Authors: Maeve Greyson
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Time Travel, #Historical, #Scottish, #Contemporary, #General
My Highland Lover
My Highland Lover
is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Loveswept eBook Original
Copyright © 2015 by Maeve Greyson
Excerpt from
My Highland Bride
by Maeve Greyson copyright © 2015 by Maeve Greyson
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
L
OVESWEPT
is a registered trademark and the L
OVESWEPT
colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book
My Highland Bride
by Maeve Greyson. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.
eBook ISBN 9780553395099
Cover design: Seductive Designs
Cover photograph: Period Images
Cover background: iStock/Mosquito
v4.0
ep
K
ENTUCKY—
T
WENTY-FIRST
C
ENTURY
And there he was–so heart-stoppingly close her headlights lit up his face. The bare-chested man raised a tensed arm against the glare. In one fluid motion, he crouched low and unsheathed the biggest sword Trulie Sinclair had ever seen.
“Holy crap!” Trulie jerked the steering wheel hard to the left.
His teeth bared in a defensive snarl, the man sprang sideways. With predatory grace, he swung the massive broadsword in a lethal arc through his wake.
Trulie braced for impact. Instinct and adrenaline locked both knees as she stomped the brake pedal to the floor. She sawed the steering wheel back and forth, slinging mud and gravel through the night. The old truck fishtailed, bounced through twin ruts in the narrow road, then sloshed to a stop in a shallow, water-filled ditch.
Trulie clutched the steering wheel in a stranglehold until her knuckles ached. Where in blue blazes had that guy come from? And that sword? The high-pitched yowl of an irritated cat paired with a hissed
“Dammit”
drowned out the jackhammer thump of blood pounding in Trulie’s ears.
Granny and Kismet.
“Are you all right?” Trulie flipped on the interior light, clawed the seatbelt out of the way, and scooted toward the tiny, gray-haired woman clutching the spitting black cat against her chest.
“You know…” Granny blinked a few times, then peeped over the rims of her cockeyed spectacles. One sparse silver brow ratcheted a notch higher as she resettled in the dip of the worn seat and straightened her glasses on her nose. “You know, Trulie,” she repeated, pausing again to smooth a blue-veined hand down the insulted feline’s puffed-up hackles. “If ye wouldna drive like a bat out of hell, ye might dodge things a lot easier.”
Trulie deflated with a relieved breath.
Thank goodness.
If Granny could still deliver a smart-ass remark, then Granny was okay. Of course, slipping into her seldom-heard Scottish brogue was a telltale sign that the wild ride hadn’t been enjoyed. Granny only reverted to the lilting roll of her
r
’s under duress.
Trulie squirmed around in the confines of the truck and peered out the back window. Her frazzled reflection stared back at her from the dark glass.
Dammit.
She twisted back around and flipped off the interior light then turned back to the window.
Nothing moved but the silhouettes of treetops swaying against a star-spattered sky. The sparsely graveled road reflected silvery gray as it snaked beneath the moonlight. No sword-brandishing human mountain was anywhere to be seen. “That guy came out of nowhere. Did you see that freaking sword?”
And the package of testosterone swinging it?
Trulie decided not to voice that last question as she yanked the sleeve of her denim jacket down over one hand and mopped away the moisture fogging up the window.
Damn. It. All.
She couldn’t see a thing from inside the truck. “Could you tell if I hit him? The truck bounced so hard through the mud holes, I don’t know if I managed to miss him or not.”
Granny didn’t say a word, just tucked her head closer to the now purring cat and murmured something unintelligible, as though the two sat back home in front of the fire instead of in a ditch out in the middle of the Kentucky woods.
Trulie ground her teeth to keep from snapping at Granny as she fumbled around the floorboard for the flashlight shoved under the edge of the seat. She was in no mood for this crap, and now was not the time for Granny to go silent. Trulie would bet her best batch of homemade soaps that Granny knew more about that half-naked, walking wall of muscle than she was letting on.
Granny snuggled closer to the cat and chuckled softly into its shining black fur.
Trulie snorted. That pretty much cinched it. Granny was at it again. Trulie whacked the flashlight against the back of the seat, shook it hard, then shot the revealing beam out the back window.
Of all things to come across in the middle of the night.
Trulie knelt in the seat and squinted out the window. “I don’t see him anywhere. Surely I didn’t knock him clear across the road into the other ditch.”
