There were many such stories in the Highlands, where every tor and broch seemed to hold a tragic past. But the facts could not be denied. Three specialists had examined Ian"s eyes in London and each had confirmed the diagnosis: idiopathic degeneration of the optic nerve. In layman"s terms, a disease of unexplained origin and unknown cure, leading irrevocably to blindness.

In other words, the Glenlyle curse had claimed its next son.

Ian had nothing solid to give to Jamee, no future or stability. He had planned for the day his vision failed, refusing to dwindle into a useless relic. If he could not be a positive asset to the castle, contributing to its upkeep, then he meant to sell Glenlyle.

Lightning crackled far out over the sea, stabbing the heavy gray sky. Ian made his only Christmas wish then, praying that he would not lose his sight until Jamee"s pursuers were behind bars.

Across the room Jamee moved restlessly. Ian watched her tuck one hand beneath her pillow and sigh. For now, her dreams were calm, without pain or dark memories. Tonight, she would not walk, for he would stay close to protect her. Vibrant, unpredictable, she would set a man on his ear and shake up every second of his life. Was Ian brave enough to ask her to consider sharing his future and the uncertainties it would bring?

He ran his fingers over his eyes and frowned. There would be time enough to worry about the future once he had made certain Jamee was safe.

After checking the door and nodding to the backup-protection officer on duty in the corridor, Ian went back to the window. Rain struck the pane as he wondered what Jamee had seen in the portrait that had left her so frightened. Was it the regret in Maire MacKinnon"s eyes?

FROST CLUNGto the hard soil. A pair of crows screamed as they darted over the dark hills.

Smoke rose in puffs from the roof of the cottage at the top of the glen, where light shone golden from two windows.

Inside Maire MacKinnon sang beneath her breath, her hands plunged deep into a cauldron of pungent dye. The rich brown skin of walnuts and the dry husks of onions topped her long oak table, piled next to elderberries and madder. The red yarns were finished, bright as roses where they hung to dry before the fire. Nearby lay skeins of tan and gold that shimmered like a dawn in mist.

Only the green tasked her, and the green would be the most important in the cloth she was soon to weave. Green required indigo, rare and precious, the dye of kings. Maire had tried every other source, plant and berry, but none carried the deep tones of indigo. The rare blue powder came from far to the east, in lands of heat and jungle, and after months of searching, Maire had finally found a merchant returned from the Crusades who could sell her one precious handful of the rare ingredient.

It had cost her dearly, she thought, studying the dark dye held in a tiny box of ivory. But indigo would stain her wool as nothing else could, and when mixed with ochre would provide the perfect green for her plaid.

She hesitated a moment. The wind changed and smoke filtered back down the chimney. A storm was coming, she sensed. The wind had gusted all morning and now the air held the smell of snow.

She wondered if Coll would find his way free and gallop across the glen to her tonight. She hid a smile as she returned to her work. She must be done well before he came, for her weaving was a surprise not to be revealed until the dawn of Christmas day.

The dried strands of wool slid through her fingers. She savored each texture, knowing the thick, oiled wool would keep Coll warm in his wandering. He would be the finest figure of all his clan when he rode out from the gates of Glenlyle Castle, his great sword in hand.

Maire shivered, feeling a sudden premonition of dread. The MacKinnons and the MacColls had been at war for years. Should Coll"s father learn where his son found haven on cold winter nights, he would take steps to end the affair by any means.

Maire frowned, watching sparks shoot from a wedge of burning peat. Her own father would feel the same fury, she knew. But her heart had driven her out of Dunraven"s walls, away to this cottage where she could ply her shuttle in solitude. Or so she told her kin.

It was also because the deserted hills would bear no tales of the man who pulled her laughing into his arms.

Smoke gusted down the chimney. The door rattled, as if ghostly fingers sought their way inside. Maire murmured a prayer of protection and crossed herself quickly as the door was flung open and broad shoulders filled the frame.

"So shocked to see me, are you?" Coll"s voice boomed out as he caught her up in his arms.

"Expecting another braw warrior, were you?"

