She didn’t believe in ghosts, magic, or treasure maps. She liked mysteries that were solved with common sense and good old-fashioned detective work. Anything else was too out there for her.
She would get up in the morning, make a very sensible list of things to do, and leave anything else in the realm of dreams, where it belonged.
Just being in Scotland was magic enough for her.
Chapter 2
A fire crackled and popped in a well-used hearth in an equally well-used pub, reflecting off the faces of three women who lingered north of Hadrian’s Wall in search of an elusive and reputedly quite exclusive quarry.
“I reminded us all before in the shop that he’s rich,” said the first.
“And gorgeous,” said the second. “Remember gorgeous.”
“Available,” purred the third. She looked narrowly at her mates. “If I find him, I get him.”
“You don’t know where to start looking,” scoffed the first. She paused and frowned. “I’m not sure any of us knows that, and that shopkeeper wasn’t keen on giving us directions earlier, was she?”
The third young woman waved away the concern. “She probably didn’t want to look daft. They swear he lives in this part of the Highlands, near this village, so what else is there to know?”
The first seemed to be unconvinced. “But there are many rich men here. Hard to decide which one he might be, wouldn’t you say?”
“But those rich men are married,” the second pointed out. “The lairds, that is. But he isn’t a laird, is he?”
“Does it matter?” asked the third. “If he cared to, he could likely buy himself a title.” She paused. “As we decided earlier, he’s a Scot.”
“And gorgeous,” the second said. “Still.”
“I think we’re forgetting the difficulty,” the first said with a sigh. “He is, as we know, reclusive.”
A hush fell over all three as they no doubt considered the difficulties that presented.
The recluse in question sat in the shadows, sipped his whisky, and tried not to draw attention to himself by rolling his eyes too loudly. By now he should have been used to all the scheming and plotting that had dogged his poor self for the past handful of years. There were more sightings of himself than Nessie. As time had passed and the steady stream of fortune hunters hadn’t abated, he’d begun to feel a kinship with the waterlogged beast. If he’d been able, he might have asked its advice on how to remain elusive on a long-term basis.
It was surely better than the alternative.
“But he has a lovely name,” said the second girl. “Nathan MacLeod—”
“Oh, you’re an idiot,” the first one said. She seemed to be something of an authority on their current subject. “His name is Nathaniel MacLeod.”
“His middle name is Fergusson,” the third said, “but that likely isn’t anything we should say too loudly here. I understand they’re not a popular clan in this area.”
“A Fergusson,” the second said breathlessly. “My granny was a Fergusson. I can use that to bond with him right from the start.”
Nathaniel set his whisky aside and decided he’d heard enough. Nay, the Fergussons weren’t a popular lot in the area, but that likely had more to do with the local constabulary than anything that lay in the past. Sadly enough, he’d become something of an expert in what had gone on in the past with those lads.
He was also an expert in his own genealogy, which allowed him to state with a fair degree of certainty that his mother had indeed been a Fergusson, his father a MacLeod, and it had been a love match from their first exchanged glance over the threshold of a little cottage in the woods up the way. He had spent three decades enjoying their obvious love for each other before—
Well, before his life had taken a radical detour from what he’d had planned, which was something he did his damndest not to think about any more than he had to. He rose, nodded to the barkeep, and made his way without dawdling from the pub. He heard quick footsteps behind him and cursed himself for not being swift enough to make his escape.
“Nat, you forgot your change.”
He stopped on the street and looked back to find Fiona MacLeod standing there. She was, thankfully, just the tavern keeper’s daughter, not one of the trio of lassies on the hunt for his reputedly handsome and filthy rich self. “Change?” he echoed.
“Da said you forgotten it. Thirteen pound eight-seven.” She smiled. “Likely don’t want to forget that much, aye?”
“Definitely not,” he said, holding out his hand. If that hand shook, well, perhaps it was dark enough that only he would notice. He gave Fiona a hefty tip, but that didn’t erase what she’d said.
1387, if one were to remove critical punctuation.
“You off on another adventure?” Fiona asked.
He wondered absently if he would ever manage to hide his surprise when things caught him off guard. With all the practice he’d had over the course of his very long thirty-five years, he should have been better at it. Unfortunately, he imagined he looked as if Fiona had just planted her foot in his gut, but there you had it. His life was not one fit for lengthy scrutiny.
“Adventure?” he wheezed.
“You know,” she said, “all that moneymaking Da says you do. Jetting off to London or New York.”
“Paris,” he said thickly. “’Tis Paris this week.”
“I wish I could jet off,” she said wistfully. “It sounds exciting.”
If she only knew. “You have time yet,” he said.
“I’m sixteen. Old enough for jetting off.”
He managed a smile. “Not with me, lass, but I’ll bring you something back from my next trip and let your father inspect it for propriety.”
“Oh, would you really?”
He started to assure her that he would, but he was distracted by the feel of something unseen figuratively tapping him on the shoulder. Fate, no doubt, or perhaps one of her more ironic cohorts such as Father Time. He didn’t bother to investigate who it might be. He simply advised Fiona MacLeod to get herself back inside, then walked away before he thought he might need to be running.
