Perfect Timing 2: Highland Fling Page 13

  His black brows met over his dark eyes. “Your own?”

  “Yes. Wexford-MacTavish,” she said.

  Darach let go her hand and took his seat. He crossed his arms over his chest.

  It was a look Hamish knew well from serving with the laird of Glenagan. Well, this was about to get interesting. Darach, Mr. Eighteenth Century Highlander, had just come face to face with feminist twenty-first-century sensibilities. Harriet squeezed his hand beneath the table and Hamish shifted in his chair. She need not be getting any ideas.

  “Is MacTavish not good enough for you?” Darach said, his voice deceptively soft.

  Kate lifted her chin, the same look in her eyes as when she’d indulged in the chest-poking at Glenagan. “I’ll bear the name MacTavish with pride, but Wexford is the last link I have to my parents. You’re a part of me, but so are they.”

  Darach’s expression softened and he uncrossed his arms. “’Tis a point you have. You are a clever wench.”

  Hamish nodded to himself. That she was. She knew how to handle Darach.

  She smiled at him. “That’s why you want to marry me.”

  Darach returned her smile. “Aye.” He stared at the lass, as if they were the only two in the room and there was no more business to be done. Hamish nudged his foot beneath the table and Darach looked back at him without comprehension. Poor devil, he was daft about the lass. “The ring, man. Don’t forget the ring.”

  “Aye.” Darach fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the jeweler’s box they’d commissioned just yesterday and picked up this afternoon. “I got this for you.”

  The lad was making a hash of this. Darach MacTavish was a babbling mess.

  Kate opened the box and stared on an indrawn breath. “It’s beautiful. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  With a joy on his face so pure, it nearly brought a tear to Hamish’s eye, Darach slipped the ring on Kate’s finger. Kate was indeed a healer, for Hamish had never thought to see Darach so happy.

  Around them, the other diners and the wait-staff burst into applause. Darach nodded, looking as regal as the Highland chieftain he was. “I am the luckiest man I know.”

  The lad was slated to die in a few months. Hamish didn’t think that quite so lucky, but all the better that Darach consider his good fortune in the here and now.

  Kate held out her hand and twisted it to admire the ring. Darach had done well.

  “It’s simply beautiful.”

  Darach grinned, looking younger and happier than Hamish had thought possible. “The band is platinum—two bands twisted together to form one—like us. The three stones represent the past, the present, and the future. They’re blue diamonds which are rare, much like what we have found together. They are the blue of heather on the Scottish moor, the blue of your Georgia sky, and the blue of the MacTavish tartan. The past, the present, the future.”

  Kate leaned over and pressed a brief, sweet kiss to Darach’s mouth. “Thank you, my poet-warrior. It was beautiful before. Now it’s even lovelier. But it had to be wildly expensive…how did you—?”

  “’Tis taken care of, love,” Darach said, sending Hamish a look of gratitude.

  Kate wasn’t the only one with more money than she knew what to do with. More than one couple had accused him of playing God, which he didn’t—that wasn’t his domain, but he possessed excellent financial instincts and he played the stock market on a regular basis—and made a killing. Hey, it funded his shopping network spending—he looked across at Darach—and a long-term loan to an old friend. He would’ve fronted twice that amount to produce the look on Kate and Darach’s face. They’d know happiness for such a short period of time he’d gladly do it again.

  “So, I was thinking if you did not have any pressing plans, we could get married day after tomorrow,” Darach said.

  Kate laughed. “One day to plan a wedding? Sure.”

  “Do you need more time?”

  She shook her head, a glimmer of sadness in her eyes. “We all need more time, but I’ll make the most of the time I’ve been given.”

  Harriet dabbled at her eyes with the corner of her napkin. “Oh, this is the most romantic thing. And I fear I need to repair my make-up. Hamish, would you escort me to the ladies’ room?”

  She had that look in her eye…that look that women could get that made a man’s blood run cold—she had commitment fever. “I fear my gout’s acting up—”

  “I didn’t know you had gout,” Harriet said.

