Chapter 1

BRADY, NORTH CAROLINA

SOMEWHERE IN THE WOODS, MODERN DAY

“Come here, you stubborn bastard!” Hanging upside down through the moon roof of her car, Katie roared out her frustration, then continued her frenzied digging to reach her backpack with the crooked stick she’d found in the woods.

I knew I should’ve seat-belted that thing in. Then it wouldn’t have ended up in the floorboard when she’d overcorrected, hit her brakes, and shot into the ditch. If she’d had any sense, she would’ve grabbed it before she climbed out of the car the first time. But she hadn’t. Story of her life. At least she’d scattered enough emergency glow sticks both in and around the car that satellites could probably find her. Seeing the bag wasn’t a problem. Snagging the bag was. No way was she about to climb all the way back in and swim around in all that nasty powder from the air bags again. But she couldn’t just leave it. Her laptop and journal were like her best friends.

“Oy, there! Are ye hurt then?”

She froze in place, then cocked her head and listened harder. “Hello?”

It was hard to shout with a moon roof shoved up against her gut and gravity sending everything else up against her lungs. No response. Well, crap. Had she really heard somebody or was it just wishful thinking? After all, she had been hanging upside down for quite a while trying to snag that damn bag. The way the blood was pounding in her ears, she felt like her head was about to explode.

She sucked in a deep breath, turned her face toward the roof of the car, and yelled louder. “Hello? Is somebody out there?” Please be a person. Please be real. She wiggled around, trying to turn herself by scissoring both legs that were currently sprouting out of the roof of the car.

Struggling against the headrest, Katie walked her hands across the narrow back of the driver’s seat. If she could worm her way back out of the car, she could make them hear her. She accidently bumped the moon-roof button with her right elbow and the panel made a high-pitched humming sound as it snugged up tighter against her waist. Panic mounting, she banged both elbows against the headliner of the car, managed to hit the button again, and stopped it before it got even more uncomfortable. She sagged forward and rested her hands on the high headrest of the compact car’s sporty little driver’s seat.

“Oh, God. I think I’m stuck.” A grunt escaped her as she tried to bump the button again to reopen the panel, but the mechanism shot her hope of freeing herself when it let out a wheezing grind that gradually wound down to silence. Great. It’s dead for sure. “Hello? Is somebody out there? Please really be somebody out there.” From now on, only SUVs. Or Jeeps. No more little clown cars that look cute until they try to eat you.

“I’m comin’, lass. Hold tight.”

Hold tight? Really? If she hadn’t been so frustrated with the situation, she would’ve laughed out loud. “At least it’s a person.” She blew out a relieved breath, sneezed from the air-bag dust, then wiped the back of her hand across her nose. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Solid thuds hit the ground, sounding as though they came from somewhere near the back of the car. Leaves crunched. Sticks snapped. Something sounded like it was either sliding through the leaf mold covering the woodland floor or being dragged into the ditch. She could’ve sworn she’d heard a horse snort, or whatever it was that horses did to make that weird snot-blowing sound. She twisted and tried looking out the side windows, but all she could see in the light of the full moon and the greenish-yellow glow sticks was a hellaciously large downed tree trunk on one side of the car and the dirt embankment on the other. “Hello? You didn’t leave me hanging here, did you?”

“Close yer eyes.”

“Wait—what? Why?” Katie strained to look out the back hatch window of her car, but all she could make out was the movement of a dark form.

A hard thud and shattering glass answered her question and convinced her to close her eyes tight against flying debris. The sound of more breaking glass and metal grating against metal filled the air as the vehicle rocked back and forth.

When she opened her eyes, she was still upside down, but nose to nose with the sexiest-looking rescuer she’d ever seen—even in the eerie lighting. Relief flooded through her and she couldn’t help but smile. Daddy always said there’s a bright side to everything. “Hi. I’m Katie.”

The man gave her an incredulous look, then shook his head. “Are ye hurt, Mistress Katie?” He’d wedged himself in through the window of the back hatch of the car that he’d just oh so gallantly kicked out.

Mistress Katie? Hmm…that’s different. “No…no, I’m not hurt.” Katie took a deep breath in, then let it out, feeling her cheeks get hotter by the minute. She was accustomed to the feeling of flushed cheeks. She did airheaded stuff like this all the time. Thank goodness the lighting was bad so this fine-looking gentleman wouldn’t be able to tell that her face was red with the embarrassment of her managing to land herself in yet another pickle. “But I am stuck,” she quietly added. Even by the light of the glow sticks and hanging upside down, she could tell that the guy was trying not to laugh. “And it’s not funny.”

“Aye, but it is, lass.” Her knight in shining armor smiled as he reached up and gently patted the roof of the car around her waist, yanking on the glass panel of the moon roof that currently had her wedged in place. “How d’ye open this thing usually?”

“There’s a button, but I think it just sang its death song. My car battery must be shot, because the interior lights have faded and my headlights are out now too.” Katie folded her arms on the driver’s-seat headrest and propped her forehead on top of them. “We need a big-ass crowbar or a sledgehammer to break the panel, because I don’t think you can kick your way through it with me stuck in here this way.”

