Spell of the Highlander (12 page)

Then there was the matter of the clothing he’d brought
her . . .
smelling of another woman’s perfume. She had on hip-hugging
Lucky
jeans (with the cheeky words
Lucky You
stamped on the inside of her fly) that were X-treme Low Ride—as in, she sure wouldn’t be sitting down with her backside facing a roomful of people anytime soon—and a white, V-necked sweater so snug that it would have revealed every line of her bra.

If only he’d brought her one.

Oh, well. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. All she needed to do was get to her car and she could toss a jacket over it.

When he’d returned to the room and thrust the bundle of clothing into her hands, she’d exclaimed,
Where did you get—

Hush,
he’d said instantly.
Dress and move. We must accomplish as much as possible as quickly as possible. When the glass reclaims me, we will have time to talk then.

Okay.
She’d shrugged. She knew she couldn’t extricate herself from her current problems. Maybe he could. He’d already managed to accomplish two things she’d not thought she’d had a snowball’s chance in hell of accomplishing: body disposal and clothing procuring. Though she really would have liked a bra. Enthusiastic was hardly an adjective she would have applied to herself at the moment, but parts of her were acting downright perky with every step. She hoped she wouldn’t need to run for any reason.

The lobby was nearly deserted at this early hour. As they stepped into the long, gleaming foyer, her attention was drawn by a ripped, steroid-bulked man standing at the front desk with his arm around a sultry blonde who didn’t look nearly as distraught as he. Coincidentally, he looked like exactly the kind of guy who might wear an
Ironman
T-shirt.

The man was shouting furiously at two desk clerks. Good, Jessi thought. She couldn’t shake the paranoid feeling that any moment now a police officer was going to appear out of thin air and arrest them. Any distraction was a welcome one. Hopefully the clerks would be so busy dealing with the irate brute that they wouldn’t notice her and Cian skulking out. Although, with a six-and-a-half-foot-tall mirror tucked beneath his arm, nothing the six-and-a-half-foot Cian MacKeltar did remotely resembled skulking.

Cian’s hand tightened on hers. “Hurry, lass.”

She picked up the pace, jouncing jauntily along.

“I’m telling you, the man is one of your guests. I watched him go back up on the elevator. The son of a bitch took our clothes!” the man shouted.

Jessi blinked. Eyed the man and his wife. Glanced down at herself.

Glanced up at Cian.

He shrugged. “Not all of them. I left them their undergarments.” When her brows rose, he added, “They were our size. We needed clothing. I suspected they had more, and look, they do. I ran into them in the elevator. Keep walking, lass. Move.”

They were halfway across the lobby when the man abruptly threw his hands up in exasperation and whirled around.

Oh no, here it comes,
Jessi thought, stiffening.
We’re screwed. Now he’ll call the cops. We’re going to jail.

“There he is!” the man roared furiously. “That’s the prick who made my wife take off her clothes!”

Jessi noticed the sultry blonde wasn’t looking too terribly upset by it, not nearly as upset as her husband seemed to be. She had a sudden vision of the pretty woman stripping down to her panties and bra in front of Cian and had the weirdest urge to go punch her. As if anything was the blond woman’s fault.

“You will be silent and cease looking at us. The four of you will turn and face the wall. Now,”
Cian said coolly.

Jessi rolled her eyes. Obviously Cian MacKeltar had been some kind of aristocrat or member of the ruling class in his time. A feudal lord, maybe, perhaps even a relation to one of the ancient Pict kings, or Kenneth MacAlpin himself. He behaved like a tyrannical dictator, expecting the world to obey his slightest whims.
Cease looking at us,
indeed!

“Oh, please, you don’t really think they’re going to—” Jessi scoffed, only to break off in stunned disbelief.

Four people had just turned, as one, to face the wall behind the Check-In desk, without uttering so much as another peep. Not a curse, not a protest, not even an ill-concealed, disgruntled sigh.

She blinked at the bizarre sight. Then gaped up at Cian. Then back at the obedient little sheep.

“You will not attempt to follow us when we leave,”
Cian added.
“You will remain silent and unmoving until well after we’re gone.”

His words reminded her of the way he’d dispatched Mark in the hallway, how he’d ordered the valets about and dominated the desk clerk when they’d checked in.

How was he doing it? What
was
Cian MacKeltar?

“Come, lass,” he said.

She stood rooted to the ground for a moment, assessing herself suspiciously, trying to decide whether she was feeling, in the least little way, compelled in some strange way to obey him.

Nope.

She inched away from him, just to be sure. Tipped up her nose defiantly. Made a face at him.

