Perfect Timing 2: Highland Fling Read online

  She eyed him as if he were a bit of offal clinging to her hem. “That would definitely make it more convenient for you, wouldn’t it?” She turned her back to him and studied the fire as if it held the answers she sought.

  To be sure, something strange had happened tonight for he’d never felt the need to explain himself to a woman before, but he found himself doing just that. “You do not understand. I dunnae ken what it is like in your Atlanta, but I would wager being a MacTavish there wouldnae be nearly as dangerous. And I cannae say it is only the English who would harm a child…or a woman. Many a Scotsman would as well. There is a fair number of men who consider wives and children as weaknesses to be exploited.”

  “I’m not sure that it’s much better where I’m from. We have our share of psychopaths. Not that I want to stay, but surely it’s not that bad here.”

  She had to understand, for her own safety. “You are safe enough here—as long as you stay in here, in this room. That’s why I bound you to the bed. ’Twould be madness for you to go out on your own.” He could protect her from the men in the castle by declaring her his own. But that brought danger from another source. “And were you carrying my bairn, ‘twould not be safe for either you or the child.”

  He had enemies and he knew they only waited, biding their time, which was one of the reasons he’d never formed an attachment to any woman, why he’d never declared one particular woman his, why he’d made sure never to leave a woman with child. He’d not hand down what might very well be a death sentence.

  The tilt of her head, the purse of her lips all bespoke skepticism. “But I saw women and children when I looked out the window.”

  “They all belong to the clan MacTavish, but none of the bairns are mine, nor are the women.” Or they hadn’t been until now. Now it was as if she belonged to him, with him, whether he wanted that or not. Even though he lived with a memory, one that haunted his sleep at night. He never spoke of it, but speak he would now and perhaps this stubborn woman would then understand. He grasped her by the shoulders. “I am laird by default. My two older brothers and my mother were all killed by Campbells. They were butchered like swine.”

  Horror and, more importantly, understanding flickered in her eyes, but she remained calm. “I’m sorry. That must have been horrible. Why? How old were you? How old were they?”

  “I was six.” It could have been yesterday. Nightmares kept the memory fresh. “My brothers were eight and ten. My mother had lost two bairns after me, but she was pregnant again. ’Twas a fine spring day and we’d spent the morn picnicking at a burn.” He could still hear his mother’s laughter as “her lads” entertained her with their antics. “Mother said we had to go, but I didn’t want to leave. I had a fine time skipping stones across the burn and chores waited at home, so I hid.”

  For years afterwards, with the reasoning of a child, he’d longed to turn back time. If he’d come when she’d called him, if he hadn’t hid, if his mother and brothers hadn’t wasted time seeking him, they’d have been gone. They’d have been back and safe at the castle where no Campbell would’ve dared attack. “While my mother and brothers searched for me, a band of Campbells attacked. They killed them. They searched for me but couldnae find me. I’d hidden well and good and I stayed hidden.” He couldn’t mask the bitter self-loathing for the role he’d played in their deaths.

  She caught his hand in hers and her touch seemed to leech some of the bitterness from his soul. “You were in shock.”

  “Mayhap I was a coward.” Aye, he lived with that every day as well.

  Kate shook her head and frowned at him. “You were a child. The only thing you could’ve done was get yourself killed as well.”

  “There would’ve been no danger in that. I saw what they did to Gavin and terror struck me dumb. I crouched in my hiding place and pissed myself while my brother died.” ’Twas a shame he’d ne’er shared with anyone. “It would’ve been better to die trying. I was a coward once, but never again.”

  “Surely no one blamed you. Surely your father never blamed you.”

  “Blame me? Nay. He considered it a sign. From that day he considered me the true chosen laird and he trained me as such.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  He’d learned to heft a claymore and broadsword at the same time, one in each hand, a deadly combination and a feat of which few grown men were capable. Every aching muscle, every torturous cramping of muscle had been penance. He shrugged. “’Twas my fate.”

  “What happened to the men who killed your family?” She asked, but he could see it in her eyes that she already knew.

