by Beth Trissel
Intent on her response, he stepped toward her. His hair was endearingly mussed, probably from running his fingers through the shortened locks, and his gray eyes shadowed. Where was the spark of recognition she longed to see?
She noted he wore no coat, his shirtsleeves rolled up, revealing muscular arms. Even with her eyes closed, she would sense his presence. His masculine allure permeated the room like the steam from her bath water. Her heart fluttered along with her middle as he neared.
If only he would draw her into those strong arms and this time not let go.
****
Neil didn’t know what to do with Mora, only that he wanted to do a great deal and he’d already screwed up rather badly. How to begin again? What could he even attempt after his abrupt departure earlier this evening? He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anyone or anything, but shouldn’t, couldn’t, take advantage of an emotionally vulnerable woman. Nor could he turn around and leave. The need in his gut flamed alongside the caution in his head.
She sat upright in the four-poster bed with Mrs. Fergus’s covers drawn nearly to her chin. The lamp’s soft glow revealed a wounded expression in her eyes, and she appeared ill-at-ease, yet undeniably wistful.
Well, that made two of them, but he must speak with her. His spidey senses, as Fergus termed it, told him Mora had at least some of the answers to their baffling predicament. How else could he hope to help either of them other than by fitting together the irregular pieces of this most peculiar puzzle?
His dress shoes, left over from the business day that seemed eons ago now, made no sound on the Oriental carpet as he walked to where she waited. Not a word passed between them and he sat silently on the bed beside her.
Looking into her uncertain gaze, it seemed to him, as unfathomable as it was, that they had unfinished business between them. Enough to overflow the gaping hole he felt inside him. He couldn’t articulate it any more than he could explain her presence in his life. Inexplicably, he and Mora were linked.
Like a door long ago closed, now reopening, he strove to glimpse that other world through the crack in this one. A distant drum thrummed in his innermost self, calling him. But to what?
Neil’s logical mind told him it made no sense. His heart whispered a deeper truth of a secret shrouded in the hazy past. “Mora.” Her name escaped him in a husky whisper.
She darted the tip of a pink tongue over her lips. “Aye?”
He stared at her mouth, soft and full, but not too full, the perfect pout. Almost without realizing what he did, Neil lifted his hand and ran the end of his index finger over her bottom lip…the lightest touch on a gossamer thread.
She quivered, barely detectable, but he noted her response as he had earlier this evening. Did he affect her that strongly?
How long had it been since he’d allowed himself to affect any woman. One ex-wife was enough. Paying off the former Alice MacKenzie had taken everything except the house. Alice didn’t want that mausoleum, as she’d termed it, and had left his heart as cold as one. Until now…
Neil slid his fingers over Mora’s cheek, like down beneath his hand and shimmering with the talc Wrenie had dusted over her smooth skin. He breathed in the honeyed scent of summer effusing her, so unlikely on this cold fall night.
Mora moved not at all, but looked wonderingly at him.
Neil wondered at himself.
Copper glints shone in the hair streaming over her. Lifting his hand to her red mane, he trailed his fingers through the silken sheen. Again, that quiver made itself known, and tiny goosebumps flushed down her neck.
“You are a beauty,” his words a hoarse whisper.
The rise and fall of her chest betrayed a deep inhalation of breath. A flicker of reproach lit her eyes. “I dinna think ye took heed of me at all.”
He winced at the well-deserved jab. “About before, I’m sorry I left you so suddenly. But there’s no earthly way I could fail to notice you. I’d have to be deaf, dumb, and blind and even then…”
The tension in her face eased, and then the hurt returned. “Oh, aye? How could ye forget all ye knew?”
He remained ad he was, threading that wealth of hair through his fingers. Again, the rational part of him argued, “Is it possible you’re imagining you knew me before?”
She balked, a mutinous glint in her eyes. “Nae.”
He slid his hand to the finely crafted silver chain at her throat and coaxed the coverlets further down.
A slight gasp escaped her lips. He muted any outward response to the thrill running through him.
