Free Lord of the Black Isle by Elaine Coffman

spreading his plaid just inside the cave, not far from the fire. She guessed she was going to sleep beside him, as Isobella said she had when Alysandir rescued her.
    â€œYe will have to share my plaid.”
    Oh, gee, what a bummer… my having to share a plaid with a totally delectable man who could generate sexual tension picking his teeth. She gave the plaid a resigned look and sighed woefully. “Well, I suppose it beats sleeping on a pile of dirty leaves.”
    Standing at the mouth of the cave, highlighted by firelight, he seemed larger, darker, and fiercer than in daylight, to the point that she could almost believe he had morphed into some immortal being, an ancient Celt perhaps, angry at her intrusion to this place, or dressed in his knights regalia as he was, he could have been Thor, the god of thunder. Perhaps she should have accepted the ancient Celtic necklace that Alysandir Mackinnon had offered her, telling her how such a necklace was thought to ward off evil.
    â€œYou have yet to tell me who you are,” she said, her gaze on the plaid.
    â€œWhy do ye want to know?”
    â€œI don’t. I’ve changed my mind. Keep your identity to yourself.”
    â€œThen why did ye ask?”
    She was truly sorry that she had brought it up. But she was committed now so she replied, “It seemed proper to at least know the name of a man I would be sleeping beside, but I realize how foolish that is, since it is quite commonplace to sleep with no-name strangers. Faith! I do it all the time.”
    He said nothing but continued to look at her, neither smiling nor saying anything. There was, however, the barest hint of amusement in his eyes. But his face was still stony and his features dramatized by the firelight. His eyes looked as black as pitch, and the dark blue surcoat he wore gave him a netherworld appearance that made her think she wouldn’t have been surprised if he sprouted giant wings and flew right over her head. Then she wondered if this place was haunted, for it was certainly getting to her in a weird sort of way. She felt she was an outsider here, that somehow she was upsetting the balance of things ancient and probably causing a few rocks to hurl down the side of a crag somewhere nearby.
    â€œDavid Murray, at yer service, mistress,” he said, then added, “Come, hie yersel’ over here and sit doon while I retrieve something from my pouch.”
    She watched David Murray At Yer Service as he walked toward his saddle. His horse was neither tied nor tethered, as was the way of many Highlanders, whose horses, miraculous as it seemed, would not stray. Perhaps Highlanders had the same effect upon women, for she was thinking along those same lines. She forced further thoughts away from him. Being quite knowledgeable about horses herself, she thought the Scots’ hobblers were unbelievable horses, for they were small, active, and able to travel great distances over the most difficult and boggy countryside. What her father wouldn’t give for a couple of hobbler studs to breed with mares on their ranch.
    She suddenly felt a stab of loneliness for the world she had left behind… six hundred years into the future, but it wasn’t the same kind of loneliness she felt when she was first yanked back in time. This had become her world now, and these Scots were her people, and she knew her skills as a physician were needed beyond anything she would have found in the twenty-first century. Only he did not seem the least interested in being one of her people. Still, it was the nature of humans to think upon their slippers when their feet began to hurt.
    To get her mind back on the current century, she studied the way he walked, with a certain fluid ease and long stride. She liked the long-shanked, muscled leanness of him, for he was well put together, tall and slender with just the right amount of strength in the legs and arms where it was needed. His walk was about as close