Highlander for the Holidays (34 page)

“Welcome home, Jess,” Roger said, his eyes seemingly lit from within. “And Tobias,” he added with a slight bow to the dog. “Aren’t you being a brave lad following your lady up here without question? Ian,” he said with a regal nod, his eyes flaring when Ian pulled his own staff from behind his back and set the tip of it on the ledge with a soft thump. “You’ve decided,” Roger whispered, his thick white beard bristling with his grin. “I thought I saw fireworks coming from Frog Point earlier.”

Roger slid his gaze to Jessie. “Ah, lass, ye needn’t look so frightened. Ye have two mighty warriors flanking your sides, each prepared to lay down his life to protect you.” He threw back his shoulders on a deep breath. “But I’m bound by my oath to let you know that ye have a choice, Jess, to not be here tonight.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Ian growled before she could answer. “She stays until I get what I came here for.”

“That’s not how it works, MacKeage. We all have free will, and ye can’t force her to do anything she’s not wanting to do.”

“I can if it’s for her own good,” Ian drawled, stifling a smile when Jessie gasped hard enough to nearly topple off the ledge, then breaking into a full grin when she stepped toward Roger.

“Exactly what am I supposed to be choosing?” she asked.

“Whether or not you wish to believe in the magic,” Roger told her.

Jessie snorted. “I’m pretty sure I already do.” She swept her sad-looking walking stick in an arc. “I’m standing on the top of a mountain—of my own free will, I want to point out—with a man who looks like Santa Claus only dresses like Merlin, and another man who nearly blew up my beautiful home two hours ago with nothing more than a piece of wood.” She held up her stick, shaking it at Roger. “And the more I use this, the smaller it becomes.”

Roger blew out a heavy sigh. “Ye haven’t had it two weeks and you’ve spent nearly all that wonderful energy that had to travel all the way from the sun and moon and stars. Do you have any idea how long it took that power to get here?”

She waved the stick in the air, pointing it at the stars. “I’m pretty sure there’s more where it came from.” She thrust it at him. “So could you please plug this in somewhere and recharge it for me, because I still need to create one more miracle.”

“MacKeage,” Roger snapped. “Ye need to control your woman.”

“I’m not his yet,” Jessie snapped back before Ian could answer. “He hasn’t gotten down on his knees and proposed to me.”

Roger looked incredulous. “For the love of God, Jessie, the man’s been on his knees since the day he laid eyes on you.”

Apparently deciding she wasn’t getting anywhere with Roger, Jessie turned to Ian. “Will you please tell me why we came up here?”

“To save your life,” he told her, “and to end your four-year-long nightmare.”

“It’s already ended, Ian.” She inched toward him. “It stopped last night in bed,” she whispered. “You vanquished my last ghost.”

“Nay, it’s not quite over, I’m afraid,” Roger said, making her turn to him. “And it won’t be until justice is served.” He gestured at Ian. “Ian brought you up here so he can see for himself what really happened that night. But in order to do that, he’s going to need you to be courageous enough to return there with him.”

She backed up until she bumped into Ian’s chest, and he wrapped his arms around her. “Can ye do that, Jess?” he asked against her ear, tightening his embrace against her trembling. “You’ll be perfectly safe because I’ll be right there with you.”

“But why?” she softly cried, twisting to look up at him. “Why do we have to dredge up the past? It’s done. Over. It can’t be changed.” She gasped. “Can it?”

“No, the past can’t be changed,” he told her, driving his staff into the snow so he could turn her to face him. “But it didn’t happen the way Dixon says it did. He’s hiding something, and has been living in fear these last four years that you will remember. That’s probably a good part of the reason he’s stayed close to you.”

“But how can you possibly know that?”

“Because I know men, Jessie; I know how our minds work. And if Dixon was even slightly interested in you as a woman, he would have done something about it long before now.” He brushed a lock of hair off her face and palmed her cheek. “I’m sorry, but I have a feeling Brad Dixon was behind the attack that killed his brother and nearly killed you, and I suspect his wife’s death not two months later is connected.”

“Tracy? You . . . you think it wasn’t a boating accident?”

He shrugged. “Only Dixon knows for sure. But tonight we at least have the chance to find out if he was involved in
your
tragedy.”

“H-how?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at Roger.

Ian gave her a squeeze to make her look at him. “By stepping into the light you saw in your bedroom earlier with me, and letting me . . . into your mind.”

She leaned back as far as his embrace would let her. “You can do that?”

He smiled. “Apparently.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Have you been able to do that all along?”

“No.” He glanced over her head at Roger, then back to her. “I only received the gift tonight, when you gave me the staff.”

“Did you know what grasping that stick—that staff meant?”

“Not completely. I only learned the full scope of its power when I connected with it.” He kissed her forehead on a sigh. “Can we finish this discussion after we deal with Dixon? I have a suspicion he’s on his way to your home right now, and I prefer to know the full extent of his wickedness before I confront him.”

Her hands dug into his jacket. “You can’t confront him! We’ll go to Jack Stone together and tell him what we know, and he can deal with Brad.” Ian wasn’t sure but he thought she tried to shake some sense into him. “Do you hear me? You’re not Iron Man, and I’m not going to let you confront him.”

He kissed her forehead again, then looked past her and nodded to Roger, tightening his embrace when Roger walked off tapping his leg as he called to Toby.

“No!” Jessie cried, trying to get free. “Toby, stay.” She glared up at Ian as Toby obediently waded through the snow after Roger. “Where’s he taking him?”

“They’re just going to the snowcat, and Roger will sit with him until we’re done.” He took hold of her shoulder and bent to eye level. “Toby will sense your terror from that night, Jessie, and not be able to help you. Can ye do this, lass? Can you enter the maelstrom with me and relive the terror?”

