The Presence (10 page)

Gripping his shoulders, Toni quickly queried in a whisper, “What are you doing?” Her words were a little desperate.

His eyes were lighter, amused, as they met hers. “Trying to get them all out of here. Say good-night, my love.”

He turned at that, clearing his throat loudly. “A little privacy in the castle, please!”

His words were followed by laughter—and an exit.

On the landing, Bruce set Toni down perfunctorily and turned, immediately retracing his steps. Their guests were out the doors. Kevin remained in the hall.

“There's still food in the kitchen?” Bruce asked.

“Yes, certainly. And we can whip up anything you want, really quickly,” Kevin assured him.

“Great, I'm starving. Get the group together when the buses are gone. We'll discuss the morning, and where we go from here.”

Toni bit back her sense of extreme aggravation and
followed him down the stairs to the kitchen. The “great laird” was apparently not in the mood for something as simple as scones, and quite capable of taking care of himself. He headed straight for the refrigerator, grabbing all kinds of sandwich makings, while the others jumped around to wash lettuce and slice tomatoes. The circumstances were very bad, Toni admitted, but she hated the fact that they were so obliged to Bruce Mac Niall.

“So, Bruce, what do you think?” Gina asked anxiously.

“I think that you went through a lot of work, and that it looks like your papers—license, permits—are in order. And now the insurance has been dealt with….” He shrugged.

“If you have to leave again, I swear, we will be so good to this place!” Ryan said. “And you won't have to stable Shaunessy anywhere else. You know that I'd just about lie down and die for that horse.”

“So?” Gina persisted.

Toni was surprised when Bruce stared at her. He seemed reflective and worried.

“We began a conversation on the stairs. Women have been killed.” He directed his gaze upon Thayer. “You must have known about it.”

Thayer made a choking sound. “Well, yes, but…” He lifted his hands. “Sadly, these things happen often enough. People don't stop living because of it. We've had much worse situations, every country has. I never saw it as something that really concerned our efforts here.”

Bruce shook his head, looking downward for a minute.

Gina said, “Bruce, people in the village don't seem to be concerned…for their own safety, I mean.”

“No, I guess they don't,” he murmured.

Ryan cleared his throat. “Terrible things have happened in almost every major city, and naturally, they can happen in the countryside, as well. Please…we'd never let ourselves be victimized.” He winced, realizing that they
had
been victimized. “Gina and Toni are too smart to set themselves up for a dangerous situation. We're always together.”

“The women have disappeared from the
big
cities,” Thayer reminded quietly.

Bruce looked hard at Thayer. “So they have.”

“Please! We're adults, and we're less naive than before,” Toni added. “We'll be careful. Please, give us a chance?”

They were all staring at the man. Again he shrugged. “Let me say a tentative yes, we can give it a go. For the next few weeks, at least. There are problems that will arise. Aye, there's the fact that your ‘guests' are usually from far away, and I don't know how the local population is going to take to this. The story Toni invented is too damned close to truth. There are those who think that I have an ancestor out there, running around in the forest, possibly capable of doing ill will. There are the other, very real problems—the situation at present. But we'll see. First thing Monday, we will go to the courthouse. I'll prove my ownership, and we'll get Jonathan going on finding out just who is behind the scam that took you people in.”

“We would gratefully appreciate it!” Gina said.

He shrugged. “I do admit, you've done a lot for the place.”

“Thank you,” Thayer said, looking at him curiously. “I don't mean to be rude, but…but when we got here, the place didn't look very…lived in,” he murmured.

Bruce looked at Thayer. “You are from Glasgow, right?”

“Aye, that I am.”

“As the crow flies, not so far,” Bruce said.

“Not so far, yet Glasgow is a world unto itself. Edinburgh, too, as a matter of fact. It may be a wee country, Laird MacNiall, but we both know that it's still very regional.”

Bruce nodded. “Regional, aye. I'm just surprised that you didn't know that there was a real Bruce MacNiall.”

