The language sounded Irish, but it wasn't. Still, the brogue sound was very appealing. Then the words switched to English.
"Lass! Lass! Can ye hear me, lass?"
I blinked a couple times to clear my foggy vision and found myself looking into a pair of the most beautiful eyes I'd ever seen. And they belonged to a handsome man. Familiar, too, though I couldn't immediately place where I'd seen him before.
I forced my eyes away from him to take in the area, because something didn't feel quite right. Beyond the man, I saw hills and the ruins of what looked like a castle. And to his side was a pastoral scene. On the other side was a nice old home and a sturdy barn that looked more functional than up-to-date. Sheep and beautifully spotted cows grazed beyond an enclosed area.
Where had the farm come from? There were no farms near the trail. And the farms near me were home to black cows, not gloriously colorful cows.
But I couldn't keep my glance away from the man for long.
There was something about his eyes. They were a beautiful color -- almost, but not quite navy -- if I had to pick a color. His hair was thick and such a dark auburn it was almost black. I blinked. I knew just by the look of it, that it would have dark auburn highlights in the sun.
"Ti'n iawn?"
When I didn't say anything, he asked, "Are ye okay? Who are ye?"
The man was most likely European judging by his accent, but what was he doing in South Dakota? Probably heading for the Badlands or Mount Rushmore, I surmised. But what was he doing on this out-of-the-way trail that only locals used?
I nodded. "What happened?" Then I did a double-take. I did see a castle, though it did look a bit rundown. How on earth had I missed a castle in Sioux Falls?
"Not sure."
His voice snapped my attention back to his face.
"I went to check the gate and here ye were."
I knew I was frowning, but boy oh boy there was something familiar about the man in front of me, who I guessed to be about my age.
He turned away from me, presumably to check the gate. It gave me an opportunity to check him out a little better. And if he did catch me looking at him, he would only think I was dazed or confused. Or both.
His lips were manly and full. And even in his crouched position, I could tell he was tall and had a muscular build. The man had a strong neck and broad shoulders, like he was used to heavy lifting.
"How old are you?" I asked.
"Ye don't care about my name? Or where ye are?" he asked, turning back to face me, his lips quirking in amusement.
Suddenly it hit me. This man was somehow related to Mac. I could hear it in his voice. Maybe it was Mac's son. In a way I hoped it wasn't, because I knew his son wasn't a nice person. I knew, too, that it probably wasn't Mac's son, because he wasn't related by birth to him, and this man had to be related to Mac biologically.
"Mac?" I asked. What I meant to say, was, "Are you related to Mac?" but only one word came out.
The man's beautiful eyes widened and he stared at me for a moment. "Do I know ye?" he asked in that glorious, sexy brogue of his, though he still hadn't said that he was or wasn't Mac. Or even if he was related to him.
"I don't think so," I said, still staring at the light stubble of whiskers across the lower half of his face. I reached up and placed my hand on his cheek for a reason I couldn't fathom, except to say it felt natural.
He didn't pull away from me. Instead, he put his hand over mine. It felt reassuring, comforting, and sexy all at the same time.
"Ye hit yer head," he said.
"No I didn't," I said. "Well, maybe I did, but I'm not delirious or anything." I couldn't take my eyes off his face. He was my dream man in the flesh. And speaking of flesh, I wanted to touch more of him.
He slowly moved my hand down primly at my side, though his glance never wavered from mine.
"What's yer name, lass?"
"Penny."
"Lovely."
Me or my name? I guess it didn't matter. I tried to sit up. My backpack was still slung over my shoulder, which accounted for the pain in my side.
The man quickly helped me slip it off.
"Broken bones, ye think?" he asked.
I moved my arms and legs. Stiff, but nothing worse. I guessed I'd know for sure when I tried to stand.
As if reading my mind, Mr. Sexy held out a hand. I gave him my right and he clasped it in his strong warm one. Then he bent over and used his other hand to cradle my back as he helped me to my feet.
