A Highlander's Home Page 17

  Their trek was slow going but they finally stopped one evening and Leith pointed to the hills. “Over that ridge are the stones. We camp here tonight and rest the men and the horses. Plus I think Mac needs to rest his bottom.”

  They turned and watched a tired looking Mac fumble with his robes as he gingerly dismounted from his even more tired horse. He winced and tried to inconspicuously rub his aching bottom.

  Raine giggled behind her gloved hand and turned away, pretending not to see. Leith hooked his finger under her chin, lifting her face to his, and placed a sound smack on her lips.

  They made camp and cared for the horses, tethering them to the nearby trees. The men were wary and kept one eye on their surroundings, always looking through the trees for an unseen enemy. They were in English country now, and this was not a good time to be crossing borders. Even though Leith was a Laird, it held little meaning here in the deep of the forest where a man could easily be killed and buried and not found for centuries.

  The same meal of strange meats and hard bread was served, but it was a welcome meal. Raine had not had anything to eat since they broke camp that morning. She ate her small portion with much enthusiasm. Leith smiled at her.

  “Hungry?” he drawled sarcastically.

  She grinned ear to ear and nodded, continuing to chew. “I’m famished.”

  They ate in silence as evening descended. Guards took to their posts and the fire burned down to low embers. He took her hand and silently led her away from the group. He nodded to the guard they passed who nodded in return.

  “Where are we going?” she whispered.

  He put his finger against his lips and motioned for her to be quiet. They stopped at a small, thick cluster of bushes nestled in between the trees. He grabbed her and pushed her against a tree trunk, lifted her skirts and sank to his knees in front of her.

  She gasped but refrained from any other noise. She closed her eyes and bit her lip as his lips quickly suckled her woman’s nub, flicking it with his tongue without ever breaking suction. He brought her to climax so quickly, she lost her breath. He hooked her knee over his shoulder and repeated the process, this time going slightly slower causing her to squirm and make muffled moans which she tried to stifle with her hand over her mouth.

  At the height of her desire, he stood, flipped her skirts over her shoulders and rammed himself into her wet readiness. He took her moans into his mouth, never breaking his hard rhythm. Within seconds they both reached their precipice and tumbled over together clinging to each other lest their legs give out and they tumble to the ground.

  When their breaths came slower, he took her hand and led her to the thick brush and spread out his cloak. He laid her on it and covered her body with his. She had started shivering. He intended to warm her with his own body heat one last time.

  He started with her lips, and then moved to her neck. His lips were warm and left a moist trail on her skin. She shivered again, but this time it was not from the cold. Digging her hands into his scalp she pressed his face into her bared breasts and urged him to take his fill. His lips closed on the rosy mound and sucked so hard she was sure he must have tasted blood. His fingers found the wet triangle between her legs that his mouth had so recently prepared for him. He entered her slowly, building up a rhythm, enjoying how her hips moved in time with his hands. Then once again, his mouth was torturing her point of desire with his sucks and flicks of his tongue. When she thought she could take no more, he rose above her and entered her. Her intake of breath was long and slow, assuring him of the pleasure he gave her in that one long thrust. Her legs spread and wrapped around his hips as if they had been doing that very movement their entire lives. Their movements were slow at first and then picked up pace until both were sweating despite the cold, their bodies surrounded by a veil of mist from their intense breathing.

  There was no disguising or preventing their fall over the edge of sanity this time. But they didn’t care. This would be their last night together.

  When they returned to camp, Leith nodded at the same guard they had seen when they left. He nodded back and then stared past them into the night, never giving away if he knew what they had just done. Raine lowered her head as she past him, blushing with a smile.

  Chapter 24

  The men, Mac, and Lady MacGregor were all wrapped in their cloaks and blankets around the fire. Leith pulled back the edge of the blanket to let Raine scoot in, then followed her and wrapped it as tight as he could around them. Neither spoke, but they lay there for awhile awake and each in their own thought. Her fingers played with a string on the front of his shirt while his finger absently wrapped a curl around itself.

