The Highlander Next Door (27 page)

Birch didn’t know how Claude expected her to keep Hazel away from Sam, considering they were both adults. Besides, Niall hadn’t seemed worried about them spending the day in Turtleback
alone
together, but in fact had been amused by her concern. And she was more inclined to trust the judgment of someone who knew Sam personally rather than secondhand information heard in a bar.

Mon Dieu
, if she didn’t know better she might think Claude simply didn’t want any competition while he went after Hazel himself. And that had Birch changing her mind about him getting struck by lightning last night, deciding instead that something had to have happened in Montreal to make him throw away his career and move to Maine.

Then again, if she could talk to birds and trees—and the trees
talked back
—what was to say she and her father didn’t share some freaky gene that made them do things others might see as out of character or downright strange? Birch had always thought she’d inherited her decisiveness from
Grand-mémère
Hynes, but maybe her deal-with-the-consequences-later approach was really Claude’s fault.

Birch straightened when she caught the hint of a sound and looked over at Niall’s cottage to see the door crack open and Shep come barreling outside. She held her watch up to the moonlight and saw it was half past eleven, which meant Niall had slept nearly sixteen hours straight.

“Well, big man,” she said out loud, standing up and making sure her robe covered her
I don’t freaking care
baggy pajama pants and oversized top, “I hope you still plan to sleep another eight, because I’m about to pass out draped over your amazing muscles.”

Birch picked up the basket she’d packed with turkey sandwiches and a huge piece of the cake Rana had brought, then walked down the steps and started across the yard. “Don’t worry, I brought something for you, too,” she said with a laugh when Shep bounded over and started prancing beside her and nosing the basket. She stopped and pulled out the large beef bone she’d cut off the humungous roast Rana had also brought and held it just out of his reach. “But the deal is you have to eat it outside, so you don’t make a greasy mess
inside
.”

Shep immediately sat down, licking his drooling lips as he stared at her—no, at the bone—in eager, puppy-dog anticipation.

“And when you’re done and after you’ve washed the grease off
you
with a swim in the sea, just give a bark at the door and I’ll let you back in. Deal?”

Figuring his impatient
woof
was as close to a yes as she’d get, Birch handed him the bone and then sighed when he bolted toward the beach without so much as a thank-you. She smoothed down her robe and continued across the yard, making sure the truck in the driveway was
Niall’s
—only to go perfectly still on a silent gasp at the sight of the huge bald eagle perched on the rack of lights on the roof of the pickup.

Well, she was pretty sure it was a bald eagle, even though its signature solid white head appeared to be coated with dried mud or fish guts or . . . something. There was enough moonlight to see that its body feathers also looked tattered and that one of its wings was drooping slightly, making her wonder if the poor thing hadn’t also gotten caught in last night’s storm.

Were eagles’ territories twenty miles long? Did they even have territories?

Birch guessed she was going to have to order a book about birds.

“Hello there,” she whispered, although for the life of her she didn’t know
why
she was talking to it, even as she hoped to God it didn’t start talking back like the tree had. She glanced toward the cottage, then inched closer to the front of the truck. “Did your son or daughter tell you a gullible lady lives here and hands out food? Well, for the record, your kid paid for the pie with a barrette.”

Birch scurried back with a startled squeak when the eagle suddenly shifted and a small object dropped onto the windshield, then clattered down over the hood and fell to the gravel in front of her.

Seriously? Birch eyed the eagle silently eyeing her back, then bent to squint at the ground. She gave another quick glance at the roof of the truck, then stepped closer and picked up what appeared to be a ring. She held it up in the moonlight, only to go perfectly still again when she realized she had seen it—or one just like it—before. Seriously! It looked exactly like the freaking ring the woman in the white car had been wearing when the bitch had flipped her off.

But how was that possible? Even crazier, where had the eagle found it? Birch looked up with every intention of asking that exact question, only to see the bird now eyeing her basket—which she immediately hugged to her chest. “Don’t even think about it. This is for Niall. I’m worried he hasn’t eaten all day.”

