Highlander of Mine

by Red L. Jameson

  Clio scoffed. “What about you? Your doughboy’s been in Rome for years.”

  Oden shrugged. “He asked for it.”

  “Because you got him drunk, and he didn’t know what he was asking for,” Coyote added.

  “Like you haven’t done that before.” Oden glared.

  Coyote smiled. “I’m not judging, brother. I’m just telling the girls how it is.”

  “Shut up!”

  Duncan stared down at his wee Fleur, so proud of her for saying something. He would have, if he weren't afraid Thor would appear next and strike him down with a lightning bolt.

  “Shut up already!” Fleur huffed. “I have had almost a month in the Highlands where I’ve fallen madly in love. As well as gotten kidnapped and almost killed a couple times. Now, if you don’t mind, I want to go, wherever Duncan wants to go, and make love for a few hours, get drunk, and try very hard to pretend you all don’t exist.”

  “But my brothers . . .” Duncan reminded her.

  She looked up and nodded, then regarded the muses and gods again. “Yes. Okay, we would love to help you crazy jerks with Duncan’s brothers’ glimpses.”

  “There’s my girl,” Coyote said with a smile.

  Duncan leaned closer to Fleur. “Should I punch that man, er, god, for saying as much?”

  Fleur shook her head and looked up with a wide smile. “No, he’s more like my grandfather than anything else.”

  Oden laughed hard at that, but Clio and Erato stepped closer to Duncan and Fleur.

  “I’m so happy you found each other, you found love,” Erato said with tears filling her eyes again.

  “So what’s it going to be?” Clio asked.

  Duncan looked down at Fleur. “My future is with her, my heart, hopefully my bride soon. I belong to her time now.”

  He saw from his periphery that both Clio and Erato lifted their hands, then they snapped. And the world went very dark.

  Chapter 36

  Soft, soft cotton sheets surrounded Fleur. Not the prickly woolen plaids she had gotten used to. She almost sobbed when she realized as much. But the comprehension of where she’d woken, what time, crashed through her reflections, and the single most important thought she had was about Duncan. Where was he?

  Opening her eyes, she was back in the little bed and breakfast Rachel had checked her into at Tongue. Bright pink and blues stung her eyes as the late morning sun drizzled into the open windows. But Duncan! She needed to find Duncan.

  Suddenly engulfed by two giant arms, she sighed a breath of relief. She hugged his massive muscles for a long moment, tears surfacing, then turned into his embrace, her breasts meeting his wall for a chest. She softly giggled.

  “You’re here. You’re really here.”

  “I wouldn’t be anywhere without ye.”

  They held each other for what might have been hours.

  “I was so worried that Coyote might have tricked us and separated us.”

  He whispered into the top of her head. “I think the guy has gotten a bad rap.”

  “Bad rap?” She looked up, amazed at his jargon.

  He smiled. “I learned a lot about speaking modern English somewhere between then and now. I thought ‘twas just a dream, being taught ‘bout current events, but there I was: in a classroom with a chalkboard; me, wedged in a too small desk with Erato and another sister of hers, Urania, both of them wearing glasses, though I doubt they needed ‘em. They showed me book after book of current events, teaching me ‘bout computers and the like, and how to sound, well, normal. And gave me enough time to heal my face a wee bit.”

  Fleur moaned as she glided her fingers over his red whiskered cheeks. “You do look good.”

  “So do ye.” He feathered his fingertips along her jaw. Somehow she no longer felt the sting of her bruise. It must have healed too.

  She stretched her smile wider. “And I’ll have to thank Erato for leaving your accent alone.”

  “Should I work on that? Do I sound odd?”

  “If you do anything to your brogue, I really am going to kill you. That’s one of my favorite parts about you.”

  He slowly smiled and ground his hips against hers, where his erection pushed against her thigh. “Any other favorite parts?”

  “Oh, yes.” Chuckling, she pushed him over onto his back and sat astride him, his length pressed right where it ought to be. She shuddered and almost gave in to her body’s demand, sliding him inside. But she held back for a moment to tease him. “So many favorite parts.”

