Highland Protector (MacCoinnich Time Travels #5)(31)
Author: Catherine Bybee

She knocked, ready to use her gift to shimmy the lock on the door and let herself in.

The doorknob wiggled, bringing relief.

She opened her mouth to tell him he took long enough, and immediately shut it when an adorable blue-eyed girl opened the door.

Selma blinked, backed up, and looked at the address on the door.

No, it’s the right place.

“Hi,” the girl said with a dimpled smile.

“Hi.”

“Kelsey, don’t open the door,” Jake’s voice yelled from the back of the house.

“Too late, Daddy.”

So this was Jake’s daughter…

Before Selma could wiggle her mind around that, another girl made her way to Kelsey’s side.

Identical twins?

How was it Selma didn’t know that? Jake’s daughters were twins?

“Sophie!”

“Too late.” Selma said for the girls.

Jake appeared behind his daughters with a spatula in his hand and frustration on his brow.

“Who are you?” the one wearing green, Sophie if Selma could tell by the names called out, surmised.

“I’m Selma.”

“Daddy’s girlfriend?”

Selma met Jake’s gaze.

She started to shake her head when Jake broke out in a rare smile. “That’s right, Kelsey. This is Selma…my g-girlfriend.”

He nearly choked on the title while he waved Selma inside.

****

Giles ran a hand through his hair before letting it fall to the stubble on his chin. He hadn’t slept and couldn’t imagine doing so now.

“There’s nothing more. Nothing!”

Kincaid glared at him from across the table. Giles knew nasty words sat on the tip of the man’s tongue, but with a woman at his side, he said nothing.

“Keep looking.”

“Where?” He motioned toward the walls of the library. “I’ve searched. Books have flown off the shelves and there isn’t anything more. Only one word is repeated.”

Amber said nothing and stared at their hands.

“Bonding,” Giles said in a shout. “That is the answer. It’s everywhere.”

“There has to be another answer.”

“Does there? I think not.”

Kincaid gripped the edge of the table.

“I know it’s not the answer you want. But it is what it is. Amber must bond with someone…someone with your ability to protect her. Even then she would need to learn to use her mate’s gift to survive.”

Kincaid stood. The chair behind him skidded across the floor.

Amber tensed.

“Please, Gavin…Giles can only report what he has found. The fault does not lie with him. He is only the messenger.”

Thankful for her kind words, Giles bowed his head. “I’m sorry there isn’t another path.”

He noticed the force behind her smile. “You have been a blessing, Giles. Please…go and find your dinner…a bed. I see the exhaustion in your eyes.”

Instead of leaving the room, Giles knelt beside her, ignoring the man towering over him. “Forgive me for not finding the answer you seek.”

She reached toward him, didn’t touch, and graced him with a smile. “You have not disappointed me,” she told him.

Beside him, Kincaid growled.

Without being dismissed, Giles found his feet and left the room.

Outside the library, he leaned against the wall and shamelessly eavesdropped.

“Calm yourself, Gavin.”

“He’s not looking hard enough.”

Giles winced with his friend’s words.

“Do you truly believe that?”

There was a sigh, and again the sound of a chair skirting across the floor.

Giles squeezed his eyes shut.

“There has to be another answer.”

“If there’s not?” Amber’s voice was so low Giles could hardly hear it.

After a long pause, he heard his long-time friend’s response.

“Then we bond.”

Amber, who seldom smiled let alone expressed any form of humor, laughed.

His friend wouldn’t take her humor in good form.

“Bonding is not something you wish in your life, Gavin. I’ve been inside your head…I know this.”

“We have no choice,” he argued.

Giles started to leave his perch, annoyed at his own lack of respect for the private conversation.

“There is always a choice. ’Tis what separates us from animals…from slaves.”

The conversation stilled and stopped Gavin in his tracks.

“There is no need to make a decision tonight,” he heard Amber say.

“You’re right,” Kincaid said much too quickly. “Tomorrow is soon enough.”

The sound of chairs scraping across the floor motivated his feet.

In the sitting room off the kitchen, he found Mrs. Dawson staring out the window and rocking in a chair.

“There’s a plate of food in the microwave,” she told him.

“You shouldn’t have.”

“I didn’t. Amber suggested it.”

He worked his way in the kitchen and managed to power up the old-fashioned food warmer. The amount of power it took to run one of these things was asinine.

“Where are Helen and Simon?” he asked as he filled a glass with tap water.

“They retired.”

Giles noted the darkness out the window.

What time is it anyway?

The time on the clock on the stove flashed eleven thirty-three.

“Do you know how to use the coffee maker?” she asked.

The request caught him off guard. He glanced at the machine. “I think so.”

Mrs. Dawson turned her head toward his. “It’s going to be a long night, Mr. Giles. I suggest you brew a pot.”

Chapter Fourteen

“Grainna’s name was used, and Kincaid called the woman Amber.”

“Amber? Are you sure?” Raine asked.

Mouse rubbed his hands together, obviously happy to deliver good news for a change.

“What century was this again?”

“Twenty-first.”

How did I miss that? “Describe the woman.”

“Petite, almost sickly. Her skin was pale, as if she didn’t spend time in the sun. Dark brown eyes and long dark brown hair.”

“How long?”

“It was pulled back. But longer than the way most women wore it in the twenty-first century.”

“She was Druid?”

“Yes. Powerful. She knew I was in the crow the moment it landed by her side. Kincaid didn’t believe her at first.”