Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

T he screen was black and there was not a sound in the room. After so much violent emotion, it seemed like an anticlimax.

Bella was staring at the machine in rigid silence, as if she couldn't believe it, and then she picked up a book from the pile beside her and flung it at the wall, straight at his picture. It landed with a crash and bounced onto the shelf beneath before plummeting to the floor, taking several other books with it. His portrait fluttered by one corner, but did not fall.

Ah, now he understood! Bella's accursed writing machine was dead and she thought it was his fault.

Maclean gave an evil chuckle. "Och, Bella, you have a wee temper there," he scolded gleefully.

He was truly delighted the fiendish thing had broken; if she couldn't write on it, then she couldn't tell those lies. It was a reprieve for him, a little bit of time to consider what was happening.

But Bella hadn't finished yet. She flung another book, and then another. The portrait hung doggedly by its corner and would not be dislodged. Maclean watched her expectantly, his lips twitching, but the fire had gone out of her. She dropped her head into her arms and began to sob so hard the whole desk shook.

His smile vanished. Despite his anger and his pain, the sight of her brought so low made him ache inside. It was a very long time since he had been moved by a woman's tears; those softer feelings had rarely escaped the locks and chains he kept upon them. Women were a distraction and love made fools of men. But for once Maclean ignored his head and acted on what his heart was telling him.

He reached out his big, scarred hand and rested it gently on Bella's shoulder.

"Come, now, lass," he murmured, "things are no' so bad."

He could feel her. Her skin, soft and warm, the pulse of her body in her blood, the bones beneath the skin, the movement of muscles as she sat up with a gasping cry and looked wildly about her.

Her face was white and streaked with tears, her eyes were red-rimmed, the pupils huge and black with fear. But she was brave, his Bella. Where other lassies would have run screaming, she stayed put.

"Who's there?" she said, her voice shaking.

He was standing behind her, but now he stepped back, away from her. Withdrawing into himself. He had touched her. . . And she had felt him.

She was still looking all around, anxious little glances. And then she gave a sigh and pushed her long hair out of her face and wiped her teary cheeks with her fingers. "You know, I don't care if you are here, Maclean. Do your worst!"

She waited, Maclean waited, nothing happened. Then she looked at the broken writing machine and sighed again. "I'm going crazy," she said. "When did I last sleep? I need to sleep ."

She stood up. "Maclean?" she whispered again, but when no one answered her, she shook her head and moved toward the door.

He was standing immediately in her path. This time he didn't step aside. He waited. Hoping . . . longing. . . Bella walked right through him and up the stairs to bed, flicking off the light as she went.

Maclean was alone in the dark room. He had touched her and she had felt him, and yet a moment later he had been a ghost again.

What had made the difference?

He thought back, trying to remember what he had felt as he reached out his hand, but all he could see were images of the past. Some were from his own unreliable memory and some were pictures put there by Bella's words. They were jumbled in his head, confusing and frightening, and he couldn't tell truth from lies. But still he knew. Something very bad had happened in his past, and although he had just taken a step backward, he could not escape it for much longer.

* * *

Bella stood at the window staring out at the loch, her arms clutched about her, ignoring the chill floor beneath the soles of her bare feet. Odd things were happening. The sense that she wasn't alone had heightened, and then the mug moving by itself and the door opening and closing. She'd felt certain Maclean was with her; she'd even spoken to him. But now . . . doubts were creeping in.

What about the hand? Did you imagine the hand?

No, she didn't imagine that. She'd felt a hand on her shoulder, a big warm hand. Maclean's hand. It was beyond creepy, but at the same time there had been a sense that the hand was trying to comfort her—she'd just gone into meltdown, after all.

The Maclean in the legend would never offer comfort to a woman. But then, she'd never completely accepted the legend.

Outside, the loch was a stretch of silver, an echo of the moonlight above. There was a splash in the water, and a ripple ran all the way to the shore. Bella frowned, trying to see what it was. A bird landing, probably, or a fish surfacing for a final snack before bed. Loch Fasail was deep and cold, and there were stories about what lay in the depths of such places. She remembered Brian insisting something had tugged at his foot as he was swimming, and how she had laughed at him.

