A Highlander for Christmas

by Christina Skye

  Preston lurched forward. “That will be your job, Commander.” Preston gestured angrily with his gun. “The chopper has a medical team and they can take care of Kincade, but first you’ll drive us back to the village. If you don’t find the stones, I’ll kill you and Kincade’s daughter myself. Her father will be going with us—for obvious reasons. Now move.”

  Jared assessed his choices and decided he had none. Grimly, he helped Kincade to his feet, all but carrying him to Preston’s car.

  “Hurry.” Preston gave him a sharp push. “We’ve spent too many years establishing our network to fail now.” He gave Jared another jab, and this time his wrist slammed against Jared’s neck.

  Even as he struggled to keep Kincade’s heavy body upright, Jared felt the sharp burst of images.

  Jungle.

  The rumble of distant explosives.

  The sound of marching soldiers.

  Realization struck him with deadly force. “It was you, Preston? You and your infernal network were behind that explosion in Thailand?”

  “I wondered when you’d fit the pieces together.” Preston smiled smugly. “We had a successful network in Thailand, and the money was crucial to our growth. Too bad you couldn’t be swayed to join us. The local police were delighted to see the last of you since you complicated their business arrangements. When new contacts in Myanmar needed an English prisoner for a political campaign, you became the obvious choice.”

  Jared fought back fury. He had been traded off without a second thought, part of a mad plan for power? “What about the bomb outside the Bank of China? Was that one of yours?”

  “It suited our ends. Things were growing entirely too peaceful in Asia. The communists hadn’t attacked as the population feared, and we needed discord. In times of chaos, civilians inevitably seek out those who are equipped to deal with death and destruction, which is us. The soldiers whose names are always forgotten.” Preston’s jaw worked hard. “But no more. Now open the car door and get Kincade inside.”

  Wind lashed down from the cliffs as Jared moved through the blinding world of white. Even Preston was shoved back by the unpredictable gusts.

  Jared knew once they were in the car, he would have no more chances. As he touched the door, wind whipped snow around his shoulders, and the ghost of an idea took shape.

  He tugged on the door, feigning irritation. “I’ll have to go around. The door is locked.”

  “Make it fast,” Preston growled. “The chopper will be here in less than fifteen minutes.”

  Jared leaned Kincade against the car and crossed to open the other door. Kincade’s eyes fluttered as Jared eased him into the seat.

  “M-Maggie?” he rasped.

  “Fine.”

  “My pocket—take the stones,” the old man rasped. “It’s too late for me now. Whatever happens, Preston and his kind must never have them.” He held out a small canvas bag, which Jared slid into his pocket. Then he straightened the old man in the seat, in the process sliding the door latch down until it locked.

  “What’s taking you so long?” Preston was only feet from the car, his face set in a mask of anger. As he spoke, something streaked over the snow and darted between his feet. He spun hard, cursing, and a line of bullets bit into the white slope.

  A cat—or what looked like a cat, Jared thought.

  And with Preston distracted…

  He sprinted forward, ignoring the rain of gunfire in the drifts around him. With luck, he could lead Preston out of range, on toward the steep rocks to the north.

  “You can’t escape.”

  Two more bullets hissed through the snow. The next shot dug fire across Jared’s right thigh, but even then he didn’t stop. Snow whipped around him, and he prayed that he could keep his sense of direction. But then he heard Preston gaining on him.

  Jared tossed his heavy coat down into the swirling snow and kept on running.

  “You never could play the game properly, MacNeill. Too bad. You might have been an asset in the new world we are creating.” Preston stopped, eyes narrowed on the shape stretched before him beneath the swirling flakes. He shoved snow out of his eyes, laughing in triumph. “But you chose the wrong side. And now you’ll die for that.”

  He was still laughing when he sent a bullet through the dark shape at close range.

  But there was no lurch of muscle, no groan of shock and pain. Cursing, he kicked at the coat, which tangled around his feet. Jared lunged at him from behind, knocking his pistol into a drift.

  Though ten years older, Preston was in peak condition. He burned with the fervor of a zealot, twisting and dodging. But Jared was fighting for the woman he loved, not for abstractions, power or governments. With every breath, he drew a strength that surged beyond normal limits.

