Mystical Warrior (21 page)

“How in hell do you know all about my mother? And Elena?”

“The Trees of Life truly are humanity’s conscience, Trace, and all that has happened and all that will happen is stored in them.”

“Which you can’t get near, because you can’t get past the drùidhs.”

“Ah, but I don’t need to get past them,” Mac countered. “I believe you would like my father, Huntsman, as the two of you have a lot in common. He didn’t trust anyone, either.” Mac shrugged. “Probably because he understood human nature only too well. Dad knew better than to cut himself—or his heir—completely off from the Trees, so he fashioned a secret entrance through which we could access the knowledge they hold.” Up went Mac’s brow again. “And knowing I’d be forced to rely on your
generous
nature to take me in, I did a little research before I came here.”

Trace ran his thumb along the side of his empty glass. “Then you know what happened two days ago down in my safe room.”

“No, actually, I don’t. Rearranging time and space and matter is simple enough, but it takes a good deal of energy to access and then sift through all the knowledge in the Trees. And right now, I need to conserve my strength in order to be prepared for another attack.” He shrugged. “Besides, my problem is more important to me than your
little lovers’ spat with Fiona.
Except,
” Mac growled, leaning forward again, “when it forces me to hunt you down to some seedy bar three towns away from An Téarmann.” His glare turned threatening. “So, are you coming home, or am I
taking
you home?”

Trace leaned back in the booth and dropped his chin to his chest. “I can’t fix the problem,” he quietly muttered, “because I don’t know how.” He looked up. “Exactly how thoroughly did you research Fiona before you decided to give her a second chance?”

Mac folded his arms over his chest. “I am aware of all that she endured.”

“Then do you have any suggestions how one goes about giving a woman back her … femininity? Those bastards turned her into a pleasure machine.”

Mac sighed. “I don’t think I’m the man you should be asking.” He canted his head. “That is, if you should be asking a
man
at all. Maybe this is a question for Madeline.” He grinned tightly. “Although I would take her advice with a grain of caution if I were you. She sent me on a wild-goose chase after those MacKeage women.”

Trace waved that away. “Peeps has a thing for getting even with people who piss her off.” He remembered the
Sesame Street
pajamas, her stealing his shoes, and how she’d sabotaged his truck, and he smiled. “Although I have to admit, she’s taken one-upmanship to a whole new level.” He nodded to himself, thinking maybe he would ask her. But then he started shaking his head. “Nope. If I ask Maddy what to do about Fiona, she’ll hound me to hell and back for a play-by-play of the proceedings and then start planning my wedding.”

“What about Eve Gregor?” Mac suggested.

Trace gaped at him and then snorted. “Don’t you know
anything
about women? You even hint to one of them that you’re interested in someone, and women turn into matchmaking tyrants. And they
always
tell their best friend, and Maddy and Eve are so tight you can’t slip a piece of paper between them.”

“You have to ask someone, Huntsman, because you have to fix this.”

Trace looked Mac directly in the eyes. “No, I don’t have to fix a damned thing, because none of this is any of my business. I didn’t create the problem, so why in hell should I be the one to fix it? You said yourself I can’t save them all, so why are you expecting me to save Fiona?”

Up went Mac’s brow yet again. “If not you, then who? Johnnie Dempster? Or the first man who asks her out on a date? I’m sure there are plenty of single men in town who would love to give Fiona her wish.”

“You think it’s her wish to let some man use her again?”

Mac frowned. “Her wish is for a
child
. I told you that deep down, Fiona wanted a second chance because she wants another baby.”

“But she openly admitted to me that she doesn’t like men, so I don’t exactly see her dating every guy in town, much less marrying the first one who asks her.”

“You don’t think Fiona’s going to figure out that she doesn’t need a husband to get her wish? Hell, half the women on that show she’s been watching have had children out of wedlock.”

Trace stiffened. “Are you saying the only reason she … that she only wanted to … you think she was hoping
I’d
get her pregnant?”

