The Legend Mackinnon

by Donna Kauffman

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Claren. He stashed his car halfway down the mountain on an unused service road and hiked in. We didn’t know he was up here until your cousin told us.”

  “Cailean? Is she okay?” She struggled again to sit up, but stopped short of standing when Branson put his hand on her shoulder.

  “She’s fine. She’ll be up here in a few minutes. I almost had to hog-tie her to stay in town.

  “Your cousin was in the middle of checking out and she got all funny, sort of spacey. My sister was worried and called me over. She was okay when I got there, but she was adamant that you were in danger. She told us about your former fiancé and we decided to follow up. We found the rental car with his name on the papers.” He touched her arm anxiously when Maggie laid back down. “Everything is okay now, Ms. Claren, he can’t hurt you again.”

  “Who …?” She closed her eyes.

  “I did. It’s okay. There’s no question of responsibility. You’re in the clear. It’s all over.”

  Maggie saw Deputy Branson through completely different eyes. He looked and sounded amazingly competent for a good ol’ boy cop. Apparently she’d misjudged him as well. Boy, she was on a roll. “Are you okay? I’m sorry you had to … what I mean is … thank you, you saved my life.”

  “It’s my job.” His eyes were steady on hers. “Thank your cousin. You know, I’ve got an aunt who knows things like that. Mighty handy to have around at times.” He grinned. “A dang nuisance otherwise.”

  Maggie managed to smile. “Yeah,” she said weakly.

  The ERT truck rolled in just then, along with two other cars. Branson’s partner called to him. “Will you be all right?” the deputy asked her. “Just lie still until the medic gets over here.” She nodded easily, but he grinned and dipped his chin. “Promise?”

  Maggie’s smile was easier this time. “Promise. Thank you again, Deputy Branson.”

  Maggie was reassuring the medic she was fine and submitting to some tests while she held an ice pack to her forehead when Cailean rushed over.

  “My god! Are you okay?” She knelt in front of Maggie. “I didn’t know until it was almost too late. I swear. I’m so sorry. Oh Maggie, I—”

  Maggie looked to the medic who was taking the blood pressure cuff off her arm. “Can I have a few minutes here?” The young woman nodded and moved to the front of the truck. Maggie turned to Cailean. “It’s okay. I’m okay. You saved my life, Cailean. Maybe it’s not such a curse after all.” She tried to smile.

  Cailean looked around and whispered, “Where’s Duncan?”

  Maggie hadn’t been able to think straight for two seconds’ since he’d blinked out, but she felt like something was wrong. Very wrong. “I don’t know.”

  “You mean he wasn’t here for you? I can’t believe—”

  “He was here.” She held Cailean’s hand. “He saved my life, too.”

  “I thought Branson shot Judd?”

  “He did. But Judd fired at me first. Duncan tackled me and—” She gasped. “Oh God.” The sequence of events flashed back through her mind in crystal clarity. He’d been shot! She’d seen the blood on his sleeve from the first time he’d been grazed, shoving her to safety. She tightened her grip. “I have to find him. I think he took a bullet meant for me. Twice. Oh God, I have—”

  She started to get up, but Cailean stopped her. “Maggie, calm down. You’re not making any sense. He’s a ghost, he can’t die.”

  “I’m making perfect sense. He can bleed, Cailean. If he can bleed, can’t he die again? I can’t just let him go like that. His time might already be up and then we’ll never, I’ll never …” Her breath hitched and she swallowed hard. “I have to find him. And I can’t with all these people around.” She looked to Cailean imploringly. “Please, help me get rid of everyone. He won’t pop back in until they all leave.” At least she prayed he would.

  “But you have to be checked out—”

  “I’m fine! Why won’t anyone believe that?”

  Just at that moment, Branson stepped around the back of the truck. “I hate to do this, but we need to ask you some questions. You too, Ms. Claren,” he said to Cailean.

  Maggie forced a smile on her face and tried to look more relaxed. Gauging from Cailean’s expression, she wasn’t fooling anyone, but she had to try. “I understand. But is there any way I can come down tomorrow? I have this bump on my head and I’d really like to just lie down for a while.”