  He nodded in affirmation. “They died. Each of them. ’Twas their fate.”

  “You killed them, didn’t you?”

  “Aye. ’Twas my duty…and my pleasure. None died quick. I made sure of it.” They’d paid for what they’d done to his family. And even though they’d repaid their debt, extracting revenge hadn’t lessened his.

  “How old were you?”

  “Ten. I spent four years in training and planning. Does that frighten you?”

  “No. It doesn’t frighten me. It disturbs me that you were put in that position. You were a child. What about your father?”

  “Aye. He wanted the pleasure of killing them himself, but I begged to do it. ‘Twas my debt to pay. And he knew it would prove to the clans my worthiness of being laird even though I was a third son.”

  She didn’t mask her distaste quite fast enough. Aye. How could she, a foreigner, ken the Highland ways?

  “Is that how you came by that scar?”

  “Aye. ‘Twas the first man and I was not quite fast enough. Da made sure I got faster after that.”

  “What about your father? Is he still alive?”

  “He died a few years ago. Nothing bloody. He just went to sleep and never woke up.” She might not ken their ways, but he’d wager she understood the importance of not leaving this room and why no bairn of his belonged at Glenagan. “And you understand now?”

  “Yes. I understand. The odds are that I’m not pregnant, but either way I’m going to do everything I can to figure out how to get myself home. And when I get there, if I’m pregnant, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure nothing like that ever happens to my child.”

  His child. Their child. It left him with a distinctly odd feeling.

  7

  MAYBE MACTAVISH WASN’T such an arrogant bastard after all. He stood before her—naked yet commanding, with his broad shoulders and heavily muscled arms, legs like strong trees, flowing black hair, and chiseled harsh features saved by a sensual mouth. Forget it. He was still arrogant, but now she understood life’s harsh lessons that had shaped him.

  A knock sounded on the heavy wooden door. Kate jumped, nearly clearing the floor. It had been far too easy to forget they weren’t the only two human beings on earth.

  “Your food.” A man’s voice—Hamish?—called from the other side.

  Without regard for his naked state, MacTavish strode across the room. Uncertain as to who stood on the other side and still cautious after hearing his horrifying story—not to mention the fact that she was in that same harsh place in that same lawless time—Kate took cover in the deep shadows on the other side of the fire. Away from the heat, the chill of the stone floor bit into her bare feet. She fisted her hands in the wool she wore and shivered in the draft that seemed worse in this corner of the room.

  MacTavish threw open the door. Relief flooded her when she recognized Hamish’s prematurely grey head. He carried a laden wooden tray. “Is she still here?”

  Kate stepped forward. “Yes.”

  MacTavish nodded his head toward the room, motioning Hamish inside. “Come in.”

  Hamish did as MacTavish instructed. He crossed the room and placed the tray on the table next to her breakfast bowl. MacTavish closed the door.

  Raking his hands through his hair, MacTavish turned to Hamish. “Can you give us no clue? No information as to why she’s here and h
ow she can get back?”

  He shook his white head in wordless apology. “Would that I could be more helpful. But I dunnae ken any more than I have told. I am a go-between.”

  “A conductor?” Kate recalled her first impression of Hamish at the museum.

  “Aye, mayhap a conductor. I recognize you, but I dinnae know you. I know about my life in the timeframe you are from. I know I exist there.” He caught MacTavish’s eye. “’Twas the two of you what brought her here. ’Twill be the two of you that send the lass back. ’Tis a puzzle you’ll need to solve.”

  MacTavish’s mouth drew a grim line across his face, leaving it harsh indeed.

  Her conversation with Hamish in the museum hit her like a gale-force wind. How could she have forgotten something so terrible, so important? In her defense, the experience had been disconcerting to say the least and she’d been focused on herself and returning to Atlanta and the twenty-first century.

  She’d much prefer Hamish bear the bad news. Maybe she could jog his memory. “Don’t you recall the conversation we had in front of the painting last night before I came here?” Put that way, it sounded as if she’d taken a brief taxi ride.

