Highland Protector (MacCoinnich Time Travels Book Five) (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

From the corner of her eye, Amber saw
Gavin take several steps back as her family moved in to surround her. Her
father positioned his back to her to face her husband while Lizzy pushed
forward.

“My God, we just left you,” Lizzy
said.

“Only minutes ago,” her mother, Lora,
said.

“’Tis been a few months in my time.”

From the hallway, footsteps announced
new arrivals.

Duncan and Tara arrived first
followed by Todd and Myra whose chambers were farther down a distant hall. Her
family was a welcome sight, a relief beyond any she could imagine. So many
questions swam in her head. So much doubt. Finally, Cian filled the doorway.

She’d missed them. All of them.

Lizzy turned her gaze toward Gavin.
“Who is he?”

Amber met Gavin’s stare, said
nothing.

“I’m her husband.”

Her father tensed.

“And you’re standing on opposite
sides of the room… why?” Lizzy asked.

Amber lifted her chin, recalled
Giles’s words. “I’ve learned he is a descendant of Grainna.” Every eye in the
room shot to Gavin.

He looked at her, only her. His
thoughts were a jumbled mess inside her head.

“We don’t know if that’s true,” he
told her.

“We don’t know if it isn’t.”

He advanced on her and the men in the
room moved to stand before her.

“I heard Giles. He spoke of a passage—of
proof.”

“He recited from a book, Amber.
That’s all.”

Gavin kept moving forward. Her father
attempted to move in his path only to jump back from the shield.

Duncan drew a dirk and rushed. He too
was pushed to the floor.

It took every ounce of willpower to
stand still as Gavin used his shield to clear a path to her side.

Everyone in the room grew uneasy as
they found themselves held back.

“Have I given you any reason to
question me? My trust?”

“Grainna was a master manipulator.”

Is that what you think I am?
His question sounded angry in her
head.

He reached her and lifted his hand
slowly to her face as if she were a frightened animal. Which she had to admit,
if only to herself, she was.

“Don’t hurt her!” she heard her
father growl under his breath.

“If I wanted to hurt her, Laird Ian,
I wouldn’t have saved her.” Gavin’s gaze never left hers. His deep abiding
stare soaked into her skull, leaving her head with pain. His long fingers
skimmed around her neck in a near intimate caress. The heavy chain holding the
sacred stone that afforded her the luxury of traveling in time fell into his
palm.

His hand fell away with it.

He twisted and tossed the necklace at
her father. “I’m sure you’ll want to hold onto this,” Gavin told Ian. “Amber, running
off scared to times unknown can get her killed.”

She opened the link in her head to
his.
You think I’m a child.

No, Amber. I think you’re scared.

“God’s teeth, Amber…you’re not
cloaked,” Myra said as she pushed in only to hold back outside Gavin’s shield.

Gavin’s eyes traveled to Myra’s
heavily pregnant belly and he stood back, sucking in his shield so it only
layered his skin. Amber did the same and opened her arms to her sister.

While the women moved to gather
around her, the men regarded her husband with thinly veiled anger.

“You’re cured,” Tara said.

“It seems I am.”

“But how?” Tara asked.

Amber glanced at Kincaid and lifted
her chin. “The same shield that protects my husband protects me.”

“They’re bonded,” Lizzy told those
who hadn’t heard the earlier exchange.

“Really?” Myra asked.

While the other women asked
questions, Amber stared directly into his eyes. “Aye,” she said softly. “We
are.”

Bonded and wed, Amber. Running from
me won’t change that.
He opened his mind to her…every thought, every emotion.
I have nothing
to hide.

She blinked several times.
I am
frightened.

Kincaid faced her father. “Laird
Ian,” he said with a slight bow of his head. “Gavin Kincaid, m’lord, at your
service.” He extended his hand and waited to see if he was to be accepted or
denied.

Ian swept his eyes up and down
Gavin’s frame, his eyes landing on his extended hand. “Are you kin to Grainna?”

Gavin sucked in a deep breath. “I
want to tell you I’m not. But the truth is I have no knowledge of my extended
lineage.”

For one awful moment, Amber noticed
her father’s shoulders tense and felt the static in the air charge.

“He speaks the truth, Father.”

Several seconds passed before Ian
nodded and slowly extended his hand.

The men regarded each other in silence,
and Gavin then turned to Duncan. “Duncan MacCoinnich, I presume?”

“Aye.” They shook hands.

“And Finlay?”

When he turned to Cian, her brother
stared at his extended hand but didn’t offer his own.

“I won’t shake the hand of evil
incarnate.”

“Cian!” Ian scolded.

“Nay, Father. If this man has an
ounce of
her
blood in his veins, then he is our enemy.”

“We
will
withhold judgment.”

Cian offered a cold stare in Amber’s
direction. “How clever to penetrate our family through the bed of the most
innocent one among us.”

His disgust shot like a dagger into
Amber’s core.

Gavin dropped his hand, his jaw
clenched. “Apologize to my wife.”

Amber’s gut twisted. To see her
beloved brother denying her husband left her ill. This wasn’t what she wanted
when she’d run home. What had she expected? Watching her brother’s stone-cold
stare directed at Gavin made her realize how thoughtless she’d been in running
away.

The air cracked with the force of her
father’s gift. “You’re out of line, Cian.”

“Better to die a noble death than to
spawn with the devil.”

