Highland Destiny

by Hunsaker, Laura

  And yet she turned tear-filled eyes on him and told him to let her go. She turned and fled. But Connor was damned if he'd let her walk out on him again. He chased after her, only to have the wizards intercede on her behalf. Once more Connor was left alone. He ran down to the Hall, intent on meeting with his men to find her, when the scene that greeted his eyes stopped him cold.

  Watching Mackenzie walk out of the doors, walk out of his life, had been the hardest thing he'd ever been through. It tore him in two to see her leave. And for his clan, his kin, his own brother to bow to her as if she were royalty. What the hell had just happened? For Liam to have a change of heart was unlike his brother, especially for it to happen so quickly.

  But it seemed he'd been wrong about Mackenzie, and her motives. From the start, she had proclaimed her innocence, and the desire to help. He had wanted to believe her, had believed her, mayhap he should have believed in her? He had never known anyone like her. But of course he hadn't; she hadn't been born yet. There would be a good 200 years before she would exist.

  Connor almost halted his mount when he realized that she would be going back to her own time. Her own life, as she 401

  had once stated. It was a sobering thought for Connor, since he knew nothing about her time, or her life there. He knew very little about her, he realized, except he knew how she had helped his people, a people she'd never before met, out of the goodness of her heart. He knew how she tried to hide the grief when she spoke of her brother. And he knew that she was the bravest, sweetest, most passionate person he'd ever met. And Connor knew without a doubt that he wanted her forever. Letting her walk out of his life was unacceptable and unfathomable. Just the thought of never seeing her again constricted his chest. But did she want him back? She was leaving him. He had broken her faith in him.

  He would get her back. He had to. His life was meaningless without her in it, and it might be too late to tell her that.

  Connor rode his mount harder, faster, until he could see the borders of his own lands.

  By now, Connor was on his own lands, and had ridden through the night, chasing after the woman he loved. His keep was close. He was certain that this was the way she had gone.

  As he approached the gate, he saw the two wizards.

  Perfect!

  "Hullo! You there. Where is she?"

  "Mistress Stewart? Why she has returned home. Charming lass, it's a shame to see her leave. Amazing how she has saved us all, is it not?" The elder of the two men spoke to Connor as if he knew something more than he was saying.

  "Bring her back," Connor commanded. He softened his tone. "Please."

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  "We cannot. I am afraid that the gate is closed. The gate will not open again until after Yule, on the New Year. Only then can one pass through the gate, and we do not yet understand in what time it would open."

  "You must, please. I need her. She carries my child."

  "And you want the child?"

  "Aye. I want her." He paused, "I love her."

  "Well then, let us see what we can do."

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  Chapter Forty Two

  The next couple of months were hell. Connor did nothing, he went nowhere. Nothing brought him any kind of joy. It was as if when Mackenzie left, she had taken his heart with her. Liam had been understanding at first, but Connor's foul mood had eventually gotten to him, and soon, even he left Connor alone.

  The sorcerers no longer came to see him with details of their progress.

  He was utterly and completely without hope.

  At first, the idea of trying to go through the gate to retrieve her was appealing, but as the sorcerers worked, they could make no progress in how to control the time of the opening, or the ability to bring him back.

  His love for Mackenzie was a pressing weight on his chest, constricting until he felt as if he couldn't breathe. This was wrong. Love was supposed to be light, not this dismal darkness in his soul. It was almost Yule, but he had little interest in the celebration; Connor had little interest in anything. Even as the concept of bringing Mackenzie back faded farther and farther into oblivion, Connor could not rouse himself from his self-imposed isolation.

  While the Yuletide festivities resounded throughout his keep, Connor drank himself into a stupor. It was unlike him, but lately he didn't know who he was anymore. His whole life had been for the good of the clan, he'd been reared to be chief. But what good was he, what good were his instincts, if 404

  he hadn't trusted them on even the most basic level? His heart. Had he trusted his heart, mayhap Mackenzie would still be here. He passed out in front of the fire, and he dreamed.

