Chapter 3
As the lass’s head lifted to meet his gaze, she became the most beautiful, peculiar statue.
Frozen in place, her dark blue eyes unblinking behind the most unusual pair of spectacles he had ever seen, her chestnut hair pulled back like she was about to go to war, though unbraided. It reminded him of a horse’s tail.
He glanced back at Jack, who had slipped around to the other side of the gates with him, and gave him a look that said, This is it? A lass?
She really was a beauty; there was no denying that. A feline nose and rosy, plump cheeks, accentuated by sharp cheekbones, a sun-browned complexion with a dusting of freckles that drew his eye, and a defined jaw that gave the impression of someone regal. And her lips…
How are they so red?
He’d never seen a mouth that color in his life, the shape of them so full and curved and inviting, as if made to entice.
Her blue eyes, the shade of a loch in winter, narrowed ever so slightly as if to say, Daenae look so hard. And certainly daenae look at me lips. The rest of her expression, however, remained blank, completely frozen in terror. Which, in fairness to her, was justified.
“Ye didnae answer me question, lass,” he said, remembering himself. “Were ye? Lookin’ for me? Ye wanted me fetched, so here I am.”
She blinked at last, her slender throat bobbing as she craned her neck to hold his gaze. “You are the… Hawk? The one from…”
“From?” he prompted.
She shook her head. “I’m not sure it matters.” Those impossibly red lips pressed together for a moment. “You’re him, though? The Hawk?”
“Laird Lochlann,” he corrected coolly. “I daenae appreciate childish nicknames made by weak men who’d rather call me anythin’ but what I am. Makes ‘em feel better when I cut ‘em down.”
The lass rubbed the back of her neck and puffed out a breath.
“Right, well, I don’t know which part of my subconscious you’ve sprung from, but I can’t say I mind the cliché.
” She gave an awkward laugh that deepened his frown.
“Good thing I wasn’t at the clown museum when I got knocked out, or Lord knows what… all of this would be like.”
What on earth is she talkin’ about?
Her accent, whatever it was, was entirely unknown to him. It didn’t sound like anything local, nor did it sound like anything he’d heard from various traders and merchants who came to the region from time to time. Not Scottish, not any sort of English he’d ever heard, and not Irish either.
In truth, he couldn’t be certain he was understanding half of what she was saying. He was just guessing at the words and trying to make sense of them.
“She’s pretendin’ to be mad, me Laird,” one of the guards said.
A second nodded. “We spotted her lyin’ over there by the trees, and were about to send someone out when she got up and walked to the gates. Demanded to ken what was going on and where the tapestry was. Somethin’ about kids, too.”
“Ye’ve lost them?” Hunter asked.
He let his gaze wander over the rest of her… and immediately understood why Jack had summoned him.
“Lost what?” she replied. “My marbles? Absolutely.”
He ignored her as her peculiarity finally registered.
She wore a strange pair of blue trews that fit her like a glove, leaving nothing to the imagination or to modesty.
He could see the exact shape of her strong thighs, the curve of her calves, the swell of her hips, and even a glimpse of her ankles before they disappeared into the oddest shoes he’d ever seen: maroon red, with thick, flat white soles and some kind of crest on the side.
On top, she left a little more to the imagination, wearing a short gray tunic that stopped at the waistline of her strange trousers and a long-sleeved doublet made entirely of black leather.
A curious metal mechanism replaced buttons, resembling two straight lines of tiny teeth.
And off her shoulder hung a bag made of that same black leather.
Who is this lass?
Or perhaps he ought to be asking himself what she was. This part of the Highlands wasn’t without its myths and legends, and in recent years, they’d done plenty to anger the restless spirits that had been here far longer than they had and would be here long after everyone was gone.
“Are ye English?” he asked, frowning.
“She said she was French!” one of the guards sneered.
At that, the lass rolled her eyes. “I never said I was French. No one was responding to me, so I figured I must be speaking a foreign language.” She drew in a breath. “I’m American.”
“American?” Hunter paused, the word as unknown to him as the rest of her. “Ye mean, ye’re from the Americas?”
