Kiss of the Highlander

She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was overlooking one or more critical facts that might help her figure out what had happened to him. She’d never given any credence to “gut instinct” she’d believed the gut controlled hunger and waste, nothing gnostic. But in the past thirty-six hours, something in her gut had found a voice, it was arguing with her mind, and she was baffled by the discord.

She had remained in the stones and watched him for some time before she’d sought the warmth of the hood of the car. She’d studied him with the remote candor of a scientist observing a test subject in an experiment, but her study of him had only revealed more contradictions rather than resolving any.

His body was powerfully developed, and a man didn’t get a body like that without extraordinary discipline, effort, and a mind capable of sustained focus. Wherever he had been before she’d found him in the cave, he’d lived an active, balanced life. He’d either worked hard or played hard, and she decided it was more work than play, because his hands were callused, and no stuffy, jock-type aristocrat had calluses on fingers and palms. His silky black hair was too long to be considered apropos on a twenty-first-century lord and gentleman, but it was glossy and well cut. His teeth were even and white, more evidence of care for his body. People who devoted attention to their physical health were usually healthy in mind as well.

He walked with a gait that bespoke confidence, strength, and the ability to make hard decisions. He was reasonably intelligent and well-spoken—his strange inflection and vocabulary aside.

He hadn’t known the way out of the cave, and when they had emerged, Gwen hadn’t missed the significance of the collapsed tunnel and the overgrowth of foliage.

Och, Christ, they’re all dead, he’d whispered.

She shivered. The engine had cooled, the remnants of heat gone.

Occam’s Razor promulgated that the simplest explanation that fit the majority of the facts was most likely true. The simplest explanation here was…he was telling the truth. He’d somehow been put into a deep sleep five hundred years ago against his will, perhaps via some lost science, and she’d awakened him by falling on him.

Impossible, her mind exclaimed.

Tired of trying to coax the jury to deliver a consensus, she reluctantly accepted the hung verdict and admitted that she couldn’t leave him. What if the impossible was possible? What if tomorrow he offered her some concrete proof that he had been frozen in time for nearly five hundred years? Perhaps he planned to show her how it had been done, some advanced cryogenics that had been lost over time. She wasn’t vacating the premises if there was even a remote possibility of finding out such a thing. Oh, admit it, Gwen, despite having “dropped out” on the profession that has been eternally crammed down your throat, despite refusing to continue your research, you’re still fascinated by science, and you’d love to know how a man could somehow sleep for five centuries and wake up healthy and whole. You’d never publish it, but you’d still love to know.

But it was more than just scientific curiosity, and she suspected it had something to do with his sock and her eggs and a desire she couldn’t attribute solely to the mandate programmed into her genes that clamored for survival of her race. No other man had ever incited such a response in her.

Science couldn’t explain the tenderness she’d felt at the sight of tears in his eyes. Nor the desire she’d had to cradle his head against her chest—not to have her cherry once and truly plucked, but for his comfort.

Oh, her heart was engaged, and it both alarmed and elated her.

Tucking her bangs behind an ear, she slid off the hood and started up the hill. He’d had enough time alone. It was time to talk.

“Drustan.” Gwen’s voice cut like a light through the darkness around him.

He met her gaze levelly. The poor wee lass looked terrified, yet bristled with resolve.

She looked directly into his eyes then and, if she felt fear, she rose above it. He admired that about her, that despite her misgivings she forged on with the valor of a knight entering battle. When he’d chased her off, he worried that she might simply jump in her metal beast and drive away. The relief he’d felt when he glimpsed her heading toward him through the stones had been intense. Whatever she’d decided to think of him, she’d resolved to stick by his side—he could see it in her eyes.

“Drustan?” Hesitant, yet firm.

“Aye, lass?”

“Are you feeling better now?” she asked warily.

“I have made a tentative peace with my feelings,” he said dryly. “Fear not, I doona plan to leap up and avenge the loss of my people.” Yet.