STAG: MC ROMANCE (Forsaken Riders MC Romance Book 7) (81 page)

3.

Alisa was suddenly wrenched awake by the sickening smell of bacon and eggs, wafting by her nostrils. She sat up groggily; although she had slept she felt not at all rested.

“Rise and shine, sweetie. I brought you breakfast.”

Carl was peering down at her, waving the plate in front of her face. She pushed herself up from the desk and rubbed her temples. It had all been a dream. But it felt so real!

She took the plate from him and sighed.

“Thank you,” she mumbled. Carl beamed and left the room, letting the door close itself behind him.

Alisa pushed the plate away and peered down at her desk top. The book was opened to the first page, to an illustration of the highlander and his love interest with their hands clasped. She stuffed the tartan into the pages and sighed deeply. That would teach her to read so late into the night. What a vivid dream.

She felt too sluggish to start her day. Fortunately it was her day off, so she didn't have anywhere to be. She left her breakfast on the desk and shuffled into the guest room. Carl wouldn't think to look for her in there. She plopped face-down onto the bed, letting the cool pillows soften the blow. She still had the crick in her neck, the same one she had suffered from in the dream. Funny how those things can enter the subconscious, she thought, a little uneasily. She closed her eyes and was tugged immediately back into a deep slumber.

***

“Breakfast, lass,” Blane said gently, his voice rumbling in her ear. Wait a minute, she realized. Blane Wyndham? Lord Blane from the tale of the tartan cloth? No wonder she was having such a strange dream. The coincidence didn't account for the dream's vividness, but at least it explained a thing or two.

“Breakfast?” she asked, realizing her stomach was rumbling immensely. The nauseated feeling she'd had with Carl was gone, and Blane waved a tantalizing plate of hearty food in front of her.

“Thank you,” she said softly, taking it from him.

He grinned at her, a mischievous glint in his eyes, before bowing out of the tent that she had woken up into.

“I was so afraid you'd never be back,” he said as he left. The flap of the tent swayed in his wake, and she was left alone. She looked down at the plate of food, traditional highlander meals typically consisted of mostly meat, and she wasn't disappointed to see a steaming, cooked fish waiting for her to dig in. She ate, taking in her surroundings. She'd always had mental images of what highland camps might look like, but she had to admit, they had looked nothing like her dream.

“Lady Alisa! It's really you!” a woman exclaimed, running into the tent and looking her up and down. “I've missed you so much!”

The woman embraced Alisa and beamed radiantly.

“I can't believe m' eyes! Wait till I tell Toby I seen you right in the flesh!”

“Hi,” Alisa said, pasting on the smile she used for library patrons that made her uncomfortable.

“Oh there I go, running me mouth. I know you don't remember yet but I'm so excited I can hardly stand it! My name is Aggie. You'll know soon enough. We used to be pretty close, you and me. Playing jokes on the boys. You'd help me out with little Keddy. He'll be so excited to see you!”

Alisa smiled helplessly. She didn't know this woman or her child but her enthusiasm was difficult to dismiss. She wanted so badly to be able to say, yes, she remembered little Keddy, but there was no recollection. And why should there be? She was just dreaming.

“We're going to be able to see you and Lord Blane married after all, Lady Alisa! I'm so pleased.”

Lady Alisa? No, no, she could have sworn the woman in the myth had a different name. Wasn't she Lady... Suddenly Alisa paled as she realized her mother had never disclosed the name of Lord Wyndham's bride. That had made the tale all the more mysterious, and she had secretly imagined herself in the role of the noble woman, betrothed to a handsome, cheerful man with a wicked sense of humor. That was probably why she was having the dream that she was having at the moment. There was no way it could be anything more than that.

“It was a pleasure to meet you," Alisa said politely as the woman excused herself. There had to be a reasonable explanation, and now she had it. It was simply vivid because she had been so stressed out over wondering whether or not her husband was cheating on her. Everybody had strange things happen to them when they were stressed out, didn't they? It was just the way the mind worked. She would just have to take things as they came and hope for the best.

4.