  “Nay. You are familiar but while I know of this time when I am in your time, that’s because it is the past. But when I’m in the past, such as now, I can’t know of then because it has not happened for me yet. Bits and pieces hover in the back of my mind, much like a dream you can’t quite recall.”

  Great. It was up to her. How many times had she handed down a preliminary diagnosis from which a patient would never recover? How many times had she faced a family to tell them their loved one was lost, that the ER staff hadn’t been able to save them, whether it had been to a gunshot wound or a heart attack or a stroke? Countless. She handed down death sentences on a far more regular basis than she liked. She sought the calm professionalism, the training that saw her through those moments, but couldn’t seem to find it. Her stomach roiled even as she squared her shoulders and faced the man she’d just enjoyed incredible sex with. There was no sugarcoating it and he struck her as a man who’d take his bad news straight up.

  She looked MacTavish in the eye. “You die in the spring of 1745 on the battlefield at a place called Drumossie Moor.”

  Other than sharing a brief glance with Hamish, his countenance didn’t change, yet a sudden tension filled the room. “How do you know this?”

  She nodded toward Hamish. “He told me. History’s not my thing so it was all news to me. He said you were the last MacTavish laird. You died without a wife or a child. And the men—” she looked toward Hamish “—I think you called them Jacobites—”

  “Aye. We be Jacobites.”

  Kate continued, “The men that didn’t die on the battlefield were hunted down and killed.” Unlike discussing a fatal disease or condition with a patient, calmly putting forth the facts of MacTavish’s impending demise chilled her. She shivered. “I’m sorry.”

  MacTavish paced to the fire and stared into the flames, not acknowledging her last comment. A dark silence filled the room’s space. Finally he turned his back to the fire and faced her. “Did he tell you anything else? Think hard. Recount every detail. What may seem unimportant to you may mean something to us.”

  Kate once again repeated what she knew in the hopes that an overlooked fact would spill forth. She couldn’t have made this journey in time simply to tell a man he and his people would soon perish. “He said you were the last laird of the clan MacTavish. You and your clansmen died on the battlefield and that was the end of not just your clan but all the Highland clans. You were all there because you wanted to restore Bonnie Prince Charlie to the throne.”

  “If the clans ended with that battle, ’tis apparent he never gained the throne. Was Drumossie Moor the destination that day or were we intercepted by the Sassenach there?”

  Frustration gnawed at her that she couldn’t shed more light on the situation. “I don’t know.” She glanced to the man who was the link between past and present. “Hamish didn’t say and I’d never heard of the Battle of Culloden.”

  “You said Drumossie Moor.” His tone rang sharp, that of an interrogator.

  She was beginning to feel like a criminal under investigation when she’d done nothing other than show up at the wrong time in the wrong place. Her response cut equally sharp. “Yes, it was Drumossie and it later became known as Culloden.”

  Hamish knotted his hands together. “Did I give you any specific dates?”

  “No. I’d definitely remember if you’d mentioned a specific date—my memory is excellent with numbers.”

  Hamish sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. “Then we have only a general time frame, a place and a dour outcome.”

  MacTavish crossed to the window she’d looked out of earlier. “This is bluidy bonnie. I’ve got a bit of information I can do naught with.” He turned his back to the window, frustration etched in his face, in the set of his shoulders. “Am I to go to the other clans and announce we will all die sometime in the spring? They will think me daft or a traitor, or mayhap both.” He turned to Hamish, “But I ken we have our answer as to why she’s here.”

  Okay, she took back any qualifiers she might have made about him not being an arrogant jerk. She hadn’t exactly dropped good news in their laps, but she wasn’t standing for this. “I’d prefer to not be spoken of and ignored as if I’m not in the room.”

  MacTavish didn’t spare her a glance. “Even though she didnae give us anything we could really use.”

  Enough. The stress, the uncertainty, the emotional roller coaster that had been the last eighteen hours came to a head. She planted herself in front of him, despite the fact that he could snap her like a twig if he chose to.

