Spell of the Highlander (14 page)

PART 2

SCOTLAND

14

THE GOD-AWFUL HOUR OF 3:00
A.M.
EDINBURGH AIRPORT
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15

“No, I
don’t
have a claim ticket,” Jessi told the woman behind the desk, for the fifth time, beyond exasperated. “I keep telling you that. But I can describe it. Exactly. Every tiny little detail. Both crate and contents. Now how could I possibly know that such a crate even existed, not to mention what was inside it, unless it was mine?”

“And I keep telling
you,
” the woman huffed, “that nothing gets claimed without a claim ticket, young lady.”

“You don’t understand, I need that crate,” Jessi said urgently.

“I understand perfectly,” the fifty-something, ash-blonde replied, without a flicker of emotion on her Botox-smoothed face, but with an unmistakable sneer in her voice. “You want to collect something for which you have no claim ticket. How would you feel if I permitted someone else to claim
your
package with no claim ticket? How could we hope to control our packages at
all
if we permitted such unauthorized claimings to occur? That’s why, young lady, we give claim tickets in the first place. One ticket retrieves one corresponding package. You may file a missing claim ticket claim, if you wish.”

“How long will it take me to get my package if I file a missing claim ticket claim?”

“Processing a missing claim ticket claim can take several weeks to several months.”

Jessi was not pessimistic by nature, but she could have sworn a note of smug satisfaction had just entered the woman’s voice, and she suddenly had no doubt any claim
she
filed would lean toward the several months mark. For whatever reason, the woman didn’t like her and didn’t want to help her.

And without the mirror, Jessi was doomed. She had a whopping forty-two dollars and seventeen cents in her purse. Oh, sure, she had a credit card, but the moment she used it Lucan would know exactly where she was. She needed the bottomless bank account of Cian MacKeltar’s deep, sexy, magical voice.

One way or another, she had to get the mirror back. And it was pretty clear that this woman had no intention of facilitating things. Some people were problem-solvers and some people were problem-compounders. This woman was a Compounder with a capital C.

Jessi muttered a nearly inaudible thank you and turned hurriedly away before she said something she’d regret.

Sighing, she shifted her backpack to her
other
sore shoulder, trudged back down the long hallway, out into the main part of the airport, and slumped wearily into a hard plastic chair.

She glanced at her watch, slipped it from her wrist, and moved the hour hand forward six hours. It was a little after nine in the morning, Edinburgh time.

Well,
she consoled herself,
the bright side of things is that he’ll definitely be able to come out now, if I can just get to him.
It had been over twenty-four hours in both time zones since she’d he’d last been free and, drat it all, she actually
missed
the domineering barbarian. Missed his annoying testosterone overload, missed knowing that any minute now he might give her one of those kisses that vacuumed her brain out through her ear and turned her into a vapid little sex-kitten.

Leaning back in the torture-chamber of a chair, she rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“Flight 412 leaving Edinburgh for London will depart . . .”
a woman’s lilting voice spoke brightly from the speaker above her.

Leaving Edinburgh.
She was in Scotland! The fabulous, five-thousand-year-old stone furniture of Skara Brae was near. The incredible Rosslyn Chapel was a mere eight miles from Edinburgh. The ruins of Dunnottar and countless other ancient treasures loomed just beyond the airport doors.

And she was beginning to think she might never make it that far. Her connecting flight from Paris had landed five hours ago.

And she’d been trying to get her hands on the mirror ever since.

It had taken her nearly an hour just to find the idiotic Special Items Claim Pickup Office.

It hadn’t been anywhere near baggage, as she’d expected, but down a long hallway, tucked back in the rear of the airport, accessible only through a window that opened onto a long counter built into the wall. It had been so deserted that she’d not believed she was in the right place until she’d glimpsed the tiny handwritten sign perched on the corner of the desk. It seemed almost as if they
wanted
to keep the unclaimed items. Maybe, she thought cynically, they auctioned them off to employees or something when their time was up.

