Return of the Border Warrior

by Blythe Gifford

  She trembled in response and her fingers crept up his arms, carefully avoiding his wound, but then holding on tight. Her eyes clung to his as though he were a rope keeping her from falling into darkness. They did not reflect passion. Nor did she look at him with the sultry eyes of a woman swooning and ready to spread her legs for him.

  No. Instead, her eyes clung to his as though he were the last thing she might feel on earth, the last thing holding her to life.

  ‘May I kiss you?’ He had never asked a woman for permission once she had acquiesced to his embrace, but everything about this woman was different.

  She did not speak or nod. She simply closed and opened her eyes.

  He leaned closer. This would not be a kiss of possession. He would not ask her to surrender. His lips simply met hers, inviting her to join him.

  At first, she did not respond. Then, she tried, as if her lips were still learning.

  As if she had never kissed before.

  The thought startled him and he broke the kiss. ‘Have you never been kissed, then?’ Absurd question, yet, yet...

  ‘Not when I wanted it.’

  A thousand questions, blurred by his desire. He pushed them aside. ‘Do you want this?’

  Silence. He could barely stop himself from saying please.

  ‘Aye,’ she said finally, then closed her eyes and leaned towards him again, lips parted.

  * * *

  I am not afraid. He will let me go if I ask.

  Cate nearly moved her lips to say the words, words like those she muttered to herself every day. But this time, she teetered on the brink of being swept away, as if she stood on the edge of a cliff, with the wind behind her and nothing to hold on to, nothing to keep her from falling.

  If she jumped, what would happen? If she lost herself, could she ever find her way back? Could she really be an ordinary woman, able to love a man?

  This man?

  For a moment, the answer was yes.

  Yes to lips warm and tender on hers. Yes to arms firm yet gentle around her. Yes to kisses trailing down her throat, and hands grazing her breasts and to a world that held only his body and hers, stealing her breath, stealing her mind...

  Stealing her control.

  And it seemed that, even if he never touched her again, somehow, if she let him any closer, he would know everything.

  And that frightened her more than ever.

  Now his arms were too tight, his kisses too rough, her breath too short, and then—

  No.

  She pulled away, pushed him back, and he released her, more easily than she had expected.

  They breathed in tandem, only their foreheads touching, which seemed for a moment more intimate than the kiss.

  She braced, expecting him to protest. To grab her, to force her back into his arms.

  Instead, his breath moved in and out, mirroring hers as if they were trading secrets, trading souls.

  She did not risk taking his eyes, but watched his hands, unmoving in his lap. And faced that something in her had changed.

  So close to losing him, the caring she’d ignored would not be stopped. For all these months, she had lived for one thing, revenge, and against another, succumbing to a man, ever again.

  But with John, she had started to wonder. His touch was gentle, his kiss tender. When she touched his arm, she had wanted more, wanted him as a woman might want a man.

  And then, dark fear rushed through her again and she knew that even the tenderest lover would never be gentle enough.

  Perhaps her feelings for him were gratitude. Camaraderie. Even friendship. But they could not be the feelings of a woman who could truly love a man.

  And he must never know why.

  * * *

  Was it lust or his wound that made him dizzy? When his lips met hers, he lost himself, felt his body reaching out to hers, felt her start to melt.

  Then she’d pushed him away.

  And they sat together, exchanging silent breaths, each of them on the edge of something.

  A final breath and then Cate rose and walked back to where Belde still lay.

  No, not walked, stomped. As if she could crush John beneath her feet. Her body was stiff as if she had never yielded in his arms. As if she never had a place to rest.

  As if he were as much of an enemy as Scarred Willie.

  Or she as changeable as any other woman.

  Yet when they breathed together, he had felt something else. Hope? Yearning? Something soft as a whiff of heather shielded by her jack-of-plaites vest so that swords and spears and pain could never reach her.

  Was it only her body she was trying to protect? Or was it her heart?

  The question stunned him. A kiss, yes, but he should not be thinking of hearts and tomorrows. This woman was not one to be trifled with unless he was serious about building a tomorrow.

  And he would not be here tomorrow or the thousand tomorrows that a wife would demand. No, his promise not to touch her protected him as well as her. The kiss had been a thoughtless risk. It would not happen again.

  ‘Quick.’ Rob’s voice broke his thoughts. ‘I saw no one behind us, but the sun is near up.’

  They mounted and crossed the burn, reaching home to find that the men with the cattle had them safely hidden in the hills. He let Bessie coo over his wounds, then collapsed into bed.

  * * *

  He woke the next morning, uncertain of the man who had slept in his skin.

  He had ridden a raid. He had killed a man. He had kissed Cate.

  And he wasn’t sure which of those was most disturbing.