“And
then
will it be over forever?”

He nodded, giving her a smile. “And I’m willing to bet my snowmobile that you won’t ever have another flashback. Think back, Jessie, to the ones you’ve had here, and when you had them in Atlanta; do you know what might have precipitated them?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “The doctors and psychiatrists tried everything but they couldn’t find any common factor. I would just suddenly be back in the bathroom hearing that guy killing Eric and then ramming the bathroom door.”

“The two you had here in Pine Creek; what were you doing just before them?”

“I . . . I was . . .” She smiled. “I was dancing with a complete stranger just before the first one.” She sobered. “And I was walking out to check the mail the second time. I’d just gotten two texts from Merissa saying Brad had stopped into the hospital to ask her for my address, and then Brad called and said he was coming to visit so he could see for himself that I was okay.”

“Didn’t you get a text from Brad that night in the bar?”

“Well, yeah, I did.”

“And you were fine up until then, but after the text I could see the tension building in you.” He let go of her shoulders and took hold of her hand, pulled his staff out of the snow, and led her up the outcropping to where Roger had been standing. “It’s a moot point, Jess,” he said, stopping and turning so they were facing each other. “We’ll know everything we need to know in a few minutes.”

He stepped back and looked down, his gaze searching the ground until he found a small crack in the granite. “Okay, come here and wrap your arms around my waist,” he said, waving her over and lifting his free arm to tuck her up against his side. “Now, I’m going to drive this staff into TarStone, and blinding energy is going to swirl up from deep inside the mountain and come screaming out through all the burls, okay? It’s going to snap and howl and sizzle with an unbelievable force far worse than it did at home, but it’s not going to hurt you. Understand? I’ll be right here beside you the entire time.” He kissed the top of her head when he felt her shivering against him. “I won’t let anything happen to you, little
gràineag
, but I’m afraid I can’t stop you from going through the terror again.”

“Wait,” she said when he lifted the staff to drive it into the crack. “I need to know what you meant when you said that I might be leaving this mountain alone. I’ll be safe, but will
you
?”

“Aye, Jess. I’ll walk out of the maelstrom with you. The true question is—and always has been—can you live with the knowledge of who I am.”

She tilted her head back to see him. “W-who are you?”

“TarStone,” he said, driving the staff into the top of the mountain.

IT HAD BEEN A HELL OF A LOT MORE POWERFUL THAN A maelstrom, which Jessie always thought meant a really scary and confusing storm, like a tornado or something. But there hadn’t been one damned confusing thing about what she’d just experienced, because everything, right down to the last detail, had been frighteningly clear and in vivid Technicolor. Hell, she could still
smell
the blood, which is probably why it was taking every ounce of willpower she possessed not to throw up again.

She had dropped to her knees the moment the terror had ended and the light had disappeared, and hurled until she’d thought she was going to turn inside out. Ian had held her trembling shoulders while she’d purged herself of the terror, even if she still couldn’t believe what she’d learned.

“At least we know Brad isn’t totally evil,” she whispered to Ian as he sat staring out the windshield of the softly idling snowcat with the heaters running full blast. “He . . . he tried to stop the attack when he found out I hadn’t gone on my business trip and Tracy wasn’t with Eric like he thought. He . . . he saved my life.”

Ian looked over at her, incredulous. “The bastard hired a man to kill his wife and brother, Jessie, because they were having an affair and Eric was draining their business dry. And then he finished the job by hiring someone to kill Tracy in Nassau two months later and make it look like a boating accident.” He reached over and covered her trembling hands. “And now he has to kill you, too, because he knows you’re starting to remember.”

“If killing is so easy for him, then why hasn’t he just killed me before now?”

“For the same reason he rushed over trying to stop the attack that night.” Ian snorted. “In his sick, convoluted mind, Brad Dixon has always seen you as young, naive, innocent Jessie Pringle. You heard him yourself just now; he thought he was rescuing you by killing Eric while also ridding himself of an unfaithful wife and troublesome brother.” He gave her hands a squeeze. “At least you know you didn’t kill anyone. Brad took the gun out of the nightstand and interrupted the man he’d hired attacking you in the bathroom. The guy walked into the bedroom and Brad shot him, then
Brad
carried you into the bedroom, put the gun in your hands, and put three more bullets into his head so there’d also be gunpowder residue on you. And he told the police he thought there was some art missing to make them think it was a botched robbery attempt.”

“I’m sorry, Jess,” he said when she sucked in a shuddering breath. “Not only for what you went through four years ago, but for making you go through it again tonight. But I needed to know if my suspicions were right in order to set a trap for Dixon.” He lifted her hands to his mouth. “And I believe it was important for you to know the truth also. You’ve thought you were fighting the intruder in your flashbacks, but all this time you were fighting Brad.”

“Can . . . can we go home now?”

“I’m sorry, no. Not until Dixon’s in custody.” He gave her hands one last kiss, then gently placed them back in her lap, gave Toby’s head lying on her shoulder a pat, then touched the throttle but didn’t push it. “I would have preferred to take you to Gù Brath where I know you’d be safe, but considering the party’s still going on there, I’ve decided you’d be more comfortable in that big comfy chair at my place.”

Jessie eyed him suspiciously. “Are you going to be there with me?”

He finally engaged the throttle and started down the mountain. “Not until Dixon is in custody,” he repeated.

She grabbed his arm. “You expect me to sit in that chair like a good little lass while you go set a trap for Brad?”

Ian gave a humorless laugh. “Not unless I expect hell to freeze over.”

“Damn right,” she growled. “So let’s go tell Jack what we know and let
him
wait at my house for Brad to show up.”