Highland Protector (MacCoinnich Time Travels #5)(27)
Author: Catherine Bybee

“If that’s the answer—”

Amber pushed her chin into the air. “My father didn’t arrange a marriage for me, and I’m not about to let a man I hardly know make that decision on my behalf.”

“Of course not. I’m not suggesting… But if the answer lies in bonding—”

“Keep looking,” Kincaid said again.

Giles offered a single nod and returned to his books.

Half way down the hall to the kitchen, Amber pulled him to a stop. “Let’s keep the information Giles gave us to ourselves for now. The others will worry.”

“I agree. We need to weigh our options before bringing anyone else into the discussion.”

Amber shook her head. “I’m not sure any discussion needs to occur. This is neither their problem nor their choice.”

No, it’s ours.

“Nay, Gavin. The problem is not yours either. ’Tis mine and mine alone.”

“Did you read my mind?”

She hesitated. “I-I suppose I must have. It wasn’t intentional.”

Unsure of how he felt about her being inside his head, he offered, “You don’t need to make any decision tonight.”

She studied the floor below her feet. “No, I don’t. But we both know this…” she squeezed her tied hand in his… “cannot last too long.”

His jaw set and his back teeth started to pulse with the unintended pressure. His need to see her smile made him repeat her words. “Is holding my hand such a hardship, m’lady?”

There it was…a slight lift of her lips. “There are times you annoy me, Gavin Kincaid, but nay, holding your hand is no hardship.”

“It was my kiss then?”

His heart lifted when she smiled full on and her cheeks turned an adorable shade of rose. “Is it polite to talk about kissing?”

“I suppose it depends on what time you’re from.”

“In my time, women would talk to each other about such things…but never a woman to a man.”

“You know this from experience?”

Her dark eyes sparked when they finally met his. “I have not held another man’s hand in years…not even my father’s. I have no experience, as you say.”

Kincaid lifted their joined hands, kissed the edge of her fingers.

She tugged but he wouldn’t let her go. Not again. “Tsk, tsk…I’m teasing.”

Her spark simmered into a quaint smile. Anyone else and he would swear the look was practiced and devious. But Amber had no way of honing the sort of womanly wiles that could sway a man with a look.

“We have time, Amber. Plenty of time to consider what needs to happen.”

“I want to believe you.”

“Then do.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, the mirth on her face slid away. “When I was a child, before Grainna, I could sometime sense things before they happened. A small portion of my mother’s gift lived inside of me.”

Kincaid held perfectly still, too wired into her next words to move.

“I’ve not felt her gift for years. Until you took hold of my hand.”

“W-what did you see?” Do I really want to know?

“The picture wasn’t, still isn’t clear.” Her eyes squeezed shut tight as if that would bring her visions into focus. “There’s pain, uncertainty…and darkness. Something is coming. I don’t know if I’ll be here for it, but it’s coming.”

“Darkness?”

With her eyes still closed, she tilted her head; her long hair drifted to the side of her body and made him want to push it back.

“Encircling the darkness there’s a blinding light that sparks around it. The light beyond sings, calling to me.” She opened her eyes suddenly and stared directly at him. “That is what I see. What I feel is urgency. This time you speak of that we have, may be in theory only. In reality…I think not.”

Kincaid blew out a long breath. “Do we have tonight?”

“My feeling and visions have no timeline.”

Is that better?

“We should dine, Gavin. Think on what Giles has learned and make no assumptions.”

The need to act…to do something, itched on the surface of his skin like ants crawling over ones’ feet with the need to be brushed off. “We need to plan.”

“Plan for what? Darkness?” Her shoulders folded in with a small laugh. “No need for that. Darkness will come regardless. We need to remember our convictions, what we stand for, and move from there.” She nodded toward the kitchen. “Let’s sup. Fuel the body, and the soul and mind will follow.”

“Are you repeating your mother’s words?”

Amber shook her head. “Nay…my father’s.”

Later that night, with Giles’s words running through his head and Amber’s small frame lying perfectly still next to his, Gavin held her hand and stared at the familiar ceiling above his head. Neither of them spoke, both of them lost in their own thoughts.

Every few minutes, he’d hear her voice in his head. Amber’s thoughts, her worry, skidded across his mind like a fly buzzing by.

Her desire for her mother’s council was most apparent. When she shifted her weight on the bed, he felt her unease over sharing the space with a man.

On a completely caveman level, Kincaid enjoyed the fact she’d never shared her bed with anyone. In his time, he avoided virgins like the red plague. Not hard to do when most women were rid of their virginity before they were allowed to drive. He could say he avoided innocents…women who didn’t guard their heart and didn’t understand the underlying risk of being with him.

Amber might be innocent, in a virginal sense, but she wasn’t naive to the dangers of life.

If the truth were told, she could probably teach him a thing or two about the risk of living.

Who would willingly move through time, some five to six hundred years in the future, to live? Who could say they had come against the greatest evil ever known and survived…and she had been what, a teenager?

“I was twelve…nearly thirteen,” Amber’s soft voice said beside him.

Content with the fact he could feel her inside his head, he released a sigh. “Was it awful?”

“I was little more than a child. I’d been told all my life that my brothers, Duncan and Fin, needed to travel beyond our time to prevent Grainna from regaining her power. I was told of her threat, but didn’t truly understand it until I saw it myself.”