Her breath lodged in her chest, caught up in the mad beating of her heart. Was it him, or the dark, or the situation that heightened her senses? For more than a month, she’d smelled his scent each time she’d visited the museum, and now it evoked the same response, but tenfold. He had her pinned to the wall in a strange place and still a dark, sensual heat coursed through her.
He lowered his head and his hair teased against her bare shoulder. His warm breath danced over her skin. His lips whispered against her, not quite a kiss, over her shoulder, along the line where his plaid covered her breasts. Instinctively she arched her back bringing her closer to his mouth. “Ah, that’s some fine skin you have Katie-love, soft and warm and you smell good too.” He nuzzled where her shoulder met her neck and Kate thought she might melt at the feel of his lips against her skin, the faint scrape of his whiskers. “It could fair drive a man mad to wonder if you’re that soft and smell that good all over. I would like to say all the men would be fair and noble were they to run into you wearing naught but a plaid, but that’s not the case. There are many who’d be driven to seek what you hide beneath and none too particular as to your willingness. So, if you won’t keep yourself safe, I’ll do what I have to do. As laird of Glenagan, it’s my job to look after my people.” He slid his hands down her arms, leaving a trail of fire in his wake.
“But I’m not your people.” Her protest, which she fully intended to be forceful and assertive, somehow got lost in the sensation of his fingers against her bare arms, and came out a hoarse whisper.
He wrapped an arm, much like a band of steel, about her waist. Before she realized what he was up to, he hoisted her off her feet and over one massive shoulder. “Ah, Katie-love, that’s where you are wrong. As long as you’re on my land, you belong to me.”
3
DARACH MACTAVISH was confounded. Ever since he was a wee lad, the lasses had taken a ken to him. So, finding a lass in his bed hadn’t been that surprising. Finding her as bare as a bairn had been something of a boon. But she didn’t seem wont to stay there and that was confounding, as was her strange speech.
He tested the last knot. Katie wouldn’t be going anywhere until he decided she should. He looked down at her stony face. “If you’re uncomfortable, you have no one but yourself to blame.”
She turned her face to the wall, away from him without answering.
“Ye left me no choice. At least I didna bind your legs.” She seemed in no mood for a tumble and to have her on his bed with her legs spread, her ankles bound to the corner posts…well, he didn’t need the temptation.
“Thank you.” She looked at him, anger simmering beneath her stony facade. “You’re wasting both of our time. Obviously you’ve confused me with someone else. People will miss me and the authorities will look for me, but no one will pay you a penny for me.”
“You think I want to ransom you?”
“Why else are you tying me up? Why won’t you let me leave?”
“I’ve told you why, you daft lass.”
“I’m not daft, you jackass…at least I don’t think I am. I just want to go home.” The last word ended on an abrupt note. Was it because she was about to start caterwauling or because she’d said too much?
“Were you perhaps meeting someone to take you home?” He should’ve thought of that before. Of course she wasn’t here alone. Finally, the situation made sense. “Were you sent here to distract me? Who were you on your way to meet? Where were you meeting them?”
A hint of bewilderment lurked behind the frustration in her green eyes. “I don’t know why I’m here. I wish I did. No, that’s not true. I don’t care why I’m here. I just want to wake up and have this dream over.”
Her nonsense held a note of truth. But it was, in fact nonsense, and he pressed her. “Tell me where you’re to meet your people and I’ll take you there. As long as no harm comes to a MacTavish on this night, I’ll set you and your people free. It’s a generous offer and one I won’t grant again, so make your decision wisely, Katie Wexford.”
“I wish I could tell you what you want to know. I would if I could. I’m not stoic or heroic or any of those things. I want a hot shower, a glass of red wine, my silk pajamas and my bed. This—” she glanced around the room and then pointedly at him, “—is not my idea of a good evening.”
