Highland Protector (MacCoinnich Time Travels Book Five) (2 page)

“Are you okay?”

“Fine. I just need a moment.” Amber
thought of Mrs. Dawson’s gentle wave and attempted to mute the neighbors’
misery. Her attempt to beat the emotions surrounding her into silence only
muffled them slightly. When she opened her eyes again, she smiled and rubbed
her hands together with fake confidence. “Ready?”

Helen nodded and reached for Simon’s
hand.

Amber knelt at the side of the sofa and
gently lowered her hands to Helen’s stomach.

So much love and happiness helped
deafen the unpleasant thoughts of all the others. Once again, Amber closed her
eyes as she envisioned the tiny life blooming inside her friend.

“Try and relax,” Amber told her. “I
can do this.”

“Reading minds now, Amber?” Helen
asked with a laugh.

“You’re worried I won’t be able to do
this and that it will hurt me too much. Let that go. Help me connect with your
child.”

Come now little one… Where are you?

Helen’s tension eased and a flicker
of another soul radiated. “Ahh, there you are.”

Amber hushed those in the room before
they could ask questions.

So comfortable and loved.
How an unborn child felt loved Amber
couldn’t guess, but this child knew he was coming into a world of unconditional
love and devotion. Then the strangest thing happened, he sensed Amber’s probe
and kicked against her as if to say he was very happy where he was, thank you
very much, and to leave him alone until he was ready for the world.
All
right, lad…I’m leaving now.
But before Amber let the connection completely
go, she searched for anything dark…anything of concern.

Blissful silence met her mind. It
only lasted a moment, but it was there. Reluctantly, she removed her hands from
Helen’s belly and opened her eyes.

Three sets of expectant eyes looked
her way.

Amber connected her gaze to Simon.
“Congratulations, Simon. Your wife will bear a healthy baby boy.”

Moisture gathered in Simon’s eyes and
happiness punched Amber low in her gut.

Helen gasped. “He’s healthy? You can
tell that?”

“I can. He’s very happy where he is
for now.”

While Helen and Simon embraced, a
strange wave of sorrow emitted from Mrs. Dawson. The sorrow was directed at
Amber, for her loss of ever having the joy of a child of her own. Withstanding
the bare touch of anyone proved difficult, anything more intimate she would
forego. No, Amber knew she would have to enjoy the children of others.

When she moved to stand, all the
emotions she’d pushed aside to search for Helen’s child struck her like a fist.
She stumbled and fell into the table, knocking a lamp to the floor.

Simon hurried to her side and
attempted to steady her. Her head swam, and nausea filled her throat.

“Her cloak,” Helen said.

Simon swiveled, grasped the cloak,
and threw it over Amber’s shoulders.

She tightened the edges of the
garment around her, muffling the outside world. It took several minutes before
Amber could speak. “Don’t feel guilty, Helen. I wanted to do this for you. For
Simon.”

“But you’re hurting.”

“I’m fine. Just a passing discomfort.”
Only Amber knew it was more. Each time she attempted to live outside the cloak
was worse than the last.

She knew her smile didn’t hide the
pain in her eyes, but she kept it there anyway.

Chapter Two

2231, Los Angeles

Kincaid shed his costume, and removed
the weapons strapped all over his body. He tossed the clothes down the chute to
the cleaning room where someone would wash and mend any damage from the day’s
battle. After stepping into the shower stall, he closed the door sealing him
in.

He considered his choices for cleaning
off the day’s battle, skipped over the dry shower, and hit the water button. It
would take more than chemicals to wash the dead from his skin today. As the hot
water poured from the rain shower, Kincaid tilted his head into the spray. He
groaned and let the water remove the grime. Though he would have loved to stay
in the hot spray for hours, he couldn’t be that selfish with all the others in
the fortress.

He waved a hand over the chemical
spray and let it shoot antibacterial disinfectant over his skin, and turned
into the spray to catch the other side. After washing his hair the old-fashioned
way, with soap, he rinsed it clean and watched the remaining water circle the
drain. He could hear the pumps below the stall as it already worked on
recycling the cast-off liquid.

He stepped from the shower minutes
later and shook the water from his dark hair. It was getting a little long.
Short cuts were a luxury he didn’t afford very often. It was hard to blend with
warriors of the past with a haircut of the current century. He took a moment in
front of the mirror to trim the thin goatee he preferred on his face before
finishing his ritual. The light in the adjoining bedroom switched on as he
walked through and stretched out on his bed. “Video display?” he called into
the empty room.

From the hologram projector
positioned above his bed, a digital screen lit the wall across the room.

