Warrior and the Wanderer (5 page)

Ian repeated the words, mocked the inflection, as he reached up and worked two of his fingers under the chain around his neck. Braveheart had made it good and bloody tight.

“Damn,” he growled and dropped his hands back to his lap. He spit out some of the bile on his tongue and eyed the lake.

On the opposite shore, to the west were the frowning silhouettes of stark mountains against a vivid, fiery orange sunset so like…

“…The day I left reality.” Was that yesterday? He seemed to have completely lost track of time.

He scooted forward avoiding the place where he had left his sick and leaned down to the water. He cupped both hands and dipped them in the water praying it was drinkable. It looked that way. There could be nuclear waste, agent orange, pesticides, anything in that water, but right now anything would be better than the nasty taste on his tongue. He scooped up a double handful of water and drank it greedily. He scooped up another and drank again. The water tasted remarkable. Like Poland Spring, Evian. He took another drink. Aye, definitely like Evian.

For one moment since he came here, wherever here was, he felt oddly refreshed. He breathed deep, expanding his lungs. The air was so crisp, so clean. Crispness was all around him. The air had snap, like peppermint, and sweetness in its earthy perfume.

“To your feet.”

He looked over his shoulder. Bess stood above him, in one hand she held his chain and rope tether, in the other she held two dead rabbits by their hind legs.

He said the first thing that entered his mind, “I thought you people were vegetarians.”

She cocked her head toward him, and then narrowed her eyes. She pursed her soft, full lips together. “There are vegetables as well, roots and such, in the fire.”

Ian rose to his feet. “Well, that’s good. I was beginning to think I had my stereotypes out of whack.”

She tugged on the chain just a little. He took one big step forward until he was toe to toe with her. Musk radiated off of her, a scent of soil and green, like leaves and lush grass. Probably some scent she found in a trendy Rodeo Drive boutique where they mix perfume to suit your personality. Bess’s preferred scent was obviously “Earth Chick Gone A-Hunting”.

He walked beside her, like a dog trained to heel, but quickly banished that image from his mind. If he wanted to he could lunge to the side and knock her flat to the mossy ground, into one of the many thick stands of pine they had to navigate to get to the fire. He could do this and get away. He could do this—

“Ye cannae escape,” she said. “Unless ye wish to die.”

“Reading minds as well as expert hunting, impressive. The psychic network and the NRA would love to have you as a spokes model. There’s plenty of work out there for a beautiful woman like you. Have you ever thought of auditioning for
Survivor
? You might win a million.”

“A million what?”

“Dollars.”

She shook her head. “What an odd man ye are.”

Bess abruptly pointed to a small clearing in the wood, where a fire blazed in a small pit scooped from the moss and needle-covered ground.

The horse Bess rode on while he had to walk behind, over hill and dale, to this place, stood to one side of the clearing chomping on ferns and fiddleheads. Ian glanced about at the ring of feathery pine trees, hoping against hope that he would find that rabbit hole he drove into and at the other end he would emerge into his L.A. home full of relics of his life and a stack of past-due notices. Even surrounded by that misery, he would not feel as lost and confused as he did in this place.

Ian plopped down to the moss and pine needles.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bess kneel beside him and felt her studying him. He did not turn his head.

“What are you staring at?” he murmured. He was so bloody tired.

“A man,” she said.

“A man,” he repeated, “how very observant.”

“I’m looking at a man who isnae at all what I know evil to be.”

“What did you think evil should be?”

“Not like ye.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

I dinnae ken, perchance…you are most odd.”

Ian turned toward her. Their faces were a fraction apart. She did not move, held herself so steady, scrutinizing him. He returned the same to her, but could not help catching the puff of her breath against his face. Warm, taking away the chill in the air for a second or two. Her skin was flawless from this vantage, fresh and smooth. Sunlight had not touched it much. This was no California girl. She could very well be a real Scot, not just acting like one. He raised his bound hands and brushed the back of one finger against her cheek. Like porcelain.

