Tempting the Highlander

by Janet Chapman

  He was just closing the barn door when he spotted the snowy owl perched on one of the paddock fence posts.

  “Well, hello, little one,” he said, walking over and gently stroking her feathers. “I was hoping you’d show up today. I could use your help.”

  The snowy leaned into his touch, closing her eyes with a soft sound of pleasure.

  “Where have you been?” he whispered, cupping her broad white head. “I’ve missed you.”

  The owl stretched tall, turning in his palm and lightly nipping his thumb. Robbie laughed and went to mount his horse but then stopped and turned back. “My sword?” he asked, bending over to look her in the eye. “I’m hunting a woman and two children, and I intend to offer them shelter, not scare them to death.”

  His old friend merely blinked at him.

  Robbie tied his horse to the fence rail and set his hands on his hips. “I don’t care what that crazy drùidh is concocting. I can’t leave the lady out there another night. Daar’s matter will just have to wait.”

  The snowy opened her wings and bristled in agitation.

  “I am not bringing my sword!” he snapped, thinking nothing of speaking out loud to the bird. He’d been talking to the owl for twenty-two years now, though their conversations usually tended toward the snowy lecturing and Robbie arguing. “And besides, you can’t just disappear for six months, then suddenly show up and start giving me orders.”

  The snowy let out a rattle that sounded suspiciously like laughter. Robbie crossed his arms over his chest. “Can you honestly tell me this isn’t another one of Daar’s schemes?”

  She silently stared back.

  Robbie leaned down until the owl’s face was mere inches from his. “Then help me,” he whispered. “Buy me some time to find Catherine Daniels and her children. Convince the drùidh to wait a few more days.”

  The owl sidestepped away, emitting a loud shrill.

  “I realize Papa and the others are in danger.” Robbie set his hands back on his hips. “But dammit, what if I can’t get the book? What if I fail?” He held up his hand. “There’s a difference between being cautious and being afraid! You can’t expect me to go hurtling blindly through time. I need to think about this.”

  The snowy turned on the rail until she faced away from him.

  Robbie dropped his head with a sigh, and pivoted on his heel and headed to the house. He took the porch stairs two at a time, trotted through the kitchen, and ran up the inside stairs to his bedroom. He lifted the mattress on his bed, pulled out his sword, and stomped back downstairs and back outside to his horse.

  “I hope to God you know what you’re doing,” he muttered as he slid the sword into the sheath on his pack and then settled it over his shoulders. “Because I sure as hell don’t.”

  The owl spread her wings and flew over the paddock toward TarStone. Robbie mounted and urged his horse forward, following his pet into the forest.

  He remembered their first meeting. It had been his eighth birthday, and he’d been up on the mountain, bawling like a baby. There had been an incident at school that day, some silly thing he couldn’t even remember now, where his lack of a mother had been sorely evident. So he’d run up TarStone, sat crying on a log, and wished with all his might for a mama.

  Providence had sent him a snowy owl instead. The beautiful, mysterious bird had appeared from nowhere, announcing her arrival with a high-pitched whistle as she glided down to the log beside him. She’d folded her wings and sat silently, her large golden eyes unblinking as she stared at him.

  Being somewhat prone to fanciful notions back then, Robbie had named his pet after the mother he’d never known. And, being eight, he’d never questioned the fact that not only did he talk to the owl, but she answered him. He couldn’t explain it, even now, but he always knew what Mary was thinking, what she wanted or needed from him, and that he could count on her in a crisis.

  She’d saved his life more than once over the last twenty-two years, the first time when he’d carried four-month-old Rose Dolan through a snowstorm one Christmas Eve. After settling a blue light of warmth around him, freeing him to use his own life energies to keep Rose alive, the owl had led his father and Libby to where he’d collapsed in a snow-drift. When he was eleven, Mary had driven off a disgruntled bear he’d surprised while hiking one day. When he could drive at sixteen, she’d flown in front of his truck, bringing him to a screeching halt mere inches from a washed-out culvert.