“Isn’t that what the two of you fought about?”

“Goddamn it! She was
using
me.”

Mac looked around and then leaned forward. “And I suppose your intentions were completely honorable?” he whispered tightly.

“I sure as hell didn’t have a hidden agenda. I asked her flat-out if she was okay with it.” Trace threw himself back with a snort, waving angrily at the air. “Of course she was okay with it, because she thought she’d found herself a sperm donor.”

“And your fight was over your using a condom?”

“We didn’t get that far. Wait. How do you know there even was a condom?”

“I found the empty packet on the cot in your safe room this morning.”

“But I never took it out from under the pillow. And the packet shouldn’t have been empty, because I opened it and put it under the pillow but then never touched it.” He snorted again. “Fiona must have found it when she was tidying up.”

“So, if you didn’t know this had anything to do with a child, what exactly did you think I was asking you to come home and fix?”

“Her inability to … her attitude toward …” Trace dropped his head in his hands. “I knew I had sworn off women for a reason.” He glared across the table at Mac. “I got the impression Fiona thought her only role in lovemaking was giving pleasure, and it appeared to me she didn’t have a clue how to
receive
it.”

Mac nodded. “That is what she spent seven months learning.”

“And now she intends to use her ill-gotten skills to get pregnant.” Trace stood up. “Only that sure as hell isn’t going to happen on my watch!”

But he had to grab the edge of the table when the room started spinning. “Shit. I guess that last drink gave me a bit of a buzz.” He pulled out his wallet and tossed it to Mac. “Pay the waitress and give her a nice tip, and then meet me out front. I’m going to see if I can find someone headed to Midnight Bay to give us a ride.”

Mac scrambled out of the booth with a laugh. “You’re not buzzed, my friend, you’re stinking drunk.” He pulled out all of Trace’s money and tossed it onto the table, then tucked the wallet into his own pocket before hauling Trace’s arm over his shoulder. “And I’ll drive,” he said, heading for the door.

Trace pulled them to a stumbling halt. “You know how?”

“I fixed the truck, remember? Driving it can’t be all that hard.”

Trace shuddered as Mac headed them toward the door again. “Maybe you should go for a ride with Killkenny sometime.” He sucked in a deep breath when they hit the frigid night air, then bent over to brace his hands on his knees as he craned his neck to look around. “Damn, I can’t remember where I parked.” He waved his finger in a circle next to his spinning head. “Conjure up my truck, magic man, and have it come pick us up.” He set both hands back on his knees. “And make it snappy, because I gotta go save some unsuspecting chump before Fiona fixes her own damn problem.”

Mac hauled Trace’s arm over his shoulder again and started them down the sidewalk. “Mind telling me exactly how you intend to save her?”

“Not her, the unsuspecting chump!” Trace grinned, feeling quite smug that he knew exactly what to do and that he hadn’t had to ask anyone. “I’m going to use Fiona’s own tactics against her, only instead of her
stuff,
I’m going to rearrange the lady’s
thinking
.”

M
isneach was a perfect example of why children weren’t allowed to be anywhere near an army when it was camped close to the enemy. The moment he heard Trace shouting Fiona’s name at the top of his lungs out in the yard, the pup started whining and scratching at the cupboard door. And when Trace stomped up the outside stairs and started banging on her door hard enough to rattle the windows, Misneach became so frantic to get to him that he piddled all over the floor.

Fiona unlocked the cupboard door and scrambled out as her pet ran off in such a rush that she heard him slip on the floor, tumble into one of the kitchen chairs, and knock it over. She pulled on her bathrobe, tossed back her braid and squared her shoulders, and calmly walked to the woodstove in the front room as she remembered the last time Trace had banged on her door. It had been her first night here, and she’d been so frightened she’d spent the night shaking like a leaf.

“Fiona! Get out of bed and open this door!” he shouted, banging on it again so hard she was surprised the window didn’t break.

