Highlander’s Curse (32 page)

She considered protesting but decided against it, the lure of the fire too great to be ignored.

In no time at all, he was lifting her things from the unrolled bundle and shaking them out before he draped them over the fencing that separated the storage area from the original stalls in their shelter.

“It’s all wet?” She didn’t even try to keep the disappointment out of her voice. The prospect of the long, uncomfortable night she faced loomed large in her thoughts.

“Dinna fash yerself over it, wife. I’ve a dry tunic and plaid in my bundle.”

“How?” The rains had fallen on him equally hard as they had on her.

“Because I carry our provisions, I wrapped them first in an oiled leather. Here.” He crossed over to where she sat, stopping to scoop up an ivory-colored shirt, which he handed to her. “You can change over there. I promise no to watch if that makes you feel better.”

An uncharacteristic grin broke over his face as he teased, causing her heart to beat a little faster than it
had a moment before and forcing a smile to her lips in return. As if his seeing her in any state of undress made a difference anymore.

Shirt in hand, she hurried behind the stable wall and worked her way out of her overdress and shift, letting them drop to her feet before slipping his shirt over her head. It hung down past her knees while the sleeves draped several inches past her fingertips.

Last, she wiggled out of the wet linen underpants, balancing on one foot after the other to pull them off. She then located a spot on the rail to hang them to dry before heading back to the fire.

She brushed a hand down the soft linen of the tunic she wore, surprised at the case of nerves that suddenly afflicted her. How stupid was that? She’d never met a man, never met anyone, with whom she felt as comfortable as she felt with Colin. And yet, when she stepped around the fence, she felt her face color with embarrassment as he watched her approach.

After what seemed like the longest minute of her life, she suddenly realized it wasn’t her attire at all, but the expression on his face, that elicited her discomfort.

“What?” she asked nervously as she sat down on the blanket he’d spread close to the fire.

He continued to stare at her for a moment longer, as if he had something he wanted to say. A pensive expression he’d worn off and on all day. Then the moment passed as quickly as it had come. He shook his head and turned his back, stirring whatever was in the pot he had placed at the edge of the fire.

“Stay to the middle of those woolens,” he cautioned.
“They’re from under the horses’ saddles, so their edges are quite wet.”

So that was where he’d gotten them. She pulled her feet up under her and tucked the big shirt down over her toes, watching Colin as he fussed over the pot, yet again going out of his way to take care of her.

“What is that you’re making?”

“Porridge. It’s only oats with bits of dried meat, but it will be warm and filling. It needs stirring so it doesn’t burn. Would you mind looking after it while I change into something drier?”

“Go.” Abby rocked up onto her knees and took the stick Colin was using from his hands. “I’ve got this under control. Go change.” She could handle campfire cooking.

She couldn’t help but notice how the wet plaid he wore clung to his body. When he bent over the bundle he’d unwrapped on the hard-packed dirt floor, the wet woolen seemed to wrap itself around his thigh, as if his clothing had orchestrated some special little performance just for her benefit.

Abby snapped her eyes back to the pot in front of her, searching desperately for some distraction from the knowledge that at any second now, Colin would be standing somewhere behind her, not a stitch of clothing on him.

Stir. She needed to stir the oats. With the stick. The stick in her hand.

The stick itself was tapered to a rounded point on one end while the other had been carved into a crownlike design. She recognized it immediately as a
classic spirtle, a specialty tool long used in Scotland for the cooking of oats.

From behind her she heard the sound of the wet plaid slapping up against the rail.

If she closed her eyes, she could see him standing there, the firelight flickering over his well-defined body, his long legs covered only in the dark hair . . .

Stop it!

She needed to think of something to do, something to say, anything she could use to distract herself from the image that crowded her thoughts and stirred her emotions.

“I’ve read that it’s tradition to stir the oats clockwise with the spirtle.” She kept her attention focused on the little pot while she babbled like some tourist at a medieval fair. “For luck. Is that what you . . .” She turned her head as she heard him approaching, and her tongue forgot how to form words.

He’d changed out of his wet things, but since she wore his dry tunic, he wore only his spare plaid. It hung low at his waist as if he’d wrapped it hurriedly.

If she was the tourist, then surely he was the medieval attraction she’d come to see.

“Lord,” she breathed, unable to wrench her eyes from his bare chest. The glow of the fire created shadows and planes over the muscles, highlighting what was impressive enough to start with.

“Stir whichever way you will, woman, but stir you must.” He swept the spirtle from her hands, whipping it round and round in the pot. “It’s an overdone porridge we’ll be having this night,” he complained, though the
rare grin he’d shown her earlier was back, eliminating any sting his words might have had.

He set the pot between them and tore two chunks of bread from the fresh loaf they’d gotten just this morning from Roderick’s cook. After handing one to her, he sat beside her, offering her first go at the pot.

She scooped her bread into the porridge, careful to keep her eyes averted from the man beside her, a task made more difficult by the heat radiating off him.

Or was that heat coming from her?

A quick sideways glance caught a flash of black and she turned her face fully to inspect his arm.

The area from his bicep to his shoulder was covered in a familiar tattoo design. In the center, a snake with a bar crossing over it, a classic Pictish marking. It was the same design she’d seen in the drawing Jonathan had shown her. The same design she’d searched for on the stones at the dig.

“Where did you get that?”

