Highlander Guarded
A Scottish Time Travel Romance
Rebecca Preston
Illustrated by
Natasha Snow
Edited by
Elizabeth A Lance
Copyright © 2021 Rebecca Preston
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Natasha Snow
Edited by Elizabeth A Lance
Similarities to real people, places or events are purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
VIP Reader Club
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
About Rebecca Preston
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Chapter 1
Scarlet Adams gazed thoughtfully down into the glass in front of her, trying to gauge whether the dive bar she was camped out in was watering down their bourbon, or she needed to cut down on her drinking. She was trying to get properly, roaring drunk, and for some reason the spirits she kept ordering just weren't doing the trick. She'd have been irritated about the waste of money — that was, if she had any intention of paying for her drinks. As it was, it was just annoying to be as sober as she was after as many double bourbons as she'd ordered. The bartender was going to think she had a drinking problem.
And she didn't have a drinking problem — not yet, at any rate. She had a boyfriend problem. Well, an ex-boyfriend problem, to be specific. Ryan. She wrinkled her nose as she thought of him, sipping at the bourbon, and wishing the dull burn was a lot less dull. At this rate she was going to exhaust the bar's supply of bourbon before she even got a buzz on.
At least it was quiet. She'd picked it for that exact reason — in a big city like Philadelphia, there were no shortage of shitty dive bars to camp out in. This one was especially bad. Barely any signage out front, grimy, dim windows that looked like they hadn't been cleaned since they'd been installed somewhere in the late 80s, by the decor, which similarly hadn't been updated since… It was perfect for a thief nursing a broken heart.
Not a broken heart, she told herself firmly, annoyed by that thought creeping in. Ryan hadn't broken her heart so much as he'd screwed himself out of the best thing that had ever happened to him — personally or professionally. God, she'd actually liked him. She'd considered him worth keeping around… had even broken her golden rule for him, the rule of never shitting where you ate, of never getting romantically involved with someone you were in business with. But something about him had made her throw away all the good lessons her dad had taught her over the years. That was what really hurt — not the cheating, not the betrayal, not the abandonment. It was the fact that she should have known better. She'd let herself down… and she'd let her father down, too.
"Sorry, Dad," she murmured, lifting her glass to the empty air before slamming the rest of the bourbon. Definitely watered down, she surmised from the beady-eyed way the bartender was pretending not to be looking at her. He was worried she could tell that she was going to do him in. Well, Scarlet Adams might have been a thief, but she was no rat. She wasn't going to call the cops on some shitty bartender who was trying to make his lackluster product stretch a little further. But she wasn't going to reward that behavior, either. He'd realize the credit card she'd given him to open her tab on was fake the next day, of course — by which time she'd be at least a few states away. It was definitely time for a fresh start.
Besides, she was a little worried that Philadelphia mightn't be a safe place for her for too much longer. Not with the way Ryan had reacted to their breakup.
God, what a scumbag. Her mind drifted back to the breakup as she gestured absent-mindedly to the bartender to top her glass up again. He was still looking at her intently, and she wrinkled her nose, hoping he wasn't going to try anything. She was an attractive woman, she knew that much, and some guys didn't take the hint that a woman drinking straight bourbon alone in a dive bar like this didn't want to be disturbed. It was the pixie cut, wasn't it? She ran a hand through her platinum-blonde hair, cropped close to her ears. She'd picked the boyish cut on purpose, hoping it would de-feminize her a little, make men take her a little more seriously… or at least stop hitting on her when she was trying to con them out of their money. Sex appeal could be a useful tool as a thief, sure, but she was a little tired of leaning on it. It felt too easy. Alas, the short cut had only seemed to emphasize her femininity — her wide brown eyes, her pointed face, her mischievous smile. All the things Ryan had liked about her…
To hell with Ryan, she told herself firmly, gritting her teeth as the bartender tipped her a wink as he refilled her glass from the bottle behind the bar. A quick glance at it confirmed that it was more water than bourbon, at this point.
"Make it a triple," she told him, ignoring the way he whistled admiration. Why did men always think women couldn't drink? Because they were stupid. All of them. Especially Ryan.
He'd been a member of her crew for six months before they'd gotten together. Scarlet tended to work alone for the most part, but she'd fallen in with a group of career criminals in her mid-twenties — a casual association of freelancers, rather than a formal crew. They helped each other out here and there, kept each other's secrets, even provided alibis here and there when it was necessary… and occasionally, when a job was too big for just one thief, they'd team up. It was good, to have a gang she could trust. All that is over now, though, she thought with a soft sigh. No more crew, no more community of like-minded burglars… not once Ryan got to them. He'd always been so good with words. She knew he'd turn them against her, twist what had happened, make himself out to be the victim and her the big bad bully… hadn't that been exactly what he'd done with his other exes? Hadn't he told her all about how crazy they were, how they'd victimized him?
