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Authors: Maeve Greyson

Tags: #Fantasy, #Time Travel

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BOOK: A Highlander in Her Past
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Maxwell rose higher above the edge of the bed, scrubbing the heel of one hand against one eye while propping his head with the other. “I am Maxwell. Ye’d think ye’d remember the name of the man who called ye away from death’s door.”

“Called me away?” Trish stared at the hairy, green-eyed man propped on the side of her bed. A nagging sense of having forgotten something very important gnawed at the back of her mind. He did seem a little familiar. But that still didn’t explain who he was or why they were both naked in the same bed.

“Aye.” Maxwell nodded, then stretched with another jaw-cracking yawn. Scrubbing his fingers through the mat of curly hair on his chest, he nodded toward the hearth. “The coals are low and the room is cold. Now, can I get back in the bed?”

“Are you crazy?” Trish stretched and grabbed an iron candleholder off the shelf above the bed. “I may be small but don’t make the mistake of thinking that I’m helpless.” Waving the weighty weapon toward a plaid tossed across a chair beside the hearth, Trish pulled the covers closer about her chin. “There’s a wrap. You can cover up with that while you explain who you are.”

“God’s beard,” Maxwell grumbled as he pushed himself up from the floor. “’Tis a sorry day when a man saves a woman’s life just to get ousted from a warm bed and sent to sit by a dying fire.”

Wow.
Trish arched her brows and bit her tongue against the desire to emit a low admiring whistle. He must not be
that
cold. She didn’t attempt to look away as Maxwell paraded across the floor. Trish had to admit the man looked damn sexy…coated with a heavy dusting of reddish-brown hair or not. Leaning to the side to improve the angle, Trish followed him with her gaze. She’d always been attracted to the burly type. They cuddled better after a good romp in the sheets.

As Maxwell bent to retrieve the plaid, he grinned over one shoulder and winked. “I’m verra glad ye seem to be enjoying the view.”

Trish shook herself and snapped her sagging lower jaw shut. She hadn’t meant to stare
or
get lost in a fantasy trip. Brandishing the candlestick higher in the air, she motioned toward the chair. “Never you mind about what I’m enjoying. How ’bout you just sit over there and start explaining.”

Maxwell’s deep-green eyes sparkled with mischief as he raised his arms over his head and stretched long and slow.

Trish squirmed in the bed as she caught him watching her. She didn’t know why he complained the room was cold. It felt pretty damn warm to her.

Maxwell peeped around a bulging bicep and flexed layers of hardened muscles in the reddish glow of the hearth before wrapping the plaid about his waist. With one hand and the ease that Trish would pick up a pencil, Maxwell hefted a log the size of Trish into the dying coals.

Trish didn’t miss how the muscles of his back rippled as he stirred the blackened iron poker in the fire.
Dammit.
How could she not remember playing in the sheets with
that?
Running her tongue across her lips, Trish frowned as she tasted chapped and broken skin. She raised her fingertips to her mouth, patting gently against the tender broken flesh stretched across her lips. “What’s wrong with me?”

Maxwell crossed his legs at the ankles, folding his hands across his stomach as he leaned back in the chair. “Nothing now. But ’twas little more than a few hours ago that ye were about to meet your maker.”

Trish pinched the bridge of her nose, rubbing the inside corners of her eyes. Nothing Maxwell said made sense. Bits and pieces of strange thoughts filtered through her mind. Were they memories or just bad dreams? “For my sake, could you please just start at the beginning and give me a quick rundown?”

Maxwell settled his head against the high back of the wooden slatted chair and stared unblinking at the ceiling. “The beginning. Well let’s see. I suppose the beginning would be the part where ye suddenly appeared above the tables in the library of magics, in the midst of a howling wind with a young boy clenched in your arms. Ramsay survived the trip through time quite well but you were near fatally injured. Young Keagan figured out that only those who are fully blessed and active in their magic are able to survive navigating the web of time and bring their souls along with them. Ye see, young Ramsay’s a magical MacKay but you, my dear, are not.” Maxwell paused, inhaled a deep breath and then continued. “So, the only way to save yer life was to intertwine yer soul and meld your latent magic to another soul’s dormant gifts. Keagan said we must anchor ye to a soul in this time.” Maxwell thumped his hand to the center of his chest. “That would be me.”

