Highlander Undone (Highland Bound Book 5) (12 page)

“Damn,” Ewan said, stiffening at the same time Rory heard the crunch of footsteps through the woods.

“We’re not alone,” Rory said.

“And neither of us with a weapon, unless ye count this.” Ewan held up the walking stick he’d prepared himself. “I assume ye can fight.” Ewan gave him an assessing glance.

“Used to be the captain of the guard for my laird,” Rory said—until his laird’s castle and lands were seized, the entire clan massacred and Rory decided to take a vow of solitude, which led him to Moira. “We’ll have to fight with our staffs.”

“I can fight,” Shona said. “I’ve done it before.” Then she winked at Ewan.

“Nay, not this time, love,” Ewan said, pulling her in for a quick kiss.

Seeing that moment of affection made Rory wish he and Moira were as close. They’d get there again. He vowed it. For now, he settled on kissing the top of her stubborn head.

Shona rushed over to Moira and grabbed her hand. “Come on, we need to get up this tree and hide.”

“Up the tree?” Moira looked baffled. “No way. I’m ready to wake up now. I’m ready.”

“Shh!” Shona hissed. “They’ll hear ye, and we’ve got to keep hidden.”

Fire filled Moira’s eyes and for the first time since they’d landed back in his time, Rory started to see the return of some of the backbone he knew Moira possessed.

“Fine. But I’m going to need more than whisky after this. I want a turkey leg, too.”

“Aye.” Rory chuckled, though his skin was prickling as he heard whoever stalked the woods getting closer. “I’ll give ye a boost, and when we’re through, I’ll get ye whatever ye want.” Effortlessly he picked her up, thrilling at the feel of her lush legs on his palms. “Grab hold of that tree limb and swing yourself up.”

She did as he instructed, scrambling up into the foliage, then stood on the limb to reach for a higher one.

Rory was about to ask if she should do that when Shona said, “She was great at climbing trees as a kid. And she did gymnastics, great on the high bars. Anyways, I suspect it’s a skill she’s not lost.”

Shona effortlessly swung herself up into the tree—obviously a skill that both twins possessed, but Rory had no more time to think on it. Not a second after the lassies disappeared, a grungy-looking trio of men pushed through the thorn bushes, not seeming to care the least for the barbs that snagged their clothes.

They stopped short, but the stench of them did not. Rory’s eyes almost watered. They smelled of piss, ale and a year or two’s worth of filth.

“
Sassenachs
,” the shortest of the three hissed, spittle falling from his lips.

“Hate to disappoint ye, mate,” Rory said. “But we’re Scots through and through.”

“Why ye dressed like that then?”

Dammit. He glanced down at his denim pants and cotton shirt. Ewan was still in his prison garb.

Rory shrugged. “Helps us blend in.”

The men screwed up their faces as though he’d said he was a mermaid in disguise. Rory loved to harass with imbeciles. The trio of buffoons didn’t say anything to that, and several very tense moments passed between them all as Rory studied their weapons, clothes and anything they might have hidden beneath. He and Ewan could easily overtake them, but he’d not even accept a thousand gold coins to wear their filthy, lice-riddled clothes. Not on his life. Well, maybe if his life was in danger, but it wasn’t yet.

“What are ye doing in our territory?” the man in the center, perhaps their leader, if there was one, said, then burped loudly and bent over as though he might retch.

“Your territory?” Rory asked, grimacing in disgust. “Are ye the laird?” His tone was filled with sarcasm.

The leader pulled his sword from the scabbard at his hip and stabbed the tip into the ground, then leaned on it for balance. “So what if I am? Ye’ll have to pay a tax to get around me.”

“How would ye like us to pay?” Rory glanced at Ewan who was nonchalantly spinning the tip of his staff in the ground.

“Well, that’s easy. Give us all your coin.”

“We dinna have any coin,” Rory answered. “Think ye, if we had coin, we’d be dressed like this?”

“I knew ye didna want to dress like that! I knew it. Ye dinna blend in at all,” the short one said, nodding and smiling as though he’d figured out some grand scheme all on his own.

