Page 37 of Somewhere Along The Way (Mackinnon #3)

“I come from a world quite different from yours. I’m like a plant that is part of an enormous concept; one that is planted at the proper time, in the proper place; one that will make up a small part of a very orderly and well-maintained garden.

I’ve been watched over, fertilized, watered, and given the exact amounts of sunshine and pruning, always nurtured and protected from the elements.

I grow and mature and blossom, but always within the confines of my garden.

But you—you’re like a weed whose seed is dropped along the wayside and begins to sprout on its own, growing in a crack in a crumbling wall.

When you bloom, your seed-pods are scattered by the wind.

You have no home, just as you have no purpose. ”

“Perhaps you’re right, Lady Annabella, but I do have something you don’t have. I have a taste of reality, of what life and the world are all about, while you haven’t really lived at all.”

“That isn’t true.”

“Isn’t it?”

The tension between them stretched dangerously. “No, of course it isn’t.” Don’t look at me like that. You don’t know what it does to me.

But I do know. It’s the same thing your look does to me. “I think it is true, and I’ll prove it to you.”

This had to stop. Things could not go on like this. Somewhat stunned and motionless, Annabella stared at him as he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. When he opened them, he looked at her. “Look around you. Take as long as you wish, then tell me what you see.”

She looked at him in a puzzled way, her head tilted to one side. She cast a quick look around their surroundings, coming swiftly back to him. “I see the countryside.”

“Worse than I thought,” he said. “Lass, you need help.” He stepped closer. “Turn around. Go on. I won’t hurt you.”

“That’s what our cook says every time she hides the meat cleaver behind her back and goes after a chicken.”

He laughed, and she cast a speculative look at him and then turned around, feeling his hands slip over her eyes. “Now, tell me what you just saw.”

I saw you. Only you. “I told you. I saw the countryside.”

“Could you be more descriptive?”

“Could you be more vague?”

He laughed. “I’m not being vague. I asked for a description. Tell me what you saw. What kind of countryside.”

“I saw the Scottish countryside. In bloody daylight. ”

“Pretend I’ve never been to Scotland and you’re describing it to me. You can’t say it looks like the Scottish countryside , since I don’t know what the Scottish countryside looks like. Describe it to me.”

“It looks just like any other countryside. The earth is brown and green, the sky is blue and white. There are trees and water. What are you doing? This is silly. Take your hands away.”

He dropped them. “You still won’t see anything.”

“You don’t make any sense at all. I don’t know why I’m wasting my time talking to you.”

“Because you like me better than you let on. Because you like all this attention I’m giving you.

Because you know you don’t want to marry Huntly.

Because you do want to stand here with me.

But enough of that for now,” he said. “How would you like it, Annabella, if someone asked me what you looked like and my answer was, She looks like any other woman. She has long hair and two eyes and two arms and the same number of legs. Would that be an adequate description of you, do you think?”

His words had a sobering effect upon her, but she forced herself to laugh. “I would hope I make more of an impression than that.”

“Yet that’s just what you’ve done. One day you’re going to see the earth isn’t green and brown at all, and the sky isn’t blue and white, and that there is more around you than trees and water.

You can’t see it now, because you’ve been taught to see the world through someone else’s eyes, but one day…

One day you’ll know, and when you do, your life won’t be the same. ”

She started to say something, but he silenced her with his finger across her lips.

“Don’t say anything. Not now. It’s too soon, I think—too soon for you to really understand.

You’ve a way to go, lass. You must learn to walk before you can expect to run.

” He chuckled and rubbed his thumb over the creasing frown between her eyes.

“Don’t fash yourself over all this newfound knowledge.

We’ve time. There’ll be no hurrying for us. Not with anything.”

He waited, feeling the tension of indecision in her small body. Would she trust him enough to let go and ease up a little…would she panic and sashay away? He leaned closer and whispered, “I know what you’re thinking: Trust everybody, but lock your door. Is that right?”

He felt the way her laugh made her relax. “You’re close,” she said, allowing the tightly held muscles to relax. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you?”

“Did what on purpose?” he asked innocently. “Offered you a little friendly conversation?”