Ducky. She felt just like her usual self, chock-full of free will.

But apparently
they
weren’t, she thought, looking at people at the desk again.

“What did you do to them?” she demanded.

“‘Twould require a lengthy explana—”

“I know, I know,” she interrupted peevishly, “and we don’t have time, right? Fine. Just tell me this: Could you make them erase all record of my having been here from their computers?”

He looked perplexed a moment, then slow understanding dawned in his whisky eyes. “Ah, you mean so you cannot be linked to the blood-stained room! Aye, I can do that. You must direct me, though. There is much about your century that eludes me.”

They hastened to the desk, where Jessi told him what to do.

He issued a series of terse commands to the clerks, and Jessi watched in abject fascination as they complied without hesitation, pulling up their files for Room 2112. They rescinded all credit transactions, deleted all records, and wiped her clean from the hotel’s memory banks. Whatever he was doing and however he was doing it, the man packed a serious punch in the charismatic persuasion department.

There was one great big problem solved. Gone were her visions of oversized beetles and roaches, and calling her mother from some Third-World country.

As they were finishing up, Jessi stepped away from Cian and circled around him to stare at the bodybuilder and his wife. They were motionless, silent, staring at the wall. Their eyes had the same glazed, eerily vacant expression as the clerk’s. Somehow she’d overlooked that before, too, probably because she’d always been too busy looking at the sexy Highlander to really notice much about the people around him.

“What did you do to them? How?”

Tucking the mirror back beneath his arm, he took her hand. “Not now, lass. We must make haste.”

“‘Not now,’ ” she grumbled. “How come whenever I have questions, it’s always ‘not now’? Will it
ever
be now?”

12

“Can you not make greater haste?” Cian glanced at Jessica over the top of the mirror that was once again propped on its side between the auto’s bucket seats.

He hated not knowing how long he had. It imbued everything with a heightened sense of urgency.

“Only if you can somehow order rush-hour traffic in Chicago on a rainy Friday morning to go somewhere else,” she said with a roll of her eyes, waving a hand at the wall-to-wall cars packing the streets. Then she frowned at him over the mirror. “You can’t, right?”

“Nay. Lass, you must go as fast as ’tis possible. Seize any opportunity to escape this pandemonium.”

Returning to full immersion in his thoughts, he barely heard her sardonic “Aye, aye, sir.”

The second attack had come long before he’d expected it. Truth be told, he’d not expected it at all. Not once they’d checked into her immense “hotel.”

It had made him realize that he was at a tremendous disadvantage in her century, one for which he couldn’t compensate. For, though he’d devoured tomes and papers and incessantly studied the world beyond Lucan’s window—preparing, always preparing for any opportunity to take his chance at vengeance—though he knew of such things as computers and cars and airplanes and televisions, he knew also the world’s current population. And the ninth-century Highlander in him had believed—as far as they’d traveled from her university into the heart of a city of such proportions—that they’d be as difficult to locate as a dust mote in a haystack the size of all of Scotland.

He’d been wrong. Dead wrong.

He simply couldn’t fathom the bird’s-eye view of her world. He might be familiar with the statistics, he might be cognizant of modern inventions, but he couldn’t
feel
the way things were put together. All the book learning in the world wouldn’t keep a man alive in battle. A warrior had to know and understand his terrain.

And he didn’t.

He needed to get her somewhere he did. Lucan would not take this woman. He would not let the bastard harm so much as a hair on her lovely head. “I doona ken how he found us,” he muttered darkly.

There was a gusty sigh beside him. “I do. I’m a dick,” Jessi informed him glumly.

He glanced over at her, lips twitching. Modern idioms were confounding, but at least he recognized them for what they were. “Nay, lass, I doona see that. Naught about you resembles any portion of my anatomy,” he said playfully, seeking to lighten her mood and prevent her from dwelling on the horrifying scene that had played out so recently in front of her.

He’d never been so frustrated in his life as he’d felt, trapped inside the glass, having to push her, goad her by threatening to let her go to jail to get her to stop screaming, when all he’d really wanted to do was pull her into his arms and gentle her with his body. Take her cries with his kisses, comfort her. Remove the damned offending corpse from her environ.

Instead, he’d told her stories from his childhood to try to take her mind away and help her pass the time. Speaking soft and low, he’s woven what Highland magic for her he could. He’d left out the grimmer memories, those of a lad at a tender ten years of age who’d been responsible for choosing battles and sides and sending men who’d been his father’s closest companions, men who’d been as fathers to
him,
off to die.

A lad made laird in the Highlands at birth grew up fast. Or lost his clan. Or died. He accepted neither loss nor death easily.

