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

“I will kill him,” he threatened with real rage.  “Tell me where to find him.”

Amazedly, Emmy chuckled at his protectiveness.  “My knight in shining armor.”

He cradled her face between his hands.  “My love, I am sorry yer flight from me resulted in such a painful incident for ye.

                “Wow,” she breathed in surprise raising her brows.  “That is so…compassionate of you.  What, no recriminations?  No saying that I brought it on myself?  Most of the men I know would think so.”

“No woman deserves to be so ill-treated at the hands of a man.”

“Unwilling sex you forgive but the four I chose you don’t,” she mused and caressed his cheek before placing a light kiss there.  “I have never told anyone about that before.  I don’t know why I told you.  I have always been afraid that people would give me that look that said it was my own fault.”

“The only fault that can be laid at yer feet would be that if ye had never left it would not have happened at all,” he chided.

“Connor,” she sighed regretfully pulling away from him.  “Enough of this.  I know that some small part of you must realize that I am not Heather.  Admit it.”

He shook his head and turned searching for his pants and pulling them on.  “Ye have changed, beyond any doubt.  Ye are in many ways, a completely different person from the woman I knew, but yer appearance on that day of all days?   And look at ye!  I cannot look at ye and believe it ye are anyone else.  It might be possible for two women on this earth to look the same but three?  Impossible.”

“You are going to have to accept it sooner or later, Connor.  Honestly I think you already have, but are denying it for reasons of your own.”  She turned back to the revived fire and stared down into the flames.

As his silence reined, Emmy turned back to him and pressed on softly.  “You haven’t called me by that name since the night before last when we almost…made love.  You call me ‘my lady’ and ‘my dear’ but not that.  Do you even think of me by that name anymore?  Just say it one time, Connor.”  She reached for his hand and pressed it to her cheeks looking up at him with pleading eyes.  “Say Emmy.  Call me by my own name.”

“What did you expect when ye came here?  That I would welcome ye with open arms?” he said evasively pulling away once again and sitting on the edge of the bed as he rubbed his face with his hands in exasperation.  “Are things not turning out the way ye thought and you want to leave?  If ye can convince me you are not Heather, then I have no hold on ye.  Is that it?  Is that what yer insistence is all about?”  Awaiting the answer to that impulsive question left him on edge.  He dared not look at her as dread filled him.

Did she want to leave?  It was the question that had been plaguing her since she had seen Donell that morning.  It was a question that was getting harder and harder to answer easily.  Her future as she had always imagined it or a life here?  And was that even a choice?  She had come here suddenly, what was to stop her from being snapped back to her own time without warning? On the whim of an old wizard or whatever he was? Did she have a choice in her destiny?  She wasn’t even sure, so did it matter what she wanted?  She didn’t know.  She knelt on the floor before him and urged him to look at her.

“What I want has nothing to do with this insane insistence that I am Heather,” she argued loathe to think any longer about her dilemma.  “You have already admitted that you’ve gotten a divorce.  Even if I was Heather I could leave at anytime, don’t you realize that?  What other benefit is there for you if I am Heather?”

‘I have a chance to keep ye,’ he thought grasping her hands in his.  If she was Heather, there was a tie between them however tenuous.  As long as she was Heather he had justification to keep her here if not for himself than for her sister.  If he conceded she might not be, she had every right to walk out the door if she wished just as she said and his hold on her already felt too fragile.  How could he explain that to her?  “If ye’re not, why haven’t ye left already?”

She had nowhere else to go but it went deeper than that.  She didn’t want to leave him.  She wanted to stay with him, near him at least for the time being, but if he wanted her, she wanted him to want her for herself.  Emmy wanted him to know that he wanted her not Heather.

“This thing between us, Connor, this chemistry,” she fumbled for the words, “it is worth exploring, isn’t it?  I am staying for this, for now.  But I am not Heather, I swear to you, and if you want me to leave because of that alone, I will go.  If you want me to go, tell me now.”

Connor looked down at her lovely face so familiar and yet so new.  Heather or not, this woman aroused feelings in him that he had never felt before.  Tender, protective, possessive.  He wanted her for himself whatever that implied, short-term or long-term he did not know, but he needed time to figure it out.  As she said, it was worth exploring. “No, my love, I do not want ye to go.”

“Yet?”

“No not yet.”  The corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile and he leaned over to meet her lips in a tender kiss.  “Ye’re the most curious woman I have ever met.”

“Thanks, I think, and you’re…”