Return of the Highlander (Immortal Warriors) (6 page)

Bella didn’t know what to do or think. First
the Highlander in her kitchen and now that man on the horse, riding toward her. His face…He’d wanted to kill her, she’d known it with a cold, hard dread. And then, a moment later, nothing. The loch was still as glass, the air was sweet and chill, and the silence absolute. Bella could tell herself she was imagining it, that the past few days had scrambled her brain, that her synapses had gotten crossed.

But she knew what she’d seen; she just wasn’t sure what to do about it.

And there was something else. Just after the man on the horse disappeared into thin air there had been a movement on top of one of the shallow hills that surrounded the loch, where the road ran across from Gregor’s croft. Something pale brown and shaggy and elongated had been standing there. She hadn’t seen it for long, but long enough to know it was the pony with the strange green eyes.

When Gregor came to see her later in the day, bringing her milk, eggs, and butter, and asking her about some missing sheep he’d had grazing by the loch, she didn’t know whether to mention her experiences or not.

“You’ve seen no one about?” he asked, concerned for his sheep. “No strangers?”

Yes, a ghost in the kitchen and another one riding a horse.

“Well…no.”

“Where’s Brian?”

Bella looked away from Gregor’s keen gaze. “Brian’s having a holiday. Sort of.”

Gregor nodded. “Verra well.” He gave her a dour smile. “If sheep went missing in the old days it was the way of the people to blame the
each-uisge
. There were other monsters, too, like your Nessie in Loch Ness, and creatures in other lochs that are not so famous. The waters of Scotland have always held their secrets. Only nowadays we dinna believe in such things.”

Bella frowned. “Strange you should say that, Gregor. I did see a horse by the loch. Well, a pony. Twice. I thought it might have belonged to you.”

Gregor shook his head. “I have no horse, Bella. Mabbe it was from over Mhairi.”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll ask about. See if there’s one missing. What did it look like?”

“Odd.”

He gave her another dour smile. “Next you’ll be telling me you’re seeing ghosts, Bella.”

She grimaced and knew she couldn’t talk to Gregor. Whatever was happening to her, it was up to her to sort it out for herself.

When Gregor had gone, Bella stood and gazed across the reflections in Loch Fasail and over to the gray bulk of the mountains that sheltered Ardloch on the coast. The long twilights seemed to go on forever, so that there was very little darkness. It felt like another world, a dreamlike place where anything was possible. On nights like this Bella had no difficulty in believing the Highland tales of ghosties and ghouls and monsters in the lochs.

Brian had swum in the loch once and rushed out, white-faced, saying something had tugged his foot. She had laughed at him, but he’d been adamant it wasn’t his imagination.

“This place is haunted. That massacre you’re writing about, there must be restless spirits all around us. That’s why no one else wanted to stay here. That’s why it was so cheap.”

“It’s not haunted,” she’d mocked, “and if it is I don’t care. I want to live here forever.”

“I
do
want to live here forever,” she said now to the silence. “Despite the spirits and the
each-uisge
. Please, can I stay?”

And it was strange, but when she looked up there was a big bird, a majestic eagle, soaring above her. Considering her request.

The sweat popped out on Maclean’s brow. Could ghosts sweat? Well, they must be able to, because he was.

He tried again, concentrating fiercely on the tea mug Bella had left on the desk the night before, and his fingers shook as he tried to close them about the hard shiny surface. For a heartbeat he felt it…and then his fingers slipped through.

Maclean sat, head bowed, feeling confused and depressed.

Since the rider had appeared and tried to hurt Bella, Maclean had felt a change in himself. A tingling in his fingertips. He’d hoped it meant he was regaining his sense of touch, but although several times he had almost caused the mug to move, it seemed he still had a long way to go.

He was worried, too.

What if something else happened to Bella? How could he protect her properly if he was barely anything more than a puff of air? He needed to regain his full faculties as soon as possible. When he was alive, there hadn’t been much about warfare and battle he did not know. He had been protecting his people since he was a boy—it was one thing he was very proud of—and watching over Bella would be no hardship.

Indeed not.

Sometimes he wondered whether the real reason he wanted to feel again, to be a man again, was to protect Bella or because he wanted to hold her in his arms and
feel
her womanly curves. Both, maybe. It was true that the sight of her burned into him. He admitted it. For a man who could not feel hunger, Maclean was ravenous with lust. If this was two hundred and fifty years ago, he’d have taken her into his four-poster bed by now. He let himself picture them lying on the fine feather mat
tress with the bedcurtains pulled all around them and her soft pale skin flushed by his attentions. Muted, safe, intimate—just the two of them.

