Highland Fling

“And what if we’re bluidy well overrun while you’re up visiting with her?”

“Trust me. Have I ever offered you unwise counsel? Take me to her.”

Hamish regarded the man he’d known and loved like a brother his entire life. More than once he’d entrusted Darach with his life. Hamish hoped he’d do the same now.

Darach turned abruptly and made his way toward the keep. Hamish followed, leaving behind his customary banter, scrambling to decide how best to present the situation to Darach and the lass. It was so much easier when those involved figured it out on their own.

They entered the room, Darach first. The woman spoke. “That was quick. I told you I wasn’t meeting anyone.” Hamish stepped around Darach and smiled a greeting.

Recognition widened her eyes. “You—you…you’re the one who shoved me into the painting. I know it. You’re younger, but I recognize you. I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing but I want out.”

“You brought her here?” Darach reared back, betrayal echoing in his stance. “I asked and—”

“I told you none of the men saw her enter and they didn’t. Hear me out and know it is a strange enough tale I have to tell.”

Kate spoke up from the bed. “Okay. We’re finally getting somewhere and while you’re telling it, how about you untie me.”

Darach looked from Hamish to Kate and shook his head in distrust. “Not until I have heard the tale.”

“The first manner of business would be that this is indeed Glenagan, Scotland and it is November of 1744,” Hamish said with an apologetic smile at Kate.

The woman’s skin grew paler still at his words, all the blood seeming to drain from her body. She should thank Darach that she was flat on her back, else she might have fallen.

“No.” She breathed the single word through clenched lips.

“Who is she?” Darach asked.

Where was a good place to start? Experience had taught him there were no good places to start with this. “She’s a woman from two hundred and sixty years, well two hundred sixty two years to be precise, in the future.”

Darach eyed him as if madness had overcome him.

“Ah. I see you think I’ve gone a might daft and for sure it is a bit hard to believe.” He looked at Darach to show him neither madness nor deception shadowed his eyes. “She is from Georgia, a place that today is a colony of the crown and the city she comes from does not yet exist. She is not British. She and her people are known as Americans.”

“She said you brought her here. So, I’m supposed to believe you are still alive two hundred sixty two years in the future?”

Hamish shrugged. “I told you it’s a strange tale.”

“But you haven’t been gone from the castle.”

“I don’t know how to explain it, but I exist on several different planes, at different points in time, in different places.”

“Are you some kind of dark magic?”

“I don’t know what I am.” He’d ceased long ago to feel sorrow over his unusual state. “I’ve just learned to accept it. I can’t make anything happen. But things happen through me.” He gestured to the painting on the wall. “That painting spoke to you, drew you, did it not, lass?”

“Yes.” Her skin flushed to a rosy glow.

“You’ve seen that painting before?” Darach asked her.

“Yes. It was in a traveling exhibit, Sex Through the Ages, in the Atlanta museum.”

“Sex Through the Ages?” Darach frowned at her.

“I didn’t name the thing,” Kate snapped back at him. “I just showed up for the viewing.”

Hamish jumped in to get the conversation back on track. “And the draw was so strong you couldn’t stay away?”

“Yes. Did you do that to me? Did you cast some kind of spell?”

“No. What you felt was between the two of you. That’s the way it works. I don’t pick anyone. If you weren’t supposed to be here, if on some level you didn’t want to be here, you wouldn’t.”

“Wait a second. Something’s obviously gotten screwed up somewhere along the line. I definitely don’t want to be here. I want to be home. You’ve got the wrong gal. I think you meant to snag my friend Jordan. She’s a history major. Trust me. She’d much rather be here, well, maybe not tied to the bed,” she glared in Darach’s direction, “but she’s into history and this would be right up her alley. Trust me on this. I’m not the person for this. I don’t do history. I’ve never even been to the Renaissance festival ’cause I don’t like that stuff. I’m a techno freak. I love the conveniences of modern life. Electricity. Running water. Flush toilets. CAT scans. Penicillin. Starbucks.”

“Aye. A mocha latte grande is a thing of beauty.”

“See. You understand. You have to send me back.”

He upended his palms in a gesture of helplessness. “I can not. Only you can send yourself back.”

“No. That’s not true. ’Cause I’d be home right now if I could. And I tried to go through the picture earlier.”

“No, lass, ’tis yourself that has brought you here. You wanted to be here so much you were willing to come as bare as a bairn. And once you have taken care of what you came here for, you’ll return.”

Darach stood, arrogant, commanding, smug. “So the lass wanted a tumble with me that bad, did she?”

“Actually, your need for her was so strong that she felt it coming through.”

“Now I know you are daft, man. I don’t need her.” He eyed her stretched out on his bed, clad in his plaid. “Now, there is no denying I want her. I’m willing to tumble a comely lass, but I don’t need her. There is any number of lasses willing to warm my bed.”

“You are the most arrogant, pig-headed, macho, blustering bag of hot air. Whatever faint glimmer of attraction I felt at one point for a man in a picture has totally dissipated having experienced your lack of charm first-hand.”

Darach’s mouth tightened. “Aye. And I can do without a viper-tongued wench.”

“Wench? Wench? Lass is one thing, but did you just call me a wench? I’ll have you know I’m a doctor. No one calls me a wench. I passed my boards with flying colors. I could take you apart and put you back together with my eyes closed.”

“That may all be well and true, Katie-love, but while you are here, I’m the laird.”

Hamish let himself out of the room. For the time being, his work was done.

4

“NOW, DO YOU THINK you can untie me?” Kate said. “I can prove to you I’m from the twenty-first century.”

As fantastical concept as it was, she was convinced she’d somehow time traveled. The old guy who now looked young and satellite absence had made a believer of her. However, she thought that business about her wanting to be here was a load of horse manure. In no way, shape, form or fashion did she want to be here.

Maybe that conductor guy had smoked some crack. Did they have crack in 1744? She knew virtually nothing about historic mind-altering drugs. For that matter, she knew precious little about historic anything. It wasn’t her deal.

“I will unbind you if I have your word you’ll remain in this room, otherwise, for your own good, I’ll keep you bound to my bed.” He stood at the end of the bed, strong legs braced apart, thick arms crossed over his massive chest.