Defending Destiny (The Warrior Chronicles) (5 page)

He’d also be trying to keep the Arm-Righ, the King, from hurting Daisy. One of the best ways to secure Daisy’s safety was to make her a recognized Finder of artifacts. Then, she’d have the backing and the protection of the Council. That wouldn’t make her untouchable, but it would make harming her much more difficult, even for the King.

Daisy needed to prove her ability. Kilmartin was her test. His too, truth be told, since Lauren was sponsoring Daisy for a position traditionally held by men. Generally, those men were retired military, with special forces training, like him. Generally, those men were between the ages of thirty-five and fifty-five if they were active in the field. Generally those men had specialized training in recognizing artifacts of historical significance and in recovery techniques. Generally they also had martial arts and weapons training that went beyond military training.

Generally,
Daisy didn’t fit into those lists or those categories.

She had the martial arts experience, more so than most of the men serving as Finders, but she didn’t have the military background. She had the weapons training, but most of her experience was in ancient weapons and blades, not firearms. She had the specialized education, Lauren had seen to that. In fact, she was more knowledgeable in ancient antiquities than any of the experienced Finders, save himself. No one, not even the King, could fault Daisy’s intellect or the level of her knowledge.

What the Arm-Righ would fault was her sex, her age, and her size.

Lauren sighed and rang the bell in the tiny Kilmartin Glen Museum gift shop. It was late morning, and he was tired from traveling and frustrated with himself for his inability to convince more members of the Council to support his nomination of Daisy as a Finder. He thought he’d have more of his fellow Council members behind his request simply because he was the one making it. No other member of the Council held as much sway as he did. The King must have been rallying his minions in the shadows
.

Lauren looked around the small interior of the shop as he waited. Above the two shelves devoted to books for sale, some about the glen, some about Paganism, goddess worship in particular, was a shelf of DVDs. Two in particular caught his eye. They were both MacBain Enterprises productions. One was about Pictish stones and the other about the art of ancient sword-making in Scotland. Someone here had good taste.

Lauren hit the bell. The gift shop appeared deserted, but every table in the adjoining coffee shop was full. Lauren’s stomach growled as a tray filled with bowls of steaming soup was delivered to a corner table. He was tired, hungry, and feeling invisible. Maybe it was time to get a dog. He’d been alone a long time. Maybe he’d get one of those tiny pocket dogs. The little ones probably didn’t make too much of a mess.

Lauren looked at the sign next to the bell:
Please ring the bell for service.
He shook his head. Scotland wasn’t the States. Service wasn’t immediate in the best of times. He thought about taking a stroll through the graveyard next door. Maybe he’d check out some the grave slabs and come back. What he really wanted was to be shown to his rented house, take a bath, have a sandwich and a bowl of soup, and then go for a stroll. He’d end up at the local pub, have a quiet pint, and then head back to his rented room and go to bed. Alone.

Dog ownership was looking more appealing by the minute.

Lauren hit the bell again, this time with more force than tact. The damn thing bounced on the wooden counter. He shook his head. Maybe instead of getting a dog he just needed to get laid. Odds of that happening in this tiny village were astronomically small. He made a mental note to visit Glasgow later in the week. His odds of finding discreet company there were much better.

“Hold yer horses, I’m comin’.”

The words weren’t friendly at all, but the tone was so melodically inviting, Lauren found it hard to take offense. Bright, cheerful, and decidedly feminine, the voice behind the curtain closing off the back room from the counter made all his gentlemanly instincts kick into high gear. Lauren rubbed his temple with the first two fingers of his right hand. He’d worked hard to hone those instincts. They’d saved his hide more than one time. At fifty, he was almost the gentleman he pretended to be.

The curtain opened, revealing a short, pleasantly round woman with an asymmetrical, jagged haircut that accentuated her round face and her dark chocolate eyes. Her hair was a dark brown and would have been a conservative color, but she’d chosen to add a bright magenta streak that looked like a lightning bolt. One side of her multi-colored hair fell at her jaw. The other was held back by a sparkly dragonfly clip that covered close to half of her head. It revealed an earlobe, pierced too many times to count, filled with tiny silver hoop earrings going all the way up the shell of her ear.