The eagle just stared at her, its steady yellow eyes appearing way too bright to be reflecting only moonlight. Birch looked down at the ring, glanced over at the cottage, then back up at the bird.
“Merde,”
she muttered, slipping the ring in her robe pocket. “Okay, you can have
one
of the sandwiches.”

She walked along the length of the truck and, after looking toward the beach to make sure Shep wasn’t around, set down the basket and took out one of the thick foil packages. She walked a bit farther up the driveway while unfolding the foil and started to lift out the overstuffed sandwich—but dropped the entire package and scurried away with another squeak when a dark blur silently glided past her.

The poor thing more or less crashed to the ground several feet beyond the fallen sandwich, and Birch grabbed her arm where the tip of its wing had touched her. “Now I know where your kid gets his boldness. Oh, you’re limping,” she rushed on as it made its way over to the food. At least she thought it was limping, unless that was just how birds with big sharp talons walked. “Well, Mr. Eagle,” she said, deciding it was a boy, since every other male she’d seen today had been limping. “Thank you for the ring.” She picked up the basket and started backing away. “I just wish you could tell me where you got it. No, no I don’t,” she quickly added in a whisper. “A talking tree was freaky enough; I don’t need a bird talking to me, too.”

Not that this particular bird was even listening, having dismissed her in favor of gobbling up the sandwich it had quite handsomely paid for. Birch pulled the ring out of her pocket and studied it as she walked the length of the truck and turned toward the cottage, trying to decide whether or not to tell Niall what had just happened.

But then she remembered he hadn’t seemed especially fond of the bird that had given her the barrette, even suggesting she douse it with bear spray if it came around again. So she slid the ring back in her pocket, worried he’d run out and start throwing rocks at the poor thing when he saw the foil wrapper on the ground and realized she’d given it one of his sandwiches. Yeah, she’d wait and tell him tomorrow morning after the eagle was long gone. She just hoped Niall would believe she recognized something she’d seen for all of two seconds while being forcibly run off the road.

She might not wear jewelry all that often, especially here in the wilderness, but she certainly knew a thing or two about it. In fact, whenever her father had escaped to his sanctuary in the St. Germaine basement to reload bullets, she would sit at the little desk he’d set up for her in the corner and study the jewelry sections of auction house catalogs. She’d give him credit; Claude hadn’t even raised an eyebrow as his six-year-old daughter had added the catalogs to her dictated list of things she wanted from the penthouse when he went to get her clothes. But after
Grand-père
Fredrick’s reaction the first time he saw them—his eyes bulging as he’d read the estimated values—Birch had started keeping the catalogs in her dad’s gun safe.

She’d known her father actually
got
her when, after the sadly awkward birthday celebration at dinner the day she’d turned seven, he’d led her downstairs carrying her big heavy book on guns, opened his safe, and handed her several brand new catalogs. Twenty-five-year-old street cop Claude St. Germaine stopping into fancy auction houses asking for catalogs; now that truly had been an act of love. It was also when Birch had known everything would be okay.

Realizing she was standing in front of Niall’s door, she took a deep breath, plastered a warm smile on her face, and knocked. She ran a hand through her loose curls when she heard a rasped “Just a minute” and had just lifted the basket in front of her when the door opened to reveal the pajama-clad—bottoms
and
top—gorgeous mountain of testosterone she intended to use as a mattress for the next eight hours.

“I brought you food,” she said brightly, walking past him before he could realize her neighborly offering came with strings attached. It was, after all, his fault she was so exhausted. She set the basket on the counter, plastered her smile back in place, and turned to see him still holding on to the open door. “Shep’s gnawing on a juicy beef bone down at the beach, because I told him bones are outside treats and to just bark when he’s done and I’ll let him in,” she said, hoping he’d catch the hint that she was planning to still be here when Shep barked. “Well,” she continued when Niall remained silent, politely covering a yawn with one hand while using the other to loosen the belt on her robe as she slowly inched toward the bedroom. “If you’re hungry you can go ahead and eat now, but if you still need to catch up on your— Oh,
maudit
,” she growled when she saw him arch a brow. “I’m only here looking for a nice warm body to drape over so I can finally get some sleep.”

