He gazed into her face, smirking, but set her on the ground. When he started moving away, he pulled her by the wrist. Digging her doeskin slippers into the gravel trail, she struggled to get loose. A slight breeze had cleared away the stench of the black smoke that had filled her tent with supernatural speed.
“Unhand me, ye brute!” Gulping mouthfuls of untainted air, her anger grew. Was he after her strongbox, or the magical potions and herbs? While the breeze tangled her loosened hair around her face and neck, she tried her best to ignore him.
How dare he touch me?
“Unhand me, ye brute,” she repeated, “be ye deaf?”
The fire was spreading, sending smoky tendrils to wrap around her throat, choking her. Was he the one who had set the flames licking up the rear wall of her tent? Instead of letting her go, he shoved her past him and up the trail.
He was an attractive package, masculine perfection wrapped up in a pleated plaid. Wide, muscular shoulders filled out the red shirt that stretched across the hard plane of his chest. When he leaned forward and pushed loose hair behind her ear, she froze. When those same fingers trailed down her cheek, they left a line of white-hot heat in their wake.
“Move! I need to get back to my tent!” She had tripped over the strongbox that must have fallen just inside the tent in her haste to leave, and she had to get back and collect it. Stretching up on the tips of her toes, she was still too short to see over the huge stranger. Pulling her hand back, she swatted his chest as if he were a stinging insect. She felt his laughter in the quivering muscles beneath her fingertips.
“I’m not afraid of you, darlin’.”
Holding back the urge to dig her nails into the warm skin hiding beneath his shirt, she stepped away. He retained the grip on her wrist, stepping back into her private space. As one hand dropped to his side, the other hand raised, cupping her chin. The possessiveness in his touch, reflected in his eyes, surprised her.
Izzy opened her mouth to protest his forwardness. As if in slow motion, a face that looked chiseled from granite grew closer. Masculine lips brushed across her mouth and she froze in place. When his tongue teased the crease between her lips, as if wanting to gain entrance, she pushed against his chest, and opened her eyes.
When had I shut them?
Why had he blocked her escape, but pulled her to safety? Izzy had found the tent flap and the way out, but the fallen goods and thick smoke disoriented her. Maybe he really had saved her, but that did not give him permission to take advantage of her. It did not matter that his lips were soft, but he had no right. As suddenly as he had kissed her, he broke the bond.
“For luck,” she thought he whispered. Needing a clear head to figure out why the back of her tent had erupted in flames, she ignored his hulking form, spun on her heels, and marched up the trail. She expected him to follow, but he took off in the opposite direction, heading toward her tent.
“To steal my strongbox, or put out the flames? I canna’ stop him from acting on the first, and if he wants to attack the fire, God speed.” Turning away from the smoke, and his scent, she ran.
With no power of her own to stop the flames, all she could do was seek a familiar face.
“I must find Dorcas Swann.”
While she ran toward clan village, several men shouted behind her. Had they noticed the smoke? Were they seeking help, or stealing her blind? The Highland Games were a familiar venue, yet she did not belong in this time, and the code of conduct differed.
If evil had returned to attack Dorcas Swann and her livelihood, who could help? Dorcas had not promised to return before Hogmanay, what people of this time celebrate as New Year’s Eve, but that was months away. With no way to contact the witch she could trust to fix this mess, she was stumped, but she had to try.
Izzy yearned to be enjoying a snack at nearby food tents, not watching Dorcas’ livelihood go up in smoke. She had planned to buy a meat pie and a flaky bridie, even if she had to shove her way through bagpipers tuning up near the ale tent.
She laughed, because her nerves were on edge, and feeling helpless, while children echoed her laughter nearby. Oblivious to the smoke rising toward the sky, they laughed and sang with faces covered with shortbread crumbs. Others fought with wooden swords and shields, made of a lightweight substance her friend Jenny called plastic.
From the corner of her eye, a familiar shape loomed. The tail of his long, black coat fluttered behind him, as he walked parallel to her, on the far side of a vendor’s tent. She squinted at his profile. Turning, his familiar dark green eyes bore into hers.
