My Heart's in the Highlands (30 page)

Ian snorted
, thinking of all that this man had done to them.  A man who had had Ian’s trust.  Dickson had been in his rooms while he slept, and had attempted to murder him and Hero as well.  He shook his head tightly.  “Help yourself.”

“Ian.”

The fear tightening her voice made Ian turn, only to find Hero in Kennedy’s hold, his arm tight around her waist and the pistol pointed at her temple.  “Don’t,” the plea emerged from his lips.  Dickson’s frantic pleading faded away as Ian's focus shifted entirely to the safety of the woman he loved.

Chapter Thirty-Five

“I’m sorry, Ian,” Hero said, sorrow filling her as she watched anger turn to shock and then despair.  “I was trying to get the pistol.  I thought he was unconscious …”

Ian shifted his gaze to Kennedy’s triumphant expression.
  “You can have it.  All of it.  Just don’t hurt her.”

“Really?”
  Kennedy lowered the barrel of the pistol and ground it against the bloody wound on Hero’s arm, causing her to cry out in pain.  Ian leapt forward, but when Kennedy lifted the pistol to her temple he froze in his tracks.  “She is the key, isn’t she?”

“Are you truly so depraved that you could just shoot her?” Ian asked.

“It’s not as difficult as you might think to watch someone die.”

Ian’s eyes met Hero’s.
  Kennedy was wrong.  It had been hard enough to see hardened soldiers die on the battlefields, to watch the life leech from the eyes of men under his command, his friends.  He could not watch Hero die.  Ian would die with her, or certainly without her.  “I accept your bargain.  Let her go.”

“Ian, no!” Hero pleaded, struggling against Kennedy once more.
  She couldn’t let him do that.  Couldn’t allow him to sacrifice his life for hers.  “I won’t let you.”

“It is a conundrum, isn’t it?” Kennedy said
thoughtfully.  “Problem is, I believe her more than I believe you.  She wouldn’t sit quietly at all.  What a shame, really.”

With no other warning, Kennedy flung Hero through the gap in the rampart wall.  Too terrified to even scream, Hero instead heard Ian’s harsh cry of denial as she went over the side.  Desperately, Hero grasped for purchase on the remaining parts of the wall, some of the smaller rocks breaking away at her efforts.  Feet dangling over the furious waters of the firth and her injured arm screaming in pain, she fought against the weight of her skirts and petticoats.  She tried to push herself up again, but instead slipped farther down, yet to her surprise, the bottom of her steel-boned corset caught on the stone and levered her in place.

Ian
was already there, dropping to his knees and catching her under the elbow. “Hero!”

“
Get him!” she panted out.  “I’m all right.”

“No!”
  He pulled her up, wincing at the pain in his side, but the slight movement lifted Hero from the perch her corset had found for her against edge of the stone and Ian was left with her full weight to support.

Her sudden collapse dragged Ian to his knees; his grip slid to her wrist and left her entire weight dangling there
from her injured arm.

“
Ian!” she screeched in terror, trying frantically to gain some foothold.  The pain in her arm was excruciating, sending fire shooting up her arm, but Hero knew only worse things awaited her.  Releasing the edge of the wall with her other hand, Hero grasped at his arm with both hands, putting her destiny squarely in his hands. 

Black spots danced before her eyes
, and for a moment Hero heard strange voices yelling before her vision brightened once more and Ian came back into focus.  “Help me!  Help me, please!  Don't let me go!” she begged him, staring up into his dark eyes.  Eyes that normally carried nothing but love and humor now held despair.

“
I'm not going to let you go, my love.  I won't,” he assured her through gritted teeth, but Hero could feel his grip slipping on her bloody wrist.  “Just hold on!”

“Oh God, Ian,” Hero whimpered as again her vision dulled. Now red lights like those in her nightmares flooded her vision, and Hero knew then that the nightmare had shown her her death.  She blinked the image away, trying to focus on Ian.

“
I won't let go!  I won't!”  He clenched his teeth and pulled harder, lifting her back up, until she was able to throw one arm around his waist, allowing him also to take the opportunity to reach down and get a better hold on her.  “I’ve got you, Hero.  I’ve got you, my love,” he murmured as he pulled her to him.

The terror subsided as Hero felt his arms come around her.
  She tried to help him by lifting a knee over the edge of the balcony, but her skirts wouldn’t allow it.  She was still helpless, though safe for the moment.  “We’re fine,” she gasped into his shoulder.  “Everything’s going to be all right.”

“
That was beautiful to watch,” Kennedy sneered.  “But I’m afraid your conclusion is quite incorrect.”

Hero looked up to see Camron standing over them, his face bruised and bloody
, as he lowered the pistol to the base of Ian’s skull.  Terror unlike any she had ever experienced flooded her.  “No, please!” she begged with a sob, holding out a hand in supplication.

“Say goodbye,” he snarled piteously
, and Hero knew that she had only a moment to do just that, as Ian curled protectively around her, his only thought even then to save her.

