Chapter 12
Cameron caught the dark-haired woman before she touched the ground. He lifted her up into his arms and felt more astonished than he had in years. It wasn’t that he wasn’t accustomed to beautiful women throwing themselves at him, for they did so with regularity. Nay, that wasn’t what surprised him.
It was that he recognized this one.
It took him a moment to decide why. He supposed, as he thought on it a bit longer, that it was simply that she was the one Penelope had run into and sent sprawling—a month ago, was it, almost?
He remembered picking Miss Phillips up, picking up her purse, then having an earful all the way to supper in Inverness about his damnable chivalry being damned inconvenient.
Penelope’s words, not his.
“Hand her over, Mac,” Penelope demanded, interrupting his thoughts. “Surely her friends here can take care of her.”
Cameron looked at her evenly. “Penelope, I’ll see her set down, then I’ll meet you in the car. Why don’t you go out and wait for me?”
She rolled her eyes, sighed gustily, then stalked across the hall floor to throw open the front door and leave it open behind her. Zachary Smith, Jamie’s brother-in-law, walked over and shut it quietly. Cameron turned back to James MacLeod.
“This is your sister-in-law?” he asked.
James smiled wickedly. “And my witch.”
Cameron smiled in spite of himself. “An interesting thing to have on staff, wouldn’t you say?”
“’Tis tradition,” James said with something of a purr. “We hold to it rather firmly here on my land. There has always been a witch in that little hut to the north.”
I know, Cameron almost said, but he stopped himself in time. There had been witches there for as long as he could remember. In fact, he’d known one of them, Moraig MacLeod, but he didn’t think anything good would come of saying as much.
“Sunny’s a fine healer,” James continued. “She came to visit last year and I asked her to stay here instead of returning to America.”
“She’s a Yank?” Cameron asked in surprise.
“Surprisingly enough,” James said mildly. “We seem to wed them in droves. Sunny’s very keen on all that business of yoga and natural cures. We should build her a shop in the centre. Give that damned Tavish Fergusson a reason to look for somewhere else to sell his wares.”
Cameron pursed his lips. He never allowed a chance to vex a Fergusson pass him by. “Absolutely,” he agreed. “Now, where can I take her? Back to her house?”
“Too far,” James said. “Let’s have her upstairs in the guest chamber.”
Cameron followed James upstairs and listened to him babble on in Gaelic about the leisure center.
As he followed him, he couldn’t help but wonder about him.
He didn’t have anything to do with MacLeods, in keeping with tradition, but he’d listened to the gossip down at the pub often enough.
The lads there said James MacLeod was a throwback to earlier times.
In fact, there were those who said he was from earlier times.
It was utter rubbish, of course. Men did not travel from one century to another.
’Twas easy enough to explain away James’s oddities.
His command of Gaelic was nothing more than a Highlander properly keeping his native language alive.
He had the physique of a man who worked out hours a day because he likely worked out hours a day.
He had a perfectly restored medieval keep with all the medieval trappings because he no doubt had a fondness for history.
The souls in that keep treated him with lairdly deference because they loved him.
Cameron certainly had no experience with that himself.
James opened a bedchamber door, turned on the light, then stood back. “Here you go. Just lay her down here and we’ll see to her. My brother was on his way over anyway. He’ll look at her.”
“Your brother Patrick?” Cameron asked.
“Aye. Do you know him?”
“We share a mechanic in Inverness,” Cameron said slowly. “I’ve passed him a time or two going in opposite directions.” He considered. “He’s part of that stunt-training school your cousin runs, isn’t he?”
“Stunt-training,” James echoed slowly. “Aye, you could call it that, I suppose. And aye, he is part of Ian’s school. He teaches the lads how to survive in the Highlands with only their hands, their wits, and a sharp knife at their disposal.”
“Interesting skills to have.”
James smiled a rather enigmatic smile. “Aye, they are, aren’t they? Patrick also has a fondness for using sharp blades that Ian indulges often—an affinity I share, as it happens.” He blinked owlishly. “You wouldn’t have anything to do with swords, would you, Robert?”
“Rapiers,” Cameron said, shifting uncomfortably, “when I can manage them.”
James only lifted one eyebrow briefly. “I daresay,” he murmured. “Well, you’d best put Sunshine down and be on your way. Your fiancée is waiting for you, isn’t she?”