Gavin pulled his arm back and swung.
His fist connected to her brother’s face with a loud clash.

Fin grabbed a hold of Cian and Duncan
and Todd pushed Gavin away.

Instead of backing away from the
violence, Amber pushed in, placing herself between her brother and her husband.
“Stop!”

Get out of the way, Amber!
Gavin pushed around Duncan only to
have him keep hold of his arm. The fact that Gavin didn’t use his gift to push
off Duncan proved her husband was distracted by the chaos in the room. Chaos
that left him vulnerable. She left him vulnerable.

Instead of addressing Gavin’s words,
she leveled her eyes to her brother. “Gavin has not been in my bed. Not in the
way you mean. I was close to death and he bonded to me, extending his gift. He
did so without any assurance he would survive. We only just learned of his
possible lineage.”

“Yet you ran,” Cian told her.

“Aye. I wanted the council of my family.
I too fear what I don’t know. But do not lay blame on an affair that hasn’t
occurred.”

Cian pulled out of Finlay’s grasp and
squared his shoulders. “You call him your husband.”

“And he is. I spoke the vows. We
are
bonded.”

There were voices in the hall that
told her they were about to be discovered by either servants or knights. None
of which would understand the presence of Gavin and herself.

“Mother?”

“Ian,” Lora said with the calm voice
Amber wished she had. “Shall we find something for our son-in-law to wear while
we,” she indicated the women in the room, “assist Amber with an appropriate
dress?”

With the distraction, Cian slid from
the room without a backward glance.

Ian watched his youngest son leave
and said nothing. “Finlay, Todd, see to Gavin’s needs. Duncan, we will speak
downstairs. Myra, tell the others we expect Amber and her intended to arrive
before dawn. Tara, take your son from his bed and lead a horse to the south
wall.” Ian paused, glanced at Gavin. “Do you ride?”

“Of course.”

“Elizabeth, prepare the children.”

The room started to buzz with activity.

“Father?” Amber stopped him from
leaving the room.

“Aye, lass?”

She opened her arms and embraced her
sire. “He’s a good man,” she whispered into his ear.

He kissed her forehead and gave her a
slight smile. “We’ll speak later.”

****

The drizzling rain of Scotland wasn’t
something he’d ever get used to. God help him if his wife wanted to stay.

He stood under a tree with a horse at
his side while he waited for the women…or maybe it would be one of the men, to
bring his wife to his side.

It was surreal, really, to have Ian
MacCoinnich orchestrate his entry into the family, into the fortress with
little more than a few barked orders.

Dressed in a kilt, and not one that
had enough pockets to house his weapons, Kincaid stood by the dark horse and waited.

How had his life been reduced to
this? He was a warrior, for God’s sake. He’d battled men throughout time, saved
lives…taken others. And here he stood in the damn rain waiting.

Waiting.

When he started to contemplate what
was happening in Simon’s time, his head felt as if it was going to explode.
Too
damn much turmoil.
Once Kincaid was brought into the Keep with enough pomp
and circumstance to secure his welcome, he would be able to take all the men
aside and discuss life in the twenty-first century.

Well, all the men save one. Cian’s
reaction needed to be analyzed.

The muddy sound of a horse
approaching brought his attention to the misty darkness in front of him.

Amber?

Aye.

Listening to her in his head held a
strange comfort. Even though she didn’t offer anything other than confirmation,
it was her approaching.

She sat on the back of a horse; her
brother Fin sat in front.

Fin swung from the horse and captured
Amber’s hand to help her dismount. The hood of her cloak covered her face,
masking any emotions he might see.

Long layers of dark fabric covered
her lithe frame. She moved in the gown with the ease of a woman born in them, ever
so much a lady.

Fin handed her over to Kincaid, who
happily took her hand.

“Give me time to make it back and
circle in from the North.”

“I’m familiar with the land, Fin.”

“As am I,” Amber said.

Fin returned to his horse and kicked
it into a run.

Alone, Kincaid watched his wife.

“You missed your family.”

“Desperately. But I shouldn’t have
come here the way I did.”

“I won’t argue that.”

“I’m sorry, Gavin. I was scared.”

He pulled her farther under the tree
to add some protection from the drizzle. “You have to learn to trust me, Amber.
Maybe that would be easier for you to do if you didn’t work so hard to keep me
out of your head.”

“But I’m not.”

“You are. Even now. I see the stress
in your eyes, the tension in the way you stand, but your emotions are highly
detached from inside my head. Emotions I felt before we bonded.”

“I haven’t learned to separate your
shield from my gift. Not completely.”

Then simply open your mind to hear my
voice. Can you do that?

I’ll try.

He lifted her hand to his lips and
kissed the back of it.

For the first time since they arrived
in this time, she offered him a smile.

You’re so very beautiful.

Her cheeks started to resemble the
pink rays of sun starting to lift over the horizon.

Thank you.
She lowered her eyes.

“I’m embarrassing you.”

“I’m not used to the compliments.”

“Well prepare yourself, Amber
Kincaid. I plan on complimenting you often.”

She giggled and he felt a smile on
his lips.

“C’mon, m’lady. Your family awaits. I
really don’t want them to worry more than they already are.”

He helped her onto the back of the
horse and pulled himself up behind her. He held her slim waist with one hand
and the reins with the other.

He led the horse to the north in a
wide berth before heading toward the Keep.