Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

B ella spent a useful couple of hours in the Ardloch library. The small section dedicated to Maclean was little more than a rehashing of the legend, but Bella knew that if she could discover the source of that legend she would be on her way to understanding who had the most to gain from besmirching Maclean's name and reputation.

And now there was new information she needed to follow up on: Ishbel Macleod, Maclean's hostage and the woman he had planned to wed.

After a quick search in the Ardloch collection, she chose a couple of histories of the Macleod clan, one of them a poorly produced document on the local Mhairi branch and the other a far more professional effort on the part of the Macleods of Skye. Hoping they might contain something about Ishbel Macleod, Bella borrowed these two books. She couldn't help worrying about Maclean and where he might have gotten to. What if he was lost or in trouble? What if he had vanished altogether? What if he was looking for her and couldn't find her? When the niggling worry couldn't be ignored any longer, Bella collected her books and left.

Outside, there'd been another rain shower and the sun was lower. There was a bite in the air and she zipped up her pink jacket. As she strode along the street, she could see many of the shops were closed, and the shoppers and workers had gone home to their families and their television soaps. By the time Bella did her shopping at the little supermarket outside of town and drove home to Drumaird Cottage, it would be twilight, although the northern twilight could last until eleven at night at this time of year.

Assuming she could find Maclean, of course.

Bella wondered whether she would have to wait here until he turned up, or if she should just go home and hope he would find his own way back. It wasn't as if she could go to the local police station and report him as missing.

Missing. Highlander, six feet four inches tall, wearing traditional Scottish dress, two hundred and fifty years old, invisible.

Yeah, right.

The car was where she had left it, but no longer surrounded by others; it now sat alone. Bella found herself glancing over her shoulder as she released the locks. The soft beep sounded very loud. Footsteps approached her from behind, and before she could turn, she heard the voice that in so short a time had already grown familiar.

"I was waiting for you, Bella."

He was still angry.

"I was working, Maclean."

He gave that scornful snort, as if the idea of her working were somehow laughable. Her own anger ignited. Perhaps if she'd thought about it she'd have realized his bad mood was because of what he'd read in the museum, and his prejudice was due to the period he was born into and the position he held, but she was remembering Brian and how he was always quick to criticize, and to treat her work as less relevant than anything he did.

"Excuse me? Do you think I'm here just to chauffeur you about? You might have been important once, Maclean, but as far as everyone here is concerned, you're dead and gone. I have a book to write, that's how I make my living. This is the twenty-first century and women stand on their own two feet. We don't need men to look after us, we don't want men to look after us. We make our own lives and we expect to be treated with the same respect as men because of it. If you don't like that, then I suggest you move out into the heather and sleep there with the sheep."

"I dinna sleep anyway," he said quietly.

"Well, whatever it is you do!"

There was a silence. She could hear herself breathing hard. It was so annoying that she couldn't see his expression and read what he was thinking, although she could probably guess. It was unlikely Maclean had ever been spoken to like that before. His people probably approached him with their eyes lowered and prostrated themselves before him until he gave them permission to stand.

"I have nowhere else to go," he said woodenly.

"Is that my problem?"

She sounded cruel, and she was lying. She did think it was her problem; Maclean had landed on her doorstep. But he needed to understand that this was now and if she helped him it was because she wanted to and not because he ordered her to.

"You dinna trust me," he said bleakly.

"I don't know you, Maclean. But I'm trying."

He took a heavy breath. "Verra well. I'll try and remember what you said. Men and women are equal. Sheep, too?"

"Don't be fatuous."

"Like you, Bella, I'm trying."

He didn't sound arrogant or pompous. He sounded like a man coming to terms with something he'd rather not have to think about. Bella opened the car door and climbed in, and waited while the other door opened and closed, too. She felt Maclean settling himself in the passenger seat, the car rocking slightly from his weight.

She said briskly, "I have to stop at the little supermarket on the way out of town. The place where I buy food and . . . and things. It'll still be open."

He said nothing, and when they arrived at the cash and carry he declined to come inside with her. Sulking, probably, Bella thought as she rushed through the aisles, grabbing what she needed, and hurried out again. Oh well, she was used to men who sulked, and if he thought he could outlast her, then he was wrong. Soon they were leaving Ardloch behind and heading back on the narrow road to Loch Fasail.

"Did you find what you wanted in the library?"

He was trying to make conversation. Maclean had surprised her again. Bella smiled in his direction, pleased he was not like Brian. "I have some books to look at, yes, but I don't have high hopes. You were an enigma, Maclean, and when your people died they took the truth with them. I was hoping to find some sort of written account from around the time the . . . it happened, but no luck so far. There don't seem to have been any witnesses."

He grunted.

They lapsed into silence. Bella allowed her thoughts to touch on her current financial situation. She hadn't been joking when she told Maclean she had to finish this book. Her royalties weren't huge, but at least the money was all hers, not her father's, and these days she was determined to live within her means without dipping into his legacy. Brian didn't have the same moral doubts, but maybe that was because his tastes were more expensive than hers. She'd never questioned his actions. "Our money" she'd called it, in the days when love was blind.

She glanced sideways at her invisible companion.

