Текст книги "Loving The Highlander"

Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

Sadie was very determined.

After wasting most of the afternoon hunting for Morgan, wearing out her boots and getting a sore throat from hollering his name over and over, Sadie finally conceded defeat. She knelt in front of Faol, who had suddenly appeared when she walked out of Dwayne’s camp, and held his big head between her hands and pleaded with the animal to help her.

“You’ve got to find Morgan, big boy,” she entreated, getting her nose within inches of his. “Before he finds me first. It’s important that I go to him with my heart in my hand and remind him again that he loves me.”

Faol whined, darting out his tongue and lapping her chin, his wagging tail shaking his whole body. Gripping the tufts of hair on the sides of his face, Sadie held him away.

“Can you do that? Can you find Morgan for me?”

He tried to wash her face again, then barked when she wouldn’t let him. Sadie let go and stood up, waving her hand at the forest.

“Go on, then. Go find Morgan,” she told the wolf, giving him a nudge with her knee.

Faol barked again, spun on his feet, and took off at a run down the trail. Sadie tightened the waist belt of her pack and started jogging after him, the thrill of the chase lifting her spirits until she was laughing out loud.

Sadie lost sight of Faol but heard him bark someplace to her left. She turned off the trail and ducked under limbs, slowing to avoid getting poked in the face by low-hanging branches. She couldn’t see Faol anymore, but the wolf was making enough noise to wake the dead.

Sadie broke onto a narrow game trail, this one obviously used by moose more than deer.

She was able to stand upright and pick up her pace again, and within twenty minutes Sadie realized exactly where Faol was leading her.

And she laughed again, at the irony of what was happening. Because it wasn’t all that long ago that she had been running down this very same trail—only away from a madman instead of toward him.

Faol had stopped at the edge of the lake. He was sitting down, his tail wagging the ground clean, and looking over his shoulder at her. He darted a look at the lake and then back at her, whining and standing up and padding over to touch her fingers. He carefully grasped the fingertips of her glove in his teeth and gently tugged.

Sadie took the hint. She pulled off her glove, knelt down, and took hold of his face again.

“I know, big boy,” she whispered. “I might be hardheaded sometimes, but I eventually figure things out. I—I’ll take good care of your son, Mister MacKeage,” she whispered.

“I’ll see that he’s happy and very glad he came to live in this time. We’ll give you some grand-babies and tell them all about your visit with us.”

Faol whined and lapped her chin, then pulled his head free and turned and looked out at the lake again. He lifted his nose into the air and sent a howl over the valley that carried into the mountains on tremulous waves.

Faol then trotted off into the forest without looking back.

Sadie stepped to where the wolf had been standing and stared at Morgan sitting on the boulder in the middle of the cove, facing her, his large hands braced on the edge of the rock and his feet lazily stirring the water.

He was naked, of course, despite the fact that there was ice lacing the shore of the lake and the air was below freezing. Steam wafted from his wet shoulders, his breath puffed in gentle billows around his head, and the water dripping from his long blond hair made icicles on the rock beside him.

“I’m beautiful, Morgan.”

“Aye, Mercedes, you are.”

“And I’m your wife.”

“I remember our vows.”

“I—I’m a modern.”

“Nobody promised us a perfect world, lass.”

“I’ll continue to be strong-minded… sometimes.”

“Aye. But only sometimes,gràineag.”

“I know what that means now. And it’s not an endearment.”

“But it fits you so well, wife… sometimes.”

Sadie scowled, thinking this wasn’t going well. Not that she’d had a plan when she’d come searching for Morgan, but she had thought the man would be more… well, at least more eager to see her. Sadie took a deep breath and continued.

“I broke your sword.”

“I noticed that.”

“And your waterfall was destroyed.”

“I noticed that, too.”

“All the magic is gone, Morgan.”

“Nay, lass. It’s more powerful than ever.”

“Dammit, Morgan. I want you to forgive me.”

“I did that two days ago, Mercedes.”

“Then why didn’t you come for me?”

“Because you needed to forgive yourself first.”

