Highland Fling Part 6

Frustration gnawed at her that she couldn't shed more light on the situation. "I don't know." She glanced to the man who was the link between past and present. "Hamish didn't say and I'd never heard of the Battle of Culloden."

"You saidDrumossie Moor." His tone rang sharp, that of an interrogator.

She was beginning to feel like a criminal under investigation when she'd done nothing other than show up at the wrong time in the wrong place. Her response cut equally sharp. "Yes, it wasDrumossie and it later became known as Culloden."

Hamish knotted his hands together. "Did I give you any specific dates?"

"No. I'd definitely remember if you'd mentioned a specific date-my memory is excellent with numbers."

Hamish sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. "Then we have only a general time frame, a place and a dour outcome."

MacTavishcrossed to the window she'd looked out of earlier. "This isbluidy bonnie. I've got a bit of information I can do naught with." He turned his back to the window, frustration etched in his face, in the set of his shoulders. "Am I to go to the other clans and announce we will all die sometime in the spring? They will think me daft or a traitor, or mayhap both." He turned to Hamish, "But I ken we have our answer as to why she's here."

Okay, she took back any qualifiers she might have made about him not being an arrogant jerk. She hadn't exactly dropped good news in their laps, but she wasn't standing for this. "I'd prefer to not be spoken of and ignored as if I'm not in the room."

MacTavishdidn't spare her a glance. "Even though shedidnae give us anything we could really use."

Enough. The stress, the uncertainty, the emotional roller coaster that had been the last eighteen hours came to a head. She planted herself in front of him, despite the fact that he could snap her like a twig if he chose to.

"Listen, DarachMacTavish , laird ofGlenagan , I didn't ask to come here." She poked the hard wall of his chest to make sure she got his attention. "I don't want to be here." She poked again for emphasis. "And I'm sorry I didn't have better news to tell you, but there's no need to shoot the messenger." She threw in a third poke for good measure.

He crossed his ma.s.sive arms across his ma.s.sive chest, presumably to preclude future poking, and stared hard down his harsh nose at her.

Maybe that look worked on his subjects or whatever his people were called, but it only further infuriated her. "What? You think this is a party for me? I go from a very respected, well-paid job as a doctor and a very nice condo to this." She waved her arm around the room. "No electricity. No running water. No flush toilets. No Starbucks. No cell phone. No sleep number beds."

She threw up her hands in disgust. "I might as well be speaking a foreign language because none of that means jack to you because you don't have any of it in this G.o.dforsaken land in this G.o.dforsaken year. So, I go from that to this and to top it off the rubber broke and now I might be knocked up with the baby of the original dead man walking. If anyone's got a right to be p.i.s.sed off it's me. And one more thing, while we're getting the facts straight, I'm not part of your problem. And if I'm not part of your problem then it stands to reason that I'm part of your solution, so Mr. High and Mighty Laird ofGlenagan perhaps you should start treating me with some respect. I'm a smart woman and if you were a smart man you'd take advantage of my brains instead of simply my body."

He opened his mouth to speak and she cut him off. She wasn't through. "And one more thing. I would've gone home andGoogled the Battle of Culloden and had all kinds of nifty factoids for you if he'd-" she stabbed a finger in Hamish's direction "-given me a chance. But no, five minutes after he tells me your story, he's shoving me into the painting. It wasn't as if I had an opportunity to do anything with the information other than show up and tell you what little I know."

Hamish, wearing a sheepish expression, shrugged. "I have no answer except that if the timing had not been right youwouldnae have made the journey. Ye would have banged into the painting, bounced off the wall, thought me a daft old man and been on your merry way. But I ken you just said you might be with a bairn." He developed a sudden interest in his nails. "Mayhap that is why you are here."

Kate had only thought herself chilled before. That thought froze her-alone and pregnant in a foreign land in a foreign century with no skill to support herself and her child. She s.h.i.+fted closer to the fire. "No."

"'Tis logical you would be here to provide aMacTavish heir," Hamish said. His demeanor and soothing even voice reminded her of a clergyman.

She stood straighter. "I am not a brood mare." Her statement would've had more impact had she not been clothed inMacTavish's kilt with his scent still clinging to her skin and her body still pleasantly achy from his recent possession.

"Mayhap 'tis Darach's destiny to die on the battlefield, yet theMacTavish line need not die with him."