  Branson’s face creased with renewed worry. She cut him off before he could speak. “It’s nothing. The medic already checked me out, not even a mild concussion. It’s just been a lot to deal with.”

  Branson smiled reassuringly. “We’ll have plenty to keep us busy today. Why don’t you two come down as soon as you’re able in the morning.”

  “Thank you.” She hoped she didn’t look overly relieved.

  It took another fifteen minutes, but with her cousin’s help, she was able to assure everyone she’d be fine, then she and Cailean retreated into the cabin while the various personnel dealt with everything else. She tried to shut that out. As soon as the door was closed, she turned to Cailean. “Thank you for helping me out there.”

  “Of course.” She frowned, worried. “But you really should rest. Duncan will be back when he’s ready.”

  “You don’t understand, Cailean.”

  “I know he was hurt, but, really, I’m sure he has ways of dealing with that, wouldn’t you think?”

  Maggie dipped her chin. “I don’t know what to think. I’m worried.” She looked to Cailean. “What if he doesn’t come back?”

  She hadn’t wanted to voice her deepest fear, especially to Cailean, given how she felt about Duncan in the first place, but her cousin surprised her by pulling her into a hug. “I’m sorry, Maggie. Truly sorry. But maybe it’s better this way. You’re done here. You can come to Scotland with me. Or go back to New York. Whatever. Maybe it’s best to put all this behind you.”

  Maggie was already shaking her head. “I can’t. I know you don’t approve, but I’m not going anywhere.” She moved over to the sink and pumped out some water. “I know you have to do what you have to do.” She raised her hand to stall Cailean’s response. “I won’t have you stay here because you’re worried about me. Nothing has changed except now you don’t have to worry about Judd. And now you know you don’t have to worry about Duncan either.”

  Cailean nodded reluctantly. “Would you like me to stay until morning?”

  Maggie shook her head. “Not because I don’t want you here or appreciate what you’ve done. Cailean, I can’t tell you—”

  “Don’t. I’m just glad that for once it worked out right. But I can’t just leave you here.”

  Maggie saw the fatigue and strain around her cousin’s eyes. “I can’t imagine how hard this is on you. You need to go to Scotland and find out what is behind all this. I need to stay here. At least for a while.”

  Cailean sighed in defeat. “Okay, okay, I’ll go. I know Duncan will be more likely to pop back in if I’m gone. But you have to promise to speak to Branson in the morning. I’ll go down and talk to him before I leave.” Maggie nodded. “Is there anything else I can do for you before I go?”

  Maggie smiled. “I really need to get out of here and look for Duncan. Create a diversion and cover for me until everyone is gone?”

  Cailean rolled her eyes and sighed. “You’re incorrigible.”

  Maggie winked. “It runs in the family.”

  FOURTEEN

  It was dusk by the time Maggie gave up and returned to the cabin. She kept her eyes averted from the spot where Judd had died. She’d had plenty of time to think about what happened while she’d searched the wooded trails for Duncan. It was horrific how things had ended and she could honestly say she hadn’t wished Judd dead. She’d just wanted him to leave her alone. But he’d chosen otherwise and she refused to feel guilty for the relief that she felt now that it was over.

  She sat down on the middle porch step, a
llowing the doubt and fear to creep past the relief for the first time since she’d begun her hunt. The cabin was dark. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been counting on finding smoke curling from the chimney. After everything else, this was simply too much. If she’d had the energy, she’d have yelled and screamed at the sky, threatening anything, promising everything if They’d just send him back for one more minute.

  What came out instead was a soft, tear-clogged whisper. “You can’t leave me like this, Duncan MacKinnon.”

  In the next instant he materialized in front of her, and she found herself swooped up in his arms. He was bare-chested, his hair a wild mane, all loose and tangled.

  “Duncan, what—? Where—?” All the emotions that had roiled inside her churned past the wall she’d forced them behind. “I’ve spent hours looking for you.” The pain and fear were all there in her voice, her eyes burned with the release of it all. “I thought you weren’t coming back,” she choked out.

