Page 25 of Warrior of the Highlands (Highlands #3)

Tossing his sword down, MacColla fell to his knees by Haley’s side, and joy shuddered through her.

She had been poised to fight—and braced for defeat. But then he’d appeared from nowhere. She’d fought, and would have fought til the end, but a hero of old had shown up and taken care of everything, and she’d been more than happy to let him.

Her modern sensibilities didn’t want to think about what the implications of that were.

Looking at him now—black hair loose to his shoulders, the intensity of his rich brown eyes, the sweep of muted green, blue, and black plaid over his shoulder—the sight of him was so profoundly reassuring, so comforting, she had to hold herself up from collapsing to the ground in relief.

Roving his eyes over her, he rubbed his hands along her arms, her shoulders, patting her gently, searching for some injury.

“I . . . I’m fine,” she said, and he stilled. MacColla took a deep breath, and though his body seemed to unclench, his gaze still wouldn’t meet hers.

He slowly drew his hands to her waist, held them there for a moment, then stroked up her torso, grazing his thumbs along the sides of her breasts.

His eyes lingered on her every curve.

And instead of flaring with pain, her ribs suffused with warmth at his touch, as if the muscles could at last release, and she could be at ease.

Finally he looked up, his eyes locking with hers. And then lines etched deep at his forehead, instantly anxious to see the blood on her face where she’d been kicked. He was silent as he took the edge of his plaid, blotted her chin.

He moved his focus to her mouth.

The fabric slipped from his fingers, and MacColla stroked his thumb gently along her lower lip. He murmured tenderly, his Gaelic words too low to understand.

His face was close now, and Haley drank him in. The beautiful face that was too fierce to be conventionally handsome. The strong, Roman nose, with a high bridge that seemed to emerge directly from between his brows. Sharp cheekbones. A dusting of black stubble at his jaw.

She drank MacColla in and felt such a rush of wanting him, it was like a burst of light from within, scorching her, blinding her to all but the man before her. It raged beyond her control, this need, and she thought that it would consume her, that if it burned on untended, she might cease to exist.

“How is it I love you already, gràdh geal mo chrìdhe ?” His voice was barely a whisper.

He cupped her face and slowly leaned in to her. His hands encompassed her, so broad and sure on her skin. She felt his breath on her mouth. Felt the brush of his lips. Then the slow give of flesh on flesh, as he gently kissed her.

Yes.

For three heartbeats, Haley was suspended. Everything stilled around her, captured frozen, a vignette in time. And she knew. This is what she came back in time for. For him.

Three heartbeats, and the embers he’d lit within her burst into wildfire.

She grabbed him then, clutched at his arms, opened her mouth to him, wrapped her hands around those thick muscles, and clung tight.

Pressing close along his chest, she tasted his growl of desire in her throat, and she thought she’d come apart. Haley clung tighter, her nails scoring into the linen-clothed skin. Wanting him, needing him, closer.

His hands were at her back, on her waist, at her breast. She sensed the bust of her gown loosening.

Felt the glide of fingers along the front of her corset, loose where her busk had been.

The laces tickled her, and it was agony on her sensitive skin, now attuned to the slightest shifts of flesh and fabric, aching for his hands, his mouth. He alone could soothe her.

MacColla had never imagined something like this. Never imagined someone like her. So sweet in his mouth.

She was so hard facing the world, yet so soft in his arms. So open to him.

He wanted her. More than wanted her, he would have her. Consume her. Make Haley his.

Not here. Not like this.

He slowly pulled his mouth from hers, his heart hammering in his chest. MacColla licked his lips, wet from their kiss.

They were too close to Campbell lands. He’d have her, but he’d have her away from this place.

He tore his gaze from her, swept his eyes over the barren and rocky hillside. Over the Campbell corpse that lay not twenty paces away.

Campbell was out there somewhere.

He’d have her, but it would be unsullied by Campbell filth. He didn’t have his true family lands, but he did have a hearth and safe haven on Kintyre.

“Not like this, a chiall mo chrìdhe .” His voice was husky, words of love new and ragged in his throat. Darling of my heart.

Love. He’d told Haley he loved her.

MacColla pulled back. Put his hands gently on her shoulders. Looked at her. Her black hair flying every which way. Her full nose and lean strength and strangely outspoken ways. And her eyes, ever those eyes, gray and black and beckoning him in to drown.

“Aye,” he whispered, affirming to himself what he suspected to be true. Love her. Such an outlandish thought.

He’d a war to wage. No home to speak of. Knew nothing of this lass.