Thayer grinned ruefully. “Maybe I owe you an apology, then. But, I'm sorry to admit, I've never been to more than half my country. I made it to the Orkney Islands last year for the first time, though I've never been to the Isle of Skye.”

“I see,” Bruce murmured.

“Hey, I've never been to California,” Kevin said.

“And I've never been to—Utah,” David offered.

“Who can cover a whole country?” Ryan asked cheerfully.

“Ah,” Bruce murmured. “It's just that news regarding the killings certainly reached the major newspapers. Murder may be something that happens everywhere, but in Scotland, such crimes do bear note.”

Thayer appeared a bit tense, as if he'd been accused of lying.

“I knew about the murders. Everyone has seen something about them in the paper,” Thayer said, looking confused.

“But you didn't notice any specific references?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Thayer said.

“References to the area?” Toni asked.

Bruce ignored her. “Thayer?”

“I swear, if there was mention regarding this place in the newspapers or on the telly, I didn't see it,” Thayer said. “I live and work in Glasgow, and as you must know, with our size and certain factors, we do have our own crime rate.”

“I'm aware of the city. I've actually been there,” Bruce said.

Toni was oddly uncomfortable, feeling, as Thayer apparently did, that he was somehow under attack. “In the old U.S.A., most farm boys have been to the big city. Doesn't mean all the city folk have made it out to the farm,” she said lightly.

Bruce's eyes shot to hers. “I see. So we're yokels out here, are we, Toni?”

“It's small, that's all I'm saying,” she told him with exasperation.

“Perhaps we should talk about this in the morning,” Gina said softly. “Tempers seem to be rising a bit.”

“My temper isn't rising,” Toni said, staring at Bruce. “It's just that Thayer is my cousin, and I understand completely how he might not have heard of the great and almighty Bruce MacNiall.”

“Toni!” David warned.

“No, really! Bruce, please, listen to me. I'm grateful that you're being magnanimous. But if we're going to make this work, you need to trust us.”

After a moment Bruce turned to Thayer. “I'm not accusing you of anything, Fraser. I'm just curious, that's
all. Naturally,” he said, addressing Gina, “we will have to have some kind of contract written up, but we can work that out at another time.” He set his sandwich on a plate and turned to leave. They watched him in silence. At the kitchen door, he turned back. “One last thing. Stay out of the forest. That's a must.” He stared at Toni. For a moment, it seemed that he was speaking only to her.

She felt almost as if they were touching. Her heart hammered, her breathing quickened. Kinetic energy seared between them, and she wanted to reach out and shake the man.

After he left, they remained in stunned silence for a minute, and Toni felt something deflate in her.

“I don't know about this,” she said. “Every time I start to think he might be decent, he turns back into an ass.”

“Toni, it's just you!” David said.

“He was on to Thayer!” Toni said.

“Hey, kinswoman,” Thayer said lightly, “it's all right. This is Scotland. I can see where he was coming from. Aye, he got m'dander up! But it's all right. There was no revolution here, you know. There's still royalty, nobility, peerage, the whole bit. They tend to think they should be known, though, as you've seen, old piles of stone like this one tend to be all about. The bloke probably can't quite admit that this isn't exactly Stirling or Edinburgh castle!” Thayer shrugged. “We're at the base of the Highlands, you know. The Lowlanders and the Highlanders have always been a bit off. I'm fine with it all. Hey, I am a Scotsman. I should have seen to it that I knew more about the place, eh?” He walked to Toni, smiling ruefully, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“My fierce little American! I'm all right on my own, honestly.”

She nodded, liking him very much then.

Thayer's small dimples showed and his green eyes were light. With his fingers he shoved back a lock of sandy hair and said again, “Toni, I'm all right, honestly.”

“Well, there you have it!” David announced. “It's late.”

“Yes, if the lot of you will just get out of the kitchen, David and I will whip it all clean in a matter of minutes,” Kevin said. “We can make more sense of things in the morning.”