Though she’d seen him without clothing more than once since she’d been here, they had been in relative darkness each time. Only on that first day so many months ago back in Denver had she had the opportunity to really see Colin’s body, and she knew for a fact this tat hadn’t been there then. She would have remembered something like this, especially when she’d been tasked with finding the same mark when she reached the dig site.

“Mark of the Guardian,” he answered, the design appearing to ripple as if alive when he reached out to dip his bread into the porridge. “Earned through my training with the Fae in Wyddecol.”

The Faeries again.

Abby made a noise she hoped was acceptably acknowledging and fixed her gaze back on the food in front of her. She might not be able to deny such things existed anymore, but she certainly didn’t intend to put any effort into thinking about them, let alone discussing them. Especially not since it would ultimately lead to her having to deal with her own connection to them.

Now that they were finally speaking to each other again, there had to be something better to talk about than Faeries. Taxes, politics, even the horses’ bathroom habits were preferable to discussing the creatures responsible for her current dilemma.

“It’s a shame you didn’t have some vegetables to put in this. Or potatoes instead of oats. Mashed potatoes would have been good with the pieces of meat.” Food. Always a safe subject.

“Mashed potatoes?” Colin gave her a blank look as he dipped his bread back into the porridge.

Abby nodded as she swallowed her last bite. “Yeah. You had some at the café that night. Tatties, they called them when they served them with the haggis and neeps.

“Ah yes,” he breathed, closing his eyes as if to see his memory better. “Those were excellent.”

With the pot emptied, Colin took it to the opening and set it just outside the door. “It’ll fill with rain and be easier to clean in the morning,” he explained as he sat back down beside her.

The silence between them stretched out once again, broken only by the irregular thump and splash of raindrops filling the pot. Abby attempted to sneak
a quick peek in Colin’s direction, only to find him watching her, the same serious expression on his face as earlier.

“What?” she asked as she had before. “You have that look again. What are you thinking when you stare at me like that?”

She almost hesitated to ask on the chance that he might choose to embark on another round of the commitment debate that had ended so poorly last night. And even when she did ask, she suspected from his continued silence that he meant to avoid her question as he had earlier.

This time he surprised her.

“I was thinking how beautiful you are.”

“Oh. I . . . wow.” Not at all what she’d expected to hear. “Thank you.” If she’d guessed from now until the end of time, those particular words wouldn’t have been anywhere near the list of things she’d have expected him to say.

“You’ve no need to thank me. It’s a statement of fact and no meant to flatter you. It’s only that an old friend recommended I make a point of saying aloud those things which are on my mind and in my heart. I’m finding it’s no a habit that comes easily to me.”

She could only bobble her head up and down like one of those silly glass weather birds her grandmother used to keep on a doily in her living room.

“Chocolate,” he said suddenly, breaking the new round of silence that had fallen between them.

“Chocolate,” she echoed, not at all sure where he was going with this or how it could possibly fit with their last conversation.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “Chocolate would be good to have right now. I rather fancied the kind with the fruit and nuts mixed in.”

“Mmmmm,” she moaned, remembering that chocolate was only one more of the many things she missed while she stayed here. “A big mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream on top would be so perfect on a night like this.”

“We do have cream in this time, you realize. When we return to Dun Ard, we could manage to make the whipped cream you speak of.” Colin shifted his position, lying down on one side, his head propped on his arm as he stared at her. “Though we’ve nothing now to replace the chocolate to go with that cream.”

“That wouldn’t work. I wasn’t thinking of real whipped-in-a-bowl cream.” If they were going to compare her century’s food with his, he was going to lose. Big-time. “My whipped cream comes in a can that you keep in the fridge. It’s cold and sweet, and you shake it up and spray it out in little designs and curlicues. On absolutely anything. Strawberries or hot chocolate or even straight into your mouth if you’re having a really horrible day.”

She fully intended to expand on the variety of wonderful uses and to make sure he understood that the straight-into-your-mouth thing was unsanitary and totally frowned on in some quarters, but he was giving her that look again. The one that made her throat dry out. Probably because all the liquid in her body was flowing south.

Damn, but he was good to look at.

“I’ve something I need to tell you, Abby, though it’s another that I’m no at all comfortable with the telling.”

He reached out to her, tracing the back of his index finger along the curve of her cheek, a move that sent chills racing through her body to places that were nowhere near her face.

“You already told me you thought I was beautiful. You don’t have to say it again.” Though, heaven knew, it was perhaps the most wonderful thing she’d ever heard. Not just because it stroked her ego, but because it came from him.

“No.” His finger moved to gently cover her lips. “What I need to say is more than that. I need to share that which is in my heart.”

Abby clasped her hands in her lap, locking her fingers together to prevent his seeing the trembling that was beyond her ability to control.

“You told me once that for the whole of yer life you’d felt the need to come to Scotland to search for something ancient. Something that waited here, just for you to find it. I’d put to you, wife, it was no a thing which called to you at all. I’d have you consider that it was my soul calling out to yers to be found.”

His words hung in the air, vibrating in the space between them as he held her gaze, staring into her eyes. It was as if he looked into the depths of her heart to uncover her deepest, darkest desires, examining each one in turn until she had no secrets left from him.

“I believe I ken now the reason the Fae sent me to you in the first place.”

Abby couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t even think straight. If he’d truly seen into her heart, if he truly knew she believed him to be The One, if he knew that she really had wished him into the future with her, and that she was responsible for ripping him out of his world and putting his kinsmen in jeopardy, what would he think of her then? She’d almost rather have him simply trying to seduce her.