Highland Passage (13 page)

She did not. The bathing was as close to luxurious as one could get in these times, but dressing was another thing altogether. She had thought her college summers working at a Renaissance fair would equip her for the task, but, although she had a fairly good idea of what went on and in what order, she wound up with some leftover pieces. When she’d lost patience with the whole operation, she called down the stairs to the guard to please fetch her chambermaid.

The servant breezed in and took one look at Mac. “Oh, miss!” She politely averted her eyes and caught sight of one of the spare pieces of fabric. “Do they not wear pockets where you’re from?”

“I’m afraid not—at least not quite like this.”

Without hesitation, the chambermaid set about relacing, tying, and putting things right. Paying close attention as the servant tied on the pockets and skirt, Mac said, “So that’s where those things go!”

The young woman looked at her, trying to discreetly suppress a giggle, but it burst forth as their eyes met and Mac laughed with her. “They’re pockets, mistress. Your skirts open here on the sides so you can reach in.”

Mac’s face lit up. “Oh! Well, that makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?”

With a broad smile, the young woman said, “Aye.” She adjusted Mac’s kerchief. “There, miss. How bonnie you look!”

“Thank you…what’s your name?”

“Janet, miss.” After a quick smile and curtsey, she gathered up Mac’s clothes.

Mac reached out. “No. Leave them, please.”

Janet looked puzzled. “Do you not wish me to wash them?”

“No, thank you. Just leave them on the chair.”

With a hint of disapproval that she quickly shook off, Janet complied and left with a cheery good-bye.

As the door closed behind Janet, Mac said to herself, “The last thing they need is to get a look at a zipper. Their heads would explode.” She then tore her repurposed bridesmaid’s dress at the seams and fed it piece by piece to the fire, followed closely by her bra. She could not help but think that her feminist mother would have been proud to see her daughter tossing her bra to the flames.

*

Mac made her way downstairs with an eye out for Ciarán. Having no luck, she went outside, muttering, “He can’t have gone far; the place is surrounded by water.”

She was met with cordial greetings wherever she went, but she saw no sign of Ciarán. Finally, after having nearly circled the whole island, she heard splashing and saw what looked like Ciarán swimming toward the shore. She drew closer to be sure. He stood in the waist-deep water and started walking to the shore. It was Ciarán. Until now, Mac had not thought about what Highlanders wore to go swimming. Apparently nothing. He walked to a rumpled pile of plaid, which Mac only now noticed. His sword and targe were nearby, although how she managed to look away long enough to ascertain that was a wonder. Her gaze was helplessly fixed. It looked as though he had come here straight from training and had dropped everything on his way into the water. She might have enjoyed the sight more if their last words had not been spoken in anger. Instead, she could only manage to stare at the man whom she feared she had lost.

Mac had never considered herself the sort to ogle naked men, but for Ciarán, she made an exception. Evidently, she could be swayed by broad shoulders, solid abs, muscled thighs, and, well, yes—there was that.

“Were you looking for something?” He looked plainly at her, but behind his otherwise neutral facade, his eyes smoldered from their exchange of words the night before.

The sound of his voice was startling enough, but to look up and see him watching her watch him unsettled her further. She turned away and shut her eyes for a moment. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were…well I did, but I didn’t mean to stare.” Her voice trailed off to a whisper. “Shut up, Mac.”

He shrugged his leine on over his shoulders and then scooped up his plaid and the rest. He took a moment before moving to join her. “Were you looking for me?”

She flinched. His approach had been silent. “Who else would I look for? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound—” She exhaled. “Look, I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”

When he said nothing, Mac’s heart sank, but she rattled on, fearing the silence. “Look, I realize now that I jumped to conclusions. I was uneasy, and it clouded my thinking. But in my defense, going back three hundred years is not exactly easy. Truth be told, it’s not like you see in the movies.” She flinched yet again when he touched her. His hands were heavy and warm on her shoulders.

His jaw clenched then relaxed. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Oh God.” She did not mean to say the words, but they came out nonetheless. What did it matter now? He was going to send her away.

