Beyond the Highland Myst

by Highlander 01-08

  He kissed her, taking her cries with his lips until her shudders subsided.

  "Have you had time enough, wee Jane?" he asked later, when she lay drowsy and sated in his arms. "We may have made one this very day, you ken."

  Jane beamed. His shimmering eyes were again a warm tropical surf in his dark face, his lips curved with sensuality and tenderness. He'd finally remembered her! And she might have his baby growing inside her. "I want half a dozen at least," she assured him, smiling.

  Then she sobered, touching his jaw lightly. "When I was twenty-two, the dreams seemed different. They became repeats of earlier dreams."

  His jaw tensed beneath her hand.

  "I lost you," she said. "Didn't I?"

  "The king discovered I was gaining strength from my dreams. He prevented me from joining you there," Aedan said tersely.

  She inhaled sharply. "How?" she asked, not certain she wanted to know.

  "You doona wish to know, and I doona need to speak of it. 'Tis over and done," he said, his eyes darkening.

  Jane didn't press, and let it go, for now, knowing the time would come when he would need to speak of it, and she would be there to listen. For now, she would wait while Aedan became fully Aedan again.

  He smiled suddenly, dazzling her. "You were my light, wee Jane. My laughter, my hope, my love, and now you will be my wife."

  "Ahem," she said pertly, "if you think you're getting off with that lame proposal, you have another thought coming."

  He laughed. "Your headstrong nature was one of the first things I favored in you, lass. So much fire, and as cold as I was, your tempers kept me warm. Saucy like my mother, demanding like my sisters, yet tender of heart and weak of will when it comes to passion."

  "Who are you calling weak?" she said, with mock indignation.

  Aedan gave her a provocative glance from beneath half-lowered lids. " 'Tis obvious you have a weakness for me. You spent the past fortnight trying to seduce me—"

  "Only because you'd forgotten me! Otherwise you would have been chasing me around!"

  Certain of it, she scrambled from beneath him and slipped from the bed, then dashed out into the great hall. Sure enough, he followed, stalking her like a great greedy dark beast.

  And when he caught her…

  And when he caught her, he made wild, passionate love to her. Celestial music trumpeted from the heavens. Celestial music trumpeted from the heavens: (It did. I swear.) Rainbows gathered to shimmer above Dun Haakon. Heather bloomed, and even the sun's brilliance paled in comparison to the luminosity of true love.

  And when he proposed again, it was on bended knee, with a band of gold embedded with tiny heart-shaped rubies, as he vowed to love her for all of ever. Then yet another day.

  Excerpted from the unpublished manuscript Highland Fire by Jane Sillee MacKinnon

  Epilogue

  "Don't forget the latest chapter, Aedan," Jane reminded as he slipped from their bed. "I missed last week, and Henna said they're going to storm the castle if I don't let them know what's going on with Beth and Duncan."

  "I won't forget, lass." Donning shirt and plaid, Aedan picked up the parchments from the sidetable. He glanced at the top page.

  She held her breath, waiting for him to kiss her, knowing that she would never be the same once she'd tasted the passion of his embrace. Her braw Highlander had fought valiantly for the Bruce and had come home to her wounded in body and heart. But she would heal him…

  "You know, the men say that since their wives have been reading your tales they're much more… er, amorous," Aedan told her. Downright bawdy, the men had actually said. Insatiable. Plotting ways to seduce their men at all hours. Her stories had the same effect on him. Reading one of her love scenes never failed to make him hard as a rock. He wondered if she suspected that before delivering her pages to the eager women, he stopped in the tavern where the husbands listened, with much jesting and guffawing, as he read the most recent installment. Although they made sport of the "mushy parts," not one of them failed to show each Tuesday when he made his weekly trip to the village. Last week, three of them had come looking for him when he'd failed to appear with that week's installment.

  "Really?" Jane was delighted.

  "Aye," he said, grinning. "They thank you for it."

  Jane beamed. As he pulled on his boots, she reminded him, "Oh, and don't forget, I want peach ice, not blueberry."

  "I willna forget," he promised. "You've got the entire village making your favored dish. I vow when the spring thaws come and they can't make your icy cream they may go mad."

  Jane smiled. She'd been unable to resist teaching the villagers a few things that she deemed reasonably harmless. It wasn't like she was advancing technology before its time. Pushing the drapes aside, she glanced out the window behind the bed. "It snowed again last night. Look—isn't it beautiful, Aedan?" she exclaimed.

  Aedan pulled the drapes back over the window and tucked the covers more securely around her. "Aye, 'tis lovely. And damned cold. Are you warm enough?" he worried. Without waiting for her reply, he stacked several more logs on the fire and banked it carefully. "I doona want you getting out of bed. You mustn't catch a chill."

  Jane made a face. "I'm not that pregnant, Aedan. I still have two more months."

  "I willna take any chances with you or our daughter."

  "Son."

  "Daughter."

  Jane's laughter was cut off abruptly when he took her in his arms and kissed her long and hard before leaving.

  At the doorway he paused. "If 'tis a lass," he asked softly, "do you think we might name her Rose?"

  "Oh, yes, Aedan," Jane said softly. "I'd like that."

  After he left, Jane lay back against the pillows, marveling. Seven months had passed since her arrival at Dun Haakon, and although there'd been some difficult moments, she wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world.

  Aedan still had a great deal of darkness inside him, of times and things he rarely discussed. There had been somber months while he'd grieved the loss of his clan. Then finally, one morning she'd come down from their new bedchamber above-stairs and found him hanging the old portraits in the great hall. She'd watched him, praying he wouldn't have that stark expression in his eyes. When he'd raised his head and smiled at her, her heart had soared.

  " 'Tis time to honor the past," he'd told her. "We have a rich history, lass. I want our children to know their grandparents."

  Then he'd made love to her, there in the great hall. They'd rolled across the floor, paused for a heated interlude on the table, and ended up, she recalled, blushing, in a most interesting position over a chair.

  All of her dreams had come true. The village women waited with bated breath for the latest "installment" of her serial novel. They lapped up every word, savoring the romance, and the magic of it spilled over into their hearth and home. And no one ever complained about purple prose or typos.

  She was a storyteller with an eager audience, a mother-to-be, had a milking cow of her own, reasonably hot water, the scent of her man all over her skin, and she slept each night held tightly in the arms of the man she loved.

  Dreamily, she sighed, resting her hand on her tummy. Sexpot gave a little pink-tongued yawn and snuggled closer beside her.

  Life was good.

  Author's Note

  My younger sister has long entertained me with Silly Jane Jokes. What is a Silly Jane Joke? Elizabeth is so glad you asked!

  A carpenter asked the very curvaceous Silly Jane to help him. He'd hurt his foot and needed someone to climb up the ladder and retrieve his bucket of paint from the top. But Silly Jane was no fool. She knew that he just wanted to look up her dress and see her panties when she climbed it. So she tricked him. She took her panties off first.

  This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between Silly Jane and Jane Sillee is purely coincidental. Really.