by Jessi Gage
A surge of fear sped her pulse. This was feeling less and less like something her imagination might have conjured. And yet it couldn’t possibly be real. Not unless she’d somehow stumbled into a reenactment, and since the damp, almost balmy landscape looked nothing like anyplace within stumbling distance of the Charleston Museum in mid-January, that was highly unlikely. No, it had to be a hallucination. A frighteningly realistic hallucination.
When the man shoved a knee between her legs and rubbed his non-dirk hand up to grab her breast through her top, indignation filled her lungs. Hallucination or not, she wouldn’t stand for being felt up against her will.
“Get your hands off me!”
The man didn’t relent, kneading her breast through the lightweight cashmere. Sour breath seared her cheek as he moved over her, pinning her to the ground. “Don’t make a fuss, lass. I need aught but a few minutes and then ye can return to your English bastard and his romantic ways.”
The man stabbed his dirk into the grass an inch from her ear in an obvious warning. Her heart jumped into her throat and beat frantically until all she could hear was the thunder of her pulse.
The man held her down with one hand while he reached between her legs with the other. Seemingly confounded, he leaned back to study her clothing. She sent a heartfelt thank you heavenward for the thick cotton tights that made biking to work in January possible. She took advantage of the moment and blindly reached for the dirk beside her head. When the hilt met her palm, she curled her fingers around it and yanked the blade free.
She’d planned to merely wave it at the man and tell him to back off, but when he cocked his fist back, aiming a punch toward her face, something in her snapped. It wasn’t so much rational thought as sheer instinct of self preservation that drove her to squeeze her eyes shut and thrust the dirk forward.
It sank into flesh. The blow she’d braced for never came.
She opened one eye.
The man’s face was a mask of disbelief. Both his hands were wrapped around her hand, around the dirk’s hilt. A good two thirds of the twelve-inch blade was buried in his stomach through the diagonal swath of wool wrapped around his torso. Warm wetness spread through the fabric, staining their joined hands red.
She yanked her hand away. The man slid the blade out of his stomach and a spurt of blood came with it, splattering her bunched-up skirt and marring the peach cashmere of her sweater. The man toppled to his side, groaning and clutching the wound.
Horror washed over her in an icy wave. What had she done?
Defended yourself, her practical mind supplied. But what had felt necessary a few moments ago now seemed like overkill. Torn between running away and offering to help the man, she scrambled backward until her back hit the leaning boulder. Her breath came too fast.
“It’s only a hallucination,” she chanted to herself over and over.
But her senses conspired against her, insisting this place was real. The blood on her hands quickly cooled, and the moist ground chilled her bottom. Heather and field grass scented the air. Shouts, groans, and the clang of swords persisted behind the boulder. The man on the ground breathed in and out with harsh whooshes of breath.
No hallucination could do all that. Her imagination simply wasn’t that good.
She was inexplicably and undeniably present at what appeared to be a clan skirmish in Scotland, and judging by her attacker’s wardrobe and weaponry, it was a far cry from modern-day Scotland. While she tried to process this new reality past several layers of shock, the man on the ground pushed to his hands and knees.
Relief that he wasn’t dead made her shoulders sag.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to, um, stab you. But you were going to rape me. I had to defend myself. Is there anything I can do to help?” As she pushed up on shaky legs, she thought about her cellphone, lying on her workbench in Charleston. Even if she’d had it in her pocket, 9-1-1 wouldn’t do any good here.
The man struggled to his feet. A glint of bloodied steel drew her eyes to his right hand. Oh God, the dirk! Why had she let it go?
“There’s somat ye can do, all right,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “Come ’ere, so I can show ye how a stabbing’s done.” He launched in her direction.
She screamed and ran. Straight into a hard chest swathed in muted brown wool.
Chapter 2
Melanie jerked her head up, way up, to find deep brown eyes glaring past her out of a chiseled face surrounded by wild, dark-blond hair. One of the man’s hands gripped her shoulder. The other held an enormous Highland broadsword. The look on his face spelled death for her would-be rapist.