“Words like scruples or honor aren’t even in your vocabulary. You came over here like a biscuit buttered on both sides, and don’t you try to deny it. You know I’m betrothed, yet you intentionally set out to be forward with me.” Please stop this.

I can’t.

I’m promised to another.

I don’t care. You don’t love him.

I don’t love you either.

No, but you damn well could.

Stay away from me, do you hear. Stay far away.

“Now would I do such an unchivalrous thing as slinking around like a biscuit buttered on both sides?”

“Yes. You would…you did.”

“When a man’s caught, he’s caught.” He held up his arms in surrender. “I plead guilty as charged,” he said, leaning over to whisper the words in her ear. He didn’t stop there—but kissed the curve of her cheek, more quickly than the flutter of her pulse.

“Stop that!” she said, pushing him away. “I wasn’t raised to display my affections publicly.”

“That’s fine with me, sweetheart. I’d rather do it in private anyway.”

There was no way to win against this man. It was useless to try. She didn’t say anything else.

He didn’t want to spoil the sense of tranquility that existed between them, so he was content to take her arm and lead her along the narrow path that followed the stone fence. He wondered if she felt it too, this easy, relaxed state they seemed to have settled into.

He needn’t have wondered. She had noticed it, and that prompted her to put an end to it by asking, “Where are we going?”

“Where would you like to go?”

“Back to England,” she said quickly.

“On foot?”

With sublime effort, Annabella tried not to laugh, but it was hopeless. “I would ride on a broom if it would get me there,” she said.

He laughed. “It seems I’m always having to ask you for a second choice. England is out, I’m afraid. Would you settle for a short stroll around the grounds of Dunford in its stead?”

That drew her up short. Indecision settled like a mask over her face.

“I don’t suppose your nanny or governess ever instructed you on the proper behavior in a situation such as this, did she?

” As he said this, he leaned low, his words carried on the current of his warm breath that teased her senses.

The gall of the man was unbelievable. Now his bloody chin was resting on her shoulder.

What familiarity. What impertinence. What uncouth ruffians these Texans must be.

But in spite of his tacky, flashy ways and crude behavior, his disturbing nearness seemed to wipe all thought of propriety and convention from her mind, while at the same time robbing her of her natural rhythm of breathing.

Nothing , absolutely nothing had prepared her for the utter and complete chaos that was going on inside her.

Nothing was functioning properly and nothing was in its proper place.

Her heart seemed to be everywhere it wasn’t, for why else could she feel it pounding in her temples and throbbing in her throat?

And what were these flutters that felt as if she’d swallowed a flotilla of agitated butterflies?

There was certainly no sound reason for what was happening here.

Why would a respectable woman feel such fluttering and timorous excitement over the simple matter of taking a stroll in broad daylight?

She was behaving like a true cabbagehead, all stammering confusion at the mere closeness of a member of the opposite gender.

She had been schooled in the many manifestations of polite conversation, including those with members of the opposite s-e-x .

So why was she at such a loss of dignity and self-possession?

Although he was no longer whispering to her, his face was dangerously close to her ear, doing she knew not what, but whatever it was he was about, he knew what he was doing, for she was certain it was no accident that he could do such remarkable-feeling things with nothing but his nose.

Stupid as it might sound, and indeed it did sound stupid, the man was using his nose.

Right this minute he was nuzzling her with it.

And what was worse, she liked it. God’s eyelashes!

Was she daft? Here she was, walking quietly along, enduring his touch, knowing as she did that she should protest the familiar way he was putting his hand (or nose, as the case may be) against her person with such disregard for propriety and for her position as a betrothed woman.

She was doing her best to compile a mental list of reasons why she should not be strolling about the grounds of Dunford Castle with this man, but by the time she got to number four, he nuzzled her again, and she forgot points one, two, and three.

It was no use.

At last she decided to make the most of it, unaware that Ross knew the exact moment she gave in.

His pleasure in being with her no matter how unpleasant she tried to be was slowly transformed into a sense of complete and utter peace.

They walked along like this for some time, neither of them speaking, both of them feeling they had so much to say.