“What can I do for you, Kincaid?” The
voice of the room control was that of a woman. Her soft-spoken words always
made him envision a long-legged brunette with bright red painted lips behind
the voice. Problem was, the voice was probably computer generated, and his
vision shouldn’t be anything other than soundboards and computer chips. But it
still didn’t stop him from his daily fantasy.

“KTLA news.”

“Would you like me to interrupt the
current broadcast or play from the recording?”

“Recording.”

He had at least thirty minutes before
any of his team would be called for a debriefing of the evening’s events.
Catching up on what had happened during his brief voyage through time was
essential to his psyche. He needed to know that he was actually in his
time…that the world hadn’t dramatically changed because of their interference.

The bright colored lights of the
broadcast flashed on the wall. The polished anchorman sat behind the desk
wearing a sleek coat without a collar over a turtleneck sweater. At his side, his
co-anchor sported an over-puffed jacket with awkward shoulder pads. They wore
plastic smiles and spoke false truths. There was no reason to believe the news
would deliver facts…they hadn’t in some one hundred and fifty years…probably
longer. But they did send out recordings of events…and with enough practice,
Kincaid could peer through those events and pick out certain truths.

After introductions and short
laughter about the unseasonably cool weather, they jumped into current events.
“The president of Texas made a surprise appearance at the Governor’s State of
the State dinner which took place in Westridge. It appears that both the governors
of Northern California and Southern California are once again talking about
following Texas in seceding from the Union.”

“Which would result in a civil war,” Kincaid
said to himself. Though the secession was inevitable. History repeated
itself…always.

Confident his latest trip in time
didn’t result in anything catastrophic, he released a long sigh, threw his arm
over his eyes, and let his mind empty. When it did, his memory of the painting
he’d seen while fleeing up the MacCoinnich Keep’s massive stairs settled into
his system. The woman’s troubled gaze followed him, made his heart rate climb.
She was hauntingly familiar yet he couldn’t place her from his history studies.
Was she from the original family? A grandchild to the first time travelers?
Who
is she?
Or more precisely,
who was she?

Unable to tune the image out of his
brain, he gave up his quest for sleep, turned off the news, and left his room.

He passed the main living room where
he heard several of his team talking among themselves while the same broadcast
he’d been watching in his room blared in the background. Savory smells from the
kitchen told him the cooks were working late to feed them after their battle.
His stomach made a sound of protest when he turned down the short hall and into
the fortress library.

The room hadn’t changed in centuries.
Oiled oak bookshelves lined each wall from floor to ceiling. Each shelf housed
books in all shapes and sizes. The collection wasn’t filled with fiction and
fluff, but history and folklore. To the uneducated eye, some of the books might
look like fantasy and nonsense, but Kincaid knew each book held the history of his
people. There were books of witchcraft and sorcery, ancient beings and shape
shifters…and yes, even time travelers.

He moved to the center of the library
where a large table housed two computer stations. Each book had been carefully
categorized and input into the data system. With any luck, the image in his
head would be somewhere in the library and he could put a name to the face he’d
seen on the wall of the Keep.

He sat in front of the computerized
station and placed his palm on the monitor screen.

“How can I assist you, Kincaid?”

The computer’s voice was that of
Giles, the keeper of the books, and often the teacher of everything Druid to
those who lived in the house.

“Search artwork in MacCoinnich Keep in
the seventeen hundreds.”

“Can we narrow the search, Kincaid?”

“Portraits.”

A giant image of a book circled on
the massive screen while the computer searched its database.

Early portraits began to appear,
which he flipped through one at a time. As always, the image of Ian and Lora
started off the art. That painting still hung on the wall in the Scotland
fortress and Kincaid had seen it several times in person both in the past and
in his time.

There were very few portraits of the
MacCoinnich family in their early years. In the mid sixteenth century, Kincaid
knew paintings started to fill space on the walls of the staircase. Though from
his memory, most were of children. Apparently, those images were some of the
only ones in the computer system. He was midway through the images of the
seventeenth century when the door to the library opened.

“I thought I saw a light on in here.”
Giles, the man and not the computer, brought his lean frame into the room and
pushed his glasses up onto his nose. Why he didn’t just have the corrective
surgery performed on his vision, Kincaid would never know.

“I’m borrowing your space,” he said.

Giles set the book he carried into
the room on the table beside Kincaid and peered over his shoulder at the
monitor. “Anything I can help you with?”

He wasn’t sure how to answer the man.
To tell him the image of a long-dead woman on a wall back in time made his
heart skip a beat might sound a little obsessive. Unstable even. Then again,
following instinct was something every Druid man and woman was taught to do
from birth.

