My Heart's in the Highlands (39 page)

Jace smiled at that, resting his forehead against hers.
  “Mikah, my fair Hero, fate has played us cruelly but we have another chance that I won’t let slip away.  You are mine.”

Mikah smiled at that, offering with conviction, “Yes, I am.”

Kissing her tenderly, Jace drew back a half step.  “Perhaps this will help … or give us even more to explain.”  He held up the ring he had retrieved from his pocket.  The diamonds winked up at them in approval.  “Twice you have a father who might deliver me my heart’s desire with a haste I have come to appreciate.  I love you, Mikah, whatever your name.  I have always loved you.  Marry me.”

Releasing a huff of laughter, Mikah wrapped her hand around his.
  Around the ring.  “That would really stop them in their tracks, wouldn’t it?  What will they say to me marrying a man I could possibly have known for only two weeks?”

“Probably the same thing my mother will say,” Jace said.
  “But that isn’t an answer.  Are you going to keep me on pins and needles again?”

“Never,” she said, leaning in to kiss him.
  “No pins.  No needles.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes …” Mikah grinned wickedly, “Ian.”

Jace
rolled his eyes with a painful groan, but slid the ring that had been on her right hand hours ago onto her left ring finger, sealing it with a kiss.  “It fits.”

“I’m glad.
  I never got to wear it before,” she whispered, raising her hand to his cheek.  “We’ll have more this time.”

“So much more,” he promised, drawing Mikah into his arms and kissing her passionately until they were breathless and clinging to each other once again.

A loud, insistent knocking at the door drew them apart, and Jace took her hand in his, squeezing it assuredly.  “Shall we?”

Mikah nodded
, her nervousness gone, and Jace led her to the door, but Mikah paused with her hand on the handle, smiling up at him mischievously.  “Earl of what?” she whispered, eyes dancing.  “I should at least know that, don’t you think?”

Jace’s eyes crinkled merrily and his dimples flashed as his laughter filled the room.
 

“
Are you just going to stand there laughing or are you going to let us in?” Sean Bauer’s voice rang from the hall, and Mikah joined Jace’s mirth, chuckling happily as she opened the door.

I hope you enjoyed this story about Hero and Ian as well as Mikah and Jace.  I realize that it stretches the typical time travel genre in an unusual manner but I always thought it might be interesting to present a love story that had been cut short and give those lovers a second chance to meet again.  To fall in love again, remembering everything that had happened to them once before.

Dun Cuilean is modeled after
the real Scottish castle of Culzean.  It is a lovely castle that sits, just as Cuilean, on a cliff overlooking the Firth of Clyde in Ayr.  The details of the renovation by Adam follow closely to Culzean’s true story.  Though Culzean is not a bed and breakfast, it can be rented for weddings and meetings and there are tours available as well.  If you are interested in knowing more, you can visit the castle’s website at
http://www.culzeanexperience.org/
.

I like to use real places in my stories rather than entirely fabricated ones.  You can visit them on the Internet and see them for yourself.  In this case you can imagine Mikah at GoMA or at the Milwaukee Art Museum. That amazing building is what inspired me to make Mikah from Milwaukee.  If you ever have the opportunity to visit, you won’t be disappointed.  The museum also hosts an art festival each summer for those of you interested in supporting artists of all sorts.  You can check them out at:
http://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/museums/our-museums/goma/Pages/home.aspx
or
http://mam.org/
.

Please let me know what you think!  I always welcome your comments and feedback.

Angeline was born in International Falls, Minnesota, the second of six children.  As a child, her family moved frequently around the country allowing her to experience the customs of many different regions.

After earning a degree in the U.S. History from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Angeline decided to go where the oldest history in the US was and moved to Yorktown, Virginia, where she worked as a historical interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg.

It was there that she also met her husband who was in the Navy and stationed at Norfolk. Angeline has two children as well as two stepsons.  Once they were older and more self-sufficient, Angeline seized the opportunity to take up her first love and continued to work on the romances she had begun in college.

Angeline is a life-long lover of history and romances.  Her first books began the saga of the MacKintosh clan in her Questions for a Highlander series and she also writes in the genres of time travel romance, contemporary romance and YA fiction. 

You can follow her on Twitter @angelinefortin or on Facebook.

A Laird for All Time

Nothing But Time

The
Questions for a Highlander
Series

A Question of Love

A Question of Trust

A Question of Lust

A Perfect Question