Highlander Warrior Read online

  Highlander Warrior

  A Scottish Time Travel Romance

  Rebecca Preston

  Illustrated by

  Natasha Snow

  Edited by

  Elizabeth A Lance

  Copyright © 2018 Rebecca Preston

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Natasha Snow

  Edited by Elizabeth A Lance

  Similarities to real people, places or events are purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Mailing List

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  About Rebecca Preston

  Also by Rebecca Preston

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  Chapter 1

  “It's my party and I'll cry if I want to,” Cora Wilcox sang under her breath, stirring a half-melted ice cream sundae. Her favorite little coffee shop was mostly empty this time of night, which suited her just fine at the moment. Cora kicked idly at the bag under her feet — it held her uniform, dirty from a full day's exhausting work. Usually, she'd be home by now, tripping over her cat Hamish as he wove his stupid way around her feet, waiting for his dinner. But instead, she'd changed into a high-necked, dark green dress that she'd always hated, and parked her car at the cafe around the corner from the church she drove past on her way to work each day. The dress was itchy, and frumpy, and high-necked — but it was the only thing she owned that successfully disguised her frankly ridiculous figure, and as such was the only option for somber occasions like tonight.

  “Two years tonight, Audy,” she murmured now, pitching her voice under the tinny music that always played in the cafe. “Two years since you ditched me, you skinny old cow.” A sad little smile pulled the corners of her lips upward. Audrina was only four years older than her, but she'd always teased her about the decades of difference in their outlooks on life.

  They'd met at work, back when Cora was just an apprentice. She'd been at the hospital checking up on a patient who'd needed to be transferred after some complications cropped up during labor. A redheaded nurse had bustled past her, arms full of clipboards, grim expression on her face — and crashed into a wheelchair that had been carelessly left in the corridor. Choking down her laughter, Cora had helped the young nurse up.

  “Thank you, thank you,” Audrina had been murmuring distractedly. “God, what a day, you ever have one of those days where just absolutely nothing goes right and I'm so out of my depth with all these patients and — thanks, I'll take those —”

  Cora withheld the armful of clipboards. “Not until you let me give you something.”

  “Huh?”

  She reached into her satchel and pulled out a bottle of essential oils. It was one of the first aromatherapy remedies she'd put together, and she pressed it into the nurse's hand.

  “Lavender, rosemary, and oak for grounding. Breathe it in whenever you're feeling overwhelmed. It'll help. Go on.”

  The nurse didn't look especially impressed (they were always skeptics, tightly-wound women like that) but Cora waved the charts at her and she obediently sniffed the bottle of oils.

  “It smells — actually, that smells really nice.”

  “I'm Cora.”

  “Audrina.”

  Cora dumped the files in her arms again. “Look after yourself. You're no use to your patients if you've died of stress.”

  They ran into each other a few more times around the hospital, and it wasn't long before they'd struck up a friendship. It was hard to socialize with the kind of demanding jobs they both had, and they found kindred spirits in one another. Audrina was probably the most important relationship in Cora's life, when she thought about it — she had no brothers or sisters, very little extended family, a father she'd never met and a mother she almost-never spoke to. The idea of finding a romantic relationship was a joke, too, with the amount of work she had on her plate — she'd always joked with Audrina that if they didn't make time to date sooner or later, they'd have to wind up marrying each other.

  And now she was gone. Two years ago today, disappeared off the face of the planet in a whirlwind of missing person's reports, sleepless nights waiting for the phone to ring, watching every news report with bated breath, praying for information, any information about a young woman with a mane of bright red hair...and then the worst part. The part where she stopped checking every night — where the web searches became every other day, not every day. The part where the bright flame of hope and determination began to flicker and burn out, day in and day out with no word from anyone of where Audrina could have gone. The awful, awful day when she realized she had gone a whole afternoon without thinking of Audrina once — the day she managed to forget her dear friend. That made her feel terrible about herself. It didn’t matter that it had only been a short while — she’d forgotten. For a little while, it had been as though Audrina was never even there.

  “Hope Scotland's nice,” Cora murmured now, toasting the empty air with the last spoonful of ice cream. Audrina would have tutted at her for such an unhealthy dinner — but Audrina wasn't here, was she? It had always been Cora's secret hope that Audrina hadn't been killed or abducted or left unrecognizable in some deadly accident, that she'd just gotten on a plane to Scotland like she'd always dreamed of doing. It was impossible, Cora knew that in her heart — but it eased the sadness a little, to imagine that shock of bright red hair against the Scottish moors. It was all she'd ever wanted, that trip to Scotland. And now she'd never be able to take it.

