Loving the Highlander

by Janet Chapman

  Morgan grew impatient. “What are you thinking, old man?” he finally asked.

  “I’m thinking it might work, if your brother agrees.”

  Morgan was surprised. “What has Grey to do with this?”

  “He’s still your laird.”

  Morgan waved that away. “That means nothing today, especially in this country. It’s only a hollow title now.”

  It was Daar’s turn to be surprised. “My, my. How you do like to cling to the old ways, Morgan MacKeage, and embrace the new ones only when it’s convenient for you. You should not let your brother know your opinions if you value your skin. Grey is still determined to bring this clan back to the power it once was.”

  Morgan grinned. “With daughters?”

  Daar nodded. “Aye. But also with the sons you will give him, warrior.”

  “I’m not having children,” Morgan snapped.

  “Sometimes children appear without warning,” the old priest replied, a smirk lifting the edge of his mouth. “Sometimes they’re wanting to be born so badly they sneak in when you’re not looking. Or do you intend to live like a monk the rest of your life?”

  “Babies can be prevented.”

  “Aye,” Daar agreed. “And sometimes they can’t, no matter how careful you are. Mother Nature is a formidable force to go up against when she’s wanting something to happen.”

  Morgan stood up and got himself another beer. He wasn’t liking what the old drùidh was saying. He didn’t want children.

  Then again, he didn’t much care for the celibate life he was living now.

  A vision of a leggy, blue-eyed blonde suddenly rose unbidden in his mind. He’d gotten hard lying on top of her, knowing he just had to use his knees to spread her legs apart. Oh, yes, he wouldn’t mind feeling those long, lovely legs wrapped around his waist.

  Hell, he wanted the woman.

  Morgan turned to look out the window and adjusted the fit of his pants. Dammit, he wanted her gone from this valley.

  But he also wanted to see her again.

  “There’s something that doesn’t make sense in all this,” Daar said from the table.

  Morgan continued to look out the window, willing his male urges to go away. “What?” he asked harshly.

  “I’m wondering why they would start work on a park if they don’t even own the land yet.”

  That changed the direction of his thoughts. Morgan turned around. “I wondered the same thing,” he admitted, “when I discovered the valley was owned by several different people. Two paper mills own most of it, but five individuals own the rest.”

  Daar turned in his seat to face him. “Can your lawyer find out who is building this park? Is it the government or a group of people?”

  “I’ll have him look into it,” Morgan said, nodding. “Now, will you give me the name of that auction house?”

  “You can’t really mean to sell the dagger? It was a gift from your father.”

  “And the land I buy with it will become his legacy. It’s metal and stone, old man. Selling the dagger to gain property will not diminish my father’s gift. It will only strengthen my memory of him.”

  “Speaking of Duncan, have you seen Faol lately?” Daar asked.

  Morgan had to shift gears mentally. How had they gone from Duncan to the wolf?

  “Aye. The beast has been sneaking around here for the last seven weeks. Did you not notice the scratch marks on my door?” Morgan asked, irritation lacing his voice.

  That damn animal had nearly ruined his woodwork.

  Daar made no more mention of the wolf. He stood up and walked out onto the porch, his cane tapping the rhythm of his steps. “I’m wanting a ride home. And not on that damn rough-gaited beast ya call Pet,” he complained, though Morgan knew he shared his affection for the beast. “I want to go on the ATV.”

  Morgan followed him out. The old drùidh was fascinated with mechanical rides—trucks, snowcats, ATVs, even the chair lift that climbed TarStone Mountain. Daar insisted on riding the lift at least three times a week from May to October. But when the snows came, he stopped. He thought only idiots would ride in the winter, in the freezing weather, with sticks strapped to their feet.

  Morgan settled Daar on the back of the four-wheeler and climbed on in front of him. But before he could start the engine, the old man tapped him on the back with his cane.

  “You’ve done a fine job with the house,” Daar said, when Morgan looked back to see what he wanted. “Any woman would be proud to call it home.”

