Return of the Highlander (Immortal Warriors) (28 page)

It was Samhain. Hallowe’en. Bella had not
known the date’s significance when she set off in her car to drive the six hours it took to reach Loch Fasail from Edinburgh. Lately everyday details just passed her by, but she heard them talking about it on the car radio, joking about ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump. Outside the warm safety of her vehicle, the darkness had closed in early. The long twilights were finally behind them.

She drove through the rush of Edinburgh and passed by sparser towns and villages. The chatter and noise of modern civilization faded, as she entered the solitary world of the glens and the mountains. The loneliness should have made her heart heavy, but instead it seemed to have a cleansing effect. She turned off the radio and listened to the silence.

Bella was coming home, and she dared not think beyond that.

The journey from Ardloch was the most difficult part. The road seemed darker and narrower than she remembered, and there were fresh potholes, probably made by the heavy machinery. As she reached the final rise above Loch Fasail, she slowed and looked out over the place that was engraved on her heart. There was the grim ruin of Castle Drumaird against the night sky, and the cottage huddled below it. The car rolled forward and her headlights swept across the moorland. Suddenly one of Gregor’s sheep appeared, making her jump. The animal turned and ran off. Smiling at herself, the intensity of the moment broken, Bella drove to the empty cottage.

She could see now, in the headlights, the torn earth where the bulldozers had been working. Some of the machines were still here, ready to resume their work in daylight. She could hardly bear to look at what they had done. At least most of the destruction was on the other side of the loch and not here, where she and Maclean had once walked together.

The cottage key was hidden in the same place as always, and Bella let herself inside. Everything seemed so quiet and eerie, and though Bella found the flashlight in the kitchen drawer, its feeble light did little to reassure her. The cottage was cold and depressing. There was nothing for her here. Even the ghosts of Maclean and Bella were gone. They existed only in her head now.

Maybe it had been a mistake coming back.

Bella wandered outside again and stood, blindly staring out over the still waters of the loch.

There were colors in the water, she realized. Green and yellow, with a touch of blue. Startled, it was a mo
ment before she realized what she was seeing was a reflection, and looked up. The northern lights, the aurora borealis, swept along the horizon, the strange and remarkable colors strobing the sky. So beautiful. Another of the wonders of these empty northern lands.

Mabbe when you look up into the night sky you will think of me looking up, too. Aye, the same sky for both of us.

Was Maclean looking at these lights even now, wondering at their ethereal beauty and thinking of her?

“He’s gone,” Bella told herself. “He really is gone, and I can never see him again….”

Bella began to walk along the loch in the direction of the
Cailleach
Stones. She would sit on the wall there until dawn, and then she’d drive home to Edinburgh. She wouldn’t come back again. Being here was like picking at a wound, never quite letting it heal. Best to let it be, best to try and put it behind her. It was her only chance of survival….

Her steps slowed.

There was someone already sitting in her spot on the wall.

For a moment she couldn’t breathe, memories of Ishbel and her creature filling her head. But this was a person with broad shoulders and a long back, and the tilt of his head was so familiar she felt dizzy.

She forced herself to take another step, and another, stumbling on the uneven ground. He looked up; he’d seen her.

“Och, Bella, I’ve been waiting for ye.”

“Maclean? Maclean, is it really you?”

“Aye, ’tis me.” He was smiling, she could hear it in
the husky warmth of his voice. “I came through the door, Bella.”

Tears burned her eyes, her mouth trembled, but it was anger that filled her. Hot, searing, unstoppable anger.

“Just like that? Why did you wait so long? I have been
sick
with missing you.”

He stood up, at a loss, hesitating to touch her. “Bella—”

“I can’t bear it, Maclean. I can’t let you do this to me.”

“Do what, Bella?”

“Come and go as if you were visiting a distant relative. If you don’t mean to stay, then don’t do this to me. Don’t do this to me.”

Her voice wavered to a stop and she began to cry, deep wrenching sobs that broke his heart.

Maclean wrapped his arms around her. He had dreamed of her for so long, but this was no dream. Bella was soft and real, and she smelled like Bella, like blossom, sweet and feminine. He kissed her deeply, and his body was hard from missing her so. He knew he was being rough with her, but he couldn’t help it. And maybe this was not the time for gentleness.

“My love, my darling Bella, it is
Samhain
. The door is open on this night to the spirits of the between-worlds, and all who seek to pass through. I am a mortal man now, Bella, and ’tis dangerous for me, but I had to come. I have taken this journey for
you
.”

