She doubted she’d ever be fine again.
Everyone knew characters talked to writers. The stories would be flat if they didn’t. Mere ink on the page and so boring that no one would want to read a single word.
It was also true that – sometimes – characters insisted on being named differently.
That, too, was pretty normal.
Stories only came to life once the names were right.
Kissing was something else entirely.
Yet she knew Lore – no,Rogan MacGraith– had kissed her. She could still feel his lips moving over hers, the silken glide of his tongue and the firm grip of his hands as he’d held her against him.
She’d even felt the rough weave of his plaid beneath her fingers. And – how could it be? – she’d breathed in his scent, finding the trace of the cold, brisk night that clung to him almost intoxicating.
But he couldn’t have been real.
Shaken, Lindy slipped from the bed and went over to the window. The Talmine road lay dark and silent, a narrow band stretching away into empty, rolling moorland. It still rained and curls of mist drifted across the shingled beach not far from the inn. The pier was deserted. No kilted, sword-packing Highlander stood in the blackness of the moon shadows, peering up at her.
The tiny village slept.
She touched a hand to her lips and trembled.
Her mouth was bruised.
Two
Centuries away – the early fourteenth, to be exact – but much closer otherwise, Rogan MacGraith stood in the shadows of his bedchamber and glared at the shutter that had dared to blow open, its loud crack against the tower wall rudely snatching him from a wondrous dream.
“Hellfire and damnation!” He strode across the room and yanked the shutter into place, latching it with much more force than was necessary.
He shoved a hand through his hair, keenly aware of his nakedness.
Not that sleeping unclothed was anything out of the ordinary.
Truth be told, he doubted any man in all broad Scotland would demean himself by wearing nightclothes. Certainly no man at his clan’s proud and formidable Castle Daunt.
Highlanders left such softness for Sassenachs.
But this night . . .
Rogan glanced downwards, his scowl deepening. His nude body only revealed how much he burned for the curvaceous, flame-haired vixen he’d just been kissing and was about to sweep into his arms and carry to his bed before the damnable shutter bang had shattered his dream.
“Odin’s ball s!” He clenched his fists and willed his manly parts to stop aching. When they did, he snatched his plaid off a chair and threw it on, not wanting any remaining vestiges of lust to embarrass him when he stormed down the tower stairs and into his father’s hall .
It would cause a great enough stir just disturbing the men’s night rest. The saints knew they deserved their sleep. But one of them might have heard the name Lore MacLaren.
If so, he meant to rout the bastard.
A lifetime of searching hadn’t produced the temptress who haunted his dreams, but if he could locate the man whose name she cried in passion, he might just find her. Only then would he know peace.
He’d make her his, insisting she wed him.
And if she refused or – saints preserve him – for some reason wasn’t able, he’d finally bend to his father’s will and accept a suitable bride of his family’s choosing.
He just hoped she wouldn’t be Euphemia MacNairn, his clan’s current favourite.
She was such a wee slip o’ womanhood that a man could blink and miss her presence in a room.