He’d told her instead of summer days of sunshine and heather, of the icy pleasure of a cool loch on a hot day, of tales of his seven bonny sisters and their endless quests for husbands of whom he would approve.

At last, the panicked expression had receded from her eyes. She was no willy-nilly peahen. In fact, by the hour, his estimation of her continued to rise.

She was a fascinating woman.

And not for you,
the tatters of his humanity warned.

Nay, not for him, he agreed with those tatters, glad they were tatters and not capable of mounting a compelling argument.

For he
would
have her. Despite the feeble protests of his honor, he was going to seduce her the moment he got her somewhere safe. He’d known since the night she’d licked him that he was going to make her his woman. Consequences be damned.

Why not? He already was.

Before disposing of the assassin’s body, he’d searched the dead woman thoroughly. She’d carried nothing but weapons. He’d relieved her of a knife and two guns, which were now concealed in his boots.

The woman had not meant to kill his Jessica.

Had she, she would have used one of the guns. He knew a great deal about modern weapons; they fascinated him. He’d long itched to get his hands on a gun and test its capabilities. There was a ninth-century warrior in him that would never lose his love of a good battle and fine armament.

No, the assassin had intended to subdue his woman, not kill her. ’Twas the why of the needle, not the blade or the bullet.

The realization had given birth to a whole new wellspring of hatred for his long-time gaoler. Somehow Lucan had learned of Jessica St. James and wanted her alive. From time to time, Lucan had entertained himself with a woman before the Dark Glass, uncaring if she saw or heard Cian, because the woman didn’t survive to tell of it anyway. Lucan liked to break things. He always had. The harder it was to break, the more he enjoyed it.

But those were dark thoughts. Thoughts from a time that would never be again, for he would never again be owned by Lucan Trevayne. Never again be forced to hang on that bastard’s wall and watch an innocent woman sexually brutalized and murdered.

No matter the price of vengeance. Of freedom.

He’d come to terms with that price long ago.

“Don’t you want to know what I did?” she was saying.

“Aye, I do.” His gaze fixed on her profile. She nibbled her lower lip a moment and it made him abruptly rock-hard at the mere thought of her luscious mouth nibbling on
him
.

“I used a credit card.” She sounded disgusted with herself. “I know in books and movies the bad guys always track you by credit or ATM transactions, but I thought that was just an exaggeration cultivated by the media to facilitate plot momentum. That if it could really be done, it would take time—like days or a week.” She frowned up at him. “I mean, come on, how powerful is this Lucan-guy that he can find out where I’ve used my credit card within hours of my using it?”

He firmly corralled his lustful thoughts. He needed to understand such matters. They were imperative to his ability to keep her alive and safe from harm. “Explain to me about ‘credit cards,’ lass.” He’d once seen an advertisement on television for such a thing, where club-wielding, painted warriors had poured down in a bloodthirsty horde on someone who’d chosen the wrong card, but he couldn’t begin to see how using such a thing had betrayed them.

When she’d clarified its purpose, and explained the records generated by the use of it, he snorted. Now he understood how Lucan had found them so quickly. Bloody hell—was there no such thing as privacy left in her world? Everything was connected to everything else by those computers of hers. All a man did and said was a matter of public or semipublic record, which was appalling to a mountain man who liked to keep his matters his own. “He’s that powerful, lass. You may not use such things again. Have you no other form of coin?”

“Not enough to get us out of the country, which is what I’m beginning to think we need to do,” she said gloomily.

Aye, she had the right of that.

The fact that he’d not even
known
she’d done something that could be traced—revealing them as clearly as an X on a map—because he’d not understood what a credit card was, meant he couldn’t possibly hope to contain their exposure.

Not here, anyway.

Her twenty-first-century world had too many variables beyond his comprehension for him to control.

Which meant he had to take her back in time.

Och, nay, not literally—not through the
Ban Drochaid,
the stones of the White Bridge that the Keltar guarded; even
he
gave credence to the legend of the Draghar, having no wish to be possessed by the thirteen evil ancients—but figuratively.

That he could do.

If he could get her deep enough into the Highlands, then he could live with her for the next nineteen days by ninth-century means. Means untraceable by modern methods. He could shelter her in caves, warm her with his body, hunt for food, and feed her with his hands. In the Old Ways, time-honored ways in which a man had once seen to the needs of his woman.

All they had to do was somehow get across an ocean. Quickly and without leaving a trace.

Would Lucan look for him there?

Certainly, once he realized he was no longer in Chicago. Lucan knew him, nigh as well as he knew Lucan.