The scooped neckline of her nightgown revealed the tops of white breasts sprinkled with freckles. Above this heart hammering sight hung the crucifix. “I gave this to you?” he managed to ask without betraying the swell of emotion surging inside him.
“At our betrothal.”
She remained immobile as he reached out and closed his fingers around the sacred relic, warm from her sweet skin. Staying his hand from straying any lower, he held up the cross to better examine it. The inscription on the side appeared to be Latin.
He stared at the etching. “I can’t make out the words.”
“Trust in me,” she said softly.
He lifted his eyes to hers. “You know Latin?”
“And English, French…”
That tutor was a marvel. Too bad he hadn’t taught Mora about everyday life. Shifting his focus away from her near mesmerizing gaze, Neil studied the cross. At the base of the crucifix, he spotted a minute point, like a clasp.
“Does it open?”
“Why do ye ask?”
Buried in Neil’s mind like a long forgotten treasure, was the idea that this relic held a key. The key.
Angling one fingernail over the nub, he dug in and tugged, meeting with resistance.
“What do ye ken that I do not?”
“It’s stuck, but I think there’s something inside.”
“Indeed? Let me have a try.”
“All right. Maybe your smaller finger will fit better.” He shifted the shine of silver into her smooth white hand.
Lips pressed together, Mora wiggled her half-moon shaped fingernail under the deceptively small clasp. She tugged and her finger slipped. Eyes rapt with concentration, she tried again. “’Tis stuck fast.”
“Don’t force it. Mind if I summon Fergus?”
“Nae. Call The Fergus, if ye wish.”
“There’s no The in his name,” Neil corrected, amused at her expression despite the growing mystery. “Hey Fergus! Bring something in here, will you, to open the clasp on this old cross.”
The footrest on the recliner lowered with a thump. “It opens?”
“I’m almost certain.”
“How in hell—heck,” Fergus caught himself, “do you know that?” He dashed through the partly open door on the tail of his query.
Neil shrugged.
“Of course,” Fergus said drily. “You’re well acquainted with seventeenth century crucifixes.”
“I expect this one is sixteenth.”
Fergus drew his reddish brows together. “Same difference.”
“Of French origin,” Neil added.
“Dude, you’re weirding me out.”
Fergus wasn’t alone in his sentiments, and Mora looked like one lost in a dream. Neil would love to awaken her with a kiss—what was he thinking? He had to concentrate.
“Art history,” he offered, knowing his insight stemmed from far, far more.
“Yeah, right.” In his hand, Fergus held the screwdriver he used to open minute screws on laptops and other devices. His eyes bored into Mora like a vampire fixated on a vein. “May I join you?”
Neil could simply take the tool from Fergus and send him away. But Mora gave a nod, and Neil sensed his eccentric friend had a role to play in this strangest of all possible conundrums. He inclined his head.
Needing no further encouragement, Fergus settled his narrow rear on the bed beside Neil. Together, they watched Mora reach behind her n
eck to undo the silver chain. It slid from her throat and she extended the keepsake, chain and all, to Fergus.
He took the cross and held it out to the light, peering like an owl from behind his rimmed glasses. “Yes. I see what you mean.” He fingered the closure. “This is a tiny clasp.”
A hush fell over the three of them.
Fergus slid the miniscule edge of the tiny screwdriver under the clasp on the bottom of the crucifix and pried. “Stuck. I don’t want to break it.”
“Just get it open.” Neil had decided the critical thing was to retrieve whatever might be inside.
Fergus pried harder. His boyish face scrunched in concentration. “Almost got it.”
The clasp gave way and the crucifix sprang open. “Without breaking,” Fergus said with a hint of smugness, and then grew somber.
They all stared.
Twin crosses attached at the top made a T shape in his palm. Inside the bottom chamber of blackened metal was a key, its head an intricate design of curlicues. No gleam shone from its equally blackened surface. Mora had polished the outside, not the inside of this shrine. Yet, it was here that their answer lay.
