My Highland Lover (18 page)

“I dinna care what they think!” A frustrated growl tore free of his throat as he stomped after her. Why the hell was the woman running away? “I am their chieftain. I behave any way I wish.”

“Then where did this sudden cockamamy idea about getting married come from?” Trulie faced him, widened her stance, and crossed her arms over her chest. “If you’ll rewind back to just a few minutes ago, Mr. I Don’t Give A Damn What They Think, you’ll recall that you did not ask me to marry you—which is what you’re supposed to do, I might add—you
told
me we were going to get married because that would solve all the problems of how your clan views me.” Trulie jabbed a finger toward him as though she were throwing a dagger. “You explicitly stated that once we were married, all the MacKennas would treat me with respect. Do you really think that’s the kind of marriage proposal a woman wants to hear?”

“I thought ye wished to be a part of m’life…a part of m’clan.” Gray strode two steps closer, ignoring the finer points of Trulie’s speech. Damnation, but the woman had too good a memory.

Trulie growled out a strained groan and stared up at the ceiling. “Thanks a heckuva lot for this mess, Granny.”

Irritation pricked its way up the back of Gray’s neck. He wasna sure what Trulie meant, but he was fair certain ’twould most definitely stir his ire. “So ye refuse to wed me?” Gray stomped closer. “Ye refuse to see reason?”

“Getting married isn’t supposed to have anything to do with reason!” Trulie’s face darkened into a scowl as she spun and headed toward a narrow hallway leading out of the main room.

“We are no’ done here, woman!” Gray strode after her. “I am chieftain. Ye will no’ leave this hall until I grant ye leave t’do so.”

Trulie halted just beneath the arch. Her back stiffened and her shoulders squared off.

Good. About time the woman realized what was best. Gray threw out his chest and crossed his arms over it. It might take a wee bit of time to rid Trulie of her stubbornness and her strange ways of the future. Gray affirmed the thought with a sharp nod. But she would find him a verra patient man. Gray’s heart softened and a grin tickled the corner of his mouth. Trulie could use her stubbornness in the raisin’ of their many fine sons.

Trulie slowly turned and faced him.

Gray’s smile slipped at the murderous look in Trulie’s eyes.
By the hounds of hell.
The woman looked as though she could kill him.

“This is now finished, Chieftain MacKenna. Completely!” Trulie slowly raised her hand and pointed at Gray’s crotch. “And don’t you ever dare talk to me like that again or I will have Karma relieve you of your balls.”

Gray instinctively shielded his parts as Trulie turned and stomped from the room. What the hell had he done wrong? All he did was tell her to marry him.

The more Trulie thought about it, the madder she got.
We will be married. Then the clan will respect ye.

“Yeah, well it
will
be a cold day in hell before
I
follow a marriage edict just to win a popularity contest.” Trulie snorted as she picked up the pace. The sooner they packed up and left the keep, the better.

Trotting along beside her, Karma acknowledged Trulie’s statement with a single wag of his thick tail. He loped ahead of Trulie as the long, narrow hallway made a sharp turn to the right.

Thank goodness Karma led the way. The flickering torches ensconced every so many feet did little to beat back the shadows of early evening. Trulie pulled the boxy wool jacket tighter about her and shivered. The keep hadn’t seemed nearly this damp and chilly before. All the more reason for them to pull up stakes and head back to a nice, humid summer in Kentucky.

Karma sat patiently waiting beside the broad oak door leading to their suite of rooms. A twinge of regret stabbed through Trulie. Gray had set them up in the nicest level of the keep. Even the serving girls had said so.

“It doesn’t matter,” Trulie informed the panting dog.

She grabbed the iron ring bolted to the door and shoved. Karma wiggled through the doorway in front of her, touched noses with sleepy-eyed Kismet, then curled up on the rug of pelts spread before the hearth.