But that was a randy dream—there was no possibility of taking her to his bed. Whether he liked it or not, Maclean could only watch and listen, and every hour that passed increased his awareness of her.

Last night he had watched her sleep.

When Bella slept she had such a peaceful expression on her face and her body grew soft and relaxed as her breathing slowed. Maclean did not sleep himself. Like other functions of the living, this was denied him, so instead he watched her with an intensity that was almost envy.

“Maclean?”

With a jolt he had leaned closer in the darkness of Bella’s bedroom.

“Maclean.”

Bella was calling his name in her dreams.

All the hairs on his skin had stood straight up. She was dreaming of
him
.

“I’m here,” he’d whispered, peering into her face. “Och, Bella, ye are so beautiful.” He bent forward and kissed the air above her cheek.

“Maclean…” She’d turned over and snuggled into her quilt, a smile curving her mouth.

Maclean’s eyes stung with tears. He had not cried since he was a wee lad, but he was in danger of it now.

Because, if he lived in her dreams, did that mean he existed, somewhere in the shadowy realm of sleep?

Did that make him
real
?

At that moment Bella came into the room, her hair
still tangled from sleep, her face fresh and beautiful, all of her so delicious. He badly wanted to stand up and swing her into his arms and take her straight back upstairs to bed.

“Not real enough, unfortunately,” he muttered dejectedly, and reaching out his hand tried to grasp the mug once more.

Bella couldn’t stop smiling as she began to make herself some toast. Last night she had a wonderful dream. She paused, butter knife in one hand, toast in the other, and closed her eyes to remember.

Maclean had been standing in the shadows, watching her.

“You’re not real,” she told him firmly.

“I’m caught between life and death, neither one thing nor the other. But I am a man. I want ye like a man wants a woman.”

How could he do that? Make her heart beat stronger like that? Just with his voice and his words?

And then the scene had changed. They were lying in the soft fragrant grass by the
Cailleach
Stones, beneath a night sky full of strange moving colors—green and blue and yellow, surging and shivering. She was watching the sky over Maclean’s broad, strong shoulder, because his body was on top of hers. Heavy, powerful and very masculine. His legs between hers were moving with a rough friction, and his hands on her hips, his fingers strong and callused, were probably bruising her skin with a grip more used to a sword hilt than a woman’s tender flesh.

But the thing was, she was loving every moment of it.

Her mouth clung to his and she heard herself moan. Her Highlander was not gentle, but he wanted her. And she wanted him to stay just where he was now—inside her. She could feel every inch of him. He was big and silken, elegantly stroking her inner flesh, making her senses quiver and ache. Another moment and she would shatter….

He lifted his head and his eyes were full of tenderness.

“I like to watch ye while ye sleep.”

The surroundings had altered again. Now Bella was back in her bedroom and Maclean was leaning over her, his face darker than the night. Bella’s eyes opened and she thought:
Is this a dream or am I awake?
Although she knew it could not be the latter, such things were not possible.

“Och, Bella, ye are so beautiful.” His voice was husky, deep, and it stirred her very soul. And then he bent and kissed her cheek, his lips as gentle as a moth’s wing. “Sleep now, sleep now….”

And Bella drifted away on the warmth of his breath.

Now Maclean’s husky voice played over in her head and she smiled again, knowing she was being silly. Very silly. In reality Maclean had been a black-hearted villain and here she was making him into a romantic hero, but she couldn’t help it. She wished she could dream about him every night. It certainly lifted her spirits, not to mention her libido.

“Och, Maclean,” she murmured.

The mug on her desk suddenly flew out over the edge and crashed to the floor.

Bella stared, wide-eyed.

And then the phone rang and nearly sent her through the roof.

It was Georgiana in Edinburgh.

“Bella, there you are,” she said in her brittle voice. “I thought I should let you know that Brian is staying here with us.”

“He told me.”

“Oh. I didn’t know what he’d told you. He was in a bit of a state when he arrived here. Actually, I thought
you
might ring him.”

Did Georgiana expect her to apologize for upsetting Brian? Bella knew she wasn’t going to do that, not ever again. The silence seemed to unnerve Georgiana and when she spoke now there was a catch to her voice.

