Shona snorted. “Don’t try to deny it. Rhys told me all about your, let’s say, veryactivesex life. A different woman every weekend, sometimes two, and you out the door before the sweat cooled from your bodies.”
“What the devil is a sex life?” Deirdre bellowed, her eyebrows shooting up when she realized what she’d done.
Silence descended behind her for a long, excruciating pause, and then Shona said, “It means bedding.”
“Christ, Mom.”
A feminine snort followed, as did scorching heat that swept from Deirdre’s hair to her toes, which she curled tightly in her slippers. She was completely, utterly mortified. What they must think of her! She was horrid. There was no hope of redeeming herself if she went about listening to people’s private conversations. She wanted to sink into a hole in the ground, if only one would open up.
Inhaling a deep breath for courage, she broke the awkward silence, and said, “I’m verra sorry. I tried nae to listen. I told myself nae to listen, but…but…”
“You couldn’t help yourself?” Reikart asked, his tone traced with surprising amusement and no anger.
She smiled with relief, and heartfelt gratitude poured through her. She closed her eyes against the sudden wish that Reikart McCaim was not from the future but her own time. It was a foolish, pointless—
Pain exploded in her head as something hard hit it, and she fell backward off her horse. Her body slammed into the ground, her breath whooshing out of her and her head slinging backward to make contact with something solid that obliterated the moonlight.
“Let Dermot take her,” Reikart’s mom insisted for what felt like the hundredth time.
“No,” he said and snapped his jaw shut so he wouldn’t say more. His mom had taken a disliking to Deirdre, and he wasn’t entirely sure why. He looked down at her face, her eyes closed, long lashes like a veil over her shining gaze. He traced his forefinger gently over the goose egg forming on her forehead. She was going to have a huge bump and bruise. Thank God she seemed okay other than that. Still, he’d feel better if she would wake up.
“Reikart, this woman is not yer responsibility,” Mom grumbledagain.
“Your brogue becomes more pronounced when you’re irritable,” he observed, trying to recall if that had been true before she’d disappeared. He didn’t think so. She must have learned to master it as the years had gone by in the future, but being back here must have made it more difficult. He adjusted Deirdre’s body so that she was slumped against his chest, then pulled her tighter against him. He wished she’d wake up. As best he could tell without a watch, phone, or clock, it had been a good ten minutes since the low-hanging branch on the trail had knocked her across the forehead and off her horse. Of course, if she hadn’t been leaning so far backward listening to his conversation with his mom, she likely would not have fallen.
He couldn’t fault her curiosity, though, nor was he angry at her demanding to know what a sex life was. Actually, that had been funny as hell. He was, however, slightly irritated at his mom for cheerfully providing the information to Deirdre, right on the heels of announcing he had multiple sex partners a weekend. It wasn’t true, but he hadn’t been a Boy Scout, either. Nor had he cared. He didn’t care now, did he?
He analyzed that for a moment as Dermot and Grace started making camp, his mom muttering all the while about how inconvenient it was that Deirdre had gotten herself knocked off her horse and now they had to stop for her sake. He slid his back along the trunk of a tree, holding Deirdre protectively in his arms.
His mom crouched beside him. “I can watch her if you want to help your aunt and uncle make camp.”
He quirked his mouth, trying to puzzle out his mom’s odd behavior, but it was hard to stay concentrated with Deirdre’s soft curves pressed so invitingly against him. And she smelled wonderful.
“What’s that smell?” he asked.
“Dirt?” Mom muttered. He shook his head. “Sweat,” she said in a syrupy voice.
“No.”
“Horse?” she tried again, making him smile.
“What the hell, Mom? You told Deirdre that you believed she had nothing to do with the plot to kill King Alexander. So why the hostility?”
Mom pursed her lips. “I don’t want you staying in 1286 and don’t cuss at me.”
“Sorry,” he said, grinning. He was so happy to have his mom back. He didn’t even mind her correcting him. “What on earth makes you think Iwantto stay in 1286? I’d only be staying for Ian.”
“Yes, but…”
The moon provided enough light that he could follow his mom’s gaze as it moved to Deirdre’s sleeping form.
He felt his jaw drop open. “Believe me,” he said, “there is no danger of my falling for Deirdre.”
“I assume,” said Deirdre, surprising him so much his muscles jumped, “by ‘fall for’ ye mean succumb to my charms.”
“He does,” his mom said cheerfully. He could have gladly stuffed an old smelly sock in her mouth right then.
Deirdre stiffened in his arms at the same moment her hand came to his chest, and she pushed away from him. “Release me,” she demanded, and her voice wobbled just enough that he knew either her feelings had been hurt or her womanly pride injured. Damn it.