She took her time setting another log in the woodstove, contemplating how she’d spent the last two days trying to figure out what she’d done wrong. But this afternoon, she’d finally concluded that the only mistake she’d made was to forget that Trace Huntsman was about as
male
as a man could be. And in her experience, either men got angry and lashed out, or they stormed off in a huff when something didn’t go the way they were expecting, especially when that something involved their precious manhood.

“Fiona! I want to talk to you!”

She just bet he did. But if he thought
she
wanted to talk to
him
after he’d run off and spent two days … slaking his lust on some other woman, most likely, he was either out of his mind or drunk—or both.

“Misneach,” she heard him say, his voice suddenly encouraging. “Hey there, squirt. Yeah, I missed you, too. Go on, go get Fiona and tell her to come open the door so I can play with you. Go on, go get her, boy.”

She heard Misneach whine and then return to scratching frantically at the door.

But then she heard another man’s voice, to which Trace responded heatedly. Something bumped into her door; she heard a strangled yelp, and then muttering from the other man.

Mac, most likely.

She’d wondered how long it would take the drùidh to get sick of his own company—as well as his own cooking—and finally go hunt Trace down. Not that she cared. And
she certainly didn’t care if that beautiful kitchen downstairs now looked worse than it had before she’d cleaned it. She was even getting used to the smell of burnt toast that wafted upstairs every morning, as well as the pungent and equally burnt smell, along with the smoke, every afternoon.

She figured they must not have modern appliances in Atlantis.

“Open the goddamned door!” Trace shouted.

Apparently ignoring him wasn’t going to work. Fiona tightened the belt on her robe, walked to the kitchen and pushed Misneach out of the way with her leg, and unlocked and opened the door.

Trace gave the pup a quick pat, then straightened and thrust his hand toward her, palm up. “I want my condom back.”

She certainly hadn’t been expecting that. “Your what?”

He lifted his outstretched hand just under her nose, apparently assuming she couldn’t see it. “You know, the thin rubber thingy that’s about this long when you unroll it,” he said, raising his other hand and holding them a short distance apart, “that’s shaped exactly like a man’s cock.” He thrust his open hand at her again, arching one brow. “Ring any bells, Fiona? It’s what every red-blooded, twenty-first-century male hoping to get lucky carries in his wallet, just in case some woman walks up and starts undressing him. I believe you found one under the pillow in my safe room. Well, it’s mine, and I want it back.” He shot her a rather nasty grin. “In case I find some other woman who wants to get me naked.”

“For the love of Zeus, Huntsman,” Mac growled, grabbing Trace’s sleeve and trying to tug him around. “
This
is your solution, to make her jealous?”

Trace pulled free and shoved his hands in his pockets as he hunched his shoulders against the cold—although Fiona couldn’t see why he should be cold, as the glare he was giving her was hot enough to boil a kettle of water.

“People with hidden agendas don’t get jealous,” he growled as he continued glaring at her. “They just move on to their next target when the first one doesn’t cooperate.”

She was at a complete loss as to what he was angry at, other than her taking his condom. But she hadn’t known what it was, only that it hadn’t been under the pillow when she’d cleaned the room the previous day. So, after taking it out of the packet and unrolling it, suspecting what it was for but not quite sure, she’d brought it upstairs with the intention of asking Madeline if it truly was something men wore during sex.

But beyond her taking his property, she didn’t know what else he was mad at.

“What are you talking about? What hidden agenda are you implying I have?”

“If you want another baby, lady, you’re going to have to put up with a husband to get it. I even catch a hint of you undressing in front of anyone else, and I swear, I’ll … I’ll …” He pulled a hand out of his pocket to point his finger at her. “You just stay away from Johnnie Dempster, you hear me? And any other chump unlucky enough to bump into you in town. Your brothers might not be the boss of you anymore, but a landlord sure as hell has some say over his tenant dragging home innocent men at all hours of the day and night.”