  Lady MacGregor lay quietly, far from sleep. They would reach the stones tomorrow, and then Raine would be gone. She had come to admire the lass. She particularly enjoyed the way she argued with Leith and stood up to him. No other lass had ever had the presumption to do so. She had heard them sneak off to the woods and though she knew how dangerous it was for them being on British soil, she said nothing, and granted them the opportunity to enjoy themselves one last time. She wiped a tear from her cheek. She would miss the lass, aye, but she would miss the grandchild that she would never meet.

  Mac clutched the book in his hand and pulled it closer to his chest. He stared into the dying fire and smiled. The prophecy was coming true and the girl was the key to everything. Already, she had killed Alisdair and save Hell’s Gate once. She would save it again.

  “Rise, my lady,” came the deep voice in Raine’s ear.

  She shook her head and buried herself deeper into the warmth of the body next to her.

  Warm lips found hers and she smiled. Then she bolted upright, remembering where she was and what would happen today. She was going home! Finally the excitement that had eluded her before had finally caught up.

  She leaned over and kissed Leith full on the mouth. “Good morning, my lord,” she answered and giggled.

  “Ye’re very happy,” he noticed.

  “I guess so. I will miss this place, but I miss my home too. My home. My microwave, my TV, my rocking chair, my jeans. Oh, the first thing I’m going to do is take a long hot shower.”

  Her face was practically glowing. Perhaps he had misjudged her. He had thought that she had adjusted well here in his land with his people. Six months they had been here, fighting, shouting, laughing, loving. Perhaps he had read too much into it. A small part of him had hoped that she would stay. She did make a decent wife even if she couldn’t cook worth a damn.

  “What is a my-crow-wiv?” he inquired.

  “Oh, it’s this box that cooks food in just minutes. It really is quite wonderful,” she sighed as if in bliss just thinking about it.

  A box that can cook? No wonder her food tasted worst than what they fed the horses. She had cooking boxes.

  She laughed. “It’s not as strange as it seems. If you could see my world, you would learn to love it.”

  He stilled in the process of pulling up the blanket. “I love my world, lass. I have no desire to leave it.”

  She looked up from straightening her skirts. “I didn’t mean that your world is any less than mine. I was just saying that there is so much more in my world. Things that make life much easier and enjoyable.”

  He cocked his head. “My life is enjoyable.”

  The guards had begun to pack up the camp and averted their gaze from the two. She shook her head, “No, I meant that there is technology that my people have that would astound you! It would make you stand in disbelief at how much fun you could have and how you could enjoy everything so much better.”

  Folding his arms over his chest, he asked her, “Do ye think I don’t enjoy my life now? Have ye not seen my people have fun? Were ye not present at the celebration and laugh with until near dawn?”

  He tightened his boots. “Nay, lass, I don’t think ye’re world has much to offer me.”

  He walked away and left her standing there. She hadn’t meant to insult him. S
he was just thinking of all the wonderful things that she would be able to do once again. Stand up in a shower rather than sit in a hard wooden circular tub by the fire in the castle. She could throw a TV dinner in the microwave and watch a sitcom in her rocking chair rather than dine in the great hall on fresh seasoned pheasant and be entertained by poets and bards.

  They mounted their horses and started southeast over the ridge. By noon they should arrive at the stones. Raine watched as the gray mist moved and swayed ever so slowly over the mountains. It hugged the mountains with its long straggly fingers so lightly, leaving only whispers of itself behind. The sun broke over the jagged blue snow-tipped peaks and pierced the ghostlike mist. She couldn’t take her eyes off of it. Colorado was beautiful, but she had never witnessed a sunrise remotely similar or as wondrous as this. Was it really this place or was it because she realized that she had just witnessed this incredible feature with the Scottish laird of the castle she had called home for the last six month.

  They rode without stopping, coming to a clearing in the forest. The trees suddenly stopped, as if they had been perfectly planted to reach no further than this point.