Darach crossed to the door. He’d rouse the whole castle. Better to surprise the enemy than be caught unaware. And he’d spent entirely too much of his time talking with this woman. He turned to face her. “I am going to rouse the castle. If your people are here, we’ll find them and you can trust they’ll be shown no mercy. Know that you brought this upon them. Know that you could have saved them and chose to do nothing. Know their blood to be on your hands.”
She nodded. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
By all that was holy, she either spoke the truth or was as touched as they came.
“GATHER THE MEN and ready them to search the castle,” Darach said.
Hamish stood before his laird for the second time that evening and sighed to himself. Darach had been in a state earlier and in no mood for the only explanation he, Hamish could offer. Hamish had held out a slight hope that Darach and the lass might figure it out on their own, but he’d feared it might come to this. His laird and friend, Darach was a strong decisive personality. And even though Hamish had only a faint, general impression of the woman he’d shoved through the portrait, she was undoubtedly made of equally stern stuff. Hamish wished this next part was over with. It promised to be difficult.
“Is this about the strange lass in your bed? I take it she wasn’t up for a tumble?”
“I caught her coming down the stairs after I had told her to stay in my room. I think she was on her way to meet someone. That or she’s been sent as a distraction. Now, gather the men.”
Hamish stood before him without doing his bidding, searching for a way to break his news to Darach. God’s tooth this was going to be awkward. Hamish should’ve already prepared for this. Darach glanced sharply at him. “Time is wasting man.”
“I would like to meet the woman. I think I can explain.”
“I thought you had seen no one enter the castle.”
Hamish was almost positive it was the same woman, but she’d shown up without her clothes? “Let me meet her.”
“And what if we’re bluidy well overrun while you’re up visiting with her?”
“Trust me. Have I ever offered you unwise counsel? Take me to her.”
Hamish regarded the man he’d known and loved like a brother his entire life. More than once he’d entrusted Darach with his life. Hamish hoped he’d do the same now.
Darach turned abruptly and made his way toward the keep. Hamish followed, leaving behind his customary banter, scrambling to decide how best to present the situation to Darach and the lass. It was so much easier when those involved figured it out on their own.
They entered the room, Darach first. The woman spoke. “That was quick. I told you I wasn’t meeting anyone.” Hamish stepped around Darach and smiled a greeting.
Recognition widened her eyes. “You—you…you’re the one who shoved me into the painting. I know it. You’re younger, but I recognize you. I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing but I want out.”
“You brought her here?” Darach reared back, betrayal echoing in his stance. “I asked and—”
“I told you none of the men saw her enter and they didn’t. Hear me out and know it is a strange enough tale I have to tell.”
Kate spoke up from the bed. “Okay. We’re finally getting somewhere and while you’re telling it, how about you untie me.”
Darach looked from Hamish to Kate and shook his head in distrust. “Not until I have heard the tale.”
“The first manner of business would be that this is indeed Glenagan, Scotland and it is November of 1744,” Hamish said with an apologetic smile at Kate.
The woman’s skin grew paler still at his words, all the blood seeming t
o drain from her body. She should thank Darach that she was flat on her back, else she might have fallen.
“No.” She breathed the single word through clenched lips.
“Who is she?” Darach asked.
Where was a good place to start? Experience had taught him there were no good places to start with this. “She’s a woman from two hundred and sixty years, well two hundred sixty two years to be precise, in the future.”
Darach eyed him as if madness had overcome him.
“Ah. I see you think I’ve gone a might daft and for sure it is a bit hard to believe.” He looked at Darach to show him neither madness nor deception shadowed his eyes. “She is from Georgia, a place that today is a colony of the crown and the city she comes from does not yet exist. She is not British. She and her people are known as Americans.”
“She said you brought her here. So, I’m supposed to believe you are still alive two hundred sixty two years in the future?”
Hamish shrugged. “I told you it’s a strange tale.”
“But you haven’t been gone from the castle.”
“I don’t know how to explain it, but I exist on several different planes, at different points in time, in different places.”