It was irritating, how much this was affecting her. She supposed it had less to do with the heartbreak and more to do with the impact it was going to have on her life. She liked Philadelphia. She didn't especially want to leave — she liked her shitty little apartment, the busy, grimy streets, the attitude of the locals. She fit in here. But after everything that had happened with Ryan, she knew there was no place for her here anymore. She had no way of knowing if she was safe here… quite the opposite. She wouldn't put it past him to turn her in to the cops as a means of getting back at her.
That was what was really annoying — the fact that he was the one
who was angry with her. Wasn't he the one who'd cheated? Wasn't she the one who'd come to his apartment to see him? To discover him naked in bed with some idiot nineteen-year-old who'd had the audacity to get an attitude with Scarlet for interrupting them? If she hadn't been so furious, she'd have been worried about the girl. Anyone dumb enough to have a one-night stand with Ryan needed to learn a few life lessons as quickly as possible. But then Ryan, in his clever way, had turned what should have been a clean breakup into a messy argument that had lasted the rest of the night and well into the morning.
She should have just turned on her heel and walked out, telling him they were done. That would have been better. Instead, she'd stayed to argue, to defend herself. Before long, he was making out that it was her fault he'd cheated. That her withholding sex from him had made him so desperate that when the cute blonde who'd just left had hit on him in a bar, he'd had no control over himself whatsoever. Maybe if she put out more — maybe if she didn't force him to wear a condom every single time, even though she took those hormone injections that would prevent pregnancy either way… she was paranoid, he'd told her, shaking his head. Paranoid and crazy. Was it any wonder he'd cheated?
Well, she was glad she'd been paranoid, she thought with a grimace. At least she knew there was absolutely no way she was pregnant with his child. They hadn't had sex for the last week, and she'd had her period during that time… so she knew for sure. It always made her feel better when she got her period. As annoying as the cramps were, and as tedious as it was to have to buy tampons every damn month, it was always such a relief to know she wasn't pregnant. Falling pregnant… that was something she absolutely couldn't afford. The life of a thief was absolutely not compatible with the life of a mom. Especially a single mom, she thought with a grimace. Even if she hadn't caught Ryan cheating… he wasn't husband material, she'd known that. They'd only been together three months, but it was definitely enough to know that he was never going to be enough of an adult to co-parent with her.
She knew she wanted kids, someday. Just not yet. And not with Ryan. And not until she'd worked out a little of the phobia that she seemed to have around pregnancy… that was an odd one, for sure. Ever since she'd been a kid, she'd been terrified of the idea. Not of babies, not of being a parent — all of that seemed perfectly fine. But there was something about the prospect of growing a baby inside her that just made her skin crawl. It was a big part of why she was always so shy about having sex, if she was honest with herself… a deep insecurity that she didn't love about herself. Maybe it had something to do with what had happened to her mother. She'd heard plenty of stories about the woman, but never met her… because it was Scarlet's birth that had caused her mother's death.
Not that Scarlet was afraid of death in any other context, of course. Ever since she'd been a kid, she'd been fearless — and when her dad had started teaching her the family business, she'd taken to it like a duck to water. She still remembered the day she went from a normal kid to a thief. She'd been about six or seven — she and her dad had been in some tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Idaho, maybe — she couldn't remember the state — only that they were going into their third convenience store of the day. Bill had been pulling some kind of counterfeit bill scam, she knew that much now… at the time, though, she hadn't questioned what they were doing there. But something had happened, and the attendant had caught on to the scam. She'd seen the worry on her dad's face as the attendant began to study the hundred-dollar bill he'd handed him… and she'd plonked herself onto the floor of the shop and started wailing like she'd just been attacked by a pack of wolves. Everyone in the store had winced — and the attendant, clearly not wanting to make her father's day any worse, had shrugged his shoulders, put the bill away and given her father his change. Then he'd scooped her up and carried her out to the car.
They'd driven in silence for a while, and finally, he'd glanced sideways at her, a thoughtful look in the wide brown eyes that she'd inherited from him. "Scarlet? Why'd you cry like that, back there?"
She blinked at him. "The man was gonna catch you."
"Catch me?"