“How could he have followed me? He canna’ be here!”
Fear made her throat close as she slipped into the crowd around the athletic field. Because of him, she had turned her back on her homeland. She left her country, her clan, and her whole life behind, and disappeared with the help of Dorcas Swann.
Or so I thought. He should no’ be anywhere near the New England Highland Games.
“I thought I had no’ left a trail,” she whispered, clutching her suddenly churning stomach. Between the smoke clogging her lungs, and the terror that had followed her to the present, she felt ill. He was the sole reason she had turned her back on her homeland and her clan.
That bastard, Gavin Sinclair, stood on the far side of the shortbread and scone vendor. She peeked between two burly competitors, as Gavin slowly turned, glancing in her direction. She ducked, ignoring the chuckles around her.
She never thought she would see Gavin again. He was the main reason why she had fled their village. Five years earlier, when she had barely seen twenty summers, her parents succumbed to a virulent fever. She had read the pity in Gavin’s eyes, and believed the attention he showered her with, was love.
“Ha!” Izzy vowed not to succumb to a man’s lies ever again, but that was not important. Not now, not today. When Dorcas Swann arrived soon after their deaths, and after Gavin had taken everything but her land, the old woman gave her hope. Though Izzy had lost her heart to Gavin Sinclair, and his subterfuge broke it into pieces, the witch offered her a new life in the future. Izzy took to the new world immediately, and vowed to never fall into a man’s honeyed trap again.
CHAPTER 3
Izzy hid, while she contemplated several things. Why would Gavin appear here? How could he have followed her from the past? Was he here to harm Dorcas? Or her?
“He dinna’ want me, so he is no’ here for me.” Her muttered statement was partly true. The truth hurt, even five years later. Gavin had showed interest when her parent’s deaths left her with their modest cottage, and good Gunn Clan farmland. It lay on the west edge of Keldurunach, near the border with the Sinclair territory. Land meant power, and women usually had little of either. As an only child, the property fell to her.
She still could not believe her eyes. Peeking beneath the elbow of a man carrying a bagpipe, then slipping between strangers, she followed Gavin until she lost sight of him. Gavin Sinclair, the youngest son of the Sinclair laird, had followed her to the present? The very idea made her heart race. Her palms grew clammy, while a small crack tore through her chest, where her heart used to be.
She sighed at the memory. After showering her with trinkets, and showing up at the oddest places, Gavin had swept her off her feet. It was not until after he asked for her hand and had bedded her, that the rumors surfaced. Some said Gavin’s father, the Laird of Clan Sinclair, had sent his man-at-arms to harm her. Another said that Gavin and his father wanted her land. She believed the rumors once her cousin swore that Gavin sought her hand only for material gain, and to free himself from his powerful father’s grasp.
The message was clear. How could a laird’s son love her, a farmer’s daughter? An easy target, they must have thought, so she set out to prove them wrong. She had not given the laird or his son another thought. She had not feared death, but she would not condone a loveless marriage. Gavin wanted only her wealth.
Her land.
Not her.
In the
here and now, she tugged the lace-edged sleeve of her peasant shirt, and tightened the ties that crisscrossed her vest. With another quick peek, she walked back toward her smoky tent. Surely someone would call the alarm.
As she passed each vendor, she asked about Dorcas Swann. No one seemed to have seen the powerful witch today. Why had she not insisted on some form of communication? Only Dorcas could help her fight whatever witch, sorcerer, creature, or man had attacked her and her tent. Then she remembered the brute who had kissed her, without so much as a word of consent. She clasped her hands to her chest in silent prayer, and continued toward her tent.
“There ye are!”
Izzy stubbed her toe on a small rock, and tripped. The familiar voice, much too close, caused her to ignore her surroundings, and fall over her own feet. She regained her footing, and caught the edge of a tree stump beside the lane. Bending over, she struggled to catch her breath.
“How tempting.”
Izzy jerked upright. Gavin. No sense hiding now. She had not intended to give him a view of her jean-clad bottom. His opinion was not wanted. The man loved women. All women.
