he was. She had no reservations and no regrets in her love.

  Love. The feeling roiled in pinks and bright crimson. It lay clear to him, though she might not yet have used the word.

  “Maggie,” he began, his voice harsh. “You stop a man’s heart.”

  Her smile was a curve of aching beauty. “Fine words, Commander. But I’ve still to see that razzle-dazzle you’ve made so much of.”

  She didn’t want to talk, no matter how fine the compliments. He saw clear through to her soul now and knew exactly what she wanted. Heat and recklessness. Giving and blind surrender.

  She’d have it now.

  He bent her back. In one mad sweep her gown went flying and dropped at her feet. And there she stood, wearing a shimmer of white lace at her thighs and nothing else. He saw the glow of her skin, the sweet curve of her nipples, and the fine flush that covered her cheeks; “You’re staring.”

  “Because you take my breath away,” he rasped.

  He felt the sudden leap of her pulse and the desire that shot through her body. She took a breath and let the reality of her love fill her mind.

  “Be sure, Maggie. Be very sure. It’s been a while for me,” he said bluntly. “For many reasons, once we start there won’t be an easy way to turn back.”

  “I’m tough. I can take it, Scotsman. A few bruises and nail marks won’t scare me away.”

  His hands tightened with a dark surge of need. He was going to take her places she’d never even imagined. Something told Jared she would do the same to him.

  “You make me feel savage, like some blue-painted ancestor knee-deep in heather and mist.”

  “Promises, promises.” Nearly naked, she stood on her toes and nuzzled his neck with her lips. Then with her tongue.

  He cursed. His hands moved to her ribs and then closed hard. The past lay heavy around them in the moonlight, and he could almost sense the quiet footfalls of restless ghosts.

  Warriors slain on desert sands. Reckless adventurers and pirate princes. Draycotts who had given their blood to protect these towering stone walls.

  And lovers who whispered in the shadows, bodies urgent with need.

  He closed his eyes, fighting the house’s magic. He had enough magic right now, spilling from his contact with Maggie

  “Anything else dire you insist on telling me? Wives hidden in attics or kinky fetishes I need to know about?” She worked at his shirt, pulling it from his waistband.

  “That you’re destroying me.”

  “Destruction is good,” she whispered, lips to his hard jaw. “Now let’s go for total devastation.” Her fingers slid under his shirt. Jared felt the flare of her passion and her jolting surprise. She wasn’t used to this. No other man had touched her this way, made her shiver this way.

  The thought nearly pushed him beyond control. With a groan he trapped the curve of her breast, then tugged one taut crimson crest between his teeth.

  Her breath came ragged. She made a broken cry as her nails dug into his chest. Need was a storm in her head, racing through the link to flare in Jared’s own mind.

  Her breath was puffy. “Jared, I want—”

  “I know,” he said hoarsely, seeing almost before she did. His hands slid alo
ng her hips and eased lower, pushing past the wisp of lace to cup her heat. “Let me feel you, Maggie. Let me have your fire.”

  There in the shadows and the silence Jared found the tangled curls that hid her slick heat. And in the same moment he parted her, driving her deeper into the pleasure that stretched before her.

  So tight. So hot where she sheathed him He shattered her control, pulling her nerves tighter until she was caught tight with exquisite yearning.

  Desire burned. Need sang.

  In one more moment Jared knew he would be as lost as she was. And he wasn’t ready for that paradise yet. “Maggie, I—”

  “Yes,” she said shakily.

  His hands slid into her hair as he held her face still, plundering her mouth with a violence he had never expected in himself.

  “More,” she rasped, digging at his shirt, her legs restless against him.

  Jared knew a dark surge of triumph at her need. With every second of contact, his knowledge of her body grew in his mind, every response cast in exquisitely graphic detail.

  She shoved blindly at his shirt.

  Linen flew. Denim struck the floor.

  Skin to skin at last.

  Their hands met in a sigh of pleasure as moonlight gilded bodies that were almost too taut for bearing. Tongue to tongue, chest to chest, they lost themselves in each other.

  She nuzzled his chest, tasted his warm skin and tested the rigid length of him. Bending, she goaded the hot muscle trapped within her hand until Jared felt his control shred. When her lips feathered over him, he tensed.

  Her tongue was like silk as he gripped her face, pulling her away. “No more,” he said harshly. He brought her hands to his chest and sent them in a tangle to the bed. Soft damask whispered as he pulled her atop him.

  She gave a broken sigh. “You really feel what I’m thinking?”

  His grin was slow. “Every wicked thought.”

  A flush stained her face and slid over her chest. “This could get tricky.” Her head tilted. “Unless I take the offensive.”

  She arched slightly, then straddled his rigid heat.