Now and Forever (35 page)

His gaze moved from her face to her breasts and belly and for an instant she wished she was wearing a sedate maillot. She rose to her feet and threw back her shoulders, daring him to challenge her right to make the rules for her own land.

 
#

The lass was nearly naked. She stood there with the stance of a warrior, almost daring him to look at her. Had she no modesty? The sight of her body, barely covered by the narrow strips of yellow fabric, enflamed him with desire unlike anything he had ever known. Heat, dark and dangerous, threatened to overcome years of civilized behavior and turn him into a rutting stallion.

May the good Lord forgive him, but he wanted nothing more than to strip the lass of her garments and have her right there in full view of God and man.

Where Emilie had been tall and strapping, this woman was small and finely-made, but he sensed that she was not a woman easily bested in any way. This was a woman a man courted, not one you lay down with then forgot come the morrow.

With great difficulty he tore his eyes away from the splendor of her ripely curved body and glanced at his surroundings and what he saw made his heart beat even faster. That wasn't a pond as he knew ponds to be. Not only was it a perfect rectangle filled with bright blue water, but a long wooden board extended out over one end. White stripes were faintly visible beneath the water.

"Haven't you heard a single thing I've said?" the almost-naked lass snapped. He looked back at her, and felt a new rush of desire that rattled him to his bones. "Will your spotters be able to find you?"

Spotters? What in bloody hell was a spotter? "Nay, mistress," he said with deliberate caution. "I come alone."

She tilted her head to the right at the sound of his voice. "A Scotsman, is it?" A long and lovely sigh floated on the air toward him. "I suppose no one told you this property was off-limits."

He nodded. Agreeing with her seemed the wisest course of action until he knew what she was about.

 
#

Something was obviously wrong with the poor man. He seemed incapable of stringing more than a handful of words together at any one time and, truth to tell, he was starting to look a bit the worse for the wear.

"You're pale as a ghost," she said. "Did you hit your head when you landed?"

"I have no wish to cause you alarm, mistress. If you would show me the direction to town I will bid you a good night."

He rolled his
r
's like a refugee from an old Hollywood costume drama. She'd known a Scotsman or two in her life and they certainly didn't sound like him. Or look like him, for that matter.

"I'm nowhere near town," she said carefully. "You just flew over my house. You should know that."

 
"A post road then," he persisted. He looked up at the sky. "Enough daylight remains to cover considerable ground once I find my way."

The poor man must have struck his head. He might even have a concussion. She hated to think he was merely dense. "I think you'd better come inside," she said. She'd give him something cold to drink while they waited for his pals to track him down.

No response from him. Why on earth should that surprise her? The man was silent as the tomb. She turned around to find him squatting down next to the chaise longue. He was staring at the sections of the Sunday
Times
scattered about the way primitive man must have stared at fire.

She started to say something flip and funny but the words died in her throat. Dear God, but he was magnificent in his own way. His thick brown hair was pulled back into a pony tail and tied with a strip of leather. His face was craggy, his features rough-hewn. It was the face of a man who had braved the elements and more than one man's wrath. He wasn't handsome by anyone's standards still he was the most compelling male she'd ever seen. His eyes were a golden hazel with flecks of green, unspectacular as eyes went, but there was something else at work, an indefinable something that stole her breath. He was of no more than medium height but he had about him an aura of such solidity, such strength, that an ache began deep inside her heart that felt much like yearning.

My life will never be the same after today.
The thought came to her full-blown, as clear as if she'd spoken the words aloud and she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
This is the man you've dreamed about. There is no one else like him in the world.

She pushed aside the ridiculous thought, the same way she'd learned to push aside her fears. What an overblown, ridiculously romantic notion. The man had fallen out of a hot air balloon--and gracelessly at that. He wasn't a knight on a white charger come to rescue her from her lonely life

They'd go inside, he'd make a phone call, drink some cold water, and then he'd be on his way.

And Shannon's life would go on same as it had before he walked out of the woods and made her remember how it felt to want something she could never have.

Chapter Two

The evidence was there in front of Andrew's eyes. Printed across the top of each page of the newspaper were the words
Sunday August 29, 1993.

He was not a man given to great emotion, but his hands trembled as he put the paper back down.
Done,
he thought.
The deed has been done.

The world he knew was naught but a memory, a relic consigned to a chapter or two in a dusty history book. General Washington. Thomas Jefferson. He paused as a huge lump formed in his throat.
Emilie and Zane.

Gone, all of them, vanished into the mists of time.

For one powerful moment the enormity of what he'd done swept over him, filling him with a sense of loss that threatened to be his undoing. But then his eye was caught by a picture in the lower left-hand corner of the first page of the newspaper. The words beneath the picture made no sense to him:
Shuttle Blast Success- Astronauts Eager
. But the picture...good God in heaven, what artist had imagined such a sight? A towering structure that proudly angled toward the skies, leaving a trail of fire in its wake.

