My Heart's in the Highlands (2 page)

Pushing her scattered thoughts away, Mik
ah considered the building that had housed the Glasgow Exchange a century before. 
Historic Scotland
, the historic preservation organization that was a driving force behind much of the cultural life in Scotland, must have had a bit of a laugh placing a modern art museum in a building that was reminiscent of a Greek temple … or the Lincoln Memorial.  It was an interesting juxtaposition.

Rushing past a bronze statue of a
military man on his horse—both oddly wearing orange construction cones on top of their heads—Mikah made it through the doors of the museum in a record time for four-inch heels and into the blessed chill of the well air-conditioned building.  She drew a deep breath of relief.

Thank God!
she sighed and pulled her blouse away from her chest several times to air out her damp skin as she glanced around the lobby.  It was incredibly easy to imagine the place as a busy hub of investments and trade.  Almost too easy.

All the
feelings of familiarity were beginning to make her uneasy.

The muffled chorus of Queen’s
"You’re My Best Friend" sounded, and with a grin Mikah pulled her phone from her purse, answering the call with a bright, “Hey, Kris!” without even looking at the screen.  “You must be up early.”

“Haven’
t been to bed yet,” Mikah’s longest and dearest friend yawned out.  “I just wanted to wish you good luck with your meeting.  This is the big one, isn’t it?”

“Aww, Kris, you really do listen,”
Mikah teased.  “That’s so good to know.”

“Funny, Mikes,” Kris yawned again.
  “I’m going to get some sleep, but call me when you’re done.”

With mock astonishment, Mikah answered, “And rack up your cell phone bill?”

“No, I said you call me; that way we can rack up yours,” came the playful reply. 

“K, I’ll call you later,” Mikah said.
  “I’ll want to hear all about what must have been one hot date, too.”

Saying her good-byes, Mikah tucked her phone away
, feeling a little more cheerful.  There was nothing like a good friend to do that.  Now, with a smile, she strode to the front desk, catching the eye of the young man at the counter.

“Good morning,” she said.
  “Mikah Bauer here to see Myles Gordon.”

Her smile faded
and turned to a frown when the young man gave her the appreciative glance up and down that Mikah had come to view with annoyance in her professional years.  It was difficult enough for people to prove themselves in the workplace these days without being looked at like that, and she wondered, as she often did, how the men she worked with would react if she were to give them that same inappropriate assessment.

Clearing her throat, she caught the young man’s attention once again, drawing his eyes up
ward.  She arched a brow incredulously, and the man flushed.  “I’ll take you to Mr. Gordon.  He’s been expecting you.”

“Good idea.”
  Mikah followed him down a hall, wishing she could recapture the good mood of moments before.

Myles Gordon, the museum’s curator, took care of that, though.  Through their long day together, he was nothing but professional and pleasant.  And almost as interesting as GoMA itself. 

They talked art and debated the merits of certain styles as they slowly toured the museum.
  They got so carried away that it was almost noon before they even turned the discussion to her mission and the pieces GoMA had that would best demonstrate the early Pop Art movement of the 1950s.  Hours of touring the collection with the knowledgeable curator had put temptation before her at every turn.  Mikah wanted to take them all and strip this strangely traditional building of all its modern goodies. 

The young man from the front desk, Kevin, who Mikah learned was a
student from the University of Glasgow interning at the museum, brought them lunch while they went through the museum’s assets and worked out the loan of a large number of exhibits.  GoMA, the most visited modern art museum in Scotland, was a gold mine for Mikah in that respect, and she felt well satisfied with the nearly two dozen works she had chosen.  It was with a sense of accomplishment that she managed to obtain the loan of Paolozzi’s sculpture
Four Towers
(a 1962 work that Mikah personally thought resembled something a five-year-old might make out of Lego bricks), one of the same artist’s collages called
Mr. Peanut
, a mobile by Kenneth Martin, as well as works by Turnbull, Passmore, and Tilson.

Their frequent
conversational tangents turned what was meant to be a meeting into a full-day event.  Still, it wasn’t until the museum was closing for the evening that Myles asked Mikah if she would care to continue their lively conversation over a celebratory dinner. 

He
'd take her out to a "real" Scottish tavern, he said, for some local delicacies.  A part of Mikah felt certain she shouldn’t overly examine the ingredients of any given dish, knowing, as she did, the true ingredients of haggis.  The larger part, however, knew that the food would be wonderful, and her stomach growled in anticipation.

Good food and excellent company.
  What more might a girl ask for? 

Exiting the museum, Mikah waited at the curb while
Myles found his car and came around to pick her up, taking in the sights of the square that surrounded the museum as she waited.  Once again, she was taken aback by the familiarity she felt for Glasgow.  She knew its layout like the back of her hand, and felt as if she might have a thing or two to say herself about where the oldest Scottish taverns might be found.