"Yeah. He was looking at your fake money. He was gonna figure it out and call the cops."
The look of shock on his face had been confusing to Scarlet. She'd assumed that her father knew that she knew what he was up to — but from that day on, a new dimension in their relationship opened up. A button-cute girl with big brown eyes and a charming smile was a hell of an asset to a professional thief like her father… and before too long, the family business was flourishing with her help. As she grew, he taught her everything he knew. She didn't need school, didn't need college, didn't need any of it — she had her dad, and she had an innate talent for stealing that he told her, one night, was as much from her mother's side of the family as it was from his.
"She was a cat burglar," he told her, half drunk on a bottle of bourbon. A wide-eyed twelve-year-old, she'd sat forward on her chair. Bill never talked about her late mother. She always worried, on some level, that he resented her for the loss of her mother — that it had been her fault, somehow, that they hadn't been able to stop the bleeding after she'd been born, that her mother had slipped away on account of Scarlet.
"A cat burglar?"
"She could climb just about anything, your mother. Quiet and stealthy as a cat. It was why I fell in love with her." He chuckled. "That, and about a hundred other things. You remind me more of her every day," he told her, looking straight at her. "I'm so proud of you, baby."
Had he known he was dying then? she wondered. Had he known that the cancer that had taken root in his lungs was going to take his life by the time his daughter turned sixteen?
Chapter 2
Scarlet shook her head, trying to bring her mind back to the present moment, to the shitty dive bar, the boring country music droning away on the jukebox. She always got so maudlin when she drank — and always about the wrong things, too. Wasn't she trying to mourn her asshole ex-boyfriend and the life she now needed to leave behind because of his inability to keep his dick in his pants? How had her mind drifted back to her father, to her deeply bizarre youth? Fear of pregnancy; that was the link, she thought, rolling her eyes a little. Everyone was afraid of something, right? Whether it was snakes, or the dark, or heights… her fear happened to be pregnancy and childbirth. And if that made her frigid, or whatever… well, that wasn't her problem, was it? Just because they'd been dating, didn't mean Ryan was entitled to her body whenever he wanted it. She shuddered, annoyed with herself for sticking with him as long as she had, through all the red flags and warning signs…
At least she was free now. That was something, and she toasted the empty air again as she drained the last of her glass of bourbon. Finally, even the watered-down stuff was starting to have an effect. She could feel her vision blurring, feel a little of her usual sure-footedness beginning to wobble as she got to her feet and headed across the bar to the bathroom. And hey, she'd be so hydrated from all the goddamn water in the bourbon she'd be unlikely to have a hangover. A good result, overall.
Just as she'd predicted, the bathrooms were absolutely disgusting. She stuck her head into the men's after she'd baulked at the ladies', wondering if the cleaning schedule might be a bit better on the men's side in this clearly male-dominated space… but to her shock, the men's side was even worse. She returned to the lady's room with a sigh, grimacing as she picked her way across tiles stained with unthinkable fluids. Scarlet considered each cubicle in turn and settled for the least revolting one.
She was washing her hands when she felt a chill steal through her. Was there a breeze in here? No… it was something else. Something to do with the quiet. She'd had enough little messages from her intuition over the years to recognize them when they came to her. Something was going on. Something was happening… something she'd be best to pay close attention to. She finished washing her hands and dried them on her jeans, feeling the blur of the alcohol already beginning to fade away as a
drenaline took over. Sure enough, the music out in the bar had stopped. Had the bartender unplugged the jukebox? What was going on?
The bathrooms were down a corridor that she suspected led to the back alley behind the bar, and she was acutely grateful she'd brought her bag with her — nothing at the bar left to necessitate a return there, except of course for the fake credit card, which she had no allegiance to whatsoever. So, she pushed the bathroom door open carefully, trying to get a glimpse of the bar. There was the bartender, talking intently to someone, his body language different… she pushed the door a tiny bit more… and caught her breath.
There, standing at the bar, right next to the seat she'd been occupying until five minutes ago, was a cop. Scarlet could tell right away from his body language that this wasn't a general check-in — this guy was on duty, and he was after something specific. She'd seen cops slope into bars before, looking for trouble or at least wanting to kill some time — and this wasn't that. Which would mean he wasn't alone. She pushed the door open a little more… and sure enough, a second cop was in the bar, circling the tables, looking intently into the faces of the confused alcoholics who were camped out just like she was.
Highlander Guarded: A Scottish Time Travel Romance (Highlander In Time Book 10) Page 1
