Everlastin' Book 1 (18 page)

“You wouldn't be a little
prejudiced, would you?”

The husky timbre of Beth's
voice brought his gaze to her face. But the light in his eyes
dimmed quickly when he realized the depth of her pique with
him.

“Abou' last
night—”

“I'm fed up with the games
and lies!”

“Lies, you say!”

“
I knew there was something
peculiar about this whole business.”

“Peculiar, now! I'd be
watchin' ma words, lass. Tis a sad day when a fine-lookin' womon
like yerself wakes up lookin' for a fight, rather than—”

Beth's opened hand flew out
and caught Lachlan on the side of his face. Stunned that her temper
had again prompted her to strike out at him, she curled her fingers
over the edge of the stone wall and stared unseeingly at the
scenery below.

Sighing deeply, Lachlan
gingerly touched his fingertips to his smarting cheek. “I take it
tis no' a good time to ask for a morn's kiss.”

Beth turned to him, her face
taut from her struggle to hold back the tears pressing at the back
of her eyes.

“Sometimes, your humor irks
the hell out of me.”

“Only sometimes?” He shifted
uncomfortably beneath the intense inner pain her eyes betrayed.
“You'd have mair heart wi' me if you knew how long I've had to
amuse maself.”

“Was making love to me a
joke as well?”

Lachlan jerked in surprise.
“You know better, lass.”

“Do I? I woke up alone, in
my room, and for two days, I don't see or hear a word from you.
Then you show up last night, expecting me to jump into your arms!
Where were you for those two days?”

“Gatherin' up ma
strength.”

“On the cot in the carriage
house? Because you sure as hell haven't been in the house! Save it,
Lachlan!” she added bitterly, a hand raised to ward off his attempt
to speak as she went on to accuse, “You own this estate, don't
you!”

Crossing his arms over his
chest, Lachlan turned to the wall. A long moment passed in silence.
His teeth were clenched, causing a muscle to tick along his
strongly defined jawline. He didn't want to look at the damn
landscape. He'd seen it a thousand times from this very place.
Morning, noon and night. He'd seen countless sunrises and sunsets
from this tower. In the past, he'd hung around the tower at night,
waiting for some fool trespasser to scare the wits out of. But that
hadn't been a necessary diversion for his boredom since the
Cambridges had moved in.

“Lachlan!”

“Aye, a Baird built it. A
Baird will always own it.”
And tha's the
truth,
he thought smugly.
The fact tha' tis one and the same Baird is no'
relevant right now.

“Carlene was playing
matchmaker when she invited me here.”

Lachlan cast her an
impatient scowl. “Aye!”

“And you were a part of that
little scheme.”

With a feigned shudder, he
crooned, “Och, darlin', yer makin' me wish I'd had a wee shot o'
scotch afore seein' you.”

“You're not going to charm
your way out of this!”

Lachlan winced in earnest.
“Shudderin' pines, lass, ma ego is badly bruised as it is from yer
sharp tongue!”

“Better your ego than your
body.”

“I'm no' tryin' to hide
aught from you.” But if I tell you all right now, you'll throw
yerself from the tower here, and winna tha' make a helluva mess.
“Aye, I pleaded wi’ Carlene to bring you over. Wha's the harm? Are
you no' happy wi' me?”

“Happy?” Beth's face
darkened, her eyes flashed, and her voice dropped two decibels.
“Happy? You miserable womanizer! Did you run out of women here in
Scotland to seduce?”

Lachlan flinched but there
was a glint of laughter in his eyes. “Och. If you would just calm
down—”

“I've been worried sick
about Carlene and her husband! How could you— Oh, why am I wasting
my breath! As of tomorrow, I'm out of here! I'm going
home!”

Lachlan's face grew dark
with savagery. “This is yer home.”

With a guttural sound of
disgust, Beth whirled away from him. She was blinded by her anger
and didn't realize where she was walking. A cry escaped her when he
took a painful hold on her shoulder and spun her around to face
him. She kicked him in the shin, and was trying to twist away when
she look downward.

Her blood plummeted. Her
face paled.

Two inches away from her
foot was the opened stairwell. Another step and she would have
fallen.

Determined to make her
listen to reason, Lachlan framed her face with his hands, his
thumbs planted firmly beneath her chin to force her to look at him.
“Can you really be so silly as to believe I would want you here
only for sex?”

Beth couldn't answer him.
She closed her eyes tightly to shut him out. There was a pulse
pounding at her temples, and a sharp pain stabbing at the back of
her neck. She was on the verge of tears, but she wasn't sure
why.

“Och! Have the decency to
look at me when I'm talkin' to you!”

Her eyelids lifted and her
gaze met his. But at the despondency in her eyes, Lachlan released
a low moan and laid his brow to hers.

“Ah, dammit. Forgive me.” He
kissed her lightly on the lips then, lowering his hands to the
curves of her shoulders, drew back to study her face for several
long moments. “I love a good sparrin' o' words now and then, but
lass, this is hurtin' like hell. I'm no' perfect. But I do love you
mair than life itself.”

Again he kissed her, a
little longer. When he felt her response—although he was vitally
aware of her trying to resist him—he embraced her in his arms and
deepened the kiss. His insides heated. It was a blissful, welcomed
feeling after the countless times he'd known only the grayness and
its companioning cold. The warmth of the woman and the warmth of
the sunrays beating down on his back, were priceless to
him.

Reluctantly, he ended the
kiss. As he straightened away, he expected to see a glow of passion
on Beth's face. Instead, her eyes were unnaturally bright with
indignation. He slid his palms down his face before dropping his
hands to his sides and leveling a frazzled look on her.

“Leave, Beth, and you'll
hurt me mair than you could ever imagine.”