As far as he was aware, the people who’d sailed to that far-off land were just British by any other name, still ruled over by whoever sat on the English throne.
Americans were the people who had already been there when the English landed and claimed it as their own, as the English had a nasty tendency of doing. The Scots knew about that intimately.
But she wouldnae be speakin’ English if she was American, would she?
“Sure, I’m from the Americas,” she replied.
He nodded, slowly sheathing his sword. “Ye got here by ship?”
It was a fair walk from the coast, but not impossible. If her ship had wrecked, she wouldn’t have had much choice but to walk inland and pray she found civilization. Otherwise, she’d have probably died out there.
She looked him in the eye, her chest rising and falling in a heavy sigh as she whispered, “I wish I knew.”
There definitely hadn’t been a ship involved; Nancy knew that much. But there was something fishy going on, and she couldn’t even begin to figure it out.
It has to be my head. Or I’m in a hospital bed, in the throes of a coma.
She’d once written an article about the experiences of coma patients who had finally woken up, and some of the stories had been wild.
One man had had a whole other life with a wife and kids and dog and a job and a mortgage, only to wake up and discover he was a single, childless man who’d slipped into a coma at twenty and woken up ten years later.
One woman claimed there was nothing but the hospital room, and she had been aware of everything going on around her.
Another woman had said it was like a dream you couldn’t remember.
Just then, the insanely tall man with the long, dark hair, flaring green eyes, deliciously pouty mouth, and mile-wide shoulders grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her toward him.
Right into the cement-hard muscles of his broad chest, where the scent of salt and woodsmoke and fresh air overwhelmed her.
“Daenae play games with me, lass,” he said in that low, rumbling voice that seemed to reverberate through her like heavy bass. “I never lose, and ye willnae want to see it when I win.”
The first shiver of true fear rippled through the center of her, where it picked up an undercurrent of something that told her she really needed to get out more when she woke up from whatever this was.
A faint little thrill that definitely wasn’t appropriate, but she couldn’t prevent, all starting where his rough, callused hands gripped her wrists.
Human touch. Male touch.
God, how long has it been?
She pushed the thought away. Firstly, because she didn’t want to know the answer.
Secondly, because this was not the situation to start thinking about the last time she’d hooked up with someone.
Thirdly, she didn’t need the reminder: few though they were, her lovers had been a disappointing little bunch, barely scratching whatever itch had made her seek out their comfort in the first place.
“And I don’t like men who speak in clichés and grab me without asking first,” she said, attempting to step back.
But his grip remained firm, his green eyes flashing with thinly veiled annoyance. No doubt worried that his annoying guards had overheard her.
“I hope ye still have that fortitude when I’m done interrogatin’ ye,” he snarled. “It’d be a pity to break such a lively spirit.”
At that, his minions erupted into laughter, elbowing each other like teenagers on the street with nothing better to do but egg each other on. The very essence of all the catcallers and nightclub pests she’d ever had the displeasure of encountering.
“Good luck to ye, lass. Ye’ll need it,” one jeered.
“Aye, ye’ll soon be wishin’ ye stayed far, far away!” another chimed in.
The Hawk’s green eyes burned in the single most terrifying look she had ever seen, and the guards immediately fell silent, their heads bowed.
“Come with me.” He didn’t actually give her a choice, as he pulled her forward through the gates.
Nancy stumbled on the uneven ground of a paved courtyard, her sneakers sliding on well-worn flagstones.
If she fell now, the Hawk would only haul her up and make this entire ordeal more embarrassing than it already was. Still, the last thing she wanted to do was follow him to an interrogation. Unless this hallucination had something a little spicier in mind?
Even my poor, smashed-up brain thinks my love life is garbage.
She would have laughed if the Hawk’s grip on her wrist wasn’t so tight, the faint burning sensation spiking a small tremor of something in the back of her mind that she truly didn’t want to consider. That this might be real, somehow.
The Hawk stopped and, seemingly as an afterthought, called back over his shoulder, “Daenae interrupt us. We’ve got a lot to discuss.” He glanced down at her, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Daenae we, lass?”