“I don’t pretend to know what happened between you two, Bella, and I don’t want to, but I did wonder…you wouldn’t consider coming down to Edinburgh for a few days, would you? Just over the weekend. You and Brian could talk, sort things out. I’d make sure you had time alone. I’m certain you’re just as keen to see him as he is to see you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Bella’s heart was bumping and she felt slightly sick. “Brian said everything he wanted to say to me before he left. I think you’ll find he doesn’t want to see me.”

“Bella, I’m sure—”

“I’m working, Georgiana. If Brian wants to talk, he knows where I am.”

Georgiana gave a loud sigh, as if she thought Bella was being childish. Perhaps Brian was right to covet Georgiana, perhaps they were made for each other.

“All right. If that’s what you want, I’ll tell him. Goodbye, Bella.”

The call disconnected. Bella pulled a face at it. Her good mood was spoiled now. She glanced at the mug on the floor. Maybe there was a very slight earth tremor? Bella glanced about her, but nothing else seemed to have moved. Her gaze fell on a stack of her heaviest books. She had put the replica of Maclean’s portrait under there to flatten out the creases after Brian had crumpled it. She removed it now and held it up to inspect it. Not too bad, she thought. Almost as good as new.

Her good mood restored, Bella replaced it on the wall above her desk, so that she could look up and see it as she worked. Her fingers lingered on the paper.

Och, Bella, ye are so beautiful.

If only dreams could come true.

Maclean was in a good mood, too. He had
gotten the mug to sail off the desk very satisfactorily; it had caught Bella’s attention nicely. And now she had a picture of him she had placed upon the wall. He grinned in pleased amazement. It was the portrait he’d had painted in 1744, though Bella’s copy was far smaller and of poorer quality than the original, but it was definitely the same painting. Maclean remembered how the wee artist shook in his boots while it amused Maclean to play the savage bloodthirsty Highlander.

“Boo,” he’d longed to say, just to see the wee man wet himself, but he was the chief so he showed some restraint. But the artist had his revenge by making Maclean look as if he were about to reach out of the canvas and throttle someone.

And now he was on Bella’s wall.

Maclean was flattered that after two hundred and fifty years dead he could still occupy a woman’s thoughts so
fully. What he didn’t understand was the why of it; what connection she had to his current predicament.

Bella had settled in front of the machine and was munching on a piece of toast while she flicked through her pieces of paper. Maclean came up behind her and stood waiting for her to begin talking to herself. Every morning Bella sat at the machine that clacked beneath her busy fingers and made words and sentences appear upon a square flat surface that rested upright in front of her. The words themselves danced like fireflies before his eyes, so he didn’t try to read them. It wasn’t that he couldn’t read—he had been educated well. As was the way with his memory that gave up insignificant details so easily and yet refused him the important ones, he could remember his first tutor. An enlightened man, he taught the young Maclean that there was a world that extended far beyond his borders. He introduced him to poetry and prose and ideas, but his father called such things a waste of time and the tutor had left, and another, far more “suitable,” was found.

Maclean found he enjoyed watching Bella’s face and the thoughts that flitted over it—her eyes changed with every emotion so that he did not need to guess what she was feeling or thinking. In any case she was one of those women who frequently spoke aloud to herself, even when she was alone, or maybe because of it. Maclean found a guilty pleasure in closing his eyes and pretending she was speaking to him.

“Why can’t I get it right?” she said with a sigh, and pressed the button that took away all the words again. She did that a lot.

He leaned forward, eager to answer. “What have you done now, woman?”

“I’ve never had this much trouble before.”

“Why do you no’ find a priest or a scribe? In my day, women found a man to do their writing for them.”

“It’s not as if this is my first book.”

“So you are a scribe yourself?” He was impressed. He had known of women who were well taught, but not many came to Fasail. Bella seemed exceptional. “Do you write down the works of learned men? Is that what you’re doing, lass?”

“My last book sold…well, at least five thousand copies.”

Maclean heard the ironic smile in her voice but did not understand it. “Five thousand? That’s an awful lot of books.”

“Then why is this story so hard to tell? Am I being true to history? Or am I writing it the way I want it to be? My fantasy Scottish warrior.” She groaned and buried her face in her hands.

He peered down at her, frowning in his attempt to see into her mind. But she was off again, lurching forward to begin her furious tapping, the words lighting up the screen. If he had been a living man they would have butted heads, but as it was she passed right through him, leaving him with an odd dizzy feeling and the lingering scent of her perfume.