  Leith pulled his horse next to hers. “There.”

  He pointed through the openness and there, as majestic as anything she had ever seen were the prodigal stones.

  They were massive monoliths stretching towards the sky. They formed a large outer circle with a smaller circle inside. On top of those inner stones were more squarish stones forming a bridge connecting them all. The sun shone inside the circle, casting a strange pattern on the ground. The sky was bright for a winter day and seemed warmer the closer they got to the structure.

  Raine squinted. She shot Leith a look and then back at the stones then back at him.

  “Stonehenge? You brought me to Stonehenge?” she asked incredulously.

  He sat tall in his saddle looking straight ahead. “These are the stones of the ancients. Ye can thank my mother for navigating us here. I was here once when I was boy at the summer solstice.” He glanced at her. “I was not impressed.”

  “These are the stones that you’re mother spoke about? These are the magic stones that are going to send me back home?” she asked, her voice getting louder.

  “Do ye know of these stones?” he asked, frowning.

  She threw her hands in the air and let them smack as they landed on her thighs.

  “For crying out loud, Leith! Everybody knows about Stonehenge! It’s a tourist attraction! The Druid priests used to come here and hold religious ceremonies.” She took a deep breath and hung her head.

  She raised defeated eyes to him. “These are not magic stones. They won’t take me home.”

  Lady MacGregor trotted up to them. “I beg to differ, young lady. My father took me here when I was a little girl. And his father took him. These stones have power. I do not know of this ‘too rist’ place you speak of, but this is not it. You want to return to your time? Then this is the place.” She kicked her mount and rode off ahead of them.

  Leith watched her go. “Hmm. What have he done to offend my mother so, lass?”

  Raine said innocently, “I didn’t do anything. She has barely spoken to me the entire trip.”

  He met her gaze. “Hmmm.”

  She pursed her lips. “Don’t hmmm me. I said I didn’t do anything.”

  He watched his mother’s retreating back. “Perhaps that the problem.”

  Her mouth opened and closed several times, resembling that of a fish out of water, but he rode away before she could flog him with her tongue.

  The group dismounted and did indeed resemble a group of tourists. They all stood in a line, heads cocked back, staring at the huge monolithic stones. The snow had not stopped falling for days and they looked as if they were candy sticks dipped into white icing and then stuck back into the ground.

  Leith made his way to Raine and stared at her. She returned his stare, neither wanting to break the silence. The holiness of this place hung heavy in the air for all of them, even Raine since it signified her way home.

  They held hands for a moment, blue eyes meeting green eyes, each basking in the other’s presence.

  “Do you know the words?” came the question from Lady MacGregor.

  Raine thought, closing her eyes, trying to remember. She had repeated these words to herself for months hoping to get them in the right order. The Professor was the one who had found them in the book and probably reread them until he could say them in his sleep.

  She nodded her head and said confidently, “Yes, I know them.”

  Mac came forward, his long brown robe flipping up around his knees as he trudged through the snow. “Now, wait lass. Ye must say the words in the perfect order. If ye do not, then there is no telling where the good Lord will send ye.”

  “How shall we do this, Mac?” Leith asked trying to hide the emptiness that was already starting to seep into his very core. This lass had been nothing but trouble since she first landed atop him in the forest those many months ago. She had served as a worthy opponent in bed, but other than that she had caused him one headache after another. He should be glad be finally be rid of her.

  Mac cleared his throat and threw his arms wide. “Everybody find a stone and stand before it. Lass, ye stand in the middle away from all of us. I wouldn’t want ye to take anyone with ye now.”

  Leith frowned at the man’s poor sense of humor, and Mac’s smile slightly faltered. He shouldn’t be so bloody jovial right now.

  Searching the sky, Mac announced, “When I signal to ye, lass, ye must say the words – the very words! – that ye did when ye were brought here. The sun is almost in position. Just a few more moments. The stones will open their magic to us and we will let you go.”