  And if that wasn't bad enough, she had to go to a funeral tonight. She wasn't really allowed to call it a funeral, of course — funerals were for people who'd been born already. Didn't make the loss any less sharp, of course. Didn't change the grief of the parents, or the finality of the death. Cora had been a qualified midwife for five years now, and she still hated the word 'miscarriage'. There was something so cold about it. As though all that potential, all that love and hope and magic slipping away wasn't a real death. It made it harder for the families to grieve, she'd always thought. It certainly made it harder for her. When one of Audrina's patients died in the emergency room, there were structures in place for her to grieve. Cora's patients went more quietly — an unusual pain in the stomach, a bit of unexpected bleeding, a worried ultrasound and — that was it.

  And this one was just so unfair. A first-time mother, young, strong, in perfect health — prenatal yoga three times a week, absolutely strict about a healthy, balanced diet, called Cora four times a week to check about which brands of cheese were best for the baby. The young father, doing absolutely ev
erything he could — he'd read every book on Cora's rather extensive reading list by the end of the first trimester. They had a list of names picked out, the nursery painted, preschools already shortlisted. Everything had been perfect. And then, out of the blue, the little girl had just slipped away one night. Just like that. One day a happy, expecting couple — the next day, nothing. It wasn't fair.

  Cora sighed, rising from the table and dropping a healthy tip on the table before gathering her bag and heading out into the night. The funeral — the memorial service — it would help that young couple begin to heal. Whatever Cora could do to help that happen, she was going to do. Didn't matter that it was the anniversary of her best friend's disappearance and she'd rather be home cuddling her cats and crying. If anything, Audrina's mysterious loss had taught her more about what her patients felt when they went through losses like this. No reason for it, no justification but the strange whims of God.

  “You move in mysterious ways, alright,” she murmured as she climbed into her car, adjusting her rear-vision mirror. There was a set of rosary beads draped around it. Cora wasn't the kind of Catholic who liked to proclaim her faith for all to see and hear, especially with patients — faith was a deeply personal matter, and she didn't want to make any of her patients the least bit uncomfortable with having her around. She certainly wouldn't bring up her beliefs about the afterlife, either. But it was a private and personal comfort, knowing that whatever happened, God was keeping an eye on her.

  She checked her makeup in the mirror now, tutting as she wiped away a few mascara smudges and scolding herself for crying. Medical professionals needed stricter self-control, her mentor had always lectured her. She looked hideous when she cried. Some girls could get away with it — but Cora had pale skin, only accentuated by her dark, wavy hair, and any hint of weeping brought hideous red blotches to her entire face. She hated it, but it didn't make it any easier to hold the tears back once they were brewing.

  “Get it together or you'll look like a monster all night, Cora-my-girl,” she muttered into the mirror, grinning a little. Audrina used to call her that — it had crept into her own vocabulary since her disappearance. Right. Off to the funeral, help the family come to terms with the awful thing that had happened to them — then she could go home and cry into a pint of Ben and Jerry's.

  Cora turned the key in the ignition. Later, she'd look back on this as one of the last normal moments of her life.

  Chapter 2

  Thunder. Rain. A flash of lightning that lit up even the dark space behind her eyelids. Cora drifted through a strange twilight place between unconscious and awake — sleep was calling her, tempting her deeper, cajoling for her to ignore the things that were calling her back to the light. Just stay still...stay here...stay where it was quiet, and warm, and where she wouldn't have to think for a minute about the funeral of a baby that didn't even get to take its first breath, about the disappearance of her best and only friend, about a world with no sense or justice whatsoever...about the distant drumming of hoof beats...

  Hoof beats?

  Cora stirred, felt her limbs move against mud and slush, not the hard road surface she'd been expecting. Why had she been expecting that? No, stay asleep, stay down here...but worry was beginning to take over. She banished it automatically, sending the rising panic to the back corner of her mind to wring its hands while the rest of her sorted out what was happening. She was flat on her back in the mud. Right. How had that happened?

  A flash of headlights...the road late at night...what was the last thing she remembered? (The hoof beats were getting louder, observed the section of her mind she'd surrendered to panic. Alright, she thought, I'll take that under advisement, now shut up.) Hugging her client goodbye — God, that young woman had to be the bravest person she'd ever met, standing there politely thanking her guests for coming with the tears on her cheeks not even dry. Walking out into the cold night air — cold, yes, but not raining, no sign of a storm like the one she could hear lashing the treetops. (Treetops? Had she driven to the countryside? There weren't that many trees within twenty miles of her apartment...) Getting in the car. Headlights on. Exhausted by sadness on the drive home, yes...headlights bright in the oncoming lane. Too bright. Too close. And suddenly —

  With almost theatrical timing, a bolt of thunder struck as she remembered the car drifting out of its lane and hitting her head-on. Cora sat bolt upright on the road and screamed.