“’Tis a beautiful morning,” he said, glancing longingly at the window. “We could go for a walk?”

She sighed. “Work, Bella, work.”

Work? Did she call her tapping on the machine work? He smiled indulgently. Women’s work was
cleaning and cooking and raising babies. And pleasing a man. Maclean thought Bella could please him very well. She was perfect, her skin creamy and smooth, her curves lush and womanly. Any guilt he might have felt watching her wash and dress was soon overcome by the pleasure it gave him. But there was something odd about the speed with which she covered herself. Almost as if she knew he was there, or…was it possible she was ashamed of her beauty?

He pondered on it now, turning the question over in his head. Was physical attractiveness something to be kept hidden in this new world?

He could not accept it.

Unless…Did Bella not know she was beautiful? Had someone convinced her she was ugly—not fit to be seen? This seemed a far more likely explanation for Bella’s strange behavior. Words could be cruel. They could continue to cause pain and suffering long after the person who had spoken them was gone.

Maclean’s own father had a vicious temper, and would strike out at those around him with words that slashed and cut and maimed as efficiently as a sword. The memory came out of the void in his mind.

His mother’s face, tear-streaked and unhappy, the bruise growing on her cheek, and Maclean, his voice quavering, “She dinna mean it, Father, please, forgive her,” and his father, raging, “I’ll no’put up with ye taking sides against me, laddie! She has betrayed me, betrayed us both. There can be no forgiveness. Tell him, woman! Tell him how you meant to abandon your child!”

And his mother, bleak, wooden. “I did plan to leave Loch Fasail, Morven. I didna want to abandon you and
I would not have done so, only…your father would never let me take you with me. He would kill me first. Now it does not matter. My lover is dead.”

Her lips wobbled. Tears spilled from her eyes.

But he did not see her anguish, he was not old enough to understand her conflict. Only one thing had relevance for him.

“You meant to leave me?”

Maclean could still remember the incredible sense of betrayal as his mother’s silence confirmed the worst he could imagine.

From that moment on, Maclean was his father’s son, turning his back on his mother as she had turned hers on him. And now that he was a grown man, he did not feel as if he knew her at all. Women were a mystery to him.

Maclean frowned.

Women are no’ important. A man must look to his lands, his clan and his enemies. Women are nothing but a distraction.

There was his father’s voice, ringing in his head. Maclean knew it was a fundamental truth that distractions could kill a man.

The ironical thing was that now he had nothing to do
but
be distracted by a woman.

He glanced down at Bella, and the familiar warmth spread through his ghostly body. She had dressed in a white overshirt today, so tight he was amazed that she had got it on. He’d noticed before that some of her clothes seemed to stretch out as she tugged them over her head or hips, and then reshape themselves lovingly to her curves.

One strand of her long dark hair had fallen out of its pins, caressing her cheek. Maclean clenched his hands into fists to stop himself from trying to brush it back, knowing it would spoil the illusion that he was a real man.

Would his father be pleased with him now? If he knew his warrior son’s one ambition was to take a woman’s lock of hair between his finger and thumb and experience the feel of it? The scent of it? No, Maclean knew his father would not be pleased about that.

He wondered abruptly if his brutal father ever felt love for a woman, for his wife? As he stood, breathing in Bella’s scent, it occurred to Maclean that part of his father’s savage bitterness toward women may well have been because of his own hurt and betrayal. In his own way, he had loved Maclean’s mother, and her planning on leaving him for another man had curdled that love and blackened his heart forever.

It did not excuse his treatment of her—the blows, the curses—but it made sense. Maclean’s father had blamed all women for the faults of one. And he had taught Maclean to feel the same, and to protect himself from the hurt that loving could cause. But at what cost?

Distractedly, he glanced at the screen as the lit letters flashed upon it. And froze. The letters were no longer dancing in front of his eyes like fireflies. He could read them!

Intrigued, Maclean shuffled closer, ignoring the disconcerting way in which parts of Bella’s body merged with his. He read the first line aloud. “Morven Maclean was named for his grandfather—”

His
name was on the screen. She was writing about him! Maclean gave her a bewildered look. Why would she be writing a book about
him
? It was not as if he were a king or a prince—he could understand if she was writing about Charles Stuart or King George, but Maclean? What had he ever done, that Bella would want to write it down in a book? Though important to him, his life was private, his alone, and the idea of it being scrutinized by others made him very uncomfortable.