  He parried once, slammed Preston to the side, and gripped his neck. “Do you know what it’s like to be crouched in a box in searing heat? Have you heard the screams of tortured men around you and smelled the sweat of their fear? You will, Preston. Right now there is a special box being made for you and your kind in hell.”

  With a shout of rage, the rogue officer twisted free and slammed his boot into Jared’s bleeding thigh. Jared stumbled sideways, blinded by the impact. Over the whine of the wind he heard the drone of engines and the whir of powerful blades.

  Preston sprang forward, searching for his fallen weapon while Jared struggled to clear his vision. Through a haze of pain, he saw Preston dive forward toward the snow, his head thrown back in triumph.

  But before the Englishman could reach his goal, a cat sprang from the skeletal bough of a pine tree with claws bared, knocking the officer off stride and away from his gun. Snow gusted up around them as the engine roar grew louder and the dark blades of a military helicopter whined overhead, moving north.

  Preston followed, snaking past huge boulders and a row of skeletal trees. Jared heard the restless slap of water somewhere to his right. He could not allow Preston to reach the helicopter.

  Racing up the rocky slope, he closed the gap.

  Suddenly the ground fell away into a hollow ringed by trees. In the center stood a gray boulder surrounded by lichens. Above it rose a snow-covered tree with a single forked branch.

  The same tree.

  The same dark rock that Jared had seen in a dozen nightmare visions.

  Before him, the world seemed to snap into two images, one white with snow, the other dream-like, the core of too many nightmares. He tried to shake off a sense of unreality, frozen by the familiar images.

  Knowing his own death lay close enough to touch.

  A tall figure loomed out of the blanketing white. “I’ll tend to Kincade and his daughter, man.” Ronan MacLeod glared at the retreating aircraft. “You had best go after the others.”

  A pistol cracked.

  Jared squinted into the white wall of snow.

  He stumbled forward, only to stop as he felt his boots sink deep into a layer of peat. From a boyhood spent beside loch and glen, he knew the deadly significance of the soggy land that hissed and rippled beneath him. But a city-born Englishman like Preston was not so lucky. He sank deep, cursing. Then with a manic energy he pulled free and struggled on, hands flung forward.

  Above him the helicopter circled. In clumsy strides, Preston followed the edge of the peat bog and clambered up a rocky slope that rose out of sight in the banked clouds.

  As the wind howled he was caught in a horizontal gust. He fell sideways, unable to find his footing in the snow and ice.

  “Preston, wait.” Jared felt his words snatched away by the wind.

  Too late.

  The English officer cried out in fury. His body toppled forward off the sharp ridge, then catapulted out through space. The wind amplified his cry of terror in agonizing waves as his feet thrashed vainly in the lashing snow. Then he plunged down to meet his death in the waters of the loch far below.

  ~ ~ ~

  Trembling, Maggie stumbled over the white slope, following Jared’s ragged t
racks.

  As soon as Preston disappeared, she had gone to her father in the car. He was now in the capable hands of Perpetua Wishwell, who assured her that he would not be lost to her for a long while yet. Hope MacLeod had already gone to fetch the local doctor from Glenbrae, and her husband was expected back any moment.

  But Maggie couldn’t forget Jared’s grim certainty of his death, and that forewarning drove her over the snow with wind and gravel clawing at her face. Preston’s fallen gun was a reassuring weight, dug from the snow and now shoved inside her coat pocket.

  A cry echoed on the wind, bringing new dread. With tears blurring her vision, she clambered on toward a small clearing where snow drifted around a weathered boulder. Nearby stood a tree with a broken branch.

  Maggie’s mind screamed. She could not let Jared’s nightmares turn real. She refused to lose him in this bleak place he had seen in so many dreams.

  Metal blades beat over her head, and a dark shape loomed from the turbid gray clouds. At the same moment Maggie saw the flash of Jared’s bright plaid. She struggled up the slope to his side while the helicopter hovered low. Maggie saw the blood that stained the snow beneath him, and she gave a broken cry.

