by L. L. Muir
“Your sister,” the old woman blurted.
“Morna?” Montgomery pushed away from the hood and unfolded his arms. He was alarmed as he always was just because Morna and Ivar lived too far away for him to be any protection. It hadn’t quite sunk into his head yet that dangers in the twenty-first century were very different. If they had problems, they would call.
“Not your sister, Laird Ross.” Lorraine paused and looked her in the eye. “Jillian’s.”
Jilly didn’t understand. She didn’t have a sister. But the thought of finding more family caught her breath.
“Yes, Jilly. Your sister. We met her today. Lovely thing, too. I’m sure you’ll agree—Montgomery, catch her!” Loretta ran forward.
Jilly was surprised to find that she was the her that needed catching. She hadn’t noticed before, but she was teetering to her left, sliding along the fender with little attention for the ground rising up to meet her. She ended on her bottom, in the gravel, with Monty kneeling beside her.
“Jillian! Ye will be fine.” It was definitely not a question, but an order. She’d gotten used to his fifteenth century, bullying ways, but she knew he was only bossy when he was worried. Unfortunately, he worried a lot.
“Yes. I’m fine. Of course I’m fine. I was just caught off guard. I forgot to breathe. I don’t have a sister, that’s all.” But deep down somewhere, it sounded true. Deep down, she wanted it to be true.
After her grandmother’s death, and the shock of her huge inheritance wore off, the first thing she’d done was go looking for more family. She’d started at the geneological library in Salt Lake City, but she hadn’t even started digging when these Muir sister’s had gotten her distracted by the Curse of Clan Ross. Of course, she couldn’t be angry with them now, in spite of all their conniving. If it weren’t for them, she’d have never slipped back in time to find the one and only love of her life.
She’d been waiting for the right time to tell her husband she wanted to start looking again, but the poor man hadn’t completely adjusted to the twenty-first century yet. She had to wait until he was comfortable with his own country before she exposed him to too many Americans.
But a sister? She’d been hoping for a cousin. A sister just seemed...greedy.
And if there was a sister she hadn’t been told about, who else might her grandmother have hidden from her?
She searched her memory for some image, for a time when it hadn’t been just her and Grandmother, but she found nothing. She remembered a doll she named Necklace. Seeing a bear at Yellowstone. Little else. There couldn’t have been a sister. Grandmother couldn’t have been that cruel.
“Yes, Jilly. You do have a sister. Didn’t we tell you we thought you might have a twin? In the tunnels. Remember?” Lorrain grinned down into her face as if she deemed her news to be the most wonderful surprise. But if it was a wonderful surprise—if Jilly truly had a sister, twin or not—then why did Loretta look like she had bad news?
Did Lorraine say twin?
“Twin? A twin s...sister?”
Jilly’s mind stuttered as badly as her mouth. She remembered just a flash. A feeling. Her own image, in a mirror, looking up and smiling at her. She’d always remembered what she looked like as a small child, but maybe it hadn’t been a mirror after all.
Then there was another memory. A white room with a low table in the middle. She and the girl with the smiling face. She was wearing a maroon jumper. They were wearing maroon jumpers? Little cups of water on the table, each holding a crayon. They were taking the papers off and soaking the bright sticks—trying to color the water. Then grandma came in and spanked her for ruining the crayons. She remembered that spanking, but she always remembered it as an observer, seeing herself being swatted on the butt. But it maybe it hadn’t been her butt.
Why hadn’t she remembered before? And why would her grandmother never have told her about a sister? And a twin? Why would she tell her nothing more than her parents died in a car wreck and there was no one else?
Jilly took a deep breath and let her anger with her grandmother wash away from her. She didn’t want to upset the little life inside her with the spite she felt for the old woman. She shook her head and held out her hands. She had to get up.
Montgomery pulled her to her feet.
“Where is she?” She brushed the rocks from her rear end, then the dirt from her hands. “When was she here? Is she still here? Are you sure she’s my sister? What was her name?”