  Chapter Ten

  John still wrestled with his thoughts the next morning. The king would not be happy to discover John had killed a man on a reiving raid, but a phalanx of Brunson men fighting at his side should blunt his anger. At least, John hoped so.

  He paused as he passed the door of the head man’s room. His brother’s now, his father’s no more. Yet though John had seen the man dead and buried, he hesitated, wondering if his ghost haunted the walls.

  Rob saw him at the door. ‘I told you to stay back,’ he said, not bothering to ask for an explanation. ‘You nearly got yourself killed. And her when she followed you.’

  Followed him? No, that was not the way of it. ‘She was ready to ride in alone.’ He would make no apologies for saving Cate.

  Rob frowned. ‘Did she say so?’

  John shook his head. She did not have to speak. He had felt her gather the reins and lean forwards on the pony. ‘I could tell.’

  ‘Why? What for?’

  ‘Looking for him!’ He lost his patience now. ‘While you’re willing to risk life and limb for a few cattle, she’s intent on only one thing—Willie Storwick. That’s the only reason she came with us. And she shouldn’t have come at all.’

  ‘You tell her that.’

  They shared a look of mutual exasperation, shook their heads at the same instant, at the same angle.

  John laughed. ‘You’re the head man. You tell her. I can’t change her.’ Kisses aside, she was more steadfast in her purpose than any woman he had ever known. ‘No more than I can change...’

  ...the wind.

  And he heard, in his own words, what she had said to him that first day. Borderers held themselves above the king of either country. Family came first, the king a distant second, if he came at all. John had not believed it then. Did not want to believe it now.

  Yet he had ridden beside them and killed a man as dead as any Brunson could. ‘I’ll not ride again,’ he said.

  ‘You can’t change us, either, Johnnie,’ Rob said, as if speaking his thoughts. ‘Be glad I’ll be giving you the men and stop trying.’

  Giving you the men, not the king. Giving them because he was family.

  ‘The king wants more than men,’ he answered. ‘He needs allegiance from all of Scotland, including the Borders.’

  ‘You won’t succeed, Johnnie.’ For a moment, he thought he heard a touch of regret in Rob’s voice.


  And now, at least, he knew why. Because to succeed would mean changing an entire way of life.

  It had seemed so easy before he left Edinburgh. Easy as delivering a message commanding them to make the king’s fight their own. Failure had not crossed his mind.

  Now, like Rob, it looked him square in the face.

  ‘So what will you tell wee Jamie then?’ his brother asked.

  ‘Nothing. If I don’t succeed, I’ll not go back at all.’ Not if he wanted to keep his head free of a noose. But he must say it with a smile, as if he spoke words instead of a death sentence. ‘So then I guess you’ll be forced to take in another wayward Brunson.’

  Rob shook his head. ‘No, I won’t, Johnnie lad. If you can’t live by this family’s code, you’re no longer a Brunson. I won’t have you here.’

  * * *

  John turned his back and walked down the stairs. There was the truth of it. You’re no longer a Brunson. Words his father might have said. Words that summed up what he had always felt.

  And family had failed him once again.

  Still, he shrugged and told himself it was no hardship. He wanted to stay no more than Rob wanted to keep him.

  And outside, the whine of the wind mocked him.

  ‘Come here,’ Cate called out to him from the hall. ‘I’ve something for you.’

  She had a well-worn jack-of-plaites vest in her hand and a determined set to her lips.

  ‘Turn around and stand still,’ she said. ‘I must measure you.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘A proper vest.’

  He bit back a smile. ‘My harness is better protection than that bit of fabric and bone.’

  ‘Your armour is too heavy for the pony and it clangs like a bell announcing our coming. If you’re to ride with us, I won’t have you wounded again. Slows us down.’

  ‘I’m not going to ride again.’ He did not try to soften the bitter tone. ‘And neither are you.’

  ‘You’ll be riding to Truce Day soon enough. The last time we rode, you had to kill a man.’ For me, yet she didn’t say that. ‘You’ve made me a promise, Johnnie Brunson, and I intend for you to stay alive long enough to keep it. Now I’ve not time to make a new vest, but I think I can recut this one.’ She held it out. ‘Put it on.’

  He humoured her, amused, until he felt the weight of it on his shoulders, coating his chest and back. It looked deceptively like a simple quilted vest, buttoned to the neck, snug, perhaps, in winter, but no match for a sword or a dirk. Only after he had it on did he realise she was right. It left his arms free, and protected his back, his belly, and his heart, yet he could move more easily than in the unforgiving armour.

  She pulled and tucked the vest around him, not meeting his eyes. No smile graced lips that stayed safely distant from his, yet she was so close, he could feel her breath on his neck as she inspected the fit of the vest at his back.

