Highland Fling

“Who painted the picture?” She’d often wondered.

“The artist is unknown.”

“Who’s the woman in the portrait?” Talk about total irrationality to resent the woman in the picture.

“That’s unknown as well. I do know Darach MacTavish died shortly after the picture was painted.”

His words knifed through her soul. What was wrong with her? She dealt with life and death on a daily basis and while she wasn’t inured, she handled it.

Kate persevered, driven by the knowledge that after tonight this man who’d so captured her imagination would be forever gone from her world. “What happened? How’d he die?”

“The Battle of Culloden.”

Kate looked at him blankly. The man in the painting might have captured her imagination and awakened a fierce lust, but she was a doctor, not a historian. Science, not history, had always been her thing. “Never heard of it.”

“A group of Scotsmen known as Jacobites wanted to restore Bonnie Prince Charles to the English throne. It was a doomed endeavor from the beginning. Darach MacTavish died on the battlefield at Drumossie Moor, later known as Culloden, in the spring of 1745. Even if he hadn’t, the British would’ve killed him afterwards.”

Kate gasped and braced her hand against the wall as a physical pain wracked her body. “What about his wife? His children?”

“No wife. No children. The MacTavish died without any heirs.”

“So he died alone.” Unbidden, the thought came to her that if she died tonight, now, she too would die alone, much as the man depicted before her. With both of her parents dead and no time for a boyfriend or husband or even girlfriends with her schedule, who would miss her?

The old man shook his head, his eyes looking beyond her and the present, into the past. “He didn’t die alone. His clansmen died along with him on that bloody field. Them that didn’t die along with him were hunted down by the British. And that was the end of the clan MacTavish.” He shook his head. “Actually, that day marked the end of the Highland clans.”

It was her turn to shake her head. His story, in addition to eating up her last few minutes, had irrationally devastated her. “It seems such a waste. But I don’t suppose any of us can avoid our destinies.” It sounded better than life’s a bitch and then you die. This obsession she’d developed couldn’t be mentally healthy. It was just as well the exhibit would leave Atlanta after tonight.

The old man’s enigmatic smile vaguely unsettled her. “Destiny’s an interesting concept. Did you know Albert Einstein was fully convinced time was yet another frontier to be explored?”

“I think I’ve read that before. But I don’t believe it’s possible.” She started as the lights in the main section of the building dimmed, reducing the room to shadows.

“It’s time for you to go, Miss.”

Intellectually, she knew her time was up. The logical part of her wanted to turn and leave. The new, unfamiliar part of her awakened by the portrait balked at leaving just yet. “I know the museum’s closed, but do you think you could give me another minute?”

His look apologized. “It’s time for you to go now. Do you have everything you need?”

His words penetrated her heavy heart with their peculiarity. “Everything I need?”

“Are your affairs in order?”

The old man took her by the arm, but then rather than turning toward the door, he propelled her closer to the picture. She was too surprised to protest or pull away when he gave her a shove. Instead of banging into the wall, she felt herself spinning, faster and faster. Dizzy. Disoriented. Unable to…get…her…bearings. Dark…closing…in….

2

KATE SHOOK HER HEAD to clear it. At least the spinning had stopped. She opened her eyes, and immediately closed them again.

What the hell…?

“Well, lass, mayhap you shoulda asked before you showed up naked in my bed. I wouldn’t complain, except you are a stranger. I well nigh ken everyone in these hills.”

Her fantasy man’s voice was even deeper and richer than she’d imagined with a thick Scottish burr. Under normal circumstances she’d find the voice, along with the rest of him, very sexy…but there was nothing normal about finding yourself naked on a bed with a very large stranger looming over you.

Her brain raced as she opened her eyes and scanned her surroundings. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to replicate the exact setting of the painting, even down to the fire crackling beyond the stone hearth. She looked for any hidden cameras on the set. She wasn’t sure how they’d done it. How had they gotten her out of her clothes? This had to be some over-the-top reality show set or she was an unwitting participant in an elaborate hoax.

