The Highlander's Time (4 page)

“Thank God.” Charlzie hugged her. “I'm counting on you, Jenny.”

“I know you are.”
But, who do I get to count on?
For the first time in a long time, she needed someone to lean on. Someone to pick her up and brush her off when she fell flat on her face which was a given in this situation. Not any of her classes or dealing with Lila’s antics had prepared her for this. Shoving her needs away, she pulled herself up with her fingers clenching into the stones of the wall. “Let's get Lila to bed, and then we'll talk.”

She didn't really want to talk. In fact, she felt drained dry.

What she wanted was to feel a man's arms around her. He'd hold her and tell her everything would work out.

Jenny turned her gaze to the hall. She watched Father Thomas putz around. Elspeth walked in with a basin of water in her left hand and a stack of linens in the other.

She willed a tiny tornado to appear and save her from this crazy nightmare.

Chapter Three

I don't want your help. I don't need your help. But, I have no choice
.

Jenny lay on the small pallet, praying harder than she had since her mom entered the hospital for the last time. Every inch of her hurt in ways she knew were a big, bad sign she was on the fast path to collapse. Her head still hadn't stopped aching and now she was suffering bouts of nausea.

Turning over on her back, she stared at the ceiling. Her brain toiled over the language lesson Father Thomas had given them. Gaelic wasn't her thing, and that much was outrageously apparent. She couldn't get the rolling sounds right in her head, let alone flowing off her tongue. The manners lessons she did better at, but she feared for her life should she forget to curtsy or call someone by the wrong title.

Charlzie wasn't doing much better. She'd nearly fallen when she tried to curtsy and half the little rules they had to apply themselves to had thrown her off base. Her Gaelic sounded like a mish-mosh of syllables crashing together.

Lila was the lucky one. She'd turned on her diva-ness, played too ill to take part in the lesson, and refused to participate.

Charlzie and she had decided to insulate Lila from as much interaction with the Highlanders as possible until they could get her to see reason. It was also realized that if they couldn't get back to the future, at some point they were going to have to cut her loose. If it came down to Lila and survival—survival would win out. In retrospect, the conclusion wasn’t as shocking as she’d thought it would have been. It was more or less a mindset of, ‘you can’t fix what is irreparably broken and you can’t fight against a giant when he has absolute power over you’.

Fluffing the flat pillow, Jenny turned onto her left side. Now facing the door, she closed her eyes, trying without much success to go to sleep. She hated being like this.

An introvert by necessity, she'd suffered through all the death in her life by digesting her mourning because there was always someone who needed her to be strong. She mulled over things to an ulcer-causing degree, and then when she felt ready to shatter, she did.

Back when her mother was sick or during her father's lengthy hospitalization after quadruple heart bypass surgery, she'd curl up in the corner of the couch covered by an old chenille lap blanket with the phone on the end table beside her. She'd flip through the cable channels until an old movie would come on. Losing herself in the story never equated in her mind. To her, the practice was more a waste of time, or when she was waiting for the inevitable call to hurry to the hospital before it was too late, she was merely killing time.

“Come on,” she whispered on a bitter sigh. Shifting onto her right side, she squeezed her eyes tight against the frustrated tears stinging in the corners. “This isn't that hard. Close eyes. Count sheep. Go to sleep.”

The sound of Lila snoring and Charlzie mumbling only intensified the uselessness she felt.

Turning over again, she watched the door for a long time. In her mind's eye, she tried to picture any of the classic movies. She couldn't firmly catch any of the multitudes of snapshots from the hundreds she'd watched.

Promising herself for the fiftieth time she was going to try the door again, she heaved a sigh.
What good is that when it’s locked from the outside?

No good
.

She rose on her elbow, ready to abandon the uncomfortable, thin mattress. Heartsick and feeling ill, she hung her head in defeat before lying down once more. The tears she'd denied all day fell. Crumpling beneath the truth she was in the past, in a land she didn't think she'd ever understand, she lost her battle to be tough. She sobbed for her mother and her father and all the dreams she'd put on the back burner.

The sound of the door opening didn't deter her from venting. She knew what she needed—to purge her system.