She did not flinch. Her emerald gaze held him.

Slowly, he brought his face closer, his lips ready to capture her in a kiss that would certainly be the right step forward to gain him freedom. He cupped his fingers under her chin and drew her close. He closed his eyes and tilted his head. This would be one hell of a great kiss. She would have to let him go after she thanked him for it.

Her lips were cold.

Ian snapped his eyes open and pulled back. The imprint of his lips slowly faded to nothing on the polished blade of a short, but lethal-looking knife. Beyond it, Bess’s eyes blazed as hot as the flames of her hair.

“I dinnae give a farthing about your life, MacLean,” she said, slipping the knife into a small leather sheath fastened under her arm. “And I will just as soon end it than take ye to Stirling if ye ever try that again.”

She stood.

Ian leaned against a tree, giving her a wink. “You’re lying,” he said. “There’s a part of you that wanted to break whatever character you are playing and kiss me.”

She stared at him, her eyes softened just for a second before turning away from him.

“Oh, aye,” Ian whispered to himself. “I’ll find out who she really is, win her over, and then get the hell out of here.”

* * * *

Bess did not lie until this evening. She had lied to herself when she denied Ian MacLean his kiss. She had wondered what it would be like to kiss him. His grin, a crooked line, was a lie to the turbulence she saw in the amber cuts of his eyes. She was not the only one who had spoken a falsehood a moment before, only she had used words.

She wanted more from him, but at the moment it had nothing to with desire for a handsome visage and well-muscled body. She forced herself to ignore those physical trappings Ian bore so well. It would do her clan no good for her to act like a woman.

She stole a glimpse at Ian MacLean as he sat on the ground, his legs splayed before him covered in those black breeks strained against the bulk of his leg muscles. She sighed and slipped her gaze up his legs, to another place behind a row of pewter-colored buttons, where the fabric strained even more.

“Getting a good look there, Blaze?” he asked, gaze trained on her.

Bess turned away, startled. “My name is Bess.”

“Unh-uh, doesn’t suit you.”

“’Tis not for ye to decide what does and what doesnae
suit
me,” she snapped. “Haud yer wheesht.” She unbuckled the claymore from her back and leaned it against a pine just beyond the flicker of the firelight.

“You’re such a sweet talker, Blaze.” He grinned.

“And ye’re a dead man if ye call me Blaze again.”

Bess turned from him and stepped to the fire, absently picking bits of twigs and leaves from her braid. Hunting was dirty work. At least they would have supper. Her and Ian MacLean. Maybe she should have let Alasdair stay.

She had sent him off to reconnoiter the road to Stirling, to meet up with her on the ’morrow at Aberfoyle, one day’s ride from Stirling and The Duke of Argyll. Her champion had expressed his concern with his usual economy of words about leaving her alone with the MacLean. Bess assured him that the MacLean would arrive in Stirling at the end of his tether.

“What’s for supper?” Ian asked.

Bess took one of the hares she had snared and removed her dirk from the top of the wool wrapped about her leg over her leather brogues.

“Hare,” she said, and began skinning it.

“Oh, God,” the MacLean moaned from behind her. “Are you seriously going to eat that? The only meat I want to eat is usually laid out on a styrofoam tray, under plastic, with a bar code sticker on it.”

Bess shook her head. Was there no end to his strange words? Was there no end to the questions that piled up inside her mind? Before he could say anything else to confuse her, she decided to ask him some questions while she prepared their supper.

“What were ye doing swimming in the Firth of Lorn, in all yer clothes?”

“I wasn’t swimming in the Firth of Lorn,” he replied. “I’m pretty sure I drove into Lake Tahoe, the swimming came after, and before I saved your life.” He spoke defensively as if he was trying to convince himself he was not mad.

“Lake Tahoe? Is that what ye call the water between Mull and the mainland?”

