Page 5 of Laird Of Her Heart

And fascinating.

Funny that she’d never found this place as a child, when they’d played in these woods, but maybe she’d never come this far before. She glanced at the sky, but it was blotted out by the canopy of trees. Still, she could tell it was getting dark. Too late to explore this interesting site, but she would come back tomorrow, if she could find it again.

“All right, you imp,” she said, heading for Mop. “Let’s go have some pizza.” She tucked the flashlight into her pocket and scooped him up, but he yelped and wriggled from her grasp. To her complete and utter annoyance, he skittered away again.

She made a sound, a growl or a snarl or something like that, and started after him but at that moment, the clasp on her locket broke and it fell to the ground.

It was an old locket—no one really knew how old it was as it had been given to Grandma when she’d been a girl—but it was precious because Grandma had treasured it. And she’d given it to Maggie. She huffed a sigh and bent to pick it up.

Perhaps she bent too quickly, or perhaps she was weakened by lack of food—surely the pizza had arrived by now—but her head spun and she lost her balance and fell.

And fell.

And fell.

Barraged by a swirling welter of movement, blinded by flashing lights and stars flickering before her eyes, she tumbled. For some reason, the image of Alice plummeting into the rabbit hole flickered through her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut, tightened her hold on the locket and tried to focus on quieting her pattering pulse.

She’d never fainted before. Was that what this was?

How mortifying.

She landed with a thump, one reminiscent of waking with a jolt from a falling dream.

Sucking in a deep breath, she opened her eyes…and then closed them again as bright sunlight scored her corneas. What the—?

“What have we here?” A deep voice in a thick brogue echoed through the trees. Maggie sat up like a shot and scraped the hair from her eyes and stared at the man standing before her. He was tall and broad, with dark riotous curls and a fierce expression. He was dressed in strange clothes made of wool and had simple leather boots on his feet. He held a large bow with an arrow pointed at her heart.

Another man captured her attention. He was ferocious as well. In fact…they all were. No fewer than six rough and feral and thoroughly unwashed men surrounded her in a semi-circle.

It occurred to her that, though she was still in a circle of stones, they were not the same stones…and the forest was different. These trees were leafy where the ones at home had been firs. The angle of the light was off and the air…tasted different. She knew something very strange had happened, but her mind was having a hard time processing what it could have been.

Where was she? What had happened? Was this a hallucination? A dream? Had she died? Was this heaven? The men were certainly handsome enough for it to be.

And why was she still…tingling?

“What is it Declan?” One of the men asked.

The first man—the leader—looked her up and down. His lip curled and he sneered, “What is it? Why, a Cameron spy of course.”

CHAPTER TWO

Maggie yelped as, without warning, the burly warrior named Declan whipped her up into his arms and tossed her over his shoulder. To her dismay, she lost her hold on the locket and it fell into the thick grass.

“Wait,” she cried. She wriggled to get free, but his grip was too hard. When she pummeled his back with her fists as he strode from the circle of stones, he chuckled. The beast. But to be fair, he was so large, it would have felt like a kitten batting him. “Put me down.”

“I willna,” he said. “The Macintosh will decide how you die.”

All right. That shut her up. For a second. “Die? Why do I need to die?” What the hell had she ever done to him?

The man following, an enormous blond with a scar tracking his cheek, bent down to peer at her. “The Macintoshes doona tolerate spies.”

“I’m not a spy.” Seriously. She wriggled more and Declan smacked her ass.

Smacked her ass.

She’d kill him when she got free. Just kill him.

“Yer wearing the Cameron colors,” the blond said in a growl. “And the Macintoshes doona—”