The first touch of his skin upon her bared breast sang through her, so familiar, so compelling, she could not keep her hips from moving against him, her jeans-clad bottom sliding against the hard ridge hidden beneath his jeans. He rolled her bare nipple between his fingertips, sending sensation shooting in all directions. She felt herself melting, a pulse fluttering at the apex of her thighs, need surging through her with each quick beat of her heart.
“Trust in this feeling that burns between us.” He brushed his lips against the curve of her neck. “Trust me.”
Trust me. His words acted like a sharp slap to her cheek. All the reasons she should not trust this man slammed into her. Her muscles jerked, as though she had suddenly come awake from a beguiling dream. She pulled free of his embrace, stumbled a few steps, then pivoted to face him. He was looking at her with the same aching need that gripped her like a vice.
As humiliating as it might be, the truth stared her in the eye: she would gladly surrender this quest for Edaín for the chance to live her life with this man. Only there was no future here, no matter how much she wanted to believe there was, no matter how tempting it was to embrace the need within her and deliver her own fragile dreams into his keeping. “I have no intention of indulging you in this little game.”
He clenched his hands into fists at his sides, his expression betraying every nuance of his emotions. Anger and frustration, a desire so powerful it brushed against her at a distance, all of it and more simmered in his eyes. “I’m not playing some foolish game with you.”
Ann backed away from him, afraid of the intensity of the emotion she sensed burning within him. Worse still, more terrifying than the emotion she imagined seeing in his eyes, were the emotions churning within her.
“We were destined to meet, Ann. Destined to love.”
Soul mates. A love dictated by destiny itself. He was very good at casting illusions, so very good. Perhaps because she was so willing to believe in him. Yet she was far too practical to believe in all of this wonderful, seductive sorcery. It made absolutely no sense at all. “I did not come to Dunmarin to become embroiled in one of your romantic exploits.”
“Ann, I…”
She backpedaled when he advance. It wasn’t from fear of what he might force upon her; she knew instinctively Iain would never force a woman to do anything against her will. Unfortunately, he had the most infuriating way of bending her will to suit his own. “I will not stand here and allow you to manipulate me.”
“Confound it, Ann, I…” He glanced beyond her, his expression changing, anger and frustration solidifying into a look of calm determination. He halted and lifted his hand. “Don’t take another step.”
The low command in his voice held no room for disobedience. Ann froze, trembling with the battle raging within her. She wanted to run into his arms nearly as much as she wanted to protect herself.
“Come to me,” he said, lifting his hand toward her.
It took every scrap of will to step back, away from him. “I don’t know what you are—”
Her foot slipped on the edge of the cliff. Her weight shifted. Her balance deserted her. She glanced back and glimpsed the waves pounding the rocks fifty feet below her. Her startled mind registered the horrifying fact that she was about to fall a heartbeat before a strong hand closed upon her arm. Iain hauled her back from the edge of the cliff and wrapped his powerful arms around her.
Ann leaned against him, absorbing the wonderful solid strength of him, affirming that life still flowed in her, while her heart slowly crept down from the back of her throat. The heat and vitality of the man washed through her, chasing away the icy fear of sudden death. She turned her cheek against his sweater, dragging the scent of him deep into her lungs. His heart pounded against her cheek, as quick and violent as her own racing pulse. A strange sense of familiarity swept over her. Each time he held her, she could not escape the feeling she had finally come home.
“Good lord, lass.” He smoothed his hand over her hair. “You shaved ten years off my life.”
His chest vibrated with the dark tones of his voice. A part of her wished she could stand this way forever. Yet reality would not be bought with wishes. She eased out of his embrace and backed away from him, careful this time to mind her step. He did not attempt to draw her back into his embrace. Instead he stood with his back to the ocean, his gaze fixed upon her, a look of calm expectancy in his eyes. “Are you going to deny you want me as much as I want you?”
