The Legend of Lady MacLaoch (25 page)

My mind went fuzzy. “I—I’m not sure exactly. I just remember a few seconds after you . . . ” I was unable to complete my thought.

“After I what, Cole?” he said as his hand glided over my belly, sending ripples of excitement through my midsection, cold air kissing the small, exposed area of my bare stomach.

“Oh my,” I breathed. I put my hand over his, capturing it. “Maybe
you
should tell
me
what happened next.”

I felt him move in, the heat of his skin warming the air between us, his lips a hair’s breadth away from mine. “Maybe it’s better that I show ye.” Rowan shifted farther over me, his knee settling between my thighs.

“Oh god,” I whispered, closing my eyes against the emotional onslaught.

Rowan’s lips brushed against mine. “I like Rowan, but ye can call me anything ye want.”

And right then I wanted nothing more than to live out my dream in the hot and humid peach orchard with the MacLaoch chieftain, despite my misgivings.

The cold night air electrified goose bumps along my skin, and I shivered. The little chill brought me to a more immediate point: the heather was stabbing me relentlessly in the back, and it was far from hot and humid out.

A smile tugged on Rowan’s lips. “I felt that all the way through my sweater. Are ye cold,” he asked, “or are ye really excit—”

“Cold,” I said, cutting him off and looking back at him.

And yet I wasn’t sure that I still wouldn’t end up naked and frozen with him in the heather if I let him keep talking.

“OK,” he said, breathing deeply over my lips, sounding regretful of what he was about to do. “I believe you. You did wake up after I suckled ye, didn’t ye?” He kissed my neck lightly, breathed deeply.

“I-I did.” I shuddered.

“Are ye sure ye don’t want me to show ye what we did?” he asked, hopeful, and planted another soft kiss on my jaw, then my ear, warming them both with his breath.

I didn’t trust my mouth any more, not with him that close—I simply nodded.

“OK,” he said again. He gave me one last long look before he stood, helping me up as well. Dusting the debris of the heather from our clothes, we climbed out of the brush and hurried to the front door.

There, Rowan paused, one hand on the old wrought iron knob.

“Just for the record, Cole,” he said, slowly and forcefully bringing me in against him, his pelvis pressed against mine, his hand at my lower back. “I’ll have ye know tha’ I made randy fucking love to ye until the sun came up, and now I want to know if it’s the same in real life.” He gave his words just a moment to sink in, and watched my face as the recognition played across my features. With a wicked grin, he yanked the door open and strode inside.

CHAPTER 34

I
took a moment more in the foggy damp outside to collect my thoughts that had just gone dark and sultry with the chieftain’s honest words. They mingled with the heat of his hand from just moments before in the heather. A few seconds later I went in, unable to fully shake them. Rowan met me in the living room with a whisky in hand, the only visible effect of his true mood in the amount of whisky he had poured himself, it being twice the measure of mine.

“Let’s see,” he said, “Kelly and Eryka want to kill me, and Kelly to then marry ye. And then Eryka to kill ye, so she can marry into the family. Gregoire was waiting with a sword in his hands for ye in your room, after swearing at the gala the other night tha’ ye were his to marry and complete the curse with. And you are now stuck with the cursed MacLaoch chieftain in his hunting lodge without cell-phone reception. I’ll no’ lie, I’m getting the better end of this, I’ll tell ye tha’,” he said and lifted his tumbler at me in cheers.

I gave a derisive snort and felt reality break through the lusty fog in my mind—placed there, no doubt, by his design. “Yes, that you are.” I smiled, taking a sip of the warm liquid. “And all of it is because of a legend. You said you called the police, right?”

“I made sure tha’ was done before I left. Thinking clearer now, I should have stayed instead of snatching ye and running. But I’ve no’ been thinking clearly since I met ye.”

I smiled; I knew exactly what that felt like. Before I could comment on that subject, my stomach rumbled loudly in protest at being ignored.

Rowan laughed, heartily, one that seemed to start from deep inside, quite unlike anything I’d ever heard from him.

I felt my head go light with his joy and said distractedly, “I’m not sure I can survive on a whisky-only diet.”

“Och, not many can—tha’ is, unless ye are a Scots, which in your case, ye are, just out of practice,” he said, his smile still bright on his face. “Come now, no need to starve, with the hunt being canceled all tha’ food needs to be eaten.” He walked past me and into the kitchen.

Moments later we were back in the living room with bread, cheese, cold cuts, pâté, dried fruits, nuts and, of course, more whisky, spread on the wooden coffee table between us. I’d also set out the files I’d gotten from Deloris and Dr. Peabody before Rowan had yanked me out of the library.

Rowan sat in the leather chair across the table from me and I sank into the buttery leather couch. We washed bread and cheese down with the sweet whisky and I felt it blooming with heat on the way into my stomach. “About the curse . . . ” I said, feeling it was now or never. “I think I need to tell you about Peabody’s newest theory.”

“Aye?” Rowan said, curiosity and a healthy dose of wariness coloring his tone.

“That the curse is over,” I said plainly.

Rowan’s brows rose in surprise. “Aye? And how did he come to that?”

I plucked the file from the table and slid a paper from it over to him.

Rowan read through the Secret Keeper’s version swiftly and tossed it back onto the coffee table. “Aye, I’ve read that one countless times. Did Peabody find something new?”

“Well, you’ll remember that he had measured your energy reading or whatever it is he does with the gadget he keeps talking about. He’s come to the conclusion that you’ve seen the likes of Lady MacLaoch’s pain. Since you were shot and with Vick’s associated death, apparently, it makes a big impact on your force field or some such.”

