Falling in Time (2 page)

Kissing was something else
entirely.

Yet she knew Lore – no
, Rogan
MacGraith
– had kissed her. She could still feel his lips moving over hers,
the silken glide of his tongue, and the firm grip of his hands as he’d held her
against him.

She’d even felt the rough weave of
his plaid beneath her fingers. And – how could it be? – she’d breathed in his
scent, finding the trace of the cold, brisk night that clung to him, almost
intoxicating.

But he couldn’t have been real.

Shaken, Lindy slipped from the bed
and went over to the window. The Talmine road lay dark and silent, a narrow
band stretching away into empty, rolling moorland. It still rained and curls of
mist drifted across the shingled beach not far from the inn. The pier was
deserted. No kilted, sword-packing Highlander stood in the blackness of the
moon shadows, peering up at her.

The tiny village slept.

She touched a hand to her lips and
trembled.

Her mouth was bruised.

Centuries away – the early
fourteenth, to be exact – but much closer otherwise, Rogan MacGraith stood in
the shadows of his bedchamber and glared at the shutter that had dared to blow
open, its loud crack against the tower wall, rudely snatching him from a
wondrous dream.

“Hellfire and damnation!" He
strode across the room and yanked the shutter into place, latching it with much
more force than was necessary.

He shoved a hand through his hair,
keenly aware of his nakedness.

Not that sleeping unclothed was
anything out of the ordinary.

Truth be told, he doubted any man
in all broad Scotland would demean himself by wearing nightclothes.

Certainly no man at his clan’s
proud and formidable Castle Daunt.

Highlanders left such softness for
Sassunachs.

But this night….

Rogan glanced downward, his scowl
deepening. His nude body only revealed how much he burned for the curvaceous,
flame-haired vixen he’d just been kissing and was about to sweep into his arms
and carry to his bed before the damnable shutter bang had shattered his dream.

“Odin’s balls!" He clenched
his fists and willed his own man parts to stop aching. When they did, he
snatched his plaid off a chair and threw it on, not wanting any remaining
vestiges of lust to twitch to life and embarrass him when he stormed down the
tower stairs and into his father’s hall.

It would cause a great enough stir
just disturbing the men’s night rest. The saints knew they deserved their sleep.
But one of them might have heard the name Lore MacLaren.

If so, he meant to rout the
bastard.

A lifetime of searching hadn’t
produced the temptress who haunted his dreams, but if he could locate the man
whose name she cried in passion, he might just find her. Only then would he
know peace.

He’d make her his, insisting she
wed him.

And if she refused or – saints
preserve him – for some reason wasn’t able, he’d finally bend to his father’s
will and accept a suitable bride of his family’s choosing.

He just hoped she wouldn’t be
Euphemia MacNairn, his clan’s current favorite.

She was such a wee slip o’
womanhood that a man could blink and miss her presence in a room.

But her tongue was sharper than the
best-honed sword.

A fault she kept well hidden,
though Rogan had no trouble seeing through her false praise and simpering airs.
Her eyes, when she thought no one saw her, held a chill colder than the
blackest winter night. And – Rogan shuddered - he’d rather guzzle brine than
take her to wife, even if her sire was his father’s staunchest ally.

At least the thought of her
banished the painful throbbing at his loins.

Grateful, Rogan hastened from his
bedchamber. But before he reached the stair tower, a dark shape stepped from
the shadows, blocking his way.

“Ho, Rogan!" His cousin
Gavin’s smile was crooked. “Such a scowl!  Are you on your way belowstairs to
announce that the sun willna be rising on the morrow? Or” – he waggled his
eyebrows – “have you been dreaming of
her
again?”

“Her?" Rogan pretended
innocence.

Gavin laughed. “Unless you cease
blethering about the vixen each time you sink into your cups, you cannae think
I know naught of her!”

“I ne’er
sink into my cups
."
Rogan tried to push past his cousin, but the lout shot out a hand, seizing his
elbow in a viselike grip.

“Once was enough." Gavin
leaned close and winked, clearly amused. “Truth tell” – he flashed a glance
over his shoulder and then lowered his voice – “if such a lush piece invaded my
dreams, I stay abed all my days.”

“You’ll hold your tongue is what
you’ll do." Rogan shook free and glared at him. “Lest you wish me to
silence it for you?”