‘Twas a fact I discovered after I threw him from my bed.
Instead of ignoring the man suddenly beside her, Izzy closed her eyes. Inhaling deeply, she turned to face him. She glared at the owner of the deep voice. Gavin Sinclair smiled down at her. Her knees shook, due to more than his smile. Memories of passionate embraces and budding romance that had turned to heartache still hurt, even five years later.
His attention, and subsequent betrayal, had bruised her heart. It had turned her from men and their lives. She was a woman now, at only five and twenty, but a young woman’s pain still lingered.
The hard planes of his face were familiar. Eyes that reminded her of green foam swirling across the North Sea, bore into her. The calf-length black leather coat hid a lean body with which she was intimately familiar. The laces of his black jacobite shirt dangled loose at the open vee below his chin, and exposed tanned skin and a strong neck. Wispy dark hair peeked from his partially open shirt.
Memories of having kissed her way down that neck rose unwanted. Izzy refused to allow his charms to affect her.
Never again.
“What are ye doing here?” she snapped. Heat flooded her cheeks at her boldness. Gavin held his breath while she glared at him. He shoved a stray lock of brown hair from his face. Her anger-filled expression seemed to startle him.
“Now see here, Isobel. Ye have no right to look like ye wish to thrust a dirk into my heart.” Gavin’s dark eyes turned soft, as they bore into her. Sweeping downward, they roamed over the part of her costume that she still wore, in order to fit in at the present day Highland games, and her job selling Dorcas Swann’s wares. Since the day was ending, the lowering sun signaled an evening ripe with opportunity.
“Ye look too interested in my attire.” She suddenly wished she had not removed her long skirt to slip on jeans. The new clothes were too revealing. When his gaze stopped below her waist, she backed up two paces.
“These odd leggings are molded to yer womanly curves. I see no way I can possibly keep my opinions muzzled.”
I would love to muzzle him.
“How I dress is no concern of ye. Ye made yer wishes known, when ye bedded a castle full of servants. How many bastards have ye now?”
When his eyes blazed, and his cheeks turned red at her words, she knew she had hit her mark. The tales her people shared of his conquests must have been true. Had he raised his bastards in the castle under the eyes of his father, the laird? Or, had he ignored the women he sullied, in order to marry a woman with wealth? A woman like her.
“I have no’ traveled…,” he paused, his eyes flashing at passersby, “all this distance to quarrel with ye about lies and innuendos. I am on a mission, and ye will assist me without arguing.”
“What mission?” Glaring at his brazenness, she slapped her fists on her hips, and waited for an explanation. He crossed his arms over his chest, and the bulge of new muscles caught her attention.
The boy is now a man, and just as arrogant.
Ignoring him was difficult, but the emergency of the fire that would have quickly engulfed her tent, was still in the forefront of her mind.
“I have no time for this, or for ye. Dorcas Swann’s potion tent caught fire.” She spun and headed away from Gavin. “ ‘Twas set, I fear, and it will soon consume everything.”
“A fire? Could be a warning.”
She turned back to Gavin. “Did ye burn the tent? With me in it?”
Gavin’s dark eyes flickered, and an angry sneer twisted his mouth. He stepped closer, spread his arms, and mumbled ancient words. Light sparkled from his fingertips. The roar of crowds, and marching bands, were instantly silenced. Enveloped in nothingness, her quick intake of breath was the only noise. People passed them by, seeming not to notice their private conversation.
“What magic is this?” Izzy said. When he did not answer fast enough, she poked Gavin in the chest; a chest as hard as the granite that filled the surrounding mountains.
“I have learned a few things while ye have been hiding.”
“I dinna’ hide. I escaped.” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, and silently cursed the way his eyes drifted lower.
“I would appreciate an explanation of why ye left with no word after all we…shared, but that can wait. Explain this fire.”
“Aye. Sparks flew up the back wall. I shoved what I could toward the front of the tent, but I tripped. I fell into the arms of a beast of a brute that blocked my escape.”