""Tis only one man I wait for, and well you know it, Coll of Glenlyle."

"So I do, my sweet Maire." He buried his hands in her hair, his lips to her white brow.

"Thoughts of nothing else have tormented me every second since I left you. You are a MacKinnon, daughter of my clan foe, and we are forever forbidden to touch. But my blood burns for you, fierce beyond denying. What shame could there be in a pleasure so fine as this?"

His hands tightened. Already he was working the bright sash from her waist.

"Coll, stop," she rasped. "You must be hungry, and we have yet to talk-"

""Tis hungry I am, but only for your sweetness, Maire." He released the cords from her mantle of patterned wool and freed her brooch of beaten silver.

Her eyes darkened. "How is it I can never say you nay?"

"Because we are meant for this joining, fated to be bound in our two souls," Coll said fiercely.

He caught her in his arms, and there before the peat fire, he laid her down on a bed of bright wool and dried heather. As he flung aside his own long mantle, he heard the clatter of a pan on the table. "What business is this?" he muttered. "You"ve found indigo?"

""Tis a surprise, Coll. Close your eyes, for I"ll not have it spoiled before Christmas."

He threw back his head and laughed. "Secrets, is it? The lairds of Glenlyle have ways to work answers from their enemies, woman." His hands were warm and unerring as they found her lush sweetness. "I"ll have your secrets and your moans while your body shudders beneath me.

I care not for clan superstition and the gossip of old women. You are my heart, Maire. All the best of my life comes in the minutes I spend here with you." His eyes were hot and sharp as he studied her, white curves gilded by the firelight. He thought of the pulse that throbbed at her throat, the desire that hazed her eyes.

His joy, she was. His most precious gift.

His mortal life.

Madness filled him. He knew her body intimately now, secure in all its secrets. He teased her to ragged moans with lip and tongue until she arched beneath him.

But even then, regret lay bitter upon the eldest son of the laird of Glenlyle. "I would give you my name, Maire of Dunraven. I would pledge my heart to you before our clans, assembled to witness our marriage."

"It matters not," she whispered, her fingers stroking his jaw. "Our love is pledged now, here before the firelight and God who watches all."

Coll wished he could believe it. He wished he could shake the dark fears that woke him blind and sweating in the night, shuddering from a sense of loss so keen that darkness blocked his eyes.

"It matters," he said harshly. "I will turn my father to share my view, I swear it. All I need is time."

Something whispered to him that time was one thing they did not have.

Maire smiled up at him with sadness in her face. "No one told me that a MacColl talked so much," she whispered. ""Tis actions I demand now." Her hands found him, bold in their searching. As she traced his hot, hard length, Coll threw back his head, shuddering as pleasure spiraled through him.

Her perfume rose, a mix of heather and roses and rare spices from her dyeing herbs. Blinded by need, Coll pushed to his knees above her. "I am your enemy, Maire. I am a man you were trained to hate and fear since birth, a man who can bring you nothing but pain. Why do you welcome me and give such joy to my life?"

She slid away the brooch that glittered on his shoulder and sighed as his naked skin met hers.

"Only because I love you, Coll of Glenlyle. For now," she whispered, "for tomorrow. For all eternity. These are my three wishes."

Fear blinded Coll at her words. They did not have eternity, nor even tomorrow. Their meetings could not be kept secret much longer, in spite of all his care.

Which left only now.

He stiffened. In one fierce stroke he parted her sweetness, sheathing himself deeper with each powerful thrust. Wildly, he drove her over the rich wool until she cried out and arched beneath him, whispering his name. Her body tensed, white and beautiful in the firelight. Passion sheened her brow and tremors drew her rigid against him.

Coll watched, savoring her soft moans as her body closed in velvet tremors against him.

All they needed was time, and time they would not have.

When her eyes opened, he gripped her hands and moved within her, desperate to drown the fear, desperate to feel her passion yet again.

Desperate to stay with her forever.

He groaned and found the pounding pace of release within her while their hands linked. But even as fire swept through Coll, the north wind screamed over the glen and a pair of ravens laughed mockingly from the old stone circle.