"Hel-lo? I said no. No, no, and no. I don't want to have a baby. And I sure don't want to havehis baby." She looked over at where Darach stood glowering at them both. "Nope. I know all about genetics. Wouldn't I love to have a kid withthat temperament? Perish the thought." She crossed her arms beneath her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Dammit but it galled her to stand around wrapped inMacTavish's kilt. She felt branded by it. But it was better than striding about naked the way the arrogant Laird ofGlenagan seemed to favor.

"Sometimes it matters not what we want. Sometimes there are greater forces at work than our wills," Hamish said. This guy was seriously working her nerves. "How often have you experienced...how did you put it, the rubber breaking?"

d.a.m.n Hamish's sly reasoning. "Never before." Please. No. "Listen, I am so sure one of the women here in the castle is a much better candidate for this than me. They can provide a good genetic match and they're familiar with the time and place. If it's an heir you want, you really should choose one of them."

"But none of them traveled through time to get here-"

"No!"MacTavish exploded, banging his fist on the table and rattling the tray's contents. "I want no heir and I want no mother of my child." He glared at Hamish and Kate knew a moment of trepidation. In a temper,MacTavish was truly formidable. A peculiar expression shadowed his eyes. "Especially not if I am tae die andwillnae be here to protect them."

Finally. They were getting somewhere. Kate looked at Hamish. "See, he's on my side. He doesn't want me or a baby and I don't want him or a baby. That should count for something. It's two to one."

Hamish smiled and shook his head. "I am just about solving the puzzle of your being here and how to get you back."

Kate felt better. It wasn't as if he had an inside track or knew something they didn't. He was just speculating and throwing out ideas. "We call that brainstorming.Brainstorming's good." She turned to MacTavish . "Okay. Let's look at the other possibilities. Perhaps you don't have to die."

"I willnae live again as a coward."

She looked to Hamish, hoping for some guidelines. "Can history be re-written? Can a course of events be changed?"

"Aye. If it is meant to be. I think yer both forgetting an important piece of this puzzle. There is destiny, which is a greater plan beyond our control, and there is free will and often we do not know which is which. We do not know what we can change and what we can not. So, it may matter not what either of you think you want."

Kate impatiently shoved a curl behind her ear. "But you said it was both of our wants-" she shot MacTavish a hard glance, he owned this as much as she did, actually more in her opinion "-our needs, that brought me here. So apparently our wants do matter."

Hamish acknowledged her reasoning with a reluctant nod. "It would seem so, but mayhap only if in keeping with your destiny. 'Tis an enigma only the two of you can discern. Your connection was through a s.e.x Through the Ages exhibit." He glanced at Kate in apology. "Begging your pardon for speaking blunt but mayhap 'tis nothing more than you s.h.a.gging him 'til he dies." He shook his head and grinned. "Hardly seems fair. If Darach is to die atDrumossie , then 'tis likely my fate as well.Couldnae you have brought along a friendfer me?"

MacTavishlaughed and Kate stared at both men, confounded. One minute they were embroiled in a serious discussion of destiny and their impending demise and the next they were laughing like schoolboys. "If I'd only known..."

MacTavishseemed to know exactly what she was thinking. "Daft Scot and his gallows humor."

"Very few people laugh when they find out they're going to die soon," she said.

"I am not afraid tae die."MacTavish shrugged. "I've waited a long time for death. But Icannae sit by and do nothing for my people. Icannae leave the women to be raped and worse and the men to be hunted and killed by the English dogs."

Kate shuddered at the scene he painted, the scene due to play out all too soon. "Then we don't have a choice. We have to keep working on it until we come up with a solution."

MacTavishrocked back on his heels. "There is a possibility we have all overlooked."

"Yes?" Kate said.

"Speak up, man," Hamish said.

"A few minutes ago you said if Hamish had not sent you through the painting so quick you would have had more facts for me. You also said you were not of the problem, you were of the solution. Mayhap, there lies our answer. No answers lie here, only questions and uncertainty. All the answers belong in your time. Hamish was right after all. I doneed you. You need to take me back with you, Katie-love."

Hamish nodded. "Bluidybrilliant."

MacTavishturned his dark eyes on her. "But I will wager I can only come if you want me. Do you want me, Katie-love?" His gaze pierced her very soul.

Her heart thumped so loudly, surely he could hear it from where he stood. "You're arrogant and bossy and ill-tempered,MacTavish ." He had only asked her to take him for a short period of time-long enough for him to gather facts and devise a plan. Why then, did it feel as if she was about to utter an eternal vow? "Aye, I want you."

