Border Lord (8 page)

Terri woke to a pounding headache, not much different than the hangover headache of a few days before.

She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked around the room. She sat up with a start, recognizing her old flat in London. Everything was the same, except that none of Elliott’s things were here.

“Brochan,” she said, fear and sickness hitting her like a wave. Seeing the flashing light on her answering machine, she hit it.

Elliott’s voice filled her bedroom. “Terri, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I hope you know that. I want you back. These past weeks have been hell without you. I can’t eat or sleep. I need you back, honey.”

Past weeks?

How had she got back to London? Her stomach turned over, and she felt bile rise in her throat. It could not have been a dream! Brochan, the priory, the crazy uncle who had slit her throat.

She reached up and ran a hand over her throat. Racing to the bathroom, she looked in the mirror. A tiny pink scar, no more than three inches long, marred her flesh. Her heart skipped a beat.

It had been real!

The blood rushing through her veins, she raced to her room, pulled a suitcase from the closet and started throwing clothes in it.

After a quick shower, she locked the door to her flat, and jumped in her Mini Cooper and headed to Scotland, and Castle Kildare.

Tears streamed down her face as she relived the moments with Brochan. From the moment he had stepped into the chamber at the priory, to the second she had seen true fear on his face when his uncle slit her throat.

She brushed a finger over the scar.

Her heart raced as hope filled her. There had to be a way back to thirteenth-century Scotland.

Terri watched the sun rise over the heather-strewn hills of Scotland. Castle Kildare was just minutes away, or so said the sign she’d just come upon.

She had no idea what she would find. Perhaps a ruin, and what then?

She crested the hill, and tears choked her throat.

The castle was not a ruin, but looked much as it had that day seven hundred years ago when she’d ridden over that same hill with Brochan.

She remembered his strong chest against her back, and how protected she had felt in his arms.

Please, God, let it be.

The iron gate was thankfully open, and she drove down the gravel drive.

Home.

Putting her car in park, she stepped out, closed the door, and leaned back against it, looking at the castle where she had fallen helplessly in love with Brochan Douglas.

An older gentleman opened the door, and stepped out.

Disappointment nearly choked her. Wearing a kilt, he smiled at her, his dark eyes kind. “Good morning, lass. I fear the castle is not open to visitors this time of year.”

He couldn’t send her away. She couldn’t bear it. “I’ve come from London.”

“So far?”

“Yes, I need to know what happened to Laird Douglas.”

He appeared shocked by the request. “The present Laird Douglas is alive and well. He lives here the majority of the year.”

“With his family?”

The man shook his head, his eyes twinkling. “Nay, lass. He’s never married. A bachelor, he is. We at Castle Kildare hope he will find his soul mate. He says he knows she will appear one day.”

Her heart missed a beat.

“Would you like a tour of the grounds, miss?”

What she wanted was to meet Laird Douglas, but she wouldn’t push her luck. “Yes, I would.”

She walked beside the old man, listening to every word, taking in the castle she loved so much, looking at the solar window, a place she wanted to visit before she left this day. In fact, she wanted to visit every room, every inch of the castle, wanting, no, needing to be here to soothe her aching heart.

So many emotions rushed through her, and she had to keep herself from crying.

“This is where the ancestors are laid to rest.” He pointed to the family plot that was surrounded by black wrought-
iron fencing. “May I?” she asked, waiting for the man to give her permission.

She stepped past him, to the many graves before her, the hair on her arms standing on end as she walked by each one. The dates went down as she walked, from the most recent, to the previous century. The closer she came to the 1200s, the more scared she became.

Fearful to find the name of her beloved on one of those stone markers.

She came to Tristan, Brochan’s brother, then to the graves beside his.

She frowned. Where was Brochan?

Then she caught something else. “This says that Tristan was laird of the Douglas clan. I thought it was Brochan?”

The man’s brows drew together. “Nay, lass. You must be confused with the present Laird Douglas.”

Her heart nearly pounded out of her chest. “What?”

“Aye, the present laird is Brochan Douglas. You must have him mistaken with James from the thirteenth century. James’s middle name was Brochan.”

She looked past his shoulder, to the castle.

Could it be?

Was it possible that Brochan had survived, or that he had managed to find his way to her?

“Is Brochan here?”

“I shall see,” the man said, wary. “May I tell him who is calling?”

Trembling, she nodded. “Tell him Terri Campbell is here to see him.”