Relief washed through her. She was hallucinating after all.
Men this tall, rugged, and handsome didn’t actually exist, not on any continent in any time. Air-brushed masculinity like this only lived on the covers of romance novels.
He was definitely something she would have imagined. There. Dilemma solved. She’d hit her head and was having an Emmy-winner of a hallucination.
Drunk with elation that she hadn’t really almost been raped and hadn’t really stabbed a man, she slapped the muscled arm of her very own imaginary Highlander and quipped, “What took you so long? That was cutting it kind of close, don’t you think?”
The man flicked her a distracted glance, then shoved her away so hard she stumbled into a prickly bush. Thorny barbs bit her hands and face and snagged her clothes.
Okay, that wasn’t very heroic. Even if it appeared he’d done it to save her from her charging attacker. In the romance novels, the hero always managed a graceful, chivalrous rescue.
While she detangled herself from the bush, the new man dodged the bloody dirk and struck the bearded man with his sword. The warrior had to be at least six and a half feet tall. Between the bearded man’s shorter reach and smaller weapon, he stood no chance. He fell under two ruthless skewerings.
Her gut clenched with horror and sympathy before she managed to remember that none of this was really happening.
But if none of this was real, then she’d bonked her head on her office floor hard enough to endanger herself and her baby. She clutched her belly. Please be okay, little one. Hang in there. We’ll figure a way out of this.
Looking at her belly, she saw blood still on her hands and soaked into the fabrics of her skirt and sweater. She willed it to go away. She willed the tear in her skirt to close. She willed herself back to her office, back to consciousness.
Nothing changed.
If this was all happening in her head, shouldn’t she be able to control it or at least nudge it in a certain direction, like in a dream? Unfortunately, she had no time to ponder why her delusion ignored her whims, because the honey-blond warrior came at her, pushing her against the boulder with the mere force of his presence. His eyes blazed. She gulped, fearing she might be worse off with this man than she’d been with the one on the ground.
“And just who might you be?” he asked in a deadly, deep burr. Every inch of his tall, muscled frame was tensed for battle. His sword, so long she’d be hard pressed to lift it one-handed, remained poised for attack and perfectly stationary at his side. The tight muscles in his forearm didn’t even twitch with its weight.
She shook her head, too terrified to answer. Would he accuse her of being an English spy, too? Would he try to rape her?
Was he real? Her stampeding heart thought so.
The new man’s eyes scanned down her body, fixing on her belly.
She gripped her slight swell protectively.
“You’re wounded,” he stated with a modicum of concern, seemingly too distracted by the blood all over her to notice her knocked-up state. He sheathed his sword. Rough hands yanked at the blood-soaked hem of her sweater, undeterred by her swatting.
“I’m not,” she blurted, tangling her hands with his. “It’s not my blood. Please stop touching me.”
Proving he had at least an ounce of chivalry, he stopped before exposing her gently rounde
d belly. Was that a flicker of hurt she caught in his eyes? For a second he’d almost looked vulnerable. The expression took years off his face. He looked no older than her twenty-six years, maybe even younger.
He took a step back from her and narrowed his eyes, becoming the hardened warrior once again. “Are ye English? A spy?”
Oh cripes. Here we go.
“I’m not English. I promise you. Not a single drop of English blood in these veins.” That was the truth. She was Scottish, Irish, Swedish, and German by heritage and had never been more grateful.
The man harrumphed. “Mayhap. Ye dinna sound English. But ye dinna sound Scots, either. I havena heard speech like yours before.” His brow pinched with curiosity, and his lips puckered ever so slightly in concentration.
She sagged with relief. His was not the face of a man who would harm her intentionally. It was the face of a man who might keep her safe in this hallucination or whatever it was.
Without warning, the warrior grabbed her and threw himself down into the mud, bringing her with him. His body molded along her back, pinning her face down in the puddle she’d nearly landed in when she’d fallen off her stool. A mild pressure in her abdomen made her whimper as their combined weight tried to compress her incompressible womb.
Worry for her baby made her buck against the man. “Get off me!”
He clamped a hand over her mouth.