KATE CLUTCHED HER PURSEand paced across the room, almost giddy with excitement at their impending journey. Once again, she wore theMacTavish plaid.MacTavish had finally donned one himself. She stifled a laugh at the thought that they looked like a couple doing the matching outfits thing-only to the extreme. "Are you ready for the twenty-first century?"

She wasn't sure what she looked forward to the most-the comfort of a modern bathroom, a good cup of coffee, or the advantages of modern technology such as her pager actually working.

"There is no guarantee this will work,"MacTavish warned her as he pulled on his boots.

"It will. I've always been very practical and fact-oriented and this is neither...but since I saw the painting that first time, it was as if something awakened in me. I don't quite know how to describe it-a sixth sense maybe, a latent intuition. And since I've been here, it's grown stronger and stronger." She held up her hands in a questioning gesture. "Maybe because facts as I know them no longer make sense. From a factual standpoint, I shouldn't have been able to walk into a picture and travel back more than two-hundred sixty years in time."

"'Tis a strange thing to be sure." He stood and Kate silently admired the figure he cut in his kilt and boots.

"It's beyond strange. But I have a sense that this is right-you're supposed to go with me-and this is how we're supposed to do it." She hadn't been so sure until they'd made love the second time. Now she knew with absolute certainty.

"You are ready to go home, are you not, Katie-love?"

"I can't wait."

"Aye. You made it very clear that this-" he swept his hand toward the room "-does not compare to your home."

Oops. She'd definitely wounded his pride with her earlier comments. It really wasn't like her at all to fly off the handle. "I'm sorry I said those things. I was angry. The main thing is I don't belong here. This isn't my home and these aren't my people."

She was a total fish out of water with no chance of adapting to this place and time.

"No. You do not belong here." His dark eyes held hers. "'Tis definitely time for you to go home."

"Where I'm from is wonderful. Just wait,MacTavish . You won't believe it." It almost bordered on cruelty to give him a taste of the good life only to send him back to this land of hards.h.i.+p and deprivation. But this had a rightness to it and they'd each do what they had to do. "The hardest part will be getting you to my condo. Then we're home free. I'm nervous, though, as to where we'll show up and how we'll be dressed-make thatif we'll be dressed. I a.s.sure you I wasn't wandering the museum naked but that's how I showed up here." She glanced at the picture on the wall beside her.

MacTavishoffered a wicked grin. "Aye. Andtwas a pleasure to behold."

Men. She shook her head at him. "Thankyou. But it'll be better if we have on clothes when we get there. The most important thing, and I know this won't be easy for you, is you've got to do what I tell you to do. I know you're accustomed to being in charge, but let me do the talking and follow my lead."

"'Tis true I am used to being in charge." He crossed his arms over his chest. "But I will do as you say...as long as I agree with what you tell me to do."

"That's not the way it works. You might not particularly understand why I'm saying something or doing something. You know, I wasn't crazy about being locked in this room. But you told me to stay and I stayed."

He leveled a glance that immediately brought to mind her meeting him in the circular stairwell.

"Okay. Except for that one time. But it's like here." She waved a hand around the room. "You can't tell anyone you're almost three hundred years old. People will think you're crazy. And if they think you're crazy and dangerous...well, they'll lock you up." Simply thinking of the psych ward sent a s.h.i.+ver through her. "And you don't want to be locked up. It's not a good place to be and it's not going to help you help your people. I need your word on this,MacTavish ."

He stood with his feet planted apart, a stubborn cast to his jaw.

"You've got to trust me. I'm just trying to help you. But I can't if you won't let me. So, even though it might seem that I'm in charge, you're ultimately in charge."

The glower in his eyes turned to a glimmer of amus.e.m.e.nt. He shook his head at her doubletalk. "You have my word. I'll do as you say."

She knew that hadn't come easy for him. "Thankyou. This shouldn't be that difficult if you keep sort of quiet. Atlanta's a big city and there are people there from all over the world so, as long as you're not naked and if we can get you in some regular clothes, no one will notice,MacTavish ."

"I have a suggestion tae make...before you are in charge."

"Yes?"

"Mayhap you should call me by my given name."

She knew that. She really did. It was irrational, and as a rule she was never irrational, but even though she'd slept in his bed, worn his clothes, eaten his food, and made love with him, there was an intimacy and familiarity in calling him by his first name that she'd avoided. "You're right. I'll make sure I do."

