Laird of the Game (24 page)

Daniel leaned his head against the doorframe of the Drawing Room and groaned. “Yanks!”

 “You can’t make out his face, but her smile is absolutely radiant. It just can’t be true.” Amber was outraged. They couldn’t get to Scotland fast enough. “No one is going to destroy Melissa’s reputation and get away with it.”

Alex and Melissa walked through the front door and had no idea all hell was about to break loose.

Melissa’s mouth dropped open when two women stood up from the couch. It wasn’t possible to see her sisters standing in the same room with her, was it?

Alex had turned pale with Gideon, Robert, Iain, Evan, and William all standing behind him.

She looked back at Alex who suddenly appeared very nervous “Alex, what’s wrong?” For a moment, Melissa was terrified! She stood at the threshold between both worlds and reached a hand out to him to steady the spinning room. “Alex!” she screamed, panicked.

A sob wracked her tight throat. She knew he would disappear in a few moments, and she would be trapped in the future without him. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing him.

Melissa’s face was white with fear and shock. Alex took the few steps between them to put his arm around her to steady her. “It’s all right, love. I’m here,” he soothed her with his voice pitched low and soft against her hair.

She held on to the front of his shirt with white knuckles. When her chin tipped up, she had tears streaming down her cheeks. “Don’t let go of me,” she begged, terrified he would evaporate into the mist.

“Last night I tried tae tell ye something,” he began in earnest. “I go’ distracted and didn’t tell ye everything.”

Daniel stood silently watching the ladies. Alex looked at him then. He would remember that look for the rest of his life. Daniel had never seen Alex plead for anything in his life, but he was pleading now for an answer. Daniel nodded. The realization and relief staggered Alex.

He gulped down air as a spasm of fear gripped the back of his neck with icy tentacles. “I didn’t tell you that you are not in the year 1745. This is a Celtic Warrior game that we play every year. You just happened to stumble into the midst of our opening battle.”

Melissa received the answer with wide-eyed wonder, and he wanted to kick himself for not telling her the truth last night when he had the chance.

“I thought you really were a Celtic God,” she chocked out, uncertain if she was angry. “I thought the mist would steal me away from you, and I’d never see you again.” She was rambling from weeks of anxiety.  “Do you know how scared I was every day? I thought that you would ride off, and I’d never be able to find you. I wondered why no one was ever killed, but I thought it was perhaps part of your magic.”

“I’m so sorry, Melissa.” Alex felt like a monster.

“You’re not Celtic Gods?”

“Only in your eyes, love. We are merely humans.”

“Speak for yourself,” Evan interjected and found he was the focus of the room frowning at him. He wanted to crawl under the rug and hide.

“Are you sure I’m not in the past? Your game is very realistic.” She matched his frown.

“I know, but I didn’t want you to leave,” Alex said so softly she had to strain to hear him speak.

She looked down at her feet. “I must have looked like an idiot to all of you.”

“No!” his brothers said loudly and in unison.

Melissa’s sisters had heard enough and pushed their way to stand next to their sister in a protective manner.

“Alex, I’d like you to meet my sisters.”

“Oh, we’d like to meet you, too.” Amber smiled too sweetly. “Wouldn’t we, Sarah?”

Daniel waited for the fireworks to start. Amber was a very tall woman. She was probably what most men would call a statuesque blonde who stood at least six feet tall, thin but shapely, and gorgeous beyond belief. Her smile almost blinded him from across the room.

Sarah was stunningly beautiful with auburn hair, but it was also the fact that her eye color matched her hair color that could drop a man to his knees. He sensed that she was the shy, feisty one.

“Alex, it looks like ye got the runt of the litter.” Daniel put on his best lawyer face and stepped into the melee. Melissa was all of five foot two inches tall.

The tension in the room became strained. Amber stared at Alex. The boys, as Melissa loved to call them, all stared at her sisters. Alex stared at Melissa, and she was getting uneasy.

“Melissa, he probably also forgot to mention he’s married.” Amber looked directly at Alex and made the statement of fact.

Alex flinched, but Melissa also saw sadness in his eyes. Angry, Melissa looked at her sister. “That can’t be true. He would have told me.” She turned her head to look at Alex and then knew.

He hadn’t denied it. Her heart dropped to the floor.

It had finally registered in Melissa’s stunned mind that she was still in the present day. She had spent a month running around the hills of Scotland with a married man, convinced she was trapped in the past.

“Ye’d better tell her the truth,” Daniel insisted.

Alex watched his world end. He couldn’t will his feet to move an inch. He had envisioned taking her in his arms and telling her the entire truth long before now. He had just been so happy. He cleared his throat and exhaled. “Six years ago, I married Catherine.” He waited for Daniel to fill in the blanks.

“There’s more to tell,” Sarah interjected. “I cracked the codes on your Internet site.”

“She cracked the codes.” Iain sounded horrified. “That isn’t possible!”

Alex wouldn’t look away from Melissa. The shock and then anger in her eyes was worse than if she had yelled and screamed. Her face had gone completely pale, and she was trembling.