“There you are," Blane's deep voice rumbled from behind her. She turned around, surprised that he would be able to find her so quickly in the deep forest where she had disappeared, hoping to get her bearings without anybody else who claimed to know her approaching her. She saw the pattern of the tartan on his kilt looked exactly the same as the one that her mother had. She had to give herself some props, it was a very vivid and detailed dream. She was proud of her mind for retaining so much detail, despite the fact that she hadn't heard the highlander tale from her mother in nearly 5 years.

“Here I am," she said, gesturing down at herself. For the first time, she became acutely aware of what she was wearing. Normally, she would be wearing jeans and a T-shirt or a blouse, baggy enough that men would not be staring at her breasts, but tight enough that she didn't feel sloppy. Now though, her breasts were pushing the boundaries of her white dress, the brass buckle clasped between them and glinting brightly in the sun. There was a shawl draped over her shoulders, but she shivered despite that.

“Oh lass, you do your best but you were never one for the cold."

How would he have known that? She had moved to California simply to avoid all cool weather. It had been a cheerful move for her and Carl, and her mother had even accompanied them, claiming she needed to keep an eye on things. She had never trusted Carl at all.

Her thoughts were broken by Lord Blane's muscular arms wrapping themselves around her much smaller body. He was warming her up in his way, she somehow knew, and it warmed her heart. It felt familiar and comfortable, and her awareness of his firm kilt against her backside ignited a hot longing deep within her. She leaned against him, a reflex that she quickly felt embarrassed about.

She didn't know this man, and acting as if they had been the same lovers from the tale would only get her into trouble. She didn't know what kind of trouble, but she was still married somewhere out there, and she for one planned to stay faithful, whether her husband was planning to do the same or not.

“I don't know you," she said, pulling away and turning to face him. She would have to ignore the longing. Her eyes narrowed in frustration. “I would appreciate it if you would try not to touch me like that."

His expression darkened with pain, which made her feel a pang of guilt, but she was a strong woman who was not generally tempted to feel sorry for men when they were feeling sad that she didn't enjoy their advances. He pulled away from her, a little bit too quickly, as he mumbled his apologies.

“You're right, I shouldn't have done that. At least not yet. I hope you can forgive me. Anyway lass, you should probably try to stay out of trouble in these parts. I have heard there are some people lurking around, prowling in places where they shouldn't be. It's pretty dangerous here," Lord Blane said, fixing his fiery eyes on hers. She almost lost herself in them before shaking her head and breaking his spell.

“Don't worry, I can take care of myself," she said, jutting her chin up regally. She didn't remember ever using that particular expression, at least not with the regally tilted chin, but it came fairly naturally to her. Maybe she was falling into the role of the woman Lord Blane seemed to think that she was.

“I've no doubt that you can, lass," he said with a twinkle in his eye. “I would advise you to be careful around here, that's all."

He gave her a small grin and turned on his heel to walk away. She watched him go, his muscular back glimmering golden in the early morning sunlight. She felt annoyed for admitting to herself that she felt safer with him on her side. He was ridiculously attractive, and she sighed to herself as she watched his broad figure grow smaller and smaller as he made his way back to the camp.

She had found the environment a little bit too stifling, and had sought out an area where she could spend some time by herself. Everybody there seemed to know who she was, and were not particularly surprised by the fact that she existed. Although they were surprised to see her, they were beside themselves with joy, and she found it very strange. All she could figure out was that she was dreaming about the myth that was connected to the tartan cloth that her mother had given her. The same one that she had been touching as she slept on her desk. It was the only reasonable explanation.

She slowly moved further away from the camp. She couldn't risk being bombarded the way she had been all morning already. For a dream, it was extremely exhausting. She only remembered having dreams where the trivial parts were scanned over and blurred together. It was strange to her that she should have to deal with the least important parts of the day, rather than the actual climax of the dream. Maybe that was because it was supposed to be an erotic dream, and she had blown her chance with the starring hunk. She laughed and shook her head, brushing the thoughts away and focusing on the scenery around her.