Even this square seemed familiar to her.
  The museum seemed to float alone in the center of the square, walled in by long four- or five-story buildings on each side.  It was all very Georgian, historic.  Mikah shook her head, beginning to feel a bit uneasy once again.

She
pulled out her phone and dialed as she waited.  It was still light out, though it was nearly nine o’clock.  Much like home in the summer.  Thankfully, though, the ravaging heat of the afternoon had slipped a few notches, leaving the city cooler though still warm. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, Kris!”

“Mikes, how did it go?”
 

The line was a bit static
, so Mikah plugged one ear to better hear.  “It was good, but I just wanted to let you know I’ll have to call you later instead.  I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Is everything all right?” Kris asked with some concern.

“Fine,” Mikah said.  “It’s just that the curator sort of asked me out to dinner.”

“Oh?
  I thought you hated it when guys from work asked you out.”

“You know
, I normally do, but this one kept his eyes above my shoulders all day, so …” Mikah said with a verbal shrug.

“Is he gay?” Kris asked.
  “You know those artsy types …”

“No,
I’m pretty sure he’s straight,” Mikah laughed, knowing Kris had a good point.  It wasn’t often Mikah came across a man who could hold a meaningful conversation on art. American men tended to consider an interest in the subject effeminate. 

“Is he hot?”

“He’s not bad,” Mikah hedged, but Kris only laughed.

“Wow!
  That’s high praise coming from my favorite pseudo-nun.  Hmm, I can almost picture it: tall, dark, thirty-ish, in a kilt …” Kris sighed and it was Mikah’s turn to chuckle.

“Tall, blond
, and forty-ish.  No, kilt.”

“That’s too bad,” Kris said mournfully.
  “Tell me he at least has an accent.”

“He does.”

“Now I’m jealous.”  Kris paused.  “Can you get pics?”

With a honk,
Myles pulled to a stop on the opposite curb and got out of his car.  He waved an arm and Mikah held up a finger.  “I’ll see what I can do.  I’ll call you later, okay?”

“I’ll be waiting and you better be a good girl,” Kris warned.
  “Your dream man might not like you messing around on him.”

Mikah rolled her eyes, pushing aside the guilt that
was
niggling at the back of her mind, as if Mikah were being unfaithful to her dream man by going out to dinner with the handsome curator.  “I regret ever telling you about that.”

“You know I love you.”

“I know,” Mikah said, darting a quick look down the street to her left before stepping out into the street to dash across the four lanes of traffic between her and Myles.  “I love y—”

The words were cut off with a startled cry as
a long series of honks to her right reminded Mikah abruptly that the traffic would be coming from the other direction.  Cars swerved around her, wheels squealing and horns blaring.

“Mikes!”
Kris shouted.

O
ne car that continued to come straight at her caught Mikah.  Like a deer in the headlights, she could only stare in horror.

It sped toward her.

It galloped toward her?

Wait!
  Were those … horses?

“Mikes!”
Kris shouted again, in the background.

The world went dark.

Chapter Two

“
Lass?  Lassie!” a gravelly brogue cut through her unconsciousness. “Are ye all right?”

Mikah
blinked her eyes and stared up at the faces surrounding her, trying but failing to focus on any one of them.  Stars burst painfully in front of her eyes and she squeezed her eyes shut again, raising a hand to her temple.  “I don’t think so,” she murmured, but even that little effort felt like it would split her skull.

“
My lady!” a new voice broke through the haze that surrounded her and Mikah cracked her lids apart to squint at the newcomer, a youngish man in a red coat and black hat who looked like a cross between a member of the British Royal Guard and an equestrian rider.  He pushed through the crowd surrounding her and came quickly to her side, kneeling next to her. 

He was followed by a young woman in a gray dress
, who also dropped down at Mikah’s side. “My lady, are you all right?  I couldn’t believe my eyes when that wagon ran into you, then went on as if nothing were amiss!”

“
I don’t … I’m not …” Mikah stuttered, letting them pull her to a sitting position but then staring blankly at the red-jacketed man and the woman in the long dress.  “Who are you?”

“
Och, but the lass must have taken a blow to the head!” the older man to her left declared, drawing her attention.  He was dressed in rough clothing of browns and blacks and wore a day’s growth of gray beard and a cap on his thinning hair.

“
Do I know you?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking, even though the effort brought further pain to her temple and she tried to rub it away.  She heard Kris’s panic echoing in her mind.  Where was her phone?

“
I think the question, lass, is whether ye know who ye are,” he said in his thick brogue.

