Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (79 page)

Which was a pretty strange change of
attitude, given his amorous assault of the morning before. Morgan
propped herself up on her elbows and surveyed the room, noting
immediately that Alasdair’s bed was rumpled.

She frowned at the wave of disappointment
that coursed through her. Obviously the highlander had gotten over
his burning attraction to her.

That thought totally destroyed her good
mood.

Morgan rolled out of bed with a grimace. She
had a vague sense that her drawings had been examined, then
returned to where she left them, but couldn’t be sure. Well aware
of the merry whistling in the other room, Morgan quickly gathered
up the sketches and put them away.

“
Are you awake, my lady?”
Morgan spun guiltily and shoved one hand through the nest of her
hair just as Alasdair erupted from the bathroom. He nodded to her,
fastening the end of his kilt with expert ease, then dropped into a
chair to lace up his boots.

His tone was perfectly businesslike. “If you
so desire, I shall seek a morsel to break our fast and discover
Blake Advisor’s intentions for this morning.”

Alasdair was obviously in a rush to leave.
Couldn’t wait to get away from her. Morgan forced a smile past her
disappointment. “Great. I’ll be down in twenty minutes or so.”

He nodded with satisfaction, then strode to
the door without looking back. “’Twill be a good thing to have an
early start this day.” Before Morgan could blink he was gone.

Well, not only was Alasdair not interested
in her, he wanted to go home
tout de suite
. Could anyone
blame him?

That’s what she got for not only turning
down the best offer she’d had in a long time, but for reminding
Alasdair of the love he’d left behind.

Morgan thought about beautiful Fenella and
kicked her suitcase hard. It hurt more than she’d thought it would
and she yelped in pain. She hopped on one foot, cradling her
wounded toe, then tripped over her discarded sweater and fell on
her rump.

Morgan contemplated a crack in the ceiling
from where she lay sprawled on the floor. Could she blame Alasdair
for not being interested in her? Not really - especially when his
heart was held by a dead beauty. Whether Fenella had been dead
seven minutes or seven centuries was immaterial - Alasdair clearly
was going to love her forever.

Morgan closed her eyes and wished that one
day she would find a guy who could do the same.

A guy just like Alasdair MacAulay.

*

Alasdair remained distant the entire day. He
sat with his arms folded across his chest as they drove, clearly
focused on where he wanted to be. They all seemed to pick up on his
desire to get to Lewis ASAP. It was overcast and bone-chillingly
damp, but every time Blake put on the heater, the little car’s
windows fogged up.

So, they bundled up in anoraks, shoved their
hands in their pockets and put up with it. Morgan wished they had a
thermos of something warm.

That morning, there wasn’t a lot of
conversation in the Micra. They passed Dunstaffnage Castle, where
Alasdair had said the Stone of Scone had been sealed into the
walls, but Blake zoomed right by. Morgan pressed her nose against
the window glass and tried to catch a glimpse, but no luck.

They made Fort William by lunch and grabbed
a sandwich there. Alasdair looked to the hills and brooding skies,
apparently unaware of what he ate. He stared at gas stations and
traffic lights, restaurants and apartment buildings, his brows
furrowed, but he never said a word.

His lips drew to a thin line as the road
narrowed to two lanes once more and the hills rose high on either
side. Morgan, in contrast, was awestruck by her surroundings. The
scenery was spectacular in the Great Glen and would have been more
so in sunlight.

Silvery water stretched beside the road on
one side and green clad hills rising sharply on the other. Eagles
circled high overhead and signs marked hiking trails. Morgan was
amazed to find such an expanse of wilderness in a land occupied for
at least two millennia.

But Blake drove up the glen at purposeful
speed.

It was teatime when the reached the coast
and Justine was trying to negotiate a stretch-and-pee break. Morgan
took one look at Eilean Donan castle and knew they had to stop. It
was picture-postcard perfect and when she chimed in, Blake
reluctantly conceded.