Granny and Coira sat opposite each other on the pair of cushioned benches angled in front of the low burning fire. Neither of them looked up as Trulie plowed into the room.

Trulie waited. She wasn’t stupid. She knew full well Coira and Granny had nearly broken their necks racing back to the rooms ahead of Trulie. The pair must’ve been standing just outside the main hall eavesdropping on the stellar marriage proposal, because Coira had been extremely pale when Trulie had stomped through the kitchens and barked out the barest details of her troubling vision. She was too pissed off to go into any great detail. In her current frame of mind, the thirteenth century could go straight to hell.

Now the white bib of Coira’s apron rose and fell rapidly. Granny swallowed hard and kept pressing one hand to her chest. Both women were clearly out of breath.

As minutes passed, Coira’s cheeks grew a brighter scarlet. Trulie crossed her arms and tilted her head, studying Coira more closely. “If you keep holding your breath, you are going to pass out.”

The girl’s body visibly deflated as Coira shook her head. She pulled the rough linen stretched across the wooden frame up from her lap and held it closer to her face. She scowled down at the small patch of colors knotted across the cloth. “I dinna ken what yer talking about. I’m just sittin’ here tryin’ to keep this stag from lookin’ like a Highland coo.”

Granny rhythmically patted a bent hand atop one knee. She stared into the hearth and didn’t say a word.

“Gather your things. First thing in the morning, we are out of here.” There. She’d thrown down the gauntlet. Trulie glared at Granny. Let the games begin.

Granny’s lips twitched into a displeased line as she leaned back against the high back of the bench. She didn’t pull her gaze from the weak flames flickering among the dying coals and still didn’t speak.

“Say something, Granny. I know you’re dying to wade in on this.” Trulie widened her stance and planted her feet. No way was this bound to be good, so they might as well get it over with.

“So you’re giving up? You’re going to simply walk away from the very man that completes you? From the one man who fills you with passion and joy?” Granny broke her stare at the fire and faced Trulie. “I raised you better than that, Trulie. No blood of mine ever turned tail and ran. No Sinclair is a coward.”

“I am not running.”

“The hell you aren’t.”

“So you want me to go belly up? Just cow down to a man’s orders and do whatever he says? Since when, Granny? You always taught your
blood
to rear back on our own hind legs and handle it! How many times have you told us we don’t take crap from anybody?” Trulie knotted her fists in the folds of her skirts. Granny was
not
going to win this one.

Karma and Kismet raised their heads, flattened their ears, and glanced toward each other. The dog and cat rose in unison and moved to a corner across the room, as though they had telepathically agreed to get as far as possible from the dueling women.

Granny rose from the bench. Her pale-blue eyes snapped behind her wire-rimmed lenses. “You know what he meant, Trulie! He’s a man, for Heaven’s sake. They rarely say what’s in their hearts. You have to listen deeper than their words. They never know how to say what they really mean.”

“And ye said ye would prevent yer troublin’ vision.” Coira’s voice trembled with emotion. “I dinna ken all that ye saw, but from what ye said and the pallor of yer face when the telling hit ye, I ken it canna be good.”

“What’s she talking about?” Granny asked. “What have you seen?

Trulie yanked off the stiff jacket and threw it across the back of one bench. The castle damn sure wasn’t cold anymore. “I promised it would be okay, Coira. You should know by now that I never break my word.”

“What did you see, Trulie?” Granny’s voice grew louder as she followed Trulie across the room. “Coira. What did Trulie tell you about her vision?”

Coira clamped her lips together and shook her head.

Trulie closed her eyes, bowed her head and pressed her knuckles against her temples. As the troubling vision replayed through her mind, it triggered nauseating fear that went straight to her knees. Trulie struggled to calm her pounding heart and reached out to steady herself against the table. That damn vision. Since she was able to recall it so strongly, the Fates were still warning her against what might possibly happen and they were granting her permission to intervene.
Damn it all to hell and back.
Could they please just handle one crisis at a time?

