Highlander in Her Dreams

by Allie Mackay

  Until her phone rang again. Pausing, she listened as her answering machine clicked on and Destiny Magazine’s executive editor’s voice rose above the sound of running water, the man’s tone giving her pause.

  Dan Hillard sounded excited.

  Kira, girl. His booming voice filled the bathroom. I know you’re in hiding and may even want to quit, but I’ve got a new assignment for you.

  “O-o-oh, no, you don’t.” Kira grabbed a towel and slung it around her as she hastened back into her bedroom to click off the machine. “Not for a while anyway.”

  This is one you won’t want to miss, Dan’s voice cajoled, almost as if he’d heard her. It’ll get you away from this media circus.

  Kira hesitated, her fingers hovering over the answering machine. Something in his voice was getting to her, making her heart skitter.

  Faraway, Kira. All expenses paid.

  She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, ready to reject—

  Another voice broke in, interrupting Dan. Come, lass, I’m waiting for you.

  Kira whirled around, the towel dropping to the floor. But only her empty bedroom stared back at her. Even if the echo of Aidan’s voice still rang her in ears. Dark, rich, and sexy, and so full of longing her knees weakened.

  He’d called to her.

  She was certain of it.

  Trembling, she stooped to pick up her towel, waiting for Dan to say something else. But he, too, was gone. Nothing remained of her boss or his cryptic message but the insistent little red light blinking on the answering machine.

  Not that she needed to hear the words.

  Her heart already knew.

  She was going to Scotland.

  Chapter 2

  “Come, lass, I’m waiting for you. Burning for you.”

  Aidan MacDonald stood at the tall arch-topped window of his bedchamber, one hand clenched around his sword belt, the other clutching the tasseled edges of a richly embroidered tapestry proudly adorning his wall.

  A brilliantly colored display of bold knights and fair, half-naked ladies romping in a wood, their erotic playfulness so explicitly depicted that he could scarce bear looking at it.

  Truth be told, if his temper didn’t soon improve, he might just yank the thing from the wall and send it sailing out his window.

  Letting go of it, he shoved a hand through his hair and scowled. For well over a sennight, he’d been unable to reach his bruadar. The comely, well-made vixen of his dreams he’d glimpsed but once and ne’er been able to put from his mind.

  Or his heart.

  Not to mention what she did to his body.

  “Hell and damnation.” He blew out a breath, the scent and feel of her haunting him. A bittersweet torment so real and vibrant he hurt inside. Ached with a deep, lancing pain that knew no healing.

  Not without her. Her soft, lush lips parting beneath his, her bountiful curves, warm, silken, and smooth, crushed tight against him as he held her in his arms. Made her his again and again.

  This time never letting her go.

  His scowl deepening, he curled his hands to fists. “I burn for you, lass,” he growled, staring out at the cold, wind-whipped waters tossing so indifferently beneath his tower chamber’s window. The jagged cliffs of nearby Wrath Isle, each frowning, black-glistening fissure suiting his mood, firing his frustration.

  His fury at such a foul turn of fate.

  Setting his jaw, he braced his hands on the edges of the window arch, leaning out so the night wind could cool him. Take the heat out of his face if not his blood.

  “Saints, lass, I need you.” The tightness in his chest let him know just how much. “For the love of the Ancient Ones, where-are-you?”

  “She is long gone, that’s what,” a deep voice reproached from behind him. “God’s eyes, man, what did you do to her?”

  Aidan spun around. “What did I do to who?”

  Tavish MacDonald merely cocked a brow. Aidan’s most trusted friend and cousin—though some whispered half brother due to their strong resemblance—reached to pinch out the wicks of a hanging cresset lamp.

  Aidan fixed him with a withering glare, trying for the life of him to recall if he’d e’er fallen so deep in his cups as to regale his friend with tales of her.

  “You ought know better than to have a lamp burning so close to the window on such a windy night.” Tavish waved a hand through the dissipating smoke. “As for who I meant”—he slid a narrow glance at Aidan—“’twas the MacLeod widow. She herself and all her men.”

  Aidan relaxed. But only for a moment.