  We will let you go.

  Raine moved to the large center of the circle and stood there, clenching and unclenching her hands. This was it. She was finally going home. Home. To her home. She looked at the sun, high in the sky fighting the clouds that were still releasing their fluffy flakes of snow to the earth. She stuck her tongue out and caught one, then giggled. She hadn’t done that since she was just a child. She had forgotten how fun it could be.

  They were all in position, as Mac had instructed them, and all eyes were on her waiting for the magic to begin so they could pass this tale of supernatural happenings on to their children. Her hand went to her belly. Would she be able to tell her child of this story? No, she thought to herself, or they would put her in the mental institution for sure.

  Leith stood next his mother and Mac, watching her. That oversized, over bearing, cocky Scotsman who drove her absolutely mad. Lady MacGregor who had befriended her and took her under her wing, teaching her the running’s of a castle and urged her every day to produce an heir for her son and a grandchild for her. And Mac, with his wild hair, and oddly calm temperament. He had accepted the fact that his laird would take a strange, unknown, woman from the future as his bride without any calamity simply because his books said that it was alright.

  Even the guards watched her, wondering what their eyes would behold in just a few more minutes. She looked up at the sky. The sun had hidden behind a cloud, casting a gloom on them.

  Leith ran his fingers through his hair and let out a deep breath. Bloody hell. What was he doing?!

  He ran to her and scooped her up in his arms, squeezing her until she grunted with alarm for lack of oxygen.

  “What are you doing?!” she screamed at him. “Get away! You could be sucked into this thing!”

  He took her hands roughly in his and clasped them to his chest. “I cannot allow ye to leave without telling ye what I’m thinking, lass.”

  Lady MacGregor called desperately, “Leith! Get out of there!”

  He shook his head sadly, turning his gaze back to Raine. “Ye drive me insane, woman. Ye can rouse my anger like no other. Ye make my blood boil as no other can. I’ve never wanted to wrap my fingers around the neck of another person and strangle them as I have
ye.”

  Swallowing, Raine said with regret, “I know. I am sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you.”

  He kissed the backs of her hands, still holding them tight. “Aye, trouble ye have been.” He smiled. “But it is a trouble that I have long been without and will be hard pressed to live without it. Ye have been a good wife, Raine MacGregor. Ye have been a beautiful sight to have in my keep. A sight that I will not soon be forgetting.”

  Tears welled in Raine’s eyes as he spoke. She knew how difficult this must be for such an oaf to profess. She hiccupped.

  A playful glint briefly replaced the sadness in his eyes as he said softly, “And ye have been quite a remarkable bed partner if I do say so myself.”

  She gave a short laugh, tears rolling down her cheeks. He wiped one away with his finger.

  In a voice so soft so that only she could hear, he said, “I love ye, lass.”

  He dropped her hands, spun on his heel, and walked away swiftly. Her hands were so cold without his large ones covering them. Her chest ached from inhaling the freezing air too quickly. She wiped her nose on the back of her hand. He loved her?

  She was going home. These stones were her ticket out of here and back to her time. Her job, her apartment, her….her….her what? Her loneliness? Her aloneness? Her job of reading about history?

  Her eyes scanned the hillside taking in the soft mounds and shapes of the countryside meeting with the cold gray sky. She listened to the stillness of the day, the silence buffered even more so by the falling crystal flakes that gently floated through the air until reaching their predestined patch of earth.

  Her hands cupped her stomach. Even through her layers of skirts she could feel the rounding of it. She looked back to the three of them – Leith, Lady MacGregor, and Mac – as they watched her. Lady MacGregor’s eyes were set on Raine’s belly almost desperately as if trying to burn it into her memory. Suddenly Raine had a revelation. She knew! Lady MacGregor knew about the pregnancy! And she was letting her go anyway.

  Leith’s turned from her and started making his way to the horses, not wishing to see the final moment of his woman as she disappeared into the stones and their strange magic of time travel.