A Time for Everything (4 page)

“Moira, my poor Moira. She felt she’d failed the MacTavish clan. ’Twas years we’d been together but without a livin’ bairn to show for it. They fled from her body afore they could live on their own. She had just lost another. A son. This one lived nigh on to a week, but the poor, wee thing was just too small. Moira was beside herself. She took one of the horses and rode out of the yard as if the hounds of hell were after her. My man found me in an upper pasture and told me. He even brought me a horse, but by the time I lit out after her, time had passed.” A bitter sigh escaped his finely formed lips. “Too much time. I found her not far from where I met you. The horse had thrown her. I bundled her up and brought her home, but she was hurt inside. By the end of that evening, she was gone.”

“Oh, my. I’m so sorry.” Sam didn’t know what else to say. Sadness filled her. Why couldn’t she find someone who would love her like that?
Oh for Pete’s sake. This isn’t about me.

“As am I, lass.” A corner of his mouth turned downward. “For just a moment last night, I thought ye were her ghost. She was tall like you. With a mane of red hair just like yourn and golden eyes.”

Just like mine…
Sam shivered. It felt as if a spirit had truly walked over her grave.
What have I stumbled into?
She closed her eyes, trying to think. From a great distance, she thought she heard a woman’s voice but the words were indistinct and the brogue so thick as to be nearly indecipherable.
It’s the same,
she thought.
The same voice as the woman in my dream.

Don’t be ridiculous.

Sam let her horse drop back a few paces. Breathing was suddenly difficult. She clawed at her throat, opening her jacket a few inches. What had she gotten sucked into here in the land of fairies and ancient bloodthirsty gods?

Think about something else
, she commanded herself sternly, feeling she was about to shatter into a million disjointed pieces.
Anything else.

Her backside was sore by the time they turned in through high wooden gates. Ivy, dotted with small white flowers, grew thickly up the stone walls the gates were set into. They’d talked very little after his disclosure about his wife. She hadn’t known quite what to say and, apparently, neither had he. It was almost as if he were ashamed of having shared too much with a relative stranger.

The gates formed an archway overhead. Blocks made of the same gray stone as the wall lined a roadway—the first she’d seen since leaving modern Inverness the previous day that wasn’t cobblestones or mud. They rode up an undulating hill. Green fields, glistening with water, spread as far as she could see on either side. Flocks of sheep dotted the green. At the top of the hill, a massive structure came into view. Complete with turrets and a portcullis, it looked like a medieval castle.

She pulled her horse to a stop and slid to the ground.

“What are ye doin’, lass?”

“I want to walk the rest of the way. If this horse is like every other one I’ve ever ridden, she’s close enough to the barn she can find her own way to a feed bin.”

He laughed. It was a deep, rich sound. “Aye, that she can.” Angus joined her on the ground. He slapped both horses on the rump, and they took off at a canter for a group of outbuildings made of small stones stacked closely together under sod roofs.

Sam gazed around her, wishing she’d paid closer attention to history when she’d taken it in college. Over the course of the morning, she’d come to the uncomfortable conclusion she’d somehow been transported back in time. Something over two hundred years to be precise, if Angus was to be believed. She hadn’t seen even one thing to suggest she was still in the twenty-first century.

“Uh, Angus, before we go inside, could we talk?”

“Are ye not tired, lass?” He stopped walking long enough to look at her.

More than you could ever know.
“Yes. Of course I’m tired. But I want to be able to talk with you alone.”

His brows drew together. “’Tis best if ye rest. Mayhap ye might regain—”

“That’s just it,” she broke in. “You don’t understand.” She laid a hand on his arm. Warmth from his body rose into it, sending prickles of sensation up her arm. It was all she could do not to throw herself into his arms and sob against his chest. Trying for a dispassionate distance, and failing utterly, Sam understood just how unnerved she was.

She tightened her grip on his arm. “I really am from the year twenty twelve. I live in,” she started to say the United States but amended it to, “the Americas,” so he’d understand. “I’m not sure how I ended up here, but I did.” Knowing she was babbling, but unable to stop herself, she yanked her pack off her back and slid her iPhone out of her jacket pocket. Flicking the phone’s
On
button, she showed him the tiny display as it came to life.