It was very beautiful there, and she found herself entranced by the wildlife. She heard the sudden snapping of a twig and looked up sharply, just in time to see a man with a scowling face, a long red beard and holding a broadsword approaching her. Her heart leapt to her throat. She had seen that man before, and something told her that the last encounter had been a nightmare.

“Well, well, well.  Welcome back milady," the man growled into the crisp morning air. “One of my men came running in to tell me that you were here, come back to claim your lost love. What do you see in that guy anyway? He's all meat and no brains."

“You don't know what you're talking about," Alisa said, practicing her regal chin jut once again. It was becoming second nature to her now. “I don't know anybody here, and I don't know you. This is all just some stupid misunderstanding, and you are probably just a figment of my imagination. So I don't see why I should be scared of you when I'll just be waking up any moment now and you'll disappear forever. You're nothing."

“Well if I'm nothing, then it doesn't matter what I do, does it?" he said, a sickening smile spreading across his face. He raised his sword and suddenly she was stricken with fear. Whether this was a dream or not, she didn't want that man near her. Her heart jumped to her throat and she took off running as quickly as she could.

5.

“Honey,” Carl said, shaking her arm. “Where is the peanut butter? I realized I forgot to put some on your toast, but I can't find it anywhere."

“If there isn't any in the cabinet, that means we're out," she grumbled. Her heart was still racing with adrenaline and she sighed deeply as Carl left the room. He was humming pleasantly to himself, not seeming to care that he had just awoken her from an intense dream.

There was no way that she would be able to go back to sleep after this. She sighed and ran her hand through her hair, surprised and disturbed to find remnants of leaves in it. Was it possible that she had really been in the forest?

No, that didn't happen in real life. She was going to freak herself out if she let herself wonder about these kinds of ridiculous ideas. Alisa decided to go back to her study, where the highlander book was open and waiting for her. She began to read the words hungrily, her mind spinning with the vividness of her sleeping life. It felt exactly the same as when she woke up. She wondered if she would ever have a dream that vivid again.

She remembered being chased, goosebumps crawling up her flesh, and she hoped that one was the only vivid highlander dream she would ever have. Whether she loved Scotland or not, she was quite grateful that she wouldn't have to think any more about being chased by the terrifying bearded man with the large sword. Maybe it actually wasn't such a good idea for her to be reading that book. Everything was beginning to seem too real. She decided that she should give it a few days before picking it up again.

Alisa closed the book and chose instead to spend her day focused on catching up with the housework. Carl had left about 10 minutes ago, saying that he was going to pick up some peanut butter for her toast. But she had already eaten, so she wasn't hungry anymore.

Wait, when had she eaten? Surely her body wasn't remembering the breakfast of steaming hot fish in the highlander camp. That couldn't have been true sustenance, and the idea that it might be tricking her into thinking it was, made her nervous. Usually she was a lot more down-to-earth than that. It was obviously just some weird miscommunication between her brain and her senses. She would just have to be more present in the moment, instead of trying to avoid it.

Alisa sighed. She was probably just worried that Carl had gone out to be with somebody else. He had never offered to go out and buy peanut butter before. His sudden interest in household chores was border lining on scary for her. Carl was a traditional type of thinker, who believed that women had their place in the kitchen and he shouldn't have to take care of the home, even if he and his wife had the same amount of work obligations and made the same amount of money. The man didn't normally lift a finger, so what was he up to?

She tried not to worry too much about it as she puttered throughout the house, cleaning and thinking. It wasn't until the sun set that she became truly angry. Carl still wasn't home. He was probably out doing something that he shouldn't be doing. She wasn't sure how she knew that, she could simply feel it. Still, she tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, despite her hesitation. Maybe if she did, she wouldn't yell at him the second that he came through the door, which was especially important for their relationship if he didn't deserve it.

Finally, around 8 o'clock at night, Carl pulled in. He wasn't carrying a jar of peanut butter at all, and when she looked at him, he gave her a sheepish smile.

