Page 36 of Somewhere Along The Way (Mackinnon #3)

He cupped her cheek and lifted her head into the light to study the line of her jaw.

A faint white scar ran along her jawbone from her ear almost to her mouth, where it curved upward, ending in a dimple.

He looked at the other cheek, studying its perfect symmetry, its perfection, unmarred unlike its counterpart.

“A scar,” he said at last, still somewhat amazed that he hadn’t noticed it before, “but an old one.”

“Yes. Quite old.”

“How old were you?”

“Barely five.”

“You were hit?”

“No.”

“A riding accident?”

She nodded.

“Were you going over jumps?”

She laughed. “Nothing so glamorous as that. It was my sister’s pony—a fat, tame little thing with an unruly mane and a fondness for apples.”

He smiled. “No cart?”

“No.” Even short, simple words were difficult, the moisture sucking at her throat, the words seeming to drain her of precious breath.

“Were you thrown?”

She laughed again. “You seem to be persistent in wanting this to be something it is not. There was nothing so noble about it. I wasn’t thrown.

I fell off. My sister was leading me around the stableyard at our country house in Maidstone when a dog frightened the pony and he ran away with me.

I lost my balance and fell. I hit the side of my head on a plow.

One of the chisels went through my cheek. ”

She understood then that she ought to have left when she had a chance.

Somehow he had chased away the doldrums and made her forget her shyness around men.

Perhaps she should go now, but she told herself it was too late to turn and run.

Indecision made her lower her head. He slipped his forefinger beneath her chin and lifted her face into the sunlight.

He looked at her face again, seeing the smooth skin, the faintly visible scar.

There were none of the telltale signs of such a nasty wound as she described: no gouged skin, no proud flesh, no puckered scar, nothing but a lovely dimple he wanted to kiss.

“It healed remarkably well. You must’ve had one helluva surgeon. ”

She laughed, and he noticed how the dimple went deeper. “I did. My grandmother.”

“Your grandmother? She sewed your face?”

“Yes. She said she wasn’t going to wait for that old drunk in town to butcher my face.

Later my mother told me that my grandmother knew it would have been too swollen by the time the doctor arrived, and my grandmother was an excellent seamstress.

I’ve been told I had the most beautifully crosshatched jawbone in all of England. ”

“And now,” he said, “you have simply the most beautiful one.”

She turned her head away. “I wish you wouldn’t talk to me like that.”

“All women like to be talked to that way.”

She lifted her chin, determined that he was not going to work his way into her affections any more than he already had. “All other women perhaps, but I don’t like it.”

“At least you came to that conclusion on your own.”

A breeze seemed to come out of nowhere, whisking across the hayfield and swirling bits of chaff and straw, then, losing some of its bluster, left as silently as it had come.

Over the fence, two ewes seemed to be having a disagreement, and down by the barn a cat howled as if someone had stepped on its tail.

Her senses seemed more acute now—for awareness was all around her.

“You aren’t a lass who can think for herself. That must make your life seem awfully dull.”

“The only thing I find dull is standing here talking to you.”

Suddenly he was close enough to put his hands on her shoulders.

He was right. She couldn’t think. With him standing as close as he was, with his big hands upon her, she found she couldn’t breathe either.

As she had always done, she tried to reason her way out of an uncomfortable situation.

There is no reason for a grown woman like you to tremble like a frightened child, simply because a man has his hands on your shoulders.

As far as relief went, that didn’t do much good.

She knew she must look like a thick-wit standing here blushing and tripping over her words.

All her turmoil was on the inside; outwardly she stood quiet and still under the weight of his hands, knowing deep within her that she should be putting up some sort of resistance, even if it be a token one.

He was so different, so much more straight-forward than anyone she had ever known.

He had a way of slicing right through the codes of polite conduct to where the rest of facts lay.

She had never known anyone who talked as he did—the way one thought.

Thoughts were private things, things to be tempered by convention and etiquette and rearranged into carefully chosen speech.

This man was raw. And basic. And very disturbing.

