Eyes of the Cat

by Mimi Riser

  Those glittering eyes scarcely blinked. “As the laird of this castle, and your soon-to-be personal laird, dear, I’d every right.” Alan stared implacably back at her. “And I didn’t much care for the cut of your clothes.”

  “Fine. Then I won’t ask you to wear them. I, however, do care for them. And, laird or not, you’ve no authority over me. I’m not a MacAllister. I will never be a MacAllister. And I want my things back this instant! If you don’t return them, I’ll tear this…this adobe absurdity apart brick by brick until I find them! Do you hear me?”

  “They can probably hear you in Abilene.” Alan’s gaze slanted sideways, as though something on the doorframe had caught his attention. “Ahem”—he cleared his throat—“I can’t give them back. They’ve been burnt.”

  They’d been…

  “What?” Now she felt positively purple. “Why you miserable, egotistical, insufferable—”

  “Simon! How can I be expected to concentrate with all this caterwauling? What the devil is going on out h— Good Lord, don’t tell me this is the new Tabby everyone has been whispering about? I wouldn’t have guessed it if you gave me a million years to try. Tabitha Tilda, you astound me!”

  That makes two of us.

  It couldn’t be…

  Here?

  On legs suddenly become limp dishrags, Tabitha turned. A tall, dignified man with graying hair and penetrating green eyes was hurrying toward her from the tower’s inner door on the other side of the generators.

  “Dr. Earnshaw!” she cried, and flung herself into his outstretched arms.

  “Oh. You two know each other, do you?” Simon said with a bit of surprise.

  “Tilda?” Alan said with a lot.

  “There, there, no need for tears,” the older man kept repeating, his own eyes suspiciously moist, as Tabitha clung to him. “Stand back, child. Let me have a good look at you… My goodness, can one year make such a difference?” He held her at arm’s length. “Why, you look absolutely charming!” His mouth twisted into a wry grin. “Though Matilda would hardly have approved of this gown, you know.”

  “Believe me, I know. I’m not overly fond of it, myself.” Tabitha laughed through her tears, suddenly understanding how a person could cry from pure simple joy and relief. Zachary Earnshaw was the classic absentminded professor, but he had also been her aunt’s most trusted associate. Surely he could help her out of this dilemma.

  “What are you doing here? I tried to find you after the funeral, but no one seemed to know where you’d disappeared to.” She couldn’t take her eyes off from him. He looked like landfall after a long, treacherous trip at sea. “Oh, Dr. Earnshaw, you have no idea how glad I am to see you!”

  “The feeling is mutual, child. My goodness, but you’ve become the image of Matilda.” Zachary’s gaze and hands dropped from her at the same time, and he awkwardly turned away. “Her death hit me hard, you know. Matilda wasn’t only a valued colleague. She was my dearest friend. Philadelphia held too many sad memories for me after she was gone. Everywhere I looked, all I could see was her absence.” He turned back with a half shrug and a full sigh. “Perhaps the move out here was hasty, but I wasn’t thinking very clearly at the time. I just knew I wanted to be near family.”

  “F-family?” Staring up at him, Tabitha felt her smile beginning to freeze. “B-but you’re an Earnshaw.”

  “On my father’s side, naturally. But my mother’s people are MacAllister.” His brows rose, as though he was surprised she hadn’t realized that. “It’s a large clan, you know.”

  The brittle smile froze so hard it cracked and dropped straight off a suddenly ashen face. Tabitha thought she could almost hear the shattering sound it made as it hit the floor.

  “Too large,” she rasped, turned like a zombie, and glided shakily to the door, only to find her exit blocked by an amber-eyed Rock of Gibraltar in crisp linen shirt and trousers so tight she wondered, even in her haze, how he was managing to draw air. Just the painted-on sight of them made it difficult for her to breathe. Between that and the second regretfully large helping of boiled beef Simon had foisted upon her earlier, she couldn’t get outside fast enough.

  “And where do you think you’re going, lassie?”

  “The bailey wall. I’m going to hurl myself off the top,” Tabitha lied, regretting also the second helping of apple custard. “If that doesn’t work, I’ll try falling into the moat. That’s the nice thing about castles. They offer so many suicide options.”