“I’ve the next best thing, lass. Ne’er ye worry.” He started to back out of the car the same way he’d entered.

“Hey, wait a minute.” She had to know. After all, she’d been hanging here this long, what could a few more minutes matter? “You don’t exactly talk like the average run-of-the-mill North Carolinian. Where are you from?”

The handsome smile with the perfect teeth, shining and white even in the phosphorescent glow, disappeared from the stranger’s face. “Highland Life and Legends. Scottish theme park down the road a ways.”

He moved to back out of the car a bit more. Katie waved him to a stop. “Wait!” She gave him her friendliest smile. “I love your accent.” She always babbled when she was nervous and this particular situation had set her mouth into overdrive, but she hadn’t meant to insult him or whatever she’d done to make his cute grin go away.

Dropping his chin to his chest for the barest moment, he blew out a long, exasperated breath, then lifted his head and met her gaze. “Thank ye, lass. Now be still and try yer best t’relax. I’ll have ye out in a wee moment.”

Katie crossed her ankles, then her knees, then thought more about his advice. How the hell do you relax with your ass and both legs in the air? She propped her chin in one hand and her elbow on the headrest. She heard more rustling leaves, then jerked and grabbed the back of the driver’s seat with both hands as thuds hit the roof of the car and she felt the small vehicle shudder.

“What are you doing?” She did her best to keep her voice from pitching so high that it sounded like a nervous squeak but failed. “Uhm…the whole car is moving, you know? The roof especially. Kind of like caving in around me?” Oh shit. I’m about to be a sheet-metal sandwich.

“Dinna move, lass.” A muscular arm encircled her thighs and snugged her up against an even more muscular torso. “Close yer eyes, Mistress. I’ll have ye free in but a moment, and I’ve got ye held good and tight so ye dinna fall.”

Boy, I wish I were right side up. Katie closed her eyes and covered them with her hands for good measure. “I’m ready for whatever you’re gonna do.” She decided that of all the accents she’d heard while traveling, first with her father on his archeological digs and later as an astrophysicist with tenure at Princeton, the Scottish brogue was now her favorite—especially when that accent came attached to such nice-feeling muscles.

Her savior hugged her legs even tighter, then roared out a guttural growl, shouting a stream of some sort of language that definitely wasn’t English. Something hit the moon-roof panel right in front of her belly button, shattered it into pieces, and sent them raining down into the car.

“Shit! Don’t drop me!” Katie uncovered her eyes and braced herself against the headrests of the car seats, locking her elbows and gritting her teeth.

“I’ve got ye, lass. Ne’er ye fret.”

Eyes squinted shut, Katie felt herself being pulled out of the car, shifted upright to her feet, then draped over what had to be the largest shoulder she’d ever had the pleasure of being draped across—not that she’d ever been thrown over a shoulder before, but a girl had dreams. She finally opened her eyes when she felt herself being gently rolled backward to lie upon the gentle rise of the embankment.

She blinked hard, then rubbed the inside corners of her eyes. Damn. All that blood rushing to my head must’ve made me hallucinate. Not wanting the vision to end, Katie slowly pulled her hands away from her eyes, blinked hard, then opened them again. Nope. Not a hallucination. Wow.

Her dark knight stood over her with what looked like some sort of medieval spear clenched in one hand, the long, broad head of the weapon shining silvery and pure in the moonlight and the end of the black staff propped beside his boot. His hair was longer than she’d thought at first glance. He had it pulled back from his face in a leather-bound braid that more than likely reached past his shoulder blades and probably made it nearly to his waist, judging by the drape of it over the front of his shoulder. Unbelievably broad shoulders. Taut waist. Tight hips. Even in the shadows, his dark shirt and jeans looked like he’d been melted and poured into them and he was pure muscular gold. Maybe she was really unconscious and this was all a dream. She caught her breath as he bent and held out his hand.

“Come, Mistress Katie. Dubh and I’ll get ye seen to and make certain yer well.”

“Dubh?” Katie took his hand, rose to her feet, then fell forward against his chest, getting even weaker in the knees when he wrapped one arm around her waist and caught her up against him. “Wow. Sorry. Guess the blood’s not back to my feet yet. I was hanging there for quite a while trying to get my bag.” She wet her lips, struggling to stop babbling while she smiled up at him, then patted him on the chest. “Now…who’s Dubh?”

“Dubh, introduce yerself to the lady.”

A velvety nose appeared over her rescuer’s shoulder and gently snuffled Katie’s face. “Dubh is m’horse. His name means ‘black’ in Scots Gaelic.” The barest hint of a smile flickered across her knight’s moonlit face as he barely tilted his chin with the regal grace acquired through royal DNA or learned from memorizing the history of centuries past. “And I am Ramsay Danann MacDara. At yer service, m’lady.”

“I’m Katie. Katie Jenson.” Wait. Did I already tell him that? She patted at his chest again, then snaked both arms around his waist and held on tight. Head swimming. Gonna pass out. Or puke. Or both. “Can you make me a promise?” she asked as a sudden cold sweat across her body made her shiver.

Brows knotted together, Ramsay frowned down at her as she sagged against him. “What promise, lass?”

“Promise you’ll still be here when I wake up.”