Page 61 of Somewhere Along The Way (Mackinnon #3)

Funny how the mind works, she thought. Here she was, sitting on a fence in the wilds of Scotland, and when she should be concerned with just how she was going to get down without breaking her fool neck, she began to think about Scotland—she was responding to it like the lament of the sad skirl of pipes.

And it was here on the top of this fence that it struck her just why she was so bewitched by this powerful and complex land.

Scotland was both defiant and compassionate, obedient and daring—something she wished herself to be.

But its greatest gift to her had been its sharing, both land and landscape, people and pride.

It had also given her a liberal dose of common sense, and that common sense was telling her she wasn’t going to think herself down from the top of this fence.

From where she sat, it looked a long way to the ground.

She glanced over her shoulder at the direction she had just come from. That looked a long way as well.

She was pondering her descent when the yapping of Bennie, the sheep dog, reached her ears and she looked up in time to see him burst through the brush on the other side of the road.

Bennie ran to the fence and barked twice, then turned and ran back to the brush he had just bounded through.

Bella was wondering what Bennie was about when the undergrowth rustled, then parted, and the object of all his overjoyed behavior stepped out.

Ross Mackinnon looked as surprised to see her as she was to see him.

She could tell he had been out hunting, because he had his rifle, and a bag used to hold grouse was thrown over his shoulder.

He was dressed in those clothes he preferred, which always gave him an air of casual disregard.

He was hatless as usual, and his hair was windblown and partly in his eyes.

Neither his casual disarray nor the stark countryside did anything to detract from the general picture of him.

The overall effect was rather like watching a thoroughbred hurdle a fence at a steeplechase—for when she looked at him, her heart always lodged in her throat.

He must have seen her the minute he stepped onto the road, for he drew up short and looked her over with calculated ease.

After all, he was no fool, and any fool could see he could take all the time he wished and look his fill, since it was quite obvious she wasn’t going anywhere fast. He had plenty to look at, too.

To the straitlaced, her appearance would have been declared scandalous; by humorous standards she was something to laugh at.

She wiggled around, trying to pull her skirts free, at least enough to cover her drawers and petticoats, but all her wiggling only served to expose her limbs, which were already overexposed, a bit more.

“You could stop gawking at me in that nasty fashion and help me down.”

“I could,” he said, “and I might, but first I want some answers. What are you doing up there?”

“Viewing the countryside.”

His lips were curved in either a sneer or a smile. From this distance she could not tell which. A moment later he crossed the road and stood before her. It was a smile, she decided. She looked down on the top of his head as he asked, “Are you alone?”

“Yes, except for you and Bennie.”

“Where’s your shadow?”

“You mean Ailie?”

He nodded.

“She had to leave…with Allan.”

“You mean they left you up here?”

“Yes…I mean no. I didn’t climb up here until after…” She tugged at her dress again. “Will you stop staring at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“As if you think I’m a pile of pastry and you’re about to put your hands in the dough.”

He laughed. “I don’t know why, but common sense tells me to let that dog lie.”

“I would think if you had any common sense at all, it would tell you to help a lady in distress.”

“Are you distressed?”

“Not personally…at least not yet, but I soon may be, and my situation, as you can see, is one of distress.”

“How’d you get up there?”

“I climbed.”

“Then climb down.”

“I might fall.”

“I doubt it, but the leaves will cushion you if you should.” Seeing the look on her face, he laughed. “You’ll be glad you did it yourself, once it’s over. Go ahead. Try it.”

“How?”

“You can’t teach a setting hen to cluck,” he said. “Some things have to be learned. Go on, you’ll do fine.”

She wasn’t as overflowing with confidence as he was, but she knew him well enough to know he’d be content to stand there leering at her all day if she didn’t try getting down without his help.

What other choice did she have? The cold from the stones was penetrating her backside through her petticoats, and sitting on the fence wasn’t all that comfortable anyway.

Besides, it wasn’t nearly as much fun as she had thought it would be.

Her first attempt wasn’t too successful, and she paused, her feet dangling high above the ground, thrashing the air, as she looked for a foothold. With a cry of exasperation, she pulled herself up with her arms and lay like a dead man tossed over a horse’s back.

“Lick your flint and try again,” was Ross’ sage advice.

“Do what?”

“Start over.”

“Why didn’t you speak English the first time?”

“I thought I did.”

“I mean my kind of English.”

By this time her temper was in fine form, but she managed to hold her tongue. She worked her way down, knowing she was as awkwardly ungraceful and unladylike as one could imagine, and that she was giving him the most unobstructed view of her backside.

One did what one had to do.

Once her feet touched the ground, she turned away and started walking down the narrow lane that led back to Seaforth.

He fell in step alongside her. She did her best to ignore him, but that wasn’t too effective.

Pushing back an errant strand of hair, she was startled when she felt his hand take hers.

She drew up short, her heart pounding as she looked into his face.

His long fingers caressed her hand, his thumb rubbing the red welt on her wrist. “What happened here?” he asked.

“It’s a bee sting.”

“And here?” he asked tracing the long, red scrape on her arm.

“Climbing the fence.”

“When you were a little girl, did your mother kiss your hurts and make them go away?”

“No. Why should she? Kissing a hurt doesn’t make it feel better.”

Some people , she suddenly realized, fall into holes unsuspecting. Others step into them with both feet.

He laughed. “Oh, but you’re wrong. It does make it better.

Much better. Let me show you.” He led her off the road, behind the thick fringe of hedges and low trees to a spongy carpet of early summer grasses, and pulled her down to sit beside him.

Taking her hands in his, he turned them palm up and kissed them softly.

These kisses were even more devastating than the more conventional kind.