It didn't seem very funny now.

The splash came again, bigger, and for a heartbeat a dark shape was silhouetted against the water's surface.

There was a low keening sound. A stag, she told herself, even though she knew it was nothing like the call of a stag. Some of Gregor's sheep were cropping the moorland grass. The sound came again, and in unison they turned and fled, their woolly rumps vanishing over the crest of the hill.

Bella snapped the curtains shut.

When had she last slept a straight eight hours? She was exhausted. Maybe that was what the hand on her shoulder had been—not Maclean, just sheer exhaustion.

Bella went to bed.

* * *

Maclean was so deep into his thoughts that it was almost like sleeping. Like dreaming. The peats in the Aga settled as they burned to ash, but he didn't notice. His dreaming self was down by the loch, and it was as if he had never left.

He was walking, his kilt swinging, the sun upon his head. Women stared at him admiringly and men lowered their eyes with respect, for he was the Black Maclean. He smiled, feeling his heart swell. This was where he belonged. This was his rightful place. Not in a world where giant machines tried to run over him and people ate their meals from boxes and bags behind walls of glass and women wrote lies about him on machines.

He noticed then that Bella was up ahead of him, sitting on the stone wall in a sea of purple heather. She had her back to him and her hair hung long and dark to her waist, the ends of it moving gently in the soft breeze. As he drew closer she must have heard him, for she looked over her shoulder at him. Skin like cream, eyes dark and deep and a full, kissable mouth above a stubborn chin.

Och, Bella.

"I knew you'd come," she said, and smiled.

He circled her until he stood before her, knee-deep in the heather, gazing down as she looked up. "You dinna belong here," he told her sternly, but his lips were trying to smile back.

"But I do. I'm researching you," she said.

Maclean wasn't sure what that meant, but he shrugged as if he didn't care. "Everyone on my land belongs to me. Mabbe that's what you want—to be mine."

"You can't own people."

"I do. They are mine and I am theirs, like a father his children."

"A father would care for his children, he wouldn't let them die."

Maclean's frown grew darker. "I dinna remember—"

"Try and remember. That's why you're here, isn't it?"

"I take no instruction from women," he said coldly.

She blinked at him, long dark lashes sweeping over her watchful gaze. "Why not?" she demanded. "What makes you better than them?"

Maclean laughed at her simplicity, but she did not smile in return; she was deadly serious.

"You have a lot to learn, Bella Ryan."

Bella smiled then, but it was a pitying smile, as though he were the one in need of help. "So do you, Maclean."

"Maclean?"

The voice was old. He looked up, dragging his gaze from the fascination of Bella's face, and suddenly she was gone and he found himself confronted by an ancient hag. White hair straggling about her stooped shoulders, a face so wrinkled and creased it was hardly a face at all, apart from the milky eyes.

"The Fiosaiche said ye would come," the creature cackled.

"What are you?" he whispered, unable to disguise his horror at the sight of her.

"Och, Morven," she sighed, "ye see these stones?" She gestured to the Cailleach Stones. "This is a doorway into the between-worlds, and I am its keeper. The door is open and I dinna have the strength to close it. My powers are fading and I can only come to you in dreams, to warn you—"

"Warn me about what?"

"Long ago your people passed through this door, into the between-worlds and then on to the world of the dead."

"They died together?"

"Aye, murdered, cut down most foully. They cried to me as they passed because you were not among them. They asked me why you had abandoned them at such a time, but I had no answer."

Maclean groaned.

"But there was one of them who did not weep. Be warned, Maclean. She has tricked me with her sweet face, tricked me into . . ."

Her voice was fading.

"What did you say, hag?" he shouted. "Warn me against what?"

". . . Ishbel . . ."

The old woman was gone.

Ishbel? Maclean felt a slow, heavy dread take hold of him. Ishbel—it seemed she was everywhere.

* * *

Bella stirred in her sleep. She had been sitting on the old stone wall by the loch, talking to Maclean, when suddenly he was gone and the old woman appeared. It was the hag in her green arisaid. Now the hag leaned over her and peered into her face. She was so old it was impossible she was really alive. Her fingers, thin and hooked as claws, closed on Bella's wrist and held on with surprising strength.