He reached for the dirk that should
have been tucked beneath his belt, but remembered too late that he’d tossed on
his plaid and nothing else.

Gavin caught the gesture all the
same.

Unfortunately, it only drew another
laugh.

“I but speak the truth." The
lout had the gall to clamp a hand on Rogan’s shoulder.

“Why are you skulking about in the
shadows?" Rogan changed the subject.

“I was- … er, ah… visiting Maili."
Gavin released him and brushed at his plaid. “You might be of a better temper,
too, if you’d partake of her services now and then.”

“I haven’t tumbled a laundress
since I grew my first beard." Rogan stepped away from the cold wind
blowing through an arrow slit in the stair tower’s thick walling. The chill
reminded him of the coldness of his empty bed.

He did his best to assume an air of
importance. “I have no time for such frivol. Some of us have weightier matters
to attend, see you.”

“In the middle o’ the night?" Gavin
looked close to laughter again.

“Snorri’s gone missing,” Rogan
improvised, seizing the first thought that came to his mind.

His dog
was
out and about
somewhere.

And considering the beast’s age and
bad hip, his disappearance from Rogan’s bedchamber was troubling. Snorri rarely
left Rogan’s side. He even shunned his comfortable pallet by the hearth fire to
sneak into Rogan’s bed, often sleeping sprawled across Rogan’s ankles.

It wasn’t like the dog to be
missing at this late hour.

Though – Rogan was sure – the
well-loved scamp had no doubt crept down to the kitchens where he was known to
beg meaty bones and other tidbits from Cook and the kitchen laddies.

Even so, if Snorri hadn’t returned
by morning, he’d launch a search.

“I was just heading out to look for
Snorri now." Rogan started forward again.

He wasn’t about to tell Gavin he
was on his way to ask his father’s men about a man named Lore who, like as not,
was as non-existent as his dream vixen.

Even so, he had to know.

“I saw Snorri trotting towards the
kitchens as I was leaving Maili’s pallet." Gavin’s words stopped him.

“Ah, well” – Rogan forced himself
not to continue down the stairs – “I’ll be returning to my bed then.”

He tried not to frown.

He should have known his cousin
would somehow twist any excuse he used, making it impossible for him to
complete his intended mission.

Proving it, Gavin nodded and folded
his arms. He clearly intended to stay where he was until Rogan turned and
tromped back up the way he’d come. Damn his cousin for being such a long-nosed
bugger of a kinsman.

Rogan felt the loon’s stare boring
into his back even when he knew the tightly-coiled stairs hid his retreat from
the other man’s view.

He still felt eyes on him when,
moments later, he let himself back into his bedchamber. But the gaze he sensed
now wasn’t his cousin’s.

The eyes he knew were watching him
were amber.

And they belonged to her.

The dream vixen who now, damn her
luscious hide, was apparently no longer content to merely haunt his sleeping
hours, but his waking ones as well.

Rogan could feel her everywhere.

In his room’s darkened corners –
the night candles had gutted hours ago and only a few cold embers glimmered in
the hearth – and even right before him, tempting and beckoning, although he
couldn’t see her.

Her presence shimmered in the air.

Rogan stopped where he was, just a
few paces from his bed, and tore off his plaid, letting it drop to the
rush-strewn floor. He half hoped his nakedness might call her. So he stood
still, waiting, challenging the silence. But the only thing that came to him
was the smell of rain on the cold breeze slipping in through the shutter slats.

Until the wind seemed to shift,
turning even colder. Then, beneath the night’s chill, her scent slid into the
room, teasing him. Light and provocative, it was only a tantalizing promise. But
just that one slight hint of her was enough to fire his need and set him like
granite.

She was near.

He knew it in the depths of his
soul.

“Damnation." Rogan sank onto
the edge of his bed and put his head in his hands.

Don’t leave me.

Stay … I beg you!

The words – her words – came to him
from a distant place. But although the beloved voice was hers, one so engrained
on his heart that he’d recognize it anywhere, she spoke in soft lilting tones
very different from the speech she used when she talked to him in his dreams.

You will be killed….

Rogan jerked, looking up. This time
the words were close. No longer faraway, her voice was as clear as if she’d
spoken at his ear, pleading. And the words, so ominous and dire, had broken on
a sob.

“Lass!" Rogan shot to his feet,
glancing around, his heart thundering wildly.

How cruel that he didn’t even know
her name.

