Eternity's Mark (7 page)

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Authors: Maeve Greyson

BOOK: Eternity's Mark
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Hannah stared at the downed trees. Her fingers traveled to the base of her throat as she caught her lower lip between her teeth. She turned and scanned the surrounding area, searching for the source of the destruction. “We just walked down that path.”
Taggart nodded. “Aye. We did. That very same path.”
Hannah looked back at the trees. “Those trees weren't down then.”
Taggart shook his head. “No. They were not.”
Hannah wrapped her hand in the hem of her wet T-shirt and stretched on tiptoe to blot at Taggart's bloody lip. “Bend down here. I'm sorry. I guess.”
Taggart bent to accept her reluctant apology. He didn't have the heart to tell her he'd stopped bleeding within a few seconds. The lass hadn't hurt him; she'd just surprised him when she'd popped him in the mouth. He came from the other side. He healed at a much faster rate. But he rather enjoyed the sight of her creamy white belly teasing him as she used the hem of her wet shirt to dab the dried blood at his mouth.
“What could cause that kind of damage? Was it some kind of freak windstorm or something? Do you have any idea? How did you know? How did you hear it?” Hannah pressed the cloth to his mouth, her gaze darting from his face back to the line of felled trees.
Taggart covered her hand with his and gently lowered it from his mouth. “Hannah, there are powerful forces loose in this world. And some of them are nay so friendly toward us.”
Hannah's mouth tightened into a grim, determined line. “I see. Then thank you for saving my life.” Hannah stepped back. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the felled line of trees then turned back to Taggart. “Is this what your Guild does? Protects the owners of Taroc Na Mor from these
powerful forces
seeking to harm them?”
“Ye might say that.” Taggart nodded. Uneasiness stabbed deep in his gut like a demon whispering,
Taggart, ye're no' handling this tellin' well.
It didn't bode well; the tremble in her voice gave away the emotions tainting the color of her aura. Taggart braced himself for the worst. He sensed a storm brewing. Hannah darkened like a lightning cloud about to explode across the horizon.
With a curt nod of her head, Hannah spun on her heel and stomped her way down the bridge. As she left the wood, she shouted back over her shoulder with a single wave of her hand. “Then I suggest you catch the next flight back to Scotland, Taggart. Because first thing tomorrow morning, I'll be telling my lawyer to put Taroc Na Mor up for sale.”
“Hannah! Come back here!”
Brushing him off by flinging both hands in the air, Hannah walked faster, with a shake of her head.
“Damn the woman and her hardheaded ways!” With a muttered snarl, Taggart cursed as he scanned the felled tree line to his right one last time before taking off to follow her. As he headed up the path, a snorting buck barreled out of the brush, blocking the lane with his massive antlered head lowered.
“Ye canna protect her the way I can. Now, see reason and step aside.” Taggart came up short. He admired the animal's loyalty, respected the multi-pronged antlers the pawing deer tossed with a threatening jerk of his bulging neck. But the creature needed to understand the adversary they faced couldn't be defeated with physical forces of this world.
The deer snorted again, glanced at Hannah's retreating form, then returned a stony glare to Taggart.
“I swear to ye upon my birthing shell, I'm here to keep her safe.” Taggart nodded toward Hannah. “Now, let me go. They're still near and she doesna need to travel alone.”
The deer eased aside and faded into the trees without another sound.
C
HAPTER
T
WO
W
ith a flick of his wrist, Taggart erased Sheriff Matt's memory. That should make the man forget why he thought he needed to follow him around Jasper Mills. The sheriff's persistent shadow had become a nuisance. The man needed to tend to his regular business and get on with running from that whining lass that herded all those bairns over at the nursery.
Taggart settled back in the seat of his rental car and watched Hannah through the window of the diner. God's teeth, but the woman vexed him. She refused to return any of his calls and left the room whenever he entered. Surely, she hadn't meant what she said about selling off Taroc Na Mor.
Scrubbing the day's growth of beard on his cheek, Taggart heaved a troubled sigh. He had to convince her to come back to Scotland. If he could just get those pretty feet of hers on what she didn't realize was her homeland, he knew she'd be there for life.
Taggart shifted in the seat as he remembered how she'd felt clutched against him under the bridge. He chuckled to himself. What fire she had, when she'd drawn back that tiny fist and bloodied his lip. A woman with such fire would also house great passion. He squirmed again and adjusted the seam of his suddenly too snug pants. Gads, he needed to think about something else.
The late-evening sun glinted through the diner window on her auburn hair and reminded him of brandy swirling beneath the light of a torch. He loved the way she tossed her head when she laughed, although he noticed she didn't laugh very often. She seemed relaxed now that it was just her and her friend. Hannah kept her guard up when others were around.
Taggart sucked in a deep breath; he understood completely. Perhaps, he and the guardian had more in common than either of them knew. Well, guard or not, Taroc Na Mor needed Hannah MacPherson and he wasn't returning to Scotland without her.
 