“No, we'll stay and help,” Toni murmured.

“No, you will not!” David protested. “You'll make it take longer.”

“You'll start breaking dishes,” Ryan said.

“I will not!” Toni protested.

David came by her side, hugging her. “Toni, you're in bitch mode,” he said softly.

“I am not!” she protested vehemently. Then she looked around, they were all staring at her. “I am not,” she said stubbornly, but far more softly.

“It's him,” Thayer said.

“You're right, it's him,” she agreed, thinking that, naturally, Thayer was on her side. Then she realized that he hadn't meant the words quite the way that she had taken them, because the others were suddenly grinning.

“You noted it, too?” Ryan said to Thayer.

“The sparks that are always flying?” Kevin suggested.

“Chemistry in the air,” David said.

“Oh, no!” Toni protested.

“I'd do him in a flash,” Kevin said, “if I weren't taken.”

“And if he weren't reeking heterosexuality,” David said pragmatically.

“Trust me—” Toni began.

“Oh, Toni! Quit being so blind!” Gina advised. “Every time the two of you talk, I'm waiting for one of you to lunge at the other and grapple on the floor!”

“I give up,” Toni said, very aggravated and tense.

“You are free, white and female,” David reminded her.

“Hey, might be good for her,” Ryan commented. “Look how calm and sweet Gina always is! And she can thank me for that!”

“Okay, I've had it—I'm out of here!” Toni said.

To her complete irritation, they all laughed as she de parted.

Upstairs, she showered and was just crawling in for the night when she heard a tapping on her connecting door. She thought about calling out, but didn't. Instead, she rose, walked across the room and opened the door.

Bruce was there, in his bathrobe, his hair slick and black, slate eyes enigmatic. “If you're not all right, just call out,” he told her quietly.

“If I'm not all right?” she murmured.

“If dreams plague you. Nightmares,” he said.

She met his eyes. There was concern in them, and she was amazed at the sudden sense of
knowing
him that leaped into her heart.
Wanting him,
she thought.

He touched her face, his thumb moving gently over
her cheek, rounding down around her chin. “You know,” he mused softly, “it is just a matter of time.”

“Excuse me?” Her words were breathless. She should have just moved away to begin with. His touch was somehow extremely intimate. She felt as if her flesh was crying out to be touched by him. All of it. The length of him beckoned—his hands, the size of him, cast of his features, texture of his skin, even the slate of his eyes.

“A matter of time,” he repeated.

“Until…?” she managed with a smile.

“Well, until you jump me, of course.”

“Until I jump you?” she demanded, some sense of in dignity coming to the fore. “Laird MacNiall, I'm afraid that you do have a rather inflated opinion of yourself!”

He was still amused. He leaned closer to her and said softly, “I won't be stopping you, you know, lass.”

Then he turned and quietly closed the door between them.

Toni kicked it.

“Call if you need me,” he said.

She made a point of locking the door.

But later that night, the dream came again. She was sound asleep, or so she thought. Then she opened her eyes, and he was there. At the foot of her bed. In full war regalia, with his sword at his side. Dripping blood.

And she began to scream.

 

The first scream cut through Bruce's subconscious like a razor. He bolted up, seeking the danger for a millisecond, then he burst from his bed and hurtled through the bath.

She had the door locked.

He hesitated for a moment, listening. Then, once again, he heard her scream. Swearing, he hurried back in his room and dug in the cuff-link drawer of the wardrobe for the skeleton key. Seconds later, he had the door open.

She was sitting up in bed, staring, her blond hair streaming out over the lilac print of her flannel gown. Her eyes were open, dead-set on something in front of her, something that he couldn't see but which was so very real to her.

Another scream ripped from her.

There was something achingly vulnerable, young and fragile about her at that moment. The fine construction of her features seemed more delicate, the wheaten beauty of her hair more sheer. She looked for all the world like an otherworld Ophelia.

And, like the mad Ophelia, if he didn't move, she would not be reprieved.