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"Aye, but "
"Besides, I wasn't talking to the bag. I was talking to the toys."
He shook his head. " 'Tis a great need to talk ye have. Mayhap I can speak wi' Mad Mary.
She might gift ye wi' one of her hens and "
"Not funny, Ross." Holding the flower and the checkers box, she hurried over to Peter.
"Okay, the game's up, Peter. Send me home."
Malin growled his displeasure while Peter's amber lights flashed happily. "E.T. phone
home."
She sighed. "Right. Phone home."
" 'Tis sorcery."
The sudden tension in Ian's voice startled her. Kathy turned to catch him staring intently at
Peter. She indulged in some mental head-slapping. Ian hadn't been close enough before to
hear Peter speak. "No. Definitely not sorcery. Just some wires, circuits, and a computer chip
thrown in there somewhere. Someone programmed him with a bunch of movie quotes, and
he spouts them at totally inappropriate moments." She cast Peter a meaningful glare. Then
she dared a glance at Ian. Nope, he hadn't understood a word she'd said.
Trudging back to her glorified cot, she sat down. "Where's H. G. Wells when you need
him?"
"Who is H. G. Wells, and why would ye have need of him?"
She sighed. "He was a writer who wrote about a time machine and . . . Oh, never mind.
Who sent me here, Ian?" She couldn't keep the despair from her voice.
"I dinna know, but I wouldna think one of yer toys could do so." He pulled the
checkerboard from the box and set it between them.
His voice sounded relaxed, but she still sensed his unease over Peter's speech.
"Well, something did." Absently, she put the sunflower on the cushion next to her and
studied it.
Huge blue eyes blinked open. Waving its leaves madly and wiggling its stem to an
imaginary beat, the small flower announced, "I loooove you," in a high-pitched little-girl
voice.
"Great. Just great," Kathy muttered. Scrambling to her feet, she picked the flower up and
transferred it to a ledge beside the hearth. "Don't want to mention the L word around here,
honey."
The flower's eyes closed, and it fell silent as Kathy returned to her seat across from Ian. "It
must have motion sensors like Peter, but Peter's technology seems a lot more complex. I
still can't figure out why he was so cheap. The price tag must've ..."
Her words trickled into silence as she glanced at Ian.
He sat transfixed, his gaze riveted on the sunflower. His hands shook as he grasped the
checkers box in a crushing grip.
Uh-oh. Major mistake. From the look on Ian's face he intended to stomp the hapless
flower into tiny plastic pieces. Why hadn't she thought before she
"I dinna ken how ye make things move and talk that havena life."
"Not me. I don't make them do anything. They come that way from the toy factory. All I
do is push the button. Anyone can push a button. You can push a button." She wanted to
make that perfectly clear. No way was she going to end up the featured attraction at a
Highland wienie roast. Make that a witchie roast.
She smiled brightly. "Go right on over to the bag and stick your hand in. Push a button,
any button." From the look on his face, he'd rather stick his hand into a bag of vipers. "I
don't blame you for being afraid because "
"I dinna fear ye or the things ye brought wi' ye." His gaze turned hard, and for a moment
she saw the stranger he really was.
Something niggled at her subconscious, a feeling that beneath his sensuality lurked the
heart of a dark predator, moving silently through the frightening world that wasn't her
world, stalking her.
She'd let him see her weakness today, but she wouldn't do that again, wouldn't turn her
back on him again.
"Oh, come on, Ross. Give me a break. Your brothers were terrified, and you're trying to
tell me "
" 'Tis why my brothers willna be Pleasure Master."
He was as strange to her as any fabled creature rising from Loch Ness's depths, and she
knew her expression revealed her thoughts.
"You don't love. You don't fear. What do you feel, Ian Ross?"
"I dinna feel, lass. I make others feel." But he did feel with this woman unease with her
toys that seemed much too alive, frustration with his desire to know the meanings of all
her strange words, and . .. uncertainty with her. Of all his feelings, uncertainty was the
most unsettling.
He must put all emotions aside, though, if he intended to remain Pleasure Master. He had
to join with this woman, and he would use his power in any way necessary. Tonight would
be the beginning.
Absently, he pushed the game aside and reached for her foot. She'd kept on all her clothes,
removing only her footwear. Wise lass.
Grasping her ankle, he lifted her foot onto his lap. He felt her sudden tensing. "Ye're safe,
lass." Ye'll ne'er be safe from me, Kathy of Hair. "I mean only to warm ye. When the
hearth fire burns low, a chill creeps in."
She remained stiff, unyielding. But she didn't pull her foot away. He smiled. It mattered
not. The vixen could run from the hunter, but in the end she'd find no hiding place, would
want none.
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