“I noticed a portrait on the walls of
MacCoinnich Keep as we were leaving, one that I’d not seen before. I thought
maybe we had some reference of it.”

“A portrait of a child?” Giles asked.

“No. A woman.”

Giles lips lifted slightly as he
glanced his way. The man was too perceptive. His Druid gift did make him the
perfect historian. He had an ability to file away nearly every word he’d ever
read. He seldom used the computer unless he was inputting data. The man didn’t
need it.

“What did this woman look like?”

“Long dark hair, sad eyes.”
Sad
beautiful eyes.

Giles tapped his chin as he thought.
“What style of dress?”

Kincaid closed his eyes and tried to
picture what the woman was wearing. All he could see was her high cheekbones
and full lips. “I’m not into women’s fashion.”

“Did she wear a hat? Was her hair
bound?” Giles walked across the room, pulled the ladder along the bookshelf,
and proceeded to climb to reach the top shelf.

“No hat. Her hair was down. She wore
a long dress if that helps.” He gave up searching the computer files and let
Giles do what he did best.

“And this was a woman, not a
teenager?”

Kincaid shuddered. “No. She was a
woman.”

Giles retrieved a leather-bound tome
that was half the size of him. “That’s odd. Most women in that time wore their
hair bound, unless they were unwed.”

“And most of the women were married
early…” Kincaid said his thoughts aloud.

“Precisely.”

“Was the woman unattractive? Some
alarming feature that might have made her an unlikely candidate for marriage?”

He rubbed the heat from the back of
his neck and tried to appear unaffected. “She was beautiful.” He couldn’t
imagine the men of the time looking past her. If she were a direct descendent
from the MacCoinnich’s, she may have had a long list of must-haves in a potential
spouse. Kincaid couldn’t imagine any of the original family letting their
children marry just anyone. The family was much too private to marry outside
their inner circle.

Giles opened the large book and
proceeded to turn the pages.

“There you are!” From the door, Rory
called out to him and beckoned him with a wave of his hand. “We’re waiting on
you.”

Kincaid pushed from the chair.
“Coming.” He patted Giles on his back. “I’ll be back after the briefing.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Giles was already
moving to the bookcase in search of some lead only he saw.

The entire basement had been
converted into a safe room years before. The far end of the massive room held
their armory, both modern and ancient. The center of the room held a conference
table and a monitoring system that linked them into the safe houses abroad so
they might be able to obtain reinforcements if needed.

Kincaid stood before a chair between
Rory and Colin. Across from them sat Allen and Joshua with Colleen standing at
the head of the table. “Nice of you to join us.” Colleen scolded.

Dressed in full skintight leather
with a body that would rock many a man’s world, Colleen’s cold stare was meant
to intimidate. Only it took more than her piercing steel gray eyes to move him.

“I was following up on something.”

She tilted her head to the side at
the same time the door to the safe room closed with a loud bang and the lock
clicked into place. Colleen flexed her Druid powers without blinking an eye.

“Something important?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Just when he thought she’d pitch a
bitch-fit, she folded into her chair and expected him to settle.

He did.

“Do you have the report?”

Colin, Colleen’s twin leaned back in
his chair and grinned at his sister. The two of them were quite a pair. They’d
run the fortress for as long as Kincaid had been there and neither of them
appeared to age a day. Colin didn’t always lead the expeditions in time, but he
nearly always accompanied them. Colleen would love to join them, from what
Kincaid could see, but she wouldn’t blend well on a battlefield in a time where
men ruled and women stayed behind to pine and worry over their men’s fate. It
killed her and she took great pleasure in flexing her power whenever they
returned to remind them all that she was just as powerful as they were, even if
she was a woman.

Truth was Kincaid would welcome
Colleen in battle any day of the week if given a choice. He’d seen her in
action and knew she brought more cunning and power than many of the men in the
room.

He also thought she’d relax a little
if she’d just get laid.

Colin started talking, removing
thoughts of Colleen doing the nasty, and reminding himself of their battle.
“Everything was just as expected. While the men were outside the Keep battling
their known enemy, the walls inside were breached and the women were
vulnerable.”

“Did you arrive in time?”

Kincaid envisioned their arrival to
the seventeenth century, his short trip down the stairway and straight into the
path of a distant Highland clan who wanted to claim MacCoinnich Keep as their
own. They were beyond surprised to find able-bodied men inside the walls of the
Scottish fortress willing to fight to preserve the lives of those who lived
there.

“We kicked ass.”

“Were there any witnesses?”

“Of the battle, no,” Kincaid told
her.