Eilean Donan Castle occupied a small island
in a narrow bay stretching eastward from the sea. The loch was as
still as a dark mirror, the green-dappled highlands rose
majestically around and behind the restored castle. The skies had
cleared as they drove west and now only a scattering of fat clouds
drifted across the azure sky, the ends of them tingled with the
gold of the descending sun.

The hills stretching off into the distance,
one behind the other, made it look as though Scotland went on
forever. The seaweed washed against the retaining walls, though,
was evidence that the Atlantic Ocean was just beyond the next
curve.

The tide was in when they arrived, the water
high on the narrow causeway that curves out to the castle gates.
The castle nearly filled the island, its walls high old stone.
Blake parked the Micra and the sisters practically dragged the men
to tour the castle.

Morgan was sure Alasdair would remember this
place - he must have passed it centuries ago. Maybe here she could
convince him of the truth.

Or at least get him to talk again.

“
Do you know this place?”
she asked the stoic highlander. “Have you been here
before?”

Alasdair shook his head.

“
But we’re quite close to
Skye now. You must have come this way when you followed Robert the
Bruce.”

“
We crossed to Skye and
thence to the mainland near Loch Alsh,” he supplied
tightly.

“
That
is
Loch Alsh,”
Morgan told him, indicating the lake to their right. Alasdair
frowned and studied the hills.

He said no more, but his scowl deepened as
they strode toward the castle. Blake paid their admissions, much to
Alasdair’s evident confusion.

“
This is a
toll?”

“
No, just an admission
charge.”

Morgan wasn’t surprised that Blake’s
explanation seemed to make no sense to the highlander. She fanned
through a guidebook and quickly discovered why Alasdair didn’t know
this place.

It hadn’t been here.

“
I do not understand,”
Alasdair rumbled beside her shoulder. “What is this admission
charge if not a toll?”

“
Well, it’s a museum,
filled with things from the castle and people who lived here and
you pay to see it.”

“
They show their belongings
for a fee?” The highlander frowned. “Is this not a military keep?
Loch Alsh is a strategic site.”

“
No.” Morgan shook her
head. “It must be a folly.”

He didn’t look any less confused.

“
That’s what they call
things people built for fun,” Morgan explained. “Mostly around the
turn of the century. There’s a house shaped like a pineapple
somewhere in England and other places like that.” This didn’t seem
to clarify anything for Alasdair, so Morgan indicated the paragraph
in her book.

“
See? It says here that the
original keep was destroyed hundreds of years ago and no one knew
what it looked like. A laird in the early twentieth century had a
dream of his forebears in the castle and when he woke up, he
sketched plans of the keep of his dream.”

Morgan scanned ahead in the text. “Then he
had it built, at considerable expense, claiming it was a perfect
reproduction of what had stood here.”

Alasdair snorted. “Who would know?”

“
Exactly! But it says that
his family actually lived here. Look.” Morgan tapped the glass of a
display case. “There’s some of his wife’s calling cards and the
silver case for them.”

Alasdair peered at the display, looking no
less mystified. “What are these calling cards?”

“
It was a Victorian thing.
From the time of the reign of the English queen Victoria.” Morgan
glared pointedly at Alasdair, daring him to acknowledge that he had
never heard of the queen, but he steadfastly ignored
her.

Although Morgan knew he was listening. “When
you visited someone and they weren’t home, you left a card with the
staff so they knew who had come.” Morgan saw Alasdair’s doubt and
wondered whether he was starting to give credence to her
theory.

“
It went out of style in
the 1920’s,” she added deliberately, watching his reaction
carefully.

Alasdair blinked, then his gaze locked with
her own. His eyes were a potent sapphire, so Morgan knew she had
his attention. “1920’s?”

Morgan didn’t even blink. “The years between
1920 and 1930 AD.”

Alasdair inhaled sharply and
straightened.

“
That would be nineteen
hundred and twenty years since the birth of Christ,” Morgan added
deliberately.

