by Hazel Hunter
“You’d do better to carve them from wood,” Catriona advised him when his latest attempt fell apart in her hands. She nodded at the fine bed frame he had just finished pegging together. “That will last a hundred years.”
“I’ll need more birch bark to pad the underside of the ticking, or that will last no more than a month,” he told her. “I saw some bigger trees at the south end of the stream. Have you ever harvested from them?”
A jab of pain made her heart ache. “I’ve no’, but there are plenty near the falls.”
“You’ve a waterfall on the island?” His eyes lit up when she nodded. “Will you show me the way there?”
Catriona knew if she refused he would want to know why, so she forced a smile. “If you wish, of course.”
Gavin wanted to go the very next day, and when she took him down the old path she noticed everything that haunted her dreams.
“This is the prettiest path,” he said to her. “I’ve no’ seen so many berry bushes on the other side.” He glanced at her. “Are you well, little Cat? You look pale.”
“I didnae sleep much last night.” Leading him to the spill of the stream down a rocky slope gave Catriona time to calm herself, at least until she saw the white torrents of the falls.
“Gods above,” Gavin said, leaning over to look down at the churning pool below. “’Tis incredible.”
The scent and sound of the water sent tremors through her middle, but Catriona ignored them. “The goldies love damp, so they are bountiful around the falls. See them?” She pointed to the thick mushroom clusters on either side of the water. “If you dry the pale green moss from the rocks, and stuff it in your boots, ’twill take away smells and damp.” And if she never had to come here again, it would be the delight of her life.
“Your voice is shaking,” Gavin said and turned her to face him. “Cat?”
A sudden clap of thunder made her jerk away from him and shake her head. “I’m only weary.”
He frowned up at the darkening skies. “We’ll no’ make it back to the cottage before the rain comes.” He looked around them. “Do you ken a spot we can shelter until the storm passes?”
The air darkened, and suddenly Catriona was a little lass again, running with stubbed toes and twigs snarled in her hair. That night the cries and the snarls of dying and killing had chased after her through the trees, and every shadow had seemed enormous and filled with hands. Somehow, she’d found her way to the very edge of the falls, where Isela had shown her what they concealed.
This shall be your secret haven, Catriona. I’ve left all you should need inside. If trouble comes, you must run here and hide until it is daylight. Then do as I have shown you.
Her mother’s mouth had gone thin, the way it did whenever Tavish argued with his brother. Aye, Mama. But will you come for me?
If I can, I shall.
A bright jagged light sliced down from the sky, striking a birch near them as the air boomed with thunder and exploding bark. Without thinking Catriona grabbed Gavin by the hand and dragged him into the falls.
Blinded briefly by the pounding cascade, Catriona felt Gavin stumble and propped her shoulder under his arm to support him. Once they were inside the cave, she guided him away from the splash of the falls to the largest of the flat rocks.
“Here.” She put her arm around his waist and sat with him, staying close as she peered at the scant light filtering through the falls. “They willnae find us here. ’Tis safe.”
His big arm came around her, and suddenly she was sobbing into his chest. “’Twill be well now, my sweet Cat. No one is on the island but us.”
She let her tears add to the sodden condition of his tunic, but only for a few moments. “I am crazed,” she told him as she swiped at her face and drew back. “’Twas an unhappy memory.”
“Poor lass.” Gavin stroked her arm. “Who were they, that frightened you so?”
Catriona almost told him before another lightning strike illuminated the cave, revealing the little drawings she’d made on the far wall. The words caught in her tight throat as she stared at the stick people scratched into the stone, one for every member of the lost tribe. The marks had been her only comfort while she’d hidden here, and even then, she’d been too afraid to talk to them. Making even one sound might lure Uncle to her. Beneath the crude drawings was the small pallet she’d slept on, along with the old linens and blankets she’d hid under every night.