She looked around the car park. No other cars. No cars parked up at the house either. Then she noticed Monty. He was glaring at the Muirs and taking deep breaths, like he was building up enough air to start yelling at them. And that never did any good. She put a hand on his arm and pulled him close, both to restrain him and for a bit of needed support.
“Juliet, I believe,” said Loretta, then she bit her lip.
Juliet? Juliet. Juliet.
Jilly said it a dozen times in her mind, but it didn’t ring any bells.
“Where is she?” she asked calmly. All happy thoughts vanished when she’d read their guilty faces.
“Dinna worry yerself, Jilly dear. She’s hale and healthy, we’re almost sure of it,” said Lorraine.
“Where?” Monty’s patience was gone.
“Well, the last we saw her was when we put her in the tomb. Then of course we had to hide ourselves, what with that man chasing her.” Loretta put an arm around her sister and patted her shoulder, as if they’d been through some terrible experience.
Jilly smelled a rat, like she usually did when those two started over-acting.
Montgomery squeezed her hand. “A man was chasing her?”
“Yes,” said Lorriane. “Now we don’t want to worry you, Jilly. Not in your condition. But the man was carrying a gun.”
“I wouldn’t call him a gunman, sister, just because he carried a gun,” Loretta offered.
Lorraine frowned. “I didn’t call him a gunman.”
Loretta waved away the argument. “Of course ye didn’t. I’m just saying I wouldn’t call him a gunman, that’s all. Some men just look the type. He didn’t look the type.”
“Heavens to Betsy, sister,” Lorraine chided. “Ye can’t expect Jillian to stay calm if ye go on spouting the word gunman.”
“Spouting? Why ye—” Loretta’s face turned red.
“Shut it!” Montgomery had pulled out his best Gordon Ramsay impersonation to get everyone’s attention, and it worked. Even the insects shut up. “Now then, the pair of ye will disappear for a moment whilst my wife explains this condition of hers.”
With bulging eyes and thin, tightly shut lips, the blue clad pair walked off, but stopped about ten feet away.
Jilly burst into silent tears as Monty’s arms came around her.
“Ye were about to tell me ye carry my son, were ye not?” he asked.
“I was not,” she said with a hiccup.
He pulled back. “Then I misunderstood?”
“I was going to tell you we’re going to have a baby. It might be a girl, you know.”
He laughed and lifted her into the air, then spun her around until she thought she was going to puke. He put her down immediately, smart man.
“But that doesn’t matter now,” she said.
“The hell it doesn’t.” He started pulling her toward the car door, but she pulled back.
“I mean, what matters right this minute is finding my sister.”
“Come, now, Jillian. Just because those two think some woman looked a bit like you, doesna mean she’s yer kin, does it? Once ye have a babe, perhaps it will put an end to yer search for more family. Ye’ll have me, and the babe. What more could ye need?”
Jilly struggled against his hold and he loosened his arms.
“It haunts me, Montgomery, not knowing anything about my family. And the idea that I have a sister just feels like there’s hope, like the haunting might stop. Besides, one day there will be a little girl, or boy, who asks about the American side
of the family. And if I do have a sister, she might have those details.”
He pulled her tight again and tucked her head beneath his chin.
“Haunted, ye say? How can a man, even as braw and brave as I, fight a haunting, then?”
She smiled against his shirt. “Let’s go find my sister.”
“Oh, she’s gone, Jilly.” The Muirs were back. “We checked. She did not come out of the tomb.”
“She disappeared?” She was afraid of that. She’d done the same every time she’d been in the tomb.
“And the gunman—er, the man with the gun went in as well. He didn’t come out either.”
“And she is yer sister, Jilly dear. You look as much alike as Quinn and Laird Montgomery.
For some reason, she resented the Muirs for meeting her sister before she could, and resented them even more for sending that precious woman into the tomb. No one ever wanders into a stranger’s cellar, sees a hole in the ceiling and says, Hm. I think I’ll climb up there and have a look around.
