Highlander Assassinated (Highlander In Time #16)

Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

“ F orgive me. It’s been a long ride.”

To his credit, the man shook himself out of his stupor without her having to prompt him. The look of shock and fascination didn’t go far, though — he was still studying her face as though he was trying to commit it to memory… or as though he was trying to identify a fault or an inconsistency. Lissa realized what that look reminded her of — it was exactly the way people studied you when they were trying to figure out whether you were lying to them. But why? She’d hardly said a damn word to him — just asked where the hotel was.

“No problem.” Lissa cleared her throat. “Are you lost too, then?”

A relieved smile. “I’m afraid so, yes. I thought I’d be able to find my way unaided, but I haven’t ridden these roads since I was a boy, and I seem to have gotten myself turned around.”

Well, great. She’d managed to get herself lost on less than half a mile of straight road, and to add insult to injury, retracing her steps had only brought her to yet another lost person — and a horse, she thought, frowning a little as the creature huffed softly and tossed its head. The man put a reassuring hand on the horse’s flank, and it seemed to settle a little, though one of its dark eyes stayed warily trained on Lissa.

“He’s right, I’m being rude,” the stranger said with a sudden laugh, shaking his head. “Let me introduce myself. Niall MacClaran.”

She put her hand out automatically, and after a momentary pause he took it in his, a faint look of surprise in his eyes. Strange, how many men still thought it was the strangest thing in the world for a woman to greet them the same way a man would. Sometimes she wondered just how much time and energy the human race would have saved over the centuries if they’d diverted a little of their attention from arbitrary distinctions between the sexes.

“Lissa Crossworth.”

“Lissa,” he repeated.

The warmth of his hand squeezing hers reminded her, suddenly, of just how long it had been since she’d made meaningful contact with another human being — outside of the crush of the airport security lines, that was. He repeated her name again, his blue eyes burning into hers, and she felt a strange sense of suspension for a moment, an unaccustomed apprehension. There was something about the way he looked at her, the intensity in his eyes, which seemed to put her whole body on high alert. Not a feeling she was unfamiliar with, in her line of work, but there was something different about this. This wasn’t a feeling of threat, or of danger. Nor was it quite like the feeling she got when men sized her up and liked what they saw, something else she wasn’t too humble to say she had a fair bit of experience with. Not that she could rule out his being attracted to her, of course… but there was something else going on here, too. Still that odd sense that he was trying to catch her out in a lie, that he was waiting for her to reveal some secret to him. Curious. Very curious.

“Well, Miss Lissa Crossworth. I’m sorry to hear you’re lost too, but perhaps we can work together to improve our respective situations?”

“Sounds like a plan,” she said drily.

Niall released her hand at last, and she wondered belatedly if she’d been holding onto it for an awkward length of time in her disorientation. Something really wasn’t right with her at the moment. There was nothing suspicious about someone repeating her name a few times — it was the oldest trick in the book to stop yourself forgetting a name the minute you heard it. Did jetlag screw around with your intuition? Was that why she kept getting false alarms from her nervous system? That would explain a lot.

“Where are you trying to get to?”

“The Keep,” he said, a look of amusement in his eyes. “I thought the name might have given it away.”

“The name?” She paused for a moment, frowning. There had been something about his surname that had rung a bell — she’d been distracted, though, by that intense look in his eye, and the pressure of his hand … “Oh! MacClaran, like the old castle! My driver was telling me the history of the place — well, more of the folklore than the history, I suppose.” She wondered if it was a more common name than the average in this area. It wasn’t exactly an uncommon name even back home. Hadn’t she met a guy called MacClaran in her Army days? She found herself wondering how many of them could trace their ancestry back to this place, and felt that odd sense of unreality intensifying. Niall was looking at her with a curious look on his face, and to her redoubled shock she found herself flushing slightly with embarrassment. “I’m a bit out of it, I’m afraid,” she said apologetically. “The jetlag really snuck up on me this time.”

“The … jetlag?” Niall repeated cautiously.

She blinked at him.

