by Hazel Hunter
“He’s no’ happy, but the wound isnae serious.” The laird hesitated before he added, “Raen claimed ’twas an accident.”
“The gun went off as we were wrestling for it. If I’d meant to shoot him, he’d be dead.” She leaned up against the wall and regarded Kinley. “Any time now, Captain.”
Kinley briefed her on the situation, if anyone could call being transported back in time to a fourteenth century castle on a Scottish island that. According to her the big guys weren’t actors, but a clan of actual highlanders. Their mission was to fight Roman soldiers that had been turned by a curse into vampires that were called the undead.
Struggling to keep a straight face got easier for Diana as the captain described how she’d fallen in love with the laird of the McDonnel clan. Diana had no problem believing that. Lachlan was almost as hot as Raen. But she still felt as if she’d landed in the middle of a medieval fantasy novel. If an actual dragon had popped into the room, she probably would have taken it in stride.
She also had the feeling that Kinley wasn’t telling her everything. Every time she mentioned the McDonnels her body language shifted subtly, as if she were concealing something about the clan.
Probably the dragons, Diana thought. “Look, that’s a really cool story, but I have photos of you from last year when you came back from Afghanistan. I know how badly you were hurt. If we’re in the fourteenth century, then why aren’t you scar-faced and thumping around on a wooden leg?”
“Crossing over into this time healed me completely,” Kinley finally said. “The portal in the oak grove did it somehow—like making your hair grow so fast. But the changes don’t stick if I return to the future. I know because I did once, briefly, and all my injuries came back.”
“That sucks,” Diana muttered suddenly thinking of Baby sitting in the visitor’s parking lot at the entrance to the canyon. She rubbed the back of her neck. In a strange way her Caddy had always been the embodiment of hope to her. Now she felt a feeble spark of that hope again, minus the car. “You had to make a tough choice.”
Kinley’s smile turned rueful as she touched her cheek. “I like having my face back again, but that’s not the reason I’ve stayed.” She gave her husband a smile.
“I get that,” Diana said. She had been keeping one eye on the laird, who should have been watching her, but was too busy looking at his wife. “What I don’t understand is why your tree portal brought me here. Is it because I was looking for you, or I just stepped in the wrong spot?”
“We dinnae ken how the portals work,” Lachlan said. “But the druids have told us only their kind can use them to pass through time. You must have their blood, as Kinley does.”
“My family came from Skye,” his wife added. “Do you have anyone in your family with Scottish lineage?”
“I don’t know. I grew up in foster care,” Diana admitted. She regarded the laird. “Listen, I know I just dropped in on you guys, literally, but now that I’m here, I’d like to stay for a bit. Just to be sure Kinley is all right, and that I’m not drugged or anything. That be okay with you?”
Lachlan studied her face for a long moment. “I’ve no doubt ’twould gladden my wife, but you’ll be missed by your people.”
“I’m not married or involved, and I don’t have kids. I work too many hours to make friends.” The laird was definitely not an idiot, but over the last year Diana had learned to lie like a campaigning politician. “I won’t tell anyone about this place, or what happened to Kinley after she came here.”
He smiled a little, but his dark eyes remained wary.
“I’ll have some conditions of my own, Lieutenant. You cannae use your gun weapon, ever, or roam about Dun Aran alone.”
She could stay, Diana thought, and felt her heart skip like a little kid in her chest.
“Sounds fair, as long as I’m not locked up in here all day.”
“As long as Raen or Tormod remains with you, then aye,” the laird said. “You are our guest.”
Chapter Seven
RAEN WATCHED THE laird and his wife walk down to the edge of Loch Sìorraidh before he returned to the stronghold and asked the clan’s chatelaine, Margret Talley, to make up a tray for Diana. He had been charged with looking after her as well as Dun Aran until Lachlan and Kinley returned from their meeting with the druid conclave.
“I wonder if ye might share blood with this one, Seneschal,” the old woman said as she filled two mugs with her morning honey brew and handed one to him. “I’ve no’ yet set eyes on her, but the men say she’s a giantess.”