  Morgan swung back around and started the bike, the engine drowning out his muttered disagreement. Hell would freeze over before he ever brought a woman here.

  Chapter Four

  Both mentally and physically exhausted from her afternoon outrunning a gorgeous, nude maniac, Sadie spent a fitful night locked in her cabin. She tossed and turned as nightmares paraded through her mind. She was trapped inside a mountain of solid green that glowed with crushing malevolence. She was running without direction through a maelstrom of swirling black mist that sucked the very energy from her muscles. And she was trapped in a burning house, her only escape blocked by an apparition carrying a sword, mounted on horseback, laughing at her as she cowered in the corner of her smoke-filled bedroom.

  Sadie woke with a scream lodged in her throat. Thunder shook the cabin with resounding force just as lightning flashed through the cracks of the shutters, splintering the wood and shattering the glass in one of the windows on the opposite side of the room. Rain flooded into the cabin, immediately soaking everything it touched.

  Sadie struggled to free herself from the sheet twisted around her body. Ping shot from the foot of the bed, her snarl of displeasure lost in another crack of thunder and blinding white lightning. The cat disappeared under the table, and Sadie ran to the window to capture the banging shutter and lock it back into place.

  Her heart pounding louder than the rain on the roof, Sadie slowly backed up until her knees buckled against the seat of a chair. She sat down, flinching as another shaft of pure light brought another deafening boom of thunder. She rested her elbows on her knees and dropped her head, forcing herself to take deep, calming breaths. Still bent over, she placed a hand on her chest, willing her heart to slow down before it cracked one of her ribs.

  Holy hell, the storm was intense. The lightning seemed bright enough to penetrate the walls and continued to strike in rapid succession. Sadie could hear the sizzle of boiling sap when a nearby tree was hit. She sat in darkness broken only by intense flashes of light, hugging her soaked, shivering body as she waited for the storm to pass.

  It seemed forever before the rain slowed to a drizzle and the thunder faded. Ping brought Sadie out of her trance by jumping onto her lap, forcing Sadie to open her arms and catch her.

  “Ah, Ping Pong,” she whispered, scratching the cat behind her ears. “Did the thunder scare you?”

  Ping purred in answer, then moved from Sadie’s lap to the table. She sat down and promptly began cleaning herself. Sadie sighed. After the fire had burned down in the stove last night, she had simply crawled over to her bed, still fully dressed, wrapped herself in the sheets, and fallen into a fitful sleep—only to be awakened this morning by the storm.

  The intermittent rumble of the retreating storm had a surprisingly calming effect on Sadie. Her energies slowly rebalanced, and the events of yesterday were finally washed from her immediate conscience.

  She doubted she’d ever forget feeling that vulnerable, but this morning’s storm had served to remind Sadie that nothing in this world was without risk. Such as how a candle left burning unattended in the study could spark a deadly house fire or how trespassing on a stranger’s privacy could provoke him to violence.

  But the green-eyed man hadn’t turned violent, had he? He hadn’t actually hurt her. He had only accomplished his goal of scaring the holy hell out of her, smartly teaching her a lesson she wasn’t likely to forget.

  Yes, the stranger had never meant her physi
cal harm—she could see that now. Heck. What would she have done if she had discovered someone snapping pictures of her?

  She might not have been quite so gracious.

  Sadie started to stand up but winced at the pain in her feet. She immediately lifted one foot to her knee, saw the blood, and glanced at the shards of glass littering the floor in front of the broken window. She’d cut herself closing the shutter. She looked at her other foot.

  Well, damn. Both feet were bleeding.

  Sadie hobbled to the kitchen area, pulled down the first aid kit, then hobbled back to the table. She cleaned each small cut and examined her feet for any hidden shards of glass. Satisfied that there weren’t any and pleased that none of the cuts was deep enough to need stitches, she bandaged both feet and covered the bandages with heavy wool socks.

  She stood up and tested her work.

  The salve helped, as did the cushion of the bandages and socks. And once she put on her hiking boots for support, the small wounds wouldn’t even slow her down.

