Reunited (Book 2 of Lost Highlander series) (16 page)

He frowned and got red in the face, then pulled Evie into a hug.

About time, Piper thought. She knew she could have made a run for the kitchen at that point, but wanted to see it play out. She felt a tear welling up, thinking about how she was going to spoil the heck out of her godchild.

“Are you okay?” Sam asked her, his voice muffled in Evie’s hair.

Evie nodded and looked up at him. “Are you?” she asked.

He laughed and kissed her. “This is amazing. Kind of weird timing, but really …” He took a step back and dropped into the nearby armchair. “Jesus.” He looked at Evie as if she were a fascinating science project. “Oh, wow.”

Evie propped herself on the arm of the chair and threw her arms around him, laughing. They started babbling excitedly to each other as Sam pulled her onto his lap.

Feeling like an intruder, Piper hurriedly rewrapped the book and pendant and slipped out to find Lachlan. As soon as she was in the hallway, the happiness from the library evaporated and she was left with the twin specters of losing Lachlan again and possibly ceasing to exist at any given moment.

She looked down with revulsion at the paper wrapped bundle in her hands and felt the shakes starting to come on. Before she lost her nerve she set out at a dead run for the kitchen, skidding into Lachlan as he was coming out, presumably to find her. He grabbed her arms to keep her from flying backwards, dropping them and stepping away from her when he saw what she was carrying. The look on his face made her feel icy cold all over.

“I’m not like her,” she said, praying it was true.

She didn’t understand why she had the strange power to do the things that Daria did. She didn’t want to admit that she thought about the book all the time, the heady power she had felt when she read it.

“Maybe it’s just genetic,” she continued, ignoring his puzzled look. “In our blood, I don’t know. I don’t want to use it for evil.”

“Perhaps the whole of it is evil,” he mused.

His gaze was empty and tired, then he fixed it on her and she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. A spark was there in the blue depths of his eyes. He was still there. He hadn’t given up on them.

“We stay together?” she said.

She phrased it as a question, knowing it wasn’t.

“Aye.” He gathered her into his arms. “Tell yer friends. We shall try it yer way in the morning.”

They reached the village after an hour of hard riding and hid on the outskirts until dusk, keeping a lookout for guards from the estate.

When they trotted through the muddy, deserted streets, Pietro felt panic rising again. Besides the much smaller graveyard and medieval church at the top of the high street, nothing was the same. And it was dark. He’d expected gas lamps or torches, maybe some sort of scene like from an old American cowboy movie.

He had to keep swallowing near hysterical laughter, because the village he was used to was actually considered an historical village. The oldest pub in the town square was from 1790. The stable, which had been converted into a meeting hall, was built around that same time. Where in the hell were those buildings?

“What is here?” he asked, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice. “Where can we trade the horse?”

Bella twisted around to answer him. “We canna trade the horse. This fair beast ye stole is well known about here. Bane is my father’s favorite horse.”

“Your father’s favorite …” he reached around and took the reins from her, halting the aptly named Bane where they stood in the middle of the village street.

He slid off and stalked away, spitting out every foul word he could think of, and looking for a nice big rock that he could use to bash his head in. When he was thirty yards away, he ran out of curses and turned back around.

Bella had dismounted and was waiting next to Bane. He could barely see the black stallion’s outline in the dark, and as if to taunt him, the horse swung his mane and pawed the ground. It was a beautiful horse. He’d been purely showing off when he chose that monster to steal, hoping to impress her. Now they couldn’t trade it, and they certainly couldn’t keep traipsing to Edinburgh on it.

“Do we have enough money to buy a new horse?” he asked her, not caring what she thought of his questions. “Or two horses? We can give Bane here his head and he’ll be back at the estate in no time, but we must be on our way.”

She dug in her bag and pulled out several of the coins, looking at him skeptically.

“This ought to get us something that will take us at least to the Campbell’s land. We can trade with them. My family is on bad terms with the Campbells so they have no’ seen me since I was six. They’ll no’ recognize me.”

She said this as if it was good news, and Pietro took the coins and headed in the direction she pointed.

Past a two story inn he’d never seen, he came to a shut up outbuilding with a small stable behind it. He pounded on the door and looked into the glassless window. A fire was burning in what looked like a stone pizza oven, but no one was around.

“The inn is over yonder.” A small, stooped man hobbled speedily out of the house and started shooing him away. “Get yerself off.”

He glared at Pietro through one buggy eye, the other covered with a rag wrapped around his head. A larger man filled the doorway behind him, taking up the bit of light the open door had provided. Pietro steadied himself in case another attack was forthcoming and held out one of the coins.

“I’m traveling and my horse was stolen. I was told at the inn, ye may sell me one?”

He stood his ground while the two men grumbled to one another, casting him the occasional evil eye.

“Are ye here for the great feast, then?” the wizened, one eyed man all but accused.

“Aye, that’s right,” Pietro said, feeling bold. “So many strangers about, there was bound to be some crime. I was unlucky and daft to be traveling alone.”

He crossed his fingers that he hadn’t gone too far, but finally the old man nodded abruptly.

With a long sigh, the large man came forward and walked silently past Pietro and to the stable. Pietro hurried after him. There were two horses, each one rather undesirable compared to the spirited, strong stallion they’d been riding. He quickly examined them by the light of the lamp the taciturn man held up for him and begrudgingly made his choice.

“That’ll be Thistle. She’s a fine lass.”

The man started saddling Thistle, motioning for Pietro to go do business with the older man, who was waiting in the yard.

All Pietro could do was hold out the coins Bella had given him and hope the man didn’t cheat him. At any rate, the man didn’t take all of the money, and seemed friendlier after he’d pocketed it, offering Pietro a drink of some sour whiskey in a wooden cup. Pietro knocked back the drink gratefully, getting what he thought was a laugh out of the old fellow.