  The Rock lounged against the doorframe, eyes glittering down at her. “Aren’t we being just a wee bit melodramatic?”

  “I don’t know about you, but I certainly am. It’s such an appropriate n-night for it, what with the storm and all,” she half gasped, not sure how much longer her midnight supper would stay in place. “Now you’d really b-better let me by.”

  “No. Not if you’re going to try something silly.”

  Good heavens, couldn’t he see she was just…just…

  “I’m not going to be s-silly. I think I’m going to be s-sick!” She clamped one hand across her midsection and the other over her mouth.

  “Bloody hell…” Alan grabbed her by the elbows and steered her out into the courtyard.

  The rain had stopped only moments before, and the wind gusted fresh and cool against her flushed skin, blowing the queasiness away and bracing her up.

  “Th-thank you. I’m all right now.” She tried to step out of his hold.

  The hold remained firm, setting her a new problem: how to ignore the electric tingles his touch sparked.

  “You’re sure? This is an awfully sudden recovery.” There was a hint of suspicion in his husky baritone.

  Added to everything else, it rankled her nerves. “Yes! I’m fine. Now let go of my arms.”

  He did. But apparently just so he could slide his hands around her waist and draw her back to lean on him. Tabitha’s breath hitched as his warmth wrapped around her and his chest muscles rippled against her spine.

  “Of course now, ’twas a sudden illness, too,” he mused. “Makes me wonder if you planned it to get me alone.”

  Her breath whooshed out in an angry rush. Tabitha tried first to elbow him in the ribs, and then to stomp on his foot. Both blows went haywire.

  “Easy, lass.” Chuckling, he spun her about in his arms, so she faced him. “’Twas just a joke.” He smiled at her.

  Tabitha glared green daggers. “Well, I’m not laughing. And Big Chief better takum hands offum paleface squaw, before squaw knockum stupid grin offum Big Chief’s face!”

  He released her so fast she staggered two paces backward before catching her balance.

  “That wasn’t funny.” The chill in his voice sent an icy shudder down her spine.

  She shook it off and drew herself up with all the dignity she could muster. “I don’t see why not. If you can play Comanche, why can’t I?”

  “Because you’re not a Comanche.”

  “And you are, I suppose?”

  “Aye…I am.” And he angled away.

  Tabitha’s eyes widened, then narrowed. Around her in the moonlit courtyard, puddles flashed and the rampart’s towers loomed like shadowy giants, but all she saw was the tense muscular figure before her. Alan MacAllister thought he was a Comanche? Of all the… Wasn’t being the lord of a Highland fortress on the flat plains of Texas eccentric enough for him?

  She shook her head. The man was either a liar, a joker, or a lunatic. Probably all three. And she wanted nothing to do with any of them!

  “Right. Of course you are,” she said. “And I happen to be Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet. Excuse me now, but I must go look for my father’s ghost.” Gathering her skirts together, she turned and darted up a nearby stairway that led to the top of the bailey wall, forgetting her earlier threat.

  “Tabitha— Don’t!” Alan caught up with her just as she reached the rain slick pathway behind the parapet. Grabbing her wrist, he jerked her around to face him.

  She skidded and
shrieked. Not because of Alan, but because she suddenly realized something that, in her anger, she hadn’t stopped to consider from the ground: how high and exposed it was upon the wall. The parapet shielded the outer edge, but the inside of the pathway was a twenty-foot dizzying drop straight down to the massive, muddy courtyard below.

  Tabitha took one look at it and, without stopping to consider again, threw herself into his arms. It was probably the last thing he’d been expecting, and it knocked him backward a pace, but he rapidly rebalanced, swinging her off her feet and against his chest. She shivered and clutched his shoulders, burying her face against his neck to shut out the sight of the drop. Her hair had come loose and hung about them both, shimmering like a gold veil in the moonglow. Not that she could see it at the moment, but others could.

  “Now that was silly,” Alan said. “You didn’t really think I’d let you jump, did you?”

  “What?” She let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “Good heavens, I was being facetious when I said that. Heights terrify me! You couldn’t get me to leap off this wall if you lit a fire under me.”

  His arms tightened a fraction, but she was too unnerved to notice. Nor did she see what he was gazing at over her head, a small audience gathering in the yard below.