But there, in the wilderness, Cian would have more of an advantage. Even in the ninth century, Lucan had never been an outdoorsman, eschewing physical exertion in lieu of creature comforts. Och, aye, Cian would have the edge in his hills.

“Tell me everything you know about modern travel,” he commanded. “Tell me about your airplanes, where they go, how often they go, where one may procure one, and how. Tell me in the greatest detail you can. Give me a bird’s-eye view, lass. I need ken it all, even the most minuscule facts you might deem unimportant. I’m a ninth-century man, lass. Teach me as one.”

Near noon, Jessi demanded they stop for food. She was starving. He might not need to eat, being immortal or whatever he was, but she sure did. The first time she’d ordered room service it hadn’t come. The second time, the dishes had gotten splattered by blood. Aside from a PowerBar and a bag of peanuts she’d found in her backpack, she’d had nothing else to eat in the past thirty-six hours.

Since leaving Chicago, Cian had grilled her intensively about everything from transportation to computers to accommodations to monetary transactions.

After listening for a short time, he’d told her that they dare not leave the country from O’Hare or Midway; that if Lucan had men watching for them anywhere, it would be at the two local airports.

Jessi still couldn’t quite believe that they were actually going to try to leave the country, and had no idea how he thought they were going to pull it off.

He’d told her to drive them to the next nearest airport. She didn’t know if Indianapolis really was the next nearest, but it was the only other airport she’d been able to figure out how to get to from a map.

They stopped to eat just east of Lafayette, Indiana, about forty-five minutes up I-65 from the airport.

The smell of deep-fried chicken and fries made her mouth water the moment they stepped inside Chick-fil-A. She always felt like she was doing cows a favor when she ate there; she loved those silly billboards along the highways with their
EAT MOR CHIKIN
cow campaign. From
NEW DIET CRAZE: LOW-COW
to
EAT CHIKIN CUDDLE COWZ
, the ads sporting black-and-white spotted cows clutching poorly penned placards promoting chicken consumption made her laugh out loud every time she drove past one.

I will procure food and we’ll dine in the car,
he’d insisted.
We must continue moving.

She could just imagine how he planned to “procure” food. He’d probably leave the entire restaurant standing frozen until “well after we are away from here.”

If I eat while driving,
she’d disagreed,
I’ll wreck. If I wreck, the mirror will probably break.
Her legs were stiff, she had to pee, and she was getting grumpy.
What would happen to you then?

He’d looked stricken.
We’ll dine within.

She’d ordered six baskets of chicken fingers and wedges of crinkly fries, and now, perched at a brightly colored yellow-and-white table, was contently making headway into her second basket. He was halfway through his third.

“These resemble no chicken fingers I’ve ever seen, lass. And I saw a fair amount of chickens in my day. There was this wench in the stables with the most remarkable . . . well, never mind that. You must grow fowl considerably larger now. I shudder to ponder the size of their beaks.”

“They’re not really chicken
fingers,
” she hastened to explain, not caring for the imagery at all, as she dipped one into a tub of spicy barbecue sauce and snapped off a bite. She was going to stop there, she really was, but her treacherous lips had other ideas. “‘Most remarkable’ what?”

“‘Tis of no import, lass.” He devoured another chicken finger in two bites.

“Then why did you bring it up?” she said stiffly.

“I put it to rest, too, lass.” There went two more fingers.

“No, you didn’t. You left it hanging. Now it’s hanging out there. I hate things hanging out there. Fix it. ‘Remarkable’ what?”

He dipped a potato wedge into ketchup and made short work of it. “Chickens, lass, she had remarkable chickens. What did you think I meant?”

Jessi’s nostrils flared. She glared at him a moment, then looked away. Why did she even care? So, maybe the ninth-century bimbo had had remarkable eyes or legs or something. No way her breasts were better. At that thought, she shrugged her jean-jacket off her shoulders and sat up straighter. And so what, anyway? The bimbo had been dead for eleven centuries. The only thing remarkable about her now was that anyone even remembered her at all.

“Back to the chickens, lass, if they’re not fingers, why are they named thusly?”

“It’s just a catchphrase,” she said irritably, snapping off another bite. “Something some marketing guy came up with to make them more appealing.”

“Your century finds the notion of eating fingers of chickens appealing? What of their toes?”

She took a sip of Coke. The chicken was suddenly dry as sawdust on her tongue. “I don’t think anybody who orders them thinks, for even a minute, about fingers, or toes, any more than they think about little pink chicken nipples when they’re eating chicken breasts—”

She broke off, eyes narrowing. His head was canted down, his hair shielding his face, but she could plainly see his shoulders shaking with silent laughter.