1387. Those were numbers that didn’t care to be ignored for too long.
He jumped inside his decrepit Range Rover, apparently the vehicle of choice for any self-respecting recluse, and wasted no time in getting himself home. If he drove a bit more quickly than he might have otherwise, who could blame him? He had a schedule to meet, a schedule that certainly wasn’t one he set for himself. He knew better than to argue when he began to feel the pull of something that, if someone else had been describing it to him, he would have considered completely barking. There were times he almost wondered if he might be losing his mind.
He put his car behind his house in its accustomed spot and let himself in the back door. The only benefit to his current life, he supposed, was finally feeling as though he had a home. Perhaps five years of being rained on and eaten alive by midges was enough to claim his rightful place amongst the ranks of proper Scots.
That last bit he cherished, if he were to be a bit maudlin about it all.
He dropped his keys on the table and went to fetch his gear. The only trouble was, when he felt called on one of these, ah, journeys, he never knew how long they would last or what he would find whilst on them. He could only hope the present summons to a time definitely not his own would entail a brief stay. He had emails to check and business to see accomplished in the current day.
The current day. Even thinking it made him sound daft.
He strapped his sword to his back, then pulled it free of the scabbard, just in case. Truly, he had to do something about his current straits. He was definitely the one living his life, but it was beginning to feel a little surreal. Heaven help him if anyone became entangled in his madness.
He helped himself to a couple of chocolate diges
tives, checked to make sure the fire in his stove was properly banked and the kettle wasn’t left on the stove, then walked over to the door. He took a deep breath, opened the door, then stepped outside.
The whistle of a blade coming his way had him ducking before he even thought about what he needed to do to save his own sweet neck.
And the game, as the saying went, was on.
• • •
It was noon the next day before he had the chance to truly catch his breath. He stood with a pair of companions inside the safety of the MacLeod keep and was grateful to be out of the rain.
“’Tis unusual that you’re back,” Angus MacLeod said suspiciously. “A miracle, one might say.”
“Ach, leave off, ye fool,” Lachlan MacLeod said with a gusty sigh. “He comes and goes as he pleases, as he’s been doing for years now.”
“If I didn’t ken better,” Angus continued stubbornly, “I’d say he were a witch.”
Nathaniel didn’t care for the tone of Angus’s voice, as it happened, and generally did his best to do whatever it took to dispel anything that might cause it. When one loitered in a time and place not one’s own, it was best to fit in as thoroughly as possible. He shot the laird’s son a skeptical look. “Are ye that daft in truth, Angus?”
“He is,” Lachlan MacLeod said with a snort. He reached over and slapped Angus on the back of the head. “He’s a lad, ye fool, not a witch.”
“A ghostie, then,” Angus insisted.
“Angus, stop being daft,” Lachlan said, sending Angus a look that said he’d do well to shut his mouth very soon indeed. “Never know when he’ll come home, but I’m always relieved to see him. Ye might share that feeling when ye think about how he saved yer sorry arse last evening.”
Angus mumbled his thanks, which Nathaniel accepted loudly and with an equal amount of praise heaped on the head of Malcolm MacLeod’s son, because when one found himself standing in a keep full of medieval clansmen, one also tended to want to be as pleasant and accommodating as possible. Angus had his reasons for not particularly liking Nathaniel, but those were reasons Nathaniel couldn’t change for him, so he tended to let them lie.
He accepted a cup of ale from a rather handsome serving wench, toasted his backside against the fire in the middle of the hall floor, and draped the persona of laird’s bastard son around his shoulders like a well-loved plaid. He was happy enough for something warm to drink and someplace safe to linger for the moment. Getting to the keep had been a dodgy business the night before, only because when he’d walked out of his house, he’d walked right into a bit of a disagreement between raiding parties from neighboring clans. He supposed he was fortunate to be alive to even enjoy the memory of those heart-stopping moments.
But since he was alive and warm, he sipped at his strengthening brew and considered the absolute improbability of his life.
He was, as fate would have it, the middle son of a simple Scottish girl and a dyed-in-the-wool Anglophile, grandson of extremely old New York money, and founder of a very successful venture capital group. He owned a couple of cars, played too much golf, and was never equal to resisting the lure of coffee in a Parisian sidewalk cafe. His life wasn’t without its complications, but he had good attorneys and a decently large bank account.
That was in the present day.
Or, rather, in the future. He suppressed the urge to scratch his head over what was when. There were times he honestly had trouble keeping his location straight.
His location at present—in the past, of course—was Scotland during the glorious Year of Our Lord’s Grace 1387, and his persona was medieval bastard. He was extremely thankful that Malcolm MacLeod had been so indiscreet about his liaisons, for it provided him with a perfect cover story. That he needed a cover story was something that left him wanting to find something very strong to drink if he thought about it too long.