Somewhere a noose was closing around them.

TWO HOURS LATER, the moon floated behind a veil of clouds and something tapped at Ian"s window.

He flinched and began to sweat. A man in a black jumpsuit leveled a gun on Jamee as she ran through the fog. She was terrified, close to exhaustion, and Ian could do nothing to help her.

Gasping, he sat up, gripping the sheets. Only a dream, he told himself, waiting for the terror to fade.

Sweat streaked his forehead.Only a dream.

Then he heard a sharp cry of panic from the far side of the room.

Dear God, it was Jamee.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

JAMEE STOOD BESIDEthe door, shaking the doorknob. The blankets were shoved in one corner and a long ribbon lay draped around her shoulders.

She looked like a Christmas gift, Ian thought, satin over gold skin and silken curves.

"Jamee?" he whispered, afraid to move. Afraid his touch might spiral her deeper into nightmares.

She turned slowly. Her face was sheet-white. Her hands clutched her gown against her chest, where she had scooped it from the floor.

"I woke up," she whispered. "Just now. In spite of the dream I woke up, and this time I almost remembered." Her dark eyes were enormous in the pale oval of her face. "You were there, too.

At least, itfelt like you. What does it mean, Ian?"

"It means you"re beginning to control the memories. When you stop fighting them, they lose their power, Jamee."

"Do you really believe that?"

"Yes," Ian said, pulling his jacket around her shoulders. Wanting to pull her against his chest instead.

"I"m not running," she said. "There"s a reason I"ve come here and a reason I"ve found you.

I"ve got to find out what it is."

Ian didn"t answer.

"Do you believe in fate, Ian?"

His eyes narrowed. "Sometimes fate is just an excuse for our own mistakes."

"And the other times?"

"We make our own fate, fashioned out of our fear and our hopes." He smoothed the sheets and spread the coverlet over the bed, then turned down one corner. "Now, forget about fate and get some rest."

Jamee didn"t move. "Only if you"re beside me. Otherwise the dreams...they"re so close tonight."

Pain, Ian thought. But he nodded and moved to the far side of the bed. If he was very, very careful, he might be able to keep from touching her.

AN HOUR BEFOREdawn Ian lay asleep with one leg sprawling off the end of the bed. As he dreamed about pink sand beaches and the hot, white burn of the Southern Cross, something warm and soft poured over his chest.

He opened his eyes and saw Jamee"s hands, Jamee"s warm silky hair and slumberous body.

She was draped over him like tinsel on a Christmas tree.

A cold shower, he told himself tightly. No, a dozen cold showers, he decided as her hand slid under the covers and nudged the hot skin that hardened at her touch. In spite of his discomfort, Ian felt a grin curve his lips. She had turned to him in the night, drawn because she trusted him-even in her sleep. That fact made his grin grow huge.

Another part of his anatomy grew huge, too.

With a drowsy sigh Jamee laid her head against his arm. Her leg slid beneath his while her hand opened over his naked chest.

Ian swallowed hard and felt all his careful rules go soaring out the window.

JAMEE OPENEDher eyes and looked around her as sunlight spilled through the curtains. A briefcase was shoved against the corner of the desk and a man"s comb and brush occupied the dresser.

Ian"s comb.

Ian"s brush.

She remembered the feel of warm muscles flexing beneath her fingers and the dense springy hair that covered his chest. Which meant she had poured herself over him.

Again.

Her face flamed. Why did she have no willpower where Ian McCall was concerned?

A sound came from the bathroom. Ian emerged wearing a pair of black jeans unbuttoned at the waist. His hair was slicked back and beads of moisture skittered down his chest.

Jamee couldn"t take her eyes off him. Her throat felt dry and her heart began to hammer. "I- I"m sorry."

"For what?"

She forced her gaze away from that glorious expanse of wet skin. "Bunking with me wasn"t part of your job description," she said tightly. She tugged the sheet close, wrapped it twice around her body and pushed swiftly to her feet.