“Jake, I sense we are no longer near Faerie Falls. You know how I know this?” Before Jake could answer, he went on, “because I can hear the ocean, and your house is over one-hundred miles from the New Hampshire coastline.”
“We are Hell ‘n gone from New Hampshire, Bull.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. Where are we?”
“When are we, is a more appropriate question.” Jake strode over and clasped a hand on his shoulder. “Bull, have I ever lied to you?”
“Of course not.”
“Then understand this: we’re in the Scottish Highlands, circa sixteen-hundred.”
Bull’s throat closed until he couldn’t draw a breath. Blood rushed through his ears, and he froze.
Skye’s gentle voice broke through when she drew close. “How can ye be sure of the year, Jake? I dinna’ have time to create a perfect spell.”
Spell? Scotland? The beginning of the 17th century? Crazy talk, for sure. Before he could ask for details, Skye grabbed Jake’s arm.
“Jake? We could be in a verra’ different time.”
“Nope. You were spot on. See? Marcus Mackenzie is headed our way.”
Bull turned toward the castle, and couldn’t believe his eyes. A dozen mounted men, wearing plaids across their shoulders and grimaces on their faces, cantered closer, swords in leather scabbards at their side or back. Others carried longbows.
Jake waved, and the black-haired man at the front broke from the group and galloped forward. His well-trimmed beard, and large horse, certainly looked real.
Skye’s fingers curled around Bull’s forearm, and her nervousness made him stand between her and the rider approaching at breakneck speed. With Skye holding on tight, Bull walked over and collected Tavish before the young stallion responded. Old Balfour was long gone. They were down to two horses. If they had to make a break for it, two were better than one.
He glanced down at her. Fear filled her face, making him nervous. The young woman had zapped a dragon with an energy bolt. Her current alarm added to his apprehension. He pulled Tavish toward Dara until two large horses stood between them and the approaching men.
“Lord Jamison, is it?” the black-haired warrior asked as he dismounted.
“Ha! You have me confused with one of your high and mighty friends. I’m the blacksmith. Haven’s friend. Call me Jake.”
Bull followed the conversation while he watched Skye’s face. When Jake mentioned another woman, her fearful expression and stiff stance morphed into outright jealousy. Thinking back, he recalled how Jake had referred to a woman he used to hang out with, at the New England Highland Games. Bull had never met her. He had a feeling he was about to.
“Lady Skye, ye look well,” the stranger said to their pretty companion, as he dismounted. “My wife, Lady Fia, was wondering about ye. Kirk shared a disturbing story.”
“My brother? He is here?”
“He was, and in quite a dither, as well. Haven is—”
“What’s wrong with Haven?” Jake said, interrupting the bearded man.
The stranger glanced at Jake, but ignored his question. Instead, he swung his attention toward Bull. “Who are ye, sir?”
Bull hesitated. The entire confrontation was strange. His gaze darted from Jake to Skye to the strange man. What should he tell him? His name was a good start.
“Bryce Buchanan, but everyone calls me Bull.” He crossed his arms over his naked chest. He knew that flexing his muscles was a brash show of masculinity. Would his attitude make the situation worse?
“Bull? Aye, ‘tis an appropriate moniker.”
“This is Marcus Mackenzie,” Jake explained.
“ ‘Tis Laird Mackenzie, now,” the man whispered.
CHAPTER 17
Marcus Mackenzie’s words had Jake staring at the man he’d met five years ago under strife-filled circumstance. At the time, the tension between him and Kirk was nearly as deep as Kirk’s feelings toward him. For some reason Kirk saw Jake as a threat.
I told him I was a friend of Haven’s, and he tried to kill me.
If Marcus was Laird, then Lady Fia’s uncle must have died sometime over the last five years.
What else have I missed out on?
He missed Haven and Iona the most. Five years ago, he allowed Skye to blackmail him and bring him to ancient Scotland, but he would have done anything to help his friends. What Skye had discovered about him was something he wanted kept hidden. Had she shared his secret? Would she do it now?
“My congratulations and my condolences. Is Lady Fia well?”
