Perfect Timing 2: Highland Fling

by Jennifer Labrecque

  He reached out and plied his thumb against the back of her hand, his touch carrying a comfort, a reassurance. “And now it is just you?”

  Wasn’t that what she’d thought earlier in the evening, before she’d fallen back through time? “I suppose. But I have my job.” And she always pulled the rotations at Christmas and Thanksgiving. “It’s not just a job, it’s who I am. Sort of like you. You’re the laird, but it’s not just a title and it’s not just a job you show up for at eight in the morning and leave behind when you get through at five. It defines who you are, what you are, how you live, and the choices you make.”

  It didn’t matter that they came from different backgrounds, different countries, different professions, different centuries. Kate knew there’d never been a man who understood her more than this one. Despite their differences, they came from the same place.

  “Truer words were ne’er spoken. And why is there no husband, no bairns in your life?”

  “My job is busy, demanding, and the hours are crazy.” And those were all excuses, soundbites. There had been the oblique pain of never knowing a father and the acute pain of losing a mother who was everything. Why not find the courage to give it voice? “And because I’ve already lost enough. I don’t want to lose again.”

  “Aye.” Darach stood and drew her into the temporary comfort of his arms. He cradled her head to his chest and she rested her cheek against his warm skin, soaking up his solace. Beneath her cheek, his heart beat sure and steady.

  She accepted the comfort he offered. She’d be alone again soon enough.

  DARACH AWOKE, ALONE, in Katie’s bed. Last night she’d thrown his plaid atop her bed to remind him of home. He hadn’t had the heart to tell her that wasn’t proper and he’d left it be. Now Glenagan’s scent mingled with the scent of Katie and her home into a most soothing blend.

  He stretched, enjoying her soft sheets against his bare skin. It had been a pleasure previously unknown to drift off to sleep with his lass in his arms. He’d never spent the night in a woman’s bed or had one spend the night in his. It had started out as a cautionary measure and turned into a habit—one he’d not had a hard time developing as he’d never particularly felt a desire to spend the night with a woman. But he held no enemies in this place and time and it had been a sweet pleasure to feel the beat of Katie’s heart against the arm that he’d curled around her, the warmth of her breath against his neck, the press of her soft curves against him and her scent wrapped around him.

  Something nagged at the back of his mind. Something was different other than the obvious circumstances of being in a different place and time. What was missing? He tried to put his finger on what it was, but it eluded him. With a shrug he rolled out of bed and visited her bathroom. This was a hell of an improvement over a chamber pot and a cold basin. He belted his kilt in place and went in search of Katie, following his nose to an aroma that fired his appetite.

  He walked down the hall, the wood floor cool beneath his feet, but not nearly as cold as Glenagan’s stones. He found her ensconced in a wide green chair in the great room that also housed her kitchen. She had what appeared to be a large book turned sideways opened on her lap.

  She looked up as he padded into the kitchen. “Hi. Did you rest okay? You were sound asleep when I got up.”

  Ah. It clicked into place—the thing that was missing. The nightmare that visited him every evening had not come calling last night. For the first time in six and twenty years, his family’s death hadn’t haunted his sleep. “I slept like a bairn. ’Tis a fact you’ve a bed more to comfort than mine.”

  “I’m glad it was comfortable for you.” She placed the thing that wasn’t a book after all on the footstool and stood.

  “I’ve made some coffee. Eggs sound okay for breakfast?”

  “I’m partial to whatever you prepare.” He didn’t want to burden her while he was here.

  Darach leaned against the counter and watched as she moved about the room. She moved with an economy and purpose he admired. But last night’s playfulness had vanished. It wasn’t as much a stiffness of manner he discerned as a distance.

  She brought a cup of fragrant black brew and placed it on the counter beside him. “Your coffee, MacTavish. Be careful you don’t burn yourself. It’s hot.”

  She started to move away and he wrapped one arm about her waist, pulling her back against him. “What’s the matter this morning, Katie-love? Do you already regret bringing me back with you?”