“I got that.”

“So we both agreed that since the curse states—as you know—that once the chieftain feels the—”

“Aye, likes of her pain. I heard ye and I know tha’, but Cole, I dinnae think tha’ what I felt was enough for Lady MacLaoch. She had to stand by and watch as her betrothed got his head severed. I dinnae think she’ll accept a bullet and a friend instead. More likely she’s looking to have me watch ye be strapped down and killed as payment made in full.”

I blinked. “I’m sorry. What did you just say?” I asked, then realized that this had been Rowan’s personal fear for some time now.

“I know tha’ it does not fit in with Peabody’s or your theories, Cole, but ye have to understand tha’ it is I who lives with the curse and has her blood beating through my veins. I’ll gather I have more experience than either of ye on this subject,” he said plainly, not answering my question—yet he didn’t look to be purposefully dodging it either.

“Rowan,” I said. “Why would she kill me? I’m the other half to this; I have the blood of her betrothed pumping through my veins,” I said, using his words. “I doubt she’d want to kill me.”

“And ye know this how?” he said, trying to make me realize I had no basis. But I did.

“Because she’s shown me.”

Rowan’s whisky glass was at his lips when I said this; his hand stilled and then replaced the glass on the coffee table without his having taken a swallow.

“She . . . ” he said and stopped. “How?”

“Two things, before I tell you.” I held up a single finger. “One, do you remember the day I came to Castle Laoch and I asked you if the ring in the glass case was Lady MacLaoch’s?”

“Aye . . . ”

Two fingers raised, I said, “Second, the dream we shared.” No need to ask him if he remembered, as I was now well aware that he remembered that dream vividly. “They both involved her. In the first dream, I was on the island that’s named after her, looking back on shore. In that dream, the ring was on my finger. We walked down the beach, she and I—she was within me, as if we were one, though she left me as a man came toward us.” I looked Rowan in the eye—he was not missing a word that left my mouth. “You have to understand that the whole time, she was joyous, jubilant with something—a homecoming. I thought it was because the man was coming home, only realizing afterward that I was the one returning—he’d been here all along.” I plunged on, “In the second dream, it started there—happy, lovely feelings once again, only this time the man who had no face in the first dream was standing next to me.”

“And tha’ man was me,” Rowan said softly.

“Yes. So now do you believe that Lady MacLaoch has lifted the curse?”

“Aye, I can believe ye,” he said, his voice sounding hoarse, “but, what is it, Cole, tha’ is left, because ye know as well as I tha’ she’s no’ done.”

“Yes. That’s where Peabody’s second theory comes in,” I said, feeling my heart ratcheting up, not knowing how I was going to tell this chieftain, this laird of MacLaoch lands that he and I were to wed. My words struggled to form and, in my silence, my rational mind began to fight a loud and determined fight. I picked up my whisky and slogged it back, heedless of its sweet fiery heat. Placing it a little harder on the table than I’d intended—like a college drinker at the end of finals week—I stood and put some distance between us. The coffee table was no longer enough—I felt that his presence was all too, well, present for me to easily tell him my next piece. At the moment I would have preferred to have the conversation with him on the phone. Long distance.

“Ye are making me nervous,” he said, lacing his fingers together and leaning back in the wide leather chair, looking anything but.

I rested my hands on my hips, trying for all I was worth for a similar look of nonchalance. “I’m not sure how to say this next piece without sounding completely ludicrous.”

Rowan simply grunted, his eyes never leaving mine.

“Peabody assumed the same as we did—that even though the evidence points to Lady MacLaoch’s curse coming to a close, there is something more that needs to happen. After I told him of my dreams, of seeing the ring and you in them, he came to the conclusion that the next piece involves you and me. Umm, closely.” Feeling a bit of background was needed, I added, “Did you know that Iain Eliphlet, and I suppose me, as well, is a direct descendant of the Minory who was killed?”

“Aye,” he said, “I asked Peabody to research tha’ the day I met ye. Aye, I know tha’ ye are the product of the legendary Minory’s own loins, and that’s what scared me—tha’ ye were here to ensnare me and then die as I watched, helpless. I tell ye, tha’ would be a fitting end for me for Lady MacLaoch—to crush the last bit of light from my soul,” he said with vehemence.

I felt myself wince at his words.

“It might seem impossible but, Cole, when ye watch someone killed in front of ye once, the thought of it happening again is no’ so outlandish as it may seem,” he said in simple truthfulness.

“I’m starting to see that,” I said, then realized distractedly that he had had Peabody, rather than the official MacLaoch historian, research my history. “But why did you have Peabody research it? Wouldn’t Clive have already known the answer?”

“Clive,” Rowan said, “is a very opinionated auld bugger and won’t challenge research tha’ has been done more than a century ago. When ye told me your story, I placed the pieces together tha’ Iain Eliphlet dinnae die but rather left.” He brought the subject back around to what I had been expertly avoiding: “From what ye described of your dreams, I can guess Dr. Peabody’s second theory.”

“Really?” I asked. “Because it took me by surprise.”

“Lady MacLaoch wants fulfillment of the one act that she was denied
all those years ago,” he said.

“You are a quick study,” I said, feeling my heart rate gently increase once again. “Yes, Peabody thinks that with her showing me the ring and then you in the dreams—well, the rest, I suppose, should have been obvious . . . ” I let my words drift out into the air between us.