“Aye, and she misses Skye. We all do,” he said, nodding toward the woman at Bull’s side.
Jake was taken aback by the interest in his eyes, until realizing it was the concern of a man for a long-lost friend.
“Join us for noon meal.” Lord Mackenzie strode back to his horse, mounted, then turned toward the castle.
Mackenzie’s statement sounded more like an order than a request, but Jake didn’t take offense. They were in need of answers, dry clothes, and a decent meal for themselves and the horses.
Marcus’s men followed their laird, so Jake turned to Skye and Bull. A lot might have changed in five years, but Bull was out of his element. The expression on his face proved he was confused, yet excited about their predicament.
“We really need to talk,” Bull said, then mounted Dara. “but, since I’m starving, I can wait. You’re lucky I’ve an open mind.”
“Really?” Jake said. Bull’s expression was calm, and Jake was curious. Why the about face? Jake recalled how he felt when Skye and Dorcas had propelled him from the New England Highland Games and dropped him outside the same castle. He had felt fear, yet hoped he would help.
He mounted Tavish, holding a hand out to Skye. She ignored him, turning away as Bull trotted near.
“Skye, I want you with me,” Jake said.
Her eyes widened, then she gave Bull a curt shake of her head. She grasped Jake’s hand and he lifted her to sit behind him, robbing Bull of his passenger. When she wrapped her arms around Jake’s middle, he wanted to do more than ride after Mackenzie.
Tamping down any reaction to Skye’s proximity required all his concentration. When her subtle fragrance filled his nose, and the heat of her breasts warmed his back, he inadvertently straightened in the saddle.
“What ‘tis wrong?”
“Nothing.” Her thighs, holding tight to his, warmed him more than if he wore warm athletic sweat pants. When Skye shivered, Jake felt her body shake all along their shared curves and planes. She didn’t feel cold, so was she simply reacting to their bodies touching?
Caught up in the recent ice storm, her hair was wet and still dripping. Damp strands of coal-black hair lay limp across his shoulder. She was too darn close.
To get his mind off Skye, and the heat emanating from her pert little body, he settled on an image of Lady Fia. Mackenzie’s bride was a kind and welcoming host. Tiny, blond, and deeply in love with Marcus, he was pretty sure she would jump to Skye’s side and take care of her.
Unlike me.
He had taken a recently injured woman into the wilds of the New Hampshire forest after believing an obviously flawed weather forecast. Bull’s interference was unplanned and unwanted.
Now he’s my responsibility.
He needed to talk with his friend, but he’d wait until they got inside the castle walls. What little he knew of the sixteenth century he could hold in the palm of his hand. Bull was a college professor. He knew about Scottish history.
Bull will understand as soon as he sees the castle, and the North Sea.
Jake had researched methods of ancient Scottish ironworkers, the blacksmiths of the day. He wore leather pants, but had no beef against kilts. Either kept a man dry and fairly warm, though the sudden snow and ice storm had concerned him. His dip in the loch certainly didn’t help. Skye wore even less, having lost her sweater. Would she find a change of clothes at the castle? Perhaps a dress in a clan tartan?
No, they called them
plaids back then. Er, now.
Bull, another man desperate for a change of clothes, followed. Jake’s horse deftly led their little troop on the hooves of Mackenzie and his gang. The long swords across their backs, and the colorful plaids draped over their shoulders, were an eerie mirror of the recent Highland games, but this was real. Iona wore the same colors at the games.
I miss her, but these are her people, now.
Was Iona inside? According to her father, she’d married Cameron Robeson. Why would she do something like that? Why had she stayed in the barbaric past? He thought she liked him. Hadn’t she begged him to volunteer at the New England Highland Games? Hadn’t she smiled and cooed, when he wore a kilt or tight leather trews? She had acted interested in more than his help. He’d thought of her as someone he’d ask out when the festivities were over, until Robeson had arrived at the games, and off she went.
Just like a woman.
He’d seen how the man looked at Iona. She had not seemed to notice, and her mind was on finding their friend, Haven. After she’d shared a letter Haven supposedly had written in fifteen-ninety-eight, Jake had lent them clothes and supplies. When a beautiful black-haired, petite young woman arrived, and blackmailed him into going back in time with her, he had put up with their fantasy.