She sucked in her breath with a hiss. “Neil, what secret have ye given into m’ keeping?”
A faint memory stirred in his mind’s eye, like the muted hues of a rainbow, and he saw sunlight gild Mora’s hair, her lovely upraised face, the tenderness in her eyes with a hint of expectation in their depths that he had yet to see today. Arches of stone and great oak beams rose around them, the walls and ceiling of a castle or manor house. He stood facing her, and in his hand was the cross.
Words floated back to him as mighty as the bugle of a trumpet from distant hills. “Guard it well,” he’d said. But why? What did this key unlock?
Dry mouthed, he shifted his gaze back to her searching eyes.
“What?” she whispered.
“I don’t know yet, but I’m beginning to,” he conceded, while an inner voice chided at him to be sensible.
Her brows arched even higher, but she said nothing.
Fergus dropped his jaw. “That does it. I’m giving mom a call.”
“Psychic Betty,” Neil muttered.
“A seer?” Mora asked.
“Of sorts. Do either of you have a better idea?” Fergus challenged.
Neil shook his head. Perhaps Fergus was right; he and Mora were both possessed by long lost spirits from the past. No. There had to be a rational explanation, he argued with himself. And then aloud with fatalistic resignation, “Your mom will bring all her crystals.”
He envisioned quartz spread over his house, one of Mrs. Fergus’s New Age practices.
Fergus met his eyes, “Mom always does. But she’s going to need something stronger than crystals for this.”
“I suspect what we seek is somewhere in the house. Whatever this key unlocks.” Neil shifted his gaze back to Mora. “Do you have any idea what that might be?”
“Mayhap a sacred relic from the MacDonald Chapel.”
“So it could be anything? Even the Holy Grail?”
Mora seemed to see beyond him and Fergus to some other time and place. “Have care, Neil. If The MacDonald covets it, then this relic has great power to make the magic in Fergus’s front chamber seem but the play of wee bairns.”
Again, that prickle ran down Neil’s neck like scattering ants. “Fergus has no real magic, Mora. Only devices that you don’t understand.”
“If ye say so. But mark my words, there’s deep magic afoot.”
Chapter Nine
An owl hooted from the leafless tree outside the window of the townhouse—an eerie sound. Normally it wouldn’t seem so to Neil, but he was in a most unsettled state. More than he’d ever been before.
A spacecraft flying across the living room would hardly cause him to arch an eyebrow after the evening’s revelations. How to begin to fathom it all?
He couldn’t and only hoped Mora fared better in the guest room, getting some much needed rest. Fergus had nodded off in the recliner after pulling on his Keep out of Direct Sunlight sweatshirt. He dozed now, surrounded by his cherished electronics.
Yep, Fergus was down for the night. Lucky bastard. Neither caffeine nor conundrums fazed him. Part of the charm of being one of the Sons of Fergus, Neil supposed. The MacKenzies seemed prone to curses. He envied Fergus, so unreservedly himself, while Neil wasn’t entirely certain who he even was. Especially now.
He pounded the couch cushion into a more obliging headrest on his makeshift bed and pulled the navy fleece blanket up over his boxers and bare chest. Turning onto his back, he stared up at the virtual stars floating amid clouds on the ceiling. He at least ought to turn off the celestial projector, but couldn’t be bothered. Instead, he brooded on his outlandish circumstances, his and Mora’s.
No concrete answers had been forthcoming this evening, nor were they likely to be. But Fergus had summoned his mother and she’d promised to arrive tomorrow afternoon. That was enough to unsettle anybody of sound mind. Up until quite recently Neil had thought he qualified as sane. But now…
His distracted thoughts swirled back to Mora and lingered there. The rational part of him rebelled at the suggestion that they were linked together in 1602, though he had no objections to being linked with her now. Despite this caldron of confusion, and partly because of it, a fiery pulse beat within him.
When had he ever felt such a throbbing—to the core—attraction for any woman?