“There's nothing here for
me,” she said coldly, her pride refusing to give in to the anguish
she read in him.

Lachlan placed a palm to his
chest. He could feel the coldness returning, beginning to seep into
the very core of him. His high emotions were wasting his energies.
He was running out of time.

“I've got to
leave.”

Tears rose into Beth's
throat. “Then I'll say goodbye now.”

“Goodbye? No. When I
return—”

“I plan to be out of this
house today.”

Despair radiated from every
part of Lachlan. “Dinna go, lass. Dinna leave me!”

The painful coldness was
spreading rapidly through him now. Panic seized him as his gaze
dropped to the opening above the stairwell. If he didn't hurry, he
would fade before her eyes.

“Promise me, Beth! Wait till
ma return!”

Pale, trembling, Beth gave a
stilted shake of her head.

Indecision ripped through
him. If he left, he risked her getting too far away from the house.
But if he didn't, and he vanished before her eyes, the horror of
her premature realization would scar her deeply.

“Lachlan, are you ill?” Beth
stepped toward him, concern further blanching her face. “You're
terribly pale.”

She caught her breath as he
swung her aside, causing her to cling to the flagpole. Tears
welling up in her eyes, she watched him hurry down the steps and
disappear into the dark grayness below.

“Oh, damn,” she choked, and
started after him.

She called out his name
repeatedly as she descended one flight of steps after another. It
amazed her how fast the man could move—amazed and irked her. Never
in her life had she met anyone as elusive as he...or as charming,
and infuriating, and so absolutely head-spinning. At the moment,
she didn't want to dwell on why Carlene would go along with such a
subterfuge. She only wanted to sit and talk to Lachlan without
their tempers getting in the way.

Running out into the second
floor hall, she came to an abrupt halt. Pain capped and squeezed
her skull, staggering her. “Oh God, not another one!”

Tears spilling down her
face, she backed up and leaned against the wall for support. She
wanted to go on, but it hurt to move. It also hurt to think, and
she couldn't slow down the maddening pace of her
heartbeat.

She squeezed her eyes shut
as the pain became unbearable. The aspirins were in her bedroom on
the third floor. If she could only see her way to her
room—

With her second step, she
fell to her knees. The pain in her head magnified as
unconsciousness began to lower its curtain on her.

“Lachlan!” she gasped.
Fighting with what little strength she had left, she began to crawl
toward the staircase. “My head.... Lachlan, please, my
aspir—”

She collapsed in a heap.
Rolling onto her back, her arms angled out from her body, she
stared dully into the darkness trying to rescue her from the pain.
It was senseless to fight unconsciousness, but instinctively, she
resisted it with all her willpower. The pain had magnified to such
a degree that she was becoming less conscious of it.

But the fear was ever
present.

Migraines.

She'd procrastinated in
seeing a doctor to see if the headaches were caused by the fall
she'd taken down the stairs, or an allergy to something she was
ingesting. But the headaches had never been this severe.

Not until her arrival in
Scotland.

They had worsened because of
stress.

The long flight.

The time
difference.

Carlene going away the same
day Beth arrived.

Lachlan.

Everything was a possible
factor.

“Lachlan,” she whimpered
drowsily, her fingers kneading the rug beneath her.

Tiny lights appeared above
her face. It hurt to focus on them, but she couldn't bring herself
to close her eyes and shut them out. Tiny dancing lights. They
began to move in a circle above her, gyrating faster and faster,
making her dizzier as seconds passed. Her arms and legs were
weighted. She couldn't move. She wanted to cry but no tears
came.

Then she became aware of a
breath-robbing coldness hovering by her. Something within it moved
close by her then she felt an icy kiss pressed to her
brow.

Now she was hallucinating, a
new facet to these terrible headaches.

I'm here,
whispered a voice inside her head.
Sleep, Beth. You'll feel better in no time at
all.

Her heavy lids closed but
her mind was vitally alert. “I c-can't m-move.”

I know. Tis a frightenin'
thin’ ye're goin' through. But it'll pass. Trust me.

“Trust you?” she croaked,
her voice growing weaker. “I want to...to....”

Kick me a good one in the
bahookie.
His laugh was like a caressing
whisper in her skull.
Tomorrow, love, and
every morn efter. For now, put yerself in ma care. Sleep, darlin'.
Sleep deep and peaceful.

Beth gave into
unconsciousness. She was not aware of invisible arms lifting her,
or of them carrying her to her bedroom and gently laying her atop
the bed. Her sandals were removed and placed on the floor. The
quilt was drawn up over her and lovingly tucked beneath her
chin.

Then a long, shuddering sigh
filled the room.

Sleep deeper, darlin'. I'll
no' leave yer side till I know dreams o' me are keepin' you
safe.

Two logs rose into the air
from a wrought iron stand alongside the fireplace. The screen moved
aside. The logs glided into place on the firedog. Within seconds, a
fire roared within the sole heating unit, and the screen slid back
into place.

When the chill was out of
the room and Lachlan knew Beth was fast asleep, he permitted the
void, the limbo of total grayness, to call him back.

***

She awakened in the middle
of the night to a low fire in the fireplace. Disoriented, she
stared at it until she finally got her bearings.

“The migraine,” she
murmured.

With the unsteady fingers of
her right hand, she brushed aside the curly strands of hair
clinging to her moist brow. The back of her head and neck were
numb. Oddly, there was a little numbness in her left arm and
leg.

“That was a
doozy.”

Lachlan.

The thought of him brought
her slowly up into a sitting position. She had dreamed they were
having the picnic again, in that same place among the hills,
beneath a tree. She could still hear his voice and laughter in her
ears, and recalled almost too vividly the touch of his hand, the
gentleness in his gaze—