“You’ve written that I was called Morven after my grandfather,” he said irritably. “That’s wrong.”

She couldn’t hear him.

He gave an impatient sigh and tried again. “You see, Morven was a sea warrior from the old days. He had the strength of many men and he performed heroic feats and was thought to be invincible against his enemies. My mother was fanciful and thought the name would make me a better man, and in those days my father loved her enough to let her have her way.”

Bella kept clacking.

Maclean restrained his frustration and moved closer to the machine, reading the new words as they appeared there.

“No, no, lass, I wasna an only child! I had a sister, but she died when she was a wee thing. Her name was…was…Bloody hell!” His memory failed him again.

Maclean’s unease and impatience only grew as he read through Bella’s version of his childhood. He couldn’t turn the pages of her book to peruse them at his own pace, nor could he push the buttons that removed or added the words. He tried, but his fingers slipped through into nothingness. All he could do was
stand and peer over her shoulder, and try not to grind his teeth.

He was angry, aye, but even angry as he was, she had the ability to distract him. First her perfume tickled his nose, and then he found himself fascinated by her hair and how the darkness of it was lit by strands that had been touched by the summer sun. If he was a man of flesh and blood he would stoop and nuzzle her neck, tasting her skin, before slipping his hands around her waist and lifting them to stroke the underside of her breasts in that tight white cloth.

Perhaps she felt his invisible gaze, because she folded her arms over her breasts. Maclean smiled and concentrated harder, imagining himself lifting her tight white shirt and revealing her skin inch by inch, and then using his tongue to explore and tease her until she…

“Where is that draft coming from?”

She was looking around, a frown wrinkling her brow.

“I’m no draft!” Maclean said in disgust.

Bella shivered again. “There’s something wrong with this house,” she muttered. Then, reluctantly, as if she didn’t really want to believe it: “Maclean?”

Just then the talking box began to sing its song. Again.

As usual, Bella rushed to answer it. Only this time she jumped up and walked right through him.

“Bloody hell, woman, dinna do that!”

She started and looked back over her shoulder, her eyes wide, and for a moment he thought for sure she had heard him. Or seen him. Heart beating hard, he waited, but she was already grabbing up the box and holding it to her ear.

“Hello?”

Maclean sat down on the chair she had just vacated and tried to think. Bella was writing about him in her book; he was fairly certain the whole book was about him. Why else would she have his portrait on her wall? Why else would she be here, in Fasail, where he used to live? When he first arrived he hadn’t thought much about the significance of her being here, but this changed things. This meant that it wasn’t just chance. He had attached himself to Bella because it was meant to be. The
Fiosaiche
had chosen this moment to bring them together, and they were both playing a part in her plan.

But if that was so, then why couldn’t he show himself to Bella in the flesh?

“Yes, of course it’ll be ready on deadline.” Bella was still speaking into the box. She gave a little laugh, but she was pretending. Her eyes had a worried expression. “I didn’t realize you were so keen on this one, Elaine. You said you couldn’t even promise you’d take it on until you had read—” She paused, a frown wrinkling her brow. “Oh, I see. Is that…good?” The frown cleared and she smiled, a proper smile this time, wide and beautiful.

Caught up in that smile, forgetting his own problems, Maclean leaned forward. The chair creaked ominously.

Bella stopped smiling. Her gaze was fixed on the chair.

Maclean held his breath and moved again. The chair gave another creak.

Bella’s eyes widened. “Yes, yes, I see,” she was saying, but it was obvious she wasn’t really concentrating. “Thanks for calling, Elaine.”

Bella finished the call from her agent. Her empty chair had creaked and when she looked at it she could have sworn it…it
moved
.

She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. Nothing. The chair was perfectly still. The room was completely empty. What did she expect? Maclean sitting there writing her book for her?

But she didn’t laugh. She’d remembered that when the phone rang and she’d gone to answer it she had felt a small, intense electric shock. That was the only way she could describe it. As if she had passed through some living…force.

Bella narrowed her eyes and gave the room another minute inspection. However much she might fantasize about Maclean, it was really just that, a fantasy. He wasn’t real. Then why did she have this intense awareness of someone else sharing her cottage? Was it the man on the horse with his hate-filled face? Bella shuddered. She’d much rather have Maclean; black-hearted villain or not, he was the man for her.