by Mariah Stone
But in all of the beauty and freedom around her, Craig was the best part. His handsome profile—straight nose, dark wavy hair, moss-colored eyes, wide mouth, and sensual lips surrounded by sexy stubble. The quilted cloak he wore only accentuated his tall frame, wide shoulders, and narrow hips. Amy’s insides buzzed, her pulse beating in her throat.
“This is a great place for a picnic, don’t you think?” she asked.
“Aye.” Craig put the blanket they had brought on the ground and the basket with food that Amy packed.
He held the plaid so that it wouldn’t blow away in the wind, until Amy could sit. They had left the horses down below by the creek to graze, before the trek became too steep.
Amy unpacked the basket: bread, oatcakes, cheese, butter, plums and apples still fresh from the recent harvest, and a bottle of wine. They had left the castle this morning in the peak of activity. After three days of searching, Craig and his men had come back with a mason they’d hired from another village down Loch Linnhe. Now it was a matter of getting enough rocks and stones. At the moment, scaffolds were being built under the careful supervision of the mason and Owen.
Craig had explained to Amy that it was a good time for him to leave Owen in charge for a day. He wanted to give his brother the chance to take responsibility while he was away.
“Thank ye, Amy,” Craig said. “For preparing this. I havna been in the mountains for a while because of the war and am glad to come back. I miss it.”
“Me, too,” she said. “Did you grow up somewhere around the mountains?”
“Aye, on Loch Awe. Didna ye ken where the Cambel clan seat was? Innis Chonnel Castle has belonged to yer clan about ten years now.”
Amy licked her lips and fiddled with the skirt of her dress. “Yes, well, I mean…I don’t know where you grew up.”
“Aye, I grew up there. Climbed rocks and fished in the loch and hunted.”
Craig bit into a piece of bread he’d just broken off.
She studied him, his straight jaw working on the bread, the thoughtful eyes looking far into the distance. There was always a hint of sadness behind them, something dark he’d been hiding. She wanted to know his depths, what made him the man he was. And then she remembered why he hated the MacDougalls.
Craig had said, I dinna wish for ye to feel what my sister felt. That must mean the MacDougalls had locked her up.
So locking people away was in her family, she thought darkly. Her father locked her up. Her ancestors locked up Craig’s sister.
“I overheard someone saying that was where your sister was kidnapped,” Amy said.
It was a bit of a gamble, to assume she was kidnapped.
Craig stopped chewing and seemed to hold his breath, then glanced at her, frowning. “Aye. Right near the castle. She went out with her maid to gather flowers. The maid came back alone, screaming.”
Pain shot through Amy’s chest as it tightened. She shook her head. “Poor girl, your sister.”
“’Tis why I canna understand why yer father let ye go wandering with just one man to protect ye and then alone. Because fair maidens walking alone in the woods tend to be snatched away by the boorish.”
Amy inhaled. What barbaric times.
“What’s her name, your sister?”
“Dinna ye see her while she was at Dunollie?”
Amy cleared her throat. She’d have to pretend again. “No.”
“Marjorie. Were ye not there when we freed her? I remember climbing into yer mother’s room, and there were several lads and lasses—were ye not among them?”
Amy looked down. “No. I was in Ireland.”
“Aye. Well. ’Tis good ye were not there. Are ye not angry I killed yer brother?”
Craig had killed Amy’s brother… She swallowed. The Amy MacDougall from this century would have known that.
“Was he responsible for the kidnapping?” she said.
“Ye truly dinna ken anything?” He narrowed his eyes.
She shook her head.
He sighed. “I suppose ’tis nae something a family is proud of. Alasdair didna just kidnap her, Amy. He held her prisoner and raped her. All because she refused his hand in marriage.”
Cold shock covered Amy’s body from head to toe. Raped…held prisoner…
By one of the great MacDougall ancestors her grandfather was so proud of. A pride he had instilled in her as a child. She now understood why Craig hated the MacDougalls so much. Shame ignited her cheeks and neck. Poor girl.
