Page 17 of Somewhere Along The Way (Mackinnon #3)

Ross had been standing in the lane, just beyond the gate, rubbing the rising bump on his head and holding a croquet ball in his other hand when he saw her step through the gate.

He saw the croquet mallet in her hand and was braced to receive a second bash on the head, when he received a jolt of another kind—one that was just as leveling.

She stood just outside the gate, framed in a bower of yellow roses that arched over her head.

Her eyes were as green as the meadow she had just left and she was looking at him in a startled, surprised way.

She looked small and shy and so terrified that he was for a moment distracted.

He forgot about the rising goose-egg on his head and was content to look at the exquisite delicacy of the lady standing a few feet away, the lady with the raven’s-wing hair and the heart-shaped face.

Her lips were full and soft, and bowed with surprise.

Her lashes were long and thick and dark as her hair.

From the first moment he laid eyes upon her, Ross felt struck by the all-over loveliness of her, the way her yellow-green eyes held a gleam of shy hesitancy that seemed to war with the picture she obviously went to great lengths to present.

When she looked at him and saw the flare of interest in his eyes, she lifted her head.

Ordinarily he would have thought the upward tilt of a woman’s chin meant haughtiness, but in her case he felt otherwise.

For a moment he had a fetching vision of what she would look like naked.

As for Annabella, she had not moved, not since she stepped through the gate and saw the giant who looked both destructive and all-consuming.

A hurricane followed by wildfire. She had never seen a man such as this.

Had he stepped from the pages of her history book?

Was he one of the legendary figures of her schoolroom years—a pagan Viking, or a barbarous Hun, or perhaps a pirate, brandishing steel with his shirt opened down to the waist?

Surely there was something wild and untamed and undisciplined about him—he was a man completely her opposite in every way, and more than attractive because of it.

He was a man of both legend and nightmare, the kind of man the parlormaids in London whispered about.

The kind chaste women like herself dreamed about.

His expression was angry, and mindful of an ink drawing she had seen at the museum, one of a furious Zeus shooting thunderbolts at a fleeing Hera.

His hair was as long and black as a pirate’s.

There was an aura about him—an air of relaxed self-possession, an air that gave him a sort of lazy indifference that made her think he did exactly as he pleased, regardless of propriety or convention.

It was this suspicion that sucked the breath from her lungs and drew moisture from her body to pool in tiny dots across her forehead.

It was this suspicion that branded her mind with the warning: stay away from this man.

She had known from the first instant that he was unlike any man she had ever known or seen, for surely if she had innocently passed him riding in Hyde Park or walking down St. James’s Street, she would have noticed him, would have had the same feelings. It wasn’t the setting.

It was the man.

That made her wonder if he had been born with a special brand of appeal that gave him such an air, or if it had come as a trophy is given by those who loved and admired him—obviously, in his case, women.

He was literally the most handsome man she had ever seen, in a raw-boned, rugged sort of way.

He was wearing, without a doubt, the strangest clothes she had ever seen as well.

Tall and well built, he was all hard flowing muscle that filled out the rough-looking fabric of breeches that seemed, on closer inspection, to be made of some sort of animal skin—appropriate, she thought, for a barbarian.

His shirt was as blue as his eyes, and he wore a pistol strapped low around his hips in the oddest fashion. Even his speech was odd. And right now he looked frightfully angry at someone.

That someone turned out to be herself.

“Do you always stare like a cornered fox whenever you encounter someone?” he said like a snap of the fingers, pulling whatever scrap of her dignity that remained from under her feet.

Startled, she looked at the croquet ball in his hand.

“Yours?” he asked.

Unable to speak, she nodded.

“Are you mute?”

She shook her head.

“Do you speak English?”

Yes, but I’m not certain you do, she wanted to answer, but instead she said, weakly, “Yes, I speak English.”

He looked at the mallet in her hand, then rubbed his head. “In case you’re interested, which I doubt you are, you came damnably close to cracking my skull.”