  Mary had always been there for him, for both Gram Ellen’s and John Bigelow’s deaths, in his room after a nightmare, and in his thoughts when he’d been overseas as a soldier.

  So if she insisted he bring his sword on today’s little adventure, he had no call to argue with her.

  Well, maybe a little. He needed time to prepare for the journey Daar had planned—time and a lot more faith in the drùidh’s abilities to make it happen. He knew only too well how the magic could backfire, having seen many examples of Daar’s incompetence over the years. Hell, he could be sent anywhere, or to any time for that matter, with just one wrongly spoken word.

  Or he could be turned into a dung beetle.

  Robbie looked at his watch, then up at the sun. He had about six hours, at best, before sunset. He looked at the vast forest blanketing TarStone. Six hours to find Catherine Daniels and bring her to shelter.

  Then he would go to the summit—and meet with either his destiny or disaster.

  Where the hell was MacBain? It was less than an hour to the vernal equinox, and he needed to give the boy instructions before he sent him off.

  Daar paced the path he’d worn between a boulder and a stunted pine tree, his hands clasped behind his back and his head bowed, as he repeatedly whispered his incantation. But he was having a hard time focusing on the words, what with his mind being so cluttered with worry.

  Of all the mistakes he’d made in the last eighteen hundred years, this might well be the one that did him in. What had he been thinking thirty-five years ago, to have cast such a foolish spell? Letting the Highlanders get sent back to their original time would be suicide. Every one of the MacKeage and MacBain offspring—including, if not especially, Robbie—would turn their backs on him when they lost their loved ones on this summer’s solstice.

  It was all up to Robbie, though Daar did worry about placing such a delicate matter in such a young warrior’s hands. Not that he didn’t think Robbie could succeed; it was the ramifications that truly scared him.

  Cùram de Gairn was a young, dark, powerful drùidh known for his trickery more than his mercy. He would not care to have his book of spells borrowed, any more than he would care that Pendaär was the one doing the borrowing.

  They had crossed paths a time or two over the centuries, and not once had the experience been pleasant for either of them. The last incident, nearly a hundred years ago, had been a dispute about a woman. In fact, it had been Greylen MacKeage’s mother they had battled over, both of them hoping to match her up with just the right lineage to produce an heir. Pendaär had come away victorious but badly weakened. Judy MacKinnon had married Duncan MacKeage, and nine months and two weeks later, she’d given birth to Greylen, the promised sire of Pendaär’s heir.

  Cùram had mysteriously disappeared after his defeat and had resurfaced only six years ago. The blackheart was living with the MacKeage clan in thirteenth-century Scotland, probably hoping to set up another suitable match. After all, begetting heirs was the sole focus of a drùidh’s last few centuries of life.

  That Cùram was only five centuries old—quite young in wizard years—and already thinking about such matters made Pendaär uneasy. The tricky bastard was up to something. But what?

  “If you think any harder, your head’s going to explode.”

  “Ya’re late!” Daar snapped, twisting to glare at Robbie.

  “Nay, priest, I’m not. So let’s get on with this madness,” he said, dismounting from his horse. “I have pressing matters to see to.”

  “Ya ne
edn’t growl at me, boy. It’s not my fault a wee woman has bested ya.”

  Robbie turned toward him. “You know I’m hunting a woman?”

  Daar nodded, giving him a smug smile. “If ya wasn’t so stubborn about asking for help, I could have told ya three days ago that she’s living in that old cabin on West Shoulder Ridge.”

  Robbie climbed back onto his horse. “I’ll be back in four hours.”

  “Nay!” Daar said, grabbing the horse’s reins. “Ya’ll be back at sunrise. Then ya can go after your woman.”

  “She can’t spend another night on this mountain. There’s a storm moving in.”

  “She and her bairns are as snug as bugs and will be fine for tonight. But our problem can’t wait. The planets will be in position in less than twenty minutes.”

  “Then tell me what your damn book looks like,” Robbie said, dismounting again. “And where to find it.”