Trulie clicked off the flashlight and sat back on her heels. There was no getting around it. Sword or no sword, she was going to have to go look for him. She couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t find out whether or not the man was okay. Trulie shot a sideways glance at the chuckling woman still muttering to the cat. “And I wasn’t driving that fast and you know it.”
Granny didn’t look up, just snuggled back against her travel pillow and grinned.
“What do you think, Kismet?” Granny wrinkled her nose down at the cat as she rubbed a bent finger under its chin. The purring feline sat with eyes half-closed into golden slits and the tip of her dark tail softly flipping. “Reckon we’d be sittin’ in this ditch with all our inventory busted in the back of the truck if Trulie had been goin’ a bit slower?”
Granny glanced up from the cat’s smug face. Her smile curled to one side as she continued in a more soothing voice directed toward Trulie. “And no. You didn’t hit him. You just got his attention real good.”
Trulie yanked the rusty door handle upward and bounced the door open. Somehow, that backhanded reassurance didn’t make her feel any better. An eerie feeling skittered up her spine. What if the man was one of them? Trulie rolled away the uneasiness with a tensed shrug.
Nah. Couldn’t be.
Rule number one of the time runner’s rede: time runners were always female. Trulie silently ticked off the other tenets of the ancient folklore inherited by the Sinclairs:
Bloodline holds the gift to dance across the ages.
From mother to daughter the gift shall pass.
The eldest daughter of each generation shall control the most power.
A loyal familiar, a guardian, shall join the eldest daughter at birth and ne’er leave her side.
Males shall only travel the web when chosen or sent forth by a runner.
The last tenet struck a chord. Trulie turned and glared at Granny. What the hell had the conniving old woman done this time?
Granny ignored Trulie, just shook her head in the contented black cat’s face and bent closer to whisper something in its ear. The cat looked over at Trulie, flipped the end of its tail harder, and somehow seemed to snicker.
“Don’t start with me, Kismet.” Trulie hopped out of the truck and landed knee deep in mud and wet leaves. Cold water rushed in over the tops of her rubber boots and soaked down into her socks. Trulie bit the inside of her cheek to keep from cursing.
Great. Soaking wet feet.
“Granny, would you please stop plotting with your damn cat? I know you know more than you’re telling. You’ve got that look that always means trouble.”
“Why, Trulie. I can’t believe you’d say such a thing.” Granny snorted an insulted huff and straightened in the seat. Her voice echoed with authority as she lowered the much calmer cat onto the seat beside her. “Trust me. You’ve nothing to worry about. I know those colors. He comes from a fine, upstanding clan. You won’t find a force on earth capable of striking fear into a MacKenna.”
A fine upstanding clan. A MacKenna.
That was all the proof Trulie needed. No wonder Granny wasn’t upset. The conniving old woman had orchestrated the entire thing. How many times had she begged Granny to stop meddling?
“And that’s another thing—” Trulie cursed under her breath as one rubber boot decided to stay behind as she took a step forward out of the muck.
“Watch your mouth.” Granny shook a warning finger as though Trulie were still a child. “I didna raise ye to talk like that.”
Trulie gripped the side of the truck, shoved her foot back down into the wet boot, and twisted it free of the sucking mire. The next run to the barn to fetch the cured oils, either Kenna or one of the twins was coming with her. Granny was hereby banned from all visits to the backwoods no matter how much the girls complained. And Kismet could stay home and watch over the girls instead of Karma. She’d had it with that damn cat. Trulie sloshed forward and bit back another curse word as she whacked her knee on the bent running board of the truck. This night just kept getting better by the minute. “Where do you think I learned those words, Granny?” Trulie doubled over and massaged her throbbing knee.
Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.
A louder snort was Granny’s only response.
Trulie hoisted herself up into the bed of the truck and slammed open the back window. Granny wasn’t going to avoid the real issue here so easily. A sword-wielding man—one scantily clad in a kilt no less—in the backwoods of Kentucky was not an everyday occurrence. “Would you like to tell me what you know about Mr. Deer-in-the-headlights, or am I going to have to get the truth from him?”
If I can find him.
The nagging voice in the back of her mind grew louder, insisting Trulie acknowledge the truth: the mysterious man was more than likely one of Granny’s better illusions. The old woman had tried for years to teach Trulie how to pluck an individual’s consciousness from the past or the future and stitch it so tightly into the present that it appeared as though they were physically there. Trulie had never been quite able to pull it off. Granny, on the other hand, was quite adept at that particular time-runner gift.
