She blinked. Sunlight beamed only on the paper in the middle of the busy alleyway. Her attention wavered when a band of raucous, young, kilted men—with faces painted blue and short swords held high—barreled up the lane. She backed out of their way, and slammed against a hard chest.
“Oof!” Two meaty paws clamped around her upper arms. She wriggled out of their grasp then whipped around to face her quarry. She gasped, then struggled for air. A Viking stood before her. Well, someone who resembled a Viking.
Her gaze rose up a tawny chest peeking from his clothes. She had to keep looking up to put a face to the rest of him. Sun-streaked blond hair fluttered across chiseled cheekbones that reminded her of tanned plates of solid bronze. His brilliant eyes, as amber as sweet clover honey, locked on her face.
He straightened and she took in the rest of him. Clad in a saffron shirt, brown suede vest, with a kilt riding low on his trim waist, he stood as tall as the Auguste Rodin statues she worked near at the museum. His large hands rested on his hips just above his wide leather belt and she found she missed their warmth. When her gaze landed on a sparkling silver buckle, it momentarily blinded her.
“I beg your pardon,” she said while her hand shot up to shade her eyes.
Perspiration sprinkled his forehead as if he’d been working in the fields. Dust and mud dappled the gilt fur on his forearms as if he’d survived a battle. Iona inhaled the scent of sweat, earth, and male.
He raised two blond eyebrows as if he could decipher her thoughts.
“You see, I was so engrossed in reading my letter I forgot to look behind me. Sorry.”
Heat pulsed between her legs, and she changed her stance. Two swords, securely belted across his back, added to the dark look of a man so much taller and broader than her. Since she stood two inches shy of six feet, his presence made her feel small and feminine. A bone-hilted dirk hung from his side. Gray fur covered a small, unadorned sporran, which hung between his…
“Oh!” An odd need to curl into the length of him jolted her from more salacious thoughts. The urge to rest her head in the hollow of his neck, just above his collarbone, shocked her into stepping back a few feet.
She tripped.
“Be more careful, dear lady.”
His Scottish brogue washed over her as he spoke. “You’re Scottish?”
“Aye. What gave me away?” He chuckled. They stood in the midst of ten thousand people at the largest Highland games in the northeastern United States. He wore a kilt and weaponry of a Scottish Highlander while she wore the gown and plaid of a chieftain’s daughter. What did she expect?
“Cameron Robeson!” cried a shrill voice from inside the tent. Both jumped.
“I believe my employer is in need of my services. You now know my name. Might I inquire of yours?” He grabbed her hand. The letter fluttered to the ground. She bent to pick it up, and his breath caught. She’d forgotten how easily her loose bodice flopped open. She’d just given this stranger a free show.
“Oh. My name is Iona Mackenzie.”
His face clouded then as quickly returned to normal. He smiled, bowed, and kissed her knuckles. “May we meet again.”
A statement, not a question. He disappeared inside the tent, which must belong to the woman who had sold Haven an assortment of herbs. Iona’s heart pounded and she inhaled his decadent scent of pine and spice.
He definitely smelled better than the inside of the old woman’s tent. Why was he working for an herbalist? She was pretty sure the old crone was a witch.
Is he?
Iona threaded through the rambunctious crowd and found her tent in a corner of the historical village.
“Did you find her?” Jake asked. She shook her head. No need to get his hopes up, not after reading the odd letter. Haven sounded sad, in turmoil, and admitted she was pregnant. Was her mysterious Highlander holding her against her will?
If so, what can I do to help her?
Iona fanned herself with the scrap of parchment, then carefully folded it and stuck it in her pocket. Reluctantly, she returned to her spinning wheel and the Highland games visitors. She’d talk to Jake later, but only after she figured out what to say.
When another volunteer covered for her, she ran to the genealogy center. Amid two dozen people searching for their Scottish lineage, she rifled through several books until she found the Clan Gunn family history.