Now here she sat, about to pour her heart out to this man, and reveal to him secrets and sorrows she had protected all her life. In return he’d told her that he wished to be alone, to heal from wounds left by another woman. She did not even know from where he had come in the highlands. Her uncle had friends there, among some of the other druid tribes. Loneliness had made her more than foolish. It had lured her to the brink of disaster.
“Did my uncle send you?” She bolted to her feet and backed away from him. “Tell me.”
Gavin shook his head, his brow furrowed as he rose from the stone. “I came here by my choice. I dinnae ken who you mean, Catriona. I willnae harm you. Come to me.”
“No.” When he reached for her she moved back. “You’ve no room in your heart for me. I’m naught to you. You’ve no right to me.”
She spun on her heel and plunged through the cascade, her boots sliding on the slippery rocks as she ran from the cave. Outside the rain poured over her as if the world had become one great fall, pounding and cold. She dodged limbs and brush as she fought her way through the forest, stumbling and falling as the rain lashed her.
Strong hands snatched her up from the ground, and Gavin lifted her off her feet, carrying her under a dense tree as she struggled. There he put her down but held her until she slumped against him.
“What did your uncle do to you?” Gavin demanded, putting her at arm’s length. “Why are you so afraid of him? Catriona, tell me.”
“He wants me dead, for what I saw him do,” she said, staring into his blazing eyes. “There, now you ken. Leave me and go back to your cottage now. Be alone, Gavin, and draw your woman, and burn her image again. ’Tis what you want, to drown yourself in sorrow.”
As she tried to walk away he snatched her back in his arms.
“What I want?” he echoed, looking all over her drenched hair and dripping face. “I want peace, but I have none of it here. I listen and watch for you every moment. You dance through my days and torment my nights. I dream of you, naked and welcoming, on me, under me, everywhere. When you are with me I cannae come close, for fear I shall do this.” He pressed her against his big, hard body.
Catriona wanted to slap him, but he felt so good she could only cling. “You said naught to me. Never once.”
“’Twas my stupit attempt to protect you. I told myself you’re no’ for me. That I’m too scarred and angry for such a precious thing. That my heart hasnae room for you, for anyone.” He cradled her chin. “Yet every time I touch you, you make me forget all but this.” He stroked his thumb over the trembling curves of her lips.
“I must go.” Catriona slid her hands up to his shoulders to brace herself, and stood on her toes to kiss him farewell.
That brush of her mouth brought his hand to the back of her head, and he held her as he kissed her in return. The sweetness flared into passion, exploding between them like the lightning strikes. Gavin took her mouth with so much hunger she moaned, as tormented as she was thrilled. He braced himself against the tree as he lifted her higher, molding her against the unyielding toughness of his body so she could not escape him.
Catriona didn’t try. She didn’t want the feeling to end.
She felt so much she couldn’t think. She could only cling to him as his hands shifted to her bottom and he buried his mouth against her throat. He moved her so that her throbbing mound rubbed against the stiff ridge of his erection, making her pearl swell and her sheath go slick.
He heaved in a breath and raised his head. “I’ve tried, lass. Tried and failed. I cannae keep fro
m you. If you dinnae want this, tell me now.”
His voice had dropped to a deep, rough growl, and something snarling and starved glittered in his moonstone eyes. Catriona should have cowered, but his beast called to her own wildness. She had conquered some part of him, a silent battle she hadn’t even known she was fighting. Of course, she had to go, but she would not leave Everbay like this. The aching and longing for him would never end.
And she’d never find the strength to stay away.
“I want you, Gavin.” She reached down with one hand to hike up her skirts, baring her drawers and the open seam over her sex. With streams of cold rain pouring around them she should have felt wet and miserable, but her whole body had caught fire. “Come into me, please.”
Gavin lifted her again, reaching between their bodies to shove down his trews. Catriona clutched his tunic as she looked down, seeing the swollen bulb of his cockhead as he freed it and pressed it into her folds. The invasion felt rough and hot and deliciously hard, and she melted over him, her breasts jutting against his chest as he penetrated her.