“Jenny?”

Insulted Iaen would interrupt her funk she couldn't even smile over his mangling of her name. Hiding her face in her pillow, she clenched the grass-stuffed rectangle to her face. “Just leave me alone, milord.” She was beyond caring who saw her or heard her break down. “I just need some...time.”
What don't you understand? I want to be left alone with my pain.

“Come along, lass.” He pulled the covers back and lifted her in his arms.

He said something else to her in Gaelic. The thick brogue, which she'd considered sexy whenever she watched
Braveheart
or a Sean Connery movie, slapped her low self-esteem into the dust. “I haven't learned enough yet.” She sobbed all the harder because she couldn't understand him, but she wanted to.

Wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders, she let loose on all the emotional pain building within her in body. It poured from her in shivering, heartbreaking sobs. “I'm so sorry.” Absently, her fingers tangled in his long, dark hair. “I don't know how to fix this.”

It was her problem in a nutshell. She'd fixed every small or major problem since she'd joined Lila's staff. The go-to girl who could calm any reporter, discourage any member of the paparazzi and cut off enemies at the pass.

But before becoming a part of Lila's hard nosed, yet diplomatic, well-versed kiss-ass staff, it was a matter of whenever she'd stepped in with good intentions, her life fell to pieces. An internal war took control of her body. There wasn't any way out, nor was there an easy way to go forward. “I can't do this.”

It was a revelation ripped from her soul. She felt broken down to tiny pieces. Part of her, a big part of her, wanted to run away from her problems. The man holding her gently, reverently, anchored her in a truth that terrified her.

She was trapped in the past without a way home. In the midst of reality was also the fact that Charlzie, and—eventually—Lila, would look to her for guidance. They'd need her to be strong for them. “I don't know how to do this.”

Her fingers curled in the soft wool of his plaid. “Help me.”

“Easy, Jenny,” Iaen said in his thickly accented French. “All will work out.”

She peeked up as he pushed the door to his room open. A cold breeze brushed across her when it swept shut. “Iaen...I mean...milord.” For Pete's sake, she didn't know what she meant or what to call him.

“In this chamber, call me Iaen.”

A foreign emotion kicked hard in her chest. If she had to put a name on the emotions tugging at her heart, she'd call them lust and indebtedness. “Iaen?”

“Aye, lass.” His voice was a balm to her flagging spirits and a reminder she wasn't alone in this new, scary world. “Do you really think everything will work out?”

The confused expression shadowing his face rejuvenated the aches tying her muscles in knots. “It's okay if you don't understand me. Damn, half the time, I don't understand me.” She ended with a shaky giggle.

He settled her in the middle of his bed. Her gaze trailed after him when he went to the hearth and stirred the fire to life. Iaen was the epitome of strength and carried an indelible aura of personal fortitude. She wished she could be so self-assured.

He rose to his impressive height. Haloed by the blaze burning on the iron grate, she sensed the raw power flowing off his shoulders. Audibly gulping against the lump of emotions growing in her throat, Jenny traced her fingers over the quilting that worked its way through the coverlet. They felt their way to a swath of plaid draping a long line down the left side of the bed. “I must seem awfully pathetic to you.”

The tension grew inside in the room as he stood with his back to her. A palpable pall she didn't have the strength to think her way through or out of. He said something to her quickly, quietly. It might have been French, but she couldn't be sure. “I'm sorry, I didn't understand you.”

“Say, aye, I agree.” He propped his hands on the mantle for a long moment before he turned around. She wondered if he was pondering the problem they were. Finally, he focused his attention on her face.

“Why?”

“Say the words, Jenny.”

It wasn’t so much what he said, but how he said it. The tone conveyed urgency, but the steady blue stare he’d leveled on her whispered, ‘it’ll be okay’. “Aye, I agree?”
I think
. The warmth from the fire soothed her raw nerves. His steadying presence lulled her after he relaxed his stance. She hid a yawn behind her hand. “Is something going on?”

He didn't answer until he'd strode across the room and sat on the side of the bed. “Jenny....” He seemed to search for the words. “I need you to trust me.”