  “Aye. It can come upon me suddenly.” He looked across the table at Darach. Be it the eighteenth century or the twenty-first, a lad should know when a mate needed bailing out.

  Darach came to his rescue. He rose from his seat. “I know I am but a poor substitute but I would be honored if you would allow me to accompany you.”

  “Thank you, kind sir.” Harriet took Darach’s arm.

  Hamish made a mental note to never bring a date on any future engagement stints. He looked across at Kate. “Congratulations, lass. You’ve made him happier than I ever thought possible.”

  “I love him Hamish—like I never thought to love anyone, like I never wanted to love someone, so completely, so infinitely.”

  “Yes. It’s a rare commodity you’ve found.”

  “I always thought that people grew to love one another. They formed a relationship and nurtured it. Much like a garden, you sow the seeds, tend it and reap the benefits.”

  “That’s what it’s very much like for most people.”

  “But it wasn’t that way. I sowed nothing. I saw him, even before I met him and it was as if I’d tuned into something bigger than myself.”

  “You found your soulmate, Kate. You had to travel a few hundred years to do it, but you found him. That’s a circumstance as rare as your blue diamond. I don’t believe you went back to Darach because he needed you to tell him he was to die at Culloden. I believe you went to him because his soul’s need to heal was so powerful it sought you.”

  She twisted the ring on her finger and looked past him to where Darach waited outside the ladies’ lounge. “What happens if he doesn’t go back Hamish? What if he stayed? What if he just checked out of the eighteenth century?”

  “You know that’s not possible, Kate.” His heart ached for her. For both of them.

  “Why not? He’s so smart, he could get a history degree and teach. He could explore his poetry. We could have such a good life. Why isn’t it possible?”

  “It’s not physically impossible but emotionally and mentally it would destroy him. He could stay here and yes, he could possibly teach, own a business—Darach could do pretty much whatever he made up his mind to do. But his people would die. They would perish in the same manner as the accounts you read. And that’s what he couldn’t live with, Kate. And I don’t think you could either. Would you have him stay at the cost of destroying the man you love?”

  “You know the answer to that.”

  He hated the bleakness in her eyes. “Yes. Just as you’ve known he can’t stay and why. Were he to stay, he’d forfeit his honor and no longer be the man you love.”

  “So, if he goes can he ever come back?” She lifted her head and he saw a return of her spirit, her bright mind seeking a solution. “Could I buy the portrait once the exhibit is through touring?”

  “I don’t know. I could check into whether the portrait might be for sale. It wouldn’t come cheap.”

  Kate nodded. “I’ll find a way. But could Darach come back after he takes care of things?”

  “It’s possible. I can’t give you the probability. Funny thing about this time travel, other than the continuum of time, there are no rules, no regs, and no guarantees. There is no guarantee Darach can actually get back to 1744. It simply may not happen. Once the portal is identified, it doesn’t mean it’s an open-door policy.”

  She reminded him of a Botticelli portrait, radiant and tragic all at once.

  “I’m not looking for a guarantee, just a chance.”

/>   14

  H ER WEDDING DAY . Kate drew a deep breath and paused at the arched stone doorway, letting the moment wash over her, through her. Stained glass filtered the sunlight rendering the church’s interior dim and cool. Arches, nave and a worn stone floor lent it the feel of old Europe instead of Atlanta. The haunting notes of the bagpipes filled the air.

  At the end of the long aisle, Darach waited, resplendent in his kilt. Hamish and Harriett—poor Hamish had finally given in to her standing witness—stood by his side.

  Kate smoothed a hand over her dress. The cream silk with fitted sleeves that belled over her wrists was simple and elegant and she’d known the moment she spotted it—it was the dress—even without Hamish’s seal of approval.

  She looked down at the bouquet of cream roses and blue forget-me-nots with one single red velvet rose in the middle. Instead of ribbon, a thin strip of the MacTavish plaid from Darach’s kilt knotted the flowers in place.

