Sword of the Highlander (3 page)

Niall looked down at his plaid. “What be wrong with my
breacan feile
? ‘Tis of the finest weave.”

“It is.” Cassidy took a key from her purse and inserted it into the lock on the door. “And, in Haight-Ashbury—even here in lower Haight—people don’t look askance at someone dressed like a Highlander, but in the rest of San Fran, it would be best if you dressed like the rest of us. Keep a low profile.”

“Profile?” Niall turned to the side and looked down at her. “Ye do not like my looks?”

“No. I mean… Yes, I do. Um, well, not that I mean…” Heat warmed her face and Cassidy then tossed her head. “Your profile has nothing to do with your looks. What I meant was, that until we can figure a way to return you to 1039, it would be better if we didn’t draw attention to you.”

“Verra well, then. I’ll hunt some game in that wee forest back there in the morn, afore we go.”

Her brow furrowed. “Forest? Oh. You mean Buena Vista Park. There’s no hunting there.”

“Saks, lass! Where do ye find yer meat then?”

“In a supermarket.”

Niall looked down the street in the fading twilight. “I see no market.”

“Never mind. I’ll explain tomorrow.” Cassidy opened the door and touched a switch that flooded the room with light.

He followed her in. She had touched such a thing earlier in the store that had made it dark. It was very interesting, this world.

“Once it gets dark outside, it’s better to be indoors.” She slid a bolt into place across the door.

“Ye fear intruders?” Niall quickly drew his sword from the baldric on his back and widened his stance.

Cassidy jumped back. “No, no. Not really. You can put that down.”

Niall lowered the sword and looked around. “Ye have windows that need defending. Do ye not have a guard?”

“No. I really don’t need one. It’s just that, at night, the criminal element comes out. Gangs. Pimps. They won’t bother us if we’re inside.”

He frowned. “Be these street ruffians?”

“Something like that.”

“Faugh! They be nae match for my sword, lass.” He looked over to the box he’d placed by the door when they’d come in. “Especially not for
Mac an Luinne
.”

She followed his gaze. “I wish you’d let me lock that up.”

“Nae. It stays with me.”

Cassidy opened her mouth to retort and then stopped. “Well, it’s here. Let’s go into the kitchen and I’ll fix us something to eat.”

He took both swords with him and went to stand at the kitchen window in case a ruffian should show his face. His fingers itched to show her how he would make quick work of one.

“Why do yer
maithar
and da let ye live alone?” he asked.

Her eyes grew moist. “My parents were killed in a car accident a year ago. I don’t have any brothers or sisters.”

He hated how sad she looked. “‘Tis sorry I am for ye.”

She forced a tight smile. “I’m managing.” Turning, she opened the door to a big box and cold air came out of it.

So she didn’t want to speak of it anymore. He quickly changed the subject. “What is that?”

“A refrigerator. It keeps food fresh.”

He moved closer for a better look. A package of what looked like red meat and a clear bag that held something spiny intrigued him. “Ye keep meat in here? ‘Tis why ye do not have to hunt in the morn?”

“Something like that.” Cassidy took out two cold bottles of water and handed one to him. “Go sit while I fix dinner.”

He studied the bottle and, from beneath his lashes, watched as she twisted the top off of hers. Trying to appear casual, he turned the top on his too. The water was surprisingly good.

Niall watched as Cassidy moved around the small room. He wasn’t sure what held his attention more…seeing the lush outline of her bottom in the strange pants or the strange objects in the kitchen. Oblivious to his eyes focused on her delicious behind, she set two pots of water on top of a surface that glowed red and soon, steam rose from them.

“What sort of fire be that?”

“It’s a stove.” She dropped the spiny things into one pot and something that looked like sticks into the other, then opened a box below the ‘stove’ and put something wrapped in shiny metal into it. Seeing his expression, she smiled. “Bread. It goes in this oven and heats up without fire.”

“‘Tis wonderous.” The MacBheatha would never believe him when he told all he’d seen here.

“I guess so, but I’ve always enjoyed camping out, building fires from scratch, and making do with what nature offers. I earned all sorts of awards as a Girl Scout.” He frowned and she explained the organization to him.

“‘Tis what we do when we foster children…they learn their duties at the hands of another laird,” he said.

“Sort of.” Cassidy opened a bottle of chilled Chardonnay and sat down at the table beside him. “I’ve always been interested in history. Do you know that one day a man named Shakespeare will write a play about MacBeth?”

He widened his eyes. “MacBheatha will be king then?”

“Oh, yes. Has he met the witches that give him the prophecy yet?”

“I ken of no witches, lass.”

“They’re in the play. They tell MacBeth to be bold and not fear any man, for none of a woman born will ever harm him.”

Niall raised an eyebrow. “‘Tis a powerful prediction.”

“It’s also a test. Will MacBeth become too arrogant or will he be a truly good king?”

“He is fair and just, even now.”

“Um.” Cassidy’s face took on a far-away look. “I wonder what it would be like to actually meet MacBeth? To live a part of history?” She gave herself a little shake and got up to check on the pasta and crab. Returning to the table, she poured more wine. “Well, in the play, once he kills old Duncan off—”

“Duncan be not auld,” Niall interrupted. “The lad be hardly more than dry behind the ears. Although he acts without thought more than not.”

Cassidy furrowed her brows. “Perhaps Shakespeare took poetic license with the age. The witches also tell MacBeth he will never be vanquished until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane Hill.”

“Ye speaks riddles, lass! How can a forest move?”

“It’s a play-on-words. Malcolm and MacDuff cut branches to hold in front of them, so it’s like the forest is moving.”

Niall grimaced. “Ye say Malcolm? The lad is just a pup.”

