Highland Games Through Time

by Nancy Lee Badger

  “I agree,” Jake said, “my wife, Skye, is a powerful force to contend with, and I will spend the rest of my days making sure she has no need to use her powers against me.”

  She smiled up at him, wishing he would recite poetry again. Somehow, his statement was not as romantic.

  “Where is your friend Bull? I wanted to say good-bye,” Haven asked Jake.

  “He had something to do in the barn. I think he needed to talk to some guy named MacGregor?”

  “Praise the mother!” Skye cried, and ran toward the partially finished barn.

  When the dust settled, Bull wiped blood from his nose, and Skye fixed the break with a flick of her wrist.

  “Thanks, I think.” Bull said, wiggling his nose and chin. The MacGregor heir lay on his face, in a pile of muck.

  “Ye be lucky ye did not fight with swords. He is the best around,” Kirk said.

  “I didn’t plan to fight at all, but he sent me a note. He said to meet him here, to talk about how I kicked his ass at the festival.” Bull’s grin hurt, since the MacGregor lad had thrown the first punch, catching him by surprise. Bull frowned, striding from the barn, with the group following him. None of them looked happy. “This world is too different. I like living history and all, but death, sorcerers, and dragons? No thanks.”

  “Does this mean you’re heading home?” Jake asked.

  Bull turned toward him so fast, they nearly collided. “Are you telling me there is a way to get back?”

  Jake settled a hand on Bull’s shoulder. Torn between remaining in early seventeenth-century Scotland, or returning home to his safe job, Bull finally knew what he wanted. “I want to go home.”

  “I be leavin’ momentarily, ye big brute. Shall we travel together?”

  Bull looked down by his hip. The old woman, Dorcas Swann, puffed on her pipe, the smoke swirling upward like a tiny tornado. Her grin was deceptively sweet, but he grew wary. “What will it cost me?”

  Dorcas thought a minute, then removed the pipe from her mouth. “Ye can help me pack up my belongings. Young Reid MacRob is coming along, for a brief visit. His help is welcome, but yer a strong-looking brute. The New England Highland Games is the last festival of the season, and I’ll be bringing my goods back to Keldurunach, what ye call Kildonan.”

  “What will happen to Izzy?” Jake asked.

  “Izzy?” Skye’s left eyebrow raised, and she settled her hands on her hips, looking jealous.

  Jake had better choose his words carefully, Bull thought.

  “Izzy has cared for my tent, these last five years. She is a local lass, but says she would rather stay in the future. I believe she has already found a new position.”

  “You need my help packing up?”

  “He is rather strong,” Jake said.

  Bull smiled. “I would be happy to help. I should check in at Falconscroft, the school where I teach. Maybe this Izzy and I will hit it off.”

  “We’ll miss you,” Jake said.

  When Bull heard a surprised squeak, and a crash behind him, he turned.

  Skye had fainted.

  EPILOGUE

  Skye? Open your eyes.”

  Inhaling deeply, she struggled to open at least one eye. “I wish everyone would stop telling me what to do.”

  A low chuckle shook the “bed beneath her, and she opened the other eye.

  “Sweetheart, you fainted and hit your head. I was worried.” Jake leaned over her, the bed dipping under his weight, and kissed her forehead.

  “I be fine. ‘Tis what ye said to yer friend.”

  “Which part?”

  “Ye told him ye shall miss him. Does this mean ye plan to stay? Here, with me?” Her heart pounded beneath her rib cage. When he cupped her breast, sensations threatened to make her swoon again.

  “I thought about it, while waiting at the altar. What would I do next? Where would we live? Was I prepared to return to the future?”

  “And yer decision?”

  “I’ll stay, for now. I have some loose ends, of course.”

  “Loose ends?” Skye asked, rising to her feet. The cool floorboards felt good against her skin. Someone had removed her shoes, and gown. Wearing only her chemise, she clasped Jake’s hand, and tugged him to a window overlooking the castle steps. Wagons filled the bailey, and several servants tied belongings atop them. Others hitched draft animals to the front ribbons. Kirk was leaving, but not Jake.

