Highlander in Her Dreams Page 8

  She gaped all the same, shaking her head at the pathetic little opening.

  She put a hand over her mouth, disbelief slamming into her, freezing her heart. She’d been so certain, so sure nothing would have changed. Not after the stairs must’ve stood undisturbed for hundreds of years.

  Only the briskness of the cold, clean Highland air remained the same. The incredible age of Castle Wrath’s broken stones and the roar of the surf crashing into its jagged, impervious cliff foot.

  “Oh, no.” Kira dropped to her knees, sagging against what should have been the threshold to Aidan’s world.

  Instead, fallen debris and rubble filled the darkness, the lichen-and-weed-grown rocks blocking the ancient steps, each cold, silent stone and layer of rich, peaty earth an impassable barrier.

  The way to Aidan’s great hall—to him—was sealed.

  Closed off for all eternity.

  Unless she possessed enough spirit to brave the cliff’s maze of underground tunnels, stairwells, and rooms, much of which were said to be crumbling into the sea.

  Dangerous places where one false step could send her hurtling to certain death.

  She blew out a breath, frustration warring with her refusal to give up.

  She did have spirit.

  And she thrived on challenges. Each broadsiding kick in the shins only made her roll her sleeves higher, more determined than ever to besiege whom-or whatever would hold her down. As if to prove it, she swiped a hand through her hair and kissed her palms for luck. Then, reaching deep into the crevice, she grabbed hold of the first chunk of weedy, nettle-stinging rock she could get a grip on.

  Unfortunately, when she pulled, the rock didn’t budge.

  A second and third effort cost her two fingernails. Not that she cared. What mattered was not the attractiveness of her hands, but getting into Aidan’s great hall. If the stairwell of their previous encounter was to remain off-limits, she would just have to find another way to reach him.

  Beyond the wisps of a mere ghostly encounter, she’d felt him here so strongly on her last visit, as if he truly were flesh and bone and raw masculinity. As if he’d been waiting for her, just as she hoped he was now.

  If only her gift, the magic of the place, or whatever, would kick in again and let him know she was near.

  But first she needed to rest.

  Shake off a bit more jet lag and gather her strength for the assault it would mean, creeping down into damp, dank-smelling passages. Icky places where she would be able to see no more than a few feet ahead of her flashlight.

  And she was glad she had one. Bright blue, plastic and beautiful, it rested in her trusty backpack, along with two sets of extra batteries.

  Thanks to Alex and Mara Douglas.

  She also had the perfect place to rest. The great grass-grown arch of what she was sure had once been the entry into Castle Wrath’s bailey. It, at least, was still there as she remembered, the top half of its imposing bulk rising up out of the cliff-top to wink at her in all its Celtic rune-incised glory. A medieval wonder, undisturbed by time, the arch looked as inviting now as it had twelve years ago.

  Strangely beckoning.

  Kira frowned. Regrettably, the tangle of brambles and nettles surrounding the arch didn’t beckon at all. Unlike the caved-in entrance to Aidan’s stairwell, the crevices and holes scattered throughout the castle’s empty courtyard appeared anything but filled in.

  Just the opposite—they looked deep, dark, and dangerous. She wasn’t about to search for one with an intact stairwell until her eyes no longer felt like sandpaper and she’d fortified herself with a tuna sandwich and a thermos of tea.

  Tea solved everything, the Brits always claimed.

  Hoping it was so, she started forward, carefully avoiding the worst of the brambles and nettles, but especially watching where she stepped. She had no desire to get better acquainted with one of those black-staring holes-in-the-ground until she was good and ready.

  Sadly, when she reached the arch and managed to scramble on top of it, Castle Wrath’s pièce de résistance proved to have a few cracks of its own. Some looked rather crumbly around the edges, while others had a fern or two thrusting up from their depths. Thankfully, none looked wide enough for her to fall through.

  Almost tired enough not to care if she did, she quickly claimed the most solid-looking spot the arch top offered, pleased because her chosen picnic site also seemed to have the thickest, most cushiony grass.

  Soft, cushiony grass was good.

  A crackless resting place even better.