Instantly I felt woozy. "Oh!" I said as I teetered.
He quickly brought me against his chest and I felt my heartbeat speed up. My head was nestled against his neck and the side of his whisker-roughened face. We were close to the same height so we fit together nicely.
"Sorry," I said, though I most definitely was not. I forced myself to step away from him so I could regain my composure. The second I did, I felt like I'd been slapped with an Arctic breeze.
"Ye're chilled," he said.
I shook my head, my gaze seeking his. God, he was nice to look at. And even if he wasn't, his glorious voice would have made up for it.
"Come inside and warm yerself."
He took my hand again and scooped up my backpack in his other hand and led me to the large house stone. This didn't look like the Native American trail at all. This looked lush and fertile. A lot like Ireland. Not a bit like South Dakota.
Something wasn't right -- bordering on very wrong. I knew it from the second I found myself here, but now a strange sense of déjà vu began to grip me.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"My farm," he said.
"Where is your farm?"
"Outside of Conwy. Where'd ye think ye were?"
"Conwy, Wales?" I asked.
He frowned, his brow coming together a bit, but if anything it only made him more attractive. He was probably thinking that I'd bonked my head on something. Or wasn't right in the head to start off with.
"Aye." He looked at me again. "Where'd ye think ye were?" he repeated.
Man oh man, he was hunky. And what made him even sexier was the fact that he seemed completely unaware of his charm. And then there were those full lips and broad shoulders and...
"Lass?" he prompted.
Gawking at the perfection of his face and body wasn't going to solve the mystery, so I took another sneaky look around. The nearest place that could even pass for this type of setting was a good 500 miles away from Sioux Falls.
"Sorry. I'm just not feeling quite right."
"I can see that, and I don't even know ye. Let's go inside and have at ye." He paused and drank in my eyes with his sexy glance and I swooned.
He quickly put a hand on me to steady me. Not where I would have liked to have him put it, but it was a start.
"Thank you. I guess I do feel a bit ... woozy," I said.
And with that, the man swung me up into his arms and walked with me to the house as easily as if I were a feather.
I felt the taught hardness of his biceps and forearms as we walked. This man was a man who actually worked, yet there was a keenness about him that said he was much more than that.
I felt his breath on my forehead as he tilted his head to look at me. I didn't look up. I wasn't sure what my response would be. Either I would giggle like a silly schoolgirl, or start staring and be unable to stop.
He strode the two sets of stone steps to the porch and shifted so he could open the door with me still in his arms.
When we stepped inside, I saw that the interior of the home was surprising clean, though it reminded me of a house where older people lived. Paintings -- they looked real -- of ancestors in odd clothing lined one wall of a formal area just past the foyer.
Whose house was this? It didn't look as if it was a home the man would call his own.
"This house has been in my family for five generations," he said, as if reading my mind. "I recently inherited it, but haven't had the time nor inclination to do anything to it yet.
"
"It's beautiful," I said. Something clicked in my brain then.
Mac told me that after he returned home from his second stint in the service that his parents had been killed by drunk drivers on the way to pick him up at the train station.
"Can ye stand on yer own?"
I could, but I realized I'd rather be in his arms. I nodded and he gently placed me on my feet and led me to a chair.
"You're American."
It was a statement rather than a question. I nodded.
My brain tried to make sense of why a man would say I was American when I was in America.
"Well, Penny, how about something to eat and maybe a hot bath to chase away the chill. Then you can tell me how ye wound up here." He followed his words with a crooked, heart-stopping smile.
I watched him walk to the kitchen and go in the fridge. It was a fridge unlike anything I'd ever seen. Old and strange. So strange that I wasn't even sure it was a fridge until he pulled opened a door and grabbed out a glass container filled with milk.
He poured some in a glass and removed a loaf of bread covered with a cloth out of a breadbox and cut two slices. He pulled up his sleeves and put the slices in a toaster.