Her eyes met Ian’s
, and in a split second that look said everything of their regrets and of the love that could have been theirs.   A single tear slipped down her cheek.  Why?  Why had fate given so much?  Given something neither of them knew they wanted or needed, only to rip it away?

Why?
  Her heart cried, twisting painfully.  “Ian …”

A shot rang out
, and Ian’s eyes widened.  “No!” Hero screamed hoarsely, clutching Ian to her as the force of the shot threw him against her.  “Ian!”

He looked up at her one last time
, but the life was already leeching from his loving brown eyes.  His lips moved, “Hero ... my love …”

The pistol fired again.

“No, Ian, no!” she sobbed as agony clawed at her heart.  Anguish ate at her soul as she cradled his bloodied head to her breast, pressing a kiss and then another against the crown of his head.  Tears fell heedlessly now, mixing with his blood. 

Never had Hero known such pain existed.
  A thousand bullets could not hurt so.  “Please, don’t go!” she whimpered.  His arms began to relax, but Hero couldn’t bring herself to care over her precarious position.   He was gone.  Gone!  For her.  Ian had died for her.  He could have taken Camron apart, but instead he had come to save her.  Pain engulfed her, numbing her to everything around her.  No wind, no thunder of the waves below.  Nothing.  “I love you,” she choked out the words hoarsely from her tear-clogged throat.  “Always.  Forever.”

“Very touching, Lady Ayr,” Kennedy
grumbled, putting a booted foot against Ian’s slumped shoulder and pushing.  “But it is time for us to say goodbye as well.”

Hero gasped in alarm as she realized what Camron intended to do
, and instinctively reached with one hand for the wall that still stood.

“No!” came a thundering shout just as Camron pushed Ian again.
  Behind Camron, Hero could see her father running along the ramparts toward them with both Cooper and Simms on his heels.  “Get away from her, evil monster!”

Kennedy turned and raised the pistol again
, but this time the fall of the hammer was met with nothing more than a click.  He cocked and fired again with the same result before he was tackled to the ground.

Just a few seconds more and she might have been saved
. Hero tried to hold on, but without Ian’s support and with his weight pressing against her, she stood no chance.  She clawed at the stone wall and then the air. 

Her father’s anguished face faded away.
  The rush of air pulled at her hair and skirts and the cacophony of crashing waves filled her ears.  The last thing Hero saw was Ian’s blank eyes as they fell together.  She reached out for him …

Then there was only darkness.

There is nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be ...
John Lennon

Chapter Thirty-Six

“
Again!  Hit her again!”

Arching against the electricity that was
being forced through her body, Mikah inhaled deeply, the air wheezing through her constricted throat.  She opened her eyes in shock, waiting for the impact of her body against the rocks below.  It did not come, though pain consumed every part of her.  Around her, red lights were flashing, just as they had been in her dream.  People were everywhere, their faces morphing under the undulating light.  One hovered over her, eyes filled with concern, and Mikah’s eyes closed once more in confusion.  “Ian?”

“She’s back, she’s back!”

The voices shouted over one another, and Mikah opened her eyes again just as a mask was placed over her mouth.  Mikah inhaled the oxygen, the purified air sending her head spinning more than the bewilderment already was.  “What happened?” she mumbled into the mask.

“Try to relax, Miss Bauer,” one man, a paramedic by the look of him, said.
  “You were hit by a car, do you remember?”

Car?
  Mikah thought, shaking her head.  No, she had fallen, fallen from the balcony … and shot.  She’d been shot!  Frantically, Mikah lifted a hand to her arm, only to feel nothing.

“Just relax, Miss Bauer,” the paramedic insisted.
  “You’re going to be fine.”

Fine?
  Mikah looked around at the faces hovering around her, frantic with confusion.  Where was she?  Where was Ian?  Who were all these people?  Then out of the crowd of bystanders, Mikah recognized a face.  Myles Gordon, the curator of GoMA, was there, as well as the intern from the front desk.  Where was Ian?  Mikah struggled to pull the mask from her face.  She needed to ask.  She needed to find out what had happened.  She needed to find Ian.

“Where is he?” she asked
, panic edging her slurred words.

“The man who hit you is being taken into custody,” Myles said
, kneeling by her side.  “There were witnesses aplenty.  Drunk driver.”

“No, where is Ian?” Mikah insisted
, frantically denying the truth that was already sinking its claws into her.  “He was just here.”

Myles frowned and traded
quizzical glances with the paramedics.  “I’m sorry, Mikah.  I don’t know who you are talking about.”

Mikah closed her eyes, weak with defeat.
  Searching her mind, she remembered coming out of the museum.  Not minutes ago but days ago.  Weeks ago.  The car that had transformed into a carriage just as it was about to hit her.  There was the struggle, the worry, the certainty that she was going insane.  But then there had been Ian and her surrender to the madness.  Impossible love.  A fantastical contentment.

What was it now?
  Mikah felt disappointment crashing down on her.  A dream?  Had it really all been just a dream?

“No,” she moaned in denial.
  “Please God, no.”