She knew they were all waiting for her to do something, but she didn’t care at the moment what anyone wanted. She looked at their faces set in a grim frown and their eyes. So this was the reason for the haunted look in Alex’s eyes. The room was spinning around her. It had suddenly become stifling hot inside the hall. Her world had just completely ended.

The memories of him flooded her mind and devastated her senses. How could they withhold such an important detail from her? Was she just a summer fling and now that the game was over he would send her home and return to his wife?

It was ironic that the first man she really, truly loved heart and soul was already married. She took a step back and wanted to run until the pain didn’t engulf her heart and feel like it tore her into tiny little pieces of agony.

Evan nudged Gideon with his elbow. “She’s going tae faint,” he whispered but Gideon’s attention was on Alex who looked like he was going to kill someone.

And then it all hit Melissa at once. “You all lied to me, didn’t you? You all knew I thought I was in the past. Alex is married and not one of you would tell me the truth.” The betrayal crushed her last hope, and a single tear slid down her pale cheek.

“I loved and trusted you all.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

The room exploded in shouting people around her. William yelled at Alex, Gideon yelled at William, and Amber yelled at Daniel. When Daniel asked why she was yelling at him, she unleashed the warrior princess and verbally flayed Alex and his brothers alive. Her furious tirade didn’t stop for nearly five minutes though Alex and Daniel tried to calm her down.

Melissa felt mercifully numb. She couldn’t bear to look at any of them and felt the life drain from her body as tiny pin pricks of black dots clouded her vision. The room was so stifling hot she couldn’t get a breath, and her stomach fluttered.

Her knees started to buckle. This had to be just a nightmare. She would wake up in his arms, she was certain, and he would tell her he would never leave her.

Daniel gave in and yelled louder than all of them. “Alex is now legally divorced. Give him a chance tae make it right with your sister.”

“He had no right to ruin her reputation with this tabloid trash!” Amber yelled back.

Evan stepped into position and caught Melissa as she fainted. “I’m getting damned good at this,” he stated, proud of himself. It was time he took matters into his own hands, literally. He walked out of the room, with Melissa firmly tucked into his arms. He walked out of the house as she started coming around and he had just enough time to put her on the back of a horse and ride off before they knew he was even gone.

Alex saw Evan leave the room with Melissa in his arms. He was suddenly terrified she would never come back. Amber yelled at him, and he truly hated to be rude to her, but he had to go to Melissa and explain. He ran for the door. Evan had just crossed over the ridge. Yorath hadn’t been unsaddled yet, and Alex mounted and headed for the ridge.

The entire camp heard the argument, and the warriors decided to take matters into their own hands. The Laird’s entire camp was saddled and ready to ride in minutes. They had trained for a quick response, and they weren’t about to let her get lost now.

Gideon, Iain, William, and Robert were also saddled and followed Alex. Daniel was left alone with Amber who was now completely furious with them for leaving and wanted to know where they were taking her sister now.

Melissa had her arms around Evan’s waist, and her head rested on his shoulder. He could feel her anger through his body. In truth, he hoped she would scream or cry. The silence was unnerving. He still hoped there would be a happy beginning for them all. She had so much to forgive.

They finally came to a stop, and she got off the horse and walked to the shore.

She couldn’t speak to Evan or anyone else for that matter. Her thoughts were torn between betrayal and the horrible fear she would never see them again. She stood on the shore, hugging her arms around herself for comfort. Her heart was breaking. They couldn’t understand what she felt. Her trust was complete in them, and they didn’t trust her with the truth.

Evan stood beside her, helpless.

Melissa began to tremble and walked out into the waves. Her hands covered her face. “No, please not this. Oh, God, I can’t bear the thought of losing them all.” She dropped to her knees and sobbed hysterically into her hands. The waves crashed against her, soaking her dress, but she was numb to the cold water and her own heart. The pain was unbearable.

Evan picked her up out of the water and brought her back to the shore. “Listen to me, Melissa,” he shouted at her to get through her hysteria. Laying her down on the ground, he began to pace, angry it had come to this day at last.

“There is one person in this world that loves you more than life itself. That’s my idiot brother, Alex. He doesn’t deserve you, and we made sure we told him that every day. If there was any one of us who really objected to the relationship, it was me. I wanted Alex to send you back to your hotel. I didn’t want to go through this day and see you hurt or have our world turned upside down by a woman. But you brought something with you we hadn’t counted on. In your sweet innocence, you brought love back into our lives. We know you love us, too, so don’t give up on all of us because he’s a moron. We’ve had to learn to live with his eccentricities and hoped you would learn to love him enough to see past the Celtic God and know he loved you.”

Evan stopped pacing knowing Alex was standing behind him. “Give him a chance tae explain, Melissa.” With his arms clasped behind his back, he strolled away with a scowl on his face.

Alex’s heart said what he could not find words to say to her.

I stand naked before you

   here in this one moment in time,

I have lost you

   my love come softly now

I must find you

   Can you hear me my dear

     Can you see me so near

Desire

Burns

Forever 

Through the mists of time

I will not give up what is meant to be mine

  The wind whispers in your ear

  Is it love that you truly fear?

A dragon’s heart will beat forever

  Lost in a reign of fire