  “Listen, Darach MacTavish, laird of Glenagan, I didn’t ask to come here.” She poked the hard wall of his chest to make sure she got his attention. “I don’t want to be here.” She poked again for emphasis. “And I’m sorry I didn’t have better news to tell you, but there’s no need to shoot the messenger.” She threw in a third poke for good measure.

  He crossed his massive arms across his massive chest, presumably to preclude future poking, and stared hard down his harsh nose at her.

  Maybe that look worked on his subjects or whatever his people were called, but it only further infuriated her. “What? You think this is a party for me? I go from a very respected, well-paid job as a doctor and a very nice condo to this.” She waved her arm around the room. “No electricity. No running water. No flush toilets. No Starbucks. No cell phone. No sleep number beds.”

  She threw up her hands in disgust. “I might as well be speaking a foreign language because none of that means jack to you because you don’t have any of it in this godforsaken land in this godforsaken year. So, I go from that to this and to top it off the rubber broke and now I might be knocked up with the baby of the original dead man walking. If anyone’s got a right to be pissed off it’s me. And one more thing, while we’re getting the facts straight, I’m not part of your problem. And if I’m not part of your problem then it stands to reason that I’m part of your solution, so Mr. High and Mighty Laird of Glenagan perhaps you should start treating me with some respect. I’m a smart woman and if you were a smart man you’d take advantage of my brains instead of simply my body.”

  He opened his mouth to speak and she cut him off. She wasn’t through. “And one more thing. I would’ve gone home and Googled the Battle of Culloden and had all kinds of nifty factoids for you if he’d—” she stabbed a finger in Hamish’s direction “—given me a chance. But no, five minutes after he tells me your story, he’s shoving me into the painting. It wasn’t as if I had an opportunity to do anything with the information other than show up and tell you what little I know.”

  Hamish, wearing a sheepish expression, shrugged. “I have no answer except that if the timing had not been right you wouldnae have made the journey. Ye would have banged into the painting, bounced off the wall, thought me a daft
old man and been on your merry way. But I ken you just said you might be with a bairn.” He developed a sudden interest in his nails. “Mayhap that is why you are here.”

  Kate had only thought herself chilled before. That thought froze her—alone and pregnant in a foreign land in a foreign century with no skill to support herself and her child. She shifted closer to the fire. “No.”

  “’Tis logical you would be here to provide a MacTavish heir,” Hamish said. His demeanor and soothing even voice reminded her of a clergyman.

  She stood straighter. “I am not a brood mare.” Her statement would’ve had more impact had she not been clothed in MacTavish’s kilt with his scent still clinging to her skin and her body still pleasantly achy from his recent possession.

  “Mayhap ’tis Darach’s destiny to die on the battlefield, yet the MacTavish line need not die with him.”

  “Hel-lo? I said no. No, no, and no. I don’t want to have a baby. And I sure don’t want to have his baby.” She looked over at where Darach stood glowering at them both. “Nope. I know all about genetics. Wouldn’t I love to have a kid with that temperament? Perish the thought.” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. Dammit but it galled her to stand around wrapped in MacTavish’s kilt. She felt branded by it. But it was better than striding about naked the way the arrogant Laird of Glenagan seemed to favor.

  “Sometimes it matters not what we want. Sometimes there are greater forces at work than our wills,” Hamish said. This guy was seriously working her nerves. “How often have you experienced…how did you put it, the rubber breaking?”

  Damn Hamish’s sly reasoning. “Never before.” Please. No. “Listen, I am so sure one of the women here in the castle is a much better candidate for this than me. They can provide a good genetic match and they’re familiar with the time and place. If it’s an heir you want, you really should choose one of them.”

  “But none of them traveled through time to get here—”

  “No!” MacTavish exploded, banging his fist on the table and rattling the tray’s contents. “I want no heir and I want no mother of my child.” He glared at Hamish and Kate knew a moment of trepidation. In a temper, MacTavish was truly formidable. A peculiar expression shadowed his eyes. “Especially not if I am tae die and willnae be here to protect them.”