Trish froze in the middle of sinking her teeth into the dark-brown bread. “What the hell did you just say?” she mouthed around the hunk of crust.
Maxwell reached for the pot and filled her cup with the steaming amber liquid. He’d better have her tea at the ready. Trish sounded as though she were about to choke. Sliding the cup directly in front of Trish, an uneasy feeling of impending doom shivered chill bumps across his flesh. “I said that I was probably right. After last night, ye could verra well be carrying my son.”
Trish settled the thick slice of bread beside the cup on the table. Brushing the crumbs from her hands, she slowly lowered them into her lap. Her mouth flattened into a determined line, her jaw muscle twitching as though she gritted her teeth.
Maxwell swallowed hard. From the intensity of the red on the lass’s cheeks, he’d bet his best horse that she was about to explode.
“I cannot believe—” Trish paused, eyes narrowing as she spit out the words in a slow irritated hiss. “I cannot believe,” Trish repeated, her trembling hands knotting into balled up fists on either side of her cup. “I cannot believe you sat here this morning and told everyone what we did last night. Where in the hell is your sense of decency? I may not be the virginal sort but at least I don’t traipse around advertising my escapades. Haven’t you ever heard that old saying that a true gentleman never kisses and tells?”
Maxwell flinched. Trish’s voice had an endearing way of accenting certain words depending on her current frame of mind. But by the way she’d just spiked the word hell, he’d really pissed her off. “Faolan and Ciara are family to me.” Noting Ciara’s triumphant glower, Maxwell waved a hand toward Faolan. “Well, Faolan is family to me. Ciara is more like punishment for m’sins.”
Ciara snorted and dismissed Maxwell’s words with a flit of the knotted towel. “Don’t be embarrassed, Trish. We’ll ensure that anything discussed in this room—” She gave her husband a meaningful look before she settled onto the bench. “Stays in this room.”
Maxwell risked resting a hand across Trish’s clenched fist. “I am an honorable man, sweetling. I would never spout details of anything that should be kept between the two of us. I was merely pointing out to Faolan and Ciara that I would never abandon my child to the future and I was certain ye’d feel the same.” There. That sounded so much better. Surely, Trish would see the sense of it now. Maxwell shifted on the hard bench and waited for what seemed like an eternity. God’s teeth. Why didn’t the woman say something instead of sitting there with her hands knotted into fists?
Trish’s gaze lowered as she slid her hands out from under Maxwell’s and folded them in her lap. “I will still be going back to the future, Maxwell.” The pink tip of her tongue swiped nervously across her lower lip. “And you don’t have to worry about the possibility of your child growing up without a father.” Inhaling a deep shaking breath, Trish raised her gaze and turned to face him. “I’m not able to have children.”
Uncomfortable silence filled the room and stole the warmth from the air. Trish wrapped her hands around her steaming mug of tea and took a hesitant sip. Her gaze remained fixed on the amber liquid as she lowered the cup to the table. “Well that was a conversation killer.”
Maxwell stared at the flush of red creeping up Trish’s creamy throat. She couldna have children? Barren? How? “How do ye know…” Maxwell struggled, both sympathy for Trish and frustration with not understanding vying for possession of his mind. “How do ye know ye canna have children? Have ye already tried?” There. He’d said it. He didn’t truly want to think of Trish having children with anyone but himself but he had to be realistic. After last night, he knew for certain she hadn’t been a virgin but he’d prefer not to know the intimate details of her past. “Trish?” he leaned closer and whispered her name when she remained silent.
“Didn’t you notice my lovely scar the plastic surgeons weren’t able to erase?” Trish refused to look Maxwell in the face. Instead, she leaned forward, forearms on the table, staring down into the mug she circled with her hands.
Maxwell glanced at Ciara, then Faolan, frowning when they both slightly shook their heads. What the hell was she talking about? A scar? “All I recall about your…um…body”—Maxwell shifted uncomfortably in his seat—“is the beauty I beheld.”