"Are you feeling better?"

Maclean shifted in his seat. "Better?"

"You were upset in the museum."

"You mean am I feeling better that my people were all murdered by the English and it was my fault—according to legend?"

"I suppose I do mean that. Have you remembered anything more?"

"I went after Ishbel, aye, I've remembered that. She ran off with my piper's son. What man would not go after her? I followed her to Mhairi." He sounded stiff and self-righteous.

Maclean chased Ishbel to Mhairi and left his people unprotected? What did that say about his feelings for Ishbel?

Bella eased around a hairpin bend, the road dropping away into the shadows below them. "Did you love her, Maclean?" Bella had no right to be jealous, but she found herself awaiting his answer with held breath.

"No," he growled.

Bella refused to feel relieved. "Well, whatever the case, you went after Ishbel and . . . Look, I'm not saying that if you'd been there you could have saved them all, but—"

"Unless it was my own black-hearted plan for the English to come and kill everyone," he said wryly, but there was deep pain simmering below his level voice, and Bella felt it.

"I don't believe that," she said quietly. "You cared too much, Maclean. You were too good a chief. You wanted to save lives, not give them up for . . . well, for what?"

Her believing in him seemed to please him.

"Thank you, Bella." He shifted restlessly in his seat. "Do you think we can stop a moment? I feel . . . my stomach is all in knots. I think it's the car that does it, I'm no' used to it yet."

"Oh." She glanced at him uneasily. A ghost that suffered from car sickness? She slowed and pulled over into the next passing place, although there was no other traffic on the road. For a moment they sat in silence, then the passenger door was thrown open and Maclean was gone.

Bella climbed out of the car after him.

The shadows were long, the sun just butting the horizon between two monolithic hills, and everything looked as if it had been dipped in gold. She blinked and for a heartbeat she thought she saw him, the dark shape of him, moving against the light. She set off after him at a run.

"Maclean!"

The edge of the road fell away quickly and there was a sort of promontory jutting out here, overlooking the narrow glen below, turning it into a scenic lookout, with a low railing to prevent accidents. She stopped, breathing quickly. Where was he? Anxiously she called his name again.

"I'm here." His voice was so close it startled her.

"What are you doing? You're frightening me."

His hand brushed her arm. "I dinna mean to. I felt queasy, but it's passed. I dinna like your car, Bella."

"I'm sorry."

"I canna forget the lies I read in that wee cottage, that museum."

"We'll find out the truth, Maclean. Trust me, I've done it before."

His breathing sounded thick. "Trust ye?"

"Yes. I can help you, Maclean."

She felt his fingers beneath her chin, lifting her face up as if he were searching it. He laughed softly, recklessly.

"There's no guile in you, Bella. Your sweet face is so honest and clear. So, aye, I'll trust ye," he said, just before his lips closed on hers. They were warm and a little rough, and heat filled her instantly, making her head spin. She felt herself responding.

"Mmm"—his voice was low and husky— "ye taste good."

He tasted good, too. In a moment she'd be lost, and she didn't want that. Bella tried to clear her thoughts, to put some distance between them. She stepped back, holding out her hands. "No. I don't think this is a good idea."

"Bella," he groaned, "you want me, I can feel it. Why will ye not let us enjoy each other while we can?"

"Because I don't want to be hurt."

"I would ne'er hurt you!" he said indignantly.

"That's easy to say."

"I say it because it's true!" He spun away, his steps crunching on the gravel. He was moving against the setting sun and . . . Bella squinted her eyes. She really could see his silhouette. Big and dark, with broad shoulders and the kilt swinging from his hips. It was him.

"Maclean," she cried, "I can see you!"

"You can what?" he demanded crossly.

"I can see you against the sun. Your silhouette."

He turned and faced her. He was a featureless, colorless shadow bathed in gold, but it was more than he had been before. Maclean was there, in front of her, looking back at her.

" I can see you ," she breathed.

He laughed. He threw back his head and laughed, and in it there was joy mixed with such despair that tears sprang to her eyes.

He walked toward her, the dark shape of him getting larger, until she tilted her head to look into his face. He wasn't really opaque to look at, she realized, she could still see the vague shapes of the hills through him, as though through a dark mist. But when she reached out and pressed her hand to his chest he was as solid to touch as any living man.

He caught her fingers and held them gently in his big hand.

"Mabbe it is because my memory is returning."

"Maybe."

"Or mabbe it is you, beautiful Bella."

He was gazing down at her, and for a moment she thought she saw his eyes, pale blue, in the dark shadow of his face. Bella shuddered. She was afraid, afraid of what he was, of being tangled up in something far beyond her understanding, and afraid of the way she was so powerfully attracted to him. Danger swirled around him, and if she wasn't careful she'd be drawn in and swallowed whole.

"What is it?" he said in such a tender voice that her heart ached. "Are you cold, Bella?"

"Yes." She was a coward, but she couldn't say what was really in her mind and her heart. Not yet.

And then she gave a gasp of laughter, because Maclean, the monster of legend, the black-hearted warrior who killed with one swing of his mighty claidheamh mor , had wrapped his arms around her and was holding her close to his own body.

Keeping her warm.