She marched into the bedroom while shedding her robe, dropped it on the floor, and climbed up onto the mattress. “You might have spent last night dodging lightning and falling trees,” she muttered as she rearranged the pillows on the unmade bed that was . . . oh, God, it was still warm with his body heat. “But I’d take that over tossing and turning all night worrying about getting a call at freaking three in the morning, and then spending all day dealing with a mother and daughter who show up with only the clothes on their backs and who won’t tell me their freaking last name.”

Looking over her shoulder to see him silently standing in the bedroom doorway holding the remaining foil-wrapped sandwich, Birch turned to sit in the middle of the mattress, took a calming breath, and gave him a sheepish smile. “I really am really tired, Niall. And I’m pretty sure I could finally fall asleep if I had a nice strong heartbeat to listen to instead of the crazy chatter going on in my brain. If I promise not to attack you, can . . . can I stay?”

She dropped her head on a silent shudder when he turned and walked away without saying anything, so damned tired she was dangerously close to bursting into tears—even though she
never
cried. Yeah, well, she didn’t need to sleep draped over some dumb old man anyway, any more than she needed a stupid boyfriend. She crawled to the edge of the mattress looking for where she’d thrown her robe, spotted it beside the door, then turned and climbed off the monstrously tall bed—only to yelp a nasty curse when the light in the hallway went out half a second before she was swept up against a big solid chest.

Birch started to say that a little warning would be nice, but snapped her mouth shut when she realized he was climbing into bed
and taking her with him
. So she started to sigh in relief, but sucked it back in when she realized he still hadn’t said one single word since . . . Oh, God, what if
he
wanted to have sex?

She really didn’t think she could muster the energy to wrap her arms around all his amazing muscle, much less kiss him. Surely he’d noticed she was wearing
un
sexy pajamas; how much more blatant did she have to be? Damn; she knew she should have worn her
I’m having my period so leave me alone
granny gown.

“I . . . ah, I really don’t think I have the energy to—” she began as he stretched out with her on top of him, his soft
shush
cutting her off.

“Go to sleep, lass,” he whispered as he held her head against his chest. “I prefer my women awake when I make love to them.”

Birch thought she should probably thank him for letting her stay, but she was so tired and he was so warm and solid and
here
. And he probably wouldn’t have heard her, anyway, over the sound of his strongly beating heart. Yeah, she’d thank him tomorrow, right before she told him about the eagle giving her the ring.

But she’d probably leave out the part about her giving it one of his . . .

•   •   •

The woman was passed out as limp as a rag doll before Niall even finished positioning her away from the gash in his thigh. Not that he minded being used as a mattress now that he understood why she preferred sleeping draped over him rather than wrapped securely in his arms. Aye, he supposed being trapped under the crushing weight of concrete and steel as a child might haunt a person all the way to their grave. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised if Birch intended to be cremated instead of buried.

Niall grinned up at the ceiling, deciding her coming over
only to sleep
with him was a good sign the lass was getting used to the notion they were a couple.

But then he scowled, thinking that true couples were honest and open with each other. But how, exactly, did he tell a woman he was coming to care deeply for that he was living proof the magic was real? He knew the MacKeage, MacBain, and Gregor men had all wrestled with the same dilemma since the first wave of them had arrived in this century nearly forty years ago; on the one hand feeling honor-bound to reveal they were time-travelers or magic-makers, and on the other fearing the truth might be more than a woman raised in an age of science could handle.

Niall also knew that upon deciding to propose marriage to Mary Sutter, Michael MacBain had confessed to being born in the year 1171, and that a magical storm had brought him here. Not only had Mary fled in confusion to her sister in Virginia—Michael unaware she was pregnant with his child—but she’d gotten in a car accident several months later trying to return to him, and died mere hours after giving birth to their son, Robbie.