It was a tall order. Trying to phrase her response so he got the gist of it, she ended up shrugging. “I can try.” That was about as far as she was willing to go.

He moved closer to her. His enormous hand cupped her skull in his firm grasp. “I cannae ask you for more, lass.”

The overwhelming urge to curl against him took over. She leaned in at the same moment he dipped his head. She lingered in his kiss, loving the slow, sensual touch of his mouth on hers. He tasted like a wonderful combination of mint, wine and masculinity.

Her fingers stroked up his arms to clasp his shoulders then ventured on to toy with his hair. Relaxing back, he followed her down. In the firelight, his brilliant blue eyes appeared to be smoldering cobalt. “This is nice.”

He flashed a thoroughly masculine smile to show his even white teeth. Lowering his head for a second kiss, he halted his head’s decent an inch above her lips. “I'm glad you approve, my lady.”

She met his passion from that moment on. His lips moved over hers with slow determination until she basked in a glorious glow of their making. She strained to get closer to him. A wonderment he wove around her with cutting ability and stunning ease pulled her deep into a fascinating conflagration of desire and unabashed need. Ripping her mouth from his, she panted against him. “Dear God.”

Never, not ever, had she been this excited with a potential lover and he hadn't even gotten her naked yet. A spurt of uncertainty rocketed through her. “Iaen, I'm not very good at this.” She sounded sad to her own ears. “I mean, I'm not like Lila. I can't just hop into bed then climb out of it.”
Great, now you sound like an absolute idiot
.

If there was one saving grace in this tragedy waiting to happen, it was that he didn't understand a word of her condemning confession. “I don't know what to say.”

In her world, sex was Lila's Olympic forum. There, her boss always stood as the most outrageous and the most successful. She boasted of her exploits with the same caustic verbiage she used when negotiating a contract with her record company. Charlzie and she often joked how Lila could take a man by the balls and illicitly pummel him into modeling clay. Sex was Lila's weapon of choice.

On the other hand, Jenny understood she dated for a long time before she hopped in the sack. She liked all the wooing and cuddling, the expectation of what was coming in the distant future rather than a thrill for this moment. Jenny lived in an arena Lila called a waste of time. In truth, all the pawing and petting, sweet words and innocent hugs was what Jenny was after. The touching made her feel like more than a blow-up doll. The kisses exchanged were viewed as silent promises to her. They were fate-filled vows for a future where sex was a bonus instead of a given.

She lived in a place where the relationship meant more. If a guy moved her too fast, she was the one who broke it off. If he couldn't take the heat of a long-haul and sometimes long distance love affair, she dropped him cold.

Screwing was nice enough for the brief time it lasted, but sex wasn't something she looked forward to. The brevity of it left her feeling empty and alone even when she snuggled against her lover’s side during the barely-broke-a-sweat afterglow.

With Iaen, she felt like a veritable virgin.

He was raw passion.

Dominating.

All encompassing.

She was the half of the whole who didn't hold to either great expectations or lofty aspirations. “Iaen, I'm not any good at sex.”

It was what a few of her boyfriends had admitted to after long, tense minutes of prodding. They, her exes, always professed to care about her like they did a sister or a close friend. When it came down to fucking, she wasn't the cat's meow. Hell, the cat didn't even purr. In her former lovers’ lives, she was no better than a stupid, plasticine blow-up doll.

“Lass, be still and calm thyself. I willnae hurt you,” he said from where he sat on the edge of the mattress. Instead of brushing her cheek against his calloused palm still cupping her face, she bowed away and nearly banged her forehead on his shoulder. That’s how close he was to her.

Yes, you will. You just don't know it yet
. Her faith, like her hopes to find a permanent love interest, had dipped that low. She didn't know if she could handle another huge disaster after everything that had happened today.

Okay, look to the bright side. There has to be a silver lining in this nightmare
.

Try as she might, she came up empty. She couldn't make the language barrier count, because she'd still see the disappointment on his handsome face. Her hands came up to ward him off when he leaned closer. The sensible part of her told her to run as fast as she could in the opposite direction. Her traitorous body had other ideas.