Surprise lit his eyes, and his lips curved slightly. “Very well, lass. I shall return in a moment.”

Terri watched the man walk to the castle.

She did not want to get her hopes up too high. After all, she would only be setting herself up for a fall.

And a big fall it would be.

Because she wanted this man to be Brochan.

Her Brochan.

Brochan Douglas, the border lord who had come storming into her life, captured her heart, her mind, and her body all at once.

Terri closed her eyes and said a silent prayer.

A minute later the door flew open, and a broad-shouldered man appeared, filling the doorway.

Her keys fell from her hand, to the gravel.

The breath caught in her throat. He was the same, but not the same. Still as tall as she remembered, and as broad shouldered and narrow hipped. No longer did he wear a tunic and braies, but instead a navy cable-knit sweater, and a pair of jeans. He wore no shoes, and his dark hair curled at the collar, not as long as it had been when last they’d seen each other, but still as thick and dark as she recalled. “Terri?”

“Brochan!” Her heart lurched and she ran.

He ran too.

She jumped into his arms and he held her tight. So tight it felt as if he could break her in two, but she didn’t care. “I knew ye would come.”

His voice slid over her like warm honey. That same intoxicating voice she remembered so well. “I knew it.”

He turned in a circle, his laughter loud, like heaven to her ears. “Brochan,” she said, hardly believing her eyes. But he was real. Every hard inch of him.

The old man watched them, a wide smile on his face, and as Terri smiled back, he nodded and went back inside, leaving them alone, in the shadow of the castle.

“I knew ye would come,” he said again, kissing her.

She kissed him back, desperate to be with him. “Brochan, I can’t believe it’s you.”

He smiled against her lips. “Lord, how I’ve missed ye.”

Brochan could not believe he held Terri in his arms.

His Terri.

It had seemed like an eternity since last he looked into her blue eyes.

An eternity that had been worth the wait.

She stood in his chamber now, watching him as he undressed. Both of them were eager to take up where they had left off.

If possible, she was even more beautiful now than she had been then.

“How is this possible?” she asked, voicing the question he had been wondering about since she’d told him she had traveled through time.

Back in the thirteenth century, when he had seen her on that horse in front of his uncle, he had known a fear unlike any other. She had been so stoic, so brave and courageous, even when his uncle’s blade had bit into her skin.

Then she had disappeared into thin air.

He and his men had stared in disbelief, and Angus had yelled his anguish to the heavens. “Where is my daughter? he had roared, looking at Brochan accusingly.

Brochan’s heart had slid to his stomach, terrified he would never again see the woman he loved.

In that moment Brochan had known she had not been lying. That she had traveled through time.

He had left Castle Kildare that day and returned to the
priory, to Annabelle’s chamber that had been boarded up after Angus had killed the poor nun.

Brochan had ripped the boards from the door and entered the room.

When he awoke, he was in the same chamber, but it was different. He had stepped out into a different world. A strange world that had taken some adjusting to.

He had hoped to find her at Castle Kildare waiting for him, but she hadn’t been. Just a staff of kind people who accepted him as their laird, just as Terri had been accepted as Annabelle in the thirteenth century. He did not question the how or why of it. He just hoped and prayed Terri would return to him.

“So how did you find your way back?” she asked, her gaze slipping from his in a way that reminded him of how good they were together.

“The chamber at the priory.”

She smiled. “Then you came to the castle?”

“I did, and it was as though I had just been away for a day. My servants knew me as Brochan Douglas. Even friends stopped by, and I didn’t know a soul. But I knew, just as sure as ye are standing before me, that I would find ye, or even more, that ye would find me.”

And find each other they had.

She undressed, her clothes a pile at her feet.

He pushed his jeans off, and pulled her into his arms, kissing her with all the passion he felt for her.

This woman, his woman, his life.

There was no time for slow pleasure, the need too great. He wanted to fill her body, to experience that wonderful ache that had raced through him from the moment he had first touched her.

She sighed as he entered her, and kissed him. “Brochan, I love you.”

He drew back, shocked, yet insanely pleased at the declaration. “I love ye, too.”

She searched his gaze, her lips curving. “I don’t want to ever lose you again. Not ever.”

“Ye have nothing to fear. I will never let ye go. Not ever again.”

With that, he showed her how much he loved her.

Cover design by Susan H. Choi

Cover photograph by Wendi Schneider