With the description Haven had included of her husband’s credentials, she found mention of him dating to a period around 1610. His reported attributes caused her to fan herself. Their wedding twelve years earlier had followed the nuptials of a rival, Lord Marcas Mackenzie, who married Lady Fia of the Keith clan. Iona exhaled a whoosh of air. She closed the book with a snap as she prayed for a Highlander of her own.
“Reading something of interest, my lady?”
The lilting Scottish burr made tiny goose bumps run down her arms. Iona turned and faced the man she’d met earlier who was still clad in his ancient Highland costume. He towered over her as she sat reading.
“Sit or move along. You’re blocking the light.” How she kept her voice steady surprised her, since every part of her vibrated with desire.
“My pardon,” he said as he folded his huge frame into the fragile folding chair next to hers. His stare and smile made her jumpy until she thought of something to say; anything to make him respond in his delicious drawl.
“I was just looking up something for a friend of mine. Haven always claimed—”
“Haven? Ye know Haven?” He slid closer until his thigh brushed against hers. Her heavy, wool skirt couldn’t deflect the heat that pulsed from his body. The scent of leather and sweat wafted over her and she fumbled for something to say.
“Haven MacKay? She’s my best friend. But, she’s left the games and I don’t expect her back. Ever.” She watched as his head lowered and his shoulders slouched. The man looked sad. Perhaps Haven broke more hearts than she’d cared to share in her letter.
“I’m afraid for her. Haven wrote to me. She didn’t sound too happy with the…ah…guy she met, recently.” Had the man forced her to stay behind?
“Haven deserves the love of a good man. She deserves happiness.”
Iona smiled. If Cameron knew Haven, he could possibly help her. Of course, when she figured out how to travel through time to rescue her friend and explained her plan to him, he might call her crazy. She ought to return to her duties at the historical village to think.
“I have to go. Guess I’ll see you around,” Iona said, then forced a smile. She felt less than happy due to worrying about Haven, but the way he smiled back at her fueled a pleasant tingle in a very intimate location.
“Nothing would please me more, my lady.” They both stood and, again, he swept into a low bow then strode away.
She giggled. With the tension lifted, she hurried away in the opposite direction to go talk with her father. He wouldn’t understand all of it so she’d share the news that Haven had left the New England Highland Games. She would tell him she got married, and leave it at that. Then she’d concentrate on finding her own true love. Iona would follow Haven’s advice, while following her own advice.
When I find the man of my dreams, I’ll grab him, and hold on tight.
The End
MY BANISHED
HIGHLANDER
a Time Travel Romance
Book #2 in the
Highland Games Through Time
Series
by Nancy Lee Badger
The Story
My Banished Highlander
When his clan convicts Cameron Robeson of treason in 1598 Scotland, the last thing he thought his cousin the Laird would do was banish him to the future. With a certain woman on his mind, he plans revenge while surrounded by the sights and sounds of the modern day New England Highland Games. His plans go awry when a comely redheaded lass wearing the Mackenzie plaid lands at his feet.
Iona Mackenzie is worried about her friend, Haven, and searches for answers
among the tents at the games. Whom can she trust to help? Her father? The handsome blacksmith? Or, the tall, golden-haired Highlander? Romance takes a back seat because saving her friend is her priority, no matter how great Cameron can kiss.
When a magical amulet and an angry sorcerer send this unlikely couple back through time, more than one heart will be broken. Danger, intrigue, and threats surround them, and feelings between Iona and Cameron grow hot and steamy. They fight the sorcerer and search for Iona’s friend, the woman he vowed to steal from his cousin. Will the strong-willed Highlander and the present day witch stop fighting long enough to listen to their hearts?
With a letter in her hand and a Highlander at her back, what could go wrong?
CHAPTER 1
Present Day New England
Cameron Robeson rubbed his shoulder at the phantom pain. He could still hear the whoosh of the arrow seconds before it pierced his back, ending his plan for success.
Another time; another place.
Squinting against the onslaught of the midday sun, he stared out over the athletic field. Dozens of men clad in multi-colored kilts tossed hammers, or carried stones for distance. Success was rewarded by cheers from thousands of onlookers.