  “Show me,” he said as he cupped her breasts, making concentrating very difficult.

  Frisson, light and happy, stuttered her body, and she couldn’t help but sway against him, feel his hardness against the so-very-aware apex of her legs. Tilting her head back, she rocked against him again, but then opened her eyes to look down at him.

  “I love your eyes. When we make love, you look into my eyes—”

  “Because I love yer eyes too.”

  She smiled. “I love it when you look at me like that when we’re making love. It’s as if we become the only two people in the world.”

  “For me,” his smile widened, “in that moment, we are the only people in the world.”

  Her heart fluttered at the words, at the sentiment. “I love so many of your parts.”

  He kept his smile, but Fleur could feel tension building throughout his body. The muscles under her contracted, showing off each of the thick bands of his stomach. God, that was beautiful.

  “But I love this most of all.” She placed a hand over his thundering heart.

  “Ah, my Fleur, my lass, my heart.”

  Reaching down, she was about to kiss him when the door suddenly banged open.

  “Wake up, Fleur! There’s something terrible like blood pudding for breakfast, and—” Rachel’s eyes and mouth grew wide, taking in Fleur and Duncan.

  “Ma?” Duncan tried to sit up.

  “Oh my God!” Rachel screamed and covered her eyes while turning her back. “Oh my God! Fleur! Oh my God!”

  “Rachel.” Fleur grabbed the pink comforter and scrambled off Duncan, who was staring dumbfounded at Rachel. She winced. “I forgot to tell you that my friend looks like Helen.”

  “Ma,” he whispered, his eyes reddening.

  Finally fashioning the bulky comforter around her, Fleur flew to her friend, needing a hug, of all the damned times. In the B&B’s hallway she grabbed Rachel from the back and embraced her. “I missed you so much.”

  Rachel quietly chuckled. “Yeah, one night without me was rough, huh? Real rough, since you took a partner to bed.” Rachel turned in Fleur’s embrace, her laugh a little louder. “Oh my God, I love Scotland now. You’re so different here, taking a man to your bed.”

  A door down the hall opened loudly and out came Ian in a “Paper, Rock, Scissor, Lizard, Spock” t-shirt and blue pajama pants. “What the hell is my wife screaming about?”

  “Fleur’s got a man in her bed. It’s fantastic.” Rachel giggled.

  Ian glanced down the hallway, and Fleur followed his gaze. There stood Duncan, luckily with a sheet wrapped around his waist, staring at Rachel. He wore a pink sheet, looking completely at odds with the huge man of her heart. He was muscle and scars and imposing height, clad in a pink, frilly thing, making him adorable.

  “Hi,” Rachel said and tried to remove herself from Fleur’s hold, but Fleur wouldn’t let go, so Rachel shook Duncan’s hand around her. “I’m Rachel, Fleur’s friend. And that handsome devil gawking at you is my husband, Ian. Want some breakfast soon? Maybe after you and Fleur are done with your...not that I saw anything...Jeez,” she looked at Fleur, her eyes widening. “You’re a naughty girl here, huh? Not that I’m judging. I’m loving it actually.”

  She glanced at Duncan and wagged her dark brows a few times at Fleur, giggling yet again.

  “Ah, hi,” Ian said gruffly, extending his hand out to Duncan, who absentmindedly shook it, almost the whole time never taking his eyes off Rachel. Ian
leaned toward Rachel and Fleur, whispering, “Why is he staring at my wife?”

  Fleur loved the edge of possessiveness in Ian’s voice, having never heard it before. Something about it made her all the more happy. “You look a lot like his mom,” she said to Rachel.

  “Oh,” she smiled and nodded at Duncan, then glowered at her husband. “How old am I getting now?”

  “You’re not old, honey.” Ian reassured her.

  “Nay,” Duncan finally said. “Ye remind me of when she was very young, when I was a bairn.” His eyes glistened.

  “Oh my God, I love his accent.” Rachel turned to Fleur then immediately back to Duncan. “I love your accent.”