  “Opportunity knocks but once,” he quoted cryptically, a sudden, odd lilt in his voice that slipped past her, too. “All things considered then, dear, this looks like a perfect time for me to confess something.”

  “Oh no, you’re not going to tell me that you’re also an Arabian Sheik, or a Russian Cossack, or something like that, are you?” Tabitha groaned into his neck. His answering chuckle had an ominous ring to it, but she missed that warning as well.

  “Tabitha Tilda, the only thing I’ve any interest in being right now is your husband.”

  “What?” Her head flew up, and she glared at him.

  “That’s what I wanted to discuss at the spring.” Alan parried the glare with an incorrigible calm. “I’m asking you to marry me. And if you don’t say yes, I may become so downhearted, I’ll go weak and accidentally drop you off the rampart.”

  “You. Wouldn’t. Dare.”

  “I surely wouldn’t. But then…I might not be able to help myself.”

  “No!” She gasped and clutched at him as he took a wavering step toward the pathway’s open side. “Wait!”

  “Aye, dear? You’ve something to say to me?” His eyes gleamed expectantly down.

  Hers blazed frightened fury back. “I don’t think you really want to hear what I have to say to you,” she hissed like a cornered cat.

  “I’d better.” He relaxed his hold a notch and took another step.

  “No!— Yes!” Tabitha shrieked over the pounding in her ears.

  “Which is it, aye or nay? Make up your mind, lassie. My arms are getting tired.”

  He moved right to the edge.

  She clung frantically to him, fighting down dizziness and frustrated rage. This was so unfair! So unbelievable! So MacAllister.

  “All right! Y-yes,” she finally managed to choke out, though how she was able to squeeze the words past that suffocating lump in her throat, she had no idea.

  “Yes, what?” His voice sounded like the business end of a saber.

  “Yes, I…I’ll m-marry you,” she half sobbed.

  “Louder. I want to hear you say: I promise to be your wife, Alan MacAllister.” A powerful pair of arms slipped their hold just enough to make her gasp and clutch at him again.

  The crisp, post-storm air blew against them, fanning Tabitha’s hair out over the courtyard like a blond banner, but doing nothing to cool the scorch of angry mortification.

  Oh, what difference does it make? Engagements have been broken before now. It’s not like I’ll ever go through with it.

  Drawing a deep, trembling breath, she discreetly crossed two fingers behind his back and repeated with as much volume as she could muster, “I promise to be your w-wife, Alan MacAllister.”

  He pulled her securely against his chest and stepped away from the edge. “And I promise to be your husband, Tabitha Tilda. Did you hear that, Uncle Angus?” he called.

  “Aye, lad, we all did!” the big man’s voice boomed back. “Why dinna you kiss the bonny bride?”

  Alan glanced at the bonny bride’s murderous expression. He flinched. “Um…later.” Grinning a bit sheepishly, he carried her down the stairway to those waiting below. Whose waiting did not include waiting for a kiss.

  Roaring felicitations in Scots Gaelic, Angus snatched Tabitha up into a rib-crunching bear hug and planted a resounding, hairy smack on each flushed cheek before turning her over to the next in line.

  “I…I’m not sure what to say.” Zachary Earnshaw gazed down at her with a curious mixture of bemusement and concern. “You’re rather young for this, and marriage isn’t like a math equation, Tabitha. There are no tried and true formulas you can follow to make it come out correctly. Are you certain you know what you’re doing?”

  I know I’m not going to marry any overbearing, over-muscled, insane Scottish Comanche.

  Tabitha met the worry in his gaze with iron resolve in her own. “Quite certain!”

  Zachary’s expression relaxed into a relieved smile. He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “Then you have my full blessing, child.” The smile went a trifle wry. “Though I doubt Matilda would have approved.” Chuckling to himself, he turned and headed back to the generator tower, a slight crookedness in his gait the only evidence that he still carried several annoying ounces of shrapnel from the Civil War.

  “Aunt Matilda would have had a cow.” Tabitha slapped the creases out of her velvet skirt while pretending it was Alan.

  Suddenly she stiffened.

  “You must be loosing your touch, Mr. Elliott. I heard you approach.” She pivoted about to confront him.