  Proud that she’d made it to the arch without mishap, she shrugged off her backpack and pulled it onto her lap, eager to dig out her treasures. A tightly rolled tartan picnic rug, waterproof on one side and just one of several souvenirs picked up at One Cairn Village. Her tea thermos and packed lunch. Her father’s borrowed mini-binoculars and her two special books.

  The Hebridean Clans and Wee Hughie MacSporran’s Rivers of Stone: A Highlander’s Ancestral Journey.

  Thinking of the tour guide—no, author, she corrected herself—reminded her of the other treasure in her backpack. The most special one of all. A fine MacDonald dress sporran she’d plucked off the wall display in Innes’s soap-and-candle craft and workshop.

  Now hers to cherish, she meant to have it altered into a handbag when she returned to Aldan.

  Not wanting to think about her return journey, she unrolled her tartan picnic rug and spread out her goodies, determined to enjoy her afternoon despite her disappointment over the collapsed stairwell.

  Filling her stomach and taking time for a soul-soothing glance through her books would do her good. Then she’d be ready to search for access into Castle Wrath’s heart.

  Or rather she’d be ready if the words on the page stopped blurring before her eyes. The book, Wee Hughie’s little self-published tome, also felt heavier than it should. In fact, the thing slipped right from her fingers, bouncing off her knee to disappear into the nearest crack in the arch top.

  “Oh, sheesh!” Too late, she lunged for it, a sudden wave of dizziness making her clumsy.

  The book was gone, and it was her fault for being such a butterfingers.

  Frowning, she sat back and rubbed a hand over her face.

  What she needed was some of that tea.

  Cure-all of the British Isles.

  Yes, good old Earl Grey would give her a boost.

  If only she could remember where she’d placed her thermos and packed lunch. But her mind felt fuzzy and the picnic goods were nowhere to be seen, the smooth stone surface of the arch top pitifully bare.

  Worse, the afternoon had darkened and a chill wind now whistled past her ears, its keening making it hard to think. Not that she’d be able to concentrate even if the day had remained as clear and still as it’d been. Not with all the shouting and dog barking going on around her.

  Loud shouting and dog barking.

  Even if she couldn’t see anyone or their frenzied canines, the noise was deafening enough for her to jam her fingers in her ears and wriggle them. Something she did with great gusto—until she noticed that Wee Hughie’s tome and her trusty tea thermos weren’t the only things missing.

  Her world was missing.

  Beginning with her tartan picnic rug and ending with her father’s much-prized mini-binoculars. Most alarming of all, the thick carpet of grass covering the arch top had vanished, replaced by smooth, polished stone. The whole sweeping lot of it not showing a single weedy crack. And, surprise-surprise, the arch now raged much higher than before.

  She stared down at the cobbles. Yep, her perch was definitely up there.

  She swallowed, little chills beginning to streak up and down her spine.

  If the well-swept paving stones were an illusion, the arch’s height wasn’t.

  Never in a million years could she have climbed such a towering monstrosity.

  Leaping down was unthinkable.

  If she could even tear her gaze away from Castl
e Wrath’s bailey and curtain walls long enough to consider the risk. Castle Wrath’s teeming, bustling bailey and its mighty, notably untumbled walls.

  Thick, crenellated walls of medieval mastery. Massive, whitewashed, and impregnable-looking, they soared proudly into the Highland sky, every magnificent foot of them daring her to challenge their existence.

  Kira blinked, not about to do the like.

  After all, she decided, clutching her jacket closer against the wind, there wasn’t a need. Her wits had finally returned, and with them, her heart slowed a pace. She really was seeing Castle Wrath as it had once been. She looked about the bailey, ready to appreciate the moment for what it was: another fleeting time slip.

  A tantalizing glimpse into the past, visible for the space of a blink and then forever gone.

  Just as she’d seen flashes of Norsemen landing in America. Or, more recently, at One Cairn Village, when she’d caught a look at Ravenscraig’s onetime English lord.

  She recognized the moment for what it was because her gift always let her see time-slip images as real and solid. Only true ghosts and spirits appeared somewhat translucent.

  But this time the image was lasting longer.

