Page 10 of Warrior of the Highlands (Highlands #3)

He looked so . . . big. The rough weave of his shirt strained over biceps and shoulders, doing nothing to conceal the solid wall of muscle beneath. Heat surged to her cheeks, and Haley hated the traitorous and irrational response to such a conspicuous show of maleness.

To spite her own response, she forced an indifference she didn’t feel, and allowed her eyes to rove the rest of him, taking in his tremendous brawn, the barrel chest, and thickly knotted calves that emerged from his kilt.

Rival academic? Yeah, right. Talk about a crazy professor type.

“Do you really need to dress up like Alasdair MacColla?” She eyed his plaid. The muted dark greens, blues, and black had seen better days. It appeared he took a left turn at the seventeenth century and didn’t look back. “Don’t tell me. You’re a student at Brown, aren’t you?”

MacColla stared blankly. “You’re a wee daftie of a lass.”

“Okay, I give up.” She could play along with the crazy reenactor guy.

He clearly spent his weekends tossing cabers and eating venison he’d skinned with his own hands.

Talk about taking his scholarship seriously.

“Why a MacColla costume? I mean, everyone knows James Graham was the one you’d want to dress up as. He was the great hero.”

The man bristled, so she just bit back a grin and went with it.

“But you, you were just kind of a sidekick, right? Graham was the handsome, smart one. Weren’t you more of the brawn-not-brains variety?

Although”—she scanned her eyes up and down his body—“you do have the right look. You’ve got kind of a big-lug thing going on.

I can’t see you in the fancy velvet waistcoats. ”

She met his gaze again and something looking like satisfaction played on his features. He couldn’t possibly think she was checking him out, right?

“ What-ever , Mister Alasdair MacColla.” She rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you just tell me where you’re taking me?”

Her mind whirred. She needed to figure out what was going on. He had to be another Celtic scholar, but what was he playing at? “Come on, tell me. What’s your dissertation on?”

He’d surely seen the gun. She’d put money on it. “Look, if this is about the gun, we can claim the find together. Just let me go.”

His eyes narrowed.

That’s it. He’d seen the gun, dated it, realized it belonged to Graham, and, putting two and two together, had decided to scare her out of the equation. Anyone who’d take the name of such a famous—and famously brutal—hero of old had to be all kinds of crazy with his obsessions.

Haley rubbed her side, playing up her injury. “I think I need a doctor.” Maybe that would scare him into freeing her.

Standing completely still, he simply stared, scrutinizing her.

“I won’t let you have it,” she finally stated baldly.

“I take whatever I want, you wee hellcat.” He roved his eyes over her, giving his words a double meaning.

A shiver ran up her spine.

“It was my discovery,” she replied quickly. “It’s mine , you know. The weapon is mine.”

“I know you’ve no weapon. Unless you’ve hidden it.” Before she could dodge him, MacColla grabbed her close, reaching around and patting her on the rump to frisk her.

She let out a sharp squeal and watched as the light drained from MacColla’s eyes. He abruptly let her go.

“Och.” A hiss of breath escaped him as he visibly gathered himself. “Stop with the games, lass.”

His voice grew stern. “Campbell is at our backs and I need to get Jean to safety.”

She glowered. This business about Campbell again. “Is Robert the Bruce after us too?”

“Would that it were so,” he countered with a sudden laugh. “Now, if I have the right of it, Jean’s safety is your safety. So if you’ve a mind to your own hide, you’ll get back up on that pony and ride.”

She stared, speechless. She was going to get the hell away from them as soon as she could, of that she had no doubt.

Ride. The thought of more riding filled her with a dread so vast it felt like a physical weight in her belly.

She must’ve made some face, because he let out a low chuckle.

Before Haley could give him what for, MacColla surprised her by asking, “What’s your name, lass?”

He was the one who’d taken her —wouldn’t he know that already?

“Haley . . .” she hesitated.

“I see your pain, Haley.” His tone was unnervingly gentle, his voice slowing to pronounce her name with care. “You need your wind back. If you’re to ride anymore this day, we’ll need to bind you.”

“But didn’t you just say we had to get out of here?”

“Aye,” he smiled and cocked a brow, “I ken what I said.’Twill take but a moment. I’ve no doctor at my disposal, but I myself have bound many a man.”

“I’ll just bet you have,” she said under her breath, and he surprised her once more with a laugh.

“But,” he added gravely, “I’ll have your word you’ll not try to claw me while I do so, my wee caile bhorb .”

The peculiar nickname caught her off guard. A wee what girl? Fierce?

A wry smile cocked her lips before she could give it a thought. Her, a wee savage. A wisp of a laugh escaped her nostrils. Wouldn’t her brothers have loved that one?