  Closing her eyes, she shoved him forward and covered him with her body, shielding him in blind refusal to allow fate to tear him from her. Somehow she would cheat his grim visions.

  She’d had a few visions of her own in the last days. This time she would not lose him.

  She crouched, tightening her grip on his shoulders, refusing to surrender to fear and madmen. Preston and his followers would never harm him again. Ronan MacLeod would follow shortly, and after him would come a score of villagers from Glenbrae. She had only to keep Jared safe until they arrived.

  Jared rolled, his eyes narrowed against the wind, taking her with him, away from the surging blades into the shelter of the lichen-covered rock. Hard hands gripped her. She heard his voice and its smoky tones plunged deep into her soul. “Stop fighting me, woman.”

  “They won’t get you. Not again. Preston can shoot me, but I won’t move.”

  “Forget about Hugh Preston,” Jared growled. “He’s fallen to the loch and he’s beyond any human help now.”

  He struggled to rise as the helicopter pitched, whirling snow up in sheets.

  “No,” Maggie cried. “You have to go. I’m of no use to them, but they want you. Just go, while you still can.” She pushed him away toward the cottage as the aircraft door opened and a man in a jumpsuit leaped to the ground. Grimly, Maggie shoved past Jared and raised Preston’s pistol in a desperate grip.

  The man in the jumpsuit halted. “Dear sweet lord, what’s been going on here?”

  Snow swirled over Nicholas Draycott’s dark hair and anxious face as he stared from Maggie to Jared. “Jared, is that you? If so, perhaps you’ll tell me why Maggie is holding a gun.” His eyes narrowed on the snow. “And why you’re bleeding like a pig.”

  Maggie spun with a gasp. “Nicholas? Thank heaven. Help me. There’s so much blood.”

  “My dearest love, I’ll survive,” Jared muttered with a hint of a smile.

  Maggie swallowed hard. “Hope MacLeod went for a doctor. They should be back very soon.” She turned her cheek to Jared’s chest, breathing raggedly. “I thought Preston—I thought you—”

  “Nay, love.”

  “Don’t talk. Keep your strength until we reach the cottage. It isn’t far. Maybe we can commandeer that helicopter of Lord Draycott’s.”

  “There’s no need for—”

  “No more talking.” Maggie gripped him tightly. “I won’t let you waste your energy. Your leg—”

  Jared stopped her with a kiss that could have seared a platinum plate. Long and slow, he drove his lips over hers, sealing out everything but the wild race of their hearts.

  She pulled away with a broken sound. “Can you walk? We need to hurry.”

  “Later.” He opened his freezing hands to cradle her face. “I need something else first.”

  Behind them Nicholas Draycott cleared his throat. “I could swear I saw a cat racing over that slope. Perhaps it was some kind of mirage.”

  “It was a cat,” Jared answered, never looking up from Maggie’s face. “Damned good timing he had, too. If it weren’t impossible, I’d almost say he was kin to that great creature I saw in your conservatory.” He touched Maggie’s chin. “Odd, what imagination does in this kind of a storm.”

  “Perhaps it’s blood loss,” Nicholas said grimly. “We have a physician with us. Let’s have him look at your leg.”

  “Later,” Jared repeated. “Send him down to check on Maggie’s father first. He needs him more.”

  “But how—” Nicholas gave an exasperated sigh as Jared pulled Maggie closer and slid his hands into her hair.

  “Stubborn, impossible man,” she whispered. “We need to hurry.” But her answering kiss took the sting from her words. When her head rose, her cheeks were wet with tears. “What in the world am I going to do with you?”

  “Love me,” Jared said hoarsely, brushing snow from her cheeks. “Today. Tomorrow. Forever. That’s all I want in life.”

  Maggie leaned closer as the wind snapped around them. She gave a shaky laugh. “Max is going to be very jealous.”

  She thought she heard Jared mumble something about puppy farms before his lips closed hard over hers.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Outside Glenbrae House the snow fell on, silent and thick. Off the mountains clouds billowed low while a dozen people gathered around the roaring fire in the comfortable kitchen.