Lauren’s eyes widened in surprise as he took in the person attached to that lyrical voice. It took less than a second for him commit her face to memory.

An invisible wind tunnel of energy swirled around her as she moved to the edge of the counter. When she reached it she cocked her head, making her hair bounce as she beamed up at him. Her smile stopped him cold. Large, very white, slightly overlapping teeth and full, pink lips shaped in a bow, bracketed by deep dimples greeted him. He looked from her mouth, past her small, straight nose, to her overly large brown eyes, then back again. Her smile deepened. Her eyes crinkled at the corners in a way that said she appreciated his appraisal and that the feeling was mutual.

She made an
umm
sound. At least, he thought she did. His eyes shot from her mouth to her eyes that now held the most delightfully naughty expression he’d ever seen.

The sensual energy spiraling out from her hit him full force, making him jerk back in response. He took a step back, raised his chin, squared his shoulders, and made his spine as ramrod straight as three days without sleep could manage. She stepped closer, full breasts caressing the counter.

At six foot three, Lauren wasn’t a short man. He’d also perfected an aristocratic air that most people found intimidating when he directed it at them. He used it, and the woman laughed. A deep, earthy sound that washed over him like warm sunshine. She wiped her hands, which he noted sported no rings, on her tie-dyed apron, leaving streaks of what looked like flour and cocoa powder.

Her smile was warm, the elemental sensuality toned down a bit when she laughed again. Lauren found everything about her disconcerting. A unique experience he wasn’t sure he wanted to keep experiencing, but he couldn’t seem to cut off her effect on him. That too was unique, although not unpleasant.

“Och, you’re a big one.” She looked him up and down, and that naughty glow in her velvety, chocolate-colored eyes was back, hitting his diaphragm, constricting his breath. She must have felt his discomfort, because she patted his hand where it rested on the counter. Lauren made an unfamiliar sound in the back of his throat. Whether because of her familiarity or the twinkle in her luminous eyes and the deepening of her dimples, he couldn’t be sure. “No need to take offense, love. I like ’em big and small. Now, what can I do for you?”

Get naked and lie on that counter.

Her eyebrows raised and her pupils dilated in response, but Lauren knew he formed the words and the flash of her naked only in his mind. Then amusement bled into her magical eyes and he pulled his hand out from under hers as if her touch burned him. Her smile widened and she winked. Nothing seemed to offend this woman.

“No need to lock yourself back into your starched shell, love. As much as I’d like to see you in all your glory, I’m not going to jump over the counter and have my wicked way with you.”

She made a clicking sound and had the audacity to look disappointed. “Not during the middle of lunch. Too busy to play. Your virtue is safe with me. For the time being, anyway.” She stared at the counter, caressing it with her palm. “I’m makin’ no promises about later, though.”

Lauren opened his mouth to say something, that woman couldn’t speak to him with…with…well, damn, with—lusty provocation. He lost his train of thought when she wiggled both of her thick, dark eyebrows at him. Then it hit him. For once in his adult life he had no idea what to say. He thought about that a full second before he forced his inner aristocrat front and center.

“I’d like to talk to your superior.” He sounded like the haughty asshole he brought out to play whenever he wanted to keep people at bay. He must have needed to get laid more than he thought, or maybe he was just tired. Either way, she had him seriously off his game.

The woman looked at him a second, then up at the ceiling. She cocked her head to the side, nodding slightly as if in conversation. “Yes, I’ll tell him,” she said, addressing the ceiling.

Lauren resisted the urge to look up.

She looked at him with the kind of seriousness that said she saw right through him so he could drop the act. As quickly as the flash of frankness came it was gone, replaced by a merry twinkle. She put a hand to her waist and cocked a hip. She looked at him like he was the daft ass he tried to impersonate.