“But he flees to Britain once MacBeth kills his father, Duncan. He returns in…1058, I think. He and MacDuff come to Dunsinane…” She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.

“What is it, lass?”

“Dunsinane is where MacBeth gets killed.”

Tightening his jaw, Niall fingered the sword he had laid on the table. “Then I must get back with
Mac an Luinne
to stop this.”

“I don’t know if you can change history.”

“I must try.” He rested his hand lightly on the pommel. “I ken I was sent to bring the sword home. On the morrow, I will give more thought to it.” Niall sniffed the air appreciatively. “Whatever ye are making, it smells good.”

“And should be ready in just a few minutes.” She got up and removed a bowl from the refrigerator. “I’ll just heat up the Alfredo sauce and we’ll be ready.”

Niall watched in fascination as she used something she called a microwave and how efficiently she drained water from the now soft sticks and put together the rest of the meal. She would make a man a good wife…and she would be capable of running a castle in his absence. He stopped himself. Where had that thought come from? She wasn't from his time.

He was amazed that she did everything herself. “Have ye no servants to tend to such?’ he asked as she whisked the dishes away after they ate and put them inside another type of metal box.

“Only the wealthy have servants,” she said in an off-hand manner and picked up the wine bottle. “Would you care for more?”

“Aye. ‘Tis verra smooth.” He held out his glass and watched how gracefully she poured without spilling a drop. He reached up and fingered a soft, burnished curl. “Ye are verra bonnie, lass.”

A rosy blush graced her cheeks as she placed the empty bottle on the counter. “I’ve always thought myself rather plain.”

Niall stood and trailed two fingers down her soft cheek and then ran his thumb along her jaw. “Dinna ever think ye are less than beautiful, lass.”

She looked up at him, startled, her eyes as misty green as spring fields of heather. “No one has ever called me beautiful. Ever.”

He had the strongest urge to gather her into his arms and ravage her lips, taking her mouth with his tongue until he had kissed her senseless with passion. But she was betrothed to another. He contented himself with brushing her lips softly with a butterfly kiss before he stepped back.

Cassidy’s eyes darkened briefly and her heartbeat fluttered in her slim, milky throat, before she took a deep breath. “I think I’d better get the couch ready for you to sleep on.”

He glanced into the small living room and then to another door farther down the short hallway. “Is that where ye sleep?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will sleep there as well.” He strode over and opened the door.

Cassidy hurried after him. “You can’t.”

“Nae?”

“There’s only one bed.”

He lifted a corner of his mouth in a half-grin. “Aye. I can see that. And there be a window in here. I willna let a ruffian look in on ye or worse.”

“I shouldn’t have told you about the…the ruffians. I’m perfectly safe inside this room. And… Well... You can’t expect me to share the bed with you.”

Niall tilted his head. “Nothing would please me more, lass, than to share yon bed with ye, but ye need have no fear. Ye are betrothed. I willna dishonor ye.”

He left the room, only to return quickly with the two swords. Dragging the one, rather large armchair toward the window, he sank down into it.

“Now ye can go to sleep, lass. I am here.”

~ * ~

She certainly didn’t sleep well. Cassidy opened one eye slowly as sunlight drifted in her window. The Highlander was still there, sitting in the chair with his eyes closed, the great swords crossed over his thighs. Not a dream then. Her body responded to his presence. She didn’t remember ever waking up to Aubrey nearby with this longing
ache
…but then, Aubrey was an intellectual who compartmentalized his life. He would probably laugh at her if she tried to describe every nerve ending tingling…waiting…
wanting
to be touched. But then, how many women in the twenty-first century woke up to find a medieval warrior in their bedrooms?

Four

She was still asking herself that question two hours later. She’d fixed breakfast and explained, very logically, that he couldn’t carry two huge claymores down the street. He had looked at her incredulously and then launched into an argument that brought out every chauvinistic trait ever known to man. He had to protect her, he said, and how was a ‘mon’ to do that if denied his weapons? And she really didn’t need to understand Gaelic to get the meaning of the words he’d muttered when she told him that his dirk was included in the ‘no carry’ too.

Cassidy breathed a sigh of relief as they stepped off the Market Street trolley and walked over to Macy’s East. Niall’s size and his ferocious glare at anyone who looked at Cassidy kept most of the passengers’ eyes averted.

It was quite a different story when they entered the store. Women shoppers stopped talking to stare at him. Some smiled seductively. Male clerks gave him appreciative looks, some lingering on his bare legs. Cassidy took his arm to hurry him along before he noticed. She was pretty sure medieval warriors took offense at such things.

Niall patted her hand. “I’ll nae let anything happen to ye here. I ken well ye were afeared on that great contraption we rode on.”

“I was not…” She stopped. Her
fear
had been that someone on the trolley would snigger at his kilt or worse, a man would come on to him, and all bedlam would break loose.

“‘Tis fine, lass. And I’ll nae leave ye here, even if those women were inviting me with their eyes.”

He said it with such simplicity, she couldn’t even accuse him of being arrogant. Luckily, a sales clerk was close by the counter by the Dockers section. Even though Cassidy didn’t much care for the rapacious look the attractive woman gave Niall as she effectively placed herself between them and purred hello.

She sighed as the woman ignored her and expertly began picking out slacks and polo shirts that would, no doubt, be the perfect size. That was the problem with handsome men. Sophisticated women were always sinking their claws into them.

But Niall had told her
she
was beautiful. Had he meant it? She sat down on a padded bench to wait for him to try on his clothes. The sales clerk hovered nearby, spraying a fresh whiff of perfume and smoothing her platinum page-boy with her hands as several other clerks joined her, twittering about like so many magpies.