An almost imperceptible smile quivered at one corner of Trish’s mouth as she rhythmically smoothed her thumbs in circles against the sides of the mug. “Well.” Trish bowed her head and cleared her throat. “It was pretty dark in the library last night.”
“I think we’d best leave.” Faolan pulled on Ciara’s arm while rising from his chair.
Ciara pulled her elbow out of her husband’s grasp, crossing both arms over her chest. “Only if Trish doesn’t need us here. It’s her decision. I will not have her thinking we’d desert her or that we do not care.”
Trish finally raised her head, huffing a humorless laugh as she rubbed a trembling hand across her eyes. “You’re more than welcome to stay. I feel as close to the two of you as I do Nessa and Latharn.”
Ciara and Faolan exchanged troubled looks and settled back down at the table.
Maxwell smoothed his hand across the satin of the well rubbed wood of the table. If only he’d known. A knot tightened in the center of his chest. He wished he’d never broached the subject. “What are ye tryin’ to tell me, Trish? Just come out and say it.”
A deep sigh escaped Trish as she turned to face him. “Several years ago…when I was much younger and in college, a man attacked me.”
Rage clouded Maxwell’s vision with a red haze, pumping a burning thirst for vengeance through his body. He bit back the roar he longed to release. Instead, he jerked his head forward with a stiff nod. “Go on.”
Trish tilted her head, closing her eyes as though she couldn’t bear to see anyone’s expression while she told her tale. “He forced me by knife point into an abandoned building, raped me, sliced me into a bloody pulp, and then planned on torturing me until I gave up and died.”
“If I’d been there, I’d ha’ killed the bastard…with the cruelest death possible.” Maxwell forced the words out, his voice rasping with the sense of injustice screaming in his head. “I suppose the cur left ye for dead?”
Trish shook her head, tracing a finger around the rim of the cup as she sat straighter on the bench. “No. Nessa heard my screams. She saved my life by driving a spike through the back of his head with a well aimed piece of lumber.” Releasing the mug, Trish flattened her hands atop the table, staring down at her fingers as she spoke. “She saved my life, but I’m afraid she didn’t get there in time to save my body from a great deal of damage.”
“I hope the bastard suffers a painful eternity searing deep in the bowels of hell.”
“Me too, Maxwell.” Trish finally met his gaze. “But that’s why you don’t have to worry about any children from me.”
Maxwell scooped Trish’s ice cold hand between his own, rubbing the tops of her knuckles with his thumb. “I wasna worried, my dear sweet lass. I was just saying that I’d never abandon ye to raise a bairn alone.”
A pained expression tightened around Trish’s mouth as she avoided Maxwell’s gaze. She drew in a deep shuddering breath and stared down at their linked hands. “I have to return to the future. No matter what happened between us last night. I’ve got to go back to my life.”
Maxwell settled Trish’s hands down into her lap, hesitating for a brief moment while he stared at the top of her curly head. If only he could see inside her mind. Maybe then he could figure out why she was so dead set on returning to her time. Dammit. Releasing her hands, he rose from the bench. “Yer mistaken, lass. Ye need to stay. Whether yer able to bear any children or not, ye now belong here just as much as I do.”
Trish raised her head and finally met his gaze. Maxwell couldn’t bear the denial in her eyes, couldn’t bear the determination in the tilt of her head. He rose from the bench and stormed from the room before Trish had a chance to reply.
Chapter Twelve
A deep voice, rhythmic with a patient sing-song cadence, murmured through the wide seams of the weathered door. Trish paused, a hand resting against the rough gray wood and listened with her head bowed. Her heart fluttered right before it sank like a weight to the pit of her stomach. She’d recognize those rumbled “r’s” anywhere. Trish closed her eyes and fought against the quivering excitement Maxwell’s voice always sent tingling through her. Damn the man. She’d never had this problem before. How had Maxwell seemingly connected—no, not connected—gained control. Yes. Gained control over every part of her so that even the sound of his voice sent her into a tailspin?