  Much longer.

  She shifted, the fine hairs on the back of her neck beginning to rise.

  Never had she enjoyed such a lengthy viewing of the long ago. A medieval curtain-walled bailey no longer teeming with mere chickens, goats, and scurrying washerwomen, but now also filled with out-for-blood ferocious-looking dogs. Leaping, barking beasts larger than some ponies she’d seen at state fairs back home. Equally oversized and nearly as shaggy were the wild-eyed, gesticulating clansmen who appeared in the same moment as the dogs, the whole unruly lot of them looming up out of nowhere.

  One instant there’d been only barking and shouts. The next, the barkers and shouters were there, bold as life, and wanting her.

  At least that was the impression they gave her.

  Kira’s heart began to race again. Something was seriously not right. She blinked several times, but the men and the dogs remained.

  Garrulous, frowning, and garbed in rough tartan clothing, the clansmen poured out of the wooden buildings lining the curtain walls or stormed from the keep, a flood of plaid-hung outrage bursting from a door she recognized as the one leading into Aidan’s hall.

  Her breath caught when she recognized it, but she had no time to digest the meaning of the stairwell’s intact appearance. On and on the men came, hollering as they ran at her across the bailey, some wielding swords, others shaking fists.

  All stared.

  Looking furious, they crowded beneath the arch, gaping up at her as if she were some two-headed monster.

  “A fairy!” one cried, pointing with his dirk.

  “Nay, a witch!” another corrected, glowering at the other. “I’d ken the like anywhere.”

  Kira stared back at them, too startled to move. Never had one of her past-glimpses felt so…real.

  Or so threatening.

  She shuddered.

  This wasn’t how she’d envisioned her return to Aidan’s world. She’d hoped to sneak into the shell of his ruined great hall and catch a glimpse of him sitting there. See him lairding it at his high table, all sexy and magnificent. Perhaps even catching his eye and exchanging glances before the image faded.

  Maybe even share one brief real-time kiss.

  Facing a pack of raving, wild-looking Highlandmen who thought she was a witch wasn’t her idea of bliss.

  Especially when a great bearlike man with a mane of thick black hair and an even bushier black beard shouldered his way through the throng. He stopped at the base of the arch, where he stretched his arms above his head, loudly cracking his knuckles.

  “Come!” he roared at his kinsmen. “If she’s a witch, the laird will be wanting us to seize her. I’ll hoist any souls brave enough onto the arch to get her.”

  “O-o-oh, no, you won’t,” Kira disagreed, scooting away from the arch’s edge. She pushed quickly to her feet, knowing from experience that the sudden movement would break the spell, plunging Castle Wrath into splendid ruin and sending its long-ago occupants back into their own day.

  To her surprise, nothing happened.

  The image, and the angry men, remained.

  “You aren’t really there,” she said anyway, looking down at them. She shook her head against the cold knot forming in her belly. “Any moment you’ll be gone—and so will I!”

  But the icy wind kept whipping past her, the bailey dogs continued to bark, and the Bear was readying himself to hurl the first sword-swinging Highlander onto the arch.

  “No swords, you lackwit!” He snatched the other man’s blade and sent it scuttling across the cobbles, instantly endearing himself to Kira.

  Until he swung the other man high into the air, informing him, “If there’s any head-lopping to be done, I’ll do it myself. Seeing as I’m the laird’s own ax-man.”

  “The laird won’t want a hair on the maid’s head harmed—whoe’er or whate’er she is.”

  Kira froze, looking on as he cut a path through the crowd.

  It was Aidan. Every inch of him just as bold and glorious as she knew him. Even if his eyes currently blazed with anger, not passion. Fury directed at his men, not her.

  And o-o-oh was he beautiful in a rage.

  Her heart flip-flopping, Kira released the breath she’d been holding and looked on, watching as he scorched the gathered men with a glare, then upbraided them.

  “Your chief will have the tender parts cut off any man who’d dare lift a hand against a woman—any woman,” he warned, throwing back his plaid to reveal the wicked-looking long sword beneath. “As would I.”

  His chief? Kira’s jaw slipped. She would’ve sworn Aidan was laird. The history books said so, too.

