A Time & Place for Every Laird (29 page)

Olson
, one of that fool Nichols’s junior agents, was hopping from one foot to the other in Jameson’s doorway as if he needed to use the G.D. John, Jameson thought irritably as he slammed down the phone.  He’d be damned if he was going to take on one more academy stripling after this fiasco.  “What is it?”

“Sir!  Well, shit, sir!  I can’t believe it
, really,” Olson stammered excitedly.

“Spit it out or you’re fired!”

“She turned on her phone … Claire Manning, that is,” the junior agent said, bouncing on his toes.  “Who would have thought …” Olson paused at the look on his superior’s face. “We were able to trace her, sir.  I mean, she didn’t have it on long, but we’ve definitely narrowed it down.”

“Who did she call?”
Nichols asked, stepping into the office.

“N-no one, sir,”
Olson stammered.  “That’s why I can’t believe it.  She just turned it on and then off again a few minutes later.”

Jameson hid his surprise well.  After days of nothing, he wouldn’t have thought the woman would be stupid enough to get caught twice in one day.  “Where is she?”

The junior agent was hopping again.  “She wasn’t on long enough to pinpoint her exact location but she’s somewhere on Bainbridge Island.”

Blood surging with satisfaction, Jameson pounded on his keyboard
, looking up the location.  “Get Marshall.  I want men on that island now.  Lock down the ferry.  Do a door-to-door search of every building on the fucking island if you have to, but I want her found.  Now!”

“Y-yes, si
r,” Olson piped and was gone.

“You don’t have enough eviden
ce to get a warrant to do a sweep like that,” Nichols said, closing the office door behind him.  “Might I remind you that all you have is the fact that she left work early one day and left Spokane when the lab closed.”

“Probable cause excuses everything, Nichols.  I thought you knew that by now.”

“You have nothing. We should be focusing all our efforts in the Spokane area instead of going off on some wild goose chase.”

“Dammit
, Nichols, I understand you’re hovering on the edge of retirement but some of us still have to do our jobs if we want to suck off the government tit for the rest of our days, too.”

Nichols frowned.  “You think I’m being complacent because I’m not jumping at shadows?  Maybe I’m just as sure as you that this entire line of investigation is absolute bullshit!”

Jameson pinned the INSCOM agent with a murderous glance that would have had young Olson fainting at his feet.  “Then who attacked my agent this afternoon, Nichols?  Huh?”

“
Marshall said that he never saw the man who grabbed him and that the guy spoke with a Southern accent,” Nichols reminded unnecessarily.  “Hardly one of your savages.  He was probably a tourist who thought Mrs. Manning was being mugged or something.”

Given that his life was practically on the line, Nichols was proving to be surprisingly resolved in his need to follow the
protocols, which demanded some evidence of culpability before such extreme measures were taken.  Jameson didn’t give a rat’s ass about protocols.  What the evidence said and what he knew were two different things, so to hell with it all.  “Get her, Nichols,” he growled.  “If she gets off that island, Colonel Williams will be looking at you for answers.”

“And if she comes out of this clean,
it will be your balls in a sling.”

Spreading his hands ac
ross his desktop as Nichols left the room, Jameson felt a surge of primal satisfaction, and a satisfied sneer curled his lip into some semblance of a smile.  Soon, every one of his naysayers, like Nichols, would see that his gut had been right all along when he had Claire Manning, and by extension his missing anomaly, in his grasp.

Fuck the
warrants.  He’d burn down every building on the island if it meant proving himself right.

Hugh turned and spooned behind her, slipping his hand up to cup her breast comfortably as he pulled her snuggly against him.  She’d forgotten how good that could feel.  What a safe and warm place it was.  How it made a woman feel sheltered and protected.  Right then there was nowhere Claire would rather be.

She sighed with contentment
, but misreading the exhalation, Hugh shifted behind her, lifting his head to look down at her with his brow furrowed. “Are ye well, lass?  Do ye … hae regrets?”

Claire almost snorted at that. Her regrets were many
, but none of them fell where she might have thought they would.  Lying there in the bed with Hugh after they made love, she had waited for the guilt and regret to flood her over what a week before she would have considered a betrayal to Matt, but Claire had known almost instantly that they weren’t going to come.  What was happening between her and Hugh felt right.

