by Claudy Conn
She flipped her long blond hair away from her shoulders and decided that she was going to her cottage, collecting her things, and leaving Scotland. She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew she was going to have to keep moving. She couldn’t put Chad’s family in danger, and if they decided to rally around her with her grandparents, that was what she would be doing. No, she couldn’t have that.
She had not slept much the night before, and she had given a great deal of thought as to how she was going to handle the problem of the ‘electric entity’ that seemed to be stalking her. Would it follow her to the airport? She didn’t think so. She rather thought it was connected somehow to Stockton. It seemed cowardly to leave it behind when it was capable of hurting more people, but what could she do?
She had to get out. She had to get some air and think. She wouldn’t even stay for coffee. No sense getting any closer to Chad’s family than she already had. A twinge of regret touched her. She liked them, really liked them, and she knew they would wonder at her hasty departure. Sighing off a shrug of regret, she made her way to her door.
The sounds of a cleaning crew busily at work below stairs had decided her that this was as good a time as any to make her escape without too much fuss.
Escape—hmm, good word. She wasn’t sure how she was going to handle being alone with Chad in his car on the drive home. Just what she was experiencing was too complex for her to deal with, so she shoved it out of her mind. She knew she was devastatingly attracted to Chad MacFare. She was also sure that he had a score of women—she was just one more, and that was not what she wanted to be: just one more.
What then did she want? She closed her eyes for a moment. She was sure of only one thing, that she was damned determined never to let him kiss her ever again, let alone…anything like what happened yesterday in his library.
How had that happened? What had she been thinking? Thinking? She hadn’t been doing any of that. She shook off the thoughts that had plagued her and kept her from sleeping the night before. Taking up the navy duffel bag, she slung it over one shoulder and bolstered herself before she was out of her room and making her way down the wide staircase.
Chad chose that particular moment to come back into the house from one of the grand hall’s front double doors. He wore a weathered brown leather jacket and faded jeans. His tawny hair was a mass of windblown waves framing his handsome face. His eyes were bright pools of green.
He looked up at her as she stopped for a moment on the staircase, and his gaze shifted to the bag slung over her shoulder. He frowned darkly as his eyes languidly looked her over. “Are you going somewhere, lass?”
The light from his eyes burned a wide trail over her body, and she had to lick her bottom lip before she was able to speak. “Well, I was hoping you might give me a lift home actually?”
She made her way down the remaining steps and came to stand in front of him. She allowed the bag to slip off her shoulder, although she retained a hold on its strap as it sank to the marble floor and fell in against her calf. She needed to use some bravado to get past the moment of looking into his dark green eyes.
“I doona think that would be wise,” he said, lapsing into a deep Scottish burr.
His voice, his accent, oh man, his looks…stalled her for a wayward moment; however, Shawna had made up her mind to keep him at a distance. “But, I do think it very wise.”
“There is a dangerous ‘thing’ that seems to mean you harm, and we both know that it already got to you in your cottage. It can get to you when you go walking. It can get to you when you need to go to your car. Shawna, it can get to you.” His words were clipped, and he clenched his jaw on the last phrase. All resolve to keep him at arm’s length seemed silly. Why should you do that, was a question that loomed large in her brain, and her body agreed—no argument there.
Then logic told her once more that he was trouble. You’ll be in deep shit if you don’t put distance between you!
She had to come up with an answer, and she did. “Perhaps that thing could have gotten to me, but I kinda think I have its number now, and I also think I know how to create a specific—since there is no way of getting around this, I’ll just say it—spell. I think I can create a ‘shield spell’ to stop it from harming me. “ She eyed him for a moment, and as he didn’t say anything as she continued, “You see…I know a great deal about white magic, and I am fully capable of performing a very strong spell that electricity cannot pass through. I have a grandmother as well, and she taught me what to do should I happen across the unknown.” She looked into his green eyes. “But you knew that, didn’t you?”
“I guessed it, but wasn’t sure. So what is that spell?”
“Don’t know yet. This thing is made up of electricity. I have to figure out which shield spell will work against it.”
He threw up his hands with exasperation. “What the hell, Shawna! This is not a game.”
“And yet—it is.” She shrugged. “I mean to improvise.”
“Improvise, eh—why don’t you run that by me if you please, lass, just what sort of improvising do ye intend?”
Again she noticed that when he was distressed, his burr got stronger, deeper, and actually aroused her. Her blood felt tickling fingers…
She looked away from him and would have started forward, had he not stepped in the way. She sighed and relented. “Okay…I’ll tell you in the car…on the way back.”
He had her arm and gently pulled her to him as he bent close, so very close to her lips. “I haven’t agreed yet that I would be taking you back there.”
“Ah, you don’t feel like a drive?” She pulled out of his hold. “Don’t worry about it—I can go home vamp style…”
“You’ll not be doing anything of the sort, lass! Are you mad? Vamp-style, is it? Doona you know your scent would linger in the air in your wake? What are you thinking? Do you want Pentim to find you?”
