Highlander Avenged (13 page)

“Probably, but I do not care.” She gathered up the scrolls and carefully slid them into the hard leather tubes he had seen before. “Peigi will be thrilled if we slip away together.”

“That she will,” he agreed. “So will I.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, as soon as everyone had broken their fasts and work had been handed out, Jeanette and Malcolm quietly took their leave from the camp with Peigi’s full approval, as expected.

Now Jeanette followed Malcolm along a deer trail that tracked along the side of the ben at nearly the same level the main cave was on. Every now and then she’d get a glimpse of the glen below them, spreading out roughly north to south. The pale green of spring’s new leaves was maturing, blanketing the entire valley with the deeper green of summer. A hawk wheeled overhead, soaring higher and higher, screeching now and then, until it was little more than a speck in clear sky.

Jeanette let the quiet of the wood sink into her, bringing a calmness to her mind even while her body hummed with expectation. To be alone with Malcolm, even just walking through the wood in silence, was deliciously intimate. She watched him move ahead of her, sureness in every move the man made. He was graceful, really, though she knew that to be an odd way to describe a man. There was no wasted effort on his part, unlike some men who crashed about. She was certain she could be content just watching him for the whole day, and yet her curiosity was getting the better of her.

“Where are we bound?” she asked.

He glanced back at her and grinned, as he so often did. “This trail leads to a narrow pass over the mountain, according to Scotia. She said I must find it, that it would be a good escape route if the clan needed one. I thought, depending on your ankle, we would investigate it. Peigi packed us some food for our midday meal so there’s no need to rush.”

“She told me we were not to return until dinnertime,” Jeanette said.

“Aye, she said the same to me. Do you need to rest, angel?”

“Nay. My ankle is much better and I ken well that it will tighten up if I stop moving for very long. There is something renewing about walking quietly in the wood with no one hunting us, no one chasing us.” She smiled at him, amazed that in spite of all the trouble surrounding her clan, she felt almost carefree today. “I think I needed to get away from everything for a while. I think I just needed to set aside my cares for a few hours and remember what it is we are fighting for.”

“Aye,” he said, looking around them at the massive pines and pale birches that surrounded them. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “It smells so good away from the fires and privies.”

She laughed and stepped close enough so that he opened his arms to her. She wrapped her arms around his waist and nuzzled her nose into the crook of his neck. “You smell good, too,” she said.

“You are tickling me, angel,” he said as he managed to capture her lips with his.

Her intention, to simply touch him, changed the instant his lips touched hers. It was as if her skin buzzed and burned all at once. She pressed close to him, moaning when he tightened his arms about her, almost crushing her breasts against the muscled planes of his chest.

How long they stood there, lost in the drugging sensation of the kiss, she didn’t know, but they were interrupted by a snort not far away.

A deer stood in the path sideways to them. His rust-colored hide was glossy and he had a small rack of antlers spiking up from his head, one bent at an odd angle. He turned his head in her direction and looked her in the eye, snorted again, and melted into the wood, heading up the ben.

Jeanette and Malcolm stared after him.

“Was that the same deer we saw before?” Malcolm asked. “Did it warn you again?”

She blinked, trying to merge the real deer she had seen twice now, and the deer that had come to her in her dream, into one coherent idea. The same odd barking they had heard at the ruined cottage came from above them, certainly the same deer they had just seen.

“Jeanette? Do we need to take cover?” Malcolm had released her and was scanning the path ahead of and behind them.

She blinked again, still unable to shake the reality from the echo of the dream.

“ ’Tis the same deer, but I do not think it is a warning this time. He wants us to follow him. I have dreamed this,” she said, now looking at Malcolm. “I know where he is taking us.”

Without so much as another question Malcolm motioned for her to lead the way.

Unlike her dream, at each turning and branching of the deer trail, Jeanette would glimpse the stag in the distance, as if he waited for her. As soon as she spied him, he’d be off again, disappearing into the forest until another decision about direction was needed.

All the while, Malcolm let her take the lead and set the pace as they followed the stag. The man was remarkably accepting of the things he had encountered since they met at the wellspring. He had accepted that this stag had warned her about the English scouts. And now he had not hesitated to follow her and the stag into the forest. He had accepted that the Highland Targe was not just a story, and that Rowan was the Guardian with something other than the usual abilities of lasses. He had not chided Jeanette for being able to read, nor for looking for answers in the chronicles. He had accepted everything with calm. His trust warmed her in a whole different way than his kisses had.

“Jeanette, have you lost him?” Malcolm’s voice was soft, and just behind her, though she had been so lost in her thoughts, she did not know he was there. She had not even realized she had stopped.

“Nay,” she said, just as quietly. “Though I ken where we will find him even if I do lose him.”

She turned to face him, taking his hands in hers, then looking up into his soft brown-and-green-flecked eyes. He smiled at her, but it was a questioning smile. Jeanette took a deep breath.

“I have seen this before.”

“This path? I did not know you had been this way.”

“Nay.” She shook her head. “I have seen this before, in a dream. The stag, and the entrance to a cave we will find soon.”

He lifted one of her hands and laid a gentle kiss upon her knuckles. Heat raced through her, sizzling under her skin in an almost painful yet delicious way.

“You are sure?”

She swallowed. “As sure as I can be of a dream. I do not ken what the importance of this place is where we are led, nor why I am guided there.”

“Was I in the dream?”

Jeanette closed her eyes and tried to bring the dream into focus but she did not see Malcolm in any of it.

“Nay,” she said.

The stag barked in the distance.

“He is impatient for us to follow,” Malcolm said, pushing her a little away from him.