  The last thing she expected was to hear her scream echoed by the whinny of a horse.

  But as she opened her eyes, there it was, framed against the black night sky — a dark shape, but recognizable as a horse rearing onto its back legs, hooves striking wildly at the night as its eyes rolled. There was just enough light to make out the shape of a rider on its back — and then the sound of a strangled curse, a heavy thump, and the horse was riderless. It dropped to the road and cantered on a few paces down the road, hooves thudding wetly in the mud and spraying her with a little more mud as it went. Charming.

  " — ye great gallumphin' eejit," she made out from the litany of curses that were arising from the pile of limbs that the horse had so neatly deposited in the mud nearby. "You've broke me head clean across —"

  "The horse is gone, buddy. No use swearing at him," Cora called, and it wasn't until she heard her own voice over the rain that she realized that the man had an accent thicker than her forearm. And he was hurt — or carrying on like he was hurt, anyway, and she knew full well that shock was as much a killer as anything else these days.

  Speaking of. Cora took a moment to check herself over. Wet through to the bone, of course, and her dress was a little torn, but she was unharmed, which was pretty impressive given that she'd woken up miles from her car after a head-on collision. (Questions arising from the cordoned-off Panic Section of Cora's mind included: Where's the car? Where's the other car, for that matter? How did you get here? Why are there no street lights? She didn't have any answers, so she didn't pay it any heed. A refreshing strategy, if a rather short-term one.)

  The man was on his knees, panting as he struggled to rise, and though Cora could barely make him out in the darkness, she knew the look of a man about to make a damn fool of himself. "Stay there," she said sharply, with the comforting but irrefutable voice of a woman used to giving instructions in high-stakes medical scenarios.

  "How dare you give me orders," the man growled. "Some mad witch out in the middle of the night —"

  "You're out too, aren't you?" Cora interrupted, irritably. "And you've fallen off a horse and probably split your head open." She made her way across the dirt road to where he was kneeling. She reached for her pocket, but her phone was gone — she half remembered putting it into her handbag, and throwing her handbag (of course) onto the passenger seat of her car. And now her car was gone, and so was her handbag, and so was bitumen and streetlights and civilization. God, how had she ended up so far from home? She'd heard of people entering fugue states, driving for miles and miles with no memory of how or why they'd gotten where they ended up. Had she finally snapped? Had the stress finally gotten to her? It had been a fairly grim week, to be sure, but she'd gotten through years of medical training without losing her marbles. It wasn't like her to let stress get to this point. Cora had always prided herself on her toughness, her self-sufficiency...had losing Audrina really done her that much damage?

  She'd taken the man's head firmly into her hands and was conducting an ad-hoc examination as these thoughts raced through her mind. The darkness made it hard to see any wounds, but as far as she could tell, his hair was wet with nothing more serious than rainwater. She took his rough hands into hers, checked his wrists, elbows and shoulders for any serious injury. He seemed to submit to these ministrations out of surprise more than anything, but as she began pressing on the sides of his torso to check for broken ribs he made an impatient sound and rose to his feet. God, he was miles taller than her.

  "Blast it, I'm not the one who needs aid. I've fallen
off horses enough times to know how to avoid breaking me neck. Just need that damned animal to behave itself for long enough to —"

  "I'll go get the horse if that's what you're worried about."

  She heard the man scoff with disbelief. Rude. Men got like that when any kind of accident struck. Spend their lives thinking they're indestructible, find out they're not, lash out at whoever's got the misfortune to be nearby. Well, today that was her. What luck.

  "Ye won't catch him, lassie. He's a belligerent old coot with a devil in his bones. Kick your head in soon as look at ye."

  "Fine. Sure. If I fetch him for you, will you be polite?"

  "He's long gone, girlie —"

  "Nope," Cora said flatly, letting a little of the frustration she was feeling at her profoundly confusing situation creep into her voice. "Not girlie, not lassie, definitely not witch. I'm offering to help you. The least you can do is to stop being so damn rude."

  "Do you have any idea who you're talking to?"

  "No idea, don't much care. Wait here, I'll get your horse. Men! Honestly!" Cora hauled herself upright and tried to wipe some of the mud off her dress. It was freezing cold and the air smelled strange — like trees, and rain, and starlight. Something was missing from it. Cora set off down the path, leaving the belligerent hulk of man behind her on the road.