“Is that not what you call it over here?” Lissa grimaced, shaking her head. “Sorry. Irrelevant. We’re lost in the woods and it’s getting dark. Let’s focus on that first. Now, you’re heading for — the castle, yeah?” Struck by sudden inspiration, she dug into her bag for the map she’d printed before she left the States. Even as she’d done it, she’d felt like she was overpreparing, but she’d never been more grateful to have a contingency plan in the event of crappy cell service. She’d gotten the map from the Weatherby Hotel website — it was focused on getting guests to the hotel safely, of course, but it also showed sites of interest in the surrounding area. Niall stared curiously down at the crumpled paper as she unfolded it, that same look of thinly suppressed fascination returning to his face. She was starting to wonder what the deal was with this guy. She’d been ready for a certain amount of culture shock when she reached the Scottish countryside, but this was next level. Even compared to Davey, who was presumably from the same area, Niall was … well, intensely Scottish.

“There it is,” she said, tapping with some satisfaction on the map. “North’s that way, which means the ruins are… back the way you came, it looks like. Good thing we ran into each other, hey?”

But Niall seemed to have stopped listening. There was a look of sudden shock on his face, his mouth half-open as if she’d revealed something terrible. “The ruins, did you say?”

Lissa was getting tired of feeling like she’d missed a step on a staircase. She craned her neck down at the paper, frowning. Hadn’t Davey said the Keep was a ruin? Maybe she was getting it mixed up with another castle. It wasn’t as though Scotland had any shortage of them. “I mean, it does just say Castle MacClaran, but I thought…”

Niall chuckled, though he still looked a little concerned — and she was aware that he was still shooting curious looks down at the paper she was holding. She got the odd impression that he was resisting the urge to question her about it. But why? It was just a printout of a tourist map. Surely, he was no stranger to dumb American tourists getting lost around here, if he was in the habit of visiting old historical sites at all hours of the day or night.

“Well, I certainly hope it’s not a ruin,” Niall said now, shaking his head. “I’d rather not spend another night sleeping on the road.”

“Wait, you’re staying at the castle?” Lissa was surprised that that was an option — surely her drunk-self would have gone for a castle over a hotel, if it had come up in her search.

“Of course,” Niall said, looking at her as though the question didn’t make any sense.

She opened her mouth, then closed it again, feeling like the two of them were somehow on very different pages of the same book. It was as though they were speaking different languages somehow — though she wasn’t having any trouble at all with his accent, oddly enough. Still, maybe English was his second language? Or maybe it was her fault. Maybe American English had less in common with the English they spoke over here than she’d previously suspected. After all, he hadn’t known what she meant by ‘jetlag’ — maybe there were even more significant differences. Maybe he was actually staying at the same place she was, and they’d gotten their wires crossed somehow on what it was called.

“I’d be more than happy to give you a ride,” Niall said now, still with that odd, searching look in his eyes. “Perhaps we’ll both find what we’re looking for at the Keep?”

She hesitated for a moment, glancing back up the road and considering her options carefully. She’d lost her driver, she had no idea where her hotel was, and the only building she’d encountered was full of armed weirdos in costumes. Niall was a complete stranger, true, and a decidedly odd fellow on top of that — but there was nothing about him that even her most paranoid instincts suggested was a threat. Besides, if the map was anything to go by, it would be a hell of a long walk to the nearest landmark.

“Why not?” she said with a shrug. “May as well make sure at least one of us gets where they’re going.”

“My family will be able to help,” Niall said firmly. “I’m quite certain of it.”

“Sounds good,” Lissa said, already distracted by the looming prospect of getting on a horse. Standing this close to the creature was one thing — she’d never much minded horses. But the idea of getting on one was a different situation altogether. “I’m gonna need a bit of help, though. Last time I was on one of these was at an elementary school petting zoo.”

Again, Niall gave her one of those long, searching looks that made her wonder if she’d accidentally started speaking a different language — but the faint smile playing around the corners of his mouth went a long way to making her feel alright about that.

Well, she’d come to Scotland looking for adventure, hadn’t she? Was she really going to complain about that wish being granted?