Alasdair looked about himself with a slight
air of panic as his lips drew to a thin line. “I know naught of
this 1920’s and, in truth, it matters little,” he said, his words
tight. “I wish only to be home with all haste.”

“
I know,” Morgan said
softly. “But I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.”

But the highlander spun away, his
frustration more than clear.

*

They rounded the curve at Kyle of Lochalsh,
and it became clear that the hills in the distance were actually on
the Isle of Skye rising in the west. They crossed the bridge to
Skye as the sun was setting in orange splendor, then passed into
the shadow of the island itself as the road curved along its
eastern flank. The tops of the hills glowed with the sun’s last
rays, while the mainland to the east was silhouetted against the
first stars.

The cows were coming home, welcoming golden
light spilled from kitchen windows glimpsed along the way, white
sails were furled in the ships bobbing at anchor far below. Road
signs were posted in both Gaelic and English, and Morgan felt the
difference in atmosphere as soon as the Micra’s tires touched the
island.

Skye was magical, a home for fairy tales if
ever there had been one. They passed mountain bikers loaded with
panniers and backpackers who waved cheerfully as they passed. Bed
and breakfast signs rocked in the wind, great red hairy highland
cows chewed methodically at the roadside. There were vast stretches
of wild forest, and fabulously healthy roses entwined the fence
posts.

The awesome power of Skye’s twilight made
all things possible. Morgan looked to Alasdair and found him
watching her. Something had eased in his features and she knew he
felt more at home than he had on the mainland.

And Morgan understood, because she felt the
same way.

Just as she instinctively guessed that
feeling would get stronger the further they traveled.

*

The next morning, they caught the first
ferry from Uig on the northwest tip of Skye. Alasdair’s anxiety had
touched them all and they had barely taken the time to look around
Skye, despite its beauty.

Alasdair was grim and silent again. Although
they had shared a room again the night before, he had not so much
as spoken to Morgan. When she fell asleep, Alasdair had been
sitting at the window, staring at the myriad lights of the idyllic
town of Portree.

Alasdair was in exactly the same position in
the morning. He was obviously coming to terms with what had
happened to him and Morgan was content to leave him alone to do
that.

Even if she didn’t like how somber he had
become.

His stoic expression didn’t change as the
ferry came chugging around the point of the island. Steam poured
from its red stack, and the blast of its horn echoed in the quiet
bay. It was a car ferry, a boat of considerable size – obviously
something Alasdair would never have seen before.

She noticed only the way his lips
tightened.

As the ferry eased into its slip, dozens of
car engines could be heard starting up. Ropes were tossed and metal
ramps clanged into position. Foot passengers streamed ashore,
bikers pedaled away, and a steady stream of cars drove into the
distance.

Just a few minutes after the ferry’s
arrival, a short man with a heavily lined face took up his position
in the middle of the loading ramp. Morgan had seen him pacing the
length of the queue while the ferry disgorged its incoming
passengers.

He pointed to the first car in the line and
beckoned.

And the loading began. Blake drove forward
when the Micra was summoned, and Morgan saw that the passenger
decks wrapped around the car bay in a big U. The vehicles were
nestled in the center, just below the waterline, and the little man
was obviously calculating and balancing the load as he
proceeded.

In fact, they all had to get out of the car
so that Blake could tuck it tightly enough into the corner for the
man’s satisfaction.

“
Heavy morning,” he offered
gruffly by way of explanation then strode off to wave a tractor
trailer into position.

“
They don’t waste an inch,”
Justine said, her approval of such organization clear.

Alasdair scanned the ferry with narrowed
eyes, his gaze lingering on pulleys and gears. He said nothing at
all, and Morgan wished she could think of something that would
reassure him.

But he was so silent that she couldn’t think
of a way to start a conversation.

They all went up to the deck to get out of
the way and continued to watch the loading from that birds’-eye
view. Morgan was astonished as three tractor trailers were parked
across the width of the ferry with only inches between them. One
was labeled a greengrocer’s truck, one was loaded with roof trusses
and the third was a tanker of oil.