  Feeling light-headed, she hung on his arm, and leaned against the windowsill.

  “You aren’t better.”

  “Pour me a mug of cider, then please explain yer words.”

  He did not grumble, but strode to the table and did as she asked. Returning, she accepted the small cup, and sipped. A sprinkle of cinnamon added to the delicious taste of fermented apples. Feeling better, she waited.

  “I am worried about my apartment and my tools. Don’t forget, I left Balfour behind.”

  She smiled, remembering the man they once called Balfour, who died long ago. “Will ye bring him here? If ye return, that is.”

  “The Highlander must stay, lass,” Dorcas Swann called out, from the hall. Her cane tapped against the partially open door, and the door swung open of its own accord.

  When the hinges squeaked, Skye’s stomach turned. Ignoring the others, she grabbed a chamber pot and cast up the cider.

  Gentle fingers pulled her hair out of the way, while a warm hand rubbed her lower back.

  “Skye? Honey? What’s wrong?” Jake asked.

  Dorcas tapped her cane on the floor, as she waddled over. “Doona’ fret, Highlander. The lass has presented ye with the best possible reason to stay, but the Highlands are no more than valleys and lochs, carved by the action of mountain streams, and ice. The winters are cold, blanketed by snow. Sickness can strip a village of half its people.”

  “What’s your point? What reason does Skye have besides…?” Jake’s cheeks reddened.

  Was he reliving our lovemaking? Skye thought.

  “Nay, lad. Ye shall soon be a father. A bairn needs ye in its life.”

  Before Jake could utter a response, Skye’s vision wavered, and she succumbed to the darkness. Again.

  “Why isn’t she waking up?” Jake paced the length of the bedroom and back, unable to relax his fists.

  “I hear ye, Highlander. Ye doona’ have to shout.” Skye said, opening her eyes.

  Jake set a damp cloth on her head, while he stroked her cheek. “I imagine Dorcas surprised us both.”

  “Should we believe her?” Skye asked.

  Jake smiled at her, and his left eyebrow rose.

  Heat slashed across her cheeks, and her hands slid down to cover her flat stomach. “Do ye think ‘tis true?”

  “You tell me. You’ve known her longer.”

  Sighing, she remembered Haven and Iona. Dorcas told them both they were expecting, before they had any idea. The difference was, that her friends had not yet married. “We are wed.”

  “And, expecting a child.”

  “We hardly—”

  “Only takes once, my darling witch.”

  “Does the news upset ye?”

  His eyes widened, and he dropped the damp cloth in a bucket. He helped her to sit up, then brushed a stray hair behind her ear. The room was empty, and a low fire smoldered in the grate. Dim light meant time had passed, yet he still did not answer.

  “Jake, I willna’ trap a man, and make him stay where he dinna’ care to live, so—”

  “Please listen. If you don’t mind me borrowing words from my favorite Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken, I’ll tell you how I feel.”

  Skye gazed up at him, and her heart skipped a beat. A bairn? A life together? And poetry? She smiled.

  He gathered her in his arms. Jake gazed at her, smiled, and said, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

  The Poetry of Robert Frost

  influenced several passages in my story.


  Below are two of my favorite poems, now in the public domain.

  Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

  Some say the world will end in fire,

  Some say in ice.

  From what I've tasted of desire

  I hold with those who favor fire.

  But if it had to perish twice,

  I think I know enough of hate

  To say that for destruction ice

  Is also great

  And would suffice.

  The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

  Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

  And sorry I could not travel both

  And be one traveler, long I stood

  And looked down one as far as I could

  To where it bent in the undergrowth;

  Then took the other, as just as fair,

  And having perhaps the better claim,

  Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

  Though as for that the passing there

  Had worn them really about the same,

  And both that morning equally lay

  In leaves no step had trodden black.

  Oh, I kept the first for another day!

  Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

  I doubted if I should ever come back.

  I shall be telling this with a sigh

  Somewhere ages and ages hence:

  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

  I took the one less traveled by,

  And that has made all the difference.

  And now for the Bonus Book!

  2012 Reader’s Choice Award

  in its Category

  Silver sand self-Published Awards’

  hosted by Gulf Coast RWA

  DRAGON

  IN THE MIST

  A Loch Ness

  Romance

  by Nancy Lee Badger

  The Story

  Dragon in the Mist

  Nessía has lived beneath the murky water of Loch Ness since ancient times. Loneliness manifests into earthquakes. A Faerie queen pleads for her to cease the tremors and rewards Nessía with a human form. To stay human, she must find love. When the man she believes she loves casts her aside, Nessía responds to the betrayal by cursing the men of the MacDonald clan with the inability to keep a woman’s love. Only an act of true selflessness will break the curse.

  After centuries pass, Nessía again searches for love. When Rory Hawthorn, an American scientist, arrives under the pretext of researching earthquakes but in reality to research his MacDonald heritage and the curse, she believes she has found the perfect mate. Amid stolen kisses, an earthquake, and a steamy night of passion, Nessía returns to the murky depths of the loch. When Rory meets the green, scaly Loch Ness Monster, and assumes Nessía is in danger, he vows to kill it in order to save the woman he loves.

  PROLOGUE

  Loch Ness, Scotland, 1816

  “Ye dare toss up my skirts, use my body, and then casually mention ye need to return to your wife?” Sudden rage caused Nessía’s fingers to shake, and she bungled her attempt to tie the laces of her bodice.

  Rage gave way to pain. Ignited by the hurtful declaration of the man she thought she loved, it grasped her heart in crushing talons.

  “My love, do not chastise me. Ye want more than I can give,” Montgomery MacDonald said, his tone condescending, as if talking to a child. He smoothed his plaid and adjusted his dirk and belt.

  “Love? What know ye of love?” She stood to make her way toward the door, eager to distance herself from his mockery. She had pinned all her hopes and dreams on a man not worthy of her trust or love. How blind must she be?

  “Do not leave yet. Someone will see ye.” He reached out and grabbed her around the wrist.

  She turned to face him, and hissed.

  He dropped his arm, and stepped back.

  A life-saving move.

  “Why should I care who sees us? My reputation is lost. As lost as my heart and my innocence. I lay with ye because I thought I loved ye. My quest for a normal life among humans is all for naught. I see now how my foolishness has blinded me to yer ways.”

  “Ye speak in riddles, love.”

  Pushing away from him and the larder table, where he had so easily thrust himself inside her eager flesh, she brushed flour and grain from the back of her dress. Trembling hands swept down her apron, then smoothed loose tendrils behind her ears. Her brown braid whipped across her left shoulder as she spun and gazed at Monty, her last chance for salvation.

  And freedom.

  Nessía longed to explain why she succumbed to his flirtations, yet saw no advantage. His disclosure of a wife, waiting at home for him, put an end to such wishes.

  “Love is for the weak, woman. My wife knows her place and is grateful for the nights I deign to lay beside her. I promised ye nothing but pleasure.” He winked at her, increasing the pain spreading through her body.

  The change surged and fell upon her in a thrice, all because she had trusted a mortal man. She yanked open the door, and let the loch’s cooling breeze caress her human skin. Blood pulsed through her veins while she tamped down the rising urge to shape-shift. She turned to face him for the last time.

  “I loved ye, Monty. Can ye not see what ye have done? Have ye no conscience? I was an innocent maid. I looked up to ye, and ye took advantage.” A sob threatened to escape her swollen throat, but she kept her dignity by standing straight on her human legs. An odd sensation, to say the least.

  “Nessie, do not fool yourself. Ye felt passion, ‘tis all. ‘Tis natural. Ye did enjoy it, did ye not?” His smile did not reach his eyes. In that singular expression, she knew. He never meant to use her for more than a few minutes of passion.