There wasn’t even an exterior door into the office; apparently staff gained access some other way.

If there’s no name on the crate, where will it go when it arrives in Edinburgh?
Cian had asked, prior to compelling the airline employees to crate and ship it.

It would have to go to unclaimed baggage.
She couldn’t imagine it going anywhere else. Without a name or a return shipping address, they certainly couldn’t send it back. She’d learned that lesson herself, trying to get rid of the crate. She also knew that airports were required to hold items, even unmarked ones, for a certain number of days. She’d lost her luggage once, between home in Maine and school in Chicago, and by the time it had resurfaced, there’d not been a single identifying tag on it.

If you go to this “unclaimed baggage” place and can identify it, will they give it to you?
Cian had pressed.

I don’t know,
she’d replied.

We’ll have to take the chance. I’ll not leave any records of our travel. If you can but get into the same room with my crate, and say the spell, I can break free and use Voice to get us out of there. Jessica, lass, I’m sorry ’tis not a foolproof plan. You’ll have to improvise.

Improvisation hadn’t seemed such a daunting task back in Indianapolis. But then she’d been feeling weirdly invincible walking along beside him, and they’d both mistakenly thought the crate would be somewhere that she could
see
it, if not actually collect it.

She groaned, wishing she had a single ounce of Cian’s incredible powers of Voice to use on Ms. Erase-My-Face at the Special Items Claim Desk.

Then again, she mused, she wasn’t entirely certain she would want that kind of power, if given the opportunity. It would certainly be a test of just how good a person really was deep down.

Shaking her head, she pushed to her feet. She would kill a bit of time grabbing a cup off coffee and a croissant, then she would trudge back down the long silent corridor and try again.

Maybe by then the woman would be on break and somebody else would be working.

The woman was not only
not
on break by the time Jessi got back to the Special Items pickup window; she got an expression when she saw Jessi walking toward the desk again.

It was hard to pick up on it, unnoticeable as it was from more than a few feet away, but if Jessi peered really hard, she could see the faintest pucker of a muscle trying to contract between the woman’s brows.

Not good.

“Could you just bring it out here and let me see it?” Jessi asked the woman. “Just let me make sure it’s okay and it’s really here, then I swear I’ll go away and leave you alone. I’ll fill out your forms and go through the red tape. Just let me make sure it actually got here. I’m worried about it. Please? Could I please just see it?”

“There are
no
exceptions,” the woman said with a sniff.

“But I—”

“Which word didn’t you understand? It must have been the ‘no.’ You are
so
typical. People like you
always
think they should be exceptions.”

Jessi blinked. “People like me?” she echoed, stymied as to just what kind of “people” this woman thought she was.

“Yes. People like
you
.” The woman’s gaze dropped to her breasts. “I’m sure you’ve gotten used to manipulating men to get them to do whatever you want, but you can’t manipulate me. And no men work this desk, young lady, so don’t even
think
about trying to come back at another time. I’ve already warned my coworkers about you. No one is going to fall for your shenanigans. You’re going to have to follow the rules for a change, little missy, just like everyone else.”

Jessi blinked, rendered speechless by the unfair attack. She’d never used her looks to get anywhere in life, and if they’d ever helped her, she’d certainly not been aware of it.

Without another word, Stone-face inclined her pinched nose, moved away from the window, and made a big show of dismissing her. After a moment, she began typing busily away at a computer terminal with lethal-looking orange nails.

Jessi swallowed a little growl.
Focus,
she told herself,
and not on Stone-face’s unwarranted nastiness. She is not your problem. Getting the mirror back is.

Backing up a few steps, she scanned the counter.

The mirror
had
to be nearby. It just had to. If one came to this window to claim special items, logic dictated the items would be stored close at hand for the purpose of expediency. One would present their ticket and the item would be brought to the counter. Which seemed to imply that the items had to be somewhere behind the counter.

