by Leigh Morgan
“Roger that, boss.”
Jesse disconnected his team coms and called Jordon’s head of security, Henry. There wasn’t much Henry couldn’t find given the proper motivation. “I need a down and dirty on MacBain. First name Lauren. Middle initial W. Six one or two. Two-twenty or thereabouts. Blond. Reptile green eyes.”
“Reptile?” Came the amused voice in Jesse’s ear.
“Just run it, Henry. This guy knows way more than he should about all of us.”
A soft click and silence were Henry’s reply.
Jesse wanted to see Taryn. He told himself that just seeing her would be enough. She didn’t need to know he was watching. He also knew simply watching wouldn’t be enough. If he saw her, he’d go to her and that wouldn’t be good for either of them. Jesse didn’t want to interrupt her training, in fact he couldn’t. Sensei Schwartz wouldn’t allow it, and no one got around Sensei.
Besides that truism, Jesse knew she needed to learn what Sensei had to teach her if she was going to survive what Jesse was beginning to believe was more sinister and less obvious than an attempted kidnapping. Jesse shoved his sunglasses into place acknowledging his cowardice was also a factor in staying away. He wasn’t afraid of much, but Taryn was right at the top of that short list, right above parachuting into an active volcano. Taryn would want his balls on a platter right about now for leaving her to Sensei’s tender mercies. This was probably not the best time for a hug.
Jesse grunted at what had to be the biggest understatement of the year. He threw a leg over his Triumph Rocket III, not bothering with his helmet. He needed to feel the wind in his hair for a bit, and more importantly, he needed to be offline and inaccessible for what he was about to do.
Jesse started the bike and headed home via a slight detour to Michigan Street in Chicago. Something told him Taryn was more Georg Jensen than Tiffany’s or Graff, but he opted for three carats and a robin’s egg blue box anyway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The days blurred for Taryn, the nights did not. After the mind numbing physicality of non-stop training ended for the day, she and Merlin settled into a comfortable routine which began with him helping her into the multi-jet sunken hot tub Jesse had installed behind an ornately painted Japanese screen. The tub was surrounded by windows with a lovely view of the pond, the meadow and the woods beyond. Since she started her days before five in the morning, she ended while the sun was still high in the sky. Every evening Taryn could soak, appreciate the view and live vicariously through the inhabitants of Potter’s Woods.
Merlin put some salts in her bath that eased her bone-deep soreness. He made her sweetly scented tea that eased her mood, and when she was finished soaking, sipping and spying, he’d wrap her blistered feet in gauze with some greenish-brown funky scented goo that made her feet tingle. In the morning her blisters would be gone, toughened calluses taking their place.
They ate in silence most nights, rice and sea vegetables that made her long for a good Copps Butter Burger. When they were finished, Merlin would brush her hair and regale her with his escapades of the day, many of them involving some sort of benign mischief against Jesse or Jordon or Shay. Jesse’s sister, Daisy was as devious as delightful and played starring roles in Merlin’s machinations.
Merlin was enjoying his time here. He fit right in with Taryn’s newly realized family of eclectic eccentrics, who seemed to enjoy life and wanted to celebrate every moment. More than not, Taryn found herself gazing out the windows, wanting to be a part of this place. She told no one, not even Merlin, of her desire, seeing it as a betrayal of Mary and James Campbell, although how, she couldn’t define.
It was too beguiling by half, imagining she could make a life here with Jesse and Reed and the rest of this crazy assemblage. Mary seemed more than willing to have it be so, a fact that had Taryn still shaking her head. At least her mother was contemplating her suggestion to spend some time with Aunt Olive while Taryn was filming in Britain. That way they both may be able to vacation together for a few days.
Thoughts of her parents inevitably led her to her father’s gift and what, if anything, it might mean for her future. She and Merlin scrutinized every detail of every charm over and over again. Some, like the rose window of St. Magnus Cathedral, she recognized, others made no sense to her. Try as hard as she might to wrack her brain for some spark of recognition, none would come.