While he stood with his back to me, I took a moment to take in every inch of him. Lean yet strong. Sinewy forearms. His hair was a bit longish, and hung just over his collar. In the light of the kitchen, I saw that his hair did have an auburn tint that I found very appealing.
"Eat what ye can," he said, placing the toast, milk, and a cloth napkin on an end table near my chair. He sat across from me on a sofa.
I began eating and was surprised at how hungry I was. The milk tasted creamy and the toasted bread was obviously homemade. I'm guessing the butter was hand-churned, too.
"This is really good. Thanks." For some reason I didn't feel embarrassed eating and drinking with gusto in front of a stranger.
A pleased smile transformed his whole face from sexy to roguishly handsome. I turned away so I wouldn't drool, and took in the room more closely as I chewed. I stopped chewing mid-bite at the sight of a calendar on the arm of a nearby chair. It had a pen on it, as if someone was jotting down appointments.
My curiosity getting the better of me, I made my way over to it. It was July 27th. That much didn't make me panic. It was July 27th when I woke up that morning.
What made my heart lurch was the year: 1983. The year I was born. It couldn't be! I flipped through the remaining pages, but the year was still the same and everything else looked in order, too. And the calendar looked new, not old.
"Is somethin' wrong, Penny?" he asked. I liked the sound of my name, and probably would have swooned a bit had I not been so taken aback by the printed year on the calendar.
"This calendar says 1983," I said, a wave of hysteria rising up in me.
He looked at me for a long time. His face truly was expressionless. I'm sure it looked in sharp contrast to mine. It was all I could do to keep from screaming.
"Because it is 1983."
"What's your name?"
"You said it earlier. Mac. Macsen Yates."
My knees felt like jelly. I reached out blindly for something to sit on.
He quickly helped me find a seat. "Take it easy. Ye don't look well."
Macsen Yates. My Mac. And if the year was 1983, he looked exactly as he should. Exactly like the man in the postcard Mac sent me.
"My backpack," I whispered, my voice breaking.
Mac handed it to me. I reached inside and nearly threw everything out. The flyer and the bill were there, but the envelope that held the piece of fabric wasn't.
Had I lost my mind? I wondered, my heart pounding in my ears. Was I imagining what was happening now and what had happened on the trail?
It seemed so real...
"What's wrong?"
"I had an envelope from you in my backpack."
"From me?"
"Yes." I looked away from his face. "But you sent it when you were older."
Great, I thought. Now he's going to think I'm a nut job. Maybe I was.
I waited for him to send me on my way, or offer me a drink to calm me, but he merely watched me.
I remembered the piece of cloth and dug in my pocket. The plastic bag was there, but the piece of cloth was gone. When I looked at my blouse, the piece that had been torn away was now miraculously a part of it. There was no tear. No missing piece.
I felt borderline hysterical now. If I told him -- Mac -- that he had sent me a piece of my blouse by mail 30 years in the future, but it was gone now because it had somehow reattached itself, he'd probably call the loony squad to come take me away. And who could blame him?
Frantically I dug through the bag again. This time I felt paper, crumpled, alongside a granola bar.
"Here!" I said almost triumphantly when I saw that it was the envelope he sent me. "You sent this to me. I got it in the mail this morning!"
I handed it to him without even looking to make sure the postmark and stamp and everything else was the same as it had been when I looked at it on the bluff. I knew in my heart it was.
I felt triumphant and vindicated, but at the same time, I felt unsure what, if anything, it meant.
Mac slowly looked from my shining eyes to the envelope. When he ran his fingertips over the front of it -- over his spidery rendition of my name and address, he flinched as if he'd been burned.
His gaze went to the stamp and lingered on it.
"You sent it to me a few days ago. I mean ... it was a few days ago when ... I'm just so confused," I said when he didn't say anything.
"So, Penny Money. You live in South Dakota."
So proper. It made me grin. "Yes."