Trish stared at the grinning man, her head pounding with the information he’d just spewed in a single breath. “You have got to be kidding.”

“If ye think I’d go to the trouble of weaving a fantastical tale such as that just to get in a woman’s bed”—Maxwell paused, then his eyes narrowed—“then ye’d best think again because Maxwell Sullivan has ne’er been that desperate for a woman to warm his sheets.”

Trish closed her eyes, massaging her temples as she sorted through everything the man had just said. She remembered now. Burying her face in her hands, she groaned out loud. “I can’t believe I’m sitting here naked in the year 1424.”

“Aye. Well.” Maxwell chuckled a warm deep laugh. “Yer doing it quite well.”

Great. Just what she needed right now. A freakin’ comedian. Trish raised her head, propped her elbows on her knees and rested her chin in her hands. “You still didn’t explain why the two of us woke up this morning. Together. Naked.”

Maxwell scratched his chin and grinned down at his feet. “First of all, it willna be morning for quite some time. Secondly, when two souls are joined, the bodies are…” His words trailed off into suggestive oblivion.

Trish sat bolt upright. “Are you telling me we
did
it?”
Holy crap!
She hadn’t forgotten the details of a sexual encounter since that unfortunate pairing in college. A residual shudder rippled across her flesh. She’d never get
that
drunk again no matter how many centuries she wandered through. Lifting her gaze to Maxwell’s amused expression; she waved the candlestick across the bed. “Well? Answer me. Did we have sex or not?”

Maxwell’s chest rumbled out another deep chuckle. “
Not
, lass.” He pulled himself up straighter in the chair. “I’d never foist myself on a helpless woman. ’Twould be a truly dishonorable thing to do…taking advantage of a maid who’s not in control of her body? Ye insult me with such a question.”

Trish wilted back against the pillows and stretched out her legs. Remembering Maxwell’s words, she straightened again and shook the candelabra in his face. “So, what the hell were you going to say about two bodies are? Are what? Finish it!” She’d never met such an infuriating man in all her life. Too bad he’d saved her life because if he didn’t stop teasing her with half-explanations she was going to be forced to kill him.

A teasing grin peeped out from beneath Maxwell’s moustache, curving his full lips to the side. “Ye didna give me time to finish what I was about to say. When two souls intertwine, the flesh of the bodies becomes exhausted with the joining. To seal the binding of the souls, the two must touch while they rejuvenate together. Two beings traveling the realm of sleep in a pairing is one of the most unifying acts for joined souls since the dawn of man.”

They’d slept together.
Really slept.
Trish eased out a relieved sigh.
Good.
Nothing else had happened.
Perfect.
Trish squirmed among the pillows. If she hadn’t wanted anything to happen, why did she suddenly have a vague feeling of disappointment?

Maxwell pushed himself up from the chair and stretched again, raising his long arms toward the ceiling. “Now that we’ve settled that, what say ye to getting a bit more sleep?”

Trish stared at him; disbelief dropped her chin to her chest. Was he seriously thinking about climbing back into bed with her? Naked? She had two words for the man:
Hell. No
. Trish tossed the metal candlestick to the floor with a resounding
thunk.
Waving a hand toward the door, she slid down into the covers. “You can sleep all you want. Out there. Somewhere. In another room.”

“But—”

“But nothing.” Trish rolled over on her side with her back toward Maxwell. “You said you wouldn’t
foist
yourself where you weren’t wanted.”

“Lass—”

Pulling the covers up around her ears, Trish shook her head down deeper into the pillow. “Find another place to sleep, Maxwell. Go foist yourself somewhere else.”

Chapter Eight

Trish centered the door facing between her shoulder blades, leaned hard against the wooden beam and slid her body up and down.
Damn
. She hated wool. Even with a linen tunic between her skin and the borrowed dress, the heavy weave scratched her skin like a branch of stinging nettles. Trish didn’t care what Ciara advised. As soon as she figured out where they’d stashed them, she was switching back into her own clothes.