Too bad it all came to fruition. He could remember, clear as day, how he’d watched Skye and Dorcas wave their hands then rub the stones that hung from their necklaces. A sticky mist had engulfed them. When the mist had disappeared, he had stood in front of this very same castle.
Jake turned and glanced at the softly snoring Skye, whose head pressed against his left shoulder. He held onto her arm around his waist, to keep her from falling from the horse. Concern morphed into tender feelings, until he recalled how she had used his power against him.
“Skye, wake up. We’re here.” His voice reverberated angrily, but she deserved it.
She raised her head and glanced ahead.
As they neared the main castle gate, the red sandstone walls glistened with familiarity. Moist sea air dampened his cheeks, and the thunder of nearby waves rumbled in his ears. Skye murmured something that sounded like I am safe.
The sleepy sexiness of her voice took him by surprise, and he pressed his thighs against his mount’s sides. Tavish neighed, then sidestepped. He’d startled the poor beast in the same way the shock of Skye’s words sliced through him. Hadn’t she felt safe around him?
She was less like a witchcraft wielding sorcerer, than a young, healthy woman of flesh and blood. The urge to kiss her was too dangerous, especially in the presence of others.
Even Tavish’s nerves were on edge. The horse had traveled through time along with them, but he had no one to explain what had occurred.
Jake glanced at the shorter, thick-coated Highland ponies that Mackenzie’s men rode. Would they notice his two horses were a different breed? Taller, leaner, and with thin fur and more modern leathers? Could he get them—and himself—back home to his time?
“Calm yourself, Tavish.”
“Your horse is as perplexed as I. When will you explain all this?” Bull asked. He swept a hand at the heather-filled meadow as he pulled alongside. Though Bull aimed his question at him, his gaze was on Skye.
Jake glanced at him, then back to their new friends ahead. “Let’s get inside. Skye is tired and should get her wound looked at.”
“Aye, yer right. I could use a soft bed. I feel as drained as I was, after my swim in the sea.”
Jake reined in Tavish. “What? I thought you’d been caught in the rain.”
“Ye never listen!”
She released her grip around his waist and slipped off the back of his horse. Jake missed her immediately, but had no idea why. She was the problem that kept him from his home and livelihood. It wasn’t as if gallivanting around the Scottish Highlands was in his day planner. Seeing Skye Gunn again, certainly wasn’t.
Bull couldn’t tell if he had landed in Heaven or Hell. Something weird had happened. They had fallen into a land so beautiful and unspoiled, it took his breath away. Flowers, meadow grass…even the sheep smelled great. Though he loved the life he left behind in New England, his arrival somewhere near an ocean was an amazing feat.
Not to mention the castle, dead ahead.
It still bothered him that Jake had brushed him off and refused to answer his questions. It hurt his pride when Skye had leapt onto the back of his friend’s horse.
In a suddenness he nearly missed, Skye was at his boot, her arm outstretched. He grasped hold and she swung on to the back of his horse. When she wound her petite arms around his waist, he took her actions as a good omen.
“Yah!” Skye kicked her boots into Dara’s thighs.
The horse took off like a shot. He managed to gain control before the two of them rolled off.
“Ride, warrior. Take me as far from Jake as ye can. At the moment, I like ye better.”
Holy moly!
Channeling the college professor, he held back a response. Instead, he guided his horse through the odd group of mounted men. Several voices raised, but no one pulled a sword. The entrance to the castle was just ahead.
“Can ye go faster? I am fit to fall from this beast, I am so weary.”
Bull clasped his hand over hers. Her fingers were like ice. She huddled closer, her tiny body warming him better than a goose-down parka. The image of a wood fire in a cabin in the mountains of New Hampshire, of a woman lounging on a plump sofa in nothing but an extra large sweater, drove him to other thoughts.
They passed under what looked like an actual working portcullis, and entered the bailey, a large area filled with dozens of people. Several women were dressed in long, simple gowns protected by white aprons. They carried baskets or wooden buckets. A few children screeched as they ran up to them. Bull pulled back, and stopped his mount before nearly trampling one young child.