With trembling hands, Sadie swiped at the tears that had escaped and flowed down her cheeks. This was proving even harder than she’d thought. He was just sitting there like a turtle on a rock waiting for the sun to warm him, his infuriatingly patient and calmly given responses making her insides quake. Maybe he was a turtle, and she was the sunshine he was waiting for.

“I’m beautiful.”

“Aye, Mercedes, you are.”

“And you love me.”

“I must.”

“Dammit, Morgan. This is hard.”

“Only because it’s important, Mercedes.”

“I love you.”

“I’m glad. But it’s not me you must love, lass.”

“I’m beautiful.”

“Aye, wife. You are very beautiful.”

With hands more shaky than useful, Sadie un-cinched the belt at her waist and let her pack slide off her shoulders, catching it and gently setting it on the ground without taking her eyes off her husband.

Morgan lazily watched her as she sat down and unlaced her boots and pulled them off.

She tucked her socks inside them and then stood, her trembling hands going to the buttons on her shirt. It took her a long time to get the shirt open, and even longer to work up the nerve to slide it off her shoulders. She let the shirt fall to the ground, reached behind her back, and unhooked her bra, pulling both it and her body sock off, letting them fall to the ground.

And still she watched her husband.

And still he sat there, not saying a word, not moving, not taking his eyes off her.

Sadie unbuckled her belt and unsnapped her pants, pushing them down to her knees and stepping free.

She couldn’t quit shaking, and she knew it wasn’t the cold making her tremble. Every nerve ending, every taut muscle, every inch of her skin felt as if it were on fire.

She straightened her shoulders and forced her hands to her sides, now facing her husband as naked as he was.

“Do ya see that sunset behind me, lass?”

Sadie could only nod.

“I was sitting here waiting for you to come to me, and I was thinking how the sky is the color of your eyes. It’s a very beautiful shade of blue, don’t you think?”

She nodded again.

Morgan stood up and held out his hand. “Then come to me now, Mercedes. Bring your beauty into my life.”

She took a step forward, and then another. Each step was a bit easier than the previous one, and soon Sadie was running to Morgan.

Until she was up to her knees in the ice-cold water. Sadie screamed at the feel of the icy water on her legs.

“Goddammit, MacKeage! This lake is freezing!” she shouted, scrambling back to the shore.

Morgan dove into the lake and swam until he could stand up. He rose, water cascading down his tall, masculine body, and waded toward her.

Sadie took a step back. Morgan had never looked more like a warrior to her, even though she’d seen him like this before. He was different somehow.

Or maybe she was.

Or maybe it had something to do with the unholy gleam in his eyes, the look of a warrior about to possess the prize of his hard-won battle.

Sadie took another step back.

Morgan had certainly waged a fine war, if not a subtle one. But then, Sadie suddenly thought, stepping toward him instead of away, the prize he was receiving was well worth the effort.

She ran and threw herself into his arms, grabbing his wet hair and kissing his wet face, laughing with the joy of knowing she was about to begin a dream life with this man. He wrapped his powerful arms around her and gently lowered them both to the ground, growling into her ear as he rained kisses through her hair.

With lusty words and whispered promises, Morgan told Sadie as much as he showed her just what he thought of her body. His hands roamed over her skin with feather-light touches, his lips following the trail of his fingers.

Sadie mimicked his actions and his words and made a few lusty promises of her own.

She arched her back when his lips grazed her nipples, pushing her breasts into his mouth, yearning to be touched everywhere.

Nothing was off limits any longer. Nothing stood between them, nothing obstructed the pleasure of loving each other. Passion took precedence over shyness, and Sadie was able to give herself freely to the wonder of love.

They played and loved as they had that afternoon in the beautiful, mystical pool filled with thedrùidh’s magic. And Morgan hadn’t been lying a moment ago when he’d said the magic was more powerful than ever.

The magic was stronger, their love a brilliant rainbow wrapped around the pure white light of their passion.

Driving definitely would have been easierif Libby could have kept her eyes on the road.

And the trip wouldn’t have taken nearly as long if she hadn’t had to stop every half hour and get out and stare at the landscape.

But the country was beautiful. Rugged. Over-whelming.