He turned her around by the shoulders to face him. Bitter embers still darkened his gaze. “’Tis a frightening thing to travel to another time.”

“It wasn’t fear, although God knows I’ve felt plenty of that here.”

“Then what was it?” There was a gentle tone in his voice now that made her heart ache.

She lifted her eyes to his and shook her head. “I spent most of the night trying to figure it out. The same thing could have happened in my time, but there I’ve got other things in my life that are mine. Here, I’ve got nothing. I don’t fit in, and it made me feel very alone.”

He pulled her against him, holding her head to his chest. “You are not alone.” He said it so adamantly that she thought she might melt into him. When she lost her parents, her sense of balance had wavered, but her sister had been there as an anchor. Now Ciarán gave her that same sort of feeling. He was solid, and she felt secure. At the same time, she did not want to need him like that, for then she would have to trust him—a feeling that did not come easily to her. She was unsure of whether she ever would trust him enough—or any man, for that matter—to give him her heart. But she could not tell him that.

He kissed her hair. “I should have prepared you.”

“How could you have?”

“I dinnae ken. Even so, I should never have left you alone.”

Mac tilted her face up to his. “I can take care of myself.”

He smiled. “I’ve no doubt about that. But I’d like to think we might learn to take care of each other in time.”

Those words broke the spell. They reminded her that she did not have time. She had expected this to be a strange sort of vacation romance, but her heart was swelling and soon it would break.

He touched her temple with the tip of his finger and traced a line from there down to her jaw and slowly found his way to her lips.

Her lips parted of their own accord.

“I told you that I love you,” he said. “Those words dinnae come easily for me, except when I say them to you.” He touched his lips to hers so lightly that she sought them, and her body sought his.

He lowered his hands to her waist and gently stepped back to put distance between them. “Och, lass, I would take you right here if there were not so many eyes upon us.”

“What?”

He lifted his eyes toward the tower, where two men were stationed and watching, as was their duty.

“Oh—” Mac gasped and started to curse but caught herself. “I forgot.”

The corner of his mouth turned up as he offered her his hand. In silence, they walked. The sky was a brooding blue-gray of a sort she had seen only in Scotland. “Ciarán?”

“Aye?”

“When I met you, you said we had loved one another.”

“’Tis true.”

“But you came back to me before I’d ever met you.”

“Aye.”

“But now that I’ve come to find you, you remember me.”

“Aye.”

“But how? What we shared—our falling in love—has not happened.”

Ciarán stopped and stared out over the water. “I dinnae ken, except that when I returned from being with you this last time, I was caught by the Rosses, as you well know. But that was different from before. Things I once did were undone, I suppose. But still, I had loved you. I remember our falling in love as if it were a dream, but since I’ve returned, it’s all new.”

“But the first time that we fell in love—why were we parted?”

Ciarán’s face showed a growing frustration.

Mac continued, “We were parted, but then you came back for me. Why?”

“I dinnae ken. I have tried to recall it. It seems as though I should remember, and yet I cannot.”

“There must be a reason. Did something happen?”

His frustration turned to anger. “Do you hear what I’m saying? I cannae remember!” He took a few steps away, keeping his back to her.

Mac’s brow creased. She did not understand what she had done to enrage him. “I’m sorry.”

He lifted his hand dismissively but did not turn to face her. “’Tis not you. I have tried to remember, for I feel in my soul that something terrible happened that I need to prevent, but I cannae recall it.” He turned, and his eyes burned with the torment of not knowing. “I fear for your safety.”

“But you said yourself that things changed when you came back. So this might not happen at all.”

“Perhaps not.”

He looked unconvinced, so Mac went to him and took his hands in hers. “Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s you I worry about, and I always will.” His eyes softened as he leaned down and kissed her.

For someone who meant to go home and leave Ciarán behind, Mac was doing a terrible job of putting distance between them. But she wanted his kiss and his love, and the rest of him, too. She could not help but wonder what it could be like to spend her life beside Ciarán, but she stopped herself. She could not let herself think of that now—or ever, for that matter.