Pounding footsteps came close. Tension in the man’s body made her freeze with fear. Men’s voices came from the other side of the boulder.
“Gunn,” the man cursed quietly–hot breath scalding her ear. “The fools willna give up even though they’re more than matched by Keith steel. Stay here. Stay down and dinna move.”
His weight lifted from her. His footsteps squished away stealthily. A surprised groan met her ears. She looked up to see the honey-blond warrior standing to one side of the boulder with his fist pulled back, apparently ready and willing to deal a second blow to a doubled over gray-haired man wearing the same dark wool as her attacker.
“Go home with ye, Harry,” the warrior growled. “Ye canna win this, and too much blood has already been spilt.”
A younger, squat man in dark-gray wool tiptoed around the other side of the boulder. She opened her mouth to warn the warrior, but he cocked his head toward the sound and quickly positioned himself so he could keep both opponents in view.
“Back with ye, Robbie,” he said, holding his sword ready. “I didna rise this morning with a particular desire to slay Gunn. But I will if ye dinna go. Now.”
Robbie’s lip curled as he spotted the dead man on the ground and then took in her prone, mud-covered form. “Ye killed Mack,” he accused. “And over a filthy trollop, no less. You’ll die for that, Big Darcy.” He lunged at the honey-blond warrior–Darcy–and they clashed swords. The older man pulled his dirk and advanced toward Darcy’s back.
“Look out!” she yelled.
Darcy easily dodged Robbie’s attack and stabbed him through the belly with his sword. At the same time, he pulled a dirk from the sheath on his left hip and jabbed it backward, only sparing a wide-eyed glance over his shoulder for aim. The dirk sliced the gray-haired man in the arm. The man danced back with a grimace.
“Damn you, Robbie,” Darcy said to the younger man, who crumpled to the ground clutching his wound. “Why did ye attack me?” When the wounded man tried to stand, Darcy said, “Dinna make me finish this. I dinna want your blood on my hands.”
“’Tis already finished,” the gray-haired man said, advancing again. “Ye’ve killed my only son, ye bloody Keith. Ye’ve killed him!”
“I didna ask the Gunn to trespass this day!” Darcy said. “Take Robbie home now and mayhap he’ll live. Stay here and fight me and you’ll both die. ’Tis not worth it, Harry.”
Harry didn’t listen. He lunged at Darcy, a suicide move, judging by the watery sheen in the older man’s eyes. Her stomach lurched at the needless violence, the wasted lives. She tried telling herself the barbaric fantasy wasn’t real, but the desperate wish was wearing thin.
Both gray-kilted men lay dead within seconds. Darcy turned back to her with wild eyes and a hard frown. “’Tis no place for a lass. Come with me. I’ll see ye to safety.” He took off around the hill with a long stride.
Was he serious? He expected her to follow him? After what she’d just witnessed? Knowing what he was capable of?
Decisive violence. Swift decimation.
Mercy. Honor. Compassion.
She was done with this hallucination. It was too real. Too upsetting.
She tried clicking her heels together three times as she lay face down in the mud. “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”
Cold wetness still seeped past the fabric of her bra. Sharp pebbles at the bottom of the puddle dented her knees. Damn her observant senses and their insistence that she wasn’t hallucinating.
The shouts of more men drew closer as Darcy jogged away from her. Hallucination or not, if it was between men in gray kilts who thought “the English” were “only good for one thing” and a man in muted brown who seemed to value her safety and to be morally opposed to killing even if he happened to be very efficient at it, she’d take her chances with the brown.
She scrambled out of the mud. Her loafers squished through the marshy grass as she trudged after her warrior.
* * * *
Darcy let out a relieved sigh when he heard the wee bonny lass following him. He’d have carried the bedraggled, half-dressed thing, but she’d asked that he not touch her, not even to inspect the wounds he’d thought the Gunn had cut into her creamy flesh. Her fearful request reminded him why he’d stopped bothering with dalliances long ago. So long as he didn’t try, he need not fear the stomach-curdling flush of rejection.
