Playboy's Challenge (Highlander's Series) (15 page)

“A hidden staircase,” she whispered.

“We be leavin’, woman.” Gorin crossed to where she stood and snagged her by the arm then clamped his beefy hand about the back of her neck. “Ye’ll give me no trouble or I’ll cut ye without a care.”

She attempted to struggle as he hauled her back to the entrance, but her strength had not yet returned and her head was still fuzzy, nor did she doubt he would take great pleasure in removing the skin from her body with his dagger one painful inch at a time.

Climbing roughly cut steps in the side of the stone, then crossing the large slabs of rock lying as though knocked over by a recalcitrant child, he dragged her along, all the while cursing her father and every MacLean on earth.

“’Tis you who has brought this about,” she said, struggling to keep on her feet lest he snagged her by the hair.

“Nay, bitch. Yer Da is ta blame. He turned them agin’ me, me own clan, and he will pay.”

“No’ likely,” a solid, familiar voice said nearby.

Gorin jerked to a stop and snaked a filthy arm around her throat, as her father stepped from behind the last of the stones.

“Ye be alone, Gorin. There isna’ a man left ta aid ye.”

Adam and Erin appeared beside her father, both a welcome sight. Then slowly one by one, her father’s men surrounded the ruin. Deidra could feel Gorin’s fear, but he didn’t ease his hold.

“I doona need them! I have all I need,” Gorin said, and squeezed her tighter.

Stepping to the side, they moved toward several horses that must have been for him and his men, but knowing her father, and likely her mother, those men had been removed with little effort.

She caught sight of Adam making to move to intercept. Gorin raised his dagger to her cheek.

“Another step closer, ye Sassenach, and I’ll mark her,” Gorin said, spraying the side of her face with spittle.

“Stay back, Adam,” she pleaded.

“Aye. Ye canna save yer lover if ye doona keep yer distance,” he said, shaking her to punctuate his words.

“Lover?” Colin repeated with a growl, his heated gaze turning to Adam.

Gorin let out a grating heinous laugh. “And in yer own house with ye unawares! ’Tis the least ye deserve, MacLean. Yer whore of a daughter lifted her skirts every chance she got like a bitch in heat. Macconach told me of her.”

“’Tis no’ what you think, Da,” Erin said.

Colin’s glare never wavered. “Stay out of this, Erin.”

“He’s right, it isn’t what you think,” Adam said, his gaze holding Deidra’s.

All sorts of emotions rose up inside him and filled every part of his being. Never had he ever felt so tied to a person, so a part of her that if she were to stop breathing, so would he. This wasn’t like anything he’d ever experienced before, and he knew he never would again.

He finally understood his parents, what they felt for one another, and so much more. Deidra was everything to him.

“I’m in love with her,” Adam said, never letting his gaze waver for a single moment.

Deidra’s head spun wildly with his words. No, she couldn’t have heard him right. ’Twas the blow from Gorin, her second within days of one another, that had her hearing things.

“Love.” Gorin spat, then ran a hand across her belly as he pressed the blade deeper against her cheek. “No doubt, she carries his bastard now. I’ll cut the brat out afore we wed, bitch. I’ll no’ have a bastard fer a son.”

“Take your filthy hands off her,” Adam demanded, and started toward them, but Colin slapped a hand to his chest, and he lurched to a stop.

“She be mine, Sassenach, so ye best be takin’ yer last look,” he said, giving her a firm shake. “I told ye, MacLean, I would have her. I’ll be havin’ it all…in time.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that,” her mother said, snatching her hood from her head. She took a place beside her father, and Deidra heard his faint curse between his clenched teeth.

“Och, ’tis the bitch herself,” Gorin said with a laugh, and waved the knife in her mum’s direction. “I’d have rid meself of that one years ago, MacLean.”

“You won’t think things are so funny when I shove that knife up your ass,” she replied, her tone chilling.

Gorin, made a half-hearted lunge in her direction, but stopped almost immediately. “I have what I came fer,” he said, jerking Deidra tighter against him. “Now, all of ye step aside.”

“You won’t leave this island alive. Least of all with Deidra,” Adam said, drawing her gaze.

Looking into his eyes as she gathered her wits, she realized what she’d heard had not been her fanciful heart wishing for what wasn’t so. The last of her dizziness faded away, and she knew she hadn’t imagined his words. Adam loved her, Deidra. Not her rank, not her father’s wealth, just her, and just as she was.

“I’m warning ye for the last time, Gorin. Release my daughter and I will spare yer life,” Colin said.

He may spare his life, Deidra thought, but it wouldn’t be a happy one. No, the whoreson would suffer great pains at both her father and mother’s hands. He would be even uglier once they had their chance. She, for one, wanted to beat him over the head with a heavy staff until she cracked his skull open. Hers still ached so, and she favored the image of him in similar agony—only multiplied.

“Ye take me fer a dolt? I’ll no’ be put on by ye an’ yer clan.” Gorin shifted his stance with his bluster, leaving the knife no longer pricking the skin of her cheek.

A small smile teased the corner of Deidra’s lips. She didn’t need her mother or father to save her. She’d been trained her entire life in the ways of combat, and although she’d been taken unaware twice over the last few days, a fact she was sorely embarrassed to admit, she could take perfectly good care of herself now that the distraction of her feelings for Adam were so soundly set to rights. That and the fact that Gorin saw her as nothing more than a prize and not a threat.

Without another thought, she clasped his arm at the elbow where he’d wrapped it around her throat, then slipped her foot behind his right leg and jerked around and down, away from his hand holding the knife. His balance off, she was able to land him on his back without much trouble, but still had to deal with his blade.