Kate possessed a sense of humor. She appreciated a good joke, but naked? How had they gotten her here? One minute she’d been standing in the museum looking at the picture and talking to the caretaker. The next minute, he shoved her, she blacked out, and came to in the picture…and naked as a newborn at that. She was more annoyed than frightened. “This isn’t funny. If you don’t put an end to this immediately, I might have to sue someone’s ass off.”

She scrambled for something to cover herself. Her clothes had vanished, but her purse still hung from her shoulder. Regardless of how sexy Tall, Dark and Yummy came across, he needed to know she meant business. She shifted the purse to her front, trying to shield herself.

“And you can cut the accent.” She raised her voice and spoke to the room at large, so any hidden microphones could pick her up clearly. “If someone’s rolling tape cut it right now and we’ll just forget about a lawsuit.”

Despite the affable smile curling his lips, the man’s dark eyes raked her, assessed her. Even under the bizarre circumstances, a betraying heat spread through her.

“And I want my clothes.” She used the tone that always got results. “Now.”

“Do ye now? I’m perfectly fine with the view. And I have no idea where you left your clothes, lass.” He pulled out a short dagger and the first frisson of fear replaced her confusion. “Pass along that satchel you’re holding onto and I will check that your clothes are not in there.”

Kate clutched her Prada bag even closer. “Forget it. I’m not handing over my purse.” She ran an unsteady hand over the bag. No bulge of clothes there, even though she hadn’t expected there to be. “My clothes aren’t in there. Now, Mr. Whoever You Are, hand over my clothes.”

He shrugged massive shoulders that gleamed in the firelight and glanced around the room. “They are nae here. And mayhap you could tell me who you are and how you came to be in my bed without your clothes.”

“I’m not discussing anything until I’ve got something to put on. That scarf of yours is better than nothing.” Kate was used to immediate compliance. She absolutely wouldn’t let him see that he, along with the whole situation, confused her.

“Scarf?”

Kate pointed to the long plaid scarf he held in his hands. The one that matched his kilt. “Yeah, your scarf.”

“Are you daft, woman, that you would call me plaid a scarf? But if that’s what it takes to get an answer out of you….” Without further ado he unwound the remaining length of material and tossed it to her.

Oh. My. God. The bottom and the top were all one long piece of material and he was stark naked beneath it. She saw naked bodies all the time, but this was different. Vastly different. She swallowed hard and dragged her eyes back up to his face. No need to gape like a hysterical virgin or a sex-starved spinster.

“You could’ve told me you didn’t have on anything beneath it.”

“You didna ask.” His smile held a wealth of arrogance.

For an instant, Kate considered tossing the material back at him, but if one of them had to be naked…well, better him than her. Plus, if you had to have a naked man standing by a bed…well, he was a fine specimen.

“Who’s in charge here?” she asked as she wrapped the material, still bearing his body heat and his hauntingly familiar scent, around herself toga-style.

He cocked his head to one side and looked down the hooked nose that saved his face from being too pretty. “You’re wearing the MacTavish colors and you have to ask?”

This whole thing was way too weird and she might’ve been more open to the practical joke if she hadn’t been naked and if the now-naked man wasn’t wielding a knife. “Oh yeah, how could I forget? You’re Darach MacTavish…and I’m the Queen of England.”

The words were hardly out of her mouth when she found herself pinned flat on her back, the man atop her. The cool metal of his dagger bit against her neck. His eyes were flat and cold. “I’m not sure whether you are daft or bold or both, but those are dangerous words to speak on MacTavish land.”

For the first time, Kate was thoroughly frightened, not just because she was being straddled by a knife-wielding naked psycho, but for the first time she recognized this might be something other than a hoax.

Perhaps it was the flicker of fear in her eyes, but the man moved the blade away from her throat.