  Turning back to the window, he clasped his hands behind his back and drew a deep breath, his gaze on the moon as it came and went through the clouds. He might not have spilled his heart to Tavish in a long ale-filled night in his great hall, but the departure of the MacLeod woman presented an entirely different kind of problem.

  He’d counted on her men to help him scour the hills and surrounding islands for Conan Dearg.

  Trouble was, the price of Fenella MacLeod’s men and galleys was one he hadn’t wished to pay.

  “She left in a huff,” Tavish informed him. “Away with the tide and a scowl darker than some of your own.”

  Aidan turned from the window and made straight for a polished oak table across the room, well laden with cold breast of chicken, oatcakes and cheese, and a freshly filled ewer of ale. The table’s offerings were meant to be his evening repast, but circumstance had stolen his appetite.

  Truth was, if his days didn’t soon take a better turn, he might ne’er regain it.

  “Lady Fenella was quick to offer aid.” Tavish hovered behind him again. “Few in these isles have a larger flotilla of longships. Or better-kept ones. Her men are fierce and strong-armed. She would have served you well.”

  Aidan almost spewed the ale he’d just poured for himself. Frowning in earnest now, he tossed down the rest in one great swig, slamming down the cup before he wheeled around.

  “A God’s name, Tavish! The lady wished to serve me.” He glowered at his friend, felt heat surging up his neck. “She came here dressed in her bed-robe and naught else, her hair unbound and hanging to her hips.”

  Aidan clamped his mouth shut, decency keeping him from revealing how she’d swept into his bedchamber, shutting and bolting the door behind her, then flinging open her robe to display her full, large-nippled breasts and the tangle of thick jet-black curls topping her thighs.

  “She made no mistake in letting me know why she came knocking on my door so late of an e’en.” Aidan’s brows knit together at the memory. “The woman was bold, Tavish. Overbold.”

  To his annoyance, rather than answer him, Tavish moved to the table, taking his time to help himself to a towering portion of sliced chicken and a brimming cup of ale.

  Worse, he then lowered himself into a chair beside the fire, setting his victuals on a nearby stool before he stretched his long legs toward the warmth of the softly glowing peats. Looking irritatingly comfortable, he pinned Aidan with an all-too-suspicious stare.

  “Fenella MacLeod is an ardent woman. Generously made and vigorous, her eyes knowing.” Tavish leaned back in the chair, his own gaze too knowing for Aidan’s liking. “Seldom have I seen a larger-breasted female. She has fine legs as well. I caught a glimpse of them once when she hitched up her skirts to board one of her late husband’s galleys.” He paused, lifting a hand to study his knuckles. “Indeed, many are the men in your hall who would bed her gladly.”

  Aidan quirked a brow. “Yourself included?”

  “Nay, I, too, would have turned her from my door.”

  “I am glad to hear it. I would have doubted your honor otherwise.” Aidan nodded, well pleased that his friend, too, drew the line at lying with the widow of a onetime ally. “Though I would not begrudge the men of my garrison such a dalliance. Not if the lady desired it.”

  “She comes and goes here at will, as you know. There are surely men amongst us eager enough to enjoy her charms. But the specter of her
late husband is not the only reason you refused her.”

  Aidan lowered the cup he was about to refill. “What are you saying?”

  Tavish looked up, his knuckles forgotten. “We were born and bred together,” he said, holding Aidan’s stare. “I know you as few men can claim. I know the depth of your honor, the privilege of your trust, and the pleasure of your friendship. I’ve seen the rage of your battle-fury, felt secure knowing you were at my back. And”—he paused, sitting forward in the chair—“I know you are a well-lusted man.”

  Aidan folded his arms. “So? I would not call myself a man were I not.”

  “To be sure, and neither would I,” Tavish agreed, studying his fool knuckles again. “Nor,” he added, looking up quickly, “did I abstain from the plump bed warmer that robber baron on Pabay thoughtfully provided for me when we sailed there to look for Conan Dearg.”

  Aidan frowned.

  His friend’s stare grew more penetrating. “Despite the roughness of the men, the wenches on that isle of marauders were more than pleasing. Frang the Fearless offered you the comeliest of them all, yet”—he paused, lifting his ale cup to take a sip without his gaze leaving Aidan’s face—“if memory serves, you slept alone.”