“Stay here, Kismet. Trulie’s being hardheaded again.” Granny pushed open the door and deftly hopped out of the truck. The black cat blinked one glowing eye as though winking in response.
“Granny, please get back in the truck. You’re gonna fall and break your neck.” Trulie straightened from the truck’s back window and rubbed the corners of her tired, gritty eyes. She was in no mood to go through this again. Granny had shifted into conniving overdrive lately to convince Trulie to accompany her back to the past. Trulie wouldn’t mind a brief jaunt back to the thirteenth century, but Granny wanted to pull up stakes and relocate. The old woman was sick of using the twenty-first century as home. She wanted to return to their roots—permanently. The determined scowl on Granny’s face was a dead giveaway. Granny, prime source of all Sinclair stubbornness DNA, had gone one step further in her plan to travel to thirteenth-century Scotland. She had gone to the extreme of pulling some poor unsuspecting Scot’s consciousness out of his own reality, and she’d plopped him right in front of Trulie’s truck.
Trulie eased down into the crowded truck bed, gingerly stepping through the mess with outstretched arms.
Lovely.
Just what she’d planned on doing tonight—tiptoe through shattered glass and skate across a truck bed made slicker than goose shit with ruined essential oils. The farther she slogged through broken bottles and overturned cardboard boxes, the lower her spirits sank. Eye-watering fumes filled the night air. The bed of the pickup reeked with puddles of eucalyptus, peppermint, and patchouli concoctions. A month’s work gone in seconds. Just because Granny was determined to permanently settle in the past.
A cloud skittered past the swollen moon, bathing the peaceful backwoods in blue-white light and shadow. The thick, dark woods hedging in the river across the way seemed to swallow up the path.
Well, crap.
She should’ve brought the flashlight to see how badly the truck was damaged. Trulie huffed out an irritated breath. She would just have to make do. She was in no mood to plow back through the mess in the back of the truck, and Granny needed to get back in the cab until Trulie figured out what to do next. “Would you please get back in the truck?”
Granny didn’t grace her with a response. Head bowed and focused on her footing, Granny inched a wrinkled hand down the side of the truck as she picked her way through the ditch.
Trulie resettled her ball cap farther back on her head and scanned up and down the deserted stretch of roadway. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just the usual muddy path, with a hump of new spring grass greening up between a pair of pothole-ridden ruts. She tilted her head to one side and strained to hear any out-of-the-ordinary sounds.
The singsong chirrup of spring peepers
cree-creeked
up from the riverbank, echoing through the night. A light wind whispered through the fluttering tops of newly leafed-out trees, and in the distance, an owl hooted the age-old
who-cooks-for-you
call for a mate.
“I told you, you didn’t hit him, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Granny shook a finger above her head as she slogged through the water-filled ditch. “One day you’ll learn to listen to me, gal.” Granny picked up speed as she cleared the muddy water and made her way up the embankment. She dusted both hands against the seat of her baggy jeans then fisted them atop her narrow hips. “That man was a shadow, Trulie Elizabeth, and you know the truth of it. Have you forgotten everything I’ve taught you?”
Trulie sagged forward and scrubbed the heels of her hands against her temples. She was too tired to be lectured tonight. Granny needed to let up. “No. I have not forgotten a single word you’ve drilled into me for the past twenty-seven years. But right now, Granny, keeping a roof over our heads and food in our bellies is kind of my primary concern.”
Granny’s mouth flattened into a disapproving line. “Don’t you dare take that tone with me, little girl. You know better.” Waving a hand toward the spot in the road where the battle-ready man had just been, Granny continued in a lecturing drone. “It’s time we returned to where we began. Listen to me, Trulie Elizabeth Sinclair. We have tarried here long enough, and I’m sick to death of arguing with ye about it.”
Oh Lordy. The full name treatment. And a “ye” thrown in for good measure.
Granny had really worked herself into a snit. Trulie hopped off the tailgate, down to the ground. She scrambled up the slippery bank of wet leaves and tangled honeysuckle vines, stomping globs of wet muck off her boots as she stepped into the road. “We’ve had this conversation more times than I really want to go over right now. You know my answer. Now call Kismet. We’re going to have to walk the rest of the way home. I’ll call William in the morning to pull the truck out of the ditch.”