She eyed him doubtfully. “No…but I thought you did.”
“And I do, but when you are ready—when we are ready—not one damn minute before.”
“And when will that be, Chad MacFare?”
“When I have trained you, and say it is time, and to do that, I need you here—with me, training for hours…”
She frowned up at him, but her mind was working fast. “What would your father and—”
“They are gone already,” he interjected. “They were on their way to Africa. We have a school there for orphans, and they check in regularly to make certain the children are being well cared for. It is one of their grand passions.” He smiled as he said this last.
Shawna could see that he was immensely proud of his father and grandmother, and it softened all other resolves for reasons she didn’t have time to investigate.
She sighed heavily. She had been planning to run again. Now that his parents were safely out of the way, that might not be necessary. She gave in to the decision she had been playing with for any number of days. “Fine—here is the deal, take it or leave it. I will drive over here every single day and ‘train’ with you, although I can’t imagine what sort of training you mean to give me.” She put up her hand when it appeared he was about to interrupt. “Nevertheless, I agree to train with you. However, I need my boundaries—my own place.”
“I don’t like it,” he grumbled.
“It doesn’t matter—what you like or don’t like.” She touched his arm and a shiver danced right through her body; she immediately withdrew her hand. “I have likes and dislikes—and they come first. Besides, how would it look to all of Stockton if I moved in here with you?”
He gave her a rueful grin. “Do I care? Should you care? Besides, your grandparents will be here, remember? I am picking them up tomorrow.”
“What kind of arrangements have you made?”
“Suffice it to say that I did.”
“You are always saying that. It isn’t fair. You know so much about me…I know nothing about you.”
“If you come here
to live and train, I will tell you something every single day about myself. How is that?”
“Something important—that matters?”
“Aye—something important, that matters. But it would be easier on us all if you would just move in.”
“Not yet—I don’t want people to make the connection between my grandparents and me, and they are bound to if I came here to live. Besides, what would I tell the squire?”
Chad MacFare gritted his teeth, and when he finally found his voice, Shawna was surprised to hear the level of irritation in it. “I don’t give a good…damn about what the squire thinks or doesn’t think.”
“Yes, well but I do. I committed to the lease—”
“I’ll pay the damn lease, Shawna…”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” Shawna’s eyes narrowed as she considered him. “Right—I proposed a deal. Take it or leave it.”
He moved in closer to her, and she felt her breath turn into short spurts. Why did that happen to her when he got too close? She stepped away from him. “Come on then…I need to get home. You can think it over and give me your answer later.”
“Ah, thirsty, Shawna?” His voice changed, and she could see the concern in his eyes. Hell, when he looked at her like that, it sent a thrill through her, softened her, and melted her heart. She lowered her eyes. She didn’t want to look at him and give herself away.
She shouldn’t be, but she was thirsty. Perhaps it was because of the injury and subsequent healing? It had taken a great deal out of her—more than she realized. “Yes, Chad…as you pointed out—half vamp here.”
He inclined his head. “Right, but before we go, I want this settled. For the time being, I will allow you to stay in your cottage, but I have your word…starting today, we begin your training.”
She hesitated, wanted to retort that he hadn’t the ‘right’ to allow her to stay, or not stay, in her cottage. That was her right, and she couldn’t remember having given it away. However, she shrugged it off. “Agreed.”
* * *
Watching through the window as Chad drove off, Shawna felt a twinge of loss as his car moved out of view. She realized that she was beginning to rely on him but for what—comfort? Why? She couldn’t allow herself to do that.
Again the nagging voice in her head, whispering, shouting, telling her, but you need him, on so many levels. She folded her arms across her middle. No, I do not. Need had to go hand in hand with trust, or it wouldn’t work. Could she trust him? Perhaps—but she had to know more about him, what made him tick, what drove him, what in fact was he? That was at the heart of the mystery that plagued her. Just what was Chad MacFare? Did it matter? She thought that it did.
She clicked off what she knew about him: One, he had a mastery of magic, but there was nothing of the sorcerer about him. Two, he was intuitive, and he suffered visions that gave him a glimpse into the past and the future. Those visions gave him a heads up. Three, he had an uncanny way of using his magic and his skills to get past her wards, call her on a phone that was shut off, and so many other things, like—how had he found her in the first place?
Those were the things she knew about him, and none of those things were comforting. Ah, yes, there was something else—his family.
Were they as abnormal as he? Something about them told her instinctively that whatever he was, whatever he had in his genes…came most definitely from them.
Mystery—she was left with the mystery.
Still, for six months she had been evading and running from Pentim Rawley, and Chad was certainly right about one thing: she knew that she couldn’t do it much longer. He was bound to find her.
She had skills that Pentim didn’t know about, skills that even the all-knowing Chad MacFare might not know about, but she wasn’t quite certain those skills would be enough to keep her from getting caught. And she couldn’t get caught. She couldn’t become one of them…she was terrified that Pentim might be able to ‘turn’ her.