“This would be a lot easier to figure out if I knew where to begin trying to read these. Where do we start when the whole thing is a circle?”
Merlin set the hair brush down, quickly and effortlessly plaiting her hair in a long braid, tying it off with his seemingly endless supply of multi-colored hair ties. Merlin was wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. The shirt had a smiling rainbow colored frog flashing a peace sign on the left shirt pocket, the words: peace frog underneath. He’d arranged his hair into some sort of stubby tail that stuck out from the back of his head giving his already angular face a stark appearance that accentuated his grass-green eyes. Exhausted as she was, Taryn couldn’t help but smile.
“Where did you get that shirt?”
“Reed gave it to me.” Merlin beamed at her. “She said it matched my effervescent personality.” He cocked his head at her, holding the shirt away from his thin body with his thumb and forefingers so she could have a better view. “What do you think?”
Taryn smiled warmly, then brushed away tears as she launched herself at Merlin, hugging him tightly. “It’s perfect for you.”
Merlin’s arms came around her. “Are you crying?”
Taryn hiccupped, saying nothing, simply holding him tighter. “I love you, Merlin.”
“Why are you crying? What’s wrong? What do you need, Taryn? Just tell me and I’ll try to get it for you. Come on…talk to me Taryn, I can’t read your mind, love.”
Liar.
The word echoed in Taryn’s head, although she didn’t know why. Of course he couldn’t read her mind, no matter how often he seemed to deliver whatever it was she needed when she needed it. Now she wasn’t sure what she needed besides a way to read the charms and to be done with badass training. She thought she felt Merlin laugh, but the slight tremble was over so fast, she couldn’t be sure.
“Right now I can’t read my mind either. I have no idea what I need, besides the ability to ‘focus’ as Sensei keeps drilling into my head.” Taryn pushed away, wiping tears from her cheeks, trying to smile, not quite making it, the words: now who’s lying coming unbidden into her head.
Merlin gave her a long look before kissing her forehead like a grandparent comforting a beloved grandchild. “You’re over-tired and physically depleted. Sleep on what’s troubling you. This part of your training is almost complete. One more day and we can get ready to skip across the big pond and get on with our work.” Merlin handed her the teacup she thought she’d drained. “Now finish your tea and go to sleep. Things will be clearer in the morning.”
Her shoulders dropped. Her limbs felt heavy. Merlin walked her to the corner where her incredibly comfortable bed was. He lit a small cone of incense as he did every evening, humming a tune that never failed to lull her to sleep. He pulled back her covers and she crawled in, her lids too heavy to lift as he said some words in Welsh before kissing her forehead again.
“Good night, Keeper of the Light. Sweet dreams.”
She couldn’t form the words to ask him what he meant by that, her tongue was too thick and sleep was too appealing. Consciousness faded as sleep took her in its sweetly scented silver mist, carrying her far from this realm.
…
Three women sat in judgment behind a large rectangular wood table; one young, one in the height of her fecundity, one who resembled her grandmother. An old man stood in the corner, tall and straight, a staff of oak in his hand. The table too was a great slab of oak, trimmed in holly and oak leaves. They were all draped in deep blue and white, looking at her with a combination of reproach and kindness in their eyes, all the same hue of blue-green.
The old man, tall and thin with long wavy white hair and an open blade in his belt seemed to know her, but it was the oldest woman who spoke.
“Who are you? Why are you here?”
The only answer going through her head was…I don’t know…I don’t know…I don’t know…
Four disappointed faces faded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Mari didn’t want to open her eyes, afraid if she did the most secret longings of her soul would turn out to be nothing but a dream, or worse yet, real, transforming her world into a waking nightmare filled with regret for what might have been and remorse for what could not be recaptured now.
She shifted infinitesimally, feeling the very human flesh beneath her as it became rigid. How was she going to get out of this one? Mari wondered, wishing it would be as simple as clicking her heels three times and thinking of Scotland. Shay would steal every pair of shoes she owned before he let that happen. That thought didn’t bring the ire it should have, instead it brought an emotion closely related to hope. That just pissed her off. He’d wronged her after all.
