Free Wishing For a Highlander by Jessi Gage

functional. What met her instead was a warm, bustling home, every bit as welcoming as Edmund and Fran’s cottage. Hanging tapestries, plentiful rugs and rushes covering the wooden floors, and golden light flickering over every room and corridor made the keep seem much smaller and cozier than it looked from the outside. They also gave her history-loving eyes plenty to look at instead of the mouthwatering Highlander at her side.
    He’s not for you, Mel. He belongs here, and you belong five hundred years in the future. It’s like window-shopping. Just because something looks sexy on the rack doesn’t mean you’ve got to take it home with you.
    But surely it wouldn’t hurt to try him on…
    She shook her head and tried to wiggle her hand out from the crook of his arm; with her fingers in such close proximity to his bulging bicep, she found it challenging to focus on her goal of getting home. But Darcy brought his other hand up to pin hers at the bend of his elbow. Her hand thus imprisoned, he led her past a large room of stone-flag floors and wooden beams where revelers lifted tankards and danced to fiddle-music. That must be the great hall. She craned her neck, trying to memorize every detail of the scene as he hurried her along.
    She didn’t blame him for being in a hurry. Judging by the look on his face when he’d told Aodhan he’d be responsible for her, he found her presence here about as inconvenient as she did. Though she occasionally glimpsed in his eyes something much warmer than annoyance, she told herself he just appreciated her the way she appreciated him, as a member of the opposite sex who was easy on the eyes but off limits for innumerable reasons.
    Which was why she was in a hurry, too. The sooner she got home, and away from Darcy, the sooner her hormones would cool and everything would go back to normal.
    Although, her hormones hadn’t exactly been cool back in Charleston. Those fickle, pregnancy-frenzied little chemicals had tempted her into making that stupid wish, and look where giving in to temptation had gotten her. She vowed not to make any more impulsive decisions. She’d keep calm, keep herself out of trouble in this foreign place and time, and find her way home.
    If she felt a small pit of discomfort at the thought of leaving, she chose to ignore it. She refused to remember the brief moment of insanity when she’d watched Fran move with such purpose and ease around her cottage, and longed to remain in the sixteenth century for a while where she could roll around in history like a puppy in a pile of clean laundry. She refused to acknowledge her desire to get to know Fran better. Her desire to get to know Darcy better, much better.
    This is not a vacation .
    More like a nightmare. And she was ready to wake up. She clung to Darcy’s words as they’d left Edmund and Fran’s cottage: “’Twill be over soon.”
    The shouts and fiddles from the great hall died away as he led her up a carpeted stairway to the third and top floor of the keep. At the end of a short hall, he stopped before a closed door and knocked. No one answered.
    “Go on inside,” said someone behind them.
    She whirled around to see a man nearly as broad as he was tall, which meant he was about five feet tall and four feet wide at the shoulder, ambling toward them. He had a long black beard and a balding pate too freckled to reflect the torchlight. His eyes crinkled in friendly acknowledgement, but she’d seen enough mob movies to recognize an enforcer when she saw one. The man had a hard mouth and enormous fists that looked as though their sole purpose was to inflict pain.
    “Hamish,” Darcy greeted. “Is Steafan in the great hall?”
    “Aye. But he’s expecting you. Word gets ’round.” Beetle-black eyes appraised her before his lower lip pushed out in approval. “I expect he’ll have noticed ye come in. Help yourself to the good whisky.”
    Darcy pushed open the door. “Best not offend Hamish,” he said quietly