Angus twitched away from her but she held on. “It’s called a telephone,” she said. “It’s a way of talking to people who are far away and of accessing the Internet—” At the baffled expression on his face, she quieted, let go of his arm, and bent to retrieve her backpack. She reached inside.

“What more have ye in there?” he asked in a strangled tone, hooking two fingers into what she presumed was a sign against evil. “What are ye, lass? A witch?”

“Just a minute. It may have gotten wet, but I’ll bet there’s still at least one page with a date on it.” She dragged a sodden
Wall Street Journal
out, feeling triumphant when the date was, indeed, still legible. “Look.” She pointed. “This is a newspaper. It’s from last week, but still…”

She shoved it toward him and waited. Angus reached out with two fingers as if the damp newsprint would spread plague. She heard him draw in a ragged breath. And then another. “Bears rule Wall Street this week,” he read aloud. And then, “June twenty-ninth, twenty twelve.” He cocked his head to one side. “Well, lass, I understand the date well enough, but have animals taken over your streets?”

Sam opened her mouth to try to answer, but he waved her to silence. “Never mind. I wouldna understand anyway, like as not.” To his credit, he looked more intrigued than frightened. “What else do ye have in that sack?”

Sam upended it on the ground. Granola bars, her useless watch, plastic bags, a plastic water bottle, a pair of gloves, moist wipes, and her makeup pouch tumbled out. A small notebook with a pen clipped to it followed. Angus picked up the items one by one, lingering over the array of pots and brushes in her makeup case. Finally, he held out his hand for her phone. She gave it to him.

“It has to be charged,” she tried to explain. “See, it has a battery inside that needs electricity. It can run on its own for quite a while but eventually it will die.” Smiling, she had an idea. She reached to where the device sat cradled in his hands and tapped the music icon. When her playlist came up, she tapped the first song. A tinny rendition of
I’ll be Your Baby Tonight
filled the still, Scottish air. He pushed the phone back toward her, eyes wide with shock.

Sam laughed. “Phones do so many things nowadays. We call them smartphones.”

“Can ye make it stop?”

He sounded so uncomfortable she reclaimed the phone and exited out of the iPod menu. Standing in the small rubble pile of twenty-first century trappings, Sam met his gaze with hers. “Do you believe me now?” she asked softly.

His eyes narrowed. The muscle she’d noticed earlier in the day twitched under one. “Aye, lass,” he said, nodding slowly. “I believe you. The questions that are more pertinent are, why ye are here and how can we return you to your proper time?”

Something about the way he wanted to take care of her made Sam uncomfortable, and touched her heart. Other than her parents, no one had ever done much of anything for her. She almost said, “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll figure it out.” but decided it would make her sound ungrateful, so she bit her tongue. To cover her discomfiture, she gathered her things and dropped them one by one back into her pack. Powering down the phone, she slid it into a pocket.

“Laird. Ye be home,” sounded from behind them.

Sam spun to see a tall, spare man with graying hair loping toward them. “I saw the horses,” the man explained, “and kent ye must be close to hand.” He eyed Sam and shook his head. “For a minute there, I thought ’twas Moira returned to us.” He laid a hand over his heart.

A crooked smile lit Angus’ features. “I thought the same, Robert, when first I found her in the Highlands last evening.”

“Robert MacConough.” The man bowed toward her.

“Sam, ah, Siobhan Macquire.” Sam held out a hand. Robert stared at it, looking mildly confused. Finally, he raised it until it just brushed his lips.

“Not that ’tis any of my business,” Robert looked her up and down, “but why might ye be attired as a lad?”

“Mayhap we should take her inside and let Missus Cleary have a go at fixin’ that little problem,” Angus said, a corner of his mouth twitching as if he were trying not to laugh.

Sam shouldered her pack. “Ready when you are.”

Chapter 4

A week passed. Sam spent the first few days figuring out where things were in Castle MacTavish. It was a huge, old structure made mostly of stone. Angus told her it was built in the fifteen hundreds. An even older castle atop a nearby hill was destroyed during a raid from neighboring clans. Despite lavish hanging tapestries and fireplaces in every room, it rarely felt warm enough. She tried to count the rooms once but the layout was so confusing she stopped at fifty, certain there had to be more since there were whole levels she didn’t know how to access.