"If this is true," he said glancing down at the envelope, "it would indicate that ye're from the future."
"I think so," I said. "At least that's what it seems like." I looked around. "And feels like."
"Do ye know why ye're here?"
"I'm not sure," I said. "I was hoping you could tell me." I paused. "You told me several times how interested you were in time travel."
Everything suddenly began to take on clarity. Maybe this entire event had somehow been orchestrated by Mac. Even this very moment. But why would he want to send me in person to Wales to visit him if I could just move through time to meet him at will? It didn't make sense.
Still, Mac's eyes did widen a bit when I mentioned that he had mentioned time travel.
"Were we lovers?"
Mac's blunt question rendered me speechless for a few moments.
"It was more of a flirtation," I said, though on my end, I imagined more. Much more. "I was getting ready to meet him -- you -- in person when I received two envelopes from you."
"What did I send ye?" he asked.
"A postcard photo was in the first envelope. I thought it was strange. You and I were on the face of it. You look to be the age you are now and I'm the age I am now -- or close. The other strange thing: I was wearing this very blouse. You wrote the word Remember on the opposite side of it."
I gave him a long look from head to toe. He might have thought it was to give his clothing a good look, but in reality it was to take in all of him, from his dark eyes to his broad shoulders and wide, strong chest, to his lean hips and...
I forced my glance back to his and swallowed hard to give myself a chance to put my very erotic thoughts to the back of my mind.
"You were wearing different clothes, but I'm wearing what I am now," I said, then nodded at the envelope in his hand. "The second envelope came with a strip of cloth that belonged to this blouse," I said motioning to what I was wearing.
His beautiful blue eyes narrowed as his glance roved over my blouse as if trying to find the strip of cloth.
"I know it sounds unbelievable, but the blouse was perfect when I bought it. A few days later, when I washed it, a piece had been torn from it. Then," I said, "I got the envelope from you and the missing piece was inside." I motioned to where the missing piece
had been.
His brow furrowed as he seemed to consider my words.
"A storm blew in. I touched the strip of cloth you sent me and the next thing I knew..."
Mac's gaze softened, but he remained silent.
For some reason I felt embarrassed then. "We're both writers."
He flinched then.
"I guess you expected me to read between the lines."
His eyes brightened but he still didn't say or do anything. Until I said, "I swear everything I told you is the truth."
Mac tossed the envelope aside and covered the distance between us.
"Penny," he said, taking me reverently in his arms. He tilted my head back and kissed me so deeply and lovingly that my knees buckled.
Mac quickly swooped into his arms again. "Something amiss?"
"I-I've never been better," I said, feeling tears form at the corner of my eyes.
He smiled softly and carried me out of the room and into a smaller room. It was a bedroom, masculine with a neatly made bed near the middle of it. Maybe this was a spare room. I couldn't imagine a man being so neat.
One part of me wanted to say, "Wait! Shouldn't we talk a little more first?" but the rest of me said, "Take me, I'm yours!"
Mac gently placed me on the bed, knelt at my feet and began undressing me.
It was shocking in a way, because usually the sex I knew was more of a strategic game to me. Get to know each other a bit. See if we liked each other enough to take the next step...
This was no game. Mac wanted me and I wanted him. And he must not have had any doubt whatsoever because he didn't dillydally.
Mac deftly slid his fingers beneath the buttons of my blouse. He eased it off my shoulders until it pooled on the bed behind me. Once my hands were free, he tossed it to a chair in the corner.
"So lovely," he said, possessively placing a hand over my heart, the fingers of his hand splaying over my chest and very ordinary bra. The whole thing should have felt odd, but it strangely didn't.
Mac leaned in and kissed me, his strong full lips taking in my whole mouth. Then he trailed tiny kisses over the tip of my nose and along my throat as his hand rested lightly behind my head. He lifted his head to take in my face.
Remembered (Erotic Romance) (Bound By Time) Page 4