And yet here she sat, before him, his heart in her hands.

He leaned in once more and kissed her softly. He traced the hair from her face. Coarse and thick at his fingertips.

Tucking it behind her ear, he said, “Come, lass. Come with me.”

He hesitated at her bedroom door. Then, holding his chest high, Scrymgeour entered. His courage was rewarded by a tremulous smile from Jean. Warmth suffused his chest, and he couldn’t help but beam at her in return.

He recalled his purpose and grew somber. Their enemy was close, and he had to take her away. At once.

“I’ve come to see if there’s aught I can do. If I might be of help packing your things . . .” He couldn’t help but snag his eyes in wonder at the fine edge of transparent lace that bordered her nightgown, which lay neatly folded at the foot of the bed, on loan from one of his family’s old trunks.

He abruptly jammed a hand in his pocket. Renegade imaginings of her creamy skin in such a gauzy delicacy was more than his male body could endure.

“Though . . .” he stammered. “Though I suppose there’s not much for you to bring.” He rambled on, self-consciously, “Not much you have in the world at all, is there?”

Jean turned to him, silent, her gaze locking with his. Scrymgeour realized he’d struck at the heart of it. A young woman like her should have trunks filled with finery. Not a transient life in which she relied on the charity of strangers for something so simple as a nightgown.

“Is there more you might need?” he asked. “You’ll be wanting a good cloak.” He couldn’t help roving his eyes the length of her, thinking there wasn’t a cloak made in the world that would be bonny enough for her.

So lovely she was. And perhaps most of all because she didn’t realize it. Her time in the Campbell dungeon left Jean whippet-thin, but rather than seeming gaunt, she was ever more the delicate flower, long and pale, with hair like a spill of gleaming night sky.

It was impossible for him to look at her and not be overtaken by the urge to protect her. To take Jean in his care.

“I . . . No,” she said. “You’ve shared so much with me already.”

She trembled, wavering for a moment, as if undone by his kindness.

“Oh Jean, lass.” Scrymgeour went to her side, easing her down on the edge of the bed. “All that you had has been taken from you. I never told you . . . I’ve wanted to tell you . . . how sorry I am. For your loss. To lose a husband so young—”

Her hands knotted in her lap. “Donald was a good man.” She looked down and added quietly, “Though he was still but a stranger to me.”

“The loss no less devastating for it,” he assured her grandly.

They sat speechless for a time. Scrymgeour considered how there was no clear place for her to turn. Many of her MacDonald clan folk had been exiled to Ireland. Though MacColla’s immediate family had found safe haven on Kintyre, it wasn’t their true place.

“The bloody Campbell,” he muttered. The same man had torn both her home and her husband from her. Campbell. And now he was near.

Scrymgeour began to reach his hand out to take hers.

He glanced up and his eyes were drawn to the mirror on her table.

He caught sight of himself in the reflection, and the man who stared back had flesh at his belly.

He saw a man with a weak chin that required reinforcement from a thick bush of brown whiskers grown about his mouth.

A man with plain hair and unremarkable carriage.

The image was like a cold spill of water at his breast, and he remembered himself.

“But what if he comes for us?”

It took him a moment to register her words. It was the Campbell, of course, whom she spoke of. She’d been traumatized by her experience, and no wonder. Kidnap and imprisonment weren’t something a young woman readily forgot.

“No, lass.” He used the excuse to finally take her hand in his. He gave it a slight squeeze, reluctantly let her go. “He’ll not get you. Ever again.”

“But he . . . he was here.” She fluttered her hands, gesturing to the room around them, then abruptly brought them down to wring at her skirts as if that could still their trembling. “He took Haley.”

“Aye, there was likely a Campbell here, who took the woman. And your brother will save her, just as he saved you.”

Her gaze rose to his, tears bright in her wide brown eyes.

And Scrymgeour knew the exact moment his heart broke.

Without thinking, he took her in his arms.

Jean tensed at the inappropriate closeness. She’d yearned for this. She had been so long alone.

Scared. Deprived. Wanting for food and light for so long in Campbell’s cellars. But more profoundly, she’d been deprived for so long of the feeling of protection. Of care. Of love.

She’d ached for someone’s kind touch. For John’s touch, most of all.

The velvet of his coat was soft at her cheek. It was dark blue, like his eyes, deeper and calmer than any loch.

She gradually relaxed. Grew aware of the thrumming of his heart beneath her hand.

His warmth spread through her. John smelled of his pipe. Of woodsmoke and comfort.

Jean relaxed. She would let him bring her to Kintyre.

But first, she would let John bring her peace.