Her entire body quivered in response, as if fanned by a hundred butterfly wings.

Her constitution was as fortified as a pat of melted butter.

For a flickering of time he continued to caress her hands with his, then he carried them upward and placed them around his neck, nudging her backward with the weight of his body as he did.

Bathed in the pungent aroma of grasses, she lay stunned and inert beneath him, her heart pounding wildly with anticipation.

He stared down into her lovely features. Even her hair seemed untroubled, lying in tranquil curls over her shoulders and breasts. Her wide eyes, her slightly open lips nearly drove him crazy. He yearned to taste her again, to kiss her and keep on kissing her until she was as wild with desire as he.

He lowered his head and did just that. He kissed her and kept on kissing her, until his hand came up to learn the shape of her breast. Passion ruled her face, but even then he saw the faintest flicker of sadness in her eyes.

He wanted to kiss and drive the sadness from her life with his love, but he knew he couldn’t do it, knew that there were things in her life that only she could resolve, knew he could do no more than to reassure her of his love for her.

Would it be enough? He hoped to God it would be. It was all he had to offer her.

His hands found their way inside her dress and bared her lovely breasts.

He lowered his head, stroking her with his tongue.

She closed her eyes and cradled his head against her.

With a wordless groan, Ross kissed her with a sudden, urgent hunger, feeling her response to his passion was as great as his.

Not breaking the kiss, he caressed her, touching her breasts and teasing their points with his thumbs, and feeling her immediate response.

He followed the trail of his hands with his mouth, kissing her everywhere.

She gasped with pleasure and twisted against him, trying to get closer.

“Sweet, sweet…you have the sweetest skin. I want to wrap myself in it and never get up. Take me. Wrap me inside you. I love you. I’ll always love you,” he said, slowly sinking into a world of blindness, where he functioned with only half a mind.

Desperate to join his body with hers, he ignored the warning signals that were dully clamoring inside his head.

His hand followed the line of her legs, locating the hem of her skirts and lifting them, instinctively touching her thigh, the flat smoothness of her stomach.

His hand was beneath all her clothing now, touching.

Skin against skin. With no barriers between them.

He moved his hand between her legs and she opened to him, warm and sweet and melting. His kisses were more urgent now.

“I ache for you,” he said. “You’re going to have to stop this, because I can’t. Not now. It’s gone too far.”

A strange excitement curled within her, a sensation of recklessness and pleasure that felt as wild as it felt free. He was here, now, and all hers. She could kiss him, and touch him. There was nothing to prevent it. Nothing to hold her back.

She loved him, she knew that. His love was something she could never have, not completely.

But she could have now . She could have this moment to remember during all the times to follow when he would be lost to her.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew and accepted her part in her own fall from grace.

She could not blame him. The fault was as much hers as his.

Besides, none of this made any difference now, for as he said, it was too late now to stop.

“Please, Ross,” was her only response. “Please.”

She could feel the long, hard line of him pressing hot against her belly.

As always, there was no haste in his movements, only the slow, steady assurance that he knew what he was about.

He knew her body better than she did, knew where to touch her to make her open like a fern frond, where to stroke her into a liquid heat.

His very slowness, the insistence, the devotion, sent her hot blood racing and drove her wild.

His finger was inside her now, circling, easing, stretching her to accommodate him.

Dear God, did his patience know no end, no limit?

A heaviness gripped her, and she felt her body tighten.

A moment later he was between her legs, kissing the wild sweetness of her mouth as she lifted her hips. He felt himself slip slowly inside her, then he eased himself slowly and gradually deeper. “Oh, God!” he said. “So this is heaven.”

She reacted with a sharp gasp. The pain she had been led to expect was no more than the bee sting, the pleasure afterward more than its own reward. She encircled his neck with her arms, feeling that the skin was moist and smooth as she strained upward to meet him.

She had no desire to lie back and be taken, but felt the overriding need and joy of wanting to be one with him, to be his partner, his equal in every way.

His thrusts were surer now, and quicker, and she accepted the urgency, matching it with her own until a tightness formed like a small kernel of truth deep within her belly, increasing, expanding, growing frantic in its seeking of a way out.

As a jagged flash of lightning rips across a midnight sky, her body jerked uncontrollably with unchecked passion.

She knew, she knew, for all time she knew.

For all time this moment, this man, this joining would be hers.

She could not be sorry, for only joy flooded her soul.

God hadn’t seen fit to hand her the universe, but he had allowed her to touch a star.

He held her against him for a long time, neither of them speaking, as if by doing so they would shatter the perfect peace that existed between them. “Are you sorry?” he asked at last.

“No. I’m only sorry we didn’t do this sooner.” She rolled against him and buried her face in his neck. “Oh, Ross, what can we do?”

He held her close and stroked her. “I don’t know, but I’ll think of something,” he said. “You aren’t going to marry Huntly. I do know that much.”

“How can I not? I can’t bring shame upon my family. I can’t humiliate them by throwing everything they stand for in their faces.”

“I know,” he said softly. “This overwhelming sense of fairness, your acceptance of what is right—it’s one of the things I love about you. Don’t worry. There has to be a way out of this for us, a way for me to take the blame.”

She raised her arms and pulled him down to her.

A moment later he lifted his head. “It seems fate or circumstance is always working against me.” He kissed her again, softly.

“You must have a legion of angels watching over you.” Her arms were still around his neck and she tugged at him, feeling his resistance.

“Would that I could, angel mine, but unless I miss my guess, that creaking I hear in the distance is the herald of your cousin’s untimely arrival. ”

He kissed her again, and she gave herself up to it. He was light, there had to be something they could do. There had to be. Suddenly his words came back to her. There has to be a way out of this for us, a way for me to take the blame.