Cameron found, strangely enough, that he didn’t particularly want to put Sunshine Phillips down. He looked down at her and felt something shoot through him, the same sort of tingle that had run up his arm each of the two times previous that he’d touched her.
Decidedly odd.
He shifted her in his arms and realized that there was very little to her. James had said she’d had a head wound, but perhaps she had been ill as well. Perhaps looks were deceiving; she had certainly thrown herself at him downstairs with a great amount of energy. Energy and relief, truth be told.
As if she’d known him.
But that was impossible. He’d never seen her before, except by the dim light of Tavish Fergusson’s shop lights.
“Lord Robert?”
Cameron looked at James, then pulled himself back to what he was supposed to be doing.
He forced himself to walk across the chamber.
He laid Sunshine Phillips gently on the bed, then stood there for a moment.
Perhaps the bump she had on her head had rendered her momentarily witless and she’d mistaken him for another.
“What happened to Sunny?”
Cameron looked around and saw that he and James had been joined by a man who could only be Patrick MacLeod, given his resemblance to his elder brother.
Tough, powerful men, the both of them. Cameron liked that about them, actually, almost enough to forgive them the unfortunate burden of their last name.
He moved aside as Patrick came to sit on the edge of the bed. Patrick put his hand on Sunshine’s forehead, then looked up. Cameron supposed the look he received wasn’t particularly unfriendly, but it was quite piercing.
“Lord Cameron,” Patrick said slowly. “Here for a bit of business, are you?”
“’Tis just Cameron,” Cameron said absently, “and aye, I am.” He paused. “She fainted.”
“She had a severe concussion,” Patrick said, taking her hand and expertly checking her pulse. He shot his brother a look. “’Twas too soon to summon her, you fool.”
“You told me she was well enough to come,” James retorted.
“I never said that. I only said she was well enough to rise from her bed. She’s too bloody stubborn to take my advice and stay home for another fortnight. You shouldn’t have sent for her. And here she is, damned fortunate she didn’t crack her head open yet again!”
James looked like he would have cheerfully throttled his brother and Patrick looked prepared to return the favor. Cameron cleared his throat.
“The fault is partly mine,” he offered. “I think she thought she recognized me somehow and that set her off. I’m sure I’ve never seen her before.
Well,” he amended, “that isn’t precisely true.
I saw her a pair of fortnights ago. Penelope knocked her over in the village and I picked her up.
” He looked at Sunny in consternation. “Perhaps ’tis the bump on her head. ”
“Perhaps,” Patrick agreed, “but I wouldn’t worry about it. I appreciate your concern, but I’ll tend her now.”
Cameron nodded and knew he was being dismissed. He left the chamber reluctantly, then walked down the stairs with James. He stopped at the bottom and looked at the other man.
“Let me think on it a bit longer,” he said slowly. “I’ll be in touch soon, aye?”
James smiled, looking perfectly content to wait. “Of course.”
Cameron looked at him for another moment or two, then shook his head.
James MacLeod, a laird from several centuries ago?
What rot. James MacLeod had created a little kingdom for himself, complete with a witch to brew him potions, and that was all there was to it.
He would readily admit, though, that James’s witch was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen.
Beautiful and fragile and unaccountably familiar.
Very odd.
He pulled himself back to the present, nodded again to James, nodded to James’s brother-in-law Zachary, then made his way out of the hall before he indulged in any more ridiculous speculation on things that were impossible or women he didn’t know.
He shut himself reluctantly into his Range Rover and started it up, steeling himself for an onslaught of recriminations he knew lay in store for him. He didn’t have to wait long.
“She was beautiful,” Penelope said flatly, “but they always are, aren’t they, Mac? I’m tired of women throwing themselves at you. Literally, in this case.”
“I can’t help what others do,” he said, rather reasonably to his mind.
“Of course you can. You bring it on yourself.” She tossed her head and huffed a bit. “Perhaps you could see your way clear to rein in all that bloody chivalry on occasion.”
In Scotland, we call it honor, he almost said.
It was something his father had said—nay, that wasn’t right.
He supposed someone had said it to him at one point, but he had no idea who.
It suited him, though, so he’d taken the saying as his own.
But as Penelope wouldn’t understand it, he kept it to himself.