Must Love Kilts (6 page)

“Is that all?” Calum pressed him. “You see nothing more? What’s the maid doing?”

“Maili is no maid, you old goat!”

“Aye, well, she has other talents to commend her, eh? And old I am, ’tis true. My eyes aren’t what they were. ...” Calum shook his head, feigning a troubled look. “So make an auld man happy and tell me what she’s doing, there in the shadows.”

“By Thor, Odin, and Loki!” Magnus snarled his favorite Norse oath. Then—knowing Calum would pester him all night if he didn’t do as bidden—he twisted around to peer deeper into the alcove’s shadows.

He saw at once why Calum was needling him.

Maili, a plump wench with an unruly mass of flame-bright hair and saucy eyes, sat on one of the alcove benches. She’d opened her bodice to air her full, round breasts and her nipples were taut and thrusting.

And—Magnus scowled—the little minx had a hand beneath her skirts. When she caught his stare, she smiled and quickly flipped her hem, giving him a glimpse of the fiery red curls betwixt her slightly parted thighs.

“Damnation!” Magnus whipped back around. “You lecherous old goat”—he shot a furious look at Calum—“you knew fine what she was doing.” Calum had the gall to jut his bristly chin. “Could be I asked her to help me show you why men are talking.

Other men wouldn’t be wearing a glare about now.

They’d be halfway across the hall, their itch for a bonnie lass setting wings to their ankles.

“See there.” Calum paused as one of Magnus’s guards joined Maili in the embrasure. The man pulled her close, lowering his head to her breasts. “It isn’t healthy for a man to live for war glory alone.”

“I live for many things.” The words sounded hollow even to Magnus. Calum spoke true and knowing it only made him the more furious. “My warring keeps Maili and others safe of a night.”

That was something his old friend couldn’t argue.

Unfortunately, his words put an even more belligerent glint in Calum’s eyes. “That may be. But Maili didn’t tempt you just now, did she?”

“So?” Magnus scowled, his night now fully ruined.

Calum didn’t blink. “Your men fear you’ve gone monk.”

“And if I have?” Magnus’s voice was dangerously low.

“Then you’re treading on perilous ground.” Calum speared a chunk of cheese with his eating knife.

“Mac-Brides are a superstitious lot. There be some”—he broke off a corner of the cheese, chewing with annoying deliberation—“what think built-up seed can poison a man, even work its way into his head and clog his brain. If you don’t soon spill—”

“I spill blood, you nosy arse!” Magnus half rose from his laird’s chair.

Lightning quick, Calum’s fingers closed around his arm again. And this time when the older man narrowed his eyes at Magnus, the fierce look on his face prickled Magnus’s nape.

He dropped back into his chair, a strange dread making his chest tighten. For a moment, the firelit hall seemed to darken and he imagined he heard the tinkle of Donata’s silver bangles.
“See, you are
damned even here, in the heart of your home.”
Her taunt hushed across his mind, then whispered away, leaving him doubting his senses.

Calum was watching him sharply.

Magnus frowned. “What is it?”

“’Tis odd you’d speak of spilling blood.” Calum’s blue eyes glittered in the torchlight. “Orosius thinks you’ll die soon. He—”

“Hah!” Magnus shot to his feet, the sorceress forgotten. He searched the hall for the burly, big-bellied seer. The only man able to strike terror in Magnus’s heart, Orosius saw truths, heard the voices of the dead, and cast runesticks with unparalleled skill.

Orosius claimed the gods walked beside him, but he also suspected they’d caused him to lose part of his left ear in a long-ago sword fight. Retribution, he believed, for trying to use his talents as a seer and rune master to hear more than he should.

The gods didn’t like when such blessed mortals believed themselves grand.

Now Orosius was cautious and respectful of his gift.

He never used his abilities for gain and refused coin for his wisdom, accepting only ale and viands in payment. And, as need required, peat for his fire.

Calum glanced over his shoulder then, as if he didn’t wish anyone else to hear him. “Orosius—”

“What did he see?” Magnus’s pulse raced. If Orosius saw him fall, he would.

The seer never erred.

And even if Magnus didn’t fear death, he wasn’t ready. He couldn’t leave this earth until Sigurd Sword Breaker breathed his last.

“Well?” Magnus flashed a glance out over the hall.