With her foot firmly against his chest, and his empty hand pulled back at a painful angle, she grabbed his other wrist before he could use the knife, and with a twist and a lunge, buried it in his thigh. His guttural cry was punctuated with curses.

“Ne’er underestimate a MacLean,” she said, and kicked him soundly before turning and running into Adam’s arms.

Colin’s guard took charge of Gorin, while the rest of the party, including Adam’s father, gathered around them as Adam clasped Deidra tightly, his face and tears hidden in her long dark hair. The thought of losing her, of never seeing her again, sat like a stone upon his chest. But she was safe now, and that was all that mattered.

“You had me worried there, for a moment. I was afraid—afraid I’d lose you,” he said, his voice raw.

“You can ne’er lose me. I love you. I will always love you,” she whispered, holding him tight. “Even when you are gone from here, back to your own time, I will still love you.”

“No,” he said. Lifting his head, he cupped her beautiful face in his hands and smiled at her confused scowl. Brushing her moistened lips with the pad of his thumb, he said, “I’m not leaving.”

Her eyes widened. “But the future—”

“No, Deidra. I’m here to stay. I’m where I belong, where and when I want to be.”

Her lips pulled up into a tremulous smile. “With me?”

“Aye,” he replied with his best Scottish lilt. “With you. With the woman I love. The woman who is to become my wife.”

She cocked her head at a jaunty angle. “I doona recall a proposal.”

With a chuckle, he fell to his knee and took her hand. “Deidra MacLean, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife and the mother of my children, and making me the happiest man alive?”

With a tear-filled smile she said, “Aye.”

He leapt to his feet, grabbed her about the waist, and twirled her around with a hearty laugh.

“I suppose I have no say in this?” Colin asked, a wide grin on his burly face.

“Shut up, Sasquatch,” Tuck said, punching him in the stomach.

His uncle sighed and looked to the sky. “You’ve no idea what ye’ve got yerself in for, lad.”

“You canna’ scare him away, Da,” Deidra said, her gaze never leaving Adam’s. “Nothing will keep me from having the man of my heart. No’ even time itself.”

Adam lowered his lips to hers for a kiss that was intoxicating and sweet.

“I suppose then ’tis a good thing you found a way to manage our traveling, Jenny, love,” Ian said. “As I suspect we shall be coming for visits more often.”

His father’s comment had Adam ending their kiss a lot sooner than he’d have liked. “Dad, who are you talking to?” His mother was back at the castle, or so he thought, as he watched her remove a cowl from her head and take a place by his father.

“How did you know I was here? I was certain my disguise was apropos to the situation. There was nothing to give any sign that it was me,” she said.

Ian pulled her to his side with a wide smile. “Lucky guess.”

Colin threw up his arms and cursed. “Do none of ye women e’er do as yer told?”

“Now, Da, where would the fun be in that?” Deidra said, still snug within Adam’s arms.

Epilogue

Gorin was taken back to his clan to be dealt with by his own brother, the current laird. The Campbells swore an oath that he would be properly punished. And as for Macconach, who actually was a relation to the MacKenzies, he was handed over to them for whatever punishment they wished to deal out.

Adam was a little shocked that his aunt and uncle hadn’t wanted to kill them both with their bare hands, but having Deidra back safe and sound—and married, was more than enough to forget the past and live in the moment.

But with all the celebrations winding down, there was little reason for Adam’s parents to remain in the past.

“I’m going to miss you guys,” Adam said, and swiped a tear from the corner of his eye.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that,” Jenny said, and hugged him again.

“We shall be back, son. Now that traveling is not as difficult, you might be seeing more of us than you wish,” Ian said with a chuckle.

“Aye, ye need to come back and work in the lists more. Yer gettin’ soft,” Colin said with a punch to Ian’s shoulder and wearing his standard scowl.

“Soft my arse,” Erin said with a faint wince as he fingered a lump on his head. He’d walloped him good in the lists the day before.

Ian chuckled and slapped him on the shoulder before turning toward the castle gate. To make sure it looked to the rest of the MacLean clan as a normal journey for his parents, they all gathered by the brook where Tuck had first disappeared so many years before when she returned to the future.

His mother hugged him one last time and kissed his cheek.

“You never know, Mom. We might come visit you,” Adam said, and slid an arm around his new bride.

Colin shook his head. “I for one will ne’er travel in such a way.” He smiled and clasped his friends in a hug. “But I shall miss ye as well.”

With a few faint sniffles from his mother, they watched as she sprinkled the water over hers and Ian’s feet, then disappeared in a swirl of light.

“Now that was awesome,” Erin said.

Tuck grinned and looked to her son. “What did you say?”

Erin just smiled back at his mum, obviously enjoying the feel of the futuristic word on his tongue. “Way awesome.”

With hearty laughter they made their way back to the castle, but no one other than Adam noticed how Erin kept looking back over his shoulder where Jenny and Ian had disappeared—into the future.

A word about the author...

Jo currently resides in North Carolina with her patient and supportive family while she juggles her writing career and her position as a programmer analyst. In her early years, she wrote folk songs, poetry, and an occasional short story or two, but never dreamed of writing a book. She didn't even like to read! But one fateful day, she picked up a romance novel and found herself hooked. Not only did she discover the joy of reading, but the joy of writing books. These days, if she isn't tapping away at her computer on a story of her own, she has her nose buried in the latest romance novel hot off the presses, and is enjoying every minute of it.

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