Certainly not for the ex-Mrs. MacKenzie, even though he’d imagined himself aflame for her at the beginning. Only later, after a whirlwind courtship and wedding, had he discovered what a shallow woman she really was, physical beauty alone no longer enough to lend her appeal.
The old adage “Marry in haste repent at leisure” had been his to own, and he’d paid dearly both emotionally and monetarily. After mauling his heart, she’d bitten off a great chunk of his inheritance.
But now, his feelings for Mora were fast taking root. This was no time for newfound ardor, he sternly reminded himself. Their very lives might rest on solving this mystery. If he were totally honest, though, he had to admit his ardor for Mora might not be new—
“Neil!” The muffled cry came from her room.
Terror shot through him. Had that maniac gotten to her, or was she calling out in her sleep?
He glanced at Fergus. Oblivious. He could sleep through marauding elephants.
Getting to his stocking feet, Neil dashed to the spare room. If that madman was in there, he had no weapon to fight him off. Maybe he should summon Fergus. He might actually have a stun gun.
No. There wasn’t time to waken his groggy friend. He’d just have to rush the intruder. Hope the element of surprise acted in his favor.
He flung himself at the door and opened it. Hurtling inside, hands fisted, he was stunned to see—no one. The streetlight shone through the parted curtains in a pearly sheen. He paused and darted his gaze over the room, exploring the murky corners
Nothing.
Mora tossed alone in her bed gasping, “Niall—”
His name escaping her in a desperate plea moved him beyond anything he’d ever known before. His first impulse was to wake her from this nightmare, then he realized he’d only be waking her to another. What assurance could he give her that everything would be all right when he didn’t have a clue what was going on?
Still, he couldn’t leave her to suffer alone. By heaven, he’d comfort her.
He stole to the where she lay wrestling with some inner demon, her eyes shut, face creased in a grimace. “The MacDonald comes.”
“No.” Neil lowered himself to sit beside her. Laying his hand on her shoulder, he bent near. “He’s not here.”
She jerked beneath his hand. “The door—he comes through the door.”
That dread in Neil’s gut knotted. Was she seeing into the future or revisiting the past? “Which door, Mora?”
She answered like one in a dream. “Wie colored glass.”
/> There was only one like it in the house. The coil in his middle twisted more tightly. Neil spoke in her ear. “Where did he go?”
“I dinna see.”
He smoothed the hair from her heated forehead. “You’re safe. He’s gone now.”
She quivered and went silent. Though still asleep, some part of her seemed aware of his presence. He must have soothed her. At least one of them could rest now.
Neil heard his cell phone beep in the front room with a text message. He lowered his head and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Sleep sweetheart.”
Rising noiselessly from her side, he tiptoed across the room and out the door. He slid the phone from his pants pocket from where he’d hung them over a chair and flipped it open. The electronic glow illuminated the words. Lieutenant Hale left him a text; the investigating officer must be keeping him informed as Neil had asked.
In the light of the mini screen he read, “Crime scene clear.”
Good, he and Mora could go home tomorrow. He texted back, “Great. Find anything?”
“Lifted prints from door.”
The beginning of a chill tingled down Neil’s spine and he keyed in, “Where?”
“Second floor.”
“Bedroom?” Neal tapped back.
“No. Unused exit.”
Damn. The door to nowhere again.
“Perp,” Hale continued, “entered from outside.”
“Impossible,” Neil texted. “How?” He couldn’t ascend a second story entry, never mind that it was locked, without rock climbing equipment or a ladder, and Neil hadn’t left any lying around.
“Unknown. A real Spiderman,” the officer joked. Then added, “No suspect yet.”
Neil very much doubted they’d find a match for those prints.
Chapter Ten
Yellow leaves swirled around Mora, and the cool wind fanned her tender eyebrows. Her skin still stung from the foreign ritual she’d endured in the place Wrenie called a beauty shop. That bizarre experience paled, though, in comparison to the sleeveless gown she found herself clothed in. If this weren’t outrageous enough, the hem reached only to her knees in a shameless display of flesh.