“You should at least go see it before you sell it.” Millie thunked steaming plates of scrambled eggs and still-sizzling bacon on the table as she settled into the booth.
“I said you could feed me. I didn't say you could lecture me.” Hannah scooped a heaping spoonful of the fluffy mound of eggs onto her plate. Millie could be such a noodge sometimes, but man, she sure could cook. Hannah added several slices of thick, hickory-smoked bacon, crisscrossing them atop the crispy mound of hash brown potatoes in danger of sliding off the rim of the dish. She always ate whenever she was troubled over a problem. “Where's the gravy, Millie? You promised me sawhouse gravy too, remember?”
Millie wrinkled her nose as she did a double take at Hannah's overflowing plate. “How can you eat like that and still be so tiny? No wonder everyone hated you in school.” Sliding her way back out of the booth, she headed back to the kitchen to get the thick white gravy Hannah requested.
“Everybody hated me?” Hannah pouted as Millie came back through the swinging, double doors of the diner's kitchen. “I thought everybody hated Geena because she was the first one to get boobs.” Hannah reached for the gravy and spooned it over her potatoes.
Millie nodded. “Well, yeah. We hated her first. And then we hated you next because you ate anything that didn't bite you first and never gained any weight.” Millie slid back into the creaking seat of the booth and began filling her own plate. “Now like I said, don't you think you should at least go see the place before you decide to sell it? I mean, my gawd, Hannah! It's freakin' Scotland!”
“Exactly, Millie.” Hannah nodded as she slathered a dollop of butter across a steaming buttermilk biscuit. “Jasper Mills is my home. My roots are right here.” Hannah waved her dripping knife in the air, and then she pointed it at Millie's face. “I told you what happened on the bridge in the park. Were you not listening to a word I said?”
Millie stared off into space, flourishing her empty fork back and forth with a slow, purposeful rhythm. “Oh, I listened.” With a deep sigh, she fell back against the cushioned back of the booth. “I also imagined what it must've felt like to be wrapped up in those arms and crushed against that muscled chest. I mean
damn,
Hannah.”
Hannah rolled her eyes as she licked the melted butter dripping down her thumb. “Oh, Millie, give me a break.”
“What? Come on, Hannah! Okay, we won't talk about his fantastic body or that luscious, raven-black hair, but you can't tell me you didn't at least notice his eyes. I mean, come on! I know you've sworn off men, but you've still got to have some hormones somewhere in that skinny-ass body of yours. Vibrators can't take care of everything.” Millie nudged Hannah with her foot as she tossed another biscuit onto her plate. “I've never seen such an icy set of baby blues in my life. He's like a wolf. And the way he moves, like he's in constant predatory mode. He looks like a pirate, or maybe a vampire, or both. Wouldn't that be sexy? A vampire pirate who could make you immortal with one luscious bite and hold you captive at sea.”
Hannah shook her head as she nibbled the strawberry preserves off the top of her biscuit and then reloaded it with blackberry jam. “I think you've been reading too many romance novels.”
Millie tapped on Hannah's plate with the tip of her knife as she nodded toward all the food on the table. “Then why are you gorging yourself like there's no tomorrow? The last time you ate this amount of food was when you decided you were going to finally cave in and let Jake pop your cherry.”
Hannah stopped chewing. All of a sudden, the food in her mouth tasted like sawdust and swelled so large she wished she could spit it on the floor. She swallowed hard as she edged the biscuit back on the side of her plate and pushed it to the center of the table.
“Hannah, I am so sorry. I didn't mean anything by it. I wasn't ... I just didn't think. I shouldn't have said that.” Millie raised a trembling hand to her mouth; her eyes widened as she fidgeted along the bench.
“No. It's okay,” Hannah said with a shake of her head. “I just suddenly realized I wasn't that hungry anymore.” She slid her napkin between her fingers and wiped her mouth as she pushed away from the table. The sad thing was Millie was right. She knew she always ate whenever she was upset, but she hadn't gorged herself this much since the very time Millie had mentioned. So what was her psyche trying to tell her?
“But seriously, Hannah, don't you think you really need to see the land before you sell it? What if you get rid of it and then end up wishing you hadn't done it?” Millie crossed the room to a get a dish tub and began clearing the untouched food from the table.
“I just don't know,” Hannah replied as she helped Millie stack the dishes into the bin. “There are so many questions Taggart didn't answer. He never really told me anything about this mysterious Guild of Barac'Nairn. And then what he did at the bridge today when that thing ripped through the trees. I didn't hear a thing out there, Millie, not one single sound. And you know how the animals
always
warn me about everything. How did he know what was about to happen? He never answered
that
question either.”
“Well.” Millie paused as she balanced a few more dishes into the bin. “I hear it's a really long flight to Scotland.”
“So what is that supposed to mean?” Hannah demanded as she followed Millie into the kitchen.
“If you have him hostage on a long flight, he'll have to answer your questions. He can't avoid you on that plane.” Millie slid the bin onto the counter, then turned with a scowl to Hannah. “Didn't you say he told you he knew about your family's history?”
Hannah caught her lip between her teeth. “I know what you're thinking, Mill. I wonder if he knows how Grandma died. Or what could've killed Mama.”