“Are you some kind of dark magic?”
“I don’t know what I am.” He’d ceased long ago to feel sorrow over his unusual state. “I’ve just learned to accept it. I can’t make anything happen. But things happen through me.” He gestured to the painting on the wall. “That painting spoke to you, drew you, did it not, lass?”
“Yes.” Her skin flushed to a rosy glow.
“You’ve seen that painting before?” Darach asked her.
“Yes. It was in a traveling exhibit, Sex Through the Ages, in the Atlanta museum.”
“Sex Through the Ages?” Darach frowned at her.
“I didn’t name the thing,” Kate snapped back at him. “I just showed up for the viewing.”
Hamish jumped in to get the conversation back on track. “And the draw was so strong you couldn’t stay away?”
“Yes. Did you do that to me? Did you cast some kind of spell?”
“No. What you felt was between the two of you. That’s the way it works. I don’t pick anyone. If you weren’t supposed to be here, if on some level you didn’t want to be here, you wouldn’t.”
“Wait a second. Something’s obviously gotten screwed up somewhere along the line. I definitely don’t want to be here. I want to be home. You’ve got the wrong gal. I think you meant to snag my friend Jordan. She’s a history major. Trust me. She’d much rather be here, well, maybe not tied to the bed,” she glared in Darach’s direction, “but she’s into history and this would be right up her alley. Trust me on this. I’m not the person for this. I don’t do history. I’ve never even been to the Renaissance festival ’cause I don’t like that stuff. I’m a techno freak. I love the conveniences of modern life. Electricity. Running water. Flush toilets. CAT scans. Penicillin. Starbucks.”
“Aye. A mocha latte grande is a thing of beauty.”
“See. You understand. You have to send me back.”
He upended his palms in a gesture of helplessness. “I can not. Only you can send yourself back.”
“No. That’s not true. ’Cause I’d be home right now if I could. And I tried to go through the picture earlier.”
“No, lass, ’tis yourself that has brought you here. You wanted to be here so much you were willing to come as bare as a bairn. And once you have taken care of what you came here for, you’ll return.”
Darach stood, arrogant, commanding, smug. “So the lass wanted a tumble with me that bad, did she?”
“Actually, your need for her was so strong that she felt it coming through.”
“Now I know you are daft, man. I don’t need her.” He eyed her stretched out on his bed, clad in his plaid. “Now, there is no denying I want her. I’m willing to tumble a comely lass, but I don’t need her. There is any number of lasses willing to warm my bed.”
“You are the most arrogant, pig-headed, macho, blustering bag of hot air. Whatever faint glimmer of attraction I felt at one point for a man in a picture has totally dissipated having experienced your lack of charm first-hand.”
Darach’s mouth tightened. “Aye. And I can do without a viper-tongued wench.”
“Wench? Wench? Lass is one thing, but did you just call me a wench? I’ll have you know I’m a doctor. No one calls me a wench. I passed my boards with flying colors. I could take you apart and put you back together with my eyes closed.”
“That may all be well and true, Katie-love, but while you are here, I’m the laird.”
Hamish let himself out of the room. For the time being, his work was done.
4
“NOW, DO YOU THINK you can untie me?” Kate said. “I can prove to you I’m from the twenty-first century.”
As fantastical concept as it was, she was convinced she’d somehow time traveled. The old guy who now looked young and satellite absence had made a believer of her. However, she thought that business about her wanting to be here was a load of horse manure. In no way, shape, form or fashion did she want to be here.
Maybe that conductor guy had smoked some crack. Did they have crack in 1744? She knew virtually nothing about historic mind-altering drugs. For that matter, she knew precious little about historic anything. It wasn’t her deal.
“I will unbind you if I have your word you’ll remain in this room, otherwise, for your own good, I’ll keep you bound to my bed.” He stood at the end of the bed, strong legs braced apart, thick arms crossed over his massive chest.
