3
Lindsey didn’t hear him coming until it was too late. All she heard was her own heavy breathing. She had to hold the tartan in place across her chest as the knot she’d tied began to come loose.
It only needed to hold until she got back to Mrs. Campbell’s. Then she could get changed and forget about all this. Forget about insane Scotsmen who thought it was the middle ages.
As if he was Tavish Sinclair? The very idea would be funny if she weren’t so scared. She’d realized he was serious when he looked into her eyes and told her his name. He really thought he was the outlaw Highlander who’d lived seven hundred years earlier.
At that moment when he looked at her, she knew she’d made a mistake. She was alone with a dangerously unstable individual and she was too far from the guesthouse to summon help. Even if she’d screamed, by the time help came it would have been too late for her.
She ran through a copse of trees and then out the other side. The hillside was familiar. This was where the taxi had brought her down the worn track to the guesthouse when she first arrived. Another corner and past that ridge and it would be right in front of her. She put on a fresh burst of speed, panicking that he might be trying to follow her.
Scrambling up the ridge, she stumbled over the top, more falling than running down the far side. In her effort to keep her balance she stared down at her feet, trying to avoid the loose stones rolling down with her.
She skidded to a halt at the bottom of the slope. “Back at last,” she said, looking up before falling silent. She almost fell again, this time from surprise. The hill was there just like before, the groove of the dried-up stream was still there only now water was flowing from it into the loch to her left.
Where was the guesthouse? The hillside was there, the flat ground leading to the loch. She was definitely in the right place but there was no building, just tufts of deep green grass and occasional patches of thistles.
“But where is it?” she said out loud, taking a step forward as if the guesthouse might appear from nowhere. “I must be in the wrong place.”
She walked to the top of the next ridge but there was nothing but wilderness down the far side. She mashed her fingers together without noticing what she was doing, her eyes darting from left to right. “It must be here somewhere. Please don’t tell me I’m lost.”
Spinning around, she let out a cry. On the top of the ridge, the Highlander was standing, looking every inch like Tavish Sinclair had been described in the book.
The wind blew the tartan on his muscular chest, his hair moving too in the breeze. The black hose on his legs could barely contain his quads, they looked like they might rip through at any point. He wasn’t even breathing heavily. How had he run so fast after her without working up a sweat?
He had his hands on his hips, staring down at her in silence. “You stay away from me,” she snapped, pointing up at him. “I’ve got enough problems without you chasing after me. Where’s the guesthouse?”
“What guesthouse?”
“Mrs. Campbell’s. It was right here, I swear it.”
“Ah know this loch like the back o’ me hand. There’s nay been a building here ’til ah built ma hoose back there.”
Something whispered to Lindsey. You’re in the past. She ignored the voice, shaking her head as she looked around again. “It has to be here. This is Loch Tay, right?”
“Aye, lass.” He walked slowly down the hillside toward her, a strange look on his face.
“Then where’s Mrs. Campbell’s?”
“There’s nae building until you get tae Castle Sinclair a fair stretch o’ miles that way.” He pointed up the hillside away from the loch.
“There’s about three villages between here and there.”
The anger had gone from his face, his eyes wider, a flicker of a smile on his lips. “You mustae hit yon heed pretty hard when you fell out your boot.”
“I hit my head? You think you’re Tavish Sinclair, the princess murdering Highlander.” She saw the look on his face. “Oh, yes. I know all about that.”
The smile had gone, his eyes flaring with anger. “I didnae kill her.”
The look sent Lindsey backward. The glare was impossible to withstand. “You’re not him. You can’t be him.”
His voice grew quiet, far colder than before. “Ah am Tavish Sinclair. My father is Fingal Sinclair and if he lives, he rots in a dungeon tae this day. I lived in Castle Sinclair until the day o’ ma trial.”
“You really believe that, don’t you? That you’re him.”
“Why would ah lie about such a thing?”
“You killed Princess Margaret of Norway?”