"Do it now, so that you get used to it," he said.

She could swear he knew how reluctant she was and why. Fine. "Darach."

Dammit. She knew it. Even though she'd been matter-of-fact, it felt intimate.MacTavish kept him at a distance.MacTavish was larger than life, the laird ofGlenagan . But Darach...Darach was just a man.

An expression she could almost mistake for tenderness chased across his face and vanished. "I know you're very sure we will both travel to your Atlanta. Icannae say I feel as sure. And if that's the case, I cannae let you go without saying good bye." He stroked the backs of his fingers along her face. "'Tis been a pleasure to know you, Katie Wexford. G.o.dspeed to you." He splayed his hands intimately across her belly. "And if mayhap, you are carrying my bairn, be it lad or la.s.sie, will you give it theMacTavish name and one day tell it of me?"

Despite the fact that she had found him infuriating on more than one occasion, the unexpected pain of his goodbye nearly tore her asunder, as if a limb was being ripped from her body. "Yes. You have my word. If there's a baby, it will carry theMacTavish name." It almost made her wish.... No.

"My mother's name was Isobel. 'Tis a bonnie name for a la.s.s."

She caught a glimpse of the boy he must've been before circ.u.mstances and time had molded him, hardened him. Tears burned behind her eyes and she had to swallow hard before she could speak. "Isobel is a lovely name."

Obviously she hadn't swallowed hard enough because a tear trickled down her cheek. She brushed it away impatiently. She would not leave him behind to die atDrumossie .

"I'm not saying goodbye because you're coming with me," she said. "I need you so that we can figure this out. This can't be the way it was meant to end. I need you. Come with me, Darach."

She linked her arms around his neck and kissed him. She poured herself into the kiss, into him-her soul, her mind, her body. He bore her back against the wall and it was more than a mere fusing of mouths and tongues. It was a fusing of souls and wills that transcended the physical. Locked together in a kiss she felt herself spiraling, tumbling, whirling in the dark as she'd done once before.

Darach broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers. "Katie-love..." He sounded as dizzy and disoriented as she still felt.

Kate blinked her eyes open, adjusting to the dim lighting. She and Darach were leaning against the museum wall, next to the painting, near the exact spot she'd stood to admire the portrait before Hamish had shoved her. "Look. Look around us." They'd done it without really trying. They'd done it! Together, they'd traveled through time.

"Welcome to Atlanta and the twenty-first century, DarachMacTavish ."

WHAT HAD HE EXPECTEDthe journey to be like? Perhaps the wind rus.h.i.+ng by him? Perhaps he'd soar through the air like a hawk, anIcarus , with majestic sweeping views of the Highland wilds below him?

He for certain hadn't expected to spin so out of control that he almost lost consciousness.

Darach looked about him. Various portraits hung about on smooth plaster walls that soared high. Some lamps with no torch or candle actually burning. Gleaming wood floors. Aye, 'twas a strange place.

"Glad to see you made it here." He turned and found himself face to face with a man who appeared to be a much older version of Hamish by thirty or forty years.

"Hamish?"

"One and the same." He grinned and Darach for sure recognized his friend. "Good trip?"

"Aye. 'Twas a bit rough but it happened in not much more than the blink of an eye."

Hamish cast a concerned eye on Kate and Darach. "Time travel affects everyone differently. It leaves some feeling a bit sickish. You two okay?"

Kate nodded, her face wreathed in a smile that reminded him of a glimpse of the sun following a storm. "I've never felt better." She turned to Darach. "How about you?"

Well, truth be told he had been better because 'twas all strange and even Hamish sounded different. But, he'd made it and at least now he had a glimmer of hope that he could save his people. "Aye. I'm fine."

Hamish pa.s.sed a change of clothes to Darach. "I thought you might show up and I figured you'd need this. You'll blend in much better without the plaid. Quick. Change here. There's no one around but you'll want to hurry, the museum's just closing now."

Darach looked at the garments in his hand.

Hamish nodded toward the room's open doorway. "I'll keep an eye out while you dress. Perhaps your lady can give you a hand, since it's a bit different from what you're used to."

Kate. He'd been so busy taking it all in, he hadn't noticed until now that she wore trousers and a s.h.i.+rt with a jacket. He preferred her naked or wrapped in his kilt. Or mayhap it was because he'd just left a bit of himself with her in that kiss and now she looked more a stranger than the woman he'd come to know.

She plucked a white undergarment from the top and presented it to him.