“If somebody doesn’t answer me, I’m gonna find me a switch and start heating up some tails.” Granny swatted a shaking hand against her skirts and glared at Trulie. “Tell me what you saw, young lady. I’ve had just about enough hardheadedness for one evening.”

“I saw Colum and Gray stretched out on big stone blocks. They were…still. Lifeless. Their skin had turned an ugly gray.” Trulie wet her lips and swallowed hard against the sickly bile burning the back of her throat. “They were dead. I know they were both dead.”

Granny didn’t say a word, just slowly lowered herself into a chair.

“You”—Trulie motioned toward Granny—“draped a square of gauze over Colum’s face and I covered Gray. Neither one of them looked older than they do now, and the trees…” Trulie paused and replayed the latter half of the vision, trying to remember the tiniest details. “The trees’ leaves were out in full, and so green. It has to be sometime during mid to late summer of this year.”

“This is late March,” Granny observed as she folded her hands in her lap. Her scowl deepened as she stared into the fire. “Did you see how they died? Is there a way to prevent it?”

“I saw everything.” Trulie nodded, then continued in a halting whisper, “They were both poisoned—and it wasn’t quick or painless.”

“Then we—especially you—must stay to see this evil averted.” Granny broke her stare from the fire and turned to Trulie. “The Fates only give such visions when they expect something done to change them.”

Trulie clenched her fists until her nails dug into her palms.
Dammit.
She knew Granny was going to say that, and in all honesty, there was no way she could ever return to the twenty-first century without first saving Gray and Colum from that fate. But to stay here in this keep and act like nothing had gone off kilter with Gray? “Look—I didn’t mean we weren’t going to figure out what was about to happen and derail it. I don’t want anything to happen to Gray or Colum. B-but I can’t stay here. Not in Gray’s keep.”
Not in Gray’s bed.
How had things gotten so complicated so damn fast?

Granny leaned forward and balanced her elbows on her knees. The older woman shook her gray head as she stared down at the floor. “I never thought I’d live to see the day when one of my own would allow her stupid pride to kill a good man.”

“I said we were going to save them!” The sense of guilt already clawing at her gut unfurled and grew into a raging beast. How could Granny think she would abandon the two men and leave them to their fates? She would never do such a thing and Granny should know better.

Trulie blinked back angry tears as she stomped across the sitting room to the narrow doorway of her private chamber. Yanking open the door, she stopped and spoke without looking back. “You know I’m gonna make this right. Don’t I always make everything right?”

She didn’t wait for a response. Whatever they said didn’t matter. She plowed into the room and slammed the heavy door so hard that the flames atop all the candles flickered horizontally with the force.

“You and I are no’ finished.” The deep voice echoed from the shadows.

Trulie squeaked and fell back against the door. “How in the hell did you get in here?” Her heart pounded so hard it took her breath away. She flattened her palms against the smooth wood at her back and silently cursed the sudden weakness in her knees.

Gray’s voice rumbled steady and low. “A wise chieftain ensures some corridors of the keep are known only to him.” His face was shadowed in the half-light of the room, but Trulie could still make out hard lines of sadness around his mouth.

“And that gives you the right to just show up in my room?” Trulie flinched against the tremor in her voice. Damn him for putting her through this.

Gray shifted in place and sucked in a slow, deep breath. “What have I done to anger ye so? Tell me so I might make an attempt to set things right.”

Trulie dropped her head, closed her eyes, and covered her face with her hands. How could she tell him the thought of marrying a thirteenth-century Scot scared the living crap out of her? An inner voice nagged at her conscience.
Really? Is that the real reason you keep making excuses to avoid Gray’s marriage proposal?
It wasn’t a damn proposal, Trulie argued in her head. It was an edict, an order so he wouldn’t be embarrassed in front of his clan.
You know better,
the voice shot back.