  Was she truly ready to pledge herself to this man who could not stay? Would it be enough to carry only his name and continue to walk alone in life?

  The answer welled inside her—a pure joy, a rightness of being. Yes, she, practical, pragmatic Kate Wexford was about to marry a man from another century that she’d only known for a week and a half. She’d never been surer of anything. And for today, for now, she would live in the moment.

  She wished, not for the first time, that her mother could have been here—to laugh and join in the whirlwind planning, to stand by Kate’s side and share in her joy. She would like Darach, Kate had no doubt. Warm air gusted against the back of her neck, ruffling her hair and then was gone. Kate smiled. Perhaps her mother was here, after all.

  She began her walk down the aisle, feeling as if she literally floated down the aisle, buoyed by love and promise and the pipes’ sweet melancholy. Darach’s eyes met and held hers, silently proclaiming his love. She reached his side and passed her bouquet to Harriett, who was already dabbing at her eyes with a lace hankie.

  She and Darach clasped hands. His, warm and big, engulfed hers.

  The minister kept it short and sweet. Within minutes they’d promised to love, honor, and cherish one another—Kate had refused a vow of obedience.

  “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

  Harriett sobbed to beat the band.

  “You may kiss your bride.”

  “Aye. The good part. Give me a kiss, wife.”

  “Aye. ‘Tis my pleasure, husband.”

  Kate deliberately stepped on his toe.

  He framed her face in his hands as if she were precious and fragile. “Wench.”

  She clasped his wrists in her hands. “Barbarian.”

  His kiss held tenderness and promise and passion.

  “Katie Wexford-MacTavish. Aye, that has a nice ring to it.”

  KATIE UNLOCKED THE DOOR of the condo and Darach stopped his beautiful bride with a stilling hand. He’d waited a lifetime for her and he wagered they’d do it correctly.

  “We will do this right.” He swept her up in his arms. “‘Tis the groom’s duty to carry his bride o’er the threshold.”

  Her green eyes alight, Kate wound her arms around his neck and nuzzled his chin. “It’s also the groom’s duty to carry his wife upstairs and fulfill her every need.”

  He loved her beyond reason. “Must be a strange American custom. Where I’m from that is the wife’s duty.”

  She reached around behind him and closed the door. “Sorry, MacTavish, you’re too big for me to carry you upstairs.”

  He started up to the second floor. “Ah, I can see I’ll have to teach you how to be a proper Scots wife.”

  She flicked her tongue against his neck, which sent a rush of blood straight to his groin. “And it is clear to me you may need a lesson or two in how to be a regular American husband.”

  He made quick work of the rest of the stairs and entered her bedroom. He bent one knee on her bed and laid her against the pillows and coverlet. “Ah, here is the marital bed, wife.” He couldn’t seem to say it often enough. Wife. She’d pledged her troth as he had pledged his.

  She was stunningly beautiful in her wedding finery but he ached to take it off of her and make her his again. Aye, they’d made love before and it shouldn’t be any different this time, but it would be. They’d pledged themselves to each other before God and under the laws of the land and now they’d consummate their vows in the most elemental way between a man and a woman.

  He left their banter behind and smoothed her hair from her face. “Katie-love, I didn’t know I could love anyone the way I love you. I didn’t know I could feel this way about anyone, the way I feel about you. I care about my people and that is a blend of duty, and obligation and a measure of affection, but ‘tis not the same.” He drew her hand to his chest, held it against his heart. “I was dead inside. I died that day along with my mother and my brothers. But you resurrected me.”

  She drew him down to lie by her side. She caressed his cheek, her fingers lingering against his skin. “We’ve lived parallel lives in different times. I buried myself in my work and kept myself alone, apart. I didn’t want to fall in love. You weren’t part of my plan. My mother never remarried after my father died. There’s a tendency in our family to love deeply and exclusively and there was never any thought that she might find another love. And that’s what I’ve found with you, Darach MacTavish.” She smoothed her thumb over his lower lip. “I think it must go along with what Hamish said, sometimes it doesn’t matter what we think we want.”