“Is Orosius saying someone will lop off my head? Slit my belly and wade in my blood?”

“He saw nothing the like.” Calum took a bite of cheese. “And you needn’t keep bending your neck looking for him. He’s in his cottage, sleeping off the strain of his vision. I can tell you what he saw.” Calum peered at him. “It was you lying with a dead woman.”

Magnus’s eyes rounded.
“Lying with—”

“He saw you naked, the both of you, and you taking the woman in passion.” Calum was blunt. “Orosius believes she was Liana.”

“I ne’er touched Liana.” Magnus felt his blood

“I ne’er touched Liana.” Magnus felt his blood chilling.

“Not in life.” Calum made light of his protest. “That’s why Orosius is certain you’re about to leave us. Liana dwells in the realm of the dead.”

“How does he know the woman was Liana?” Magnus’s heart began knocking, a terrible suspicion squeezing his innards. “Did he see her clearly?”

“Nae.” Calum confirmed his dread. “He only saw her back and the fairness of her hair. The woman’s face was turned away from him.”

“She could have been anyone.”

“You haven’t touched a woman in o’er five years.” Calum voiced what they both knew. “Who save Liana could tempt you into her bed?”

“No one.” Magnus’s denial came harsh.

And it wasn’t the truth.

The naked Valkyrie could have seduced him.

If she’d been real, he wouldn’t have been able to resist her. Just imagining lying with her fired the blood in his veins. Such a woman in the flesh could have scorched him with flames that burned from his loins clear to his heart.

Not that he need worry.

She didn’t exist.

Chapter 3

Magnus MacBride, Viking Slayer.

The name stole Margo’s breath and made her pulse quicken. Even now, hours after returning home from Ye Olde Pagan Times. Real or imagined, he’d awakened her passion like no flesh and blood twenty-first-century man had ever done. She suspected Patience’s broken magic lingered on the book, opening a channel her employer hadn’t realized existed, allowing the long-ago Scottish hottie to seem so real. Whatever the cause, she could easily imagine him. Clearly, in bold, vibrant color as if she were right there with him in his time and on that distant shore.

Discovering him only reminded her of the great tragedy of her life.

She’d been born in the wrong century.

She’d definitely been plunked down on the wrong side of the Atlantic.

Men like Magnus MacBride didn’t walk around modern-day America. They didn’t even frequent New Hope, cozy and quaint as it was. Her most recent dating disaster had been a computer programmer who’d been a lousy kisser. He’d attracted her because he was a history buff. But he was a Civil War reenactor and not a medieval-Scotland enthusiast.

Since ditching him, she’d lost interest in romance.

Unless ...

There really was such a thing as Highland magic.

True, ancient power, steeped in the old ways, and so much stronger than Patience’s dabbling. The kind of magic that would let Magnus manifest in front of her.

Her sensible side knew it would never happen. That part of her urged her to save her swoons for certain Scottish movie stars, so popular in recent years. Real flesh and blood men who actually existed, even if their Hollywood status made winning their hearts equally impossible.

If she could get to Scotland, she’d surely meet a real live Highlander who’d knock her socks off.

But he won’t be the one you want.

The whisper swirled through Margo’s mind, making her start. It was a woman’s voice, lilting, intimate, and entirely unreal. A shiver ran through her and she rubbed her arms, edgy. Surely Patience’s spelling wasn’t adept enough to make her hear voices that weren’t there?

Magnus hungers for you.

The voice came again, laced with a trace of malice this time. Margo tensed, the fine hairs on her nape lifting as the lights in her apartment flickered and—for a moment—darkness pulsed around her. She knew she was alone, yet she couldn’t shake the odd sensation that someone else was with her, watching her.

Someone who didn’t like her.

But she gave herself a shake and pushed the ridiculous notion from her mind. A quick glance around her apartment, ensuring that she was alone, helped restore a sense of normalcy. What she couldn’t do was wrest her thoughts away from Magnus MacBride.

Not that fantasizing about him bothered her.

A girl was entitled to dream. Doing just that, she rolled her shoulders, pressed a hand to the small of her back. She stretched, fighting off the strain of a long day as her mind conjured a whirl of delicious scenarios featuring herself and Magnus MacBride.

He
was
dream worthy.