“The problem is I want more than you do.” She swallowed hard, forcing back the emotion crowding her throat. “I may not be as worldly as you, but I know enough to realize that if I get involved with you, I will not walk away in one piece.”
He held her gaze, his eyes reflecting a terrible turmoil. “Who says it has to end?”
She laughed—she couldn’t help it. The sound of her laughter surprised her with the bitterness it held. “You don’t exactly inspire a great deal of confidence when it comes to happily ever after.”
He grinned at her. “A man can change, for the right woman.”
His words conjured incredibly beguiling, thoroughly foolish thoughts within her. Still, she was far too practical to believe in this fairy tale. “I prefer not to take the chance. I would like to return to Dunmarin now.”
Iain stood tall and powerful amid the ancient stones, his gaze never leaving hers. Misty sunlight shimmered around him, as though the light emanated from him. Behind him dark gray-green waves crashed upon the rocks offshore, as if a mirror to the turmoil she saw in his eyes. In some primitive part of her brain she could believe he was a sorcerer of old, a conjurer of magic. After what seemed an eternity, he smiled. “If that is what you would like, Professor, that is what we shall do.”
Ann didn’t like the look in his eyes. It was the look a lion might give to an antelope who had just managed to jump out of reach for the time being. “You are giving up pretty easily.”
Iain laughed, the dark sound melding with the low roar of the ocean. “When you get to know me better, you’ll learn I never give up when I want something badly enough. And my sweet bonnie Ann, I want you more than I have ever wanted anything.”
Breathe, she reminded herself. If masculinity were bottled and sold, it would be with his picture on each vial. Never in her life had she ever been confronted with a man like this. A man intent on seducing her. A man who could easily steal her heart—if he hadn’t already managed to do just that.
She pivoted and bumped into one of the stone obelisks. Heat flooded her cheeks. She kept her gaze fixed on the arched entrance to the cave while she carefully made her way across the clearing, too embarrassed to meet his gaze. Somehow she had to find a way to resist the maddening Highlander. She could do it, she assured herself. The stakes were too high to lose.
10
“What are we missing, old man?” Iain looked at the portrait of Adair Matheson that hung in the second-floor gallery of the south wing. Tall and dark, Adair stood in a nonexistent garden that Iain supposed was meant to be atop Mount Olympus. Adair did have a wee bit of an eccentric streak. Dunmarin Castle spread out in the background, as though Adair were looking down upon it from his lofty realm.
Iain turned and marched to one of the sashed windows that overlooked the conservatory and the east wing. Perhaps he was becoming as eccentric as Adair. This afternoon, if Ann hadn’t stopped him, he would have taken her right there in the fairy ring, like some great rutting beast. Was there any wonder she was frightened to death of him?
Waning sunlight glittered on the glass dome of the conservatory. He narrowed his eyes against the glare while he looked beyond the dome of the conservatory to the drum tower of the east wing. During his time Adair must have looked out of this window countless times. Only in his time, he could look straight to the ocean. Where was the Sentinel?
Iain stared for a long moment at the solid bulk of the drum tower, a thought teasing him, slipping out of the shadows of his mind, then ducking away from him each
time he tried to grasp it. What was it? Something about the view of the ocean. He walked back to the portrait of Adair, this time concentrating on the painting of Dunmarin. The castle had stood then as it did now, except for the major improvements of the drum tower, and…
The towers.
Iain stared for a moment, clarifying the fact staring him straight in the eye. “That’s it,” he whispered. “That’s what we have been missing.”
He rushed from the gallery and nearly collided with his grandmother in the hall. “Sorry, Gram.”
Rose glared up at him. “What has you running about as though you were a horse with the scent of fire in his nose?”
“Ann.” Iain plowed his hand through his hair. “I need to find her.”
“I see. It’s not the scent of a fire that is in your nostrils.” Rose studied him a moment, as though he were a book and she were slowly leafing through the pages. “You know Ann isn’t one of your fancy women, my lad.”
