Page 33 of Highlander Unraveled
He moved his eyes back and forth, indicating the woman who’d helped me. I glanced at her and Mrs. MacDonald smiled, wiping her hands dry on a towel.
“Is everything all right?” she asked. “How about some dessert? I saw a pie in the fridge.”
“Apple,” Mr. McAlister said. “Moira’s favorite.”
I nodded, forcing a bright smile to my face, because I didn’t want Mrs. MacDonald to think anything strange was happening, but my mind was a jumble of confusion.
Mr. McAlister didn’t trust Mrs. MacDonald.
I didn’t completely trust either of them.
And I’d opened up and told McAlister things that were sacred. Secrets that if they got into the wrong hands could be damaging to my loved ones and me. And yet, it was a risk I’d had to take on the off chance he could help me.
The pie was served, and though it was delicious, I could barely eat more than two bites. I stood up from the table, carrying my plate to the sink. “I’m exhausted. If you’ll excuse me. Mrs. MacDonald, thank you so much for dinner, and Mr. McAlister, it was great to meet you.”
“I’ll be in touch,” Mr. McAlister said.
“There’s no need, really. I won’t be here long.”
“Sweet dreams, dear.” Mrs. MacDonald’s gaze shifted over me oddly, made me feel uncomfortable for a moment, as though she wished me the exact opposite in truth. A night filled with nightmares, which in all likelihood, unless I met Logan again upon the glen, a sleep filled with terror seemed very likely.
Her sinister glance was fleeting and I wondered if I’d just imagined it. Her eyes sparkled at me and she smiled sweetly.
“Good night,” I murmured, without energy to examine her strange behavior further.
I wandered up the stairs, a stranger in a house full of strangers. Inside Shona’s room, I locked the door. Definitely more conscious than automatic. I felt safer behind a lock.
A few moments later, I heard the front door open and close. I slipped from bed to peek between the blinds. Mr. McAlister stood in the dim shine of the lamppost. He was staring at Mrs. MacDonald’s car and then back at the house. He slipped something from his pocket, walked around the back of the car and keeping his eye on the house, ducked behind the trunk.
A moment later, he rose and jogged across the street, waiting a few moments in the shadows before climbing into another vehicle, which must have been his own.
What had he been doing to her car? What was the thing in his hand? A tracking device? That went way beyond simply not trusting someone to all out freaky stalking.
Definitely fishy. My earlier thoughts about him not trusting the woman downstairs were confirmed and then some.
Though he’d gotten into his car, he didn’t pull away. He didn’t even turn it on. Like he was hiding. Or waiting.
What was he waiting for?
I wanted to wrench open the window and shout that very question. What the heck was going on? What was all the mystery? Why did I feel so lost in a world that should be more familiar to me than the one I lived in?
1544 was a brutal time, yes, but it was also so simple.
Downstairs I could hear Mrs. MacDonald shuffling around. The sound of voices had my spine stiffening, my pulse skyrocketing. But it was only the television. An old re-run ofFriends, it sounded like.
For goodness’ sake, Mr. McAlister had me all sorts of freaked out.
No longer as exhausted as I had been after dinner, too intrigued with the mystery, I sat in the window box, tucking my knees up toward my chest, wincing at the ache in my breasts, and waited. I wasn’t sure what it was I was waiting for, but that didn’t matter. I was too freaked out to sleep. My imagination was running wild with the legend of the Ayreshire girls and talk of time jumpers. And spies. And bad guys.
If I even tried to sleep, that was all I was likely to dream about. I shivered, rubbing at the goosebumps on my arms.
I just wanted to go home. To have Saor in my arms, as Logan cradled me in his.
I squinted out the window, trying to be non-conspicuous behind the blinds, as if that was going to help me see better into Mr. McAlister’s car. Was he going to sleep there? Did he think something was going to happen?
Wassomething going to happen?
Every time someone walked down the street, I nearly leapt out of my skin. When the nosy neighbor lady came out of her house to put a bag of trash at the roadside, I held my breath, half expecting men clad in black suits to leap from nowhere and grab her.
