Page 5 of A Scot's Devotion
But it would. It had to be. He would do what he had to do for kin and country but nothing more. If he had any say in it, this would be a connection of convenience.
“Do ye think ye will have a say in it then?” Maeve had asked one spring day years before as they walked the shore behind his castle. Her brown eyes had been soft with wisdom. “Do ye not think ye will be destined for a great love across time like yer da and grand-da?”
“It doesnae matter.” He had reeled her closer, tilted up her chin, wanting to stare into her eyes forever. “This kind of love, what I feel for ye,” he shook his head, “’tis impossible to rival...to replace.”
Before he could kiss her, she spun away and shook her head. “Yet I suspect ‘twill come to be...that it must....”
He considered her, wondering not for the first time if her evasiveness was for another reason. Though he should leave it be, he could not stop his foolish tongue.
“This has naught to do with a lass from the future,” he’d murmured. “But a MacLeod here and now.”
“Och, nay,” she had replied softly, not raising her voice in denial because she knew better when it came to this. “I have told Cray the same as I have told ye.” Her pained eyes met his. “Ye're meant for another, love. Ye always have been.”
“Have ye told him that then?” He’d searched her eyes. “Have ye been as blunt with him as ye have with me? Because I dinnae think ye have. I dinnae think ye’re able.”
“’Tis more difficult with him.” Her eyes had welled. “And ye know that full well, my laird.”
“Aye,” he whispered aloud, pulled from his reverie when a car drove up and parked in front of the colonial. He would give anything to keep with thoughts of his beloved Maeve rather than do what he was about to do. To keep her close if only in memories and not be part of a MacLomain-Broun connection across time.
He watched the women who had arrived vanish into the house and sighed.
“I suppose ‘tis time,” he muttered, his breath foggy in the cold air. He narrowed his eyes on the dissipating moisture, curious for but a moment what lay beyond the fog.
Who Chloe really was.
Heading for the house before he lost his nerve, he tapped on the front door and waited, wondering if he should have gone about this differently. Mayhap he should have used whatever magic he could muster to summon her to the Stonehenge instead. But then that probably would not have worked considering she had already done the summoning with that ring of hers.
Why else would he have been pulled here?
When the door opened to a tall, dark haired woman, it took him a moment to get over an unexpected sinking sensation. Why, when he only intended to play a part, would he feel such disappointment? She was beautiful in her own right. Yet she lacked something unexplainable.
Something crucial.
“Who is it, Madison?” came another voice before a shorter woman appeared beside her and made his world shift. When her sparkling amber eyes met his, he thought for a moment he was slipping on ice. That he had lost his balance and fell. There was no other way to describe it.
“I don’t know,” the woman called Madison said. Her discreet gaze swept over him with quickly masked appreciation. “Though I have a funny feeling, he might know Tiernan.”
While he might be a good and noble chieftain, who had seen his fair share of battles and never turned coward, standing on that threshold suddenly terrified him. So much so that he did something he never could have imagined.
He walked away without saying a word.
Rather than face this and do for kin and country, he simply strode back toward the Stonehenge, cursing all the while at his cowardice. Cursing at his inability to look into a lass’s eyes without feeling such stark fear that he fled. Fear that the ring had indeed found its target.
He wasn’t ready.
Not now. Not yet. With any luck, he never would be.
There had to be another way to honor his country. Tosavehis country.
“Hey, wait up!” she called after him.
Hers was most certainly the voice from his dreams. The voice from the Stonehenge.
She was, without a doubt, Chloe.
“I know you, don’t I?” She chased after him. “Where do I know you from?”
He entered the forest and kept his eyes straight ahead. Persistent, she trotted up alongside, yanking her jacket on all the while.