She had always healed quickly. She couldn’t remember ever being sick. She was super-strong, she was super-fast, and her senses were when compared to a human certainly heightened, but she knew that the diseased blood already in her system could be used against her. She believed she wouldn’t have to die to be turned.
There were two questions about herself for which she had no clear answer. The first being, could she die in the normal way—from age? And if not, would she stay young for as long as she lived?
Not important now, and she rather thought one day soon, she might discover the answers. She sighed over the memory of Chad’s face, so close to hers, his lips on her lips…
She brushed this away with a scowl.
And yet a little voice argued with her in her head, telling her Chad MacFare was so much more than she knew. He might be secure in his sense of self, but perhaps he wasn’t quite as arrogant as she had first assumed? Perhaps, he was just what she needed?
Wrong question, she told herself as she immediately pictured his hunky self in her head and felt her eyelids get lazy. Stop! Can’t think about his kisses…
She sighed long and hard, and then she turned to the business of warding her cottage with the strength of black magic. She went to her chest of ‘tools’ and withdrew a crystal amulet, a device used in white magic, and moved towards the front door.
However, she was finding it difficult to concentrate. Chad MacFare’s face and touch kept infiltrating her thoughts. Also, there was the mystery that surrounded him and drove her crazy.
And what about that business last night with his father and grandmother? Why had their appearances fuzzed up right before her eyes? She hadn’t been sick, and that had never happened to her before!
There was something more to the McFares than met the eye, and she was going to have to get him to answer at least some of her questions.
He continually surprised her, like when he had jumped out of the car to open her car door and then had insisted on walking her inside and making a check of the place himself before he left. He had put a finger to her nose and reminded her that he expected her to return to Darby Gray by two o’clock. Then with a wink, he had left.
Just like that, gone. She had bolstered herself believing she would have to fend him off. She had believed she would have to gather her inner strength to tell him ‘no’ to any kissing attempt, and then, just like that, she didn’t have to stop him. He made no attempt to kiss her at all. Let down—huge!
She shook it all off and concentrated on the job at hand, but first she needed a drink. She set aside the amulet and moved to the fridge, where she retrieved the disguised bottle of pig’s blood. She stared at it for a long time before finally draining it down. Throwing the empty container in the garbage, she sighed heavily. She was going to have to go into Inverness sooner than she had anticipated and purchase another gallon.
She took out some of the dried herbs she had stored in various containers on the kitchen counter and mashed them together in a small dish. However, when she went to retrieve the amulet, she stopped short.
It was glowing blue.
Whoa! What the hell was this? It had never done that before. When she reached for it, it seemed to hop into her hands and the blue glow vanished.
Shawna placed the crystal on the table and used the age-old chant her grandmother had taught her so long ago, cosain—dhuine-mé-greill agus treilis. Shawna really didn’t speak or read ancient Gaelic, but she knew the arcane chants for the various wards and all the white magic spells. Her grandmother had started training her in the art of white magic when she was just five.
This particular spell would keep out the force of black magic. So many people believed that black magic was more potent than white, while in reality it wasn’t. It used fear and illusion to its advantage, but it wasn’t stronger than the purity of soft white mana.
The crystal shot out a bright, razor-sharp light that splintered throughout the house, magnifying at each of the windows and then at both the front and back d
oors. Then without warning, it retracted its rays and seemed to pause as an image deep within its glass started to form. Shawna couldn’t make it out, but she saw the color blue grow stronger and then vanish.
She stood for a long moment wondering just what it all meant.
~ Fourteen ~
CHAD HAD A FEW sports cars in his garage. He had taken out the silver Jaguar to drive Shawna home. What was he doing? Trying to impress her?
As he arrived at the fork in the road that would take him either to Darby Gray or into town, he stopped. Did he really need to go to town and bother with the errands he had listed for himself? Maybe he should just head home and prepare the weapons room for his first ‘training’ session with Shawna.
The image of her face tickled him. He imagined her twinkling bright silver eyes, and that drew an unconscious smile from him. Then he recalled for the hundredth time how she had felt in his arms.
Her luscious breast in his hand, her firm, ski slope butt…
He had to stop this. He had a raging hard-on, and it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon if he allowed himself to constantly think of her. As he tried to forget that fully charged moment when he had removed her sweater and she was deliciously in his arms, he heard the sound of a powerful engine—a Bentley pulling out of the MacDunn driveway at his back.
He looked in his rearview mirror and smirked. Damn if it wasn’t the squire himself!
He didn’t like the man, and he had been more upset than he wanted to admit to himself when he had discovered that Shawna had taken lunch with MacDunn at his manor. No doubt, the squire was after her pretty little ass.
The notion drew a sneer out of him. Some might say it was the pot calling the kettle black, but Chad felt otherwise. He never took a woman where she didn’t want to go, and he never played with a woman’s feelings. From the start, he was up front with any woman he met and became involved with intimately.
