A man’s arms around her.
It took precious moments to remember how to open her eyes and additional precious moments to act on the memory. Once she had, the first thing she saw was white. She studied it carefully, struggling to glean clues.
The voice spoke again. “You went swimming in the loch. I dragged you out and brought you here. Your temperature had dropped dangerously. I’m sorry, but this was the only way I knew to warm you quickly.”
The voice rumbled against her cheek, a voice with a lilting accent. And then she knew what she was looking at. A man’s sweater stretched across a male chest. She lifted her head and saw a shoulder. It was as difficult as anything she had ever done. Dizziness swept her, and she would have fallen, except that the man’s arms were firmly around her. She could manage only one word, and hardly that. “What?”
“You were drowning. I saved you, and now I’m warming you.”
“Oh.” Bits of memory returned. Walking down a road. She was in Scotland. That slammed from one part of her brain into another and woke her a little further. She had been out exploring, and she’d seen something… “A dog.”
“Mine, I’m afraid. He’s fine. He got out on his own.”
She was glad, although now that she thought about it, the animal had been six miles beyond ugly. She remembered going in after him. Stupid. Very, very stupid.
“I carried you home. You’re at my home. The only way I knew to get you warm was to stand you up in here and let the water run over you, and you couldn’t stand alone.”
It all seemed quite sensible. The Brits were sensible people, after all, and the Scots as sensible as any of them. Not at all like their American cousins, who jumped into freezing water to rescue dogs.
“Look, don’t be upset, but I had to remove your clothes to get you warm.”
She heard the man’s voice more clearly this time, but it was still taking her too long to make sense of it. She computed his words one by one. And then she understood. She was in a foreign shower held against the broad chest of a stranger with a deep voice and an educated Scottish accent.
And she was buck naked.
She lifted her head farther and found that the worst of the dizziness had passed. She stared into eyes as blue as any she’d ever seen, at a face that would have made her draw her breath—if every breath didn’t singe her lungs. “Naked?”
His expression expressed regret. His eyes couldn’t quite manage it. “Well, you’re still wearing your knickers. And I’m completely clothed, which seems as good a proof as any that I don’t intend to harm you.”
Billie couldn’t drum up an iota of outrage. Instead, she began to laugh. Softly at first, then louder. It bubbled up inside her, despite everything that told her to compose herself.
“Shh…” Iain tried to calm her. Hysteria was an expected response. He stroked his hands along her back in reassurance until he realized what he was doing and how his own body was responding.
His hands stilled immediately. “You’re going to be fine. The moment the tub fills a little farther I’m going to get out of here and turn my back so you can slide down into the water and cover up completely. Then, when you’ve warmed enough, I’ll find you something to wear, and we’ll get you in to the hospital.”
“What’s the point of turning your back?” She gasped the words between painful bursts of laughter. “You’ve seen everything there is to see already, haven’t you? Not that there’s…so much!”
“I’m afraid that’s not going to make things any better.”
“Maybe not. But at least there’s no…question I’m still alive!”
“None.” Iain could feel her shaking against him. The sensation was all too much like a woman in the throes of ecstasy, and his own body didn’t seem to know the difference. He held her away from him a little. The water was creeping up his leg. It was nearly deep enough now to cover her. “Look, I think we can sit you down now. I’ll help. You’re still weak.”
Billie sobered a little. She was weak. In fact, she felt like the proverbial dishrag. “Good Lord, I almost died.”
“Aye. You did.”
“And you rescued me.”
“Little enough, considering you tried to save my dog. Although next time, I’d appreciate it if you’d just let him go under for the third time.”
“You must be freezing, too.” She managed to move away a little to get a better view. “You’re still dressed.”
All he had to do was glance down to view again all the delights he had uncovered, but he didn’t. “Safer that way, don’t you think?”
“Why? Do Popsicle women appeal to you?”
Something continued to stir inside him. He kept his gaze firmly planted on her face, but he remembered far too well what the rest of her had looked like. “Let’s get you under the water.”
She smiled. “I think I can…manage that much alone. You take care of yourself.”
He was dazzled. Even allowing for her wretched physical condition, her face was almost ordinary. But when she smiled…
When he didn’t respond, she continued. “Look, I’ll be all right, eventually.” She muttered the rest. “Though this will flat out ruin one hell of an obituary.”
He realized she was an American, and judging from her accent, from the southern states. He’d been paying too much attention to other things to notice. He slowly unwrapped his arms, his eyes still fixed on her face, and monitored her progress as she was forced to stand on her own.
When she didn’t collapse he covered his exit from the tub with polite conversation and turned off the shower. “I’m sorry this happened. We’re famous for our hospitality in the Highlands. We usually treat our guests with more consideration.”
Billie lowered herself to the tub floor, or rather, her legs gave way. The water lapped around her, and she slid down to let it cover her. She tugged the curtain closed, although, considering everything, it was only a formality. Through a crack she could see that her rescuer was flooding the bathroom floor with water from his clothing. She watched him reach for a towel. His back was politely turned. Quite obviously she had been rescued by a rare breed. A gentleman.