What she did regret was that she was going to lose Hugh and that she had no choice in the matter.  Claire skimmed her fingers over Hugh’s cheek and stretched up to kiss him softly.  “No regrets.  It was incredible.”

“And it will be again.  I told ye I am nae done wi’ ye.”

The husky words were possessively spoken
, and Hugh settled in behind her once more, his hand at her hip, pulling her back against the arousal already hardening again against her bottom.  Her wild Scotsman was proving insatiable, but after a week of simmering lust, Claire was happy to have as much of him as possible before they were forced to part.  Wiggling against his groin, she was rewarded with the press of his hot lips against the nape of her neck as he murmured foreign words similar to those he had whispered before into her ear in a thick, sensual brogue.

What
did those words really mean, she wondered?  His answer before hadn’t felt honest. His hoarsely spoken words had been too tenderly voiced to be mere sex play.  Was it possible that he was beginning to feel the same as she was?  Had he come to care?  While the thought thrilled, Claire conversely hoped that wasn’t the case and did not ask him again about his words.  One broken heart out of this mess was better than two.  Especially when Hugh’s heart had already been broken by too much loss recently. 

“Yer mind is wandering,” he whispered in her ear, enfolding her more tightly against his chest.  “Are ye wearied of me already?”

A chuckle of incredulity escaped her and Claire hugged the burly arm wrapped around her waist against her tightly.  “No, not at all.  If it helps, I was thinking about you.”

“A pleasing thou
ght if it has kept ye from fretting over other things.”

“Oh, I’ll always do that,” she confessed lightly, shifting onto her back so that she could look up at him.  No man should be so beautiful, but Hugh was.  With his blue eyes lazy and warm, his
often fierce expression softened, and his broad chest covered with nothing more than shadows, he was every woman’s fantasy of an impassioned lover.  Claire smoothed a hand over the bulge of his pectoral, feeling the rigid line of a long-healed scar there.

Hugh had fought a great many battles
, but what might be the greatest of them all awaited him in the days and weeks to come. If only Hugh knew that there was so much more she worried about than their escape from Seattle.  She worried more over how Hugh would proceed with life once he was safe with his new identity.  Danny was right, of course. Hugh was smart and resourceful.  He learned quickly and adapted even faster.  No doubt he would thrive on his own, but Claire hated the thought of him returning to Scotland without her.  The world was a hard place for people today to make their way in without a friend at their side.  She felt like Moses’s mom must have, putting Hugh out in a proverbial basket on the Nile to fend for himself.

“
Have you given any thought to what you’d like to do when you get to Scotland?”

“Am I tae assume ye are speaking of something more than my desire tae set foot on the land where Rosebraugh once stood?”

“Yes.  In the big picture, what do you think you might want to do?  Go to school, maybe?” she asked.  “Learn a trade?”

“Ye think me a tradesman?” Hugh asked in surprise.  “I may nae long
er be a duke but I was raised tae lead nae tae serve.  Nae, my love, fret not.  I hae already a verra excellent notion of how I might earn my living.”

“Really?” she asked
, surprised by the confidence in his voice.  To her mind this was the one downfall of Hugh returning to Scotland and a major source of the anxiety she bore for his solitary return.  “What is it?”

“I
plan tae trade in the commodities.”

Claire blinked. 
That was not what she had expected at all.  “What?  How do you plan to do that?”

“In my own time, I invested heavily in the London Exchange and was always quite successful,” Hugh told her.  “I’ve been reading yer uncle’s books on the subject and his news sheets a
nd I cannae see that the foundation has changed much.  Do ye recall what I said about being good at puzzles and the like?  Part of it is seeing patterns others cannae see.  That is all this trading is.  Applying variables tae the rhythm of the market and extrapolating a course of action.  Some of yer businesses today I dinnae hae any expertise wi’ tae predict such a thing, but the basic commodities hae changed verra little over time.  I’m certain I can make a go of it once I learn the use of the proper technologies.”

Impressive, Claire thought,
feeling proud that Hugh was so self-assured in building a financial future for himself.  It was an ambitious endeavor.  “You’ll need capital to begin, though.”