The trees went on forever; fluorescent red and yellow and orange blanketed the mountains, broken only by the deep green of pine and spruce and hemlock. Cliffs of solid granite pushed up through the vivid colors occasionally, hinting at the massive foundation that lay beneath the forest.

Since renting the small compact car at the airport in Bangor, Maine, and heading northwest on Rte 15, Libby had felt herself climbing, rising into the mountains until they wrapped completely around her. The tension of the last two weeks slowly seeped from her body, andhome became a whispered mantra that repeated itself with every beat of her heart.

After taking nearly three hours to travel the eighty miles from Bangor, Libby crested yet another hill and just barely caught herself from slamming on the brakes. The sight of Pine Lake, with its vast waters contained only by the sheer strength of the mountains, stole her breath. Libby guided her car to the shoulder of the two-lane road, shut off the engine, and stared through the windshield.

Islands, some the size of houses and some several acres in size, dotted the large cove that fingered in from the lake toward the small town nestled on the shore. Mountains rose from the water’s edge like watchful guardians, several of their peaks shrouded by low clouds as they marched into the distance.

Her life up until this moment seemed no more than a dream as she stared at the great reality in front of her. Miracles lived here. This was the realm of possibilities, whispering the promise of sanctuary to her fragmented soul.

Her flight from California had ended. She’d been driven—or pulled—to this magical place by a guiding presence that needed no reason other than rightness. The how and why and what would happen next did not matter. Libby simply knew this was where she belonged.

She had never given much thought to mystical powers—not until two weeks ago, when she’d found herself holding that very power in her hands. She was a surgeon who could suddenly heal people without a scalpel. She had touched a critically injured woman and willed her to get well. By the time the woman reached Libby’s operating room, less than ten minutes later, she was completely healed.

Libby had run from the hospital that day two weeks ago, confused and very much afraid that the gift of her birthright was very, very real.

Libby finally tore her gaze away from the lake and picked up her collection of printouts from Robbie MacBain. She shuffled the papers until she found the digital photos that had accompanied Robbie’s Internet ad to rent his mother’s home. She stared at the young boy of eleven or twelve, sitting on his pony in front of a field of Christmas trees, and tried to decide what it was about him that had made her choose to come here.

His mother’s home was certainly enticing enough—a staid white New England farmhouse overlooking Pine Lake. And the mountains held their own allure, if only for their illusion of security.

But Robbie MacBain had been the final deciding factor. There was something about him, something almost otherworldly. He was a child with the eyes of an ancient soul. There was a presence about him, as he sat so proudly on his pony and looked directly at the camera with a subtle, I-know-a-secret smile lifting his lips and the promise of magic shining in his young, pewter-gray eyes.

Libby shuffled the papers again and found Robbie’s last e-mail to her. “Head northeast out of Pine Creek,” he’d written, “and drive until you see a large field of Christmas trees on your right. I think it’s about five miles from town. I know it’s not a very long ride on the school bus, so it shouldn’t take you too long to find my home.”

Libby adjusted the rearview mirror so she could see herself, brushed a stray curl from her face, and gave a quick fluff to her short, wavy hair. She blinked her huge brown eyes as she examined her reflection, hoping that her light touch of makeup wasn’t too much, and smiled to make sure a stray piece of lettuce from the sandwich she’d gotten in Bangor wasn’t stuck in her teeth. She wanted to look at least presentable when she met her new young landlord, so he wouldn’t realize that he’d rented his mother’s home to a desperate woman with secrets of her own.

Satisfied that she looked like a sane, sensible, thirty-one-year-old jewelry maker, Libby started the car, waited for a pickup truck to drive past, and pulled back onto the road.

She idled her way through the tiny town of Pine Creek, noticing with interest the few stores and three dozen or so people going about their business. She also noticed that her little car was dwarfed by the many pickups and huge logging trucks. She saw only one other car, squeezed between dust-covered pickups in front of Dolan’s Outfitter Store.

She stopped at the intersection in the center of town and tried to decide which way to turn. She didn’t have a compass, but there were only three ways out of Pine Creek, and Libby picked the graveled but obviously much-used road that put the sun to her left, figuring it pointed her northeast.

