A Laird for All Time Angeline Fortin (comprehension books .txt) 📖

purse over her shoulder together, she glanced up at the castle.  Too bad the weather wasn’t cooperating, she thought; a bit of sunshine would probably do wonders for the old place.  Digging in her tote for her camera she swung it up to take a picture.

Look at the old girl, Emmy thought, so beaten down with age. “I’ll bet it was really something a hundred years ago when it was first restored,” she commented aloud.

“Restoration was completed about 115 years ago,” Donell offered leaning back against the fender of the shuttle with his arms crossed over his chest.  “But you wouldn’t have wanted to see it then.”

“Why not?” Emmy asked absently as she took a few more shots.

The old man shook his head with a soft cluck of his tongue.  “They were not happy times lass.  Tragic, the old laird and his family.”

“Really?”  She glanced back at the building with a sigh.  “What happened?”

“Family troubles mostly, bad luck.”

“Still, I would so love to have been there to see it at its shining moment.  How wonderful it would be…” her voice was wistful.

“You think so?”

Emmy nodded firmly.  “I know so!”

“Should be careful, lass, what you wish for.”

“Wishing for simpler times?  Where’s the harm in that?” she asked absentmindedly taking several more shots of the castle.

“Ye think old days were simple times, lassie?”

“Of course they were!”

“Hmmm…” Donell scratched his stubbled chin and considered her thoughtfully.  “Would ye care to take a wager on that?”

“What do you mean?”

The sun came out from behind the clouds then and seemed to reflect for a moment off the ancient stones, bringing dark spots to her eyes.  She shut her eyes tightly as a dizzying wave of déjà vu hit her, as if she had been here before.  As she looked back at the castle, the sun washed across the stone embattlements as if awakening the castle from a long sleep.  It seemed as if the years melted away from the building as the sun beamed across it, crumbling block smoothed, discolored stones became brighter.  Well, that was weird.

“Did you see that?” she turned back to ask Donell only to discover the driver had already left.  She hadn’t even heard him pull away!  Humph! When did he do that?  She had just been talking to him! She hoped he would remember to come back and get her.

Studying the castle again, Emmy thought a little sunshine did do wonders for the castle.  Perhaps she had just imagined the aged appearance on her arrival as a reflection of the dreary weather.  After all it had been rebuilt around the middle of the nineteenth century.  Right now, it did in fact look like new construction.  Funny, she would have thought after 150 years that the structure would have aged a bit more than this.

Tucking her camera away, she approached the outer wall and laid a hand against the stones absorbing the cold dampness.  Weird, she thought again as a new sound coming from the road caught her attention.  Shading her eyes, she watched a rider on horseback approached from the west at a fast pace.  Though the setting sun at his back obscured the face of the rider in its shadows, her jaw sagged unconsciously at the dramatic picture of the man and horse approaching the castle.  The complete vision was like something out of romance novel or maybe a surreal shampoo commercial.  Dark hair rippling back from a strong, tanned face.  Wind pulling at the open collar of his shirt exposing a tanned chest and muscular pecs. A kilt, no less, flapping against the long legs gripping the horse’s sides.

Such a pure physical rush of lust swept over Emmy that she swore right then and there that she would never again go so long without a date much less five years without sex at all.

The horse came to a rearing halt not ten feet from her startling her as she leaped back out of harm’s way.  As the hooves landed on the ground, the rider swung himself to the ground and strode toward her his eyes blazing with heat and anger, slapping off dust as he walked, no! Actually stomped toward her.

Mel Gibson, Christopher Lambert, Adrian Paul – those movie highlanders had nothing on this man!  He was just that.  All man!  He wore his kilt over an ivory shirt.  His legs bare and heavily muscled, taller by nearly a head over her 5’8”, broad shoulders, dark hair…the whole masculine package was simply overwhelming.  A god descended from the heavens.  Emmy knew she’d never seen such a vision in her life and was unlikely to again.

She stumbled back several steps as he stalked forward.  He easily caught her by the shoulders nonetheless and glared down at her.  “Altachadh-beatha,” his deep brogue bit out the foreign words.

Partially terrified, largely enthralled she did the only thing that seemed appropriate.

Emmy fainted.

Chapter 2

Finally willing her eyes to open, Emmy found herself lying on a large comfortable bed, the dark night broken only by a small oil lamp on the table next to her.  Lying in the darkness, she reflected on the humiliation of fainting in front of such a gorgeous guy.  How impressive it must have looked! She thought sarcastically. She would never go eight years without a vacation again!

Maybe it had all been a hallucination.  Yes, a hallucination brought on by fatigue, stress and anxiety.  Yes, of course.  All brilliantly clear in retrospect.  She’d done a horrific six week rotation in psychiatry after all.  Six awful weeks at the mental hospital where God checked in daily and Al Capone and Joan of Arc resided alive and well.  It was simple anxiety, stress brought on by nerves, lack of sleep. Perhaps she would prescribe herself some Paxil or Xanax…

Her internal conversation ended in a very verbal shriek as she rolled over and saw a man…THE man sitting quietly in a chair next to the bed.

“What the..!!!” she sputtered as she jumped literally off the bed.  “Ohmigod, I thought