Gods, but he was so wide that if she had not been so ready he might have hurt. Instead he filled her, thrusting up with his hips as she came down on his shaft. She could feel him shaking now, his muscles knotting as he tried to control his need. Tucking her leg around his waist, she worked herself down on him, stretching herself over his heavy girth. At last she felt the root of him press against her outer folds, and dropped her brow against his shoulder. Her body gripped him, caressing him from within as she tightened to feel every inch of him.
A groan rumbled up from the vault of his chest. “Catriona, dinnae. Ah, fack.”
The heartfelt curse made her swell with feminine delight, and she put her lips by his ear. “Take me, Gavin, as you’ve wanted. As you’ve dreamed.”
His strong arms gripped her by the waist, and shook as he lifted her up and thrust her down on him. The iron of his shaft stoked the heat of her quim, and sent shocks of bright sensation up through her belly and into her breasts. The unfettered mounds begin to bounce with every plunge he took into her, and Catriona rolled her shoulders back. She wanted him to see her breasts and their tight, red nipples through the thin, sodden stuff of her bodice.
Gavin turned, splaying his hands over her back as he pressed her against the tree. His weight shifted as he plowed deeply into her, and Catriona cried out as she saw his eyes fill with ghostly fire.
“Aye, my sweet Cat,” he said, uttering a rasping growl as he worked his shaft in and out of her with heavy, almost brutal strokes. “I’ve all you want and more. Take my cock, take it in that tight quim, that’s the way my lass.”
Gavin attacked her throat, first licking and then grazing his teeth over her skin. He took hold of her flesh where her neck and shoulder joined, and sucked. She jerked at the front of her wet bodice, frantic to bear herself to his maddening mouth as he facked her faster and harder. He fastened his teeth on the thin linen and ripped it apart before he enveloped one aching nipple with his mouth.
Seeing and feeling the hot, wet ravishing power of his lips on her breast pushed Catriona past flailing need into swelling torment. The pumping, pummeling length of his cock between her thighs and the hungry ravishment of his mouth were going to drive her mad. She grabbed the long hair at the back of his head, pushing his head against her mound just as he raked his teeth over her nipple.
Gavin buried himself in her, pressing her down on him as her body filled with arcs of sweet, hot bliss. The power of the explosion of pleasure made the world go gray and dim around them. Now they were the lightning, and as she shook through the jolts of white-hot fiery delight she squeezed his shaft, and felt it swell even larger before it began to jet deep inside her softness.
“There now, there I am, there you are.” His voice had gone so rough he barely formed the words. His breath washed over her throat and cheek as he jerked her from the tree and dropped with her.
Catriona straddled his lap, heaving in every breath as she rode the last, long waves of sensation. Gavin gathered her against him, his heat wrapping around her with his arms, and held her as he leaned back against the tree.
She pillowed her cheek with his shoulder, and watched as the rain finally abated to a dense mist. Beyond them the falls still roared, but all the unhappy memories the place invoked had thinned and faded. From this day she would think of it as the place where she’d made love with her highlander.
“You’re so lovely,” he murmured, and rubbed his palm slowly along her back. “You make me wish we’d met before…”
Her, Catriona finished for him silently. A reminder that the man’s heart belonged to another.
And now she had to leave him and the island, before anything more happened, and Daimh learned that she yet lived.
Slowly she rose, hating herself as she stood and shook down her skirts. She tucked her torn bodice back over her breasts and smiled down at him. “I must attend to myself.”
He frowned. “I’ll go with you.”
“’Twill no’ take long. ’Tis naught but a short walk.” She hoped he would think she meant to go and tidy herself, and it seemed he did, for he gave her a drowsy smile.
“I’ll be waiting,” Gavin said and caught her hand and pressed his mouth to the back of it. “Dinnae be long, sweet Cat.”
She touched his cheek, nodded her lie, and left him there.
