PROLOGUE
Scottish Highlands
Four centuries earlier
The seer arrived on the eve of battle, her hair matted with rain, her eyes the gray of distant storms. “Ye’ll lose what ye love most,” she warned him, “unless ye bind your heart to time itself.”
MacDuff didn’t believe in prophecy—but when dawn came and the woman he adored was gone, he took an axe to an oak.
Beneath a waning moon, the Laird of MacDuff carved the box from a single piece of oak felled on his land. His hands were steady, though his heart was not. The wood sang beneath his blade. He carved through grief until blood mingled with sap. Each cut was a vow. If love must be lost, let it find its way home again.
“A keeper for what should never be lost,” the seer had told him.
When he pressed the final knot work into the lid, the air stilled, and the scent of peat and heather rose as if the earth itself approved. He laid a single brooch inside, and the air thickened. A token forged in war and meant to outlast it.
Guard the heart within, until the heart without is ready, the seer’s voice had said.
And in the hush that followed, the box began to hum.
1
Inverness, Scotland
Muscled calves curved into the beginnings of well-defined thighs. Just above the knee, a kilt covered what Lainie longed to see. The long sculpted legs of the Highlander made her heart skip a beat. She wanted to know what was under that kilt.
Lainie imagined running her hands up the sculpted thighs until she reached the heat of him—solid, waiting, achingly real in her imagination. Staring at this beautiful specimen of pure maleness conjured up feelings in her body she hadn’t experienced in a long time.
Her nipples grew taut against her sweater. The tingling at the tips of her breasts thrummed through her, circling around her belly and slipping lower. As if the man in the painting reached out and traced her most sensitive places with invisible heat. Shuddering, she continued to gawk at the painting of the highland warrior at MacDuff Castle, working her way from the tips of his toes and up.
Who was he? If only she could have lived just for a day in his time. She would let him rock her world and then return home, maybe take him with her.
He wore no shirt, just a flap of tartan thrown over his shoulder. The painter had done an excellent job of capturing each and every arch of muscle.
Lainie loosened her scarf, her body warm, invisible hands still demurely stroking her insides.
Tearing her gaze from the sexy man’s body, she studied his face. A startling green gaze captured hers. Lainie was amazed at how well the paint had held up over four hundred odd years. The warrior’s glance was so intense; she felt it like a caress on her senses. His chiseled features were framed by wavy dark brown locks. His nose was straight and sure like an arrow leading to the most sensuous mouth she’d ever seen. The curve of his wide, full lips made her shudder. Whoever he was, he’d surely made many women purr with his wicked smile.
She licked her lips and turned away.
“Now let’s head down the stairs. I will show ye where the warriors slept and where they kept their prisoners,” the tour guide spoke with a thick Scottish burr as she wiggled her eyebrows, causing a few of the guests to chuckle.
Lainie followed the rest of the crowd down the narrow, winding stone staircase, trying to ignore the pulsing heat within her and the pooling of liquid between her thighs. She waved the pamphlet containing facts about Clan MacDuff, to cool her overheated skin.
The vision of the stunning warrior still lingered in her mind. How on earth could a painting turn her on? Maybe she should feel ashamed, but she didn’t. The warrior was hot, and he reached a part of Lainie that had never truly been tapped. A need to just let go.
She bit her lip as they entered a square room. Ancient weapons lined the walls, and a few straw mats were scattered across the floor.
“This is where our mighty highland warriors would have slept, lined up along the floor with straw mats. And this here is…” Lainie tuned out the tour guide as she described the various weapons that hung on the wall.
Her mind took her back in time, and she imagined herself lying on one of the straw mats, a muscular warrior on top of her. His thick burr tickled her ear as he whispered sinful treats and nipped at her skin.
Oh, Lord. How was she to do an article about traveling to the Scottish Highlands, if all she could think of was sex?
“Now if ye follow me, I will take ye out of the castle and ye may at your leisure peruse the grounds. We have many cottages and little shops to visit. They are teeming with life, and ye will be able to see how Clan MacDuff truly lived.”
Lainie followed the group out of the castle, buttoning her jacket and wrapping her scarf around her neck as she meandered down a path. The air was crisp and cool. Not too cold, just perfect, refreshing. She breathed in the heady scent of burning peat, which grew stronger in the air as she passed by each building. Somehow, she felt more at home, more peaceful.
She was descended from the Clan MacRae, which bordered the north side of MacDuff. What would it have been like to live back in the days of her clan? Nearly four hundred years had gone by since anyone in her family had been a MacRae.