She pushed up on tiptoes and glanced over the desk. Stone-face was still making a big show of ignoring her, which was just fine with Jessi. There were no crates stacked back there that she could see, and the little room, which was about twenty feet wide and maybe ten feet deep, didn’t look as if it was large enough for more than three or four employees to stand lined up at the desk.

On the left wall hung a gaudily framed, turbulent seascape, adjacent to a phone marked
SECURITY
. The rear wall was dotted by small paintings of ships at sea, interspersed with various official-looking certificates in utilitarian black frames.

Aha—there!
On the right wall, a half-opened door revealed a long, brightly lit corridor stretching off into the distance.

“My crate is down that hallway, isn’t it?” Jessi exclaimed. She didn’t expect an answer from the woman. She knew she’d have to get it from her face.

The woman glanced up, the hint of a muscle contracting between her brows.

Yes—Cian was close!
Improvisably
close.

I can do this, I can do this, I know I can,
she told herself. She stared down at the floor for a few seconds, steeling her nerve. Then she turned and began walking away from the counter.

Behind her, the woman muttered snidely, “About time. And good riddance to you, you spoiled little—”

The rest of it was muttered too low for Jessi to hear, but she didn’t need to, she’d already picked up on the general gist of it.
Oh, you are going to be sooo surprised,
she thought just as snidely. She didn’t mind people getting upset with her when she’d done something to deserve it, but she’d not done a thing to earn this woman’s animosity, other than being young and curvy. And she couldn’t help being either of those things. It wasn’t as if either of those things had ever gotten her anywhere in her life. Hard work had. Boobs certainly hadn’t. In fact, were she pushed to divvy up percentages, she’d attribute 90 percent to aggravation and 10 percent to pleasure.

Wiggling her shoulders to make sure her backpack was snug enough, she glanced behind her, assessed the distance to and height of the counter, and took a deep, fortifying breath.

Then she whirled around, took a running leap, and catapulted herself into the air.

She managed to pump up more speed with her short dash than she actually needed, and upon clearing the exterior wall of the counter, she couldn’t check her forward momentum. Skidding pell-mell over the veneered surface on her hands and knees, she crashed to the floor, taking down two mainframes and a stack of manuals with her. She hit the floor so hard it made her teeth
clack
together.

“Oh!” the woman shrieked. “Out! Out!
Out!
You are not allowed back here! Only airport employees are permitted behind the desk!”

Jessi didn’t waste breath replying. Scrambling to her feet, she clambered over monitors and manuals, and pushed through the half-opened door. Her heart was pounding and adrenaline was rushing through her veins, making her feel shaky, yet intensely, aggressively focused. It was no wonder some people got addicted to adrenaline rushes.

“I’m calling security!” the woman screeched after her, snatching the phone from the wall.

“You just do that . . .” Jessi dropped her voice, but despite her best efforts, “bitch” didn’t come out quite as
sotto voce
as she’d intended. Oops. Darn it, now she was going to have to outrun security too!

But the woman’s nastiness worked to her advantage this time. Apparently, Stone-face had been secretly itching to take matters into her own hands and Jessi’s expletive was just enough to push her over the edge.

Slapping the phone back on the wall, Stone-face shot through the door after her. “I don’t need security, I can deal with you myself, you brazen little hussy!” Sharp orange talons closed on the fabric of Jessi’s backpack, yanking her to a halt. “You are
not
going back there!”

Jessi dug in her heels, scanning the corridor. It was roughly a hundred yards long, with a maze of hallways branching off it, and doors dotting both the left and right sides.

At the far end of the corridor, two tall steel doors gleamed, the kind that looked like they might open onto a warehouse. Near those doors, several carts and a small front-loader waited.

That would be where the mirror was, then, through those double doors.

She needed it. It was nonnegotiable.

And this red-tape-wielding, small-mean-souled twit clutching a fistful of her backpack was all that was standing between her and the small matter of her continued survival.

Her life depended on that crate.

And there was no other way she could get to it.

She twisted her shoulders, yanking her backpack from the woman’s grasp. When it tumbled down her arm, she caught the straps of it in her hand.