“Gram, there is no need to lecture me on the merits of Ann Fitzpatrick. I know she isn’t like any other woman I have ever known.”
“I see.” Rose’s white brows lifted above the rims of her glasses. “Well, now, isn’t that interesting.”
He touched her chin with his fingertip. “I would stay and indulge that wee curious look of yours, but there is something important I need to show Ann. Do you know where she is?”
“There is no need to indulge me. I have been able to see straight through you since you were a wee lad.”
Iain grinned at her. “Where is she?”
Rose folded her hands at her plump waist. “I was just on my way to find you, to tell you to stop toying with the poor lass. She looks as though she hasn’t slept well in a week. I would wager it is all on your head.”
He hadn’t been sleeping well himself. He intended to change that. “Where is she?”
“Anxious, aren’t you.” Rose tilted her head, a smug little grin curving her lips. “Perhaps you do have some of Dugald’s blood after all. I was beginning to think it might have been wearing too thin to do you any good. Your father had already been married for eight years by the time he was your age. One look at your mother, that’s all it had taken with him. And they are still just as happy today as they were thirty-five years ago. My Duncan was the same. We knew each other three days before he proposed. He was eleven years younger than you are now.
Iain gripped her arms. “Gram, I am growing older every second.”
“When last I saw her, Ann was in the library, staring at the plans of Dunmarin. Now, you be easy with her. Impatience won’t be serving you with this lass. If you aren’t careful, you’ll be scaring her all the way back to Chicago.”
Iain kissed her cheek, sweet lavender swirling through his senses. “Thank you, sweetheart.”
Iain found Ann where Rose said he might. She was sitting at the desk, staring down at a note, whispering softly to herself. When he entered, she glanced up and met his gaze. The same sweet heat simmered through him that came each time he saw her.
The lenses of her glasses magnified the wariness in her eyes as he drew near her. “Since you believe in fairies, can I assume you also believe in witches?”
“Witches?”
“Yes. It seems Beatrice’s sister’s husband has a cousin who is a witch. And she has written this spell for me.” Ann handed him the sheet of paper. “It is supposed to convince Adair to tell us where he has hidden the jewels.”
Iain glanced at the incantation, then at Ann. “Have you been sitting here, trying to cast this spell?”
“No.” She glanced down at the plans scattered over the desktop. “I was simply seeing how it sounded.”
“Isn’t that odd. You see, Adair just told me what we have been missing.”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “Adair?”
“Aye.” Iain shuffled through the plans on the desk until he found the improvement that showed the addition of the drum tower and the east wing. He tapped the drum tower as he said, “This right here.”
Ann glanced down at the plans, then back up at him. “I don’t understand.”
“We have been thinking the two towers at either end of the east wing existed in Adair’s time. But they didn’t. They must have been added in an improvement that wasn’t documented.”
She slipped the glasses from her slim nose and placed them on the desk. “And Adair told you this?”
“The portrait of Adair did. It shows Dunmarin as it stood in his day.” Iain shuffled through the plans until he found a page that showed the entire layout of the castle as it stood today. He pointed to the tower that must have faced the ocean in 1816. “The only tower that faced the ocean was set back a good distance from the cliffs. My guess is, this is the Sentinel.”
Ann’s breath eased from her in a slow exhalation. “I hope you are right.”
He grabbed her hand and tugged her from the chair. “Come on, lass. Let’s see if we can solve a two-hundred-year-old mystery.”
Ann hesitated on the threshold of the room. She glanced at the huge four-poster bed sitting at the far end, then at the man who had paused in the middle of the room to look back at her. What the devil was he doing now?
“Relax, Professor,” Iain said, as if reading her thoughts. “This is my brother Sean’s apartment when he is at Dunmarin. I brought you here only to look for the Sentinel, not to try to seduce you.”
Ann tried to ignore the disappointment stabbing her, and failed. Since returning from the fairy ring, she had been plagued with doubts. For the first time in her life she had met a man who made her heart soar each time she saw him. Was it truly better to keep her distance? Would that save her from a fall? She had never been a gambler, and here she was contemplating a risk that could cost her everything.