“I won’t claw you,” she said grudgingly, thinking what a relief it would be to have her ribs bound.

Skeptical, he raised his brows, questioning.

“You have my word.” She was growing impatient with these suddenly amiable efforts. Who did he think he was to kidnap her, then think to bust out the burly charms? “Just get on with it, okay?”

He looked at her quizzically. Just when she thought he didn’t understand what she said, the man unsheathed his dirk and, biting it between his teeth, proceeded to unbuckle, take off his belt, loosen his plaid, and drop the entire heavy swath of wool into a puddle on the ground.

All he wore was an enormous shirt that reached to the middle of his thighs.

“What the—”

The sun was approaching midafternoon now, and it cut across the valley at MacColla’s back. The sharp angle lit him from behind, making the thin linen of his shirt glow with light.

It also made it see-through.

Haley gasped, seeing the size of him through the gauzy stretch of fabric. She turned away quickly, feeling her cheeks blaze red.

She told herself she’d seen a naked man before. Her first-year college boyfriend, to be precise. And it certainly hadn’t been cause for any fireworks. If there was no magic to be had then, why should she shy away from the sight now?

Misunderstanding her uneasiness, he took the blade from his mouth and explained, “I’ll need something to bind you, aye? Or were you of a mind to shred your own frock into ribbons?” Sticking the knife back between bared teeth, he unfurled the yards and yards of dingy plaid wool.

Haley realized she’d been holding her breath. Her eyes had inadvertently gone back to his shirt, and she was both a little relieved and a little disappointed to see that he’d shifted and was no longer backlit by the sun.

He took the knife and, first wiping his mouth roughly on his sleeve, began to saw long strips from the end of the plaid.

The thick muscle of his thigh flexed inadvertently, and the sight of it snagged her gaze, pure instinct dragging her eyes mindlessly along the light dusting of black hair, and the solid column of muscle framed by the slit up the side of his shirt.

MacColla dropped to a squat, and, coming to herself, she quickly glanced away again. Her eyes went automatically to Jean, who was bustling about, nudging aside brush and rocks to clear a spot pristine enough to warrant her tender bottom. Haley once again tried out her best evil eye on the girl.

A throaty chuckle brought Haley’s attention back to him. “Easy, lass,” he said, pitching his voice for her ears alone. Then louder, he added, “Jean, love, will you fetch us some water then?”

Jean looked at him as if he’d asked her to translate something from the Greek.

“Aye, you.” He nodded at her, a wide smile on his face. “You ken the word. I’ve a wee flask tied to the pony. We need water, and I’d have you refill it for me.”

Jean rose with a high-pitched huff.

“And you, caile bhorb .” MacColla stood and strode slowly toward Haley. Her heart gave a single sharp thump to attention as she watched that smile bleed first from his eyes and then from his lips.

He knelt just before her, placing his palm on the ground between her crossed legs.

“I ken those daggers you shoot from your eyes would be caused by your injury. That it’s simply your pain that I see darkening that bonny face of yours.

” He leaned even closer. “I ken a lass like you knows better than to wish ill upon my sister, aye?”

“ Mm-hm. ” She nodded weakly. Sister? No kidding. Haley experienced a curious reaction to that last bit of information. A peculiar, brief quivering on the edge of thought. Not relief, not excitement, not anticipation, just an electric flash of awareness. Brother and sister.

He smiled, broad and easy. Haley noticed a chipped front tooth and tried to disregard the ache in her chest from the single sudden pound of her heart.

“What’s to be done then?”

“Huh?”

MacColla held the wool strips up in answer. “What’s to be done? You’ve that frock about you. I’ll need to swaddle the skin directly, or the plaid will slip hither and yon.”

“Oh.” Haley glanced down at her dress. “I . . . give me a moment.” MacColla didn’t budge, so she told him more explicitly, “Turn around.”

Haley swore she saw that thick black brow flinch just before he turned his back to her.

She pulled one arm, then the other, through the neck of the stretchy black knit.

Despite her care, she heard the thin crackle of threads popping and frowned.

So much for her favorite dress. At least she’d worn a tank top underneath.

She wondered what had become of her scarf and, with a pang, pictured the cobalt blue length of it tossed atop the storeroom table.

Remembered how one of her brothers had loosened it for her at the bar.

Who had it been, Colin or Conor? Their faces flashed in her mind’s eye, bringing an ache to her throat.

She sniffed sharply. She’d need thoughts of her family to gird her, not tear her apart.

She had to get back to them. She couldn’t bear to have them worry anymore about her. She’d put them through so much before. Her whole family had been traumatized after her attack. She wouldn’t put them through something like that again.

Haley tugged her dress hard to her waist, revealing a white cotton tank beneath. She’d let this man wrap her ribs. Rest awhile.

And then she’d run.