  Daar took a cautious step back. “It’s not a matter of simply walking in and taking it, then walking back out.”

  “Then what sort of matter is it?” Robbie asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “Where is this book?”

  “It’s on MacKeage land, but it belongs to another drùidh.” Daar shifted nervously. “And it’s not exactly a book but a tree.”

  “A tree.”

  “Aye,” he confirmed, nodding. “A large oak growing deep in the forest about three or four miles from the MacKeage village.”

  “You expect me to bring back a tree?”

  Daar held up his hands about ten inches apart. “Just a wee section of it,” he quickly assured him. “From the tap root.”

  “What does a tree have to do with a book of spells?”

  Daar gestured impatiently. “It’s a tree of life, MacBain. They’re scattered throughout the world and can only be propagated from their tap roots, not their seed. But each tree is nurtured by a drùidh and its knowledge carefully guarded so that life’s continuum won’t be disturbed.”

  “And if I bring you back a piece of this root, you’ll have the knowledge to rework your spell?”

  “Aye. I’ll grow a new tree, and then I’ll be able to keep the Highlanders here.”

  Robbie eyed him suspiciously. “It takes a long time to grow a tree.”

  “It will be large enough by this summer’s solstice.”

  “That’s cutting it close.”

  “Aye,” Daar agreed. “But I have little choice. Which is why you have only two weeks to get the root.”

  “Two weeks?”

  Daar nodded. “This won’t be resolved in one trip. Tonight you’ll look over the situation, then decide the best way to proceed. Take off those modern clothes,” he instructed, going over to the boulder and picking up a length of cloth and a wide leather belt.

  “This is my MacKeage plaid,” Daar continued, holding it out to Robbie. “From when I lived with them in the old days. It should help ya move around inconspicuously. Ya do remember your Gaelic, don’t you?”

  Robbie stiffened. “You’re not coming with me?”

  “Nay. My presence would be known immediately.”

  Robbie hesitated, then finally slid his pack and sword off his shoulders, shrugged out of his coat, and started unbuttoning his shirt. “How will I recognize this tree?” he asked, unbuckling his belt.

  “Ya can’t miss it,” Daar assured him. “It’s larger than all the other trees, gnarled with eons of wisdom, and carries the mark of its drùidh, Cùram.”

  Robbie went utterly still. “The drùidh is a guardian?” he whispered, obviously recognizing the Gaelic title.

  Daar snorted. “He’s a lot of things, including a blackheart and a tricky bastard. That’s why ya must look the situation over carefully and not rush into anything.”

  “How old is this Cùram?”

  “He’s a young man like yourself,” Daar told him as Robbie pulled off his boots and stepped out of his pants. Daar sucked in his breath at the sight of the imposingly naked warrior. “This just might work,” he whispered, handing him the plaid.

  Robbie stopped wrapping the cloth around himself and raised an eyebrow. “You have doubts?”

  “Nay,” Daar said quickly, holding out the belt. “Only worries. I know you’re well trained, Robbie, and highly motivated.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Ya can take Mary with ya, if ya want.”

  The young warrior looked off to his right at the snowy owl sitting on one of the boulders not a hundred yards away.

  “She doesn’t much care for you,” Robbie said, looking back at Daar. He shook his head. “I’ll not put Mary in danger.”

  Daar snorted. “That blasted bird can take care of herself.” He canted his head skyward. “In fact, she might enjoy a chance to see your papa’s homeland.”

  Robbie wasn’t paying him any mind but had walked over to the snowy and was holding out his hand. Mary opened her wings and hopped onto his arm.

  Robbie returned and pulled his sword from its sheath. “How do I get back here?” he asked. “And when? You mentioned sunrise. Does that mean I have only twelve hours in the past?”

  “Nay. Ya might be days in the old time. But,” Daar said, cutting him off before he could argue, “it will only be the length of one night in this time. No matter how long you’re gone, you’ll always be back by sunrise.”

  Robbie nodded and turned to the setting sun. “How are your planets looking now, priest?” he asked.