But – he could scarce believe it –
he
could
see her!

She stood in the far corner, limned
by moonlight. And unlike in his dreams, when she usually wore naught but a
smile, this time she clutched a deep red cloak about her, holding fast to its
voluminous folds as if a great gusting wind blew, chilling her.

Even more surprising, her lovely
amber eyes were now deepest blue, glistening tears making them shine and
sparkle like sapphires.

And her hair – Rogan stared,
disbelieving – was no longer the deep, gleaming russet he knew and loved, but
palest flaxen. She wore it in a single heavy braid that swung low, reaching to
her shapely hips.

Ragnar….
She looked right at
him, calling him a strange name as she reached a hand towards him.

Rogan stared at her. How odd that
she looked so different. And that she called him Ragnar and not Lore.

Frowning, he took a step forward. But
then his blood chilled, stopping him.

He could see the window shutter
through her outstretched hand!

Indeed, now that he’d blinked a
time or two, he noted that he could look through more than just her hand. The
entire length of her – even her richly-worked woolen robe - was as insubstantial
as a will-o’-wisp.

Yet the strange woman was her.

His dream vixen.

He tried to go to her, but his feet
wouldn’t move. And neither would his lips when he attempted to speak. He could
only stand and stare, watching as she faded into the moonlight, disappearing in
a swirl of twinkling sparkles that danced on the air, taunting him, before
they, too, vanished as if they’d never been.

“Thor’s hammer!" Rogan
scrubbed a hand over his face.

Even that one cannot help us….

The words came on the icy wind
still racing past the windows. But even as he wondered if he’d really heard
them, the night stilled. All was silent save for the muffled roar of the nearby
sea.

Sure now that he was in danger of
losing his wits, he strode across the room and thrust his hands into the corner
where he’d seen the woman. But, of course, he felt nothing out of the ordinary.

Rogan frowned.

He knew he’d seen her.

He’d heard her, too.

Yet….

The more he tried to make sense of
it, the more it tied his mind in knots. It was one thing to have heated dreams
of a hot, passionate woman. And perhaps he could also be excused for enjoying
their sensual encounters, real or imagined. He was, after all, a red-blooded
man with needs and desires that made it impossible to resist such temptation.

But to have her suddenly appear as
a see-through woman in his own bedchamber, calling him a different name, and
then vanishing before his waking eyes, tested even his limits of belief.

And as a MacGraith – hereditary
guardians of nearby Smoo Cave, with all its inherent oddities – he’d been born
to accept strange happenings.

This night he’d had enough.

So he crossed the room determinedly
and climbed into his bed, pulling the sheets and furred coverings over him. The
morrow would be soon enough to think on the things he’d seen and heard.

But as soon as he rolled onto his
side and tried to sleep, he knew he wasn’t alone.

She was in the bed with him.

Naked, warm, and supple as always.

Rogan’s eyes snapped open. He
couldn’t see her – she was lying behind him, her full, round breasts pressing
against his back. Equally rousing, she was sliding one sleek thigh up and down
his in a slow, sensual glide that would bring any man to his knees.

Rogan groaned. His entire body
tightened.

“Don’t leave me." She spoke
the same words as before. But this time she used the voice he knew.

The voice he loved.

Knowing himself lost, he turned to
face her. His heart caught when he saw the want in her amber eyes. She reached
for him, trembling as she wound her arms around his neck, clinging to him,
begging his kiss.

“Lass-”

“Don’t leave me,” she pleaded
again, just as he slanted his mouth over hers.

His heart pounded and he pulled her
close, thrusting his hands in her hair as he kissed her. She opened her lips
beneath his, her tongue slipping into his mouth, firing his senses even as he
slid his hands from her hair down over her shoulders and to her breasts. He
rubbed his thumbs over her nipples, almost losing his seed when they hardened
beneath his caress, thrusting greedily against his fingers.

“Lass…." He broke their kiss,
pulling back to look at her. “I don’t even know your name.”

“But you know
me
." She
bracketed his face, dragging him back to her mouth, silencing him with a
deeper, more feverish kiss. “I am yours.

“I have always been yours. And” –
she pressed into him, her silken warmth and lush curves taking his breath and
blotting everything in his world but her – “you, my heart, will always be
mine.”

“Aye, I am,” Rogan agreed,
believing it.

And then, for the rest of the long
night, he knew no more.