He found Bella where he’d left her on the side of the road, standing in the shadows of the inn, leaning against Bane and sniffling.

“Having second thoughts?” he asked, feeling a new kind of panic.

What would be his purpose in this adventure if his damsel wanted to go home, deciding she didn’t need saving?

“No,” she said shakily, coming forward to look at Thistle.

She offered him a weak smile and to keep her from looking over their new horse too thoroughly, and because he needed it, he wrapped his arms around her.

She returned his hug and rested her head against his chest. He felt her melt into him for a moment before straightening up and glancing at the moon.

“We’ll be to the Campbell’s before dawn if we start straight away.”

She leaned back and gave him a look that dazed him, before standing on her toes to kiss him. The intensity of the feelings she inspired in him shocked him. He hungrily started to kiss her back when a gust of rain blew over them.

“Seriously?” Pietro asked no one in particular as he mounted, pulling Bella up and settling her in front of him.

She pointed the proper direction and they set off as briskly as he thought Thistle could manage in the low light of the moon. After fifteen minutes, the sky opened up and poured icy sheets of rain on them. Thistle kept twisting her head around, as if to tell them she thought they were crazy for not finding shelter, and Bella burrowed against him, shivering. He tried to cover her as much as he could, and relentlessly kept the horse to its pace, knowing that things would be worse if they stopped and were caught.

He was drenched and frozen, but now knew that Bella was someone the estate guards knew by name. Either they thought he was abducting her, or had seduced her somehow into coming with him, but they knew he wasn’t her husband. If caught, all blame would be on him, and he doubted he’d get a chance to plead his case, nor would they spare a moment to listen to any defense Bella might give. He would be killed on sight, of that he was sure.

He held her tightly to try to calm her violent shivering, and shook the rain out of his eyes for the hundredth time. A crack of thunder shredded his already frayed nerves and within moments lightning lit up the night.

Something caught his eye a short way into the woods off the side of the road and he pulled the horse over to get a better look.

“Is that a hut?” he yelled over the noise of the downpour.

He nudged the reluctant Thistle into the trees, which gave them a slight bit of respite from the beating rain.

She was shivering so much that if she answered him, he didn’t make it out. Not giving a damn about anything other than getting out of the torrential downpour, he kicked the horse in the direction he thought he’d seen the hut.

They would have walked right past it and on into the bowels of the forest if it hadn’t been for another bolt of lightning showing they were far to the right of it, but that it was blessedly really there.

It was completely dark, and when he jumped off of Thistle to investigate saw that it was a one room cabin. In the back it had a slight overhang to its roof, so he helped Thistle cram under it and tied her lead to a nearby sapling. It was the best he could do for her short of trying to finagle her into the tiny cabin.

Bella nearly collapsed when he helped her out of the saddle and he half carried her into the room.

A derelict chair covered with a moldy looking cushion leaned against the wall in one corner. A narrow pallet lay on the floor in the center of the room and a table with a chipped washbasin stood next to a pile of peat bricks beside the small fireplace. She slid down the wall and sat on the floor.

With a curse, he unsaddled the horse and removed the saddle blanket. It was soaked around the edges but the part that had been under the saddle was still dry. It felt like a major victory, and he wrung out the wet parts before spreading it on the straw pallet.

Wordlessly, she fell onto the center of the blanket and curled into a ball. He was overcome with exhaustion and huddled next to her. Oblivious to the storm raging outside, they were soon asleep.

A massive crack of thunder awoke him with a start and he sat straight up to find Bella futzing around a small, merry fire she’d made in the fireplace.

“Ye’re a miracle worker,” he said, his voice hoarse.

She’d taken off her dress and was in her slightly damp shift. Between their wet clothes and the fire, the cabin had become almost pleasantly warm and steamy.

“This actually doesn’t suck,” he said, surprised.

She gave him a look and he wondered exactly how rude he’d just been.

“Ye’re no’ from Scotland,” she accused. “Sometimes, I think aye, perhaps I’m wrong, but ye dinna even speak the language properly.”

“Ah, aye,” he said, moving closer to the fire. He’d been about to strip out of his wet clothes, but now it seemed a bad idea. “I think I should tell ye some things. And in return, will ye tell me about yourself?”

He held out his arms like a scarecrow to speed the drying of his shirt.

With a look of annoyance, she started tugging on his shirt. “Do ye want to catch yer death?” she asked, her face softening as she got close to him. “Ye needn’t worry about offending me. I dinna mind ye with no clothes on.”

“Oh no?” he asked, leaning over to kiss her.

“That’ll be enough of the distractions,” she said, swatting him away. “We must be serious.”

“Ye’re right, Bella,” he said, jumping right in, not knowing whether he should be completely forthcoming or not. “I’m not from here.” He stopped, because that was not the truth. He’d lived in Castle on Hill since he was a baby. “I mean, I am, but …“ he stopped. “I was born in Verona,” he said, strictly the truth and the best he could do.

“Romeo and Juliet?” she asked, her eyes widening. “‘Tis so far away.”

“Aye, where Romeo and Juliet took place.” He paused, wondering how different the ancient city of his birth would be in this time. “I am from very far away. My home is very different from this place.”

“Why did ye come here?”

He knew it was now or never, and he couldn’t muster the strength necessary to say the words. For one, he still wasn’t sure he believed it himself. He could be in a coma, that was still a very viable explanation for all this. If she was just a wonderful creation of his dream, it wouldn’t matter what he told her. She put her hand on his shoulder and ran it down his arm, raising goosebumps on his skin. It felt real enough.