  Sadie walked to the bathroom at the back of the cabin, stripping off her clothes and throwing them on the disheveled bed as she passed by. She checked the level of water in the overhead tank and decided there was just enough left for a lukewarm sponge bath.

  Sadie turned to find a towel and caught sight of herself in the mirror. She almost screamed at the woman looking back at her. Her hair was a tangle of knots and actually had twigs and pine needles sticking out of it. There was dirt on her forehead and dried blood smeared on her cheek, and one of her little gold stud earrings was missing.

  And then there were the scars. Always the scars, peeking over the top of her right shoulder, continuing down her back, and wrapping around the left side of her waist in a crazy quilt of raised patchwork.

  Sadie lifted her right hand and turned it over to look at the ugly scars on her palm. The burning beam had nearly crushed her, and she had pushed at it frantically with her right hand, trying to free herself.

  Frank Quill had died three years ago with both of his hands scarred—a testament to his strength and determination to leave the burning house with at least one of his daughters.

  Sadie dropped her hand and turned away from the image that had been so much a part of her life for the last eight years.

  She’d gone to bed that night eight years ago and left the lilac-scented candle burning in the study; her only thoughts had been of a long-dead trapper named Jedediah Plum, a camp cook named Jean Lavoie, and the obsessive dream of helping her father find Plum’s gold.

  Sadie soaked her washcloth in the basin of tepid water and scrubbed at her face, forcefully washing back her threatening tears. Eight years, and still the memories rose unbidden. Beautiful Caroline, teasing Sadie for locking herself in their dad’s study instead of going out on dates. Frank Quill, focused on the new piece of evidence that reinforced his belief that Plum’s gold really did exist. And Sadie herself, home for the summer between her second and third years of college, equally enthralled by the hunt for treasure.

  Scrubbing would never wash the memories away. Regret would not bring her sister and her father back. And no amount of guilt would ever grant Sadie’s wish that Caroline Quill had been the daughter her father had reached first.

  Sadie fought daily to keep the demons firmly tamped down in the back recesses of her mind. And now she put her energies instead into building a park in Frank and Caroline’s memory. A small measure, certainly, compared with the days, months, and years of missing half her family. But she hoped that establishing the park would bring her some semblance of peace.

  Sadie quickly washed up and dried off, then walked back into the main room of the cabin and rummaged around in the bureau. She put on a pair of well-worn jeans, slipped a finely woven silk camisole over her head, and tucked it into her pants. She smoothed the wrinkles from the soft body sock until it fit like a second skin to protect her scars, before she put her bra on over it, fastening the clasp between her breasts. Over the bra she put on a simple, long-sleeved, and colorful cotton T-shirt.

  She picked out a supple leather glove for her right hand from the pile she’d amassed over the years. She had another pile just like it packed in a box in the attic at home, but all of those gloves were left-handed. Sadie intended to donate the pile of unused left-handed gloves to a charity for people who also had scars they wanted to hide from the world.

  Sadie walked back to the bathroom and took a brush to her hair. She worked out the twigs and pine needles and finished the job with a baseball cap, pulling her ponytail through the opening at the back.

  She inspected her work in the mirror.

  Not bad for having ten years scared off her life yesterday—a bit of distress showing under plain blue eyes that were too big for her face, a small scratch on her chin, probably from the tussle, and a golden tan that had grown darker over the summer. Sadie lifted her bare left hand and wiped at her face, as if she could rub away the crinkle lines at the corners of her eyes.

  She needed to pluck her eyebrows.

  And she also needed a haircut.

  She’d neglected these rituals while living like a nun in the woods. Why bother? Ping didn’t seem to mind that her roommate was beginning to look like a bag lady.

  She’d get her hair trimmed when she went to visit her mom, and she’d have her eyebrows waxed while she was at it. Sadie sighed at her reflection. Heck, she’d even buy some makeup at the drugstore.

  Sadie knew her mother would be telling her about the blind date she had already arranged the moment she stepped into the house.