  “I thought it would surprise you more this time if I didn’t appear out of nowhere.” He stared at her, an inscrutable look in his smoky gray eyes. “I’m afraid you’ve put your foot in it, Miss Jeffries. Or, should I say, Lady MacAllister?”

  “Hah, it’s only an engagement, Mr. Elliott, and it hardly puts me in a worse position than I was before. I’ll be Lady MacAllister when they throw the first snowball out of you know where.”

  Simon opened his mouth as if to speak, then snapped it shut again. He breathed a small sigh and shrugged. “Ah well, far be it from me to disillusion you, dear girl. At least it affords me opportunity for this.”

  On that odd note he jerked her forward and kissed her. Kissed her warm and firm and full, in fact. And square on the mouth.

  He punctuated the act with a cavalier grin. “Don’t look so startled, Miss Jeffries. Merely following the dictates of tradition, is all. Who are we to argue with such things?” His gaze shifted, but the grin remained. “Isn’t that right, Alan?”

  “Aye. I dare say you wouldn’t care much for the tradition I’m thinking of now, though.”

  “Probably not. But then, they can’t all be this much fun.” Simon chuckled. “You’ll have to excuse me now. Dr. Earnshaw and I still have a lot of work to do tonight. You too, I imagine. Hmm, Alan?” With a wink at Tabitha, he sauntered off in the wake of Zachary Earnshaw.

  “I don’t want you even speaking to him again. Understand?” Alan’s low growl rolled out like thunder.

  Biting back her own aggravation at the incident, Tabitha glanced up into his black glare and asked coolly, “Are you giving me orders?”

  “Aye! And you’ll bide what I say, lassie.”

  “Aye, I’ll bide you,” she mimicked him. “I’ll bide you when I see pigs circling in the air and building nests in the parapets. Now leave me alone. I’ve had just about all of the male species in general that I can tolerate for one night. I’m going back to bed. I’m going to drink that water in my room and hope that it is drugged, so I don’t have to look at or listen to any of you for a good long while!”

  She gathered up her skirts and raced toward the
towering keep, only to be grabbed by the arm and spun about before she was halfway there.

  “What do you mean, your water is drugged?”

  “It has to be! That, or some other damn thing I was given. Why the hell do you think I slept for twenty-four solid, bloody hours?” she shouted—then clapped a hand over her mouth in embarrassed surprise. It was the first time she’d ever cursed. The way things were going, though, it probably wouldn’t be the last.

  Alan loomed over her, his handsome face in the shadows, so she couldn’t read his expression, but his voice, when it came, had a sharp edge of suspicion. “I didn’t know about any of that. I’ve been gone most of last night and all of today. I returned but a short while ago.”

  “How lucky for me.” She bared teeth in a snarl of a grin. “What were you doing?”

  The grip on her arm hardened. “One thing you’d best learn, and quickly, Tabitha, is not to question me. You might get answers you’d rather not hear.”

  She swallowed down a sudden flutter of fear. “Fine. I don’t really care anyway, you know. I only asked because I was hoping that wherever it is you were, it was someplace you’d be going back to soon.”

  “Not yet, lassie.” He yanked her back when she tried to shrug free, pulling her close enough to see the gleam of his eyes in the shadows. They glowed almost like a cat’s. “I’ve one more bit of advice,” he purred dangerously. “It’d be worth your while to at least try being pleasant to me. Your life could become a wee bit…uncomfortable, otherwise.”

  “Otherwise?” Tabitha drew herself up to her full height. It brought her nearly eyelevel with the top of his shoulder. “Things can hardly be any worse for me than they are right now! My life has been uncomfortable since I left Philadelphia with that taxing little chatterbox, Lady Gabrina.”

  “If you didn’t like her, why were you so willing to take her place? I’ve been pondering that. What did Gabrina and that captain of hers offer you?”

  His implication stung her. “Don’t be insulting. I wouldn’t do something like that for pay. They tried to stop me, in fact. And I never said I didn’t like her. I simply found her a bit too fluffy headed. Girls like that get on my nerves, I’m afraid. But I helped her and Captain Lawrence because they needed it. It seemed the only solution to the problem. And”—she paused to gather her thoughts and dignity together—“and because the very idea of an arranged marriage in this day and age really ruffled my principles. It’s uncalled for, unpleasant, and utterly archaic!”