“You may as well open your eyes, love. I felt every molecule of you stiffen, and your eyelids are twitching.”
Mari felt her heart pounding into gear at Sham’s words. Her insides felt like she’d swallowed a handful of jumping beans and washed them down with a pitcher of heavily peated highland single malt. Damn the man three ways from Sunday. He could still turn her into woman-mush with his voice alone, smooth, rich and so full of earthy promise Brigid herself would swoon at his feet, after she’d been sainted.
That’s just what she’d done, swoon at his feet. Now she was fully ensconced in his lap with her father chuckling in the background. Bloody marvelous.
“I think I’ll go join that handsome looking woman in garden. It’s been a long time since a woman that lovely has crossed this old man’s path. Don’t you be wasting any more time, either one of you. I trust you not to take advantage of my lass-”
Mari tried to sit up at her father’s words. She didn’t want to be alone with Shannon O’Shay. Not now. Not yet. Not like this. Sham held her tight with a harsh be still in her ear. She stilled, trying to decide whether she should bite him or elbow him in the groin.
Seamus laughed. “I should have known I would get a reaction from you, me girl. Seems you’ve got your hands full of female fury, Shannon my boy. I’ll leave the two of you to it.”
By the time Mari loosened Shay’s grip enough to squeeze her way through the bear hug he was not so gently pinning her arms to her chest with, Seamus was gone. Mari watched as her traitor of a father approached a woman who looked a lot like Helen Mirren. He had an ear to ear smile on his weathered yet flirty sailor-home-from-the-sea face and a spring in his step better suited to a man half his age. Shay’s grip eased as she ground her tail bone into him and squirmed into a seated position.
Mari turned her attention from her father to the father of her only child. She narrowed her gaze and steeled her spine, but one look into Sham’s gray eyes, speckled with hazel and bits of gold and the heat of her ire left. What replaced it was an entirely different kind of heat. Her limbs felt heavy and for a moment she relaxed into the warmth of his bare chest, luxuriating in the remembered sea and grass scent of him.
“You still smell of the coast drenched in spring sunshine. I still remember rolling in the daffodils, you wearing their scent mingled with new grass.” Mari’s eyes shut as she took another deep breath, taking more of him in, wrapping it in memories of hours spent along Loch Fyne.
Inhaling deeply, Mari began rubbing his chest with her cheek, bathing herself in his scent. And damn the man, he let her. Realizing what she was doing, Mari’s eyes flew open and she pushed away with every ounce of her strength. Mari would never know whether Shay let her go or she took him by surprise with her sudden shove, but she landed on her tail on the floor. She scurried away, crab style, until she managed to get to her feet. Mari kept backing away from him as she rubbed her backside. As soon as she realized how silly she must look to him she stopped rubbing her bum and held her hand up in the universal gesture of crossing guards everywhere.
“Stay away from me.”
“Not a chance.”
“I mean it, Shay. Don’t come any closer, or I’ll…I’ll…”
“You’ll what, exactly?” Shay asked, rising from the couch where he’d held her in his lap, the muscles on his bare torso contracting and undulating with each step as he walked closer to her. She backed up with his every forward movement until she hit a wall.
“What will you do, Mari-girl?” His tone matched the bone-melting look in his eyes as he narrowed the space between them like a stalking jaguar, every step measured and painfully slow. The promise of being devoured closer with each step. She searched for the exit, but the only clear way out she could see was the one Seamus and his new-found-Helen were blocking as they shared a lighthearted laugh.
By the time she looked back at Shay he was standing before her. If he leaned forward he’d be pinning her to the wall. One finger reached out and trailed down the curve of her face, making Mari feel delicate, treasured and threatened at the same time. The incongruous emotions coursed through her like waves in the shallows of a stormy sea, deceptively dangerous, threatening that even one inch closer may sweep her out to sea.
“What will you do if I don’t stop? Will you run? Will you lie to me…to yourself? Will you hide from me?”