Sweat trickled down Cameron's neck and dampened the threadbare, yellow Jacobite shirt his employer had given him. He fingered the leather laces beneath his neck, and grimaced. Nothing he wore, including the modern piece of fabric they called a kilt, belonged to him.
The vicious wound to his shoulder was somewhat healed, but his share of the treasure had never materialized. Having lost his one last chance to save the woman who had turned his life upside down, and win her heart, he had lost everything.
“Haven MacKay,” he said, growling under his breath. How could he hate her and love her at the same time? She was a beauty, but something more; a lass who differed from the women of his time, for certain. Lady Haven was oddly similar to the lovely Iona Mackenzie he had stumbled upon yesterday.
She stumbled into me, truth be told.
Iona’s moment of clumsiness reminded him of the lovely, accident-prone Haven. Should he forget Haven? Could he in all honesty leave her to her fate beneath the thumb of his brutish cousin, Kirkwall Gunn?
Cameron kicked a lonely pinecone with the toe of his fancy leather shoe and watched it tumble to the edge of the make-believe battlefield.
“Uncomfortable piece of cow hide,” he muttered. He missed his boots.
At his trial, the rumor of his cousin’s betrothal with the woman he lusted for had closed in on him like a black shroud, stealing his breath and numbing him to his fate. Revenge would go far to ease the burden of his current existence. In order to enact revenge, and wrench her from his cousin’s control, he had to find a way back home. Back to long-ago Scotland.
Half a dozen young bagpipers marched by in a less than synchronous parade. His laughter slipped out, startling a trio of dancers watching from the side of the lane. One was a brown-haired lass, and another had hair of gold like his own. The red-haired lass was a pretty little thing, and all three had piled their tresses on top of their slender necks in tight buns. They giggled, turned pink cheeked, and ran toward the dance program tent nestled beside the rocky-bottomed river. Something about the little red-haired dancer filled his head with an image of the woman called Iona.
It arose, unheeded, along with unwanted desire.
With her thick waves of flaming red hair piled on her head, her secrets, and her blazingly sensual smile, she made him question everything he planned to do to get Haven back. He had secrets of his own. Should he set aside his mission in order to pursue her for a night or two of passion?
Yesterday, truth be told, he had only followed her to the tent to learn more about her. Earlier, he had discovered her sniffing around his employer’s tent and she seemed a bit too inquisitive. The other tent he followed her into contained maps and books. Everything that had transpired, yesterday, suddenly rushed up to meet him head on.
“Ancestry records,” an older woman had explained when he must have looked confused.
He had simply nodded. He had vowed to keep his inability to read hidden. Maps he understood, but the ones he spied attached to odd boards were in color, and the land depicted differed greatly from the Scotland he knew.
He had seen Iona sitting in a rickety chair made of some strange type of metal. Hunched over a thick book, looking studious, she fascinated him. His gaze had swept over the swan-like curve of her neck while she leafed through page after page. Her furrowed brow made her look older than his usual choice of female company. As he stepped closer, he inhaled the subtle scent of heather and sunshine.
She is not for me.
Cameron shook the memory from his mind. Cursing under his breath, he blocked out the thousands of people, mainly Americans, strutting around pretending to be Scots Highlanders. Disgusted with their revelry, he smoothed the front of his borrowed ancient plaid. He owned nothing. His cousin, the almighty Kirkwall Gunn, had seen to that.
He headed for the food vendors where the lines snaked from various tents selling the oddest foods. Lamb stew was familiar, but he had never seen it served in a bowl made from a hollowed-out loaf of crusty bannock. The meat pies smelled delicious, but what was the brown sauce he watched a man in a glaringly bright-colored kilt pour from a bottle? When the man moved on, Cameron poured some in his palm, and licked it clean. It was tangy and delicious.