Annabella didn’t answer at first. She was too busy thinking her mother would boil her in leek soup if she found out about this. She shuddered to think what her father would do. “I’m sorry, sir. Is it terribly painful? Can I get you a posset? Some herb tea? Would you like to sit down?”

Ross listened to the music that was her voice and forgot all about his anger.

He tossed the ball over the fence and gave his full attention to looking her over.

Slowly. She was small and green eyed, with the blackest hair this side of hell and the whitest skin that blushed rose-petal pink in all the right places.

He thought of a few things he could do to make her blush all over.

To her surprise, his face softened. She was so relieved she felt her knees go weak, and she reached out to brace herself against the fence.

The man swore and stepped toward her. “I’m the one who gets whacked on the head and you go all weak-kneed and faint. Are you all right?”

She nodded.

“You’re pale as a sheet.”

She raised her hand up to her face and touched her cheek, cringing at the warm clammy way it felt.

Shame ate at her for the cowardly way she stood there, terrified to speak, even more terrified to run.

She knew she couldn’t spend the rest of the day standing there in the lane quaking in front of this towering, angry man and knowing she had to display something that resembled good manners.

She could inquire after his welfare. You’ve already done that .

She should excuse herself then. Intending to do just that, she took a deep breath and opened her mouth to speak.

Then she looked into his eyes. That was a mistake.

For all her tutoring and education, nothing had prepared her for what she was experiencing now.

For some strange reason, the only thing she could think of to say was, “Fancy meeting you here,” which besides being terribly inappropriate was also ridiculous.

Doing her best to rephrase the thought, she managed to whimper, “Who are you?”

Ross gave her a brief and not too reassuring smile and said, “I think that’s my question,” and her eyes became as wide and challenging as his answer.

He was much closer than he was before, and his hand came out to close over hers where she gripped the croquet mallet.

He looked down at the white knuckles, the small hand frozen in place. “Do you mind?” he asked softly.

It occurred to her that he looked a great deal more amused than he should, when one considered his numerous references to his injured head.

She pulled back quickly a little too quickly and stumbled backward into a prickly holly bush.

Before she fell too far, she heard a rich oath and felt a steely grip on her upper arms as she was yanked forward.

“Here,” he said, “let me have that before you hurt yourself.” He held out his hand and she put the mallet into it. Foolish, foolish, she thought. If you had an ounce of mother wit you would’ve given him another whack on his head, and a knot to match the other one.

He frowned and ran his hand through his hair. “Don’t bust your drawers, girl, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, laying the mallet aside. It was the first time she felt terrified of something other than the fact she had cracked his head.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she announced and regretted it immediately, because the words had no more than left her lips than a flicker of interest began to smolder deep in his eyes.

Feeling a rush of tenderness, Ross watched the enchanting way her cheeks flushed the palest peach. “Are you sure?” he said softly. He rubbed his palm over the soft curve of her cheek and touched a narrow red welt. “You’ve scratched yourself.”

“I don’t care. It doesn’t hurt. Don’t touch me.”

He smiled. “I take it you haven’t spent much time alone with a man.”

“I’ve never been alone with a man,” she said, recovering her tongue along with her anger. It was a much more welcome feeling than the terror she had felt a moment earlier. She thought that was a good sign.

“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that! I’m not your… I don’t even know you.”

“Ahhh, but you could.”

“No! No, I couldn’t. I’m not what you think I am. You’ve made a mistake.”

He looked her over. “You don’t look like a mistake,” he said.

“Not in the least.” He stroked her face again, his fingers curling beneath her chin and lifting her face to his.

“You don’t feel like a mistake.” His voice was husky now.

She gasped and took a step backward, prepared to feel the prick of holly bushes, but instead found herself in his arms. While her mind was catching up to the fact that she was indeed in this man’s arms, he kissed her so swiftly she was caught completely off guard.