  He captured her hand in his and pressed a kiss to her delicate blue-veined wrist. “Our souls called to one another and there was naught we could do but heed their cry.”

  There was nothing more to be said. Words were unnecessary, superfluous. With no hurried movements, each undressed the other until they lay naked together on their wedding bed.

  Darach kissed, touched every silken inch of his wife’s skin. She returned his caresses with her hands and mouth. Like a fire stoked to burn through the night, their passion was a steady heat between them.

  Lying side by side, facing one another, her leg over his, he entered her. Like two streams converging to form a mighty river, they became one. With each thrust, he gave himself to her, until there was no sense of where he ended and where she began.

  THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, Darach snapped his book closed with a grunt. Kate, her feet in his lap, put down the medical journal she’d been trying to read except, they were so tuned into one another, her husband’s mounting frustration was almost a palpable force in the room.

  She swung her feet to the floor, sitting upright on the sofa they shared. “Nothing?”

  He put the book on the table and stood. “Nay.” He dragged his hands through his black hair. “It’s like a huge ocean and I’m but one wave and can do nothing to change the course of the tide.”

  She picked up a pen and notepad from the round table between the sofa and armchair. “Let’s look at your options.” She started a list. “You can go to the other leaders and tell them this is what happens on this day. No one will believe you. You can take a page out of a history book with you but I still don’t think they’ll believe you. That’s option one. Option two. You can refuse to fight and you’ll be labeled a traitor by your people and you and your people will still endure harsh rule under the British. That still leaves a lot to be desired. Third option, you can fight and you will die at Culloden.” The words tasted bitter on her tongue. “If you don’t die on the battlefield, the British will find you and kill you. And that’s still going to be a bummer for your people.” She could make bad jokes or she could burst into tears. Bad jokes seemed her better option. The last thing he needed was a sobbing, clinging wife. “That pretty much sucks worst than the rest.”

  He nodded, his face grim. “The same options I come up with.” He banged his fist on the table, rattling the lamp. “Bluidy hell, I know there is something else out there. I just can’t think of it.”


  “Probably because you’re thinking so much about it.” There had to be an answer. They couldn’t just lay down and die on this, literally. They were two reasonably intelligent people and if they put their heads together and kept looking, they had to find an answer. Giving up was not an option. “Which is why we’re going to list every option. We’re going to brainstorm. And it doesn’t matter how wild or crazy.”

  “Okay. I’ve got nothing to add to your list.”

  “These are options. Not necessarily solutions, but options. Things you could do.” She couldn’t seem to help herself. She’d sworn she’d never say it, but it came out nonetheless. “You could stay.”

  The words fell between them. She didn’t need to say more. They both knew they could have a good life together. Sweet, hot notes of passion sang between them, punctuated with pleasure’s sighs. The contentment of loving and being loved. The giggles of small children.

  Darach closed his eyes as if he didn’t dare look at the future they could have. “And what becomes of my people, those that have given me their loyalty, their trust?” Pain laced each word. He opened his eyes but didn’t look at her.

  Desperation drove her to say things she knew she shouldn’t. “If you go back you’ll die anyway and that won’t do them any good. Either way you’d be dead to them.”

  “And if I stay I would be dead to myself. Ne’er a day passes that I am not tormented by the dream of growing old by your side.” His dark eyes reflected that torment. He shook his head, his mouth a tight harsh line. “But I cannae do it and we will not speak of it again. I will either lead my people to safety through this dark time or die trying.”

  Kate laughed, but she couldn’t hide the note of bitterness. “Of all the men in the universe across all time, why did I pick an eighteenth century Highlander with a Moses complex?” Ashamed of her outburst, she pressed her fingertips to her temple. This was not proving to be her finest moment. Darach said nothing and she looked at him in apology. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. If you weren’t the stubborn, complicated man you are, I wouldn’t love you so much that I ache.”