“She’s taller than most lasses, but she’s no’ an Aber.” He plucked an apple from one of the fruit baskets and added it to the tray. “All our women were dark.”
“Still, she’d suit ye,” Meg said and piled some oatcakes in a basket and handed it to him. “If ye were tempted by all that pretty copper-gold hair.” When he didn’t reply she gave him a sideways glance. “’Tis fifty years now. Ye’ve mourned long enough, lad.”
“Aye,” he sighed. The reminder of his poor, lost wife Bradana should have hurt, but for once Raen felt only a distant sadness. “Only the lady will no’ be staying.” He finished his brew and picked up the tray. “Dinnae worry on me, Meg.”
“I’ve no’ the time for it.” She flapped her apron at him. “Go on with ye.”
As he crossed the great hall to climb the tower stairs, Raen felt tempted to summon Tormod Liefson again. He’d managed to avoid Diana by keeping busy with the household, and Lachlan had assigned Tormod to serve as the lieutenant’s guard and escort, which had not made the Norseman at all happy.
“She’s a stag in a wench skin, I swear it,” Tormod had told him flatly last night, after Diana had retired. “She demands to run every dawn five miles, whatever they are. I must dash after her through the glen and up the south pass, where the rocks are slippery. I’ll break my head open one morning, I ken it.”
Raen had never known a female to run unless chased.
“Does she mean to escape?”
“No, for she always turns about and runs back again,” Tormod said and took a long swallow from his tankard of ale. “And she’s ever telling me to spot her with the grain sacks.”
Now Raen felt completely mystified. “Spot? Do you mean watch?”
“Aye, while I stand over her ready to grab the sacks, should she falter. She carries them up from the kitchens, and you ken how Meg loves filching,” Tormod said darkly. “Only she doesnae eat the grain, or cook it. She lifts it up and down until her arms shake.”
Raen nodded, although he had no idea what the Norseman meant.
“And how do you help her?”
“The wench never needs my help. She’s arms like a good archer, with the muscles showing, and yet still works them.” The Norseman released a belch and sighed. “’Tis fashing me daft.”
Raen knew he could no longer put off shepherding Diana, so he released Tormod from his guard duty that night. It would be as it had been with Kinley those first days, the big man decided as he approached her chamber. He had only to keep her from harm.
“Come in,” Diana called out after Raen knocked.
As soon as Raen stepped inside he nearly dropped the tray. Diana was almost naked and upside-down. She had somehow balanced on both hands, which she had pressed on the floor, and curled her body over backward so that her toes hovered just in front of her nose.
“Lieutenant.”
“Relax, Big Man.” She slowly bent in the opposite direction until her feet touched the floor, at which point she rose up to a standing position. “It’s called yoga. Specifically, the taraksvasana, the handstand scorpion.”
Raen couldn’t take his eyes from her. The only things she wore on her long, beautiful body were tiny trews made of black lace and an equally scanty, skin-tight lace band that barely covered her breasts.
“See anything you like?” she asked, sounding amused now.
He set down the tray and pulled off his tartan, averting his gaze as he d
raped the plaid over her shoulders.
“You should have told me to wait so you could dress.”
“That would have taken too long, and my clothes are dirty. Also, I’m hungry.” She went over to inspect the tray. “So did you get stuck with Diana duty today? Let me guess. Tormod is tired of trying to keep up when I do my five miles.”
“Why do you run so?” he couldn’t help asking.
“You don’t have a treadmill.” She took a sip of the tea and grimaced. “Hot herb and honey water again. Terrific. You guys really haven’t discovered coffee yet?”
“Kinley says it will be another two hundred and fifty years before it reaches Britannia.” He watched her sample the oatcake, and imagined feeling her pretty mouth on his skin until he felt a hard, thin heat spread along his jaw. Why did she rouse his battle spirit? “This coffee must be a wondrous drink.”