The trail to the falls forked away from them, and she followed the old path as if she meant to go down to the pool. Then she walked from it through the forest to what appeared to be a sheer cliff. She sidled into an opening at the base, and through the underground passage it guarded. Her tribe had spent years tunneling through the stone. At the other end she emerged into an ancient grove, where massive, twisted oaks grew in a circle around what her mother had called journey stones.
They shall take you wherever you wish to go, Daughter. You have only to think of the place. If I dinnae come for you, you must use the stones and leave Everbay.
As she stepped into the grove, Catriona glanced over her shoulder. Gavin would come looking for her, but he would not be able to find the cliff entrance. The only other person alive who knew of it was her uncle.
The first time she had stumbled into the grove she had been starved and cold and terrified. She’d heard Uncle’s voice in every sound, saw his shape in every shadow. She dimly remembered throwing herself into the circle of stones, but she hadn’t thought of any place to go. She hadn’t known any other place but home. The gods had swept her through the portal, a threshing tunnel of circling oaks, and then she landed in a ditch filled with snow. There she lay, sobbing into her numb hands until Ennis had come upon her.
What do you here, little lass?
She’d run from him into the fields, where she’d crawled into a hayrick and huddled until he’d come with the sweet cakes, and Senga. They’d tempted her out into the open, just as the highlander had.
But she was a woman now, not a wee, helpless lass.
Catriona could smell Gavin on her, like some dark potion. She wanted to run back to him, and tuck herself in his arms, and sleep with him under the stars. She could see herself with him in his cottage, like a wife, cooking and caring for him. She’d happily share his bed, and swell with his bairns, and help him forget the woman who’d broken his heart. They could have a life together, just like her mother and father had. Until Gavin spoke of her and their bairns and their happy life to the wrong man, and word reached her uncle that she was still alive.
Then he would come to kill them all.
Forcing her legs to take the last steps into the stone circle demanded all of her strength. She wrapped her arms around her waist, and closed her eyes for a moment as she envisioned the grove just beyond the old cottage where she had found safety at last.
The portal opened, enveloping her in light and darkness as she fell through it.
After so many trips Catriona had learned how to arrive on her feet. A clear blue sky filled with
soft, thin white clouds stretched over her head. The grass here in the highlands was thinner and shorter, but wildflowers still abounded. She walked from the clearing and through the oaks to the long, narrow green pasture where Ennis’s old dun mare stood placidly cropping.
“Fair day, Glenna.” She patted the mare’s short nose before she started across the pasture for the cottage that had been her haven since childhood.
No one looking at the old loch-stone house would think it grand. Part of the roof wanted mending, and the chimney stood slightly askew. Yet surrounding the cottage grew beds of flowers, herbs, vegetables and berry bushes in such profusion they looked as if they guarded it. That was thanks to Ennis, who had such an affinity for growing things that he could push a twig in the ground and it would sprout leaves.
A tall, thin figure walked out of the back garden, his narrow face lighting up as soon as he saw her. “Well, now. You’ve come back early.” He pushed back a lock of his greying red hair, and then his fox-brown eyes shifted down and his happiness vanished. “What happened to you, lass?”
“I’m well, Ennis.” Suddenly remembering her torn bodice, she tucked an arm across her breasts. “I had a mishap.”
“And you’re soaked through.” He hurried over, taking off his coat to drape around her, adding his arm across her back as he urged her toward the back door. “Come inside by the fire, before you catch a chill.”
Catriona managed to keep smiling until they entered the cottage, and she saw Senga sitting in her chair by the hearth mending one of her weeding baskets. Short and stout, with her silvery fair hair woven in a crown of braids, her bow of a mouth turned up and then down.
“Bless me.” The plump woman put aside her basket. “We didnae expect you for days yet, lass. No’ that I mind. You’ve been away too long this visit.” She glared at her husband. “Dinnae tell me you kept her out in the garden nattering when she’s all but drenched.”
“I brought her in directly,” he assured her. “Didnae I, Moggy?”