“Let’s not get into semantics here, Blaze?” he snapped. “What I want to know is what the hell where you doing chained to a rock? That is pretty intense even for whatever Dungeons and Dragons group you are mixed up with.”

“Speak not to me of mythical beasts when I wish to talk seriously with you.”

She speared the cleaned meat onto a sharpened stick and set it over the fire, leaning it on the warmed stones that circled the flames.

“But seriously,” he said, “why were you chained to a rock in the middle of Lake Tahoe?”

“’Twas in the Firth of Lorn, and ye should ken why. One of your own put me there to die.”

“One of
my
own?” he asked, brows raised, pointing to his chest with both of his bound hands.

Bess twirled the meat on the stick. She reached for the other hare and skinned it. This act solicited yet another groan from the MacLean.

“Your chief, Lachlan MacLean. My husband. He chained me to that rock.”

“Don’t know the guy, Blaze. But he does sound like a bastard. Any normal bloke would have taken himself to Mexico and gotten a divorce. But this is California. Is that some cult way to divorce? Are you in a cult?”

“California? Cult? Ye speak words I dinnae ken. I am Chief of Clan Campbell of Argyll.”

“So, you’ve said,” he sighed.

“And ye are my enemy.”

“I am? How?”

Bess skewered the other hare and placed it over the flames. “Dinnae sound so glib, MacLean. I know this to be true. I will take ye to Stirling, and ye will confess that ye saved my life—”

“Not a difficult thing to confess,” he said with a smirk that taunted her. “Because it’s true.”

“And ye will tell the queen regent’s man, The Duke of Argyll, that your chief, Lachlan MacLean, did murder my brother and attempted to murder me.”

“Is that your invitation for me to join this freaky little group of yours?”

As she turned the meat over the flames, she shot him a penetrating stare. “’Tis no’ an invitation. Ye will do this.”

“If I do this confessing thing, and I’m no actor but I’ll try, then will you release me?”

Bess paused. She had not thought about that before. What would she do with the MacLean if he favored her will over his own death by doing her bidding? Let him go? Keep him prisoner?

She reached to her side and took some dried vegetables from the provisions sack Alasdair had packed for her. She placed them on the heated stones, puckered orbs of carrot and turnip.

“Blaze?” Ian MacLean asked. “Are ye prepared to give me an answer?”

She did not lie to him. “I am not.”

“Don’t bother with a ransom, because I’m not worth anything. You might know that if you had watched the telly or You Tube. But something tells me you don’t dig technology.”

She took one of the skewers from the fire, kept her gaze on the flames. “I ken your worth to Lachlan must be great, once he learns ye saved me. Ye betrayed yer chief and he’ll want your head at any price.”

“Lachlan plays his role too realistically,” he said. “What the hell was I supposed to do when I found you? Ignore you and let you drown? You really looked in danger. This group of yours takes role playing to a dangerous extreme.”

She rose from the fire, skewer in hand, and walked the few steps to Ian. She knelt down and held the meat out to him.

“
Taing,
” she said. “Much gratitude.”

With bound wrists, he reached up and took the stick from her. He set his gaze upon her, and warmth bloomed up over her body from head to toe. He did not look away from her when he took a large bite of the meat, and another, and another, until there was nothing left on the stick save for some bones held together by gristle. He handed the stick back to her and wiped his lips with the sleeve of his doublet.

“I am very grateful too,” he said. “That you are not vegan.”

“I am not from the Vegan clan. I am Bess Campbell of—”

“—Argyll,” he finished. “I get it.”

She tossed the stick into the darkening forest, and then quickly grabbed his wrists and gave the rope a good hard tug to see that he was still securely her prisoner. Then quick as a wink he had her prisoner; his fingers clamped painfully about one of her arms. He jerked her toward him. She tumbled forward, landed in his lap. He quickly released her arm and hooked his arms around her neck.