  “Thank ye.” He smiled. “Yers is nice too.”

  Rachel chuckled and Ian quietly grumbled something about damned, handsome Scots.

  “Okay, well, alrighty then,” Rachel continued to laugh. “So let’s have breakfast, and Fleur can catch me up on how you two met and other details.” She again widened her eyes. “Not all of them, of course.”

  Fleur giggled and held her friend even closer.

  Rachel reciprocated the hug and tried once more to remove herself, but Fleur held on.

  “Sweetie, I love this new affectionate side of you,” Rachel said, “but you need to let me go. Just for a bit. We’ll talk at breakfast.”

  Slowly Fleur released her, feeling her heart tug at her ribs as she did so.

  “Oh!” Rachel turned back to Fleur. “Ian and I met the coolest couple last night when you went to bed early, so you could run your little marathon to Durness.” She leaned close to Fleur, whispering in her ear. “The Highlander is much better exercise than an all day run, in my humble opinion.” Then she straightened and said louder, “Anyway, so she’s American and an historian from Harvard and he’s British and a psychiatrist.”

  “And a neurologist,” Ian added. “I think they might have more degrees than us.”

  Rachel shook her head. “That can’t be. We’re much more pretentious than they are.”

  Ian chuckled appreciatively for his wife.

  Then Rachel turned back to Fleur. “They’re honeymooning. Got rather drunk last night and said something about deranged Greek muses playing matchmakers for them. But no matter how weird they are, Ian and I just loved them, and I kept thinking how you’d like them too, especially Erva, the bride.”

  Fleur nodded, her heart skittering at the reference of muses. But she tried to act nonchalant. “I’m sure I’ll love them.”

  Rachel and Ian walked back to their room, just down the hall. “Come and get us when you’re ready to eat.” Rachel looked over Fleur to Duncan. “It’s really nice to meet you.”

  “’Tis an honor to meet ye.”

  Rachel then mouthed to Fleur, “He’s wonderful.”

  Fleur nodded with a wide smile.

  Rachel then glanced at Duncan again. “I hope to get to know you better.”

  “Oh, you will.” Fleur said. “He’s here to stay.”

  Rachel glanced at Fleur then Duncan, her face growing more serious, but her eyes still smiled. “Good.” She took a deep breath. “You have to get dressed and tell me everything.”

  That’s when Fleur realized she stood in the middle of the yellow hallway in nothing but a comforter. “Right,” she giggled and ran into Duncan, who instantly scooped her into his arms, and pulled her back into the room, shutting the door behind.

  “She looks exactly like Ma.”

  Fleur nodded, wrapping her arms around his neck, forgetting to hold onto the comforter. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you.”

  “I’m not sure if even a good warning could have prepared me.” He set her carefully on the bed, the comforter adrift on the floor. “Remind me from time to time not to stare at her. I was makin’ her husband angry.”

  She couldn’t focus on what he said after that. His grip loosened on the pink sheet he’d fashioned into a kilt—maybe even with a few pleats in the back, an amazing habit she never wanted him to forget. However, the pink kilt lowered, revealing a small swath of red-brown hair at the base of his stomach. She giggled.

  “What?”

  She couldn’t help but blush as she said, “The carpet does match the drapes.” Her fingertips brushed the hair under his bellybutton.

  He hissed in a breath. “Lord, if that means what I think it does, then ye’re a saucy wee thing, eh?”

  She chuckled. “I think I am.” Her heart felt larger and warmer than ever before. “I love you, Duncan.”

  In one move, he grabbed her waist, lifted her as he plummeted on the bed, adjusting her to sit on him once more. “I love ye. I ken, er, know I’ll be very happy here. With ye.”

  He’d said very as he always did, verrrah, rolling his “r.” It thrilled something in Fleur’s stomach.

  His smile beamed. “Now, where were we?”

  “Did you lock the door?”

  “Aye. This time I’d rather not get interrupted, even by yer Rachel whom I like very much.”

  “I’m so glad you do.”