  “They’re ready for us to begin. Here,” he added, holding out his hand. “Take this cherrywood burl from my staff. When ya’re ready to come back, grasp it in your fist and merely will yourself home.”

  Robbie took the knot of wood, looked down at himself, and laughed. “No pockets,” he said, looking back at Daar.

  “Tuck it in your belt. Are ya ready?”

  “Not quite,” Robbie whispered, turning to face him. “If something should go wrong…if I don’t come back, I want your promise you’ll tell my father and Greylen what’s happened. And promise you’ll give them the chance to stop your spell from sending them back.” He stepped closer. “They have the right to fight for their lives, even if it means they die trying.”

  Daar clutched his staff to his chest and nodded.

  “And tell my father about the woman on West Shoulder Ridge.”

  Daar nodded again.

  Robbie stepped away, tucking Mary against his chest and covering her with the hilt of his sword. “Then do it now, priest!”

  Daar raised his staff, closed his eyes, and began chanting his spell to move matter through time. He implored the elements to gather into a collective charge, coaxing the churning energy into the tip of his glowing staff.

  A rolling darkness swept over the mountain, sparked with flashes of blinding light and thunderous heat. The wind rose, howling in protest of the unnatural happening.

  Daar pointed his staff at Robbie. Fingers of energy arced toward the warrior, sending tendrils of pulsing colors around him, the air screaming at the disruption of time.

  “Godspeed, MacBain!” Pendaär shouted, bracing himself for the final jolt as the storm tightened smaller and smaller.

  The blow came in an angry boom, shaking the mountain, cascading pebbles and displacing boulders in a deafening growl.

  And as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. A peaceful silence returned, and dusk softly blanketed the mountain. The sun was set, winter abandoned to the first night of spring. And Daar could only stare, clutching his spent staff to his chest, at where Robbie had stood.

  “Aye. Godspeed,” he whispered.

  Chapter Four

  Robbie spotted the low-hanging branch just in time to avoid getting his head knocked off. He ducked without breaking stride and scrambled down the bank to the stream, catching himself from falling by using his sword like a cane.

  Mary called from somewhere upstream, her piercing whistle carrying through the dark forest in urgent echoes. Robbie splashed into the frigid water, slipping on the loose rocks, falling once and
stubbing his bare toe on a piece of ledge.

  The breaking limbs behind him sounded like gunshots as the four warriors closed in, their battle cries filling the night air with menace.

  Robbie wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his sword hand, pressed his right hand more firmly against his throbbing side, and sloshed out of the stream and up the opposite bank, breaking back into a run.

  He’d quietly been going about his nightly business of searching for Cùram’s tree when the attack had come, unprovoked and completely unexpected. The chase had been going on for over three miles now, and Robbie didn’t know if the ambushing bastards were merely out for a night’s sport or if they truly were as inept as they appeared. Either way, he was reaching the end of his strength, and if he didn’t turn and fight, the chase itself would likely kill him.

  He stopped on a clearing of ledge and turned, planting his feet and lifting his sword, preparing to skewer the first man who broke through the trees.

  He heard them floundering in the stream, heard them curse, then heard two separate shouts and a loud splash.

  Robbie pulled his right hand from his side and rubbed his fingers together to see if the blood was congealing, then looked down at the deep gash on his hip, squinting to see it in the stingy moonlight.

  Dammit, one of the ambushing bastards had tried to slice him in half and might have succeeded if Robbie hadn’t knocked his sword away just in time. He took a deep breath, tightened his belt to add more pressure to the wound, wiped the blood off his palm on his plaid, and used both hands to steady his sword.

  Mary called again. Robbie looked up and saw the snowy flying through the trees toward the stream.

  “Nay!” he shouted in Gaelic, automatically speaking the language he’d been using for the last three days. “You will not be part of this game, little one,” he said quietly, knowing she could hear him.

  He stepped back into the forest, just off to the side of the path he’d made, and hid behind a large oak. Hell, if it had worked for the ambushing bastards, it could work for him.