Skye slid off the horse’s rump, and ran toward an ornate door at the top of several granite steps. A young woman, obviously pregnant, waved to her from the top step. The woman was also petite, her blond hair coiled on top of her head. She wore what looked like the same plaid pattern and colors of the man Jake had spoken with.
One big happy family, I guess.
She was beautiful. Radiant, actually. Skye flew into her arms and almost knocked the poor woman off her feet. It wasn’t until Skye turned and pointed at him, that he sensed he was surrounded.
“Fia, Saints and Samhain, I am cold and famished. Is the fire lit?” Skye rubbed her arms and stamped her feet.
“Who be yer big friend?” Fia stared over her shoulder at Bull.
Skye turned and pointed. “Bryce Buchanan, but he likes it if ye call him Bull.”
Fia’s eyes widened, and her cheeks turned rosy. Even round with child, she was shy. The bashful young woman almost became her sister-in-law. Kirkwall would not have made her happy. Fia was fortunate the contracted betrothal never took place, especially since she was in love with Marcus Mackenzie at the time. Now they were married and ruled the Keith clan.
When Fia grabbed her by the shoulders, Skye turned back to her friend, whose eyebrows had risen. “Do my eyes deceive me? ‘Tis Jake Jamison I see?”
Skye followed her friend’s gaze. Jake led Tavish toward the group of men surrounding Bull. “Aye, he has returned.”
“Has the handsome Highlander come back to help ye against the sorcerer? We assume he was behind yer kidnapping.”
“Aye. ‘Tis a long story. Poor Bull has no idea where we are. Or, when.”
“Why? Jake has not explained all this to the young brute? Having met Haven and Iona, their stories intrigued me, but if I suddenly found myself in a strange land with people I knew not, I would be most uncomfortable.”
Skye laughed. “Yer husband came upon us, soon after we arrived. There was little time for explanations.”
“Aye, ‘tis understandable. Marcus is verra’ protective of our lands.”
Skye covered her mouth. It was n
ot polite to laugh, but it felt good to release her pent up energy. She turned back toward Bull, who had dismounted. A group of angry Highlanders encircled him, but had not unsheathed their weapons.
Yet.
“Devil’s own luck!” Skye strode down the stairs, to his side.
“Skye? What’s going on?” Bull asked, his face ashen, but his back straight as a board.
“Leave the man be,” she said. The group stepped back, but kept him in the middle of their circle.
Several of the men grimaced at her command. Others looked as if they recognized her. Had they obeyed because she was Kirkwall Gunn’s sister, or because they had heard the rumors of her magical powers?
No matter, as long as they doona’ hurt Bull.
Bull released a deep sigh of relief. A half smile proved how he appreciated her intrusion. Marcus Mackenzie reached the group, dismounted, and hugged Skye. He was large, warm, and smelled of the Highlands.
She had missed the scent of musk and male. Bull and Jake smelled different; of pine and rain, fresh as the mountains from where they hailed.
Devil’s own luck! Why was she always thinking of Jake? Where was Jake? Out of sight out of mind had not worked.
Not where he is concerned.
Five years of longing, mixed loyalties, and memories of what could have been, had culminated in a hastily worded spell that sent her to Jake Jamison’s side.
Why him? Why had she not traveled to her brother’s keep? Why had Jake’s image risen up the moment the dragon attacked her after she had plunged into the sea?
Marcus pulled away and stared at her. “Why the long face? Fia has missed ye. We have all missed ye. Yer brother is on his way as we speak.”
“Nay! He must not leave his wife and child unprotected!”
“They accompany him. He was here, then returned after searching for ye.”
“He dinna’ go near Castle Barrowmann, did he?”
“Nay. He warned us to stay clear, then sent word to Cameron and Iona to beware, and join us here. He shall be thrilled to find ye safe.”
Skye glared at Marcus as his words sunk in. Kirk was mad! His son was almost kidnapped! The sorcerer might try again along the trail between Keldurunach and Wick.
Highland Games Through Time Page 69