His memory dredged up the echo of Anya’s laughter. ’Twas the first and last time he’d attempted to cozy up with a member of the fairer sex. He’d been eighteen. Against his better judgment, he’d finally given in to Anya’s persistent advances. He’d permitted her to lead him to the stables one evening, his cock thrilling at the forbidden mysteries that awaited him while his mind insisted ’twas folly to lie with someone he didn’t intend to wed. But Anya’s searching lips and roving hands had silenced the thinking part of him.
He’d shed his plaid with eager, shaking hands.
She’d gasped. “I canna take that! No lass could.” Seeing his confusion, she’d laughed loud as a braying ass. “Oh, poor Darcy.” She pushed out her lower lip. “Ye didna ken, did you? Ye’re made all wrong for a woman. A mare, maybe, but no’ a woman.”
The next day, his kinsmen had begun calling him Big Darcy, and ’twas how he was distinguished to this day, six years later. He’d thought ’twas merely Anya’s gossip that had made all the other lasses cast him sidelong glances and whisper behind their hands, leaving him no single soul within his clan he might offer marriage to. But this stranger had taken one look at him and had seemed to ken. That one fearful request that he not touch her had ripped open the scars of wounds he’d thought long healed.
Och, what was he doing letting memory distract him? He had a woman to get to safety and Gunn to chase off Keith land before any more blood was spilt. Content to hear her light steps not far behind, he dashed into the wood to find the cart where Archie always tended the wounded. She would be safe there. Then he could forget about her odd yet stimulating speech and her frightened, lovely face.
The sound of stumbling made him spin around. She had tripped on a root and was on her hands and knees in the leaves. A muffled cry came from behind her curtain of silvery blond hair.
He ran to her. Rejection be damned, he wasn’t about to let a lass weep on the ground if he had strength to carry her. And what man worth his salt wouldn’t have the strength to carry such a delicate thing? He sheathed his sword and lifted her slight weight.
Och, did she have to feel so warm and soft against his chest? Did the sight of Gunn
blood on her woolen have to tug at him so? Damn his contrary cock for stirring at the feel of her petite, lushly curved body so close to his. Gritting his teeth, he practically ran for Archie’s cart.
He made the mistake of glancing down at her face. Smooth and fair as a polished opal, it would have been glorious as the sun itself if it hadn’t been so worrit and smudged with mud. Mud he’d pushed her into in his haste to protect her from the Gunn. No tears marred her cheeks, but her trembling lower lip, full as a rose bursting to bloom, hinted that she was trying not to weep.
Was it so awful for her to be this near to him? He quickened his pace so he could relieve her of his unwelcome touch as soon as possible.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice soft and uniquely accented with a delicate drawl.
He nodded tightly. “Dinna fash. Soon, now, and I shall leave ye be.”
Her brow wrinkled. “Where are you taking me?”
“To Archie. He tends the wounded well away from the fighting.”
“I told you, I’m not wounded.”
Though he was desperate to believe somat other than his proximity was fashing her so, he’d much rather she be disgusted with his oafish size than wounded. Relief at her insistence softened him. “Aye, well, be that as it may, ’tis still the safest place for a lass during a skirmish. Archie’ll look after you and see ye to the laird upon our return to Ackergill.”
The lass took a mighty fortifying sniff. “You mean the laird of your clan? What clan are you with? Is Ackergill the laird’s home? Is it a castle? Oh, God, I’m really in Scotland, aren’t I? What year is it?”
“Are ye certain ye arena wounded?” he asked. “Did the Gunn knock you in the head? Those are peculiar questions.”
“I suppose they are,” she said. “Would you answer them anyway? Please?”
He couldn’t refuse her, daft as it was not to ken the year or whose land she was on. “’Tis the year of our Lord 1517. Springtime, if ye lust to ken. I am Darcy Marek MacFirthen Keith. And aye, ye’re in the Highlands.”
Her eyes closed. Thick black lashes that defied her pale hair and brows fanned over her cheeks. A single sob escaped her soft lips. She whispered, “I just want to go home. Please, I just want to wake up.”
