Part 11 (1/2)
She looked up at him, her eyes sparkling with the residual of unshed tears and dawning joy. She cupped her hands about his jaw. ”I traveled over two-hundred years to find you. You're everything I never wanted in a man-arrogant, bossy, too s.e.xy for your own good, and gone in less than a week. How could I not love you with everyfiber of my being?”
Her lips brushed his. The kiss deepened and it became a pledge of love that transcended time.
”Make love to me, DarachMacTavish .”
His body quickened in ready response. ”I'm more than willing, but dinner...”
She laughed softly against his mouth. ”Didn't you know meatloaf is best reheated?”
AWEEK AND TWO DAYS after Darach's arrival into the twenty-first century, Hamish sat at dinner with his friend and the man he'd called laird in another time and place, Kate, and Harriett, a recently divorced docent he'd met while at the museum. Darach had a.s.similated into modern Atlanta amazingly well. Perhaps not that amazing really, Hamish reflected, since life was much easier now, even with global warming and hip-hop.
”Here's to old friends and new beginnings,” Hamish said, offering a toast across the white-clothed table. Darach, Kate, and Harriet all raised their champagne gla.s.ses and joined in the toast over the flickering candlelight.
Hamish looked pointedly at Darach-that was his cue.
”Tell me again how ya'll know one another,” Harriett said, precluding Darach and unwittingly throwing a spanner in the works.
”We go way back,” Hamish said. Aye, Harriet had no idea. Kate's eyes met his across the table, laughing at his inside joke.
”We share a common interest in history,” Darach deadpanned, tugging at his tie. Aye, the man was nervous. As well he should be. Hamish had encouraged him to choose a private moment but Darach wouldn't hear of it, saying Hamish was the reason he and Kate had met in the first place. Harriett, very attractive at fifty-five, evened out the numbers.
While there was a certainjenesaisquoi to living in various time periods on different levels, it got lonely. Hamish dated casually, but there was no point in ever letting things get too far between him and a woman. He was destined to live alone and that but doubled his pleasure in Kate and Darach's happiness.
Hamish nudged Darach's leg with his foot beneath the table.
Darach cleared his throat and turned red. Hamish couldn't bite back a smirk. Aye, the man could hold off half a dozen dragoons with a broadsword and a claymore, yet one woman had him tied up in knots.
”Uh, Katie-love, am I understanding correctly that you have the next four days off work?” Darach asked.
Kate smiled at him over the edge of her champagne flute. ”Yes. Much toTorri's annoyance-she has to cover for me.”
”Aye.” He threw his napkin on the table and it barely missed knocking over his water gla.s.s. He slipped out of his chair and dropped to one knee, nearly upending the chair in the process. For a large man, he'd always moved with grace and precision. Now he was more like the proverbial bull in the china shop. He grasped Kate's hand in his.
”Katie, uh, I mean Kate. Oh,bluidy h.e.l.l, forget it. Katie-love, 'tis only a bit more than a week since I first met you, yet has been a lifetime that I've waited for you and will be for all eternity that I know you. Will you do me the honor of marrying me? Will you take the nameMacTavish for your own?”
Kate glowed. ”DarachMacTavish you're arrogant and bossy and I had no idea what my life was missing until I met you.” She raised their clasped hands to her lips and pressed a kiss to Darach's knuckles. Beneath the table, Harriet slipped her hand into Hamish's. ”I would be honored to marry you and take your name along with my own.”
His black brows met over his dark eyes. ”Your own?”
”Yes. Wexford-MacTavish,” she said.
Darach let go her hand and took his seat. He crossed his arms over his chest.
It was a look Hamish knew well from serving with the laird ofGlenagan . Well, this was about to get interesting. Darach, Mr. Eighteenth Century Highlander, had just come face to face with feminist twenty-first-century sensibilities. Harriet squeezed his hand beneath the table and Hamish s.h.i.+fted in his chair. She need not be getting any ideas.
”IsMacTavish not good enough for you?” Darach said, his voice deceptively soft.
Kate lifted her chin, the same look in her eyes as when she'd indulged in the chest-poking atGlenagan . ”I'll bear the nameMacTavish with pride, but Wexford is the last link I have to my parents. You're a part of me, but so are they.”
Darach's expression softened and he uncrossed his arms. ”'Tis a point you have. You are a clever wench.”
Hamish nodded to himself. That she was. She knew how to handle Darach.
She smiled at him. ”That's why you want to marry me.”
Darach returned her smile. ”Aye.” He stared at the la.s.s, as if they were the only two in the room and there was no more business to be done. Hamish nudged his foot beneath the table and Darach looked back at him without comprehension. Poor devil, he was daft about the la.s.s. ”The ring, man. Don't forget the ring.”
”Aye.” Darach fumbled in his pocket and pulled out thejeweler's box they'd commissioned just yesterday and picked up this afternoon. ”I got this for you.”
The lad was making a hash of this. DarachMacTavish was a babbling mess.
Kate opened the box and stared on an indrawn breath. ”It's beautiful. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen.”
With a joy on his face so pure, it nearly brought a tear to Hamish's eye, Darach slipped the ring on Kate's finger. Kate was indeed a healer, for Hamish had never thought to see Darach so happy.
Around them, the other diners and the wait-staff burst into applause. Darach nodded, looking as regal as the Highland chieftain he was. ”I am the luckiest man I know.”
The lad was slated to die in a few months. Hamish didn't think that quite so lucky, but all the better that Darach consider his good fortune in the here and now.
Kate held out her hand and twisted it to admire the ring. Darach had done well.
”It's simply beautiful.”
Darach grinned, looking younger and happier than Hamish had thought possible. ”The band is platinum-two bands twisted together to form one-like us. The three stones represent the past, the present, and the future. They're blue diamonds which are rare, much like what we have found together. They are the blue of heather on the Scottish moor, the blue of your Georgia sky, and the blue of the MacTavish tartan. The past, the present, the future.”
Kate leaned over and pressed a brief, sweet kiss to Darach's mouth. ”Thankyou, my poet-warrior. It was beautiful before. Now it's even lovelier. But it had to be wildly expensive...how did you-?”
”'Tis taken care of, love,” Darach said, sending Hamish a look of grat.i.tude.
Kate wasn't the only one with more money than she knew what to do with. More than one couple had accused him of playing G.o.d, which he didn't-that wasn't his domain, but he possessed excellent financial instincts and he played the stock market on a regular basis-and made a killing. Hey, it funded his shopping network spending-he looked across at Darach-and a long-term loan to an old friend. He would've fronted twice that amount to produce the look on Kate and Darach's face. They'd know happiness for such a short period of time he'd gladly do it again.
”So, I was thinking if you did not have any pressing plans, we could get married day after tomorrow,” Darach said.
Kate laughed. ”One day to plan a wedding? Sure.”
”Do you need more time?”
She shook her head, a glimmer of sadness in her eyes. ”We all need more time, but I'll make the most of the time I've been given.”
Harriet dabbled at her eyes with the corner of her napkin. ”Oh, this is the most romantic thing. And I fear I need to repair my make-up. Hamish, would you escort me to the ladies' room?”
She had that look in her eye...that look that women could get that made a man's blood run cold-she had commitment fever. ”I fear my gout's acting up-”
”I didn't know you had gout,” Harriet said.
”Aye. It can come upon me suddenly.” He looked across the table at Darach. Be it the eighteenth century or the twenty-first, a lad should know when a mate needed bailing out.
Darach came to his rescue. He rose from his seat. ”I know I am but a poor subst.i.tute but I would be honored if you would allow me to accompany you.”