The aroma of haggis made his stomach rumble and reminded him that his mistress had sent him to procure their noon meal. He jingled the handful of coins as he stared past the mountains beyond the athletic field, and toward the historical village. That was the direction Iona Mackenzie had fled the last time he had laid eyes on her curves and flaming red hair.
Exhaling a deep breath, he turned back toward the food vendors. His employer, Dorcas Swann, had ordered him to fetch a meat pie and to be quick about it.
What Dorcas wants, Dorcas gets.
* * *
Iona Mackenzie stared out over the crowds that filled the lanes and fields at the New England Highland Games. The ski area hosting the event was the perfect venue. Surrounded by mountains, trees, and a river, people arrived daily to celebrate their Scottish heritage. Displays of ethnic foods and wares competed with marching bands and a rock group for the visitors’ attention.
Normally, she lived for this one week every year. She dutifully assisted her father, the chief of the Mackenzie Clan of America, with his tent in clan village. She volunteered at the historical village by dressing in period costume and demonstrating how to spin yarn. The rest of the year, she simply survived. She lived at home with her father, and had cared for him ever since her mother had left him.
Us. She left us.
Her life had slowed to a crawl, turned dull as dishwater, and made her feel as dried up as day old bread. Then she had stumbled into the arms of a brawny hunk outside an old woman’s herbal tent.
Iona had met all types of people at the Highland Games. She managed to keep most at a distance, and was friends with only two people besides her dad. She loved her father and his odd tie to their Scottish roots, but this past week had poured a multitude of problems into her costumed lap. The most distressing included the sudden disappearance of one of those friends.
Haven MacKay had come to Iona’s aid when she agreed to help her at the historical village. Haven’s happy attitude changed when she saw someone at the dance Friday night; someone who scared her enough to make her run off into a gathering storm. When Iona discovered she hadn’t returned to her tent after the dance, she’d retraced Haven’s steps from earlier in the day.
“Which is why I am bothering these busy merchants today,” she said to empty air. So far, several vendors remembered her black-haired friend dressed in the period costume Iona had lent her; a simple day dress and deerskin vest. None remembered her wearing the fancy red gown Iona let her borrow for the ceilidh. Others recalled her visiting the old crone’s tent earlier that day. Each o
f those people had crossed themselves as they spoke.
Iona shivered at the gestures.
Had only two days passed? It felt like months since her friend bounded up the trail to the historical village and treated visitors to her perky smile and agile workings of her knitting needles.
Iona’s other friend, Jake Jamison, had been on her case since she’d told him Haven was missing. Jake claimed he didn’t know where she’d run off to. Though the two of them acted very friendly, she was pretty sure Jake wasn’t in love with the girl.
But you never can tell.
Would he harm Haven? No. Jake had deep, dark secrets. She sensed them, and her vague ability to see things made her wary, but he wasn’t dangerous. Haven had fallen in love with a jerk named Cal Murchie and was helping Iona at the games in hopes of forgetting how he’d hurt her.
Haven confided in Iona that she’d lost her virginity to Cal before discovering the man was married. She agreed to help at the Highland Games as a favor, and as a way to help her forget. Iona initially had prayed that volunteering with her at the historical village for the weekend would take Haven’s mind off her troubles.
For a woman who had never explored her Scottish roots, nor visited a Highland festival, Haven had flourished among kilt-wearing hunks, bagpipers, sheep, and the mountains that surrounded the venue.
Iona’s vision blurred and a memory burst forth.
An elderly crone vanished inside a tent minutes after handing her a note. The strange woman’s long, ragged hair fluttered behind her like a silvery waterfall. Aided by a rustic crutch, she had moved away in the flick of an eye. Some irresistible force made Iona tag along.
The woman turned, as if sensing Iona had followed her. With a huge, crooked nose and piercing gold eyes under heavy brows, she stood about a head shorter then Iona’s five-foot-ten. Iona had forced her gaze away and surveyed the tent’s interior.
Bottles lined the dusty shelves while pungent aromas had made her nose twitch. Incense burned from a raised lantern, and a marble mortar and pestle sat beside tiny packets of crushed herbs.
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