CHAPTER NINE #4
Tabby really looked at him. She remained very angry, but she did notice that MacNeil was drop-dead gorgeous and massively built. Like Macleod, he had the powerful body of a warrior-knight. But she didn’t care. “Who are you? The dispenser of wisdom? An oracle, a seer—a Gypsy fortune-teller?”
“I ken ye’re very angry. I dinna blame ye, lass.” And as he sent her one of the most disarming and seductive smiles she’d ever received, Tabby became slightly less angry. His mouth curved with good humor. “Sometimes, when the gods allow it, I see a great many things.”
She became still. He meant it—he had wisdom that came from the gods. Macleod couldn’t leap, but this man could. “Are you a Master?”
“Aye.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “I am very pleased to meet ye, Tabitha Rose. I knew yer grandmother, once.”
Tabby gasped. “Are you kidding?”
His beautiful smile vanished. “Sara was a powerful woman, an’ ye remind me of her greatly. I wouldna jest.”
She inhaled. Her grandmother had time-traveled. It was mind-blowing. “Do you know why I’m here? Do you know why my spell to bring Macleod to me in New York worked?”
“But ye ken the answers, Lady Tabitha. Macleod needs ye an’ ye need him.”
Tabby started and glanced at Macleod, who was grim.
He’d rescued her at school and had been at her side during the ghost’s attack, but she refused to admit that she needed protection from him.
But she thought about that boy again, and the older man who’d suffered in the fires of An Tùir-Tara.
“I don’t think he’ll need me until 1550,” she said.
“Which begs the question, am I in the right time?”
MacNeil smiled. “I dinna claim to keep all wisdom, lass, just some of it.”
Tabby looked at Macleod, who was staring at her.
She felt his sharp interest. She was going to have to forget about his needing her in another two-hundred-and-fifty years.
She had better stay in the here and now—which was 1298, with a super-macho, supermedieval protector she didn’t want and was mad as all hell at.
And he certainly didn’t need her now—except, maybe, for sex.
Both men looked at her.
She instantly had the awful feeling they were reading her mind, and she blushed. “Don’t you dare invade my thoughts now! And I am speaking to the both of you!”
She saw on Macleod’s face that he’d been lurking. It was the slightest glint in his eyes that gave him away. “I canna comprehend a single word ye speak otherwise.”
“Great!” she cried. “How perfect is that—we don’t even share a language!”
He made a sound of disgust. “We share many languages,” he snapped. “Tonight I’ll show ye how many!”
“Do not bring up last night,” she warned. “Tonight, we are having separate bedrooms.”
For one instant, he seemed puzzled, and then he gave her an incredulous look.
He intended to continue their affair. Tabby felt the unbelievable ache in her midsection, at once hollow and intense. “You abducted me,” she cried.
“I had but a moment to decide what to do,” he shot back. “How many times must I say that I wish to keep ye safe?”
She trembled. Then Tabby looked at MacNeil, who seemed rather entertained.
Her focus moved past both men, to the stark splendor of the castle set high above them.
Why was it familiar? There was a reason for everything, although just then she hated admitting that.
She was at Blayde in 1298. If that was meant to be, then her spell bringing Macleod to her hadn’t backfired at all.
But then why had it all begun at the Met? What was the role of An Tùir-Tara?
“If ye let yer anger go, ye might find yerself pleased to be here,” MacNeil chided softly.
Tabby tore her attention from the castle. First Allie, then Brie and now her. “Why am I here?” she demanded.
“I told ye already. Ye need him and he needs ye.”
She folded her arms tightly across her chest. “Have I been here before?”
“Never,” MacNeil said.
Tabby was shocked. She’d expected him to say yes, and to possibly tell her she’d had a past life at Blayde in the thirteenth century. “Are you sure? Because everything is so familiar.”
“I am very certain,” MacNeil said. “The soul is a strange entity. It moves an’ feels in mysterious ways. I wouldna question yer feelings, Lady Tabitha.”
Tabby was aghast. “If I haven’t had a past life here, then my soul knows nothing, damn it.” Was he suggesting her soul knew this place? That it knew Macleod?
MacNeil said softly, “Ye must play this out, Tabitha. I would never bring ye back if I dinna think it wise to do so.”
You’ll have to play this out, Tabby. First Sam, now MacNeil.
Tabby stared grimly at MacNeil, whose eyes were kind, and then at Macleod, who was filled with tension.
Too late, she thought about the fact that she’d promised her sister she wouldn’t leave her.
Not only had she done that, she hadn’t said goodbye.
Her heart sank. “MacNeil, is there any way I can convince you to send me back to New York?”
Macleod darkened. The wind caused the firs to whip about and the earth rumbled. “He’ll do no such thing.”
Tabby ignored him.
“Macleod isna as dark an’ dangerous as ye think, lass, an’ it will serve ye well to remember that,” MacNeil said simply.
And Tabby knew he was about to vanish into time. “No, wait,” she cried frantically.
MacNeil disappeared into the golden sunlight.
Tabby cried out in frustration, “You’re both outlaws!”
“When will ye finish yer insults?”
Total comprehension began. They were alone. Not only that, she’d been hurling insults at him—not to mention that she’d hit him a second time. She was in thirteenth-century Scotland. Every medieval woman needed a man in order to survive in the Middle Ages. She knew that much.
She was stuck, really stuck. “I’m sorry.”
His brows lifted. “Ye’re nay sorry at all.”
“I want to go back and you can’t take me and your partner in crime won’t. I am pretty much a prisoner.”
“Ye’re my guest.” He was harsh. “Let’s go up to Blayde.”
Suddenly Tabby balked. Tears came to her eyes. She swiped at them. She was not going to feel sorry for herself now and she was not going to become a weak, cowardly woman. She was a Rose. If Allie and Brie could survive a leap back in time, then she could manage this predicament.
Besides, if her Fate was helping Macleod, she was not going to be able to resist it or fight it. “You win.”
Before he could respond to her sarcastic quip, she felt the ground move under her feet.
Tabby jerked, because she couldn’t imagine how she’d set off Macleod’s temper now, but he was listening to the afternoon. The ground continued to vibrate. Her mind slammed into gear. They were about to experience a landslide or an earthquake.
He took her arm. “Riders.”
Tabby’s alarm crested. A few riders could not make the ground shake. It was at least a fifteen-minute hike up to the safety of Blayde’s stone walls.
Thunder filled the day.
Blayde’s bells began ringing.
A shapeless mass appeared on the top of the ridge that was closest to them. Tabby squinted and saw the mass rippling, undoubtedly the movement of restless warhorses. Like a pale landslide, it began descending.
“Damn it,” Tabby said. “That’s an army, right? A medieval army?”
Macleod nodded.