Lord have mercy, I have lost my mind.
Now she was arguing with herself. Trulie raised her head. Gray hadn’t moved a muscle, just stood in a stiff, wide stance with arms crossed. He stood like a prisoner awaiting his sentence.

“I need time,” Trulie mumbled.

“Time for what?” Other than frowning, Gray still didn’t move a muscle.

Trulie edged sideways along the tapestry-covered wall of the room toward the small cushioned bench sitting in front of the hearth. She really needed to sit down. She suddenly felt very tired.

“I need time to adjust to this place. I need time to adjust to this time.” Trulie plopped down on the roughly woven cushions with a huff. “The past fifteen years of my life have been very different than what you know here. Things were…” Trulie’s voice trailed off. They were what? The flimsy excuse sounded lame even to her.

“Ye came from this place. Ye said so yourself. Ye had to have some idea of what ye would return to.” Gray eased a step forward, like a great cat stalking his prey. “Why did ye come here?” Gray edged closer until he stood right in front of her. “Or mayhap the real question should be why did ye ever leave the time ye now seem so reluctant to set aside?”

And there it was. The ugly truth of it stripped bare between them. Trulie turned away from Gray’s unwavering stare. Maybe it wasn’t the thirteenth century that scared her so. Maybe the immediate connection to Gray was what really frightened her.

“I need time,” Trulie whispered. The feeble excuse was all she could say. How could she explain something to Gray she didn’t fully understand herself?

Gray jerked away with a tensed growl and stomped to the far side of the room. “I canna—” He bared his teeth against the words he couldn’t seem to find. “Why can ye no’—” Gray cut himself off again, cursed under his breath, and slammed a fist against the wall beside the room’s only window. Yanking the bit of tapestry covering the window aside, Gray flipped it over the black iron bar bolted above the opening. He leaned out across the wide stone sill and raised his face to the rising moon. “I must know the truth. Why the hell do ye refuse to wed me?”

Before she could answer, Gray whirled around and stabbed a pointing finger at her. “And dinna say ye need more time. Yer a time runner, for God’s sake. Ye explained yer gifts t’me. The wheel of time is at yer command.”

“I can’t explain it,” Trulie groaned. “I just know I don’t want a wedding feast planned as a knee-jerk reaction to some bitch and her son stirring up a bunch of gossip.” At least that was her pride’s part of the confusion. The rest of her hesitancy was just a muddled-up mess of emotions she couldn’t quite explain. She would know when the time was right to get married. Wouldn’t she?

Gray’s hand, gripping the ledge beside the window, slowly slid down to his side. “Knee-jerk reaction,” he repeated quietly. He moved forward, scrubbing his fingers in the dark stubble shadowing his jaw.

Gray finally raised his gaze from the floor and stared at Trulie. A determined expression narrowed his eyes as he studied her.

Oh Lord. This can’t be good.
Trulie braced herself. What had Gray come up with now?

Gray strode across the room, knelt at Trulie’s feet, and scooped both her hands up into his own. He studied Trulie’s face for what seemed like forever before he spoke. “I care about ye. Surely, ye ken what lies in m’heart.”

Trulie nervously wet her lips, but didn’t say a word. She didn’t know what to say.

Gray’s head jerked down. He stared down at their hands, lightly stroking his fingers across hers before he spoke again. “As a lad, I witnessed me mother’s pain.” Gray lifted his face and held Trulie captive with the emotions reflected in his eyes. “Her life with m’father came with great sacrifice.” Gray rubbed a calloused thumb across the top of Trulie’s hands and drew in a sharp breath. “I would rather die than have ye know such sorrow and loneliness. ’Twould be m’honor to share m’name wi’ ye—to call ye wife.” He slowly rose from the floor, braced his hands on either side of her, and leaned in until his mouth was a hair’s breadth away from her lips. “Surely, ye ken ye own m’heart and soul,
mo luaidh.
Whether ye agree to wed me or no’.”