  For the first time since Mackenzie had run from him, he dreamed.

  In his dream, he was a ghost, a wraith, moving in and out of time without the sense or feel for it. He saw decades come and go, and centuries pass, but he felt nothing, he was nothing. And then a light in his darkness. A beautiful girl with honey colored curls and emerald green eyes was sitting before the fireplace, his plaid wrapped about her shoulders as a shawl. But this was wrong; she was sad. The girl with fey-like beauty should not be sad. And she was crying. For the first time in a long time, Connor felt something more than the soul-blackening depression he'd wallowed in. Connor felt alive.

  Walking slowly toward the girl, he moved around in front of her. Still she gazed deeply into the fire. When he knelt down before her, she sighed. The sound struck him in his heart—-a heart that had not beaten for centuries now jump started at the simple sound of her breath. She spoke!

  "Oh, Connor. I am so sorry." Her voice broke and her lower lip trembled with the tears. "If only you knew..."

  Knew what? She never finished. Connor was yanked back into his own time, but this wasn't real either. The same girl who had haunted him for too long now sat in front of the fireplace in his chambers. Only this time, she smiled as she held two young children with blue eyes and blonde curls on her lap. They were reading a story, and when she looked up 405

  at where he stood watching, her lips curved upward in a smile so sweet, the ice around his heart melted. Could she see him?

  "Mind his head," she indicated the warm bundle in his arms.

  Another babe! And this one had her emerald green eyes!

  Could it be? Was it truly his child? Nay, his children? And the look she gave him was so tender and loving...how could this be?

  Once more Connor was ripped from the scene, from the beautiful woman who held his heart. When he regained consciousness, it was in his own chambers. Alone.

  Connor threw the whisky bottle across the room and slammed out of his chambers. Storming through his own castle, he made it to the stables before his brother came running out to see what he was about.

  "What are you doing? Connor it is well past midnight!"

  "I am going to retrieve my woman."

  Liam sucked in a quick breath. "The wizards?"

  "Nay, they have yet to figure anything out that can be of use."

  Liam eyed him carefully before suggesting, "Connor come on back in, we'll have some coffee, and you can relax."

  "I'm not drunk, Liam, for the first time I am thinking clearly." The ferocity of his statement brooked no argument.

  He gave his brother a knowing look, "I'm not daft either."

  "Never said ye were."

  Connor rode until he found the dwelling he sought. He threw the door open, scaring the room's only two inhabitants.

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  "My Laird!" Morvern's startled voice broke the silence left behind after Connor had stormed into the room.

  "Any progress?"

  Not needing to ask to what he referred, Morvern answered,

  "Regrettably not, my Laird. Is there anything else with which we can offer our assistance?"

  "Aye. You can follow me. We will try this now."

  Gregor gasped. "Now?!"

  Connor grimly stared him down, "Aye. Now."

  They rode back to
his castle, and upon arrival, Connor stopped them, demanding the location of the gate. Morvern showed them to the stone door that no one save Connor and his family knew of, and marched through until they stood in a tunnel that led into the Gallery. It was only then that Gregor announced his displeasure.

  "But my Laird," protested Gregor, "It'll not open for another week. We also cannot guarantee your location." He stopped at the fierce look in Connor's eyes.

  "Open it."

  "But we cannot..."

  "Open it."

  Morvern and his son exchanged a look and began the incantation to open the gate. To Connor, it seemed that neither one believed it would open, since both had said it would only work as the last day of the year changed into the next. The shock and surprise on both of their faces might have been humorous to Connor in a former life, yet right now, no trace of amusement could be found.

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  Connor walked straight ahead of him, only pausing to ask when it would open again.

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  Chapter Forty Three

  "Father, I thought it wouldn't open til the beginning of the new year?"

  "I discovered long ago that we can open it at will."

  "Then why make the MacRae wait? It is obvious to any that he is in agony without the Stewart girl."