“The Almighty says she’s got better things to do than answer your rude pounding on my bell, so I, as her inferior-in-chief, will have to see to your highness’s needs in her stead. Unless, of course, you’d like to service yourself.”

Lauren got the feeling that if he didn’t pull the stick out of his ass he’d be servicing himself for the near future. He couldn’t help himself—as much as tried to stop it, his lips twitched. He was tired. Mostly of himself.

He closed his eyes and lowered his head, shaking the cobwebs from his brain. His stomach growled loudly and he laughed at himself, finding that he enjoyed the last few seconds and he didn’t want to pretend that he didn’t.

She laughed with him and he found he liked that too. He looked at her with a smile and began again. “I’m renting Kilmartin House. I was told I could find the caretaker here.”

Her eyes seemed to confirm something she’d only been thinking until that moment. “Ahhh. So you’re the MacBain.”

He didn’t know he was “the” anything. “That’s me,” he said, relaxed now that he wasn’t fighting the invisible waves of sensuality flowing from her, into him.

“Well, my fine mon, let’s get you sorted, shall we?” She pushed a spiral-bound guestbook toward him. “Sign in and you’ll be on your way to a new adventure.”

He didn’t know what she meant by that, but before he could consider her words more carefully, she was touching him again, leading him arm in arm through the coffee shop tables, still all occupied with patrons, none of whom were paying either of them the least bit of attention.

Before he knew it, Lauren was seated in the kitchen, a steaming bowl of creamy soup, a basket of bread, and a large slice of chocolate cake before him. She poured him a glass of water from a pitcher filled with cucumber slices and set that just to the right of his soup. She reached up to a shelf behind him, her breasts brushing his shoulder, and pulled down a cloth napkin. Before he could stop her she was placed it in his lap, grazing his groin with the backs of her strong, capable hands.

She smiled at him and said, “Eat.”

Then she was gone, taking her whirlwind of energy with her. The air was less oxygenated without her near. Lauren shook his head at his own folly and did as he was bidden. He ate.

After finishing the best meal he’d had in a long time, he wiped his mouth with his napkin remembering the name emblazoned on her apron:
Merry Peacock
. The name fit. She was merry, and as colorfully flamboyant as a peacock.

Suddenly his day was looking up.

CHAPTER SIX

Telling Magnus she didn’t love him anymore didn’t make it true.

Loving Magnus was like breathing; it just was one of those things done without thought or conscious intent, yet without it there was no life. There may not be a way of getting around her soul-deep love for the man, but that didn’t mean she had to like him. In the last twenty-four hours he hadn’t done anything all that likeable, so, he was making disliking
him easy.

Thank God and Goddess alike.

Daisy didn’t know what she’d do if she began liking Magnus again. She’d probably commit some other outrageously stupid act that would send her back into hiding.
No…no…no…Not. Going. To. Happen.

“You’re talking to yourself again.”

Daisy refused to look at Magnus, choosing instead to be enchanted with the rolling hills and the long loch outside her window. She should have been enchanted, it was as beautiful, probably more so, than any of the photos she’d seen of Argyll. “No, I’m not. I’m just enjoying the view.”

Magnus made a rude sound and downshifted around a curve in the road, then pulled abruptly into a passing place; a small, crescent-shaped patch of gravel on the side of the road where cars pulled over to let oncoming traffic pass, since the road would not accommodate more than one vehicle at a time. He looked at her and she could feel his gaze, as the delivery truck passed by them within inches. “You were saying ‘no’ like you were having another nightmare about being forced to eat pea soup.”

She hated pea soup with a passion others reserved for spiders and snakes.

“I was just thinking about the lack of sheep here. I’m thinking there should be more sheep. Hope there’s not a sheep shortage. I’d really like to buy some sweaters.” Since it was June, that probably wasn’t the most plausible thing she could have come up with, but in her defense, there were surprisingly few sheep out and about. She hit her forehead on the window, hoping Magnus would just let it go.