  She glanced up at him, her eyes guileless. “No, not at all. I think last night I was punch drunk—giddy I’d made it back and managed to bring you with me. Last night I managed to avoid thinking about today or tomorrow or the spring.” She looked away from him, her tone somber. “But this morning I read about the Battle of Culloden. It was very sobering.” She rested her head against his breast, muffling her words but not the underlying quiet anguish. “It was terrible and twice as much so to imagine you there.”

  His heart jolted in his chest at her admission of caring. He tilted her face up and pressed a kiss to the edge of her hair. “Not to worry. If I’m to have a fortnight here, then I dunnae want your heart heavy on my behalf. The battle isn’t fought yet and the deed is not done.” He interjected a teasing note. “Now are you trying to starve me to death before the Sassenach can have a go at me? Where is my morning meal, wench?” He slapped her on the arse, just for good measure.

  She laughed, as he’d intended, but the look in her eye said she knew exactly what he was about. Katie-love was one clever lass. “Keep that up you Scots barbarian and you’ll find yourself wearing breakfast instead of eating it.”

  While she went about the business of preparing the food and throughout the meal, she explained yet two more marvels of modern technology—something called the computer and the Internet.

  ’Twas amazing the number of things that made modern life so much easier than in his time. At Glenagan, he was waited on as befitted his title and that was the job of the people that worked in his house. But this wasn’t Glenagan and it wasn’t Katie’s job so the laird of Glenagan helped clean up the kitchen—which was easy with what she called a dishwasher.

  Kate took him by the hand and led him to the seating area. “Come on. I’ll show you the laptop,” Katie said. “Go ahead and take the chair.”

  He sank into the chair she’d had earlier. Katie perched on the arm and he tried to focus on her instructions but having her hip against his arm, her shoulder next to his, proved distracting. She opened what he’d thought to be a book when he’d first walked into the room and placed it in his lap—even more distracting. Ah, so this was a laptop. Made perfect sense to him since she’d placed it on his lap.

  She paused in her instructions. “I just thought about it…do you know how to read? If you don’t it’s not a problem.”

  Darach chuckled. On one hand she knew things about him none other knew—she knew of his nightmare and his shame. She knew how he looked when he slept. Yet there was much she didn’t know as well.

  “Aye. Even the Scots barbarian has a bit of schooling. I read Gaelic, English and Latin. I even know how to do a bit of sums. Da insisted. He believed if I could read, write and do sums, ‘twould be much harder for my enemies to take advantage of me and Glenagan. ’Twas good advice.”

  Kate nodded. “My mother always said knowledge couldn’t be taken away from me.”

  She showed him how to search the Internet and then how to access files resulting from that search. Within minutes he was comfortable with it.

  “You’re a quick study,” she said.

  He winked at her. “Aye. But do not tell anyone. I do not want to ruin my reputation as a brawny barbarian.”

  Katie laughed and stood. ‘Twas but one of the things he liked about her—she laughed at him, with him.

  “I think there are several hours of reading for you there. Would you mind if I went out for a while? I have some errands and…well, I thought you might want some privacy.”

>   “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Drinks are in the fridge. Help yourself to whatever you want.” She wrote on a note pad on the table next to the chair and handed him the sheet of paper. She also handed him an object he’d never seen before. “Here’s the phone if you need me. Push this button, hold it up to your ear like this and when you hear the buzzing sound punch in these numbers. That’s my cell phone number and I’ll have it on.” She put the phone back in its holder. “If you promise not to leave my condo, I won’t tie you to my bed—which is, I’ve found, your standard procedure for keeping someone in a room.”

  “Nay, there’s no need to tie me to your bed.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively, “I will wager that can keep until you get back.”

  She paused as if she was about to say something but instead merely bent down and kissed him hard. “I’ll be back.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  He waited until the door clicked shut behind her before he got down to the business of reading about the battle in which he died and his clan had ultimately perished.