Ciarán’s face lit as he smiled and gave her hand a light tug. “Come home with me, lass.”

The word
home
stirred bittersweet feelings for Mac, but she tamped them all down and followed him back to the castle.

*

Once back in her room, Mac closed the door behind her and leaned against it. She breathed in and then sighed. She was happy. She wanted to laugh. The next moment misery washed over her. She was falling in love. After years of backing away when men got too close, she could not get close enough to this man. Too full of joy when she was with him, she could not think of the future; it would spoil the present. All she wanted right now was the joy of being with Ciarán, so she resolved to think only of that.

He had sent her alone to her room at the top of the stairs. He had matters to attend to but would see her at supper. He had hastened to add a promise that he would not leave her alone this evening. He would make it his mission to attend to her only. She had begged him not to, but his answer had been a mischievous smile.

A knock on the door she was still leaning upon startled her. “Come in, Janet,” she said as she turned to pull the heavy door open.

“I’m afraid Janet’s busy. Will I do?”

Wide-eyed, Mac stepped aside so Ciarán could enter. “What are you doing?” She laughed with the same laugh she usually used to keep things light when men got too close. But when she looked at Ciarán, he was not close enough.

He leaned on the closed door with his arms folded over his chest. “Ever since I saw you watching me earlier, there’s something I’ve been wanting to do.”

Now he was getting too close. Mac could not even force her usual light laugh. Her cheeks were hot, and her heart pounded mercilessly. “That was a mistake,” she said. “I just happened upon you. I didn’t know you were naked. I mean, well, I knew, of course. Anyone could see that. But I wasn’t trying to…” She trailed off and then walked to the window to look outside.

“Stare?” He slowly closed in the space between them.

Mac turned to face him again. “I was startled. It just took me a moment to recover.”

“How long is a moment in your century?” As he said it, he stopped inches from her, a bold look smoldering in his eyes. “For it seemed like a very long moment.” The corner of his mouth twitched.

This was her chance to put a wall up between them. She’d done it so many times and in so many ways that by now she could soften the most awkward moment.

She said, “It might have seemed longer to you, but it was only a moment.”

But her nonchalance faltered as Ciarán leaned close, but not close enough for his lips to touch hers. She knew exactly what he was doing. So did he. He would force her to move that one last inch. And before long, she did. Her lips touched his lightly, like a flame barely touches the wick of a candle before it flares and then constantly burns. Mac lost herself in that kiss, in his arms, and against that strong body.

Her friends used to tease her about being a nun, but she had always considered herself more along the lines of particular. She knew what she wanted in a man, and she was not going to settle for less. Ciarán was more. So was her response. Her heart and her body had moved on without her, driven by passion. She hungered for him, for each kiss, for that body she had seen coming out of the water. She wanted every part of him on her and in her with a fervor that set off every internal alarm.
Step away from this man! Save yourself!
Evidently, her inner alarm had a snooze button. But even that sounded again. With a panicky sigh, she stepped back, her palms on his chest, and took deep breaths. “It’s not that I don’t love you. Oh, God, what am I saying?”

“I believe you just said that you love me.” Ciarán was irritatingly calm, even confident. Not only that, he was smiling.

Exasperated with herself, Mac said, “I know what I said. I just didn’t mean to say it.”

“But you did.” He brushed a few strands of hair from her face before settling his gaze on her with sheer pleasure.

She could not look away. Nor could she deny what must have shone through her eyes. “I did, didn’t I?” The next moment, she forced a smile, hoping humor would rescue her. “Don’t even think about saying you told me so.”

“I dinnae ken what you mean.”

With a light smile, she said, “It’s a saying. You told me the first time we met that I’d love you.”

“Aye, and what else did I tell you?”

Mac’s eyes betrayed her as she met his unwavering gaze. She knew, but she did not want to reveal how she recalled every word and inflection. She tried to shake her head as though his words had escaped her, but he took her face in both hands and forced her to meet his fierce eyes.