When Mikah woke again she was in the hospital.
  There was white and powder blue all around her, an IV in her arm, and an older, weary-looking man sitting by her side.  He was in his fifties, a little gray but otherwise tall and fit.  Her hand was enfolded in his.  The dry warmth was instantly comforting.

“Papa
…”  Mikah swallowed against the scratchy dryness in her throat, but the words were loud enough to draw his attention. 

He stood and leaned over her, brushing a tender hand against her forehead.
  “Hello, princess.”  Caring filled Sean Bauer’s eyes as he bent over and brushed a kiss on her forehead.  “You gave us quite a scare.”

“Papa,” she said again, then shook her head in confusion.

“Papa?” he repeated with mock amusement.  “I think you’ve been here too long if you’re talking like that and have already picked up an accent, Mikes.”

She had an accent?
  The right word came to her then and she squeezed his hand.  “Daddy.”

“There you go,” he said with a smile
, but it immediately changed to a frown when she tried to move.  “No, don’t try to move.  Just lay still.”

“What happened?”
  Part of her knew but the other part was still lost in bewilderment.  Or was it denial?

“You were hit by a drunk driver.
”

“I
—I walked in front of him,” she said, recalling the moment.  “I forgot the cars were on the other side of the road.”

Her father shook his head.
  “Either way, he was still drunk and he’ll pay the price for it.  We’re just lucky that you’re going to be all right.  The doctor told me that they thought they had lost you there for a minute.”

“Lost me?”

“They said your heart stopped beating for over a minute.”  His voice shook with emotion as he rubbed her hand between his.

“I died.”
  She spoke the words dully, but the truth lingered inside of her.  She
had
died, and a part of her remained so.  In her mind, Mikah saw it all again.  The fight.  The gunshots.

“No, no,”
Bauer denied, but she could hear the truth and lingering fear in his voice.  “We were all scared to death when they finally got ahold of us.  The museum here had called the museum in Milwaukee and they contacted us.  Mom and the boys wanted to come too, but the doctors said too many people wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“I’m glad you’re here.”
  And she was.  The problem was that
she
was incredibly unhappy to be there.  But what other fate had awaited her?  A sudden stop against ragged rocks.  Mikah shook her head, trying to remember that it had been only a dream. 

Her father rambled on about head injuries
, but Mikah was torn by rejection of the thought.

H
ow was that possible when it all had felt so real?  The pain searing in her arm … in her heart.  The life dulling in Ian’s warm eyes until they were flat and lifeless.  Mikah bit back a sob as the true pain, the pain of love lost, engulfed her.

“It’s okay, princess,” her father crooned as he gathered her in his arms as she cried.
  “It’s easy to be overwhelmed when something like this happens.  Everything will be fine.”

Would it really?

A week later, Mikah looked out the airplane window as it dragged her away from Scotland.
  Away from a land that was filled with memories of people, places, and a love that had never happened.  A counselor at the hospital had come to talk to her following the accident, their standard practice after near-death experiences.

Hesitantly she had mentioned what had happened, where she had gone,
what she had done and felt.  How real it had all been.  The shrink had looked skeptical and uncomfortable.  Mikah could hardly blame him when she thought the whole thing incredible as well.

What she had come away with from all the technical jargon the uncomfortable therapist had imparted was that strange things happened to people who
"died."  The experiences were widely varied.  Some saw a bright light or the faces of past loved ones.  Others had horrific visions or felt nothing at all.  It would pass, Mikah was told, with time and therapy.  She had a life, with family and friends who loved her.  He said she shouldn’t dwell too deeply on the experience when she had so much to live for.

With a comforting pat on the hand, the counselor had left and not returned.

He hadn’t understood her at all, or perhaps Mikah had not explained it very well.  Talking about it had only made it worse, more real rather than more of a dream.  She had cried and stuttered ridiculously, making a fool of herself. Breaking her heart all over again.  How could she explain or justify loving a dream?  How could she expect anyone to understand the pain that ate at her heart and soul? 

Her father might understand if he believed her tale at all.
  Or her mom.  The two of them loved deeply and obviously.  From their stories, Mikah knew that they had met and fallen in love at sixteen, when no one had believed it would last.  They had never dated anyone else. In the forty years since, with thirty-five years of a marriage and five children, they had rarely been parted. 

Mom had told Mikah when she was just a teenager that Sean Bauer was her soul mate.
  Finally she understood what that felt like.

“All right, princess?” Sean asked with concern
, and Mikah turned away from the window with a tight smile and a nod.  It would do no good to worry those who loved her.  They would worry not over her loss but her very sanity.

 
Still she couldn’t help but ask: “Dad, how would you feel if Mom died?”

“You’re going to be fine, you know,” he said
reassuringly, taking her hand.

“I know,” she lied.
  “I’m just wondering.”

Watching him think about it, Mikah didn’t even need to hear his answer.
  It was there for her in the dull, sorrowful look in his eyes, in the tension that held his body.  She could almost feel how his heart slowed and thudded unpleasantly.  He said it anyway.

“I guess I would die a little as well.”

Yes, that was it exactly.