“Right,” Rory said. “Ye figured us out.”

“And if he was lying about that, then he’s probably lying about the coin,” the third one, tall and thin as a whipping pole, spilled out to the short one, even going so far as to lean behind the leader’s back.

“Ye know we can hear ye?” Ewan asked, shaking his head in revulsion. “Rory, I think we should just put these blokes out of their misery.”

“A good plan.”

The leader laughed. “But we’ve got swords and ye’ve got naught but a bunch of sticks and tight hose on your legs.”

“Well, then we’ll just have to relieve ye of your weapons,” Rory said. “Or beat ye with our sticks and strangle ye with our hose.”

Rory tossed his staff, twirling it in the air before catching it and arching it toward the ground hard and fast enough that they felt the air rush against their faces.

“What the—” the short one said, cutting himself off and backing up.

“Stay, we’ll have a good time.” Rory grinned like a madman.

“Aye, we will. Ye’ll not beat me with your wood,” the leader growled, pulling his sword from the ground and wavering on his feet.”

“This seems most unfair,” Ewan laughed.

“Aye. The man can barely stand. I’ve an idea,” Rory said to the maggot. “Why dinna ye knock yourself to the ground so I dinna have to?”

That only made the man growl, and he ran at Rory, sword outstretched. Rory shook his head. What was the world coming to? He stepped aside and the man kept going, stumbling forward, his sword stabbing into the tree where the lassies hid.

Rory waited as the man tried to yank his sword free. Ewan had already dispatched of the willowy outlaw, who lay in slumber, a knot on his forehead, and the short one was ready to piss himself. He dropped to his knees and held his hands up in surrender.

The leader finally yanked his sword free, but when he turned around, he did so right into the end of Rory’s staff and crumpled to the ground.

“When I said knock yourself out, I had no idea ye’d actually go through with it,” he muttered to the unconscious man.

“This was, without a doubt, the worst fight I’ve ever had,” Ewan said. “Bloody disappointing.”

“I’m sorry, sir, meant no harm, sir,” the little one was babbling.

Rory rolled his eyes in disgust. “Do ye have a rope?” he asked the fool.

“Aye.”

“Give it to me.”

The man tugged off a satchel he had at his back and pulled out a rope. “Here ye go.”

With a deep sigh, Rory used the man’s rope to tie him and his two companions up. “Dinna prey on those who appear weak, for ye never know when ye may have chosen wrong.”

“Aye, sir. Please, I beg ye, dinna kill me, sir.”

“Now why would I go to the trouble I tying ye up, if I meant to kill ye?”

“Good point, sir.”

“Shut your filthy mouth,” Ewan growled. “I’m done hearing it, and your breath is wicked foul.”

The men taken care of, Rory returned to the tree to see the lassies were already climbing down, humor in their eyes.

“Jump, I’ll catch ye,” Ewan said to Shona.

Rory watched with envy as she jumped without hesitation. Moira was nimbly climbing down with a glare on her face that said if he dared to ask her to jump, she’d jump and then kick him in the ballocks.

“Ye’ve a talent I knew nothing of,” he said.

“Ye dinna know everything about me,” she retorted.

“This is true. ’Twould be a pleasure to learn more of your secrets.”

Moira grunted. “Well, that was rather pathetic.” She put her hands on her hips and glared down at the men on the ground. “Is that how most of your fights go?”

Rory’s expression grew serious. “That was a first like that and hopefully the last.”

“Shall we be on our way, then?” Ewan asked. “We’ve got at least another hour or two before we reach the tavern, and I can hear Shona’s belly grumbling.”

Shona playfully slapped her lover’s arm.

“I’m getting hungry, too,” Moira mumbled, pressing her hand to her belly. “That’s odd. I’ve never been hungry in a dream before. I’ve been eating. I’ve been cooking. But never actually hungry.”

Rory slipped his hand in hers. “Ye’re not dreaming, love.”

This was the second time he called her love, and she didn’t tell him not to. Perhaps it was because she was thinking too deeply, but he’d take it as a couple stones removed from the wall she’d built around herself.