  Morwenna Wishwell filled a steaming mug with tea and splashed in a generous amount of whisky, managing to slosh water over the table and both shoes in the process.

  “Do watch that boiling water, Morwenna, lest we have you in to see the doctor next.” Perpetua took her cup and set it safely away from harm on the table. “But you’re not drinking your tea, Ms. Kincade.”

  Maggie sat before the fire, weighed down by four tartan blankets. Her fingers finally had sensation again, but her shivering had yet to stop.

  “Tea?” She pulled her eyes from the closed door across the hall. “Yes, that would be lovely.”

  Hope MacLeod put a hand on her shoulder. “What Perpetua means, my dear, is that you should have some of the tea you’re holding in your hands. It will warm you up in no time, especially if there’s as much whisky in it as I think there is.”

  Maggie looked down, frowning. She saw that a cup was cradled between her fingers, and steam tumbled up into her face. She took a drink, wincing as the fiery spirits seared the lining of her throat.

  “Takes a bit of growing used to,” Perpetua said, nodding gravely. “Try it slowly next time.”

  But Maggie didn’t hear. Her eyes were locked on the door where Jared was sequestered with Glenbrae’s octogenarian doctor.

  “There’s no reason to fret, my dear. Your man is sound enough.”

  Fret? Maggie stared at the door, willing it to open. She wasn’t fretting, she was terrified. She’d thought of nothing but Jared since their return from the grisly attack by the loch.

  “Do you think he’ll lose the leg?” she whispered.

  “Nay, lass. The wound was never so deep as that.” Frowning, Ronan poured another bit of whisky in her tea. “The best thing for you would be to have another drink of tea. He’ll not want to see you pale as oatmeal, and anxiously expecting his death.”

  With a wan smile Maggie took another sip, her eyes going wide as the potent spirits bit at her throat.

  Hope lifted the bottle from her husband’s fingers. “I don’t think she’ll be needing more of this.”

  “But her color’s gone flat.” he whispered.

  “She’ll be fine once she sees Jared,” his wife answered firmly.

  “Maybe the doctor needs blood for a transfusion.” Maggie turned her cup blindly as tears burned at her eyes. “Maybe he—”

  Ronan gripped her shoulder. “MacNeill will need
none of that.” He studied her intently. “Though perhaps he will need other things.”

  “I’ll gladly give him anything,” she whispered.

  The door creaked open “Ms. Kincade?” The doctor peered owlishly around the kitchen as Maggie stood up. “There you are. Right this way with you.”

  “But I’m fine, truly. Just a little cold. And sometimes my throat—”

  He tilted her face, peering into her eyes. “Open your mouth and say ahh.”

  “But I’m not—” A wooden tongue depressor cut off her protest.

  “Very good,” the doctor muttered. “No sign of inflammation. Now let’s have your hand.” Her wrist was caught, turned, probed. The doctor stared at his watch, ticking off silent seconds. “Excellent,” he said finally. “A fine, normal pulse. You’re fit as a horse, young woman.”

  “But what about Jared? Will he—”

  Over the doctor’s shoulder she saw Jared hobbling toward her. Beneath his kilt a thick strip of gauze covered his lower thigh. “I’ll be fine, woman. As I told you before, it was just a scratch.”

  “Not entirely,” the doctor countered.

  “Close enough.” Jared took Maggie’s hand and pulled her toward the table.

  Maggie saw nothing but his face. “You’re too pale. There was so much blood, Jared.” He pulled her into the chair beside him. “It appears that I am going to live.”

  “I told her she should drink all of her tea.” Morwenna slid a cup into Jared’s hands. “That same advice holds for you.”

  Absently he took a drink, then passed the steaming cup to Maggie. “Finish the rest of it.” His eyes narrowed. “I think you’re going to need it.”

  “Why?”

  “The tea first.”

  Maggie took a swallow, then burst into raw coughing as the whisky hit home.

  Jared held her shoulders, then took her palm in his. “I’ve something to say to you, Margaret Kincade. Something I’ve never said nor even wished to say before.” He eyed the teacup and took a swift gulp, then brought her palm to his lips for a slow kiss that had Maggie’s pulse climbing.