  “Leave be,” Aidan warned him, unpleasantly aware of the muscle beginning to twitch in his jaw. “I am thinking you could not have enjoyed your night on Pabay overmuch if you were so occupied observing mine!”

  Seemingly calm as a spring morn, Tavish crossed his ankles. “Lady Fenella is not the first female to leave here looking soured in recent times,” he drawled, brushing oatcake crumbs from his legs. “Nor have you tumbled Sinead, the Irish laundress, in longer than I can recall.”

  Aidan felt his face coloring. “Who I tumble and when is my own business and no one else’s,” he snapped, especially furious to be reminded of the flame-haired Irish girl. There was only one fiery-tressed lass he hungered for and it wasn’t Castle Wrath’s light-skirted laundress.

  Tavish lifted his hands in surrender.

  Mock surrender, Aidan was sure.

  “I am only concerned for you,” the lout declared, proving he wasn’t about to let the matter lie. “You’ve been missed in the hall. Everyone knows you’re up here brooding, locking yourself in your privy quarters or prowling the battlements at all hours, snarling like a chained beast.”

  I’m feeling like a chained beast! Aidan almost roared at him.

  A deprived beast, trapped, ravenous, and filled with fury.

  And about to do bodily harm to the one soul he loved above all men. If the great buffoon who looked so like him and knew his heart so well didn’t soon have done with his badgering.

  Turning away, lest his friend eye him any deeper than he already had, Aidan stalked back to the window and glared out at the expanse of dark water stretching between his own cliffs and the inky-black bulk of Wrath Isle. A strong swell was running, the swift current reminding him of the other matter weighing so heavily on his mind.

  A matter he suddenly knew the answer to.

  He almost smiled.

  Under other circumstances, he would have.

  As it was, it sufficed that he now had a clear enough head to squelch Tavish’s concerns. Drawing a deep breath just in case he needed it, he returned to the fire, deliberately striking his most formidable pose and not for the first time silently thanking the saints for the one-inch advantage of height that he boasted over his friend.

  “I haven’t been brooding,” he lied, blurting the untruth before the other had a chance to speak. “I’ve been thinking.”

  That, at least, was the truth.

  Tavish looked at him, unblinking. “I daresay you have.”

  “Not about wenching.” Another lie.

  Knowing Tavish would see through a third, he put his shoulders back and shot another glance at the window, remembering well the treacherous journey the two of them had made to Wrath Isle but a few days before.

  A dangerous crossing that had led to naught, their hours spent searching the isle’s caves and tumbled ruins turning up little more than angry seabirds and moldering sheep bones. Of Conan Dearg, there’d been nary a sign.

  It’d been an undertaking he’d meant to make alone, not wishing to endanger anyone else’s life but his own. Tavish, great and beloved meddler that he was, had declared himself of another mind, vowing he’d swim after Aidan’s boat if he didn’t let him board.

  And Tavish MacDonald, may the saints e’er bless him, always kept his word.

  Reason enough to welcome his company, however grudgingly.

  Looking at him now, Aidan heaved a great sigh and spoke the only part of his heart he was able to share. “It grieves me to have caused the MacLeod widow distress, but it troubles me more that we haven’t yet found Conan Dearg,” he said, his hand going almost absently to his sword hilt. “We’ve upturned every stone on this isle and others, even sailing to that notorious robbers’ den, Pabay, then scouring every tainted, treacherous inch of Wrath Isle as well.

  “So-o-o,” he concluded, reaching down to scratch his favorite dog, Ferlie, behind the ears when the great beast lumbered up to him, pressing his shaggy bulk against his legs, “while I regret losing the support of Fenella MacLeod and her birlinns, I doubt we will have needed them to find Conan Dearg.”

  Tavish tossed Ferlie a bit of roasted chicken. “Indeed?”

  Aidan nodded. “Since we’ve looked everywhere the double-dyed bastard could have hid, there’s only one place he can be,” he said, growing more certain by the moment. “Ardcraig.”