“Aye.”  Hugh leaned over the side of the bed and fished his medallion out of the pocket of his jeans
.  He held it above them, letting the dim light shine dully off it as it swayed.  “’Tis solid gold.  Wi’ the current value so high, I should be able tae gain a tidy sum from its sale.”

“But you can’t sell that, Hugh,” Cl
aire protested.  “It’s one of your only personal possessions, a family heirloom.”

“
I have my plaid tae remind me of my family and my home, but this will be my future, Sorcha,” he corrected, solemnly.  “The foundation for a new life.”

Claire’s heart twisted with sorrow over the sacrifices he had already made.  She couldn’t bear to see him lose any more. 
“I hate to see you do that.  I have a pretty good amount in my 401K that I could cash out for you …”

“Nae, Sorcha, dinnae even suggest such a thing
, for I willnae take any more from ye.  I hae taken too much already and the time has come for a change.  I will make my own way from now on.”

“Of course.” 
His own way.  Without her.  Claire knew that, planned on it even, but it sounded so dismissive coming from him.

A
s if he read the insult in her eyes, Hugh nudged up her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze.  “I would share it wi’ ye, Sorcha.”  Her heart skipped a beat at his softly spoken words. “I would like tae share my future wi’ ye, as uncertain as it is.”

There it was again.  A
n offer and a question, and every fiber of Claire’s being demanded that she accept his unspoken proposal, that she commit to a future with him.  She wanted to.  Wanted to be the one to share in the experience with him.  Wanted to keep the thrill he had brought into her life.  If two weeks in near seclusion with him was so exhilarating, how would it be to spend the rest of her life … Oh, Lord!  Was she really thinking that?  Now?  When she knew it was impossible?

Just that morning, sh
e had thought this thing between them nothing but lust, her emergence out from under her shell of solitude only to be blinded by his radiance, to bask in the warmth of his desire.  Desire for her body, her mind.  It had taken first the threat of his loss that day and then the reality of it for Claire to realize just how deeply she had come to love him.

But he wasn’t meant to be hers.  Danny was right about that as well.  If Claire wanted Hugh to have the future he deserved, she would have to let h
im go.  She would drop him off at the airport in the days ahead and very likely never see him again.

Hugh would go out into the world
on his own and find that she was nothing special in the bigger picture.  He would charm more women, and maybe one day one of them would charm him in return.  Claire genuinely envied that imaginary woman, but at the same time hoped with all her heart that Hugh would find a life to make him happy in this time, to wash away his regrets, to soothe his longings for home.  A woman to fill his heart and provide him with a family to comfort him against the loss of the one he had before could do that.

She wanted everything for him.   She wanted the world for
him, even if it meant leaving hers empty.  Claire looked up, blinking rapidly to banish the tears in her eyes before he noticed, but Hugh was nothing if not observant.  “There it is once more.  I see it in yer eyes, Sorcha.  What is it?”

But her throat was too tight for words to escape
, her hands trembling with the emotion that she fought to hide.  She felt pinched, her head already throbbing from the effort of containing her feelings.

Claire slid her hands over his chest and around his
neck, pulling him down to her until she felt first his heat and then his weight bear her down into the softness of the mattress. Wrapping her arms and legs around him, she urged him downward, nuzzling his warm neck encouragingly before running her tongue up along his rough, whiskered jaw.  A shudder of lust shook him but Hugh braced himself resolutely above her, denying her efforts.

“Yer doing it again, lass,” he growled brusquely in her ear though his lips caressed the sensitive flesh behind her ear with his next breath.  His powerful arms tightened around her as he turned until she was lying on top of him.  “Ye
cannae avoid my question with such a diversion.”

Trailing kisses across his chest, Claire scooted down farther
, raking her teeth along the edge of his ribcage and swirling her tongue around his navel as her palms slid over the hard planes of his abdomen and down his rock hard thighs.  With a harsh intake of breath, Hugh’s body grew taut, and Claire lifted her head, her eyes dancing impishly as they met his shocked blue stare.  “Oh, I bet I can,” she whispered before bending her head once more.

Hugh’s heartfelt groan was his only riposte.