Giving up on the useless rubbing, Trish grabbed the neckline of the dress and yanked it back up into place. The dress’s previous owner must’ve been at least two sizes bigger because there was plenty of room to spare. She smoothed her hands along the darted seams running down the sides. Trish frowned, noticing the unusually small circumference of her waist. She must’ve lost a few pounds while she’d been out of commission. Peeping inside the front of the gown, Trish shook her head. Yep. The girls had definitely shrunk at least a full cup size. The boobs were always the first to go.

Her stomach growled as the warm yeasty fragrance of baking bread wafted under her nose. Trish sniffed in an approving lungful of the mouth-watering scent, swallowing hard against her empty belly flooding her taste buds with anticipation. She was starving. Maybe if she followed her nose, she’d score a buttered crust of the delicious stuff.

Trish trailed her hands against the pale gray wall of the hallway, concentrating on maintaining her balance. Her stomach growled a louder protest as a fresh wave of savory aromas floated through the air. Pressing a hand against her gurgling waist, Trish curled her toes in the soft doeskin slippers as a brief wave of dizziness stopped her in her tracks. The roughly woven carpet centered on the floor didn’t look like it would be a very adequate cushion for a fall. Trish leaned against the wall and closed her eyes until the spinning sensation passed. She wasn’t about to bust her butt in the hallway on her first foray out of her room. She inhaled deeply through her nose and blew out short controlled bursts from between tightly pursed lips. “I can do this. I’m just a little weak. I’ve just got to get my land legs.”

“What the hell are ye doin’, woman? Are ye tryin’ to end up back in the sickbed?”

Trish jumped at the sound of the booming voice and flattened her back against the wall. Maxwell. She should’ve known. He’d been a bit bossy ever since she’d ousted him from her room when she’d first regained her health. Bracing her hands against the stone blocks at her back, she bit back one of her favorite expletives and opted for good old sarcasm instead. “So, you think startling the living crap out of me is going to help matters?”

Maxwell’s scowl deepened, his bushy eyebrows knotted tighter over an irritated gaze. “Ciara said ye wished to join the family downstairs. She also said she told ye that I’d be up here soon to fetch ye and help ye navigate the staircase. Ye’re still a bit weak and ye don’t know yer way around the keep. Do ye never listen to what’s best for ye?”

Trish flattened her palms tighter against the grainy surface of the wall and steadied her balance by shifting her feet a few more inches apart. “I believe I know what’s best for me a lot better than anyone else around here.” Irritation fueled more adrenaline into her veins, flushing her skin with prickly heat. “And I know my way around this keep as well as you do. Back in my time, I usually stay here about five months out of the year.” Lordy, she wished she’d found her clothes. This wool was eating her alive. Trish slid one hand up the bell-shaped sleeve of the other arm and scratched as high as she could reach.

Maxwell glared at her, thumbs hooked in the wide black belt around his waist and feet spread as though he were about to tackle any entity happening along. He didn’t say a word, just narrowed his eyes into a fierce stare and slightly tilted his head.

“Don’t stand there glaring at me like that. That look might scare children but it doesn’t faze me in the least.” Trish yanked her sleeve back into place, pushed away from the wall and turned to walk away. The red weave of the carpeting centered in the hallway heaved up like a rolling wave, undulating back and forth in her field of vision with a nauseating spin. Trish slapped a hand across her mouth and swallowed hard against the rising bile burning at the back of her throat. She staggered sideways. The walls spun faster and dodged away from her extended hand. Trish closed her eyes as a pair of rock hard arms circled about her shoulders and scooped behind her knees to pull her against a warm firm chest.

“Ye’ve not eaten in days, woman. Ye’re weak as a newborn calf.” Maxwell settled Trish more comfortably against his body, his voice lowering to a gentler scold as he leveled his gaze with hers. “And ye’re a damn sight too stubborn for yer own well-being.”

The steady beat of Maxwell’s strong pulse thumped through the scratchy folds of wool and warmed Trish’s flesh.
Safety. Possessiveness. Caring
. Claiming traits intuitively transmitted into her awareness with every beat of Maxwell’s heart. Trish shivered against the mesmerizing comfort she felt while cocooned in Maxwell’s arms. What the hell was wrong with her? He was just a hard-headed man. Trish squirmed against his broad chest. “I’m fine. Put me down. My head just started swimming a bit because I turned around too fast.”

BOOK: A Highlander in Her Past
10.92Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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