“Aye, I killed Alasdair when our clan came to free Marjorie. Yer father surely revenged him two years later by killing Ian.”
“Ian?”
“Aye. My cousin. Yer family killed him when our clans were in a battle and never gave us back the body. Were ye absent for so long? I sometimes think ye dinna ken these things at all, and yet I’m sure yer clan seethes from hate and fury at us. Nae?”
Amy exhaled. “Like I said, I’m not your enemy, Craig. I haven’t done any of those things.”
“Aye. True. Ye havna. ’Tis still hard to believe ye turned out so different from yer father. From yer brother.”
Her father… She surely hoped she didn’t have anything in common with that man. Maybe the Amy MacDougall who was really from this century understood what Amy felt. A father who could allow his son to kidnap and rape a woman—he was as guilty as his son.
“I understand a little of how your sister must have felt,” she said.
“What?” Craig’s head shot up, his eyes blazing. “Ye were raped? Who—”
The concern, the worry, and the anger in his eyes were genuine, and it warmed Amy’s heart. She took a sip of wine from the bottle, for bravery. She wanted to tell him. She’d never told anyone but her sister, and then only in general terms. She never really talked about it; although, she’d thought several times she should go to a shrink or something.
But Craig had witnessed something similar that had happened to his sister—the entrapment, the desperation of being locked up and never found.
And Amy needed to tell him. She wanted him to know she was on his side. And then maybe, once he knew what had happened to her, maybe she’d tell him the whole truth. That she wasn’t the Amy he thought she was.
And hopefully, he’d forgive her.
Her chest ached as she reached out to the corners of her memory she’d deliberately been turning away from for twenty years. Her skin crawled and her eyes burned.
And she let go.
“I wasn’t raped. I was ten when I started having nightmares. I’d imagined ghosts and monsters under the bed and couldn’t fall asleep.”
The truth was, it had started happening after Amy’s mom had died earlier that year. Lost and sad, scared of the future, Amy had gone to the one person she’d had left besides Jenny—her father.
“I went to my dad with this problem, asking him to chase them away. But most of the time I found him half unconscious from booze.”
“Booze?”
“Uisge. And then one night, he’d had enough of me. He was still drunk, but sober enough to find a creative solution. ‘You’re a coward, Amy MacDougall!’ he yelled. ‘There are no ghosts. There are no monsters. Go back to your room and sleep.’ But when I insisted I couldn’t, he said, ‘It’s time for you to face your fears. You know how my father taught me to swim? He threw me in the lake. I almost drowned, but I learned to swim. That’s how you’ll learn to not be afraid of the dark.’”
Amy swiped a tear from her cheek. Craig listened silently, openly, simply taking it in. And it helped. She felt accepted. She felt he understood.
And she was so grateful.
“He was strong, even when totally drunk. A tall man, a farmer, with arms like tree trunks and his breath reeking of alcohol. He hauled me out of the house and drove—I mean, took—me somewhere in the middle of the night. I was terrified. I thought he was going to kill me because I was afraid of the monsters under the bed. But he took me to an abandoned barn on our farm—I mean, estate. And he lo
cked me in there.”
Amy remembered the blinding lights of the truck against the cornfields as Father drove, the roar of the old engine, the smell of whiskey and gas in the cabin. His terrifyingly strong hands that dragged her, kicking and screaming, into the dark building. The unforgiving clack of the lock from the other side of the door.
And the darkness that pressed against her from all sides like a coffin.
“I don’t know how long I was there. Must have been two nights and one day. I don’t remember. I locked up that memory. If I could, I’d have cut it out of my brain as though it never happened. I was so hungry I chewed on old hay. There was no real food and no water. Do you know how long a person can survive without water? Three days. Without food? Twenty-one days.”
Craig’s eyebrows snapped together, his eyes dark and full of empathy. “Did no one ask after ye? Nae even yer mother?”