Big, strapping, and hot-eyed, his long, dark hair tossing in the wind, and his powerful biceps thick with silver and gold arm rings. He was more perfect than any man she’d ever seen. Her total fantasy brought to life by a few vivid brushstrokes. She’d give anything to have seen him when he was rock hard and solid. Even as paper and ink, every magnificent inch of him made her hot and tingly.

If she could have her very own Highlander, she’d choose him.

She had splurged on his book,
Myths and Legends
of the Viking Age
. She’d dipped into her emergency gas and grocery money to buy it. The tome now held pride of place on her glass-topped coffee table.

Scenic Highland postcards and pictures she’d cut from glossy Scottish travel magazines winked from beneath the table glass, providing a fitting background for such a braw Highland warrior.

It didn’t matter that his two-page color illustration had mysteriously disappeared from the book.

He’d been there.

And that was enough.

Now the book was hers.

Too bad Magnus MacBride wasn’t.

Like it or not, he belonged to a long-vanished time.

These days, there wasn’t much need of Viking slayers. Not even in Scotland. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t indulge in a bit of wistful imagining. After all, her apartment—a small one-bedroom arrangement on the second floor of an 1840 stone house—was filled with everything a dedicated Scotophile needed to pretend herself into the Highlands.

Margo excelled at such romanticizing.

Now, three years after moving into the old house, she was glad that Dina Greed—damn her eyeballs—had finagled her way into the modern, more spacious apartment Margo had thought she’d wanted so badly.

That all-the-bells-and-whistles complex might boast a club-house, a swimming pool, and tennis courts, but it didn’t have atmosphere.

Nor would the buildings creak and groan when wind whistled round the eaves.

Margo liked creaking and groaning.

Windy weather reminded her of the cold air and gray skies of Scotland. As did her treasures like the mock-medieval strongbox she’d once found sitting alone and forlorn beside a Dumpster. A bit battered, but with a fine humped lid and banded with only lightly rusted iron straps, the chest held her collection of Scottish guidebooks and maps. Another prize was her plaid-covered wing chair, a marvel she’d picked up for next to nothing at Aging Gracefully, a vintage-clothing shop not far from Ye Olde Pagan Times.

The chair had been part of the shop fittings, not merchandise for sale. But Margo was such a good customer at Aging Gracefully that the owner, Ardelle Goodnight, allowed her to make the coveted purchase.

Margo reciprocated by interesting her Luna Harmony clients in Ardelle’s heirloom wares.

Just now she glanced at her watch, pushed up from her beloved tartan chair. She’d had a strange, tiring day and the evening dark was closing in. The afternoon’s rain had returned with a vengeance and thick, gray mist blew past the windows. Wind rattled the panes—the Fieldstone House
was
old, the windows made of ancient, wobbly glass—and the sound was making her sleepy.

What she needed was a hot shower, a cup of Earl Grey Cream tea, and then bed.

If she was lucky, she’d dream of Magnus MacBride, Viking Slayer.

As long as she wasn’t plagued by images of Dina Greed winging her way across the Atlantic, heading for the Highlands, she’d be satisfied.

That would be a nightmare.

But the gods who loved Scotophiles were good to her.

The instant she went through to her bathroom, a heather-scented haven filled with fluffy, lace-edged towels and Lunarian Organic soaps and bath foams—

Patience gave her a generous discount—all thoughts of her rival vanished. She pulled back the curtain of her ancient claw-foot bathtub and turned on the shower.

Steam quickly filled the room, looking almost like Highland mist against the backdrop of Margo’s heather-vista wallpaper. Thick, silent, and enveloping, the make-believe mist gave her a cozy feeling of connection to the wild northernmost part of Britain she loved so much.

Her beloved Scotland.

That faraway land of hills and moorland, foaming waterfalls and deep blue lochs, where she should have been born. Kilties, bagpipes, and castles set her heart to pounding, not hot dogs, baseball, and apple pie.

But all wasn’t lost.

Someday she’d walk the waterfront of some remote Highland village, stand on a spectacular cliff edge, and watch the sea crash against jagged, black rocks.

She’d lose herself in the hills and breathe the scent of pine and wild thyme. Or, better yet, stroll past a thick-walled croft house in a quiet glen and catch a whiff of peat smoke on chill autumn air.