“For me?” she whispered.

“I canna live my life without you. I need you beside me.”

Bella lifted her head. “You want to take me back to 1746? But…is that possible, Maclean?”

He heard the aching need in her voice, the need he understood all too well.

“Aye, it is possible. The
Fiosaiche
showed me how, but I would no’ care if she refused me. I canna…I
willna
live my life without you.”

It was the second time he had said that. She took a shaky breath and smiled, stroking his rough cheek with trembling fingers. “I think you’re wrong about your
Fiosaiche
. She’s a bit of a romantic. She was the one who enticed me here tonight.”

He turned his head and kissed her palm, and then he kissed her lips. The heat of her mouth made him dizzy, and despite the long and difficult journey he had made to reach her, his body demanded he take her once more. What if she didn’t want to come with him? What if this time would truly be their last?

With a groan he drew her down to the ground and, removing his plaid, spread it for them. He filled his hands with her lush curves, murmuring his love, stroking her with his tongue. Bella clung and cried out and, when he slid inside her welcoming body, drew his head to hers and kissed him with long, deep kisses.

“I dreamed this, once,” she whispered. “I dreamed of us lying together and the sky full of strange color.”

Maclean smiled against her lips. “Then mabbe it was always meant to be,” he said. “Mabbe you were dreaming of your future…or your past.”

Afterward, they lay with their arms about each other, not feeling the cold with his plaid wrapped about them.

“I have spoken to the women,” he said, his voice serious. “I have promised not to follow Ishbel, as I should have done the first time. But it is no’ safe in Loch Fasail,
Bella. I dinna know if I will be arrested, or what will happen to me if I am. So far the English have stayed away, but I dinna trust Auchry.”

“I don’t care about Auchry, or the English.”

“I am telling you so you have no illusions. If you come with me, then you come to a place where life is uncertain. We may only have a week together, we may have years. I canna promise—”

“I don’t care,” she repeated, and propped herself up on one elbow, staring down into his face. Her hair tickled him as it fell forward, and she tucked it behind her ear. “I want to come back with you. I belong with you. I realize, Maclean, that I’ve always belonged in the past. All my life I’ve felt like a square peg in a round hole, but until now I never knew why. I understand the dangers I’ll face. I’ve seen through others’ eyes what life is like in the eighteenth century and I have no illusions. It doesn’t matter, I will relish it. I’ll live every moment and be thankful that I have the chance to live it with you. And if something happens, if you’re arrested, then I’ll see that your people are safe. I’ll care for them, Maclean, until you come home again.”

He cupped her cheek in his big hand, the calluses rough against her soft skin.

“Then you’ll be the wife of my hand as well as my heart.”

“Can I…can we do that?”

“Of course.” He sat up, drawing her with him. He shook out his plaid and put it back on, stretching his muscles and then turning to her with a grin.

Bella put her hands on her hips. “Maclean, how will you explain me to your people?”

“I won’t.” He raised an arrogant eyebrow. “I am the Black Maclean, and I dinna have to explain mysel’ to anybody, remember? But dinna worry. You are my sweetheart, my love, and the Macleans of Fasail will love you, too. How could they no’?”

She laughed and shook her head at him, and he bent to kiss her again with all the longing and love in him.

“Ah, Arabella,” he said, “I am a verra, verra happy man.”

“Is it far?” she asked, glancing at the stones, thinking of the doorway.

“Aye, ’tis quite a way and some of it is no’ verra nice, but I will protect you.”

There was a strange wavering darkness between the two uprights. A shadow. Last time she had entered the between-worlds it was against her will, through the doorway in the loch, and she’d nearly died. Could she really risk it again?

Bella turned her gaze back to Maclean and realized he was holding out his hand to her.

“You dinna have to come,” he said quietly, his pale eyes fixed on hers, his handsome face somber. “I would no’ blame you.”

Bella slid her fingers into his, her barely tamed Highlander. “I want to,” she said firmly.

Maclean smiled and then he drew her toward the doorway to the between-worlds. “Let’s go home,” he told her, his voice echoing slightly, and then there was a rumbling sound, like a heavy portal closing, and nothing.

Loch Fasail lay as desolate as the meaning of its name, apart from a great eagle that rose suddenly
from the roof of the cottage and went sailing into the sky. Briefly the dark winged shape was silhouetted against the colors of the aurora borealis, and then she, too, was gone.