Ever so lightly his fingertip traced her bottom lip. Mari couldn’t look away from his hypnotic, unblinking gaze. Her breath caught in her throat and the rushing in her ears obliterated all other sound. She could feel the rapid beat of her heart in the small vulnerable space between her collar bones like someone was tapping there, rhythmically, unrelentingly.
His jaw locked and the noticeable tick there scared Mari almost as much as the cold calculation in his now solid smoke colored eyes. “Will you try to continue to hide our son from me? Will you continue to pretend he was fathered by another man?”
She opened her mouth, to do what, she wasn’t quite sure: confess, cajole, ask for forgiveness, condemn him for being the one who’d fled. She’d never know and it didn’t matter, because the second she did, Shay was there. His lips captured hers so sweetly she may have imagined the fierceness in his predator’s eyes or the deceptively deep slice of words cutting into her soul, the pain momentarily hidden by the sensuality of his tone.
He held himself away from her, close enough for her to absorb the energy radiating from him, but not close enough for her skin to feel his. Groaning, Mari reached out and pulled him to her, one arm on his lower back, one on his denim clad buttocks. He came readily, leaning in, letting her feel his erection, the top of his thighs, but not his upper body. He kept that part of him that held his heart from her. Mari pushed away from the wall seeking more of him, but Shay resisted. His kiss was too light, his chest too far away, his tongue too elusive.
Giving up all pretense that at least in this she still wanted him, Mari wrapped one leg around the back of his thigh and pushed and pulled until every part of her she could press against him was pressed. Her nipples hardened. She began to melt from the inside. Going up on tip-toe she reached up until she had his nape in both hands. Holding him to her she deepened her kiss, touching, tasting and thrusting into him like she wanted to feel him thrusting into her.
She was breathing heavily when she eased her grip as he pulled slowly away. He reached behind him running one palm over her hands where they still held his nape. Then slowly, purposefully, Shay removed her hands from his flesh. She felt like she’d run five miles then been kicked in the teeth.
He looked unmoved and he was breathing just fine. His eyes were still smoky but they held all the warmth of stainless steel left outside in January. This wasn’t the boy who asked her to marry him, besotted and full of love for her. This was a man she didn’t quite recognize, but her traitorous body responded to anyway.
If she didn’t kn
ow better she’d think he was totally unfazed by her desire. One look at his jeans told her that wasn’t true. He gave a bark of self-deprecating laughter that sounded like it hurt him almost as much as it hurt her. Shay stepped away and Mari sagged against the wall a moment before her pride took the Jello out of her spine.
“I’ll take what you’re offering Mari. Make no mistake about that. And, I’ll give more than you can possibly imagine in return. But know this, there is no secret I’ll let you keep from me now. Run if you will, but you will never keep my son from me again. If you decide to stay, know that this will happen. Again and again. It’ll go further when I decide, but it will happen and it won’t stop. Not now. Not ever again. So if you can’t live with that, leave now. But know you leave alone. Magnus is his own man now and he’ll be leaving in his own time. Not yours.”
Shay took another step back, every muscle rigid and the tick in his jaw evident now on both sides. Mari could almost hear his molars grinding into dust. Oddly the thought of his enamel turning to grit, gave her back some of her own grit. She was highlander, not some wet behind the ears lass he could boss around or leave hot and wet and panting for him. Her chin jutted up, her shoulders jerked back, pushing her still impressive breasts up and out.
“You arrogant arse. You’re the one who did the lovin’ ‘n’ leavin’ ‘n’ hidin’. You run…you…you-”
She looked him up and down feeling the blood rushing into her cheeks, not caring if she turned spotty or if he thought she’d sprouted a second head. If she’d have had a claymore she’d have cleaved him in two.
“-you…over-muscled-under-dressed-tattooed-son-of-a-toothless-banshee. Run for the hills you hairless troll. I’ll not be goin’ anywhere. You…you…will show me to my room. And this-”
Mari gestured wildly in front of her, lingering a wee bit too long at his groin level.