Millie gave a shrug of one shoulder as she turned back to the sink and started scraping the dishes into the disposal. “You have to admit they were some pretty strange deaths that were never explained, especially for a close-knit community like Jasper Mills. Maybe you better stick pretty close to this Taggart de Gaelson. Aren't you about the same age your mother was when she died?”
With a glance at Millie's worried face, Hannah nodded as a chill shivered through her body. She remembered it as though it happened yesterday, even though she'd only been six years old at the time. They had found her mother dead out beside the lake propped against a tree. She'd been writing in her journal and she'd just died. The autopsy had proven inconclusive. No heart attack. No aneurism. No stroke. Her mother had been in perfect health for a woman of her age. She was just dead. One strange bit of evidence was that every hair on her body had frosted to a snowy white, even her thick, black eyelashes. It was as though the auburn-haired woman had suddenly become an albino. Another startling finding was that the once vibrant green irises of her eyes had stained to a soulless black. The most disturbing thing was that her maternal grandmother had later died in the very same manner. Grandma had just eluded whatever it was that killed her until a few years ago, when she reached eighty years old.
“I wish Jake were here. He'd know what to do,” Hannah muttered as she walked over to the freezer and yanked open the stainless-steel double doors. “Is there any of that mint chocolate chip ice cream left? The one you had listed to go with the special today?”
“You're gonna puke,” Millie groaned as she reached in the drawer for a couple of spoons. “And Jake wouldn't know what to do. I wish you'd stop making him out to be such a flawless hero.”
Hannah backed her way out of the freezer, her arms wrapped around two barrels of chocolate mint ice cream. Turning to bump the freezer door shut with her butt, she shot Millie a wilting glare. “I can't believe you'd speak ill of the dead, Millie. You've known Jake all your life too. You know exactly what kind of person he was.”
“Exactly!” Millie snapped as she yanked one of the barrels of ice cream away from Hannah and slammed it down on the counter. “The entire time we were growing up, Jake never treated you as good as you deserved. I never understood it. You lost your mom when you were just six years old and your grandmama raised you to be the most independent little brat in Jasper Mills. But when it came to Jake, you followed him around like a starving puppy. Jake MacPherson barely looked down from his pedestal long enough to give you the time of day. The whole town was shocked when he came back from med school and actually married you. Everybody figured he'd bring himself home some diva from the big city. We all nearly fainted when you pulled your head out of Jake's fan club long enough to go away to veterinary school. We hoped then you'd finally gotten over him.”
“Jake loved me, Millie!” Hannah bounced the other barrel onto the cracked linoleum countertop and stormed across the kitchen. She couldn't believe Millie had the gall to stand there and say those things, even though a tiny voice in the back of her mind agreed with everything Millie had said. “If you're finished lecturing me on how you can't believe my dead husband could've loved me, I think I'll be heading home.”
“Dammit, Hannah, that's not what I meant and you know it!” Millie slammed her hand on top of the counter. “I know Jake loved you in his own self-centered, egotistical way, whenever he didn't have anything better to do. I'm just saying he never showed you the attention you deserved. I just never understood how you never put up with anybody else's crap and yet you took his bullshit by the truckloads. How many nights did we spend in this very kitchen, perched on those wobbly stools, eating ice cream because Jake didn't have time to spend with you? I bet I gained twenty-five pounds the first year you two were married.”
Hannah stopped with her hand on the swinging doors, uncomfortable memories of the first year of her marriage wriggling free from the padlocked recesses of her mind. As much as she fought against Millie's words, her friend had a valid point. “I don't know what to tell you, Millie. I guess everybody has a weakness and Jake just happened to be mine. Maybe you're right. Maybe he wasn't such a hero. But I loved him, Mill, and now he's gone. So, let's just leave it at that. Okay?” Sliding her hand off the door, Hannah let her arm drop to her side. “Just dish up the ice cream, will you? Double scoops. You're looking a little thin.”
 
“She canna sell it! Fold time and space. Transport her here immediately. Spell her to the keep this very minute. We'll just keep her here until she discovers the error of her ways. Have ye lost your mind? Why do ye wait? Why do ye tarry when ye know we run so close on time?” Thaetus's high-pitched screech echoed from the depths of Taggart's amulet, which spun in the center of the hotel room coffee table.
Taggart scrubbed his face with both his hands. They'd had to wait centuries for the stars to align and gift them with the Sullivan line. The first age of guardians, the Alexander line, had turned dark and destroyed themselves long ago. He worried his hands through his hair as he paced around the confines of the tiny room. “Thaetus, ye know as well as I that an unwilling guardian would never do at Taroc Na Mor. She will come around. She just needs a bit of time. The attack in the woods frightened her. 'Tis only natural she be a bit put off by that which she doesna understand. It is a well-known human trait.”

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