There was only Jenny, who was six, and her father on the farm. Father forgot about the episode completely the next day, especially since he continued to drink himself into oblivion. Jenny had been asking him where Amy was, but he always told her she must be at school.
It was on day three that the school called home, and Jenny said she hadn’t seen her for three days. They called the police. A cop found Amy, dehydrated, shivering, desperate.
“Yes. She did,” Amy lied. “But they couldn’t find me. They only found me three days later. I might have died there had it been a couple of hours longer.”
“Yer father didna have a right to do that to a wee lass.”
“No. He didn’t. That’s what I learned there. I mean, I learned a couple of things. That I’m terrified of dark, closed spaces. And that as long as I can help it, I won’t let another soul be lost and abandoned like I was. Do you know the desperation that you feel? Calling for help for hours, and no one comes? That’s why I can’t stand to be locked up in that castle—and especially in one room.”
Craig covered her hand with his, and his warmth calmed her. “I am sorry, Amy. I didna ken. And I was the one who tied ye up and locked ye… Had I kent—”
“You couldn’t have known. It’s my thing. I should be over it by now, but I’m still terrified of being lost and locked up. And that’s why I don’t have a direction in life, I suppose.”
“But ye save all these people.”
“Yes, but—what then? What’s next for Amy MacDougall? Most women want marriage. Children. I don’t.”
“Ye don’t? What about the Earl of Ross?”
She brushed it off. “Do you know I’ve already been married before?”
“Ye were?”
“Yes. It was for love. I thought he was perfect, I thought I wouldn’t find anyone better than him. But as great as he was, I felt suffocated. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t take a step. I felt like I was back in that barn again. So we divorced. I divorced him. There’s something fundamentally wrong with me, Craig. If I ever get back home, searching for people in the mountains will be my life.”
“Amy, ’twas a horrid thing yer father did. It seems to me, ye lost yerself somewhere back in that barn and ye havna found yerself yet. It seems to me, ye’re looking for yerself each time ye search for and rescue someone. Ye must find yerself first.”
A shiver ran through her at his words, echoing in every part of her.
Ye lost yerself somewhere in that barn…
She gazed at him. How was it possible that a stranger from hundreds of years ago understood her better than she did herself? Better than anyone in her time?
She reached out and cupped his bristled jaw. And just as she was about to kiss him, a wall of rain hit them.
Amy squealed and laughed. Craig smiled, a carefree, lighthearted smile. He pulled her to himself, rolled her under him and kissed her, briefly but deeply, making her toes curl.
“I will protect ye from the rain,” he said.
But his hair was soaking wet, and raindrops fell right into Amy’s eyes.
“Protect me from the rain in the castle, please.” She laughed.
“Aye.” He kissed her briefly again and helped her up.
And as they packed the picnic back into the basket, Amy forgot that she was from the twenty-first century and he was from the fourteenth. She just felt like a woman having a date with a handsome man under the rain.
Chapter 21
Craig didn’t think he stopped looking at Amy for a single moment, the rain a welcome distraction from the violent beat of his heart.
The woman who’d just opened up to him couldn’t be a betrayer. She couldn’t be a liar, and she couldn’t be a murderer. The realization was like lifting a heavy rock from his chest. She couldn’t have just come up with that story—he had seen her genuine pain and desperation when she’d told him about that barn.
The man had left the lass alone for three days, without food and water—left her to die. He doubted Amy could be loyal to a man like John MacDougall, and he doubted that she was looking forward to her marriage with the Earl of Ross.
She’d been divorced—which meant, she was experienced. He didn’t mind her not being a virgin; he didn’t care about things like that. She’d probably married by old Celtic tradition, which was forbidden by the church. It allowed separation and divorce, while the newer Catholic church did not. But it also meant that her husband had been a kind person. Because a woman could not initiate the separation. So Amy must have convinced her husband to let her go.
But she would be married by the church to the Earl of Ross, and there would be no escape.
Mayhap, her marriage to Craig was a welcome disruption.