  “His own holding?” Tavish blinked, for once looked nonplussed. “But we’ve already gone there, even searching his keep from the undercroft to the parapets.”

  “And seeing what we expected to see,” Aidan said, his thumb caressing the jeweled pommel of his sword hilt. “Next time we shall look for the unexpected. Then we shall find him. ’Tis a feeling in my bones.”

  “Then let us drink to your feelings.” Tavish pushed to his feet, a smile tugging at his lips. “I have ne’er known them to be wrong.”

  “Neither have I,” Aidan agreed, watching his friend pour them both a generous portion of ale.

  He only hoped his feelings about his bruadar were as accurate. That the shapely, hot-blooded woman he’d been thinking of as a dream vision wasn’t that at all, but a tamhasg. Nightly visitations of the woman meant to be his future bride.

  As soon as Conan Dearg was found and locked in his dungeon, his people safe from treachery, he meant to find out.

  No matter what it cost him.

  Nothing was surer.

  Worlds and an ocean away, Kira stood in the middle of the Newark Liberty International Airport check-in area, almost oblivious to everything but the precious Newark-Glasgow boarding pass clutched in her hot little hand. Gate C-127, seat number 24A. A window behind the wing, left side so that she could see the sun rise over Ireland and then the endless sweep of the Hebrides as the plane descended into Scotland.

  She remembered it well. The views that had stilled her heart and stolen her breath as she’d stared out at the isle-dotted coast, feasting her gaze on soaring cliffs, deep inlets, and sparkling, crystal-clear bays. Long Atlantic rollers crashing over jagged, black-teethed reefs and tiny crescent-shaped strands of gleaming white sand, inaccessible bits of paradise, pristine and almost too beautiful to bear looking down upon.

  Then at last the Highlands stretching away to the horizon, each ever-higher rising hill bathed in the soft, rosy-gold glow of a new morning.

  The new day she’d yearned for so long.

  A place of mist-hung peace and splendor so different from the hectic lifestyle she loathed that just thinking of being there soon nearly set her to swooning.

  Ignoring the airport chaos, she traced a fingertip across the fresh black print on her boarding card. She kept her finger on the word Glasgow, certain each letter held magic. Truth was, she could feel it. The boarding card vibrated in her hand, its pulsating warmth making her f
ingers tingle.

  Until she realized it wasn’t the boarding card causing the sensation but the trembling of her own fingers, her hands as they shook with giddy excitement. Whether in the flesh or not, Aidan was there waiting for her. She’d felt him call to her, could feel him calling her now.

  Chances were, once there, she’d catch another true glimpse of him. A daylight glimpse without the smoke-and-mirror effects of her dreams. If it had happened once, it could again, and that knowledge, combined with the thrill of finally getting back to Scotland, was pushing her over the edge.

  Making her light-headed.

  She took a deep breath, then shoved her boarding card deep into a side pocket of her purse, wiping her damp palms on her one great splurge: a fine and stylish, many-pocketed, weatherproof jacket complete with hood.

  “Kira, you’ve gone pale. Are you okay?” Dan Hillard gripped her elbow, his blue eyes filling with concern. “We can still get your luggage back. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

  “Don’t want to go?” Kira blinked at him, all the whir, noise, and haste of the airport filtering back into her consciousness, pulling her into its crowded, bustling reality.

  “Of course I want to go. More than I can say.” She placed her hand over his, squeezing his fingers. “I’m fine. It’s just too warm for me in here. I don’t think they ever run air conditioners in this airport.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m positive.”

  A tall, middle-aged man with an open, ruddy face and an unfortunate haircut that made him look more like an army general than the executive editor of a magazine that specialized in paranormal oddities, Dan slung an arm around her shoulders, drawing her near in a fatherly hug.

  “What about driving on the left?” He stood back to look at her, the simple question making her stomach flip-flop. “The last time you were there, you were on an escorted coach tour. This time there’s a rental car waiting for you at the Glasgow airport. Will you be able to manage?”

  Kira straightened her back against her belly flutters and hitched up the shoulder strap of her carry-on. “Of course I’ll manage,” she said, willing it so.