“I suppose I’m a guest,” she said. “Although my mother’s family…came from Druidheachd nearly a century ago.”
“Is that so?”
She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so tired. Her speech slowed. “She was a MacFarlane…of the Druidheachd MacFarlanes. One of the last, I guess. From what I’ve been able to tell…there are none left here. You don’t know any MacFarlanes, do you?”
There was a long pause. For a moment Billie thought she might have fallen asleep and missed his answer. Then he spoke from the other side of the curtain.
“Not a one. Nor have I ever cared to. In the Middle Ages your family put a curse on mine. And we’ve lived eight hundred years to regret it.”
CHAPTER 2
There wasn’t much Billie could tell from a bathroom. From the state of the plumbing, she had suspected her rescuer’s house was old. But after all, what qualified as new in Druidheachd? In her explorations of the village she’d heard a house with a hundred years of moss and ivy adorning its stone walls called “that new cottage at the end of the High Street.”
It took a shaky trip into the hallway before she began to understand that she hadn’t landed just anywhere. Wrapped in the folds of a terry cloth robe—as luxurious as any she’d seen—she stood just outside the bathroom door and gazed around her.
She had landed in Dracula’s castle, the Addams’ Family mansion, or a Scottish combination thereof.
“Look, I thought I told you to stay put.”
She glanced to the right to see her rescuer striding toward her, a pile of clothing across one arm. For a moment she just stared. This was the man who had held her naked against his sweatered chest. This was the man who had risked his safety for her, this Heathcliff come to life. Only this man made her childhood fantasies of Wuthering Heights rom
ance seem lacking in creativity and drama.
She recovered enough to murmur, “Where the heck am I? Did I float all the way to Buckingham Palace?”
“Hardly.” Iain stopped just in front of her. “You’re still much too pale.”
“And shivering,” she acknowledged. “But standing on my own two legs and covered from head to toe, which is the way I like it.”
Something gleamed in his brilliant blue eyes. She couldn’t help herself. She grinned. He didn’t smile back. “You’ve had a nasty shock, Miss…”
“Harper. Billie Harper.” She extended her hand.
His hesitation was so fleeting she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it. He took her hand for the briefest moment. She had an impression of both strength and caution. “And I’m Iain Ross.”
“Iain Ross, I’m more than pleased to meet you. You might say I was dying to meet you, but that would be a little too close to the truth, wouldn’t it?” She repeated her warmest smile. “And this is your…” House seemed a little inappropriate under the circumstances. “Home?”
“It’s called Fearnshader.”
She leaned against the wall. Her legs were behaving strangely. In fact, all of her was behaving strangely. She was resilience personified, but even she couldn’t ignore the effects of a close brush with death. “You know, I think I’d better sit down,” she said.
“There’s a bedroom right across the hall where you can change and rest. I’ve called the hospital. Dr. Sutherland will come by in a bit to check on you. He thought it best not to move you yet.”
“I’m sorry. Haven’t I been enough trouble?”
His eyes gleamed brighter. “From what I’ve heard, the MacFarlanes have always been trouble.”
“You can say that again. My mother claims there was never a more troublesome bunch of people anywhere. Except possibly the Harpers.” She pushed herself away from the wall and teetered dangerously. Instantly he slipped his arm around her waist to hold her steady. “I think I can make it alone,” she said.
“And I think you can’t.”
“And you’re not a man to be defied?” She risked another smile.
He seemed immune. He just lifted a brow. “Only rarely does anyone take the notion to try.”
“Better watch out. I take all dares.” Despite her words she leaned against him gratefully. She was used to a body that did her bidding. Today, both legs seemed to have minds of their own.
He was warm against her, dry and one hundred percent male. She was medium height—there had never been anything extraordinary about her—and he loomed above her, six feet and counting. With his black Byronesque curls pushed back from a broad forehead and his sharp, aristocratic features, he was a man to swoon over. But then, in her weakened state she could have swooned over anyone. Weakness seemed to be the specialty of the day.
“How big is this place? What did you call it?” she asked.
“Fearnshader. And it’s large.”
“Fearnshader.” She struggled to pronounce it as he had. His accent was light, almost more English than Scottish, but the burr and the lilt were still there. “I like that. Do you know what it means?”
“Place of alders. There’s a grove of them to the west.”
“I love the way you name your houses here. My father had a name for our place, too. Tin Can Estate.”
“I suppose that’s a joke.”
“Absolutely. It sure as heck wasn’t an estate.” She let him help her across the threshold into the bedroom he’d indicated. Her breath caught. It was a large room with windows of multiple diamond-shaped panes looking over a formal garden that still, despite neglect, was a thing of beauty. “Oh, how lovely. How perfectly lovely.”
“Let’s get you to bed.”
“Men have been saying that to me for years.”
She heard a strangled sound coming from his throat. She looked up at him and saw that he was trying not to laugh. She smiled brilliantly—if tiredly—at him. “Life’s way too short to take it seriously,” she said.
“Did you discover that today?”