“Who? Where is he?” Gavin looked around the grounds. Vendors hawked their wares, tents were filled with visitors, others passed by on their way to the beer tent. Hundreds of people stood near the competition field, and had lined up to watch the athletes at the sheaf toss event.
Izzy glanced at a tawny-haired man who slammed a pitchfork into a potato sack filled with straw, swung it up and down. Muscles strained, and a deep grimace darkened his face until he let it fly. The burlap bag flew over a bar, suspended a dozen or more feet, above his head. Onlookers on the opposite hill jumped to their feet, their mouths opened in obvious screams, while they clapped their hands.
“Total silence. ‘Tis eerie. We need to discuss yer newfound talents later. Time is of the essence, if we are to save Dorcas’ tent and belongings.”
“I am unfamiliar with how to attack fires in this time. With buckets? Water from a nearby stream?”
“I have no time to explain the modern way. In truth, I doona’ know, but I must return to the tent to save what I can.”
“As you wish, Isobel,” Gavin said, followed by a half bow.
“My name is Izzy. ‘Tis what I go by, here.”
“Ye shall always be Lady Isobel MacHamish to me.” He waved his hand. When the magical dome disappeared, a siren split the air.
Izzy jumped away from Gavin, then spun back toward the trail. She raced toward the tent. As she got closer, the crowd that had run toward the conflagration had dispersed, thankfully. The billowing black smoke had paled to light gray. The tent was still standing, and the flames appeared to have gone out. She spied a large red motor vehicle parked in the road. Bright, spinning lights on its roof hurt her eyes, but at least the wailing noise had ceased. Men in heavy coats walked away from the vendor area.
“More magic?” she said, as relief washed over her.
The large brute, whose chest she had earlier plowed into, came around from the back of the tent. His sooty face and damp shirt did nothing to detract from his sheer good looks. Only a wisp of smoke puffed from the front flap of Dorcas’ tent. Hesitating, Izzy threw the flaps wide and slipped inside.
“Wait!” the stranger said.
She ignored him. Scrunching up her nose at the acrid smoke that lingered, and rolled along the canvas ceiling, she hurried up and down each aisle. Only the rear wall was charred and damp, obviously doused with water.
“You should wait unti
l the place airs out,” a deep voice said.
Izzy turned to face the intruder. Standing alone in the tent with a man who had brazenly kissed her earlier was too intimate. She was surprised Gavin had not followed her inside, or had instigated an argument with the man. Where had Gavin gone?
The stranger was suddenly behind her, and his manly scent barreled through her senses. The aroma of leather and musk shoved aside the smell of burned canvas.
“Who put out the flames? You?” she asked. If so, he was not the person who caused the problem. He was her savior.
“I ski here every winter. I remembered the fire hose mounted on the door, just inside the building this tent backs up to.”
“A fire hose? This place is filled with surprises.” Things she had never dreamed about, after leaving 1598 to escape…
“Gavin?”
“Nope. The name’s Buchanan. Bryce Buchanan, but my friends call me Bull.”
She stepped back, and tripped over a bundle of scorched cloth. “Great stars above! My dress! ‘Tis ruined.”
“Sorry about that. If I’d seen it, I would have tried to save it, but my mind was on the tent, the ski lodge, and Dorcas Swann’s herbs. She would have my head, if I let them all burn.”
He winked, and headed for the front tent flap.
He knew Dorcas? “Wait!”
The giant, Bull, was gone, but Gavin blocked the doorway. How dare he follow her to the future? Or, had he appeared for a more nefarious reason? “I doona’ have time for ye, Gavin.”
“What is going on? Who was that man? He pushed me aside and barreled up the hill before I could ask him what he was doing in this tent with ye.”
“I am no longer any concern of yers.”
Gavin pulled her farther into the dark silence of the smoky tent, before she could sound a protest. Tugging her arm free, she sped around a display table filled with soot-covered bagged herbs and bottled potions. The separation was barely adequate.
He exuded power and something more, something different from when last they met. The sorcery he shared with her was new. Where had he gained such power? Could he have started the blaze? While she was inside? No, he would not risk her life. Not until he got what he wanted.
My Lady Highlande Page 3