"Ye must remember what I tell ye, girl."

"What do you want?"

"Listen."

Her eyes were milky white and Bella found herself staring into them and unable to look away.

"I warned ye once against the each-uisge ."

"I—I think I saw it."

"Aye, mabbe ye did. The door is open and the each-uisge comes and goes as it pleases. It will try and take your life."

"But . . . why?"

"It does no' matter why. Listen to me, lass. Ye must watch for when the each-uisge is changing its form. That is when it is vulnerable. That is when it can be captured. Ye must have the magic bridle at hand."

"M-magic bridle?" This was absurd.

The hag was nodding slowly, and now she smiled with no teeth. "Dinna worry, I will see to it that you have such a thing before the time comes. Slip the bridle on, but remember, the creature will no' be easily restrained, and if it knows what ye are about, then it will kill you."

"I know this is a dream. I want to wake up now."

"Aye, just a dream," the hag agreed gently, "but ye must remember it nonetheless. There is a monster in the loch and it belongs to the each-uisge . Have ye seen the loch monster, girl?"

"I think so. . . Last night something frightened the sheep."

"Aye, he comes through the door from the between-worlds, and he's always hungry. Dinna go too close to the water in the darkness, Arabella Ryan."

"I don't—"

The hag looked up suddenly and her eyes narrowed. She swept her green arisaid about her head, peering from the folds and shadows in a way that made Bella think that whatever the hag was looking at was very nasty.

She muttered something in Gaelic.

Bella tried to turn, but found she couldn't. Then the sound of movement behind her, a splashing in the shallows of the loch and a wet, dragging sound as something heavy approached across the stony beach.

"I want to wake up now."

The hag's eyes gleamed in the shadows of her arisaid, and now Bella could see an image within them. It was the loch monster, its skin scaled and dripping, with a head similar to that of a stag without the antlers, and yet long-necked like the pictures she had seen of the Loch Ness Monster. The smell of it hung in the air around them, like rotting fish. As Bella stared into the hag's eyes, she felt something fall onto her shoulder, something cold and slimy. Reaching up with a trembling hand, she felt it.

Water weed from the depths of the loch.

A cold, sour breath huffed against the flesh of Bella's nape, and the hag began to chant in Gaelic, softly and fiercely.

That was when Bella began to scream.

* * *

Maclean woke with a start, still shivering from his waking dream. He was alone in the dark kitchen and above him he heard Bella cry out. He didn't remember climbing the narrow stairs, but the next moment he was in her bedchamber, standing over her.

"Bella?"

"I want to wake up!"

"Bella, quiet yourself, 'tis but a dream."

He saw at once that this was true. Her face was tear-streaked, her long dark lashes clubbed together, her hair tangled about her. She was wearing her bedclothes, loose trousers of a sunset-pink and a long-sleeved shirt of yellow. The shirt was twisted about her and had been pulled up, disclosing the underside of one plump breast. Her trousers had slid down to rest on her rounded hips, and there was a stretch of curved belly, soft and pale and extremely tempting.

Maclean was holding his breath, all sensible thought vanished from his mind, leaving only a hot and desperate yearning.

Bella gasped again, twisting on her bed, and the shirt rose even higher. Her breast was half exposed now, the dark pink nipple contrasting with her lush creamy skin.

Maclean felt the yearning within him grow almost painful. He stretched out his hand toward her, tentative, wondering if a miracle might happen and that he might feel.

Because he wanted to. More than anything in a very long time, he wanted to feel the marvelous softness of her skin, bury his face against her and breathe in her scent, her warmth, her tranquillity. He needed her and it looked to him as if she needed him.

His shaking fingertips touched flesh. He bit back a groan. So soft, so smooth, so warm. Not daring to think in case it ended, he began to explore the curve of her breast, fingers shaking more than ever, holding his breath, afraid that the slightest sound might make it all stop.

Were women's bodies always this beautiful? he asked himself feverishly, as he ran his fingers over her nipple and felt it tighten and harden. He wanted to close his eyes and savor the sensation, but he dared not linger. In another moment he could be a wraith again, feeling nothing, hovering between life and death and not really inhabiting either.