“Mmmm, no. It’s kind of like bitter, liquid dirt. It’s the caffeine kick I miss.” She glanced at him. “We’re a little strange in the future. So what made you ink your face like that?”
“’Twas the custom when I was a lad,” Raen said. Since he couldn’t explain to her just how long ago that was, he nodded toward the two large grain sacks sitting by the wall. “What do you with those?”
“Weight lifting. It’s a form of exercise. Most women in my time don’t sit around and embroider cushions.” She pulled up another chair to the table where she ate. “Sit down. Have an apple or an oat…cookie?”
“Cake,” Raen said and joined her. He drew his eating knife to cut slices from the apple. “You seem so easy now, being here. Kinley didnae trust anyone at first.”
Diana moved her shoulders. “I’m a cop. We never trust anyone. But Kinley is healthy, seems happy, and has married a good guy with a castle and lots of stuff. The island is beautiful. I’m stuck in the tower of solitude here, but you do let me out to exercise. Really, aside from the absence of coffee and plumbing and basic human rights, what’s not to like?”
He didn’t know what to say. “I brought you food.”
Diana laughed. “Yes, you did. Sorry. I might be going a little stir-crazy.”
“Have you no husband or children to miss you? Family?” When she shook her head Raen felt an odd surge of relief, and then recalled that Kinley, too, had been alone in her time. “But you had friends.”
“Friends at work, sure.” Her mouth twisted. “Not a lot of time for socializing when you work missing persons. You always think if you try a little harder, and put in more hours, you’ll find them.” Her gaze grew distant. “Kinley was—is—my last case. It’s good to go out on a win.”
He didn’t understand what she meant, but her tone sounded bleak.
“Where will you go when you return?”
“Nowhere fast.” She stood and picked up the outer garments she had shed. “I need to wash my stuff, and that lye soap and the little bowl of water the maids give me isn’t going to cut it. Do you have a laundry or something?”
“We’ve a laundress and a wash house.” Raen had already anticipated that Diana would be as obsessed with cleanliness as Kinley was, but he felt puzzled by her sudden change of mood. He got to his feet. “Give your clothes to me, and I’ll see them cleaned.”
“I don’t have anything to change into.” She glanced down at herself and frowned. “I could wear your plaid, I guess.”
She reached under it and removed the too-small breast band. Raen spun on his heel to give her his back.
“You cannae walk through the stronghold wearing only my tartan, my lady. ’Twould cause the clansmen to, ah, become very agitated.”
“Glad to know I can still agitate someone, but I’m not a lady.” She walked in front of him, his tartan now wound and folded around her body and shoulders. “Underwear,” she said, pointing to the garments. “The top is called a bra, and the bottom are panties. I’m going to need more, and another change of clothes, unless you’re willing to part with the plaid.”
He would have looked away again, but to be this close and see his tartan clinging to her so lovingly made his blood run fast and hot.
“Our women dinnae wear such…things.”
“Even if she was my size, I’ll bet the captain didn’t pack any extras.” She rubbed a fold of the fabric covering her shoulder. “You know, I used to make my clothes in college to save money. I’d mostly tailor guy stuff I bought at Goodwill.”
“Garments can be made for you.” In this, at least he could help her. “We have a seamstress at the stronghold.”
“No, thanks. I’d rather not go the way of the gown and wimple.” Diana gave him a measuring look. “You’re the only guy besides the laird who’s on my body scale. Can you spare an old shirt and pants?”
Raen thought of his limited wardrobe, most of which was leather or wool, which would chafe her fine skin. “I had a semat and trews made for the laird’s wedding. I willnae wear them again.”
“Perfect,” she said, and bundled her clothing. “Let’s go see the seamstress before we hit the wash house. I’m going to need some things.”
