A Highlander in Her Past by Maeve Greyson Page B

bed.
    “Aye.” Maxwell nodded, then stretched with another jaw-cracking yawn. Scrubbing his fingers through the mat of curly hair on his chest, he nodded toward the hearth. “The coals are low and the room is cold. Now, can I get back in the bed?”
    “Are you crazy?” Trish stretched and grabbed an iron candleholder off the shelf above the bed. “I may be small but don’t make the mistake of thinking that I’m helpless.” Waving the weighty weapon toward a plaid tossed across a chair beside the hearth, Trish pulled the covers closer about her chin. “There’s a wrap. You can cover up with that while you explain who you are.”
    “God’s beard,” Maxwell grumbled as he pushed himself up from the floor. “’Tis a sorry day when a man saves a woman’s life just to get ousted from a warm bed and sent to sit by a dying fire.”
    Wow. Trish arched her brows and bit her tongue against the desire to emit a low admiring whistle. He must not be that cold. She didn’t attempt to look away as Maxwell paraded across the floor. Trish had to admit the man looked damn sexy…coated with a heavy dusting of reddish-brown hair or not. Leaning to the side to improve the angle, Trish followed him with her gaze. She’d always been attracted to the burly type. They cuddled better after a good romp in the sheets.
    As Maxwell bent to retrieve the plaid, he grinned over one shoulder and winked. “I’m verra glad ye seem to be enjoying the view.”
    Trish shook herself and snapped her sagging lower jaw shut. She hadn’t meant to stare or get lost in a fantasy trip. Brandishing the candlestick higher in the air, she motioned toward the chair. “Never you mind about what I’m enjoying. How ’bout you just sit over there and start explaining.”
    Maxwell’s deep-green eyes sparkled with mischief as he raised his arms over his head and stretched long and slow.
    Trish squirmed in the bed as she caught him watching her. She didn’t know why he complained the room was cold. It felt pretty damn warm to her.
    Maxwell peeped around a bulging bicep and flexed layers of hardened muscles in the reddish glow of the hearth before wrapping the plaid about his waist. With one hand and the ease that Trish would pick up a pencil, Maxwell hefted a log the size of Trish into the dying coals.
    Trish didn’t miss how the muscles of his back rippled as he stirred the blackened iron poker in the fire. Dammit. How could she not remember playing in the sheets with that? Running her tongue across her lips, Trish frowned as she tasted chapped and broken skin. She raised her fingertips to her mouth, patting gently against the tender broken flesh stretched across her lips. “What’s wrong with me?”
    Maxwell crossed his legs at the ankles, folding his hands across his stomach as he leaned back in the chair. “Nothing now. But ’twas little more than a few hours ago that ye were about to meet your maker.”
    Trish pinched the bridge of her nose, rubbing the inside corners of her eyes. Nothing Maxwell said made sense. Bits and pieces of strange thoughts filtered through her mind. Were they memories or just bad dreams? “For my sake, could you please just start at the beginning and give me a quick rundown?”
    Maxwell settled his head against the high back of the wooden slatted chair and stared unblinking at the ceiling. “The beginning. Well let’s see. I suppose the beginning would be the part where ye suddenly appeared above the tables in the library of magics, in the midst of a howling wind with a young boy clenched in your arms. Ramsay survived the trip through time quite well but you were near fatally injured. Young Keagan figured out that only those who are fully blessed and active in their magic are able to survive navigating the web of time and bring their souls along with them. Ye see, young Ramsay’s a magical MacKay but you, my dear, are not.” Maxwell paused, inhaled a deep breath and then continued. “So, the only way to save yer