It was indeed a world of wonders even more heart-stopping than those Emilie and Zane had described. And now he was part of it all.

The last of his doubts vanished in a surge of elation that sent his spirits soaring higher than the balloon that had carried him through two centuries to this place and this time. It mattered little that he had seen other time travelers making similar journeys. All that mattered was that he had accomplished the impossible.
 
He had seized opportunity with both hands and wrought a miracle.

He sensed the dark-haired woman's gaze intent upon him and looked up. Indeed she watched him openly, her aqua eyes wide, her expression most curious. Suddenly he felt the need to keep his method of travel to himself, although he could not say way. Despite the evidence to the contrary, Emilie and Zane had been of the opinion that traveling through time in a balloon was an uncommon occurrence. Better to keep his own counsel until he knew the situation in which he found himself.

Would you believe me, lass,
he wondered,
or would you mark me for a fool?

 
#

"Did you say something?" Shannon asked.

"Nay, mistress."

"I'm sure you did."

"Nay," he said. "'Tis your imagination."

"No," she replied, "you said something. I heard you."

He said nothing.

You're losing your mind,
Shannon thought.
Look at the way he's watching you, as if you were certifiable.
She slipped into her terry robe and pulled it close to her body, though she didn't know why she bothered. The Scotsman made her feel exposed in a way that had little to do with bare skin. There was no accounting for the odd sensation that had gripped her at the first sight of him striding across the lawn as if it was his name on the mortgage instead of hers.

The accent,
she thought.
If he didn't have that accent, I would've sent him packing.
She'd always been a sucker for a man with a burr.

"You can bring the paper inside with you," she said in a dry tone of voice, meant to hide the rapid thudding of her heart. "I don't mind."

"'Tis most interesting," he said, straightening up.

"Apparently so." She noted the way he clutched it close to his chest. "I don't suppose they have anything like the
Times
where you come from."

"Nay, mistress. We have naught to compare."

"What on earth is with this 'mistress' bit anyway?" She felt suddenly contentious. "A bit archaic, don't you think?"

Again that look of uncertainty, which was so much at odds with the aura of raw masculinity that he projected with so little effort. "I have no knowledge of your Christian name."

She couldn't hold back a soft laugh of surprise.
 
"Shannon Whitney."

"Andrew McVie." He inclined his head. "Would you be married, lass?"

"I have to hand it to you Scotsmen. You certainly don't waste any time."

He looked at her blankly.

She felt her cheeks flush with color. "I was married. I'm not any longer."

"A widow."

"No," she said, "a divorcee."

"'Tis an epidemic."

"What is?"

"Divorce," he said, shaking his head. "Mistress Emilie and Rutledge were torn asunder by the malady. How is it that marriage has fallen into such disfavor?"

"Welcome to the 90s," she said, again struck by the feeling he was unlike any man she would ever know. "Half the marriages in this country end in divorce."

"Such a thing is not possible."

"Good grief, McVie. What rock have you been hiding under? I can't believe it's that different in Scotland."

"How is it you believe I know of life in Scotland?"

"You're certainly not from New Jersey."

"I was born north of Boston."

"I know Boston accents and that isn't one of them."

"I speak the truth."

She sighed. "I'm sure you do but why is it I have the feeling we're having two separate conversations here?"

"Mistress?"

She waved her hand in the air between them. "Never mind." The man had crashed into the trees a few minutes ago. Was it any wonder his conversation didn't quite track? "Let's get you a chair and something cold to drink." With a little luck his people would spot the balloon and come to fetch him before nightfall.

"Aye," he said. "'Twould be most agreeable."

The man was a bundle of opposing forces. One second she was certain he was coming on to her and the next, he was bemoaning the prevalence of divorce in America. He was as solidly built as an oak tree, yet she sensed a vulnerability in him that touched her in a way little else ever could have.

All of which was patently absurd. She didn't know the slightest thing about him, save for the fact that he was one of those hot-air balloon enthusiasts who drove her nuts every summer like clockwork. So what if he had a delectable accent? So what if he was built like a powerful oak tree? If anyone knew the utter unimportance of externals it was Shannon and she'd be doing herself a favor if she kept that fact uppermost in her mind.

"The necessary," he said. "Where would it be?"

"The necessary?"

"The privy, mistress."

"The bathroom. Why didn't you just say so? There's one down the hall near the kitchen."

 
#

A privy inside the house, near the kitchen? Andrew's stomach roiled at the thought.

Surely the lass had misunderstood him. He followed her along the stone path to the door at the side of the house. A wooden structure that looked a great deal like a privy stood not far from the striped pond with the bright blue water. He started to say something to Mistress Shannon then remembered the wonders Emilie and Zane had told him about and he held his tongue again. Mayhap there were more miracles to be discovered.

He found it hard to forget how she looked beneath the short white robe. Her fingernails were painted a soft shade of pink and to his amazement he saw that her toenails were painted thus as well.