  12

  KATE PAUSED in the stairwell leading to the parking garage. She fished the number out of her purse and punched it into her cell. Hamish answered on the third ring.

  “Hamish? Kate Wexford.”

  “And what can I do for you this fine morning, Dr. Wexford? Did you and Darach have some questions for me? I’m not sure I’ll have answers, but I’ll try.”

  “Uh, this is a little more personal in nature.”

  He chuckled on the other end. “Okay. I’ll be interested in what’s more personal than time travel.”

  “Shopping.” She felt a bit ridiculous. “I…um…I didn’t know how busy you were, but I wandered if you…um, might be available for some power shopping. I think you have a good eye—the suit you picked out for Darach was perfect for him.”

  “Thank you. I’d like to think I’ve a bit of an eye for fashion. And I’m wide open until one this afternoon. Who are we shopping for?”

  “I was hoping to pick up a few things for both Darach and myself.”

  “Darach is going shopping?”

  Kate laughed. “No, Darach is Internet surfing. But he’s going to be here for two weeks. He’ll go stir-crazy in my condo and I think he’s going to need more than his kilt and one suit. I want to show him everything. I was thinking some casual wear for him, but he doesn’t strike me as the type of man who’d enjoy a shopping trip so I thought I’d surprise him.”

  “I’m your man. Where do you want to meet and when?”

  “I thought Atlantic Station. Want me to swing by and pick you up?”

  “No. I’ll cab it there. It’s easier that way. I can be there in half an hour.”

  They agreed on a meeting point and Kate continued down the stairs to the parking garage. She’d come to an important decision. Darach was here for two weeks, then he’d go back to Scotland and the eighteenth century forever, possibly to an imminent death.

  She turned left out of the building and navigated the familiar streets. The way she saw it, she had two choices. She could sit around, morose for the next two weeks. Or she could make the next two weeks a memorable adventure for both of them—two weeks they’d never forget, even with hundreds of years separating them.

  She parked and killed a few minutes window shopping. She snuggled deeper into her jacket. The wind held a definite chill today.

  “Hi, Kate,” Hamish said from behind her.

  She turned and returned his greeting. For all that Hamish seemed to have an eye for fashion, he certainly didn’t turn it on himself. Much as at the museum, he wore a long sleeved shirt and a pocketed vest with nondescript trousers and brown lace-up shoes. He looked like a frumpy sixty-something year old man.

  “Thanks for meeting me on such short notice. I thought Darach could use some time alone to digest the information and I thought some comfortable casual clothes would be a nice surprise.”

  “A very nice surprise.” His blue eyes danced with excitement. Go figure, a man with a passion for shopping.

  Hamish proved to be a power shopper. An hour later, Kate once again swiped her debit card.

  “You’ve spent a bit of money today,” Hamish said.

  Kate looked at the shopping bags they’d amassed in a short period of time and shrugged. “I inherited money from both my parents. And I make more than enough at my job. It’s something I want to do for him.” How could she begin to explain the connection she felt to Darach in such a short period of time when she didn’t quite understand it herself? “I want to make this a special time for him.”

  Hamish looked at her and offered a crooked smile but said nothing as they walked out of the store. A coffee shop beckoned from next door.

  “How about a coffee before we call it a day?” Kate suggested.

  “Sure, I could go for a biscotti too,” Hamish said, already opening the door.

  They entered and Kate inhaled the fragrant blends. She seriously thought she might be addicted to the stuff. Forget the biscotti, she wanted a cup of java. They ordered and settled at a small corner table.

  She took a couple of fortifying sips and finally found the nerve to ask the question that had nagged at her throughout the morning. “Hamish?”

  “Yes?” He glanced up from dunking the biscotti in his coffee.

  “Did you die at Drumossie that day?”