He wasn’t blustering. He was giving her a choice. She didn’t doubt for a moment he could and would keep her tied to the bed if she didn’t cooperate. In fact, she could scream herself silly and it wouldn’t matter. He was in charge and no one would cross him. She didn’t have to know jack about history to know that. She recognized absolute power and in this world, Darach MacTavish was literally a law unto himself.
“I promise. I’ll stay in this room.”
He moved with a grace uncommon to a man of his size and knelt on the bed. Sensation fluttered low in her belly. His scent, the same that had drawn her over and over again for the past several weeks, was even more potent and alluring up close and personal. Dark hair was sprinkled tantalizingly along his legs and forearms, and she knew for a certain, blood-stirring fact that he was naked beneath his kilt. Muscles corded in his arms as he worked loose the knot binding her left hand. His hair swung forward, a dark curtain drawn on the harsh line of his nose, the bold line of his jaw, and the sensuous curve of his lips.
His fingers pressed against her wrist and palm as he worked at the knot in the material. She touched people all day, checking pulses, feeling for abnormalities, but this…this was different altogether. Her pulse leapt and tingles spread through her.
Kate flushed at his touch and the heat it evoked. She should look away—study the ceiling and mentally review the last cases she’d seen at work. But she couldn’t look away, couldn’t redirect her attention because that incredible surge of heat and lust and want drew her to him. It was a yearning born from deep within that surpassed attraction and even will. She didn’t want to feel drawn to him. She didn’t want to ache for more of his touch.
The fabric gave way, releasing her wrist…until he recaptured it in his hands. He stroked her pulse point, performing a sensual massage with his thumb. “I hope it didna hurt you.” The low timbre of his voice thrummed through her. He looked at her and there was no denying the heat smoldering in his gaze. Without looking away, he slowly brought her wrist to his mouth until his warm breath whispered against her flesh.
Her heart thundered in her chest. She ought to snatch her hand away but, God help her, she wanted to know the feel of that exquisitely sensual mouth against her skin. Wanted to know if the inherent promise in those well-shaped lips was real or merely fantasy’s fodder.
He pressed a kiss to her wrist and swe
et heat poured through her. He nuzzled and suckled the flesh as if he were savoring a delicate treat. Instinctively she curled her fingers against his cheek. He lifted his head. “You would think me naught but a brutish Highlander were I tae bruise you.”
She reclaimed her hand and wet her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. “I’m fine. If you would just untie my other hand now.”
“As you wish, Katie-love.” She fully expected him to walk around to the other side of the bed. Instead, Darach MacTavish, with a wicked smile, climbed atop and straddled her. Powerful thighs braced on either side of her, he leaned forward and worked at the other knot.
What she’d felt outside that portrait now increased exponentially. She was wantonly, wickedly aware that except for two soft bits of cloth, she and this magnificent male specimen were naked. The heavy length of him pressed against her hip as he leaned over her. Stretched above her at the angle he was, the scar she’d daydreamed about earlier was slightly visible.
She reached up and traced her finger down the puckered line marring his back. His skin was warm and supple on either side of the scar’s hard ridge. Did she imagine the small shudder that ran through him?
“That must have hurt.”
He straightened and despite his arrogant grin, his eyes held the same hard glint they had when she’d made her stupid Queen of England quip. “’Twas just a scratch. I found the wrong end of a sword.”
“How were you stitched up?” Her training left her curious. She was certain it wasn’t a couple of shots of Lidocaine to numb it and then vicryl and ethilon sutures to close it up.
“We were a night’s ride from Glenagan. My father poured a measure of whiskey in it and then sewed it back together with horsehair.”
Whiskey in an open wound of that size must have been excruciating. “And you rode the next day?”
He shrugged. “We had a pressing need to get back. Sima applied a poultice when I returned and it was nary a problem. I was but a lad and healed quickly.”
Perfect Timing 2: Highland Fling Page 3