  "He needed to know how much she meant to him, and the only way was for him to be without her until it became too much. His love is stronger now, and he will do what he can to keep her. He needed to see what he was losing." His shrewd eyes met his son's as he confessed, "'Tis why I sent him the dream."

  "The dream?" Gregor answered vaguely. His father was really quite crafty, to orchestrate all of this.

  "Aye, I sent the MacRae a dream tonight showing him exactly what he was missing in his life, and what his life would become. He would become nothing, ghosting through centuries until he found her, but by then it would be too late."

  Gregor shook his head, but instead of interrogating his father further, he said, "You have planned this from the beginning, have you not?"

  Morvern's dark eyes twinkled, "Aye, my son, and now we shall wait. Come morning all will be as it should."

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  Chapter Forty Four

  Mackenzie woke up to the sound of pouring rain washing away yet another dream of him. Too bad it couldn't wash away the pain as well. Her time in Scotland was almost through. She and Jenna would leave the following afternoon, and probably never return. She was torn. Mackenzie desperately wanted to go home; to be among the familiar and comforting. But going back home meant leaving Connor. She didn't want to leave; she felt like the only connection she had to Connor was here, staying in his home. When she went home, to her life, it would make everything that she'd experienced that much more dreamlike, and that much less real. As it was, she already felt like the past month was nothing more than a product of her overactive imagination.

  Especially since she'd returned to her own time at the exact moment she'd met Morvern and Gregor, the two men who had changed her life so drastically. Only this time, when she had wandered back to the Gallery, she had been alone.

  Meeting up with Jenna and the rest of the tour group as they toured the castle had been unbearable. The pain she was suffering hadn't even been allowed a good cry in her room.

  Jenna kept glancing at Mackenzie with a worried glint in her eyes, but Mackenzie just kept her head averted and pretended to look around, as if she had not lived in the castle for the past month.

  Feigning excitement at every antique or painting was wearing her down. As the tour ended back in the lobby (to 410

  her it was still the glorious foyer of Connor's time), she couldn't force herself to laugh and flirt casually with Jenna and her new Italian boy toys. She not so politely excused herself, but if she thought Jenna would just let her go, she was mistaken.

  "Kenzie, what's wrong? I've never seen you like this."

  "It's nothing," she even dredged up a smile. "Really."

  "You're a crappy liar, Kenzie. What is going on?" The knowing look of her best friend who was like a sister to her was too much. She couldn't stay here.

  "Umm...I'm going to wander around a bit. You go have fun with those boys of yours." Her attempt at humor failed miserably.

  Jenna narrowed her unusually shrewd eyes on Mackenzie and stared at her, lips pursed, for a long, uncomfortable moment.

  "You're going to go ogle that painting again, aren't you?"

  Mackenzie's eyes widened and she nearly flinched. "No, I'm not in the mood for any ogling." Ever.

  "I'm surprised at you. There's always room for ogling."

  "I think I'm just going to go for a walk." She had already started to walk away from her best friend, so Jenna couldn't try to stop her again. She wanted to be alone. Maybe she could rent a horse for the day and ride.

  The idea of going for a ride was so appealing, that Mackenzie couldn't dislodge it from her brain. She ran to her room and changed into jeans and a button up shirt, throwing her jacket on as she hurried downstairs. Once at the concierge desk, she inquired about renting a horse and was 411

  delighted to discover that the stables were still behind the main keep, and that she could indeed rent a horse for the day. Her mood improved at the thought of riding a horse.

  Mackenzie had been riding all day. She'd gotten to know Connor's lands pretty well during the past month, and even though so much of the surrounding lands had changed in the past 200 years, it was still achingly familiar.

  She had ridden across the stone bridge to the town across the sea, and found several charming shops. One shop had a variety of local wares, one of which was a beautiful lavender wool shawl in the window. Mackenzie inquired about it, and once they settled on a reasonable price, she bought it. It reminded her of a gown she'd once worn. It ripped at her heart to think about it. Pushing the memory out of her head, she focused on paying for it and the loose weave poncho she picked out for Jenna.

