A Time & Place for Every Laird by Angeline Fortin (ebook reader TXT) 📕

to thewindows, noting the heights the moving compartment had allowed themto reach. How long would it take before nothing surprised himanymore? How long before he didn’t take absurd satisfaction inknowing a simple colloquialism when it fell from another’slips?

How long would it be before the esteem inSorcha’s eyes faded into disgust?

It was a game to her now, this thing shereferred to as the joy of watching discovery, but surely thenovelty would erode over time and her frustration with hisinadequate knowledge would grow. He would become an annoyance toher while to him she was an ever-expanding source of fascination.Sorcha was incredibly complex, and Hugh longed to explore each andevery facet of her. Perhaps all women of this time were equallycomplex, but Hugh doubted there was another who possessed such anintriguing combination of intelligence, pointed wit, vulnerability,and veiled passion.

And such beauty. She had glorious hair,fiery and full as it fell around her shoulders. Hugh wasn’taccustomed to a woman wearing her hair so outside the bedchamber,though he knew she didn’t wear it so all the time. The previous dayit had been twisted untidily at the back of her head and securedwith a large clawed comb. Nor did she dress provocatively as arule, though she did favor the surprisingly comfortable if snugjeans. The tight blouse of the first day of their acquaintance andthe snug cardigan were juxtaposed by the much larger cardigan shewore over a t-shirt today. This sweater hung to her hips butcouldn’t entirely disguise the luscious curve of her bottom.

Everything about her begged to bedesired.

Hugh thought of that moment on their upwardjourney when she had looked up at him with such beguiling wonder,when they had been caught together in Eros’s web of mutual desire.Of course, it was cruel of Sorcha to entice him so when she was theone who had extracted his vow not to lay his hands on her. How shetempted him to break that vow as he had on the beach! She hadtempted him a dozen times since then to take her in his arms andstrip away her reservations, revealing a passion sure to match hisown.

Only the opening of those doors hadprecipitously stopped him from throwing his honor to the wind oncemore.

“Tell me, are you INSCOM?”

Hugh turned to find Sorcha’s brother at hisshoulder and thrust his lustful thoughts aside. “Nae.”

“Did you meet Claire at work, then?”

“After a fashion.” Hugh felt bedeviledenough to add, “Ye could say I’m a part of Fielding’s project.”

“Some righteous stuff there, man,” he noddedwith some appreciation, taking a bite of the odd food—“pizza,”Sorcha had called it—that he carried with him. “I can’t wait toread through it when Claire’s done with it. But she didn’t say whyyou needed it.”

It was a prompt for information Hugh choseto ignore, but Danny wasn’t finished.

“Normally, I wouldn’t care, but it worriesme that Claire would stick her neck out for just any random guy.”Another pointed statement.

“As she said, we are friends,” Hughresponded.

Danny raised a doubtful brow at that. “Mysister hasn’t talked to a man in years, much less brought one hometo meet the family. The only pictures she posts on Facebook areones of our nephew. The only thing she Pins are recipes andcleaning gimmicks and she’s never even clicked on a dating site.Not once. No secret life, no porn. Nothing. She’s got the tamestcyber-life of anyone I’ve ever known.”

“What’s a cyber-life?”

“What? Did you just crawl out from under arock, man?” Danny asked. “My point is, you look at her like theseguys look at Princess Leia in a gold bikini, so I’m warning you,don’t screw with her or I’ll have to kill you.”

It was Hugh’s turn to raise a brow ofdisbelief as he examined the man from head to toe. There was nochance that he could come to harm at the hand of such a scrawnyman, and Hugh leveled the young man with a baleful glare that toldhim so. But since he had no intention of “screwing” withClaire—whatever that was—Hugh merely nodded. “Verra well.”

“Well, all right then,” Danny drawledamicably and nodded with a smirk as he took another bite of thepizza. If he ate like that all the time, Hugh couldn’t imagine howDanny remained so thin.

“Danny,” Sorcha called out, her voice filledwith something akin to awe. That tone was enough to have both menturning to find her sitting back in the chair with wide eyes gluedto the monitor, which now displayed some sort of schematic. “Comehere. You have to watch this.”

Hugh followed on Danny’s heels as theyreturned to her side. As they neared, she clicked a button and acolorful image filled one of the screens. “Cool,” Danny said.“Simulations.”

Of what, Hugh wondered? To him it lookedlike a tornado he had once seen, a funnel of sorts, but where theone he had witnessed rotated, this one seemed to continually growwhile the open end collapsed on itself.

Naturally, he had no idea what the imagetruly represented, but since Danny merely blinked at the screen, apiece of pizza hovering at his lips, Hugh felt that theastonishment wasn’t only his own. “What is that? Is that what Ithink it is?”

“I think it is,” Sorcha replied.“Incredible.”

“Oh, the guys are going to love this,” Dannysaid, dropping back into his chair and spinning around gleefully.Love what? Hugh frowned at them both, waiting for information, butSorcha was too busy scolding her brother in a low hiss tonotice.

“Danny, you can’t tell anyone aboutthis!”

“Why not? It’s classicsci-fi!” her brother protested. “You know what it reminds me of?That old TV show, Sliders.”

By Sorcha’s reluctant nod, Hugh could seethat she agreed with him, but she remained stern in her whisperedwarning. “Not a word, Danny! I don’t want to see this all over theInternet tomorrow. Swear it!”

Danny sat back mulishly. “You are whereexcitement goes to die, Sis.”

It was a response that only earned him ablacker scowl. “Swear it!”

With one finger, Danny drew an X over hischest. “Cross my heart and hope to die … for as long as is deemedabsolutely necessary by whatever secret you are keeping fromme.”

As this didn’t seem like much of a promiseto Hugh, he was surprised when Sorcha sat back with a humph ofsatisfaction.

“Fine,” she