Easing back a step, she stared at the door, willing the ancient wood to provide all the answers. Was she ready for another confrontation with Maxwell? Could she possibly win? Trish pinched the bridge of her nose, massaging the burning corners of her weary eyes and tried to ignore the nagging voice in her head hissing out the truth. No. I’ll never win against Maxwell’s insistence that I stay, because I really don’t want to go.
Trish pressed her palms against her temples then smoothed shaking fingers through her errant curls. She couldn’t handle another shouting match right now. She was too weary from helping Ramsay pore over all the spell books in the tower. And they’d found nothing. Trish massaged the tensed muscles at the back of her neck, wincing at the tenderness of the knots.
Maybe they should just give up. Hours of squinting at faded text by the golden light of the iron candelabra had only rewarded her with a stiff back, grainy eyes, and about an hour’s worth of a head-bobbing doze. And they’d still come away empty-handed.
Irritation deepened the ache in the tensed muscles bunched at the back of her neck. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear Ram was deliberately leading them down blind alleys. The boy had missed his parents terribly at first but with every month they’d been separated from the far-off future, he’d settled more comfortably in the current past.
“I know yer there. Ye might as well come inside out of the weather. The spring rains will soak ye to the skin if ye stand long ’neath the eaves.”
How had he known she stood on the other side of the door? Trish gnawed on the inside corner of her lip. Maybe if she ignored him and walked away, she could still escape.
“Ye canna run from your heart, lass. I never took ye for a coward.”
Oh, he would throw down that gauntlet. Nobody called her a coward. Steeling herself against what she knew would soon elevate into another tirade, Trish pushed the door open. Might as well grab that stubborn Scottish bull by his horns. There was no escaping Maxwell now. “I wasn’t running. I didn’t hear Ramsay or Keagan inside so I decided to look somewhere else for the boys.”
“Aye.” Maxwell grinned sadly over the shining back of a chocolate-colored mare. “Whatever ye say, lass.”
The shooshing sound of the oval brush Maxwell ran down the mare’s coat echoed through the stillness of the barn, mesmerizing Trish with its soothing rhythm.
“Why would ye come to the barn looking for the lads when they’ve spent most of the day in the tower w’ye?” Maxwell smoothed the brush down the horse’s side with another slow even stroke. His smile disappeared as he looked up from the rich flank shining in the torch light. “Let there be no lies between us, Trish. We both deserve better than that.”
Trish stiffened, planting her feet in the softness of the straw-covered dirt floor. Damn him. Would Maxwell never give up? “I’m tired of fighting with you, Maxwell. Why can’t we just be civil and have a nice conversation?”
Maxwell didn’t answer, just pulled the leather loop of the brush from around his hand and hung it on the peg. Sidling his way around to the front of the stall, Maxwell gave the mare’s neck an affectionate rub as he stepped around her.
Great. Now he’d decided to use the silent treatment, pouting like a spoiled child. Trish bit back the angry words as she gathered up the folds of her skirt and turned to leave the barn. If he wanted to be a petulant ass, he could be one by himself.
“So, ye’ll not give me the chance to answer ye?”
Trish stopped, tightened her grip on the folds of her skirts and glared straight ahead. “It depends on the answer.”
The rustle of the straw scattered on the ground grew louder with the crunching rhythm of Maxwell’s steps. Trish didn’t have to turn to know Maxwell stood just behind her. The heat of him radiated around her body, surrounded her with his presence. Trish swallowed hard. Her chilled flesh ached to melt into the warmth of his body, yearned to disappear into the comfort of his embrace. No. Never again. She could not allow that to happen.
Trish eased forward a bit, coming to an immediate halt as a strong hand wrapped around her upper arm and gently pulled in an attempt to turn her. Planting her feet, Trish fought against the urging of Maxwell’s hand and also against the primal need screaming from the core of her flesh.
A warm rumbling chuckle shook through the stillness of the stable as Maxwell wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. His wiry beard tickled against the side of her throat, triggering memories of other ticklish areas that Maxwell had teased with such an expert touch. She couldn’t win against him. Trish closed her eyes, relaxed against him, and inhaled. Oil of cloves. Maxwell’s scent always reminded her of that particularly fragrant spice.
