Reunited (Book 2 of Lost Highlander series) (21 page)

“What has he said to ye?” Lachlan demanded, pulling Quinn off his chair by the scruff of his neck.

Quinn dropped the bread Piper had given him and looked bored.

“He said he’s been waiting for us,” Piper said, giving him a meaningful look as she gobbled down the rest of her breakfast.

Now that everyone was ready and accounted for, they’d be saddling up and trying to get out on the road as fast as they could. Men and road trips didn’t seem to be too much different in either era.

Lachlan had the grace to blush, but covered it by dropping Quinn’s shirt and roughly shoving him.

“Get yer men, we leave at once. We shall be lucky to get to the castle by nightfall at this rate.”

“What’s the hurry, brother?” Quinn said mockingly. “They canna have the feast without ye. Why not extend yer honeymoon?” He winked at Piper and she stopped mid-chew.

She glanced at Lachlan but before she could work up too much confusion, had to jump up and grab Lachlan’s arm as he raised his fist, ostensibly to smash it into Quinn’s face again.

What was up with these two? She was an only child, but she still couldn’t imagine if she had a sibling that there would be so much violence between them. Probably just this barbaric time. Still, she couldn’t let it happen when she was around.

“Lachlan,” she said, grunting under the effort it took to keep his tightly coiled arm from springing. “Let’s just get on the road before it’s too dark to ride.”

The mention of the journey and their time constraints made him relax somewhat. He scowled at Quinn and turned on his heel. She hurriedly followed him, glancing back at Quinn to find him staring after them appraisingly.

As Lachlan helped her onto her horse, she wondered what Quinn had meant with the honeymoon comment. Had he been insulting her? Was that why Lachlan tried to hit him again? If it was an insult it had flown right over her head, but maybe it meant something pretty mean by eighteenth century standards.

She smiled at Lachlan as he adjusted her stirrup to a more appropriate length and a new line of thought caused a flutter of anticipation to pass through her. She knew that Lachlan didn’t get along with his brother, and seemed to feel mostly contempt for him, but they were still brothers. Still the closest family the other one had.

What if Lachlan had told Quinn he intended to marry her? She had to restrain herself from squealing. She and Evie could have a double wedding, something they talked about when they were teenagers. It would be a dream come true.

A year ago she would have shunned the thought of marriage loud and long, but watching Lachlan fix her saddle chased all her old opinions away.  

“Will ye be all right?” he asked when he was done messing with every buckle on the horse’s apparatus.

Her glee was tamped down substantially by the long ride ahead of them. The roads were bad, and it was mostly uphill to Castle Glen. The longest ride she’d taken before was a relaxing two hour meander along a well cleared forest path with Pietro stopping frequently to show her interesting foliage. And she’d needed at least that long of a soak in the tub that night to recover from it. She had serious qualms, but put on a brave face and shrugged.

“Yes, of course,” she said.

He patted her thigh and lifted himself onto his own horse in a smooth, liquid motion which made her heart speed up. She was so proud he was hers. She needed to show that she could make it in this time, even if they didn’t stay. She wanted him to feel the same pride in her.

The group was grumpy and quiet for the first two hours. She gave up trying to make small talk with either Quinn or Lachlan and plodded along in silence, taking in the lush woods on either side of the road.

It was all forest, as far as she could see, marked by a very occasional path that led to a small hut. She tried to decipher where everything should be from her own time, the grocery store, the movie theater, the various neighborhoods. It was all trees now. And what would take forty minutes in a car on the good modern roads, now took torturous hours on horseback.

The sky went from forbidding to straight up accursed after three hours and it was clear that she was holding them back. Quinn and Lachlan had erupted into several arguments, each one curtailed by one of Quinn’s men or herself. The tension was getting worse with every new cloud and crack of thunder.

Finally, she couldn’t keep it in any longer and a groan of pain escaped her lips. Lachlan’s head swiveled around as if he’d heard a gunshot and he got up next to her and took her reins.

“We are stopping,” he called to the others. “Go on ahead without us.”

They paused for a moment until he waved them on with a murderous look, daring them to argue. They broke out into gallops, disappearing around the next bend at a breakneck pace, making Piper feel even worse, seeing how much she’d really been slowing them down. The fastest they’d gone all day was a brisk and painful trot, and she knew it was because of her.

“I’m sorry,” she said as Lachlan helped her out of the saddle. She held onto his middle, not sure her stiff legs would hold her. He helped her to sit in the damp grass on the side of the road. “What must they think of me?”

“They think nothing at all, love,” he said, propping a saddle bag behind her back.

She gratefully collapsed against it as he started massaging her calves. “How close are we?” she asked hopefully.

He looked up at the sky and then off into the distance, his face creased with concern. “Not too far,” he said.

She laughed. “Liar.”

Lachlan plied her with warm beer from the inn, and gave her a brisk and thorough rub down of all her aching muscles before getting her to her feet and helping her walk up and down the road as if she were an old lady.

“How often do ye ride in yer time?” he asked.

Her shoulders slumped. “Not much, and I just learned. Is it that obvious?”

“Aye, ye shouldna have gone as far as ye did.” He handed her the reins of her horse and took his. “Let’s just walk them a bit. Until yer muscles ease up.”

He glared at the sky and she hoped it heeded his warning and wouldn’t rain. It was already plenty dark with the low storm clouds. When it was true night, it was going to be miserable enough out on the road without rain pouring on them.

She plodded along in misery behind him, dragging her horse, whose name she couldn’t remember, and who seemed to radiate contempt every time she had to pull on its bridle to keep it from grazing every patch of green along the side of the road.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

Lachlan turned and shook his head at her. “Lass, do ye think any less of me because I canna ride one of yer automobiles?” He carefully enunciated the word.