She traveled for six miles and still didn’t see a Christmas tree. Libby picked up theMaine Atlas and Gazetteer she’d bought at the airport in Bangor, but her attention was quickly drawn back to the road when a streak of white swooped past the nose of her car. She slammed on the brakes and jerked the steering wheel to the left to avoid hitting the large bird.

She was traveling too fast, and her car skidded towards the ditch. Libby jerked the wheel back to the right, and again she slid on the frozen gravel, fish-tailing into the sharp curve that suddenly loomed before her.

She might have been able to maintain control if that damn suicidal bird had not flown past her windshield again. She cut the wheel to the left this time, only to skid on a puddle of ice at the edge of the road. Her car hit the ditch, shot up the embankment, and suddenly became air-born.

Libby shielded her face with her arms as she plowed through a stand of evergreens, her scream of surprise cut short when the small car slammed into the frozen farm pond on the other side of the trees. Both airbags exploded, punching Libby in the chest and face with the force of a cannon ball.

She slapped the slowly deflating airbag away, coughing on the packing powder that had shot through the interior of the car when the airbags had deployed. Water and ice cascaded over the hood, seeping into the cracked windshield, and the sound of the hissing engine and gushing water turned Libby’s shock to terror.

The car settled deeper into the pond.

Libby grappled with the buckle on her seat belt as freezing water rushed over the floorboards. She finally got free, but couldn’t open the door. It was locked, and she couldn’t find the release button on the new-model rental. She tried rolling down the windows, but they were electric and wouldn’t work either. So she pulled her wet feet up onto the seat and started kicking at the driver’s side window. After several forceful kicks, she caught a glimpse of a man wading through the water toward her. His steely glare followed the path her car had taken, and then his piercing, gun-metal eyes came to rest on her.

The car settled deeper into the pond.

The idiot. Why wasn’t he rushing to help her get out before she drowned? Libby kicked the window harder, and yelled at the man to do something.

But he only continued to glare.

Until finally, and ever so slowly, he tried to open the door, only to find it was locked. He pointed at the gearshift and motioned for her to put the car in park.

Sitting upright, Libby pushed on the gearshift until it was in the park position. She heard the distinct sound of all four locks clicking open. She immediately lifted the handle and tried to open the door, but it still wouldn’t budge.

And the car continued to settle deeper into the pond.

Libby started beating on the window again.

The man broke more of the ice around where he stood, braced one booted foot to the right of the car door and took hold of the handle. With a powerful tug he pulled open the door, and gallons of water rushed into the car, sweeping Libby into the passenger seat. She banged her head on the opposite window and cursed.

But she quickly shut up when her ungracious and still glaring rescuer ducked into the car. The guy was huge, and the most ferocious looking man she’d ever laid eyes on.

And he was cursing back at her.

Something about murdering his prize Christmas trees.

Or was he wanting to murder her?

“You little fool,” he growled as he reached toward her. “You won’t drown because the pond is not deep.”

More shaken by his attitude than his size, and deciding she wanted to escape him as well as the sinking car, Libby drew up her knees, planted her feet on his chest, and shoved.

Her action was so unexpected, the giant reared up, bumped his head on the roof, and went sprawling backward into the pond with another colorful curse of his own. Libby scrambled over the seat and out the door before he could recover, only to find that her legs refused to hold her up.

She fell on top of the giant.

Powerful arms wrapped around her. They both sank under the surface this time, and Libby swallowed half the pond as she struggled to get free. His strength mocked her efforts. And with one of his vise-like arms wrapped around her waist and his other hand cupping her bottom, he simply stood up.

Libby instantly stilled when she found herself looking into deep gray eyes that were no longer glaring.

They were laughing.

And the giant’s hand on her bottom felt more like a caress than an attempt to secure her.

So much for first impressions—she was a soaked, shivering mess who couldn’t even keep her car on the road, and he was a knockdown gorgeous mountain of man who couldn’t even control his hormones long enough to fish her out of a pond without copping a feel. But before she could tell him what she thought of his anything-but-heroic rescue, the chaos of the crash finally caught up with her and Libby slumped forward and very quietly—and most unwisely—fainted.

~~ THE END ~~