  “Och, Maggie mine, it wasna my choice to leave ye as I did. I’ll explain, but there is somethin’ I must do first.” He bent his head to hers.

  All her anger and fear vanished at the emotions she saw mirrored in his eyes. He’d been afraid for her, too. She pulled his head to hers and met his lips eagerly.

  He didn’t stop at one kiss. Once his mouth was on hers it was as if he would never be satiated. She knew the feeling. When he finally released her, she was holding onto him as much from need as to keep from melting through his arms to the ground. “Wow,” was all she managed.

  His grin was a bit wild and a lot cocky. “Aye. Wow.”

  She smoothed a hand over his face and his grin turned to a tender smile that softened her heart and tugged at her soul. “Are you okay?” She remembered the blood on his sleeve. “You saved my life, Duncan. Twice you put yourself in front of a bullet for me.”

  “I canno’ be hurt, Maggie. And even if I could, I couldna let anyone harm ye.”

  “But the blood, I saw—”

  He pressed a finger to her lips. “Aye, I bleed, and I feel pain, but I’m no’ a mortal, real and true, Maggie. I canno’ die.” His smile faded completely. “For you can only do that once.”

  She craned her neck and ran her hand along his arm. “You’re healed? But how? Is that where you’ve been? In some sort of purgatory health clinic?”

  Duncan laughed. “Ye are quite a woman, Maggie mine, and I love the sharp side of yer wit. I was with Them. The wounds I sustained no longer plague me.”

  There was something more, something he wasn’t telling her, something she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. But there would be no secrets between them. Not now.

  “What did They want with you? I thought you couldn’t return to purgatory until your month was up?”

  “I willna lie to ye, Maggie. My time here is done, my lesson, for this visit perhaps, has been learned.”

  Her heart felt like someone had snatched it into a fist. “Because you saved my life?”

  He nodded.

  “Then it’s not true,” she said quietly, her heart breaking. “You can die twice.”

  “Ah, Maggie, please dinna cry.”

  Cry? She realized then that tears were coursing down her cheeks.

  “I never want to hurt you, lass. I never meant—”

  She silenced him with a finger pressed against his lips. Lips she’d never taste again. God, could one person really bear so much in one day? “No, don’t apologize,” she managed. “You saved my life, Duncan.” Her voice caught, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not stem the tide of tears. “I’m sorry I’m crying, it’s just …” She buried her head against his shoulder and held on tight. “I’ll miss you.”

  She felt his finger beneath her chin but did not want to look into those eyes again. Fierce gray eyes that were capable of saying so much. But he persisted and she reluctantly lifted her head.

  “Ye have a choice to make, Maggie. I’ll no’ bring ye more pain then ye can bear, but if ye’ll have me, I’ve asked to complete the remainder of my time on earth. With you.”

  “Don’t tease me,” she warned.

  “Never.”

  “Really?” Hope blossomed inside her.

  “Aye. We have twenty-one days.”

  Maggie refused to let her mind progress beyond that deadline. If it hurt this much to think about losing him now, in three weeks it would kill her. But could she really let him go right now?

  “I want them all,” she said, knowing there had never been any other choice. “This thing with Judd and now with the journals and Cailean coming into my life … I have a lot to think about. I don’t know what the future holds for me. But for the next three weeks, I want you. Will you have me, Duncan? This Claren woman?”

  He grinned. “Aye, that I will. And often if ye’ll allow it.”

  Maggie laughed, suddenly delighted and overwhelmed with this latest twist of fate. “Well, I believe, before we were so rudely interrupted earlier, you were about to ravish me.”

  “Was I?” He leaned down and planted a searing kiss on her lips that left her breathless. “I seem tae recall it as bein’ the other way around.”

  “I can think of a really great place to settle this argument.”

  Duncan didn’t need a map. She liked that in a man.

  The feather bed seemed to absorb their bodies like a cloud, just as her clothes somehow disappeared.

  “Ye were wrong, Maggie,” he said hoarsely.

  “About?”

  “Ye said yer body was excruciatingly average. And here I find you are perfection.”