Her smile disappeared as he led her to the bedside. “No, I almost proved it today.”
“So you did.”
“Have I said thank you?”
“In any number of different ways.”
“I can’t say it enough. If you hadn’t jumped in to rescue me, I would have gone out with a splash, but this is definitely better.” She lowered herself to the bed. “I owe you big time.”
He stepped back. “Is there anything you need? I put the kettle on, and I’ll be back up with some tea in a bit.”
“The magical cure-all. You’d like my mother. She gave us tea for every ache and pain.” She watched him move away. When he was nearly to the door, she spoke. “I know what I can do for you, Iain.”
He faced her. “Oh?”
“Sure. If the MacFarlanes cursed your family, then a MacFarlane—or a reasonable facsimile—ought to be able to lift the curse. Just tell me what to say, and I’ll say it.”
He didn’t smile. “I’m afraid it would take considerably more than a word or two. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men…” He shook his head.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She was stricken by the bleak expression in his eyes. She had been teasing, hoping for another smile. Instead, for a moment he had looked completely desolate. “I really am sorry. I didn’t realize…”
The expression disappeared as quickly as it had crossed his face. “What didn’t you realize?”
What could she say? That she hadn’t thought an adult man might really believe in something as absurd as a curse? “I didn’t realize how long I’d kept you here when you must be exhausted, too,” she said lamely. “Don’t worry about the tea. I’ll just lie down for a while and wait for the doctor. You take care of yourself.”
“I’m a master at doing just that.”
She made a face. “Until today, I thought I was pretty good at it, too.”
* * *
Exactly what had he done? Iain slouched on a kitchen chair, his arms folded across his chest, and waited for the tea to steep. The house had never seemed so silent, but after Billie Harper’s musical chatter, Piccadilly Circus would seem like a tomb.
He had leapt into Loch Ceo to save a drowning lad, and instead he had ended up with a full-fledged woman. A Druidheachd MacFarlane, at that. He couldn’t imagine why he’d thought she was male. Her hair was short, but now that it was almost dry, it brushed her neck and forehead in soft, feminine wisps. Her eyes were the same chocolate brown as her hair, huge and rimmed by thick black eyelashes, and her generous, impertinent mouth was punctuated by deep dimples that flashed a continuous message of humor and goodwill.
She wasn’t pretty, not according to the standards set by the women who had paraded through his nights, but despite a brush with death, she was so filled with life that energy exploded in every word she said, every movement she made.
She was so filled with life, and he was so drained of it.
He got up from his chair, despite legs that still didn’t want to hold him, and walked to the window. The view was of the alder grove. The trees had been there forever, long before the house, perhaps as long as Ceo Castle. An old tree died, a sapling sprang up to take its place. The Rosses had always protected the grove. As a child Iain had been told that protecting the trees was his responsibility, along with a thousand other duties that went along with being the laird of Druidheachd. At his father’s side he had walked the lands belonging to his family and learned what was expected. He had felt such pride that someday all this was to be entrusted to him.
Now he would gladly give up all of it, every structure, every stone, every tree. All of it in return for the things he’d never had.
He didn’t know how long he stared at the alder grove. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t hear footsteps.
“I really couldn’t sleep.”
He turned to find Billie standing behind him. She was dressed in his university
rugby shirt and knit trousers rolled and rolled and rolled…. “You really don’t take orders well, do you?” he asked.
“Not well at all. I really am sorry.” She didn’t smile. “But there was something about being alone again, right after everything.” She shrugged. “You know.”
“Do I?”
“It’s silly. But when I shut my eyes, I feel the water closing over me.”
Sympathy penetrated his own black thoughts. She looked in need of holding, but he knew he wasn’t the man to do it. “I’ve made tea. Sit over there and I’ll pour some.”
“That would be nice.” She took the closest chair and looked properly grateful to sit again. “This is some place, Iain.” She hesitated. “Is it all right to call you Iain? I know I’m awfully informal sometimes.”
He couldn’t imagine her being awfully anything. In clothes that were large enough for two of her and with worry wrinkling her brow, she was completely adorable. He had the ridiculous urge to touch the silky wisps of hair feathering along her cheek, to tug the neckline of the jersey just a bit lower.
But he didn’t need to be reminded why he’d always stayed miles away from adorable, cuddly women. “You’re welcome to call me whatever you please,” he said.
She looked up at him through eyelashes as long as a sleepless night. “If I get to know you better, I probably will,” she said, with flash of her dimples. “And I’m Billie.”
He turned away, far too enchanted for a man who prided himself on maintaining emotional distance. “All right.”
He set cups on the counter and poured the tea. There was no reassuring steam. Frowning, he felt the pot. It was cool to the touch.
How long had he stood at the window and stared at the alder grove?
For a moment he couldn’t think what to say. Then the impeccable manners drilled into him throughout a seemingly endless childhood took over. “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to make another pot. This one seems to have gotten cold already.” He moved to the stove. As he filled the kettle, he tried to ignore hands that were less than steady.
Men of Midnight Complete Collection Page 27