  Charlotte Quill did that a lot. Sadie visited her every week, and nearly every week there was another new man just dying to meet her. Sadie wondered where her mom kept finding them. Pine Creek had a population of sixteen hundred and twelve. Had Charlotte been placing ads in the county paper or something?

  Upon returning to Pine Creek this spring, Sadie had resigned herself to humoring Charlotte’s motherly need to see her daughter happily married. So she went on the blind dates without complaint. Sometimes they bombed, and sometimes they turned out rather nicely—until it came time to dance.

  Five dates in nine weeks, and Sadie had danced a grand total of once. And then it had been a fast dance, not a waltz, and she really hated those. She had always imagined she looked like a cow moose on roller skates, all legs and arms and not a clue what to do with any of them.

  Not one of the guys had called her again, even though she had given several of them her cell phone number.

  Sadie wasn’t surprised. She was taller than four of them, and the fifth guy, though taller than she was by a good inch, had been so shy it had been all he could do to shake her hand when he had left her at her front door.

  Maybe this week would be different. Maybe when she went into town in two days, her mom would tell her that they’d spend a quiet evening at home instead. Just the two of them. She was even willing to spend the evening scrapbooking, if that’s what her mom wanted to do.

  Charlotte Quill was a scrapbook junkie. Every picture ever taken of her family, every fingerpainting or tattered ribbon won, every newspaper list of honor-roll students that had Sadie’s or Caroline’s name on it, every birth certificate, death certificate, marriage license, and fishing license was forever immortalized in one of Charlotte’s scrapbooks.

  Sadie turned when Ping gave a loud meow from the door. The cat was standing in the open doorway, her mouth full of feathers, grinning like a Cheshire.

  “No,” Sadie said, rushing over and picking her up. “You let that bird go. Give it to me,” she insisted, using her fingers to pry open Ping’s mouth. She squeezed the cat’s ribs. “Spit it out.”

  With a low growl in her throat, Ping dropped the small bird into Sadie’s hand. Sadie set the cat on the floor and carried the bird outside, rubbing its unmoving body. She set it up high on the old bird feeder and quietly stepped away to watch it. After a few minutes the tiny bird stirred, awkwardly sat up, and looked around in a daze. Ping
rubbed against Sadie’s legs. She picked up the cat and carried her back to the cabin.

  “Here. You eat the food in your dish,” she told Ping, setting her down on the porch. “I have to go for a little walk, but I’ll be back by lunchtime. I’ll give you some canned food then, if you promise me no more hunting today.”

  Ping blinked up at her, then lifted one of her paws and began cleaning herself. Sadie turned and faced the forest.

  She had to go back in there this morning. Her father’s camera was still in those woods, now soaking wet from the morning’s storm, and nothing, not even yesterday’s fright, would stop her from getting it back.

  Chapter Five

  For the entire three-mile walk to where her pack and camera were—which took longer than normal because of her tender feet—Sadie knew she was being followed. And now, as she stood and scanned the empty ground where her pack and camera should be, she still felt silent eyes watching her from the dense undergrowth.

  She wasn’t afraid. She knew it wasn’t the stranger from yesterday, not unless the man had crawled on his hands and knees for the last three miles.

  No. The presence out there just beyond her sight was four-legged, probably a bobcat or a fox, a black bear, or even a coyote. Although bears and coyotes usually shied away from humans, young ones were directed more often by curiosity than by their own good sense.

  While growing up, Sadie and her dad had been followed like this on several occasions. Sometimes they caught a glimpse of their stalker but usually not. The animals hadn’t been looking for a meal, they’d just wanted to see what was intruding on their turf.

  Which was why Sadie ignored the eyes watching her now. She was too busy trying to decide what had happened to her stuff.

  She couldn’t find any signs anywhere—no pack, no GPS, no cell phone, no camera. Nothing. Not even the duct tape that had bound her hands and legs.

  Sadie wanted to weep. She’d lost her father’s camera, the one she had carried since his death three years ago. How could she have been so careless as to walk away from it yesterday?