  “If I recall, you were the one who said I had nothing you hadn’t seen before.” She arched a playful brow.

  “I was a cad, Maggie. And a bastard fer certain. You are an exquisite creation of God’s own hand and it is blessed I am to have the honor of touching you.”

  Spoken so sincerely; his words stunned her. He reached for the sash that surrounded his waist, but she put her hand on his, stopping him. “If you don’t mind. I’d rather do this part the old-fashioned way.”

  Duncan’s wicked grin surfaced. “Yer just wantin’ to see wha I wear beneath me kilt.”

  She laughed. “I’ll finally discover what women have been wondering about for ages.” She slid her hands up his hard thighs.

  Duncan leaned back and crossed his arms behind his head. “I’m yours to explore.” He winked at her. “Go gentle with me, Maggie. It’s been a long time.”

  Maggie didn’t know whether to laugh or choke. “I’m not sure I’ll be worth the three hundred year build up,” she said. “Of course, any woman would probably be—”

  The rest of the sentence left her on a whoosh of air and she found herself on her back, Duncan’s heavy weight pushing her deeply into the duvet.

  “I didna manage to exist without a woman for so long because any would do, Maggie. There is only one woman for me in all eternity and she is here in my arms.”

  Maggie’s throat closed. There had never been anyone in her life who had made her feel so singularly special, so cherished. How had she found this immense gift in the one man fate had proclaimed she couldn’t have?

  Duncan smoothed a fingertip along her temple and down over her cheek. “My declaration brings you sorrow, Maggie?”

  Her eyes burned. “I promised myself I’d enjoy what we would have and not mourn what we could not.” He pressed his forehead gently to hers and she squeezed her eyes shut as an enormous pain threatened to crush her very soul.

  “Och, Maggie,” he said roughly. “Dinna fash yerself over that which is to come. The future can hold many wondrous things that we canno’ foresee in even our wildest imaginings. You are testament of that.” He kissed her cheeks. “Open yer eyes, Maggie.” When she didn’t respond, he kissed them gently. “Look at me.” He kissed her nose and the corners of her mouth. “Please.”

  She opened them. “I thought I could handle this.” She began to tremble. “I’m not sure I can. I look at you and I want y
ou so badly and … and …”

  “Share that kiss with me now, Maggie.”

  Confused, she stopped and sniffed. “What?”

  “I said once that when we kissed, it would be sharing, not taking or giving. This is a gift. Doona waste it away. Share it with me.” He moved his head, closing half the distance between them. “Meet me here, Maggie.”

  Her breath came in shallow gasps as her lips met his. He opened his mouth on hers, then with a deep groan pulled her into a fierce embrace. And she was lost. Thrillingly, willfully lost.

  It was a kiss, a sharing, like none she’d ever known, all the more intimate for its patience and indulgence. In that moment she felt she could kiss him for all eternity and still want for more.

  When his lips finally left hers, he dipped back quickly for a small kiss on the corner of her mouth, as if he had to have one last taste. She kissed the curve of his chin, knowing exactly how he felt.

  He raised his head enough so she could look into his eyes. If she’d thought she’d seen intensity in them before, she hadn’t known the true meaning of the word. She wondered if the same emotion was reflected in her own eyes. She certainly felt it. How could one kiss rock her so deeply, affect her so unquestionably?

  “Will that be enough to last you, lass?” His voice was rough with emotion, but there was a twinkle in the depths of his eyes and the slightest of curves to the corners of his mouth.

  “If I had to go through my life and be allowed only one kiss, I would choose one of yours, Duncan MacKinnon.” She smiled and reached down to tug at his waistband. “Now about that other demonstration …”

  There was a faint sound of bagpipes floating through the air and then she felt his bare chest pressed against hers. He nudged a knee between her thighs and she welcomed him instantly.

  “So,” she said a bit breathlessly, “am I not to know the answer?”

  He settled between her legs and nudged upward, making her gasp as he himself groaned. “Ye have yer answer.”

  Maggie laughed and gasped again as he pressed just inside of her. “I’ll remember that.”

  Through clenched teeth, he said, “I’ll see to it that ye do.”