There was no doubt about it. They’d sent Juliet back in time on purpose, just like they’d sent Jillian a year before. The question was why?
The old sisters shrugged and looked away as if in answer.
Jilly tugged Montgomery toward the old castle. “We’ll just have to go after her.”
Monty stopped walking. “No. We won’t. Ye will go nowhere but home. Who knows what might happen to my child?” His eyes went wide. “Not to mention my wife. Nothing can happen to you, my Jillian. Nothing!”
Jilly shook her head. “If you think I’m going to let you go off to who-knows-where without me, you’re out of your mind. Where you go, I go.”
“But I see a need for haste, here,” Monty reasoned.
Jillian narrowed her eyes. “Agreed.”
Monty took a deep breath and looked into her eyes. “If I asked you kindly to stay and look after our child—a daughter even—would you—”
“Sure. You go. I’ll stay.” She shrugged.
He frowned. “Truly?”
He looked a little too pleased. She couldn’t wait to let him down.
“Only, be sure to get out of the tomb fast,” she said.
“Fast? You mean quickly? Why?”
She crooked a finger so he’d lean close. Then she whispered in his ear.
“Because Junior and I will be right behind you.”
He straightened quickly. “Son of a—”
“Don’t you dare.”
CHAPTER NINE
The pain is worse because I want to live.
The thought was already forming in his head before Quinn woke on the hard dirt ground. Again.
There was not so much as a moment’s confusion about where he was this time. His mind was alert—brought to attention by a hard, mean headache. That ache made it immediately clear that he yet lived. Either that, or hell was going to be a bit more hellish than he’d imagined.
He groaned if only to prove his ears worked. When he then heard the shuffling of feet, he supposed it was his blind babysitter going to alert the media that he was awake and ready for the next Gordon sibling to come have a go at him. Why not?
“Has no one ballocks enough to kill me thoroughly this time?” he complained, for even though he’d decided he wanted to live, the pain in his head was convincing him otherwise. What he wouldn’t give for some good old headache tablets and a bag of ice.
Someone shuffled in his direction and the darkness was pushed back a bit by the orange glow of single weak torch.
“Why nay, Laird Ross,” said a woman. “I haven’t ballocks at all. But I do mean to see ye dead. Unless...”
Quinn thought it only right that he sit up, though slowly, and show a bit of respect for anyone offering him but a dram of hope. He’d need something more promising to get him on his feet, however.
Etha Gordon stepped forward. A manservant stood beside her holding the light. The last face he’d seen, before losing consciousness at the gallows, had belonged to this lovely red-haired lass. Unfortunately, the backhand that had sent his abused head back into the darkness had also belonged to her. Either her brothers had taught her a thing or two about defending herself, or he was a soft, delicate man to have been laid low by such a soft, delicate lass. One more blow to the brain would be his last, no doubt. He was in no better shape than a prize fighter who’d lost one too many prizes. And he’d best start protecting himself or he didn’t deserve to survive.
Quinn knew two things: The Gordon had but one daughter, and Montgomery Ross had been about to marry the woman when his current wife, Jillian, materialized in the tomb and made such ghostly noises that everyone fled Castle Ross. All believed she’d been the ghost of Montgomery’s sister, Isobelle, come to protest the wedding. Obviously, Etha was not the forgive and forget type.
“Etha? Is that you?”
“My name is Betha, ye bastard. Ye were about to speak vows with me and ye failed to learn my name?” Her voice got louder as she went on. A sweet voice, turned a bit ugly at the end.
From what Quinn had heard, she was a quiet biddable lass. Or perhaps she had been, once. It was possible she’d been affected by Isobelle’s ghost arriving in time to ruin her wedding. The only thing Montgomery had done wrong was not to have learned her name. Quinn was certain both Monty and Ewan had told him it was Etha.
“Forgive me if I heard amiss, but did you say you’d see me dead unless? Unless what, Lady Betha?”
She stared at him for a moment, as if weighing the worth of his apology. She gave a nod, as if her mind was made up, then she offered a smile that made him shiver. He didn’t care much for the look in her pale eyes.