  One rakish eyebrow quirked under wavy hair the color of the night sky. Eyes she once considered as warm as the green grass covering the hills beside the loch each spring transformed to molten glass, as he gazed upon her chest. His actions made Nessía believe he needed to memorize each part of her.

  Makes sense. He knows I shall not lay with him again.

  To look at him, and his handsome features, made her human heart crumble into fine grains of sand, smaller and much finer than the muck lining the bottom of Loch Ness.

  I should never have left the safety beneath its surface.

  Nessía had viewed Monty’s seduction as the catalyst to aid her quest to stay on land forever. A way to live upon the shores of the loch she had called home. The long, thin, deep loch nestled in the foothills near Urquhart Castle. She endured the centuries alone.

  I will continue.

  Her loneliness changed the day she spied Monty fishing the lake’s depths in a rickety wooden boat. Only now did she regret not frightening the man more with her tail flaps, large wake, and eerie call. Of course, he had turned a lovely shade of white, before the waves tossed him into the chilly water. When he flailed, splashing and crying for help, she had taken pity on the handsome human.

  Stupid dragon.

  Drenched and sputtering from a mouth filled with water, Monty failed to see the creature that pushed him, and his overturned boat to shore. Nessía had glanced from him to her tail—long and sleek with glistening blue-green scales—then watched him walk away. His waterlogged clothing dripped onto the rocky shore, and she overheard him curse the wind. Clothing clung to the handsome man’s muscular form, and something deep inside her belly made her scales quiver. Perhaps the current’s gentle kiss had caused the odd sensation. Interest sparked.

  Sexual interest.

  While the intriguing fisherman meandered toward the town of Na Cearcan Bã Na without glancing back at her and the loch, a new plan formed in Nessía’s serpentine brain.

  Nessía felt the change, and shivered when the cool late afternoon breeze swam over her new feminine form. She slipped beside a quiet cottage.

  Thievery never came easy, but her conscience rested when, after snatching a dress, apron, and worn undergarments from the clothesline, she left a jewel-hilted sword in their p
lace. She had not thought to bring up other riches from the bottom of the loch for her own use, but where there grew a town, she planned to find a pub. A thrill sizzled beneath her new human skin as she enjoyed a sense of purpose, so long denied her. Nessía marched off to seek employment.

  A few nights later, when Monty strode into Mac’s drinking house, Biadhadh nan Cearc, Nessía’s heart went thump. As she stared at him in his well-fitting day clothes, heat spread across her new human breasts and raw need dampened the sensitive crux between her new-fangled legs. Walking and standing proved easy to manage, but she missed her dragon’s sense of smell and hearing.

  When he sauntered up to the bar, his rich, masculine scent solved the problem and triggered an irresistible need to lick his cheek. His silky black hair, deep green eyes, and muscular build made him the perfect prospect for a life partner. She and the fisherman would fall in love, marry, and raise a bairn or two. The cursed life she had led up until that time would fade into memory, a story to tell their children at bedtime.

  Until Montgomery MacDonald made love to me, then made excuses to return home. To his wife.

  As Nessía stared, at the man she had planned to take as husband, she shoved pleasant memories of his flirtation, kisses, and loving aside, and recalled today’s thwarted mission. Only true love would end her dualistic life: two distinct parts, two wholes fighting to overcome the other. She yearned to walk on two legs and feel the heather between her toes for the rest of her natural life. Montgomery MacDonald’s duplicity had swiftly banished the idea.

  “Bastard. I should have known no man talks true when he thinks a lie will gain a woman’s favors.”

  “I did not lie. I live life in the here and now. I like my life easy as pie, and polite as rain. I simply neglected to mention my wife. Or, my two sons.”

  Monty’s cheeks pinked and his eyes dropped to stare at her bare feet, proving he knew he spoke hurtful words. Nessía inhaled deeply as the fires of Hell slashed beneath her skin, as if her own dragon’s tail had whipped her across the face.