They divested the three outlaws of the little bit of coin they possessed and their weapons.

“The tavern should have a few extra plaids, some shirts and gowns for us all to change into. They get enough men leaving stuff behind,” Ewan said.

“Running out of the place from angry husbands?” Moira asked.

“Or Hildie. She’s one angry mistress,” Ewan said.

“She is not going to be happy to see ye,” Shona said to Ewan.

“Oh, I dinna know about that.” Ewan winked.

“Don’t say its because she really liked ye,” Shona warned.

Ewan laughed. “Well, she did.”

Shona growled, and he tickled her ribs. “Relax, love. She’s not going to try to seduce me. Hildie might be jealous of ye, but she always did want me to find my way.”

“And have ye?”

“I have.”

Pangs of envy again assaulted Rory. Lord, how badly he wanted to have such banter with Moira. They did once. At one point, he’d been certain they would be together forever, that the fates had brought them together because they were meant to be. Hell, what was he thinking? He
still
felt that way. Somehow, he had to show her that she could trust him again.

“I know this is a lot to take in,” he said softly. “But I promise I’ll be here to take care of ye every step of the way. Fate brought us together. Fate brought me to ye twice now.”

“Is this the part where ye say that it’s Fate we should be together again?” Moira said skeptically. “Because I don’t believe in Fate, Rory. I believe in forging my own path. Long before ye came around, Shona and I had to fend for ourselves. We had to make our own path and now it just sort of feels like it’s all crumbling apart.”

“I know what that feels like.” Again, he remembered the massacre. Being alone in the center of a bloody battlefield.

“How?”

“Before I came to ye the first time, I failed my entire clan. We were besieged. I was the captain of the guard, lead warrior.” He shook his head. “My laird was taken. His wife, too. Their people slaughtered, and it was all I could do to hack at one man after another while a few of the people escaped.”

“Where are they now?”

“Dead.” A familiar pain in his chest pulsed. “I chased after the men who took them. We fought. They left me for dead. When I came to, my mistress and my laird lay dead beside me. ’Twas my fault. I wanted to save them, but in the end, I got them killed. I stumbled back toward the castle, but I was too injured to make it. I found an abandoned croft. I tended my own wounds, and fell into a fever amongst the ruins. Days, maybe weeks passed, I dinna know, but when I tried to leave the croft, I ended up outside your spice shop.”

“I remember that day. Ye were pretty sick.” Moira’s tender gaze stroked over him.

“Aye. Somehow, Fate brought me to ye, so ye could save me. And I think it was because I was meant to save ye.”

Chapter Ten

All the talk of fate was starting to give Moira a headache. Well, more specifically, her rumbling belly and the stress of traveling back in time five hundred years. Yes, she’d come to the conclusion, as hair-brained as it was, that she must have actually traveled through time. How else could she explain the rumbling in her belly and the cramping in her limbs from all the walking? Besides her cup of coffee that morning, she’d not eaten breakfast or lunch, and soon it would be dinner.

“Fate,” she whispered.

“Aye.”

She was glad that Rory was with her. Relieved that her sister was okay. Even more comforted by the knowledge that the two of them hadn’t run off together.

“There is so much I need to learn.” Though she’d said it aloud, the thought was more internal. She didn’t just need to learn about this historical place she’d been tossed, but she needed to know where she was headed, and how the hell to get back to present day. She had a shop to run, a house. People who counted on her. “So, there wasn’t an earthquake or a bomb that shook our street?”

She glanced sideways at Rory, seeing his grave expression, honest eyes.

“Nay, lass. Unfortunately, traveling through time can kind of feel like that, but it isn’t. Mrs. MacArthur should be safe at home, peering through her curtains and spying on the people walking around outside.”

Moira smiled. “She’ll be the first one to report me missing.”

“No doubt, and how ye were swept off by your wayward sister who must have just escaped from Saughton Prison.”

Moira shook her head, still trying to wrap her mind around everything. She was struggling, but… “It just doesn’t feel real.”