Mayhap, he could trust her, after all.
Mayhap, if he got to know her better, there was more for them than just the year of handfasting.
Because, Craig suspected, he was falling in love with her.
Craig and Amy were both soaking wet when they arrived at the castle. The courtyard was now a muddy swamp. The aroma of dinner—stew and fresh bread—hung in the air, but Craig wasn’t hungry for food. It was already dark, only torches illuminating the buildings. Craig saw Owen and a couple of others come out of the great hall…
With… No, that couldn’t be…
Craig squinted to see through the wall of rain.
“Are those women?” Amy said.
“Either that, or my men suddenly grew breasts and long hair.”
Holding a lass’s hand, Owen ran into the Comyn Tower.
“Owen, Owen,” Craig mumbled and shook his head. “Who else to blame?”
“When the cat's away, the mice will play,” Amy said. “I guess he threw a party and invited some girls. Will you go to stop them?”
Craig marveled at Amy’s wet face glistening in the light of the torch, her long eyelashes stuck together from the water, her lips so red and lush he longed to taste them.
“The last thing I want right now is to deal with Owen. I have other things on my mind. Our picnic isna over yet.”
She raised her eyebrows and flashed a small, sweet smile at him, brightening the evening.
“Let’s take the horses to the stables first,” he said.
In the dark stables, the scent of hay and animals enveloped them, something so simple and primal and natural.
“Is this all right?” he asked. “Are ye not bothered being here?”
“No,” she said and smiled. “The exit is right there. And you’re with me.”
His chest warmed as she said that. He watched as Amy brushed the neck of her horse gently, caressing it, murmuring calming words to the animal, as though she’d been doing that for ages. What would it be like, to feel her palm on his body like that? He covered her hand with his, and she stopped, completely still.
She turned to him, her eyes shiny pools in the darkness.
Without a word, he put one hand on her waist and gently brought her closer to him. She put her palm on his chest, under the wet cloak. Her hand was cool and burned him a little.
“I thank ye for today, Amy,” he said. �
�’Twas a long time since I had a day like that. Everything ye told me—I ken it wasna easy for ye. I shall guard yer trust like a precious gift.”
Her eyes teared up a bit, and she blinked. He brushed her cheek with his thumb.
“I canna stop thinking of ye. What ye did the other day, it hurt me. Will ye hurt me again like ye did when ye tried to find the way out? Will ye betray me?”
She blinked again, her eyelashes trembling. She cupped his jaw, and he turned and quickly kissed the inside of her palm. “I don’t want to think anymore. I don’t want to worry. I want to live. Right here and now. I don’t want to promise, or plan, or remember.”
She reached up to him and planted a gentle kiss on his lips, and even that small gesture brought fire to his veins.
“What I want, is you,” she said.
He studied her eyes, to make sure she was serious, to know she was finally giving him permission.
And what he saw there was dark desire, a longing, and a promise.
“Oh, ye wicked minx,” he growled, then wrapped his arms around her waist, lifted her up, and covered her mouth with his.
She met him with as much passion and need as roared in him. He couldn’t wait another minute to be with her. He had to have her right here and now. Before he spooked her and she changed her mind. The truce between them still felt fragile.
Without breaking the kiss, he undid his cloak, then hers. He hooked his hands under her beautiful arse and pulled her legs to wrap around him. She moaned a little in surprise, but tightened her arms around his neck.
There was a large heap of hay at the corner of the stables, and he carried her there. He sank to his knees and laid her down on the soft hay.
A woman shrieked, and a man cursed, and two people sprang from the heap, holding their clothes to themselves.
“What the devil!” Craig cried, jerking Amy back up and putting her behind himself.
“’Tis me, Lachlan!” the man said, shoving his tunic on.
The woman behind him quickly dressed as well. Craig shook his head as he recognized his distant cousin in the darkness.
“Why didna ye show yerself sooner?” Craig growled.
“I thought ye’d be gone from the stables soon,” the woman said.