  “Ach, Tavish,” the Bear argued, solving the riddle.

  Looking disgusted, he set down the man he’d been about to hurl onto the arch. “Where’er your eyes?” the man said. “That be no woman on the arch—she’s a witch, plain as day. Have a good look at her.”

  And he did. This Tavish who looked so like her Aidan that Kira’s heart was still galloping madly in her chest. He let his plaid fall back into place and tilted his head, staring up at her with Aidan’s own dark eyes.

  Intelligent, measuring eyes, she noted with relief.

  “I can see she is…dressed oddly.” His gaze swept her from head to toe and back again. “She’s also passing fair and nothing like any witch I’ve e’er had the discomfort to meet.”

  “Bah!” Her would-be captor snatched up his fallen sword, resheathing it with a scowl. “The laird’s gone off women—as well you know. He won’t care how fair the wench is. Witch, or no’.”

  “He’ll care that no woman is mistreated on MacDonald soil.” The man called Tavish planted his hands on his hips and glared round again, raking the others with a cold stare until, one by one, they backed away.

  “Be warned, my friends,” he added, “if you value your bollocks.”

  Then, in a whirring blur of plaid and steel, he vaulted onto the arch, landing on his feet in front of Kira before she could even cry out.

  “Have no fear,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her all the same. “I mean only to see you to my liege. He’ll decide your fate, though it willna be beneath an ax-man’s blade. That I can promise you—whoe’er you are.”

  “I’m Kira.” She blinked at him, his resemblance to Aidan unsettling her, making her knees tremble. “Kira Bedwell of Aldan, Pennsylvania.”

  His brow furrowed. “Pen-where?”

  “It’s a long way from here.” She tried to smile, but the way he was studying her made it impossible. “A distant place. You won’t know it.”

  “It matters not, Kee-rah.” He reached to finger one of the buttons on her jacket. “Though it wouldn’t be wise to let the others see you as closely as I have,” he added, whipping off his plaid and swirling it over her shoulders. “This will shi
eld you from the worst of their stares. I shall tell them you were shivering with cold.”

  “They’ve already seen me.”

  His lips quirked. “What men think they see can be corrected,” he said, patting his sword hilt. “Dinna fash yourself o’er those blunder-heads below.”

  “And your chieftain?” Kira wrapped the plaid around her. It smelled of man and woodsmoke. “I can’t imagine he’d be easily persuaded.”

  “Aidan is a fair and reasonable man.” He looked toward the keep, then back at her. “Crazed as it sounds, I suspect he might even be expecting you.”

  Aidan.

  The breath froze in Kira’s throat.

  She said nothing, her tongue too thick for words.

  Her champion shrugged, his gaze dipping to her feet and the hill-walking boots she’d bought before leaving on her trip. “Och, aye,” he drawled, “I’d wager my soul you won’t be a surprise.”

  Kira took a deep breath. “Why not?”

  “Would that I could explain it. ’Tis a feeling I have here.” Looking slightly sheepish, he pressed a hand to his heart.

  Kira bit her lip, her own heart pounding so wildly, she wondered he didn’t hear it.

  Showing no signs of doing so, he stepped closer, his expression unreadable.

  “Come now, let me get you down from here before you do catch a chill.” He reached for her, sweeping her into his arms. “Aidan’s in the great hall, holding council, though I doubt he’ll mind the disruption,” he added, hefting her over his shoulder as he made to jump from the arch.

  But not before Kira caught a quick glimpse of Wrath Bay.

  Wrath Bay, the incoming tide, and the little crescent-shaped strand.

  A strand now crowded with colorful, square-sailed galleys.

  Nary a keel mark to be seen.

  Aidan slammed down his ale cup, well pleased with the decisions of his war council. “’Tis settled, then.” He lifted his voice so it was heard not just at the high table and on the dais but throughout Castle Wrath’s hall. “Conan Dearg’s time has come to pass. We ride for Ardcraig on the morrow. At first light and not a heartbeat later.”

  “Aye, let the bastard’s days of bluster and swagger be ended!” someone yelled from the shadows.