  He nodded. “As I was sayin’, where were we?”

  She sat up a little, then began to scoot down his body. “I was about to fulfill a fantasy of mine.”

  He made room for her between his legs as she wiggled down to his matching carpet, taking his cock in her hand, her mouth close by.

  “This is a fantasy of yers? Or mine?” His breath came in gulps as she touched him.

  “Mine.”

  “Lord, I love ye.”

  She giggled. “I love you too, you big Highlander.”

  THE END

  Catch the latest from the Glimpse Time-Travel Series, Cowboy of Mine, coming in the winter of 2014!!!

  A note about Highlander of Mine

  I abided by a promise to a Scottish friend of mine and did not write one contraction as “donna, couldna,” etc. I dinna do it!

  My love of Highlanders came long before I researched for this book. There are so many Highlander novels I’ve come to love through the years, but when I finally decided to write my own, I turned to my training and found Dr. Colin Calloway whose research of early America, Native Americans, and Highlanders is unprecedented. It was thanks to his research, I wrote this book as well as several of my more academic papers. My hope is several more historians will follow his steps in this oft-neglected field of research.

  This book was quite possibly the toughest manuscript to finish for me but so rewarding. Researching early America, the Highlands, and Cromwell’s reign amazed me. Of course, I loved the history, but some aspects of this story broke my heart.

  Please give generously to the American Breast Cancer Society, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, or your favorite breast cancer research organization. Breast cancer has been present since Greek physicians have been writing prescriptions. For thousands of years, women and men have fought for a cure. I pray we find it. Soon.

  I love writing about men, exploring their masculinity and humanity. But one of the best stories about men is from author and inspirational speaker Brene Brown. At a book signing, a man asked her why she didn’t write more extensively about males, since she’s widely known for her research regarding women and shame and vulnerability. As a woman, she commented that she didn’t study men. The guy said, “Well, that’s convenient. We [men] have shame, we have deep shame, but when we reach out and tell our stories, we get the emotional [bleep] beat out of us...my wife and three daughters, the ones who you just signed the books for, they had rather see me die on top of my white horse than have to watch me fall off." — http://www.onbeing.org/program/transcript/4932

  With this in mind, all of my heroes find heroines who are strong enough to handle when they climb off their white horses and live an authentic life. After all, we are just humans being human.

  Lastly, I’d like to acknowledge . . .

  All Apple® products, especially the iPod® and iPhone®

  Adidas®

  CamelBak®

  All Back to
the Future movies

  Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

  All Disney animates movies

  Brene Brown

  Gary B. Nash

  Colin Calloway

  Lana Williams

  Nhys Glover

  And so many more people! Thank you!

  A Note about the Glimpse Time-Travel Series

  Often, history is taught with a clear beginning and end. In a class titled, The History of Western Civilization, it would usually begin with Homer and might have an ending around the Industrial Revolution. It is almost always taught with linear projections—you learn about events in a certain year, work your way forward, then end so many years in the future.

  It wasn’t until I was in graduate school that I began to learn history by skipping around, much like a time-traveler would. In order to understand why the Highland Guard in South Carolina fought so urgently for their British monarch in 1776, one needed to understand why they fought so bravely against that similar monarchy in the Battle of Culloden just thirty years before. I’d never had more fun than when I bounced through time, absorbing an event in a particular era to see it shine through a hundred years later, or understanding one happening, only to reexamine it through another aspect of time.

  When we are taught history with a linear projection, we see it through the lens of the latter era. I know I did. I often saw the Enlightenment period through the optics of the Victorian. But they were vastly different phases of time, often having varying roles for women, men, and children as well as diverse social mores. It is when we prance about in time, I believe, that we can see history more clearly for what it is.

  The Glimpse Time-Travel series will jump, dance, and sprint through different eras of time. My greatest desire is to entertain you, so you feel a resonating similarity with my characters, and in the end maybe come away from the experience thinking no matter what the time, no matter the individuals involved, people have more similarities than differences, more hope than despair, and more love than hate.