“I told you, Lindy-lass, no buts.”
“Even so—”
“None o’ those either.” Rogan shook his head. “Truth is, Lady Euphemia has been trysting with a shepherd who has a cottage in the next glen. She has to pass by Smoo Cave on her way to meet him.” He stepped closer and cupped Lindy’s chin, lifting her face to his. “That’ll be what she was about. A pity if she fell into one of the sinkholes. But she should have thought of the danger thereabouts before she traipsed across those cliffs.
“Now—” he set his hands on her shoulders, looking down at her “—I’d hear what was fashing you before Gavin came bursting in here.”
Lindy glanced aside. She still believed the MacNairn woman had been sent forward in time. And if so . . .
“I don’t want to be responsible for someone else’s misery.” There, she’d blurted the only honourable thing she could say.
Rogan lifted a brow. “If Lady Euphemia has replaced you where’er it was you hailfrom, sweetness, I promise you, she’ll no’ be unhappy. Such females know well how to fend for themselves.”
“Then . . .” Lindy considered.
“Do you want to stay with me?” Rogan’s arms were around her again, pulling her close.
So near that she could feel him pressing against her.
“You know I want that – to stay with you.” She leaned into him, unable to resist.
“Then do.” He swept her up into his arms, carrying her across the room. “Stay here and be my wife.”
“I will .” She didn’t care that the plaid fell from her shoulders as he lowered her to the bed. As for her few extra pounds, the smouldering look in Rogan’s eyes said he didn’t see them.
Oh, yes, she’d marry him.
In her heart, she alreadywashis wife.
She didn’t want to dwell on it too deeply, for fear of jinxing herself, but she believed that, after losing him in their Viking life, whatever powers watched over souls had now reunited them.
For a moment, she wondered if such gods or their helpers might wear small black boots, carefully tied with red plaid laces. The thought made her smile. Seeing as she was here, she supposed it was possible.
It was just a shame she’d not be able to put her experiences in a romance novel. She was sure that if she could, her book would be a bestsell er. But then Rogan was throwing off his plaid and stretching out on the bed beside her, and she no longer cared.
And as she opened her arms to him, pulling him down to her, she knew she’d never feel the urge to read or write a Scottish medieval romance again.
After all , why should she?
As of this moment, she was living one.
Future Date
A. J. Menden
1
Surely I’m stuck in a time warp, Ella thought. That’s the only logical explanation. Time can’t be moving this slowly.
She looked across the dinner table to her companion, and he gave her a too big smile, one that showed rows of crooked, yellow teeth with a bit of salad stuck between two of them. Ella suppressed a groan of dismay. No, it was no time warp that had her in its clutches. It was only another blind date from hell .
“Soulmate, my ass,” she muttered under her breath. There was no way this man was her mystical other half, the one she should be bonded to for life.
No matter what the New-Age-y online dating website claimed.
This was the latest in a long line of dating websites and agencies Ella had visited, and it was definitely going to be the last. She had only started visiting the self-proclaimed matchmakers of the new millennium since her mother began nagging her about finding a boyfriend. As a kinder garten teacher, she didn’t meet many single men, and the few that she did didn’t interest her. That was the problem; Ella never met a man who she wanted a second date with.
This latest prospect, Bachelor Number Three from the Soulmate Agency, was definitely not getting a second date. For one thing, his table manners were not much better than any of her students, and they were five years old, not thirty-five. As soon as the salad had arrived, she knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. He had already started chewing on the ice in his drink, a habit that set her teeth onedge, and, sure enough, he was the type to smack his lips when he chewed.