  “Nay.” His soft answer was almost lost in the quiet jazz piped in as background music and the other conversations around them. He took a bite and chewed thoughtfully for a minute or two. Kate let the silence stretch between them. “I was wounded and had taken refuge at a farmer’s croft. The British hunted me down, me and others like me. They lined us up against a wall and shot us.”

  Kate had read the accounts but to hear it first-hand…her stomach plummeted. “I’m sorry. And I’m sorry I asked. I’m sure it’s not something you care to remember.”

  He munched another bite of the coffee-soaked cookie. “It’s okay. I’ve died many times before in many places. It’s not my death that’s difficult. Dying is much easier than watching those you love die and being powerless to help them.”

  Part of her wanted to know about Darach, wanted to ask about his death. Another part of her couldn’t bring herself to because hearing it via a first-hand account made it real. Besides, Hamish had just said it was difficult to watch friends die, how could she possibly ask him about….

  “You want to know about Darach?”

  She smoothed a crumb off the table. “Yes. No. I don’t know. Okay. If it’s not too painful for you to talk about, I suppose I’d rather know than not know.”

  “We went into battle together. Darach knew it was a useless endeavor. We’d marched all night. We were weary and outnumbered. He tried to persuade our regiment leader to allow the men to rest. But Charles had already made up his mind that we’d fight that day. So we scrugged our bonnets, checked our pistols and fought like madmen. It took six dragoons to bring him down. Many more than that fell before his sword.” Even now, nearly three centuries later, his voice rang with pride in the fight Darach MacTavish had fought.

  “Did he just go down injured? Maybe if there was medical attention….”

  “No.” Hamish caught her hand in his, something akin to pity shadowing his eyes. “There was nothing to be done, Kate. They cut his head off.”

  Kate was glad he held her hand in his, otherwise she wasn’t sure she could’ve contained the anguish that welled inside her. Her head swam, feeling very light, dizzy. She leaned forward and shoved her head between her knees, dragging in deep breaths. When she no longer felt as if she might pass out at the table, she slowly sat up.

  Hamish waited calmly until she raised her head.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “You’ve nothing to be sorry for. It’s difficult to hear news of someone you love dying violently. But you need to remember, he may not be able to change a major historical event, but he can change h
is own outcome. He need not die at Drumossie.”

  Kate had been attracted to Darach, well, to his portrait, for months. But once she’d met him she’d discovered he was more than just a wickedly sexy Highlander. He was a man of integrity, strength, power coupled with tenderness and compassion.

  Now she wasn’t sure which surprised her the most, to discover she was in love with a man she’d only just met and who belonged in the eighteenth century, or that he didn’t necessarily have to die.

  DARACH PUT ASIDE Kate’s laptop and stood, stretching his muscles. ’Twas a grim account indeed. As Katie had relayed, it hadn’t simply been an end to his life, it had marked the end to Scotland’s clans.

  He’d found answers to many of the questions he’d posed to Katie, yet he was no closer to knowing how to change the course of history.

  Years of being chieftain had taught him a valuable lesson. Often the harder you looked at a problem, the more the answer hid.

  When would Katie be home? He was glad she’d left. What he’d read…the end of not just his life but a way of life as he knew it…he was glad she’d left him to his own company. But now he missed her. Missed her laughter, her smile, the sound of her voice, the sparkle and intelligence in her green eyes.

  He walked to the window, where sunlight poured in and pooled on the wooden floor. He looked out on the city that was her world. Buildings loomed near and in the far distance. Katie lived in a land of castles. ’Twas an odd thought that Hamish now lived, quite happily it would seem, in this land as well.

  By rights he should feel at odds here, but strangely he didn’t. Mayhap because this was Katie’s home and he was surrounded by her things and her scent. Was it possible he’d only met her a few days ago?

  As if his thoughts had conjured her, her key scraped in the lock. He crossed the room as she came through the door. She carried several parcels in both hands. As if she’d done it countless times before, she toed the door closed behind her.

  “Hello.” Her smile greeted him and suddenly his heart felt lighter, the day brighter.