“Ye will lie with me, Montgomery Ross. I will at least have yer child, bastard or no.”
He was not about to explain that one night together had little chance of producing a child, not if keeping quiet meant he might be untied, conscious, and on the other side of those bars. The combination meant freedom.
“As you wish, my lady. Will you then see me free?”
“If ye please me, Ross. But only if ye please me.”
Was that her game? Was she only looking for a bit of pleasure, perhaps a taste of what she’d forfeited when she’d run from Castle Ross and a perfectly sound bridegroom? What might be wrong with the woman, other than her family’s manners, that kept her from finding another husband all this while?
Suddenly he was much more hopeful that Percy would come through for him. Pleasing Lady Betha sounded like a task he might not be man enough to accomplish. She was pretty enough. Beneath all her velvet and furs, she seemed petite, but in truth was probably an average size for the century. But lying with the daughter of the man who was supposedly his greatest enemy just didn’t seem like a wise move to make. If they were caught, he’d die on the spot, he was sure, and the idea of dying with a bare arse would make his martyrdom anything but noble.
He hoped his wife Libby was otherwise occupied in Heaven at the moment, and not looking down on his sorry state.
Since Percy showed no signs of coming to a quick decision, he felt it wise to try and buy the man some thinking time. But in order to do so, he would need food. His stomach had long since ceased to growl, turned outside-in as it was. He needed food, and water.
“Aye, my lady. I’d be happy to oblige you,” he said in his most seductive voice. She stepped closer, to be able to hear him. She lifted a pale hand to her face and he was certain she’d gotten a whiff of Skully, as he’d begun to think of the skeleton next door. “But I need my strength to do so, as you might understand. But mayhap a bit of sleep is all I need.”
“Boyd!”
At her call, a large man moved into the light.
“See to it this man has food—good food—then a bath. Tell no one. If my brothers ask what you are about, tell them to see me.”
“Aye, milady.” Boyd bowed before leading the woman away with his torch.
A moment later, Quinn was alone again, basking in the cheer of real hope—for
food and a bath, at least. Hope for survival was close, but he didn’t dare reach for it. It might just disappear. And if he really thought he might live, he’d have to start thinking about what he was going to do with that life.
What in the world could he do? How could he tell Ewan that he’d had a change of heart and wanted to go home, to live the life he was meant to live instead of hiding in the past and mourning his wife in peace?
The image of the witch’s hole popped into his head. Of course he couldn’t go back. He had a role to play. A promise to keep. And if he went back, he’d be facing Jillian and her husband. He’d have to deal with his dreams of her.
That cursed dream! It made him want to live, then made the living unbearable.
God help him.
CHAPTER TEN
Chocolate did not make a good weapon when dealing with a hungry animal. When dealing with a hungry child, yes. Wolf, not so much.
Jules wasn’t a mace-and-pepper-spray kind of girl. She found that a few wisely chosen insults can hurt a thug’s feelings enough to make one back away when necessary. And in extreme cases, dropping Gabby’s name had been the only weapon she’d needed to carry. She knew he was considered a tough guy. But reputation and actions were two different things. Or so she’d thought. Turned out he was just a ruthless as people thought he was.
“I don’t suppose you’ll leave me alone just because I’m like a daughter to Gabby Skedros.”
The wolf showed its teeth and snarled conversationally.
“I didn’t think so.”
Why in the world couldn’t she have been a pepper-spray kind of girl! But no. She’d been a physics major, waiting tables at Gabby’s restaurant, Papa’s, in New York. And physics wasn’t a great weapon either.
Or was it?
The wolf was stalling. It was containing her. Probably waiting for the rest of its pack to arrive. She’d be ripped to pieces if that happened. Her best chance was against one wolf. And if Gabby’s man happened to find her now, even with his gun, chances were he’d let the wolves have her and save the bullet. Besides, he’d already told her she would regret locking him in that dark cellar.