“Some guys invited me over for the game, I totally forgot to pick up the peanut butter. We met in the parking lot. They were leaving and I was just pulling in. It seemed too good to resist, I know you can't stand the sport. It's really important for me to make friends at my age, you never know when things will go downhill and you need someone to talk to. I didn't think that you would mind, I told them all that I have the coolest wife on the block."

He walked over to her and planted a wet kiss on her cheek. She grimaced as he walked away. Carl smelled like cigarette smoke. And there was something on his neck. Something, as if somebody had been getting too carried away kissing and nibbling his neck. If he was with a woman, they had been acting shameless and then thought better of it. However, it was possible that he had simply given himself some razor burn. He was known to do that.

He walked back into the living room, and turned on the TV. He kept his face buried in his cell phone, texting somebody whenever he thought that she wasn't looking. She wanted so badly to grab his phone and go through it, shoving any incriminating messages that she might find right in his face, but she had more class than that. Instead, she went to bed early, fuming and angry, but not knowing what to do about it.

***

“Oy, lass, are you okay?!” Blane's masculine voice rumbled sweetly in her ear. She was out of breath and panting, clinging to him as if they were lost lovers. She couldn't remember what happened after the man had started chasing her, but when she saw Blaine there, worry and concern etched all over his rugged, handsome face, she knew that whatever had happened was over now and she was safe.

“Where did that man go?" She asked, her voice tight and frightened.

“Me and a couple of lads scared that old bastard away. He was ready to make an enemy of me yet, wasn't he? Lord Todd hasn't heard the last of me and my clan."

“Lord Todd?” She asked, her voice filling with concern. For some reason, putting a name to the face brought a wild panic into her heart. “No, I want you guys to stay away from him. Please just trust me on this."

“Why lass? Is something wrong? I always protect you, that's how it goes. Now that he has wronged you, he has to pay the price."

“Seriously, just leave it alone. I don't even like you, there's nothing to avenge. That guy is dangerous. I don't want anything to happen to you okay?”

“If you don't even like me why would you care if something happened to me?” he asked, grinning charmingly. “And anyway, what do you know about him that I don't?" Blane asked. “It's not like he can hurt me. Not with you back. Nothing can hurt me now.”

Alisa found herself extremely frustrated by his cocky Scottish accent. Although Blane was absolutely gorgeous, he was stubborn and reckless as well.

“Lord Todd is a traitor to you and everything you hold dear. He is not a friend of yours. He's not even a friend to the Highlanders. There are some men among you who are not your friends. You're just too stubborn and blind to see it.”

Whether she had memories of this or not, the legends had told her the truth. She felt an obligation to share it with him before he was too badly hurt.

“Now I'm beginning to understand why Lord Todd told me that you came back a loon. None of my men would ever be conspiring against me. And Todd may be a prig who wants to get under your dress, but that's about all it comes down to, lass. My men are loyal. Now hold your tongue before you make me angry.”

But now he had made Alisa angry.

“How could you ever expect me to love you when you are too ignorant to see what is going on around you? Why is it that you're so ready to run into danger when I'm telling you not to? If you feel like you want to test it, go ahead, what do I care? Get yourself killed. But that woman you love would be pretty pissed off, I think.”

“I'd wager," he said, hiding his pain with a stoic grin. “Why don't you tell me what you think you know? It might be more useful than taking that high and mighty attitude. Thought we'd gotten rid of that when we got you out of the lowlands.”

“I'm not who you think I am, okay? This is all just a dream.”

“I know who you are, maybe better than you know yourself,” Blane said, his eyes flashing with an emotion that made her heart thud. “But I also know my men.”

“Suit yourself,” Alisa said, shooting daggers at Blane. “If you don't want to listen to me, fine. But don't say I didn't try to warn you.”

She surprised herself when she was about to follow up with, “Why do you think I left you here in the first place?” She stopped herself just in time. It would have sounded crazy to all of them, and she didn't even know what she meant by it. Whoever had left him hadn't been her. Besides, it wasn't as if she would ever get through to him. She knew what kind of a man he was just by looking at him.

He was strong and fierce and loyal, maybe more muscular than he was intelligent. But that might have just been her pride and anger talking. She would have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the powers around him were conspiring against him, and she didn't have the time or the patience to convince him of something of that caliber. Instead, she wanted to focus on figuring out what to do next.

