Page 33 of The Highlander’s Auctioned Hellion (Auctioned Highland Brides #4)

Lydia had never been so grateful to see anyone in her life.

Callum’s strong, warm body enveloped her, and for a moment, she did not want to let go.

“I have found ye, thank God,” he said against her hair. “Thank God.”

Lydia clutched at him, but even in his warm, empowering presence, doubts rose in her mind.

She pulled away, disentangling herself from him as the rain began to fall more heavily around them again.

A warm breeze was blowing in from the hills, and the moon could be seen in fits and starts as the clouds whisked across the sky.

Lydia looked up into Callum’s stoic expression; his brow furrowed as he met her gaze.

“Ye are sure ye arenae hurt?” he asked.

Lydia nodded. “I am all right.”

“Come, let us get ye back into the carriage.”

“What has happened?” she asked. “Where are the girls?”

Callum took her hand and began pulling her over the rough ground. “They are safe, they are comin’ back to me castle as we speak.”

Lydia pulled her hand free, and Callum stopped, turning to her in confusion.

“What is it, lass?”

“I am happy for you,” Lydia said quietly. “I am glad that you have the girls back, and I am more grateful than I can say that you came to save me. But that doesn’t change anything between us.”

Callum stepped toward her. “Ye said ye couldnae stay with me because Moira was a threat to the girls. She is nay more a threat, lass, we can be together again.”

“As we were?”

“Aye.”

Lydia’s heart sank. “As a convenient marriage between two people who are barely more than friends?”

“That isnae what we are.”

“Then what are we?” she demanded. “Because as far as I can see, there is nothing keeping me here.”

Callum’s brow furrowed. “Nothin’ keepin’ ye here? And what of the girls, what of the life we live inside our castle walls?”

“A life dictated by you. Your rules, your laws. It is the same as it would be if I were back home with my father.”

Callum took a menacing step toward her. “Dinnae compare me to that English oaf.”

“And why should I not? How are you different?”

The rain was beginning to fall in earnest, soaking through his clothes. His hair was hanging down in front of his eyes, making his cheekbones look all the more defined in the moonlight.

“I have come to take ye back because I want ye with me?—”

“As what?”

Callum’s mouth worked as he blinked the rain from his eyes. “As me wife.”

Lydia nodded. “As I thought. A wife of convenience whom you can bend to your will? That is not enough for me anymore.”

Callum opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a hand, shaking her head.

“I can’t return to your castle, Callum. No matter how much I might wish to. I have grown to love it as much as the lands around it. But that is not all I love.”

Her voice was small and broken as tears welled in her eyes. “I love you. I have grown to love you and those girls more than my own life. I cannot return as we were. Not now.”

She stepped past him, unsure where she was headed in the state she was in, but simply resolved to try to make it back to London by any means she could.

Callum’s big hand gripped her wrist in a vice, and she stopped, looking back at him.

“That isnae what I want either.”

Lydia’s gut clenched as she stared into his dark eyes, the moonlight flickering over his skin.

“What do you want?”

“That is what I came to tell ye. It wasnae about savin’ ye, although I thank God I did. I dinnae want ye as a convenient bride anymore, Lydia.”

Lydia swallowed. “You don’t?”

“Nay. The thought of bein’ without ye, of watchin’ ye leave me, it was the worst thing on this earth.”

Lydia stared at him, unable to believe what she had heard.

“I love ye too, lass. I wish I didnae. It is a fool’s feelin’, but I do. More than anythin’.”

Lydia shook her head.

“You love me?” she whispered. “But you have no interest in love. Love ruins men. You said so yourself.”

Callum chuckled. “Aye, and I am livin’ proof of that.

I finally understand why me braither didnae leave Moira.

I have never felt anythin’ like this for anyone.

I always believed I didnae want it, but bein’ without ye is far worse.

I have a clever, beautiful woman at me side, and it has taken me too long to realize how lucky I am to have her. If she’ll have me.”

He pulled her toward him, his big arms coming around her body, keeping her close. Lydia was beginning to believe that it was the best place in the world. Cradled in his arms—safe and warm.

“I was a fool to fight it, right from the beginning. I think I might have loved ye in those gardens. Runnin’ for yer life from a room full of halfwits, and ye werenae goin’ to let any man rule ye. Ye and I, we belong together, and I will dae everythin’ I can to prove it to ye.”

The rain was so heavy now that it had created a cocoon of sound around them. The rest of the world faded away, and in that moment, all she could see was Callum.