She had calmed down, the nightmare passing, and now she made a little sound and turned her face away, presenting him with the curve of her jaw and ear and the delicate line of her neck. He touched her breast again, stroking the warm fullness, dizzy with the knowledge that he could feel again. And that she could feel him. Dinna stop , he thought. Dinna let it stop. I promise to go back to my hell without a fight if you dinna let it stop just yet. . .

His fingers glided down over her ribs to the rounded swell of her belly, and he cupped his palm over her hip. She shifted slightly, but not to move away. In her sleep she was pressing closer. Braver now, he trailed his fingers down to the edge of her trousers, where they rode low across her midriff. The cord was untied, making them loose, and when he slid his hand beneath there was no resistance.

Bella opened her legs, as if to invite him to touch. She murmured in her sleep. He let his hand follow its path down, through the warm soft hair that covered her mound, down into the slick, womanly folds.

His heart was pounding. The muscles and sinews of his body were taut, as though he were readying himself for battle. His breath was hurting his chest and his throat as he struggled to calm himself. It was so good. As he stroked her, felt the heat of her, he knew he had never felt anything so good, nor anything he had wanted so much.

She arched her back, pushing against his hand. Her own hands moved aimlessly across the rumpled quilt and sheets, and her lips parted as she murmured something, a word.

"Maclean."

"Bella," he whispered, his body alive and tingling and no longer a useless imitation of a man.

Asleep, she had shed the doubts and uncertainties that seemed to plague her waking self. She was all woman, beautiful and warm and passionate, and as he gently pressed his fingers into the core of her, she surged against him, seeking to bring herself to her peak. She moaned softly, then louder as he flicked his thumb against that tight, eager nub. She reached out and her fingers wrapped around his forearm, gripping him tightly, holding him just where she wanted him.

He laughed in delight, watching her, enjoying her. His own body was rigid with lust, but he didn't care about that. For so long he had not felt, and now he had no need to sate himself to experience the ultimate pleasure. Watching her was enough.

She was rubbing herself against him, gasping a little as the sensation built, the moisture on his hand telling him she was almost done. And then at last she peaked, crying out so wildly that he laughed again, pleased and admiring.

Here was a woman not afraid to enjoy herself! This was the real Bella, hot and sensual, unashamed of her body. His Bella, a woman to spend a lifetime with.

Suddenly Maclean realized she had gone very still.

Her fingers, still wrapped about his forearm, had relaxed and loosened. Now they tightened again, convulsively, and with a shriek she leapt away from him to the other end of the bed. He heard a thud as she fell off and hit the floor.

His body was aching with incompletion, but he did not mind. Observing her, pleasing her, had been enough for him for now, and such a thing did not even seem strange to him. He watched, amused, as her tousled hair appeared over the top of the mattress, and then two big eyes. He wondered what she would do when she saw him, and waited, his breath held.

She blinked, slowly, looking about the room. Looking at him, then past him, then through him.

Disappointment ravaged him, compounding the ache he was already suffering. She couldn't see him. He reached out but didn't dare to touch her again. He couldn't face the anguish if his hand passed through her.

Bella stood up, swaying a little, and pushed her hair out of her eyes. The bedclothing hugged her curves and he felt his body stir again. He wanted her, but what was the point of trying to ease his body on a woman who didn't know he was there? What if he fell right through her as if she were water?

He wanted to feel the warmth of her, her soft living flesh beneath him, her mouth against his. He wanted her eyes looking into his eyes. He wanted her to need him as much as he needed her.

"Dear God," she murmured. She reached and with shaking hands flicked on the light by the bed. Nothing happened. So she searched around, fumbling and cursing, and lit a candle. Then she sat down on the side of the bed and put her head in her hands.

Maclean looked at the dejected curve of her spine. He wanted to comfort her, but it was not something he excelled at—comforting women hadn't been part of his position as chief of the clan. But he was no longer a chief, and Bella needed kindness and understanding. . . Once again he went with his instincts.

"I didna mean to hurt you," Maclean said in his deep, slightly husky voice.

And Bella froze.