He pressed his mouth against the back of her neck, tantalizing her skin with warm, wet flicks of his tongue. Maxwell nibbled a path to the tender spot behind her ear, pulling her tighter against his body as he suckled the lobe into his mouth.
Trish shuddered, hugging his arms tighter around her waist as she surrendered to the pleasures of his touch. If only…the words echoed from the corner of her mind not held prisoner by her need. “Dammit, Maxwell. Please stop.” Trish pulled out of his embrace.
“As ye wish.” Maxwell’s quiet brogue was devoid of emotion.
“Maxwell, please…” Trish fought against the threat of tears. Damnation. Why had life become so complicated? She’d never had this much trouble shaking free of a man before.
“Which is it, lass?” Maxwell spread his feet farther apart and clasped his broad hands in front of his body. “As I see it, we must either move forward with these feelings or go our separate ways completely. If need be, I can leave MacKay keep today and return to m’own home. I have no desire to be a mere acquaintance.” He lifted his chin a notch and defiantly locked his jaw. “I will never be your friend.”
“I never meant for any of this to happen.” Trish cringed against the sound of her voice when it cracked at the end with a sob. Since when did she lose control? Since when did she not have the power to conquer any situation?
A sad smile pulled at the corner of Maxwell’s mouth, barely hidden by his moustache. He shook his head and lowered his gaze to stare at the bare patch of ground between them. He shook his head slightly as his deep voice fell to just above a whisper. “Sometimes things happen because they were meant to be so. We’re mere mortals, Trish. Sometimes we must trust where destiny takes us.”
He made it sound so simple. Trust in the fates and fall into his arms, never question whether she risked harming mankind by altering the past. “I wish it were that easy.” Trish closed her eyes, even her trembling excuse sounded defeated to her own ears.
“It is easy, lass. Ye need only ask yourself one question and then be honest with your answer.” Maxwell paused, sucked in a deep breath then released it slowly between tensed lips. “Do ye feel the same connection I feel…or no’?”
Trish covered her face with trembling hands, pressing cold palms against her flaming cheeks. She knew the answer without even asking. She just couldn’t bear to face it.
The silence between them took on a life of its own, growing to the size of a great hulking beast. Maxwell watched her with an unblinking stare, his gaze burning into her soul. Trish closed her eyes. She couldn’t bear the emotions reflected in those eyes. They mirrored the feelings churning
in her heart.
“How can I even attempt to do this?” The terrified whisper nearly caught in her throat. Trish forced it free with a hiccupping sob. “How do I−”
Maxwell closed the space between them with one quick lunge. Pulling her roughly into his embrace, he tilted her head back against his arm, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Ye will no’ attempt to do anything, sweetling. Just choose a life at m’side.”
Trish swallowed hard and curled her fingers into Maxwell’s wild shock of hair barely tamed by his warrior’s braid. His heart beat steady against her breasts, a silent promise to keep her safe. She could do this. The surety of his touch shattered any lingering doubts. To hell with the chaos of the twenty-first century; she belonged right here.
Snuggling her face into his chest, Trish closed her eyes as she released the last of her worries with a shuddering sigh. “I choose you,” she whispered softly into Maxwell’s tunic, wondering if she spoke loud enough for him to hear.
A deep rumbling laugh shook beneath her cheek, bubbled up from the depths of Maxwell’s belly and burst free to startle the horses in their stalls. Trish smiled and snuggled deeper into his strong embrace. Yep. Maxwell had heard her.
Chapter Thirteen
“You’ll speak your vows and then we’ll light the fires of Bealltainn.”
“So, I take it there won’t be a priest?” Trish turned into the brisk spring breeze caressing the face of the cliff and ran her fingertips across the rough surface of the glistening stone altar. Embedded bits of crystal danced like pinpoints of twinkling stars in the depths of the gray-black stone.
Ciara peeped around the side of one of the hulking obelisks standing butted upright against the massive rock table. “That won’t be a problem, will it? I seem to be a bit more than most of the priests who wander through this area can handle.”
A Highlander in Her Past Page 8