  On her way out of the shop, the display in an antique store caught her eye. There was a brooch and plaid wrapped around a mannequin in the same tartan as the MacRae clan.

  It looked too new to have been Connor's, but she had to know.

  But as she walked in, something was glinting gold in the back of the shop. She ignored the shopkeeper's greeting and kept walking until she saw it was a locket. Opening the locket, she gasped, and it slipped from her suddenly numb fingers.

  "Is everything alright, dear?" The shopkeeper's gentle question jogged Mackenzie out of her stupor.

  "Oh, yes, thank you." She felt the heat creeping up her face.

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  "Ah, the laird's locket." The shopkeeper indicated the locket Mackenzie had picked back up.

  "The what?"

  "It is said that one of the lairds had that locket commissioned for his bride, but she went missing a few weeks after they were married. It was quite the scandal, for she was said to have helped to defeat his enemy before she disappeared. No one knows what happened to her, and the laird supposedly wasted away in despair, waiting for her to come back for him."

  "What a sad story. If this is part of such a tragic tale, why is it here, and not on display in the castle?"

  "Well, if you look inside, there is a photograph."

  "Yes." Mackenzie could see that; it was her!

  "Well, it can't be the laird's wife, because it would have been a miniature, rather than a modern photograph. So no one knows what to make of that, and the few times it has been sold, each patron has brought it back. They say it is cursed."

  "I'll take it."

  "I thought you might say that, dear. But don't you even want to know the price?"

  "It doesn't matter. If you take plastic, I'll take the locket."

  The shopkeeper smiled fondly and said, "I'm sorry my dear, but I don't accept credit cards."

  Mackenzie could feel her face fall.

  "However, I thin
k that this locket belongs to you." She tapped the picture inside the delicate gold oval. "She has the look of you." As Mackenzie's shocked gaze met hers, she 413

  smiled knowingly and said, "In fact, I think you'd be doing me a service, taking it off me hands."

  "What are you saying?" she gasped.

  "That when you meet that laird of yours, you promise me that you'll hold on tight and never let him go. D'ye ken? You love him well, and he'll love you in return. And that shall be a true happily ever after."

  Mackenzie could do nothing but stutter and gape like a fish. She pulled herself together enough to thank the kind woman, and when she left, she could have sworn she felt as if she were being watched.

  Arriving back at the castle well after dark, Mackenzie turned in her rented horse, and had to force herself not to run to her room. Once safely in her room, she finally dared to open the locket again. There it was! It was a picture of her.

  One that had been in her wallet as of yesterday. It had been a picture of her and Jenna from a trip to Cancun they once took. She'd folded it in half so it would fit in her small wallet.

  Mackenzie grabbed her purse and rifled through her wallet.

  It was nowhere to be found. The only logical explanation was that Connor had snagged it when she wasn't looking, and had kept it. But why? And when? Was this before or after he'd suspected her of betraying his clan? And what did this mean?

  How much truth was in the story about a laird pining away while waiting for the woman he loved to return to him? Her mind was all over the place, trying to make sense of this new discovery. She thought Jenna had mentioned that the castle was haunted by a man who'd died waiting for his lady love...that couldn't have been Connor? Right?

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  She jumped onto her laptop and searched for all of the history surrounding the castle of Eilean Donan. She found pages for the castle, about the clan MacRae, and plenty about the current owners, but nothing about Connor. She tried searching for him alone, but she only got the basics; name rank and serial number. She had his date of birth and (gulp) the date of his death. He hadn't lived much more than a few years past her departure. Oh, this was torture! How could she go on knowing how much he had loved her...and how she had left him! Mackenzie felt as if her heart had been ripped out of her chest and smashed with a sledgehammer. What had she done? She forced herself to continue reading. She needed to know everything about him, if he had, she choked on the thought, married again....