Then again, the situation on a fundamental level was absolutely barking. It was certainly nothing he’d ever expected to have happen to him, partly because he had never considered the possibility of the same. Time travel? Medieval clansmen with his death on their minds?
Ridiculous.
Yet there he’d been one pleasant afternoon, enjoying a round of golf with his father and his sire’s younger brother at a small, private tournament, wagering substantial sums of money in an effort to distract his relatives and himself from his own mother’s untimely death, when a spot of inclement weather had sent him and his uncle scampering for cover in a handy bit of forest.
That was when things had gone awry.
He didn’t like to think about the handful of days that had followed. Apparently one did not present himself at the keep of the laird of the clan MacLeod in 1382 without a damned good reason as to why he found himself there. He’d thought his subsequent capture and deposit into the dungeon had been a practical joke at first, but that had only lasted a few hours before he’d realized that he had fallen down some sort of rabbit hole to another world entirely. He’d seen his share of dungeons, true, having indulged his curiosity for medieval things fairly regularly over the course of his life, but he’d never seen one that had been as full of vermin and muck as the place he and his uncle had been tossed.
He’d honestly thought he would never see daylight again.
He and his uncle John had been hauled out of that hellhole eventually, though, and he had immediately trotted out a tale that would have made his most despised medieval literature tutor weep with joy. He had styled himself a lesser of the bastards sired by the laird himself, and identified his companion, Master John, as a very pious priest who had been so overcome by the opulence of the castle’s dungeon that he had been rendered mute. He supposed he had been extremely fortunate that Laird Malcolm’s roaming habits had unwittingly furnished him with details for a tale that had satisfied most everyone within earshot.
His escape from that alternate, medieval reality had been as abrupt as his entrance and just as inexplicable. He’d eventually staggered out of that Highland forest without his uncle because he hadn’t been able to talk the fool into coming with him. That was perhaps a tale better thought on at a different time.
He’d run all the way back to his rental cottage, found himself proper clothes, then checked his phone only to find that his father had been taken to hospital in Inverness. He’d arrived there in time to watch his father clutch his chest a final time, then shuffle off this mortal coil.
He’d been devastated.
He’d gone through the motions of grieving, burying, and settling affairs. He’d thought his inadvertent trip to the past had been an aberration, something he could chalk up to bad luck and too much whisky.
He had quickly discovered how wrong he’d been.
That had been five years ago. He was currently older, wiser, and thoroughly and unwillingly fluent in medieval Gaelic. He had absolutely no idea how that improved his life in modern-day Scotland, but he supposed it might come in handy at some point. It certainly came in useful in the past, which was currently his present.
He had another long drink of ale. It seemed the very least he could do.
He looked around the hall at present for any stray, inebriated priests, but his uncle was nowhere to be found. John was a mystery. He had indeed flirted with the idea of being a vicar in the twenty-first century, but he had also been a compulsive gambler, an obsessive golfer, and a lover of all sorts of drink. His wife was gone and his children off and grown. Perhaps in the end it didn’t matter to the man where he found himself, though Nathaniel suspected his uncle missed the links. No amount of trying to convince him to come back to the future had swayed him, so Nathaniel had left him where he was and watched over him as often as time permitted.
As for himself, the traveling back and forth at the whims of a pocket watch–clutching worker of destiny—perhaps it was Father Time with his hand on the wheel, as it were—was starting
to wear on his patience, but he was still trying to work that out. When he spent at least half of his life with a sword in his hands, trying to keep his head on his shoulders and his belly unpierced by medieval steel, he tended to look at the viscidities of modern life with a bit more who-gives-a-damn than he might have otherwise.
It was a bit like a chess game, he had decided. He wasn’t unaccustomed to games of strategy when it came to his business so he understood the principles well enough, but he didn’t necessarily care for them in his private life. His time in the past, he had come to believe, was governed by the accomplishment of something that only he could see to. Once that deed had been done for that particular foray into a time not his own, he was always free to go home until called for again. Why there wasn’t another bloody MacLeod clansman capable of doing what he did, he couldn’t have said.
It was just so damned gratifying to be needed.
“Weel, let’s be about it then,” Lachlan said, setting his cup on the floor and stretching his hands over his head. He grinned evilly at Nathaniel. “Best blend into the forest as usual, aye?”
“As you say,” Nathaniel agreed.
If there was anything he was a master at, it was blending in. He supposed he’d learned the art early on thanks to his parents, both of whom had perfected the skill of being whatever they’d needed to be at the time to appease family and friends, then carrying on with their own lives when alone. He had honestly never thought the skill would be so useful to him, but life was, as he tended to admit after a pint or two, extremely strange.
After all, it wasn’t every day that a man could find himself worrying about where his most volatile stocks would land before market close in the morning, then find himself using a medieval broadsword to defend an equally medieval keep later on that afternoon.
“Those bloody Fergussons,” Angus complained. “Why are there always so many of them?”
“’Tis a good thing,” Lachlan said, slapping his cousin on his back. “What would we do else?”