Raen took her through the back halls to the sewing rooms, where the castle’s seamstress grudgingly supplied Diana with needles, pins, thread and shears from her mending basket. From there they went out to the washing house, where the laundress and the chamber maids were busy boiling and beating the day’s laundry. The smell of the lye and tallow being used to clean the linens wafted over them as the red-faced, sweaty laundress looked up from her labors
“If Meg Talley thinks to send back the aprons to be washed again, Seneschal,” the laundress said, “I’ll put a bat to her arse. They’re as clean as they’re getting.” She regarded Diana. “If she’s to work here, she’ll no’ do it wrapped in a plaid.”
“That’s okay.” Diana coughed a little as she took in the great washing caldrons, bucking vats and wooden bats. “I can do my own laundry.” She peered at a basin of soft brown soap. “But not with that goop.”
“I’ve something gentler,” Raen told her, and led her back into the stronghold, where he took her to his new rooms in the upper hall.
“This is different,” Diana said as she walked around his study. “Did you raid a church, or are you just into dark and depressing?”
“Everything belonged to Evander, the seneschal before me.” He had done nothing to change the sparsely-furnished study and bedchamber, to which Evander Talorc’s gloomy austerity still seemed to cling. It had suited Raen’s own mood since being named the new seneschal. “I come here only to sleep.”
“I’m not a nester either,” she admitted. “I pretty much live at work, or in my Caddy. That’s my car. It’s what we use instead of horses to get around in the future.”
“Kinley has told us of the machines from your time,” Raen said but heard the loneliness in her voice. What idiots the men of the future were, that they had not claimed Diana for their own. He went to the trunk where his predecessor had left behind some fancy goods he’d bought on the mainland, and took out a small, carved wooden box. “Here.”
She took the box and opened the lid to examine the small, pale cakes inside.
“’Tis fine soap, made from oils and scented with rose petals,” he explained. “The trade ships bring it in from Hispania.”
Diana took out one cake and sniffed it. “Nice. Evander leave this behind, too?” When he nodded she smiled. “He must have smelled pretty.”
“Evander likely bought it for Fiona, his lover. He ran away with her.”
Raen resisted the urge to touch his throat and went into the bedchamber to retrieve the wedding garments.
“You didn’t like this Evander guy, I take it,” Diana said. She had followed him in and now sat on the end of his bed. “I’d feel the same way if someone tried to kill me.”
He stopped sorting through his garment trunk and stared at her.
“Who told you that?”
“Confidential informant,” she said and nodded at his hand. “You rub the back of your neck
like that every time someone mentions Evander Talorc, too. So what happened?”
“I caught Evander fleeing Dun Aran with his mortal mistress, Fiona, who was spying on the clan for the undead.” He couldn’t tell Diana that Evander had thrown a spear that had rammed through his neck and nearly severed his spine. She would wonder how he had survived such a ghastly injury. “He attacked me and left me for dead, but the laird and his lady found me in time.”
Diana grimaced. “You were very lucky.”
“Aye.” He wanted to tell her that luck had nothing to do with it. That if not for Kinley, and the magic she possessed that allowed him to cross over and back again from her time in order to be healed, Raen would have died. “I am very grateful to them.”
She studied his face. “What happened to Evander and Fiona?”
He shrugged. “No one has seen them since that day. If they return, Evander knows they will both be put to death for betraying the clan.”
Even so, Raen hoped that they wouldn’t. He had enough of love’s blood on his hands.
Diana frowned and looked around the room.
“So why are you keeping all of Evander’s stuff? Guy tried to kill you.”
“I only sleep here.” He brought the linen garments to her, and watched her lift them to her face. “You can wash them, but I wore them only once.”
“They smell like you.” She stood up, and suddenly only a few inches separated them. “Thanks for letting me have them.”
“You need clothes,” Raen said and glanced down to see a lock of her gilded copper hair clinging to his tunic. He gently removed it as an excuse to touch the soft, fine strands. “You should wear a head veil.”
“Not even if you drugged me, Big Man.” Her eyes widened, and she touched his hot cheek. “Your ink. It’s turning white.”
“’Tis the lightning spirit in me.” He pressed her palm against his skinwork to let her feel the heat. “’Tis what permits me to move so quickly. I dinnae ken why, but you call to it, Diana.”