She wondered if he could read her thoughts.

She could not keep from looking at him, at the well-tanned face, the teasing light in his eyes, the mouth that smiled at the slightest urging.

He had said she did not think for herself, and she wondered how he had noticed her lack of courage so quickly.

She felt ashamed that her lack of backbone was so obvious.

“There’s no need for you to be brooding over what I said. It’s easy enough to learn to think for yourself. It’s like anything else. You have to want it bad enough to reach out and take it. No one will hand it to you.”

“I’m not brooding,” she said shortly.

“You’re brooding, all right. I’ve seen that look enough. Most of the somber, bitter women in the world start out just like you. You’re getting that pinched look on your face already. Give you a few years and your nose will be touching your chin.”

Stunned, she simply stood there, unable to speak.

He had caught her off guard. She had assumed that because of the trouble he had gone to to be with her, he would not sink so low as to speak as he had.

It was one thing to be cut to the quick, and quite another to be caught unprepared.

Because of the unexpectedness of it, the wound seemed to bleed more profusely.

Perhaps what really hurt was her deep sorrow at knowing her future even before hearing his cruel prophecy.

Since the announcement of her betrothal her life had looked as barren and unpromising as a peat bog.

And now his crude and callous reminder of her bleak future, her spinelessness, only served to suggest to her that she had been a fool to enjoy his attention, and to pretend for a moment of insanity that her life was any different from what it was, or to think foolishly that she was the same happy girl she had been a few months ago.

It all served to tell her that she had absolutely no business standing here with this man. No business at all.

“Don’t cloud up and rain on me now,” he said. “Are you so accustomed to being coddled and protected that you dissolve into tears the moment someone is honest with you?”

“I am not crying.”

“Maybe not, but you will be soon enough, I’ll wager.”

“You might wait until one is guilty of the crime before you heap on your accusations.”

“I only said that to warm you up a little bit, to see if you had any spirit left in you at all. It’s hard to tell—you’re wearing such a cross look.”

“I am not cross!” she said, surprising herself by showing more spirit than even she knew she possessed.

“And I don’t cry when someone is being honest. I admire honesty.

What I don’t admire is cheeky rudeness. The way you talk, anyone would think I didn’t have a brain—or a backbone—which is not the case.

I am smart enough not to allow such blatant disregard for a person’s feelings to pass for polite behavior.

If I seem strange, perhaps there’s another reason.

You shocked me, that’s all.” He didn’t look like he believed that for a minute.

“I’ll do more than shock you before it’s all over,” he said, with a look that seemed to strip away the layers of pretense and denial and go right to the core, which was, as they both knew, the simple fact of his being a man and her being a woman and both of them having more than a passing interest in each other.

She would rather have been anyplace else at this moment, other than the place she was.

Mortification set in. How could she bear to look at herself in the mirror ever again?

Her cheeks, she knew, were blazing. Her heart pounded oddly. She felt herself fighting for breath.

“There’s no need to stand there panting like a lizard on a hot rock,” he said. “It won’t change anything, and it will only serve to ruin the rest of your day.”

His words shot along her backbone and made her shoulders pinch. “Does everyone in Texas talk the way you do?”

“I don’t know. How do I talk?”

“Well, your speech—besides being odd, is… What I’m trying to say is you don’t make any sense.”

He looked at her for a moment as if he was considering something; then he laughed.

“It’s a good thing I’m betrothed. We would never suit.”

If he was surprised, he didn’t let on. “Why not?”

“We’re just too different.”

“In what way?” He grinned and looked her over good and proper. “I mean, besides in the obvious ways a man is different from a woman.”

“I know what you meant. You don’t have to carve it in stone. I’m not that thick-witted. Perhaps an analogy would be more appropriate. You do understand gardening, don’t you?”

He was really grinning now. “You mean planting all those little seeds that turn into squash, turnips, and pumpkins?” he said with flaming exaggeration.

“The plague take you,” she said, her nose going up a notch. “I was thinking more in terms of horticulture. ”

“Go on. I’ll do my best to follow.”