“Of course not,” she said, yanking on her piggy horse again.

“As I see it, it is the same thing.”

Her legs grew stronger with every stride. She liked hiking. It was one of the best things about inheriting the estate, all the miles of wonderful forest, full of secret old ruins and foliage that seemed untouched by time. That and her great-grandmother’s amazing collection of clothes.

She was in the swing of things, marching along at a good pace, with Lachlan turning around to smile at her once in a while, her horse finally giving up trying to eat every two steps and even giving her a friendly nudge on the shoulder.

They’d been walking for such a long time she wondered if Quinn and the others made it to the castle yet. It must have been getting close to dusk. The persistent clouds made it impossible to judge the time.

Starting to feel antsy to get a roof over her head, she was about to call up to Lachlan that she thought she could ride again when thunder as loud as a cannon blast boomed directly above them. Even Lachlan flinched.

He looked at her apologetically as the sky opened up and an icy torrent crashed down on them. He tried to shield her by pulling her under his arm as he led the horses off the road and into the forest.

They huddled under a tree, its branches offering a small amount of protection, though it was blustering so hard, the rain seemed to be coming at them sideways as well as from above.

She clung to Lachlan, blinded by the stinging rain. He tied the horses to the tree and tried to get them to stand close together, positioning her so she could stand under their heads, but then she just got pelted with water that had first landed on a dusty horse, which ran in dirty rivulets down her neck and arms.

He leaned down and hollered in her ear that he would be right back, and took off running. He was gone from her sight after just a few steps and she tried not to panic. She never would have thought anyone could drown in a rainstorm until this one.

A few minutes later and he was back, yelling something that she couldn’t hear over the crashing waterfall of rain. He quickly untied the horses and grabbed her hand, leading all of them through the forest at a snail’s pace.

The rain started to taper off as they slogged through the flooded underbrush, and it was a mere drizzle when she saw a hut several hundred yards ahead of them. She noticed Lachlan looked relieved.

“I wasna sure it was here,” he said. “I know ye can see it from the road, further down the bend, and I was hoping to reach it from this direction.”

“I hope they’ll let us stay until the rain stops.”

She peered into the distance and thought she saw smoke coming out of the chimney. The drizzle had become little more than an annoying mist, but she was soaked through from the downpour and would be thrilled to sit by a fire. Lachlan tossed his head, sending a shower of drops from his drenched hair.

“Aye, they will,” he said. “I’m surprised they are even home. Most of the crofters are at the castle preparing for the celebration.”

When they got to the door, he knocked and waited, turning his head to the side to hear if anyone was in there. When no one answered, he pushed the door open a crack and looked in.

His eyes widened and he threw the door open so hard it nearly broke off its hinges, bellowing with rage at what he saw.

Piper scurried after him to find him holding a half naked man by the back of his neck, smashing his face into the rough wall of the cottage.

There was a girl sitting on a small mattress in the middle of the floor, dressed only in her shift, which she was scrambling to pull down over her thighs.

“Lachlan, stop that,” she screamed, jumping up.

The earth under Piper’s feet seemed to shift slightly when she realized the girl had called him by his name. But of course she knew him, they were on Glen land. Lachlan was merely coming to her rescue, whether she needed it or not.

She pushed down the fact that calling him by his first name seemed awfully familiar, especially coming from someone so young, and to a respected laird and honored guest of the castle.

The man who was pinioned to the wall turned his face to the side and asked what was going on.

Recognition jolted through her and her knees started to buckle. She blinked, but the scene remained the same.

“Pietro?” she cried and he tried to crane his neck to see her.

She might have laughed if her heart wasn’t about to burst from her throat. She’d been so worried about Pietro disappearing into the past and the lothario had gone and shacked up with some crofter’s daughter.

Lachlan mashed him harder against the wall, but turned to Piper, eyes full of confusion and more angry than she’d ever seen him.

“Who is this?” he thundered.

It seemed Lachlan was about to kill Pietro, well and truly kill him, if she didn’t do something. She was so shocked she couldn’t answer fast enough and Lachlan turned to the girl.

“Who is this, Bella?” he repeated in an even scarier voice.

Pietro made a valiant attempt to hit Lachlan in the ribs, and managed to wrench free, whirling around and ducking out from under Lachlan’s grip.

When he saw Piper he stopped dead, eyes round and face going slack as if he might pass out, giving Lachlan time to knock him to the ground and plant a knee in his back.

“What’s going on?” Pietro choked. “Ah, crap, is this—” he was cut off by Lachlan viciously bashing him in the side of the head.

“‘Tis my husband,” Bella wailed.

Piper’s heart stopped trying to get out of her throat and dropped like a stone. It might have turned to stone.

Tiny lights started winking on and off in her vision when she heard the woman scream that Lachlan was her husband. She staggered forward with her hands out, begging Lachlan to tell her it wasn’t true.

The despair on his face when he turned and saw her told her that it was true and she stopped dead, a small whimper managing to escape from her lips. For a moment it was so quiet all she could hear was Pietro’s ragged breathing and the patter of water from their sodden clothes falling in drops to the floor.

 Her heartbeat echoed in her ears as she turned to really look at the girl, face flushed and pretty, even in her state of distress. Had she really said it? The words were crashing around in her head like a crow caught in the barn, but she couldn’t make them real. Husband? Her husband. Lachlan?

As her world crashed in on her, she turned and ran for the door before she passed out or threw up in front of the dainty, darling Bella. Lachlan’s wife.