Excerpt

I don’t have much to blog about today. Well… I DO but it’s a personal situation I can’t discuss here until it’s resolved.

So I thought I’d put up an excerpt from the latest release A Bend In Time for your reading pleasure. Enjoy. 🙂

~*~*~

William had assured her the hired killer had a broken leg and was guarded. That left Skye with a feeling of ease. She let her guard down, thinking that, even though he was in the same castle, he couldn’t get to her so easily. At least, not without anyone knowing. And she planned to stay within arm’s reach of William anyway.

She gorged on a feast of things she had never seen before but were quite tasty. There was a mincemeat pastry, a bread the men called barley bannocks, and a stew made with cabbage, turnips and carrots. She discovered mead and truly loved it.

I’ve had too much of this stuff, she thought when she had finished eating. She was so full she could hardly move. She leaned back in her chair, her eyes droopy and stared at her tankard, which was magically refilled every time it was emptied. She really didn’t care how it was refilled, only that it was. She thoroughly enjoyed this sweet honey wine. Even better than Jager. She could drink it all day long and never tire of it.

“The lassie looks fairly drunk, William.”

She thought that was Campbell speaking but she couldn’t be sure. She could hardly keep her eyes open. Her vision blurred and William wavered somewhere to her left.

“Aye.”

William’s voice. She bobbed her head in his direction, trying to focus on him. She felt like rubber and let her head rest on the table, her cheek on the wood so she could still see him.

“I am not drunk, wee William,” she slurred. “’Tis tired is all.”

Laughter broke out among the men, a rolling sort that sounded as though she were in a tunnel and somewhere far away.

“Mayhap ye should be gettin’ her to a bed, William.”

And more laughter. She couldn’t quite tell, but she suspected that was Campbell speaking again. She really didn’t care. She reached for her tankard, lifted her head and sipped. Well, tried to anyway. Most of it dribbled down her chin, leaving her sticky. She felt William hovering by her side, lifting her up bodily from the table.

“Come on, lassie. Off to bed with ye.”

They were walking now, down a hallway and he kept one hand clamped on her bicep to help steady her footing. “Steps now, lassie.”

His voice was soft in her ear, coaxing her along at each riser as they ascended the stairs. She started to giggle, babbling on about how it was hard to climb the steps when her feet didn’t want to work. The world was spinning around her, but for William. He was the only thing that remained steady.

He must have given up trying to help her walk because she suddenly felt airborne and was in his arms. Her face was in the curve of his neck and he smelled good to her, something earthen and heady and not at all unpleasant. She nuzzled him, sighed his name.

They were in her chamber then and she heard him kick the door closed before placing her on the bed. Still giggling, she rolled to her back, watched the ceiling as it spun in a wild arc. She could feel him fumbling with the laces of her hiking boots before he pulled them off her feet. They landed with a thud on the stone floor.

“Sleep well, wee Skae.” He pulled up a blanket to cover her.

He started to leave, but she rolled to her side. Skye forced her leaden limbs to work and reached for him, grasping a fistful of his tunic and pulling him close.

“William,” she breathed, and she could smell her alcohol-laced breath. “Don’t you want to kiss me goodnight?”

“I dinae think so, lassie.”

“Why not?” She stuck out her bottom lip. It wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear.

“Because you are drunk,” he said and he offered her a smile. “An’ I dinae think that is what ye really want.” He removed her hand from his tunic and disappeared from the chamber.

Skye curled into a tight ball, willing the room to stop spinning. He’s right, she thought. William’s not what I really want. I mean, he’s nice and all, big and strong, kind to me and decent…gentlemanly…hell, he’s close to perfect…which means he’s absolutely, one hundred and fifty-two percent NOT RIGHT for me.

She closed her eyes, listening to the deafening silence. It was as though she was in a tunnel, all the sounds muffled around her. Even the silence seemed dampened in a strange way.

“No,” she murmured. “No, what’s right for me is dark hair and green eyes and…and a baritone voice rumbling all around in his chest…his nice, broad, yummy, warm, muscle-y chest…”

Yes, sir, yup, indeed, she thought. Slap some butter on that and sop it up with a biscuit. And I know just the man to fit the bill, too. In her drunken stupor, it seemed as though she was on a wave, undulating up and down and up and down. She couldn’t quite make it stop. Too bad he’s a murderer.

“Who wants to kill me, too,” she mumbled, and snorted with laughter. “Just my…just my luck…”

She rolled to her back and placed one foot on the floor. It was the only thing that kept the room from gyrating.