“So I suppose that you're going to take me back to your camp?" She said grimly.

“No lass, if you want to stay with Lord Todd that's fine. We can leave you right here.”

For some reason, the fact that he didn't seem to care what she did infuriated her more. She felt about him the same way that she felt for Carl when he seemed indifferent to her feelings while they were fighting. She believed that because they were in a committed relationship together, they had an obligation to respect one another's feelings.

Why would she feel this way about a stranger? There was no rule saying that strange men have to respect how she felt just because they were ridiculously attractive and muscular. Maybe she was fantasizing about being with him romantically, but that didn't mean that he had to honor any of her wishes. He didn't even have to save her, and yet he did so. In the dream, apparently she was filling the role of his lover, but why would they be fighting like this if that were true? She didn't want to fill the role of his lover. She just wanted to be herself.

“If that's true and you don't care, maybe I will just stay with Lord Todd. He seems smarter than you are anyway. He might be ugly, but at least he would listen if somebody told him he was in danger."

“The old scoundrel only cares about saving his own hide. He would run off with his tail between his legs whether the threat was real or not,” Blane said, cocking an eyebrow. “Now listen, I know this has been very hard on you. You don't really understand our ways yet. I don't know where you've been, but it's obvious that things are different there. Eventually, I think you're going to be able to fit in again. We'll go back to camp, and you can decide what you want to do after you get some rest and some food in your belly.”

She glumly followed behind Lord Blane, who had brought two men to accompany him as he searched for her. When she looked at the sky, she realized that she must have been missing for hours. He had been frantic with worry, she somehow remembered, when he saved her. But how would she remember when he saved her? She hadn't even been there. Something strange was going on. She wished there was some kind of legend about this, but nothing her mother had told her would prepare her for such a vivid and bewildering dream.

“Come lass, let's get you cleaned up,” he said with a scowl once they made it to camp.

“I'm fine," she said.

“No, you're not fine. I need to see how much harm has been done to you so I will know just how badly to kill Todd next time I see him hanging around here.”

Although she hadn't been asleep long enough to remember the actual confrontation that she had with Lord Todd, she remembered him drawing his sword on her and lunging forward. He'd wanted to take her back to his own clan and keep her for himself, relishing her pale skin and frail frame. He had said something about her being like a flower petal, his eyes wide and crazed with desire. She had tried to run, worried that he would overstep his bounds, and he had chased after her through the forest. He had grabbed her arm just long enough to throw her to the ground when Lord Blane had intercepted with a loud, furious roar and the clinking of metal.

She had never been so glad to see any man in her life, and somehow, the joy and the immense love that she felt toward him had apparently radiated vibrantly. They embraced, sharing a passionate and heated kiss, gripping each other's bodies like they hadn't seen one another in years. Somehow she had stayed with him in real time, losing her confusion and hard edge as she consciously spent her day doing housework and worrying that Carl was cheating on her. Images of her days overlapped and she brought her hand to her head, hissing in pain.

“What's wrong love?” Blane asked.

Suddenly his strong body was in front of her, cupping her face tenderly in his huge hands. She grimaced, still pained by the intense overlapping of memories, and fell limply into his arms, groaning as an agonizing rush of blinding light knocked her off her feet. He lifted her, mumbling to himself about how dead Todd was going to be once he caught him.

She tried to explain that Todd had nothing to do with this strange phenomenon, but she could hardly speak. He rushed to his private tent, laying her on his cot and retrieving a large basin of water and a rag. He dabbed her forehead tenderly, almost reverently, and gently peeled her shawl off, hoping to be able to study her arms and legs, making sure she wasn't physically hurt. She was too groggy to protest.

Alisa's eyes stayed shut as her mind fought for control and understanding. She felt like she had been put on a Ferris wheel, at turbo speed, whipping her around and around until she wanted to throw up. She groaned as he examined her body with a gentleness and love that she had never experienced from any man before. And yet it felt familiar. Right, somehow.