The cool air that flowed between them helped her ground herself in this moment, allowing her to push the dream back into the depths of her mind where it belonged.

“Aye. We have a cave to explore.” She tried to make light of it but even she could hear the quaver in her voice.

“Is there danger there, Jeanette?” He gripped her arms now, though one was so much tighter a grip than the other.

“Danger? Nay, I dinna think so.”

“Then why do you hesitate?”

“I think . . .” Once more she tried to remember the rest of the dream, searching for a clue as to why she was brought there, but she could not remember anything beyond the deer showing her the dark cleft that led into the mountainside. Her skin prickled at the thought of heading into that passage. “I dinna ken exactly how or why, but I think everything will change in that cave.”

“Good change or bad change?” he asked.

The stag barked again, closer now, and more insistent.

“It does not feel bad,” she said, not even sure where that sense came from. “But I dinna ken if it is good, either.”

“Then we have no choice but to find out for ourselves.” He took her hand and pulled her in the direction the stag call had come from.

It was not long before they spied the stag again. The majestic animal snorted at them, as if in disdain that they had tarried when he was in a hurry, but he took off at a slower pace than before, heading straight up the steep slope.

M
ALCOLM FOLLOWED
J
EANETTE
up the steep side of the ben, curiosity and excitement drawing him after her as if they were tethered to each other. He did not understand exactly what was happening, but the lass seemed both sure of herself and tense. Of course, just the idea that they had seen the same stag twice in different places was unusual. And she said she had dreamed about this deer leading them today, which was odd, too. The more he thought about it, the odder it got. She’d dreamed of a stag with a bent antler, received a warning from him one day—and he could not deny, no matter how much he’d like to, that the deer had somehow warned her—then she had seen him again, the same deer, for the bent antler was unmistakable, doing what she had dreamed he did . . .

She dreamed it, and then it happened . . .

His mind stuttered and his feet slowed as his thoughts coalesced into one clear understanding. ’Twasn’t a dream she’d had. ’Twas a vision. She had seen this day, the stag, and the place that same damned stag was leading them to.

Everything she had shared about her cousin, her clan, and yet she had not told him what she was. Did she not trust him with this knowledge? Nay, she trusted him with the secrets of her clan, so why would she not trust him with this?

“Jeanette!” She was quite a ways ahead of him now and didn’t seem to hear him. He scrambled to catch up to her. “Jeanette!” He got close enough to tug on her skirt, stopping her abruptly. She looked back at him from her position just above him as if he’d awakened her from a deep sleep—or a vision.

She blinked slowly, but didn’t say anything.

“Your dream about the stag was no ordinary dream. ’Twas a vision. You are a seer, angel, are you not?”

“A seer?” She looked away from him but did not resume her trek up the ben.

“Did you fear what I would do if I knew?” he asked.

“Fear?” She seemed genuinely confused. “Nay.” She looked off into the distance again. “Seer? Do you really think I am a seer, Malcolm?” The look on her face was hopeful and doubtful, all at the same time.

Now he was the confused one. “You are, are you not?”

“I do not ken, but I think I might be. ’Tis not uncommon among Guardians.” She stared into the distance again and Malcolm realized she was not looking at anything, but was lost in her thoughts, as if she searched deep in her memories as she had searched in the scrolls last night. “But I am not the Guardian. Rowan is, so why would this manifest now?”

“This has not happened before that dream?” he asked, as puzzled as she was. How could she not know she was a seer?

“A few times when I was a wee lass, but none since then, at least none that I remember.” She turned toward him now and sat so that she was looking Malcolm straight in the eye. The stag barked in the distance and she waved a hand in the air as if telling him to wait a moment, though he was not in sight.

“ ’Twould be a formidable weapon against our enemies, would it not.” It wasn’t a question, but more like she was thinking out loud.

“Aye, angel, ’twould. Are you certain you have not had more of these dreams since you’ve been grown?”

She looked off in the distance again, shaking her head slowly. “Dreams fade so fast. But I have always had an uncanny ability to ken where needed herbs are for my healing simples, or what an ill person needs in order to recover, as if the knowledge has been set into my mind when I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Like in a dream you don’t quite remember.”

She nodded slowly and only his finger, still under her chin, kept her from gazing away again.

“But this dream you do remember.” He did not question her, for ’twas obvious that she did.

She gripped his hand but did not remove it from her chin. “I do—but only to a point.”

“Was this conversation part of the dream?”

She closed her eyes this time, then slowly shook her head. “You were not in the dream, at least not that I remember. Let us see what happens and I will know better if I truly had a vision, or if it is only that I have perhaps been here before as a child and do not remember it.”

“A test then,” he said. “And you will tell me later if you saw this day or if ’tis only an echo of a childhood memory?”

She leaned forward and placed a chaste kiss on his lips, though his blood still heated at the light contact. “I promise.” The deer barked again, as if sensing that they were ready to continue.

They only got another glimpse or two of the stag, but the trail was easy to follow, if not easy to climb. As they made their way onto a narrow shelf, there was a final call from the stag.

“He is gone,” Jeanette said, and Malcolm could feel that she was right.

“Is this the place?” he asked.

“Aye,” she said, wonder in her voice. She reached out and touched the stone face of the mountain, running her finger over what looked to be grooves carved into the rock. “Just as I dreamed it.”

He stepped up to get a closer look and found a stylized deer under her fingertips, the right antler bent, just like that of the stag they had followed. A chill ran down his spine. He looked at the ground to see if there were hoofprints there, suddenly not sure if the stag was real or a vision itself, but the shelf was bare stone without even a little dirt to show what had passed by this place.