  She sighed. ‘I’ll need to add a strip here,’ she said, raising his arm, ‘and on the other side.’ She stepped back. ‘You can take it off now.’

  He did, handing it to her, relieved to have it off his body, wishing he could strip off the last few days as easily. He was no Border man. To dress as one made him as false as Cate garbed in breeches.

  Yet now, Cate paused, clearing her throat as if to speak, but not raising her eyes from the vest draped over her arm. ‘I should have thanked you,’ she said finally. ‘You saved my life.’

  ‘It was why I came.’ He could say little more.

  She nodded, not raising her eyes.

  Who was this shy woman before him? By the river, she had touched him. She had kissed him. Was it in gratitude because he saved her life? Or just the excitement of the raid, making her blood run hot?

  It must have been no more than that, and though she had thanked and not chastised him, she deserved his apology. He had asked if he could kiss her and she had said yes. But he had promised. He should have been strong enough to keep it.

  ‘And I must say to you that I am sorry that I...’ Was he sorry he kissed her? No. He tried again. ‘I gave you my word not to touch you. And I broke it. I’m sorry for that.’

  Her cheeks turned pink. A blush. Something he could not reconcile with Braw Cate.

  ‘The fault was not yours,’ she said. ‘I should never have...’ She looked away and let the sentence drift, unfinished.

  ‘It was not so bad as you had feared.’ Of that he was certain. For those few heartbeats, she had been totally his.

  Cate shook her head slowly and raised her eyes to his. ‘I didn’t expect...’ She looked at him, then, as if inspecting the vest again, trying to make the pieces fit. ‘You are not a man like the others.’

  The words were a slap, a cut, a blow to the gut. Even Rob did not doubt his manhood. ‘What do you mean?’ He kept his voice low and his words even.

  ‘Just that! Most men would roar and stomp and boast of their bravery. Or they would be sullen and silent. You talk. You smile. And you just stand there and calmly ask, “What do you mean?”’

  ‘Is that what you think a man is? Someone who growls and stalks and kills like a wild beast?’

  Yet he had done just that. He had killed a man without any thought except to protect this woman. And whether he had given her his word or not, he was imagining her in his arms again.

  ‘A man,’ she said, ‘is someone who will avenge his family unto death.’

  Aye. Now she was trying to cloak him with that duty as well as with the vest. But he had taken it on himself, given his word to this revenge of hers, even as he struggled to understand what lay behind her hate. ‘Is that all you live for, then? To see your father’s killer dead?’

  Something strange drifted across her face. He blinked and it disappeared, but for a moment, it almost looked as she might cry like any ordinary woman. ‘If I don’t avenge him, who will?’

  He felt a twinge of guilt on behalf of his father. If Red Geordie had avenged her, it wouldn’t have been left to his sons to do.

  ‘And what will come after that? You’ve built your life around punishing one man. What happens when he’s gone?’

  Blank puzzlement wobbled on her face, as if she had never considered the question. ‘I don’t know,’ she said finally.

  Without thinking, he snatched her fingers. Her hands had wielded a sword, bandaged his arm and measured a vest, but cradled in his, they felt small and delicate. ‘You should marry,’ he said, wondering what would happen to her once the purpose of her life had been fulfilled. He had a feeling it would not make her as happy as she thought. ‘You should find someone to care for you and protect you.’

  Someone other than Johnnie Brunson.

  The thought kindled his anger. At least, anger was what he called it. Anger because she had put herself in harm’s way. Anger because he had been forced to kill a man because of her stubbornness.

  ‘Ah,’ she said with a lift at the corner of her mouth. ‘Now you sound like other men.’

  But she did not pull her hands away.

  Instead, her eyes met his and he could see her consider the idea. Then he lost the logic of his argument. The small, cold hands in his put him in mind of warming them. Of warming her, with his lips. In his bed.

  She must have seen desire darken his eyes. She pulled back and busied her fingers plucking at threads on the vest. ‘There will be no marriage for me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I do not want it.’ She sounded as if she were trying to convince herself as well as him.

  ‘Why? Because of what happened?’

  ‘What do you know of what happened?’ Her gaze was as sharp as her words.

  ‘I know that women have lost fathers before and they did not lift swords and shun men.’ Had there been something more? Something worse? He had asked her. She had denied it, but—

  ‘And men have been fostered away from home before without abandoning their families.’

  He flinched. The woman could fight with words as well as a sw
ord. ‘And does Rob know? Will he be willing to feed and shelter you for the rest of your life?’ He rued the cruel question the moment he asked.

  She raised her head, proud. ‘I earn the food I eat.’

  Her lifted chin, the shield around her heart—he saw, suddenly, that all of life was a battle for her. And that wounded him more than her words.

  ‘Oh, Cate, life doesn’