Her favorite rooms, and the only ones she could find easily beyond her own, were the kitchen and library. Because of the ever-present cook fires, the kitchen, with its gleaming copper pots and enticing smells, was always toasty. And the library was a reader’s dream. Leather-bound books crowded onto floor-to-ceiling shelves. Portable ladders to reach the uppermost ones were scattered at key points. The heavy, wooden furniture had soft cushions. Sam spent most of the time when she wasn’t in her room in the library. She’d found a veritable treasure trove of books in Latin and Greek and, for the first time, thought maybe her undergraduate degree in ancient history and languages hadn’t been a waste, after all.

Missus Cleary, though friendly enough at first, had turned decidedly cool once she’d determined there was
something wrong with the bonny lass.
Sam had caught her whispering just that to one of the kitchen help. She’d also caught her making the same hooked sign against evil that Angus had behind her back.

Sam sighed. The unfamiliar rustle of her long skirts was irritating as she paced up and down chilly stone corridors, trying to get some exercise. She longed for the twill outdoor pants Missus Cleary had whisked away while clucking over her. Of course that had happened before she’d fallen out of the woman’s good graces. The only reason she still had her boots and jacket was because she’d thrown her body over them and not allowed them out of her sight. She pulled the jacket in question more snugly around her, zipping the polartec up to her chin. She’d caught Missus Cleary puzzling over the tags in her clothing, and the zippers. Maybe the one in her jacket had sounded a death knell. Sam wasn’t certain if it had been that or the fact the jacket wasn’t wool, but a dark look had come over the housekeeper’s face and she’d dropped it as if it were a rabid animal. Sam shook her head. She was certain she seemed just as strange and out of place to this household as she felt trying to live within it.

And then there were her dreams. Seemed she was limited to two kinds these days. The ones where Angus took her in his arms, kissed her, told her she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and proceeded to do just about everything a man could do to and with a woman. In her dreams, he was the best lover she’d ever had. The most versatile, the most fun. He knew exactly where to kiss her. When to suck, where to bite, and how to hold her just on the edge of orgasm until she was crazy with need, fingers digging into his back, legs locked around him. Her dream-Angus had an amazing cock. It was huge and thick and made her ache with need just running her hands up and down its shaft.

Sam’s hips squirmed. She felt herself lubricating just thinking about Angus. She’d masturbated more in her few days in Castle MacTavish than she had in the last year. No matter how many times she made herself come, she still welcomed Angus into her dreams every night, and came some more.

Her other dreams weren’t nearly as pleasant. The red-headed Irish woman, who she now knew had to be Moira, had become her constant nighttime companion. When days had passed with no sign of so much as a kiss—let alone nuptials—between her erstwhile husband and Sam, the spirit had apparently become increasingly desperate. The previous night, she’d tried to instruct Sam in the art of seduction. Just before she’d rolled over and gone back to sleep, Sam had waved the ghost to silence. “Damn it,” she’d snapped. “He has to be attracted to me and he’s not. I can’t just make a grab for his dick and hope for the best.”

Those words had haunted her this morning. Sam knew she could be interested in Angus. Interested enough she hadn’t even bothered to begin thinking of a way out of her dilemma, but he… Well, she knew how to tell if a man found her attractive. And he certainly didn’t seem to.

She’d dressed with care for dinner each night, letting her hair hang loose over her shoulders in a welter of coppery curls. Moira’s wardrobe, apparently untouched since her death, offered many possibilities. Sam had tried demure. She’d tried provocative. Though she’d seen his gaze dip to her cleavage one night when she’d worn a particularly revealing dress, he’d taken care to keep a certain distance between them. When she thought how forward she’d been, she blushed. Was she ruining her chances by not waiting for him to make the first move?

“Siobhan!”

She turned at the welcome sound of Angus’ voice. She actually
liked
her real name when he said it. Her thoughts returned to where they’d been before he called to her. She’d only seen him at dinner over the time she’d been his guest. Always charming and proper while they ate, he never invited her to wherever he took himself after the evening meal ended. She’d hinted. And rather broadly at that by telling him she wasn’t the least bit tired. Either he’d not understood, or… And then she remembered his gaze on her breasts. Heat crept up her neck. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, hoping…