Soaked to the skin, standing with his sword in his hand, ready to fight the world to win her. He was everything she had ever wanted and more.

Lydia ran to him, his arms coming up to encircle her as he buried his head in her shoulder.

He squeezed so tightly that she could not breathe, but she did not care. She put her arms as far around his torso as they would go, clutching at him.

Callum pulled back, and their eyes locked before he lowered his head and captured her mouth with his own. He lifted her, her whole body balanced against him, steady and strong as a mountainside.

He kissed her deeply, longingly, as if he would never let her go.

Lydia opened her eyes to find him gazing up at her, the rain slowly dissipating around them as he lowered her gently to her feet.

“I love ye,” he murmured.

“I love you too,” she said, and as the words left her mouth, the rain stopped.

Callum took her hand, squeezing her fingers gently before they turned to the carriage. The driver had pulled the arrow free of his shoulder, wadding his shirt in place, and was sitting upright again.

“Get back to me castle, man,” Callum said. “Can ye drive in that state?”

The driver nodded. “Aye, M’Laird. I’ll get yer lady safely back.”

“Nay, I’ll see to her. Ye get back and speak to Alexander. Ye need medical attention, and dinnae delay. Take the guard’s body with ye. He’ll need a proper burial. He gave his life for his Laird’s family.”

Callum gently lifted the guard’s body into the cab and closed the door.

The driver turned the carriage back around, and they watched as it slowly made its way up the path from where they had just come.

Lydia looked up at him with a frown.

“We aren’t going back with him?” she asked.

“We will, but I am the only man who gets ye home tonight. Anyone who tries to hurt ye will have to go through me.”

He bent his head as though to kiss her, but paused, sucking in a breath as he ran a thumb over her neck. She could feel a trickle of blood from where the knife had cut her skin, and Callum growled as he saw it.

“Come, I have some clean bandages and a spare coat in me pack. We’ll get ye warm and get ye home.”

Lydia huffed, pulling at her skirts.

“I am caked in mud, and I don’t know where my shoes are.”

Callum looked back at her, chuckling when she glared at him peevishly.

“I will buy ye a thousand new gowns and a hundred new pairs of shoes if ye wish.”

“I am not traveling to the castle on horseback, covered in mud,” she said, looking at the lake beside them and tugging at her gown.

“I can clean myself up at the edge of the water. If we lay this over a tree branch, it may dry a little before we have to travel back. I need to get this muck off my skin. It is tight and painful.”

Callum watched her incredulously, his hands on his hips as she pulled off her outer garments.

Twilight had fallen, and as the rain passed, there was just enough light to see by to get down to the water’s edge. The sky was a silvery gray expanse, its reflection visible on the water’s surface.

Lydia already felt freer without the heavy dress pulling her down, and she moved to the black edge of the water, dipping in a toe to test the temperature.

Now that she had time to focus on them, her feet were hurting damnably, cut to ribbons by the forest floor. She just wanted to bathe them to wash off the blood and the grime before they made their way home.

Callum was behind her, searching through the grass, and gave a small cry of triumph as he held up her sodden shoes.

He placed them carefully on a log at the water’s edge and came to stand beside her.

“I havenae been swimmin’ outside me own lands in a while.” He looked down at her. “And I have never done it with me wife.”

“Callum, I am not swimming in it. Are you mad? We are both soaked through, and it’s cold!”

“Aye, well, we are both already wet, so there cannae be any harm in havin’ a dip.”

She stared up at him in astonishment as he stripped off his léine and his kilt and stood entirely naked and unashamed before her.

It was such a magnificent image, his body silhouetted against the silvery sky, that she could not drag her eyes away from him.

He waded into the water and sighed with relief.

“It’s warm from the rain, are ye comin’ in?”

“Absolutely not. Warm from the rain. I can feel how cold it is from here,” she said, flicking some water playfully at his face.

Callum grinned. She had seen him smile a few times, but this one was different. It was free of the burdens he had carried for a long while, and he seemed more carefree, relaxed in a new way.

He moved onto his back, lying in the water and allowing himself to float.

“You are quite mad,” she said.

“If ye come in here, I’ll make sure ye’re warm again,” he said as Lydia looked at the mud cracking across her arms and legs. She could feel that her hair and face were covered in it too, and despite the cold, the water was tempting.

Throwing off her doubts, she stood, enjoying the way his eyes widened in happy surprise as she began removing her underclothes.