“
Of course, I do,” she answered immediately.  “I’m Mikah …”

 
Mikah halted with a frown, for that seemed suddenly wrong, though she couldn’t understand why.  She was Mikah Bauer, no doubt about that, but at the same time, she wasn’t.  It made no sense at all and merely made her head hurt more to contemplate the incongruity, so she just shook her head.

Taking her
head shake for a negative, the older man grunted as if his theory had been confirmed, but the younger woman, seeming eager to please, said, “This is Lady Hero Conagham.”

“
The old Conagham of Ayr’s widow?” one of the crowd asked, and the young man nodded in confirmation.

“
Thought she were down in Lundun these days,” the old man argued.  “Been over a year since the old laird died.  What’s she doin’ up 'ere now?”

“
Step aside!”  A new voice rang out over the chatter of the onlookers.  It was a deep, aristocratic burr, unlike the comfortable brogue of those around Mikah, yet it held enough authority that the spectators parted immediately, allowing the newcomer to come to her side.  “Lady Ayr,” he said.  “Are you quite all right?  I thought we were to meet you at the train station and …”

“
It’s you,” Mikah whispered, staring up into the man’s handsome face as he bent over her. His words staggered to a halt as he looked down at her in surprise.

Mikah
gazed intently at the handsome man hovering over her.  It was him.  The man who had haunted her dreams her entire life and most recently with unimaginable passion.  He was at once both familiar and foreign.  She wanted to look him over, to memorize every detail before he faded away, but she couldn’t tear her gaze from his.  Deep chocolaty brown, warm and mesmerizing, his eyes were filled with concern and more than enough surprise to match her own. Finally, Mikah asked the question she had long wondered about:  “Who are you?”

“
She doesn’t seem to know anyone, my lord,” the woman in the long dress offered nervously.  “Not even me.”

“
It’s all right,” the man replied without taking his attention away from Mikah.  “We hadn’t met before so, in this case, it’s a valid question.  My lady, I am Ian Conagham.”

H
is voice became slow and demanding, as he tried to gain her attention.  Though she hadn’t stopped looking at him, he seemed to sense that her attention had moved beyond him, as if she’d mentally drifted away from the crowd surrounding her.   Perhaps she had.  In her dreams, this man had always been blurred, hazy.  Now he was right in front of her and was incredibly alive. 

The crowd eased back with a murmur akin to awe that was apparent even to Mikah
’s mulled brain, though he ignored them all.  “We need to get you out of the street," he said.  "Can you rise?”

“Home,” Mikah muttered, surprising herself in the process.  It was if a voice inside of her had forced its way out.  This certainly wasn’t her first thought.  The part of her mind that wasn’t wallowing in pain was focused on touching him, finding out if he was real.  “I want to go home.”

The man
—Ian Conag … Cunningham?  Mikah’s head throbbed painfully—  pulled her to her feet then as if her spoken words were a command to be acted upon without question.

No
, Mikah thought.  She wanted an ambulance and the shortest possible route to a hospital.  She tried to force the words out but her head swam and her mind blanked as they stood her on her feet.   Mikah wavered, black spots flooding her vision.  She was going to faint for sure, she thought, and the wonderfully handsome man must have thought the same, because he swung her easily up into his arms and carried her out of the street.

“
What’re ye goin’ to do wi’ her?” the older man asked, his voice barely audible through the roar in Mikah’s ears.

“
Don’t worry,” her rescuer assured the crowd.  “I’ll keep her safe.”

Braver than the rest of the crowd, the old fel
low who’d first come to her aid stepped boldly forward.  “Hope yer nae thinking to take her all the way to Dùn Cuilean tonight, m’lord.  'Tis more than forty miles away. Ye’ll nae make it, mark my words.  Ye’d best get a doctor for her.”

The man’s steps paused and Mikah could almost intuit his desire to be home as well.
  She could see the hesitation his eyes before resolution set in.  They wouldn’t be going anywhere that night.  His gaze shifted back to the old Scot.  “I will get her to the doctor.  Worry not.”

“
What’s going on?” Mikah whispered as they loaded her into a black … carriage?  The woman climbed in with her.  Her mind felt foggy and unfocused, and for some reason she was unable to comprehend what was happening around and to her.

“
You took a bit of a blow to the head when that wagon hit you as you were coming out of the Exchange, my lady,” the woman answered, patting her hand.  “My lord is going to take you back to the hotel and call for a physician.”

“
Hospital,” Mikah muttered disjointedly, but the woman looked aghast at the suggestion. 

“
Oh, no, my lady!”

“
Why?”  Her voice was faint.

“
Because, unless you’re mad, that’s the last place you want to go,” Ian said as he climbed into the carriage with them.

Head swimming, Mikah pressed her hand to her temple as she tried to focus on the man once mo
re, but his image swam in duplicate spotted with black.  “But I know you,” she murmured before the blackness took her.