Iain glanced around the large room, studying the oak-wainscoted walls as though he were completely unaware of the turmoil raging inside her. “No lions in here.”
Unless one counted the tall, broad-shouldered lion who was currently headed for a door on the far side of the room. She realized she should concentrate on the puzzle Adair had left for them, yet putting together coherent thought when she was near Iain was next to impossible. As much as she wanted to deny it, the search for the treasure no longer held as much significance to her as it had. Iain had made her confront the truth of her existence. Most of her life she had been following someone else’s dream—perhaps because it was too frightening to chase after her own.
Ann followed him out of the bedroom into an adjoining chamber. Iain touched a switch near the door, bringing life to the wall sconces. Artificial candles glowed behind cut crystal, casting a soft light upon the oak wainscoting, the Empire sofas and Queen Anne chairs, all covered in the same mint green silk brocade that shrouded the windows.
“Look, lass,” Iain said, his voice filled with excitement.
Ann followed the direction of his gaze and found a lion peering down at her from the thick cornice. “In the bosom of the Sentinel, find the lion who greets each day.”
“Aye, lass. And in the jaws of the lion you will find the key.” Iain dragged a lyre-back armchair beneath one of the six lions peering down at them. “Let’s see if we can find a lion willing to tell us something.”
Three lions later, Ann stood a short distance from Iain, watching him explore another lion’s head. She rubbed her damp palms against her jeans, hoping he might end the suspense with a positive sign this time.
Iain peered into the lion’s jaw. After a moment, he slipped his fingers between the lion’s fangs. “I wonder.”
“You wonder what?” She curled her hands into tight fists at her sides. “Did you find a key?”
“I’m not sure. There seems to be a lever in here.” Iain glanced down at her, his expression betraying his excitement. “Let’s see if anything happens when I—”
A soft click sounded like gunfire in the quiet room. A panel of the oak wainscoting beneath the lion moved slightly, coming away from the adjoining
panel. “Well, now, look at that.”
Ann didn’t need his encouragement. She closed the distance and gripped the panel. Hinges creaked as the panel swung open like a door, revealing a rough stone wall and a wooden staircase leading down into darkness. Iain’s arm brushed hers as he looked into the alcove. “We need some light. I’ll get a couple of torches.”
It seemed an eternity, but soon Iain returned with two flashlights. Wood creaked as Iain stepped onto the first wooden step. He glanced back at her. “Perhaps you’d better let me take a look.”
“Oh, no. I’m not about to stay here while you play Indiana Jones.”
Iain drew in a breath. “Stay close behind me.”
A damp musky scent swept around her as she followed Iain down the steep staircase. A sound echoed from beneath the stairs, growing louder with each step they took, a soft splashing sound, as though water were lapping upon stone. “Do you hear that?”
“Aye. I suspect the stairs lead into one of the caves beneath Dunmarin. It was probably the back door of the castle.” He glanced back at her, his expression illuminated by her flashlight. “It’s high tide—that’s why we are hearing the water.”
Ann shivered inside, remembering the cold rush of water against her legs and the colder threat of death. The stairs descended to a landing, then dipped at an angle before sinking deeper below the castle. Her breath caught when Iain’s flashlight beam caught the figure of a sea lion in the light. It was carved into a stone slab about the size of an eleven-by-fourteen picture frame and affixed to the stone wall of the castle on the far side of the landing. “Seek the selkie’s secret behind its stony face,” she whispered.
“I’ll see if this selkie is ready to divulge his secret.” Wood groaned when Iain stepped onto the wooden platform.
Ann directed her light upon the wooden landing, her palm damp upon the steel tube of the flashlight. There were holes in places where the wood had rotted. “Be careful.”
“Aye.” Iain glanced over his shoulder and smiled at her. “Keep your torch focused on that selkie.”
My Scottish Summer Page 25