His voice slid over her like warm honey. That same intoxicating voice she remembered so well. “I knew it.”
He turned in a circle, his laughter loud, like heaven to her ears. “Brochan,” she said, hardly believing her eyes. But he was real. Every hard inch of him.
The old man watched them, a wide smile on his face, and as Terri smiled back, he nodded and went back inside, leaving them alone, in the shadow of the castle.
“I knew ye would come,” he said again, kissing her.
She kissed him back, desperate to be with him. “Brochan, I can’t believe it’s you.”
He smiled against her lips. “Lord, how I’ve missed ye.”
Brochan could not believe he held Terri in his arms.
His Terri.
It had seemed like an eternity since last he looked into her blue eyes.
An eternity that had been worth the wait.
She stood in his chamber now, watching him as he undressed. Both of them were eager to take up where they had left off.
If possible, she was even more beautiful now than she had been then.
“How is this possible?” she asked, voicing the question he had been wondering about since she’d told him she had traveled through time.
Back in the thirteenth century, when he had seen her on that horse in front of his uncle, he had known a fear unlike any other. She had been so stoic, so brave and courageous, even when his uncle’s blade had bit into her skin.
Then she had disappeared into thin air.
He and his men had stared in disbelief, and Angus had yelled his anguish to the heavens. “Where is my daughter? he had roared, looking at Brochan accusingly.
Brochan’s heart had slid to his stomach, terrified he would never again see the woman he loved.
In that moment Brochan had known she had not been lying. That she had traveled through time.
He had left Castle Kildare that day and returned to the priory, to Annabelle’s chamber that had been boarded up after Angus had killed the poor nun.
Brochan had ripped the boards from the door and entered the room.
When he awoke, he was in the same chamber, but it was different. He had stepped out into a different world. A strange world that had taken some adjusting to.
He had hoped to find her at Castle Kildare waiting for him, but she hadn’t been. Just a staff of kind people who accepted him as their laird, just as Terri had been accepted as Annabelle in the thirteenth century. He did not question the how or why of it. He just hoped and prayed Terri would return to him.
“So how did you find your way back?” she asked, her gaze slipping from his in a way that reminded him of how good they were together.
“The chamber at the priory.”
She smiled. “Then you came to the castle?”
“I did, and it was as though I had just been away for a day. My servants knew me as Brochan Douglas. Even friends stopped by, and I didn’t know a soul. But I knew, just as sure as ye are standing before me, that I would find ye, or even more, that ye would find me.”
And find each other they had.
She undressed, her clothes a pile at her feet.
He pushed his jeans off, and pulled her into his arms, kissing her with all the passion he felt for her.
This woman, his woman, his life.
There was no time for slow pleasure, the need too great. He wanted to fill her body, to experience that wonderful ache that had raced through him from the moment he had first touched her.
She sighed as he entered her, and kissed him. “Brochan, I love you.”
He drew back, shocked, yet insanely pleased at the declaration. “I love ye, too.”
She searched his gaze, her lips curving. “I don’t want to ever lose you again. Not ever.”
“Ye have nothing to fear. I will never let ye go. Not ever again.”
With that, he showed her how much he loved her.
About the Author
JULIA TEMPLETON read her first romance over twenty years ago…and hasn’t stopped reading them since. Married to her high-school sweetheart and the mother of two grown children, she resides in beautiful Washington State. Aside from writing spicy historical, time-travel, vampire, and contemporary romance, Julia enjoys collecting research books, traveling, and spending time with friends and family. Please stop by her Web site at www.juliatempleton.com to learn more about Julia and her books or e-mail her at [email protected]. She loves hearing from readers!
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Credits
Cover design by Susan H. Choi
Cover photograph by Wendi Schneider
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the authors’ imaginations and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
PARLOR GAMES. “Border Lord” copyright © 2006 by Julia Templeton. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition May 2006 ISBN 9780061739583
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parlor games / Jess Michaels, Leda Swann, Julia Templeton.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Contents: Fallen angel / Jess Michaels—Parlor games / Leda Swann—Border lord / Julia Templeton.
ISBN–13: 978-0-06-088229-7 (pbk.)
ISBN–10: 0-06-088229-8 (pbk.)
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