A Laird for All Time by Angeline Fortin (room on the broom read aloud txt) 📗

I was imagining you!  Who are you?  What are you doing in here? Go! Leave before I call the Bobbies or whatever they are called up here!  You just can’t walk into my hotel room…wait this isn’t my hotel room!  Where I am?  Who are you? Go away!”

A large male finger reached out and nudged up her chin effectively closing her mouth and stopping the rambling flow of w

“Charming, my dear, is this the way we’re going to play it then?”  His accent was a thick and deep Sean Connery rumbling…and so utterly sexy that Emmy was for a moment disarmed.  A little shudder passed through her.  She shook the feeling off and tucked it away to examine later.

“What are you talking about?” She asked after shoving his hand away from her chin roughly, a move that clearly surprised him.

“Amusing,” he murmured leaning back in the chair and rubbed a forefinger absently across his full, appealing lower lip.  “Did you not think I would recognize you, Heather love?”

“Obviously you’ve got the wrong girl, Scotty.  My name is Emmy.”

“Could you not think of a more clever alias, my dear?  Not a terribly original variation of Emeline Heather.”

Emmy rolled her eyes.  “Okay. Whatever.  Point remains you got the wrong girl.  Go back to the mother ship.”  Too bad that he was absolutely round the bend, she thought.  He honestly had to be the most incredibly appealing man she had ever laid eyes on and that voice!  It alone sent little vibrations of lust a long her every nerve ending.

She rounded the bed to the safety of the opposite side attempting to create a barrier between them. Noticing her blazer and scarf at the end of the bed, she snatched them up slipping them back on.  “What time is it anyway?” Hurrying over to the door she ran her hand over the wall next to it.  “And where is the damn light switch?”

“The what?”  he asked.

“The switch?  Or do you call it something else?  Oh, hell, just turn on the damn lights, for crying out loud!” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him in turn.

“You have developed a most foul mouth while you’ve been gone, my dear.”

Emmy threw her hands over her head.  “I am not your dear OR your Heather!”

“Did you think I would forget you even if it’s been ten years since you left?”  That voice was doing things to her again.  Despite her apprehension, she felt every word with a quiver deep in her chest.  It was disconcerting to say the least.  She needed to get away from here before she did something stupid.

“Left?  Read my lips, I-have-never-been-to-Scotland-before.” She spoke slowly enunciating each word while making a mouthing motion with her hand like a puppet.  “Never.  Comprende?  You got the wrong girl. I am Emmy MacKenzie,” she squared her shoulders.  “Dr. Emily MacKenzie.”

He stared at her in disbelief for a moment then to her surprise burst out in laughter.  A warm, rich laughter that would have been incredibly attractive from a man not quite so insane.

Disgusted with him and herself, Emmy wrenched the door open and left the room, determined to find the castle’s caretaker and get that madman away from her.

Emmy clomped down the hall to the massive stone staircase that led to the floor below.  The thought crossed her mind that it looked even more authentic than the brochure or website had seemed.  Where was the office?  Surely, the caretaker would have some sort of office or desk.  A tall, lean man in a dark suit entered from the adjacent room.  “Can I help ye, lass?” he asked in a heavy burr.

“Thank goodness,” Emmy said throwing up her hands as she rushed toward him.  “Are you the manager?  There is a strange man upstairs who was harassing me and I’d like to report him.”

“A strange man, ye say?” the man looked utterly befuddled by her statement.  “Only the laird and his family are here in the castle, lass.  Are you sure you’re not mistaken?”

“No! There really is someone up there!” she insisted and hissed to him, “He keeps insisting that I’m his wife!”

The man’s eyes crinkled in amusement as they shifted up to the stairs behind her.  “It seems the lass is having a hard time remembering you, Connor.”

Emmy spun around to face the man from her room above her on the landing watching with an amused grin on his lips.  “It does seem to be the case, Ian.  Perhaps you should reintroduce us.”

“Lassie, meet Lord Connor James Lachlan MacLean the Second, Earl of Stratheclyde, Laird of the Clan MacLean, Lord of Duart Castle and you’ll be remembering, yer husband.”

“I am not his wife!”

“Aye, ye are!” both men replied in unison.

Connor MacLean stared down at his long-lost wife momentarily enthralled by the beauty before him heightened by the high temper she was in.  Her hair was lighter than he remembered and her figure fuller in all the best places, but it was definitely she.  Nor was she the frigid young thing he recalled from ten years past.  Time had brought an assuredness to her manner and clearly enough self-confidence not to fear an argument or confrontation with him for she had actually slapped his hand away!  And her temper brought a high color to her cheeks that was unbelievably alluring.

He tamped down the beginnings of an arousal and tried to remember his anger.  The humiliation she had dealt him all those years ago.  It should not matter that she had a fullness to her lips that begged him to forgive and forget. To take them with his own.  He could not forget who she was.

She paced the hall with unconcealed agitation.  Her stride manly in the trousers she wore.  Strange that, Heather had been one for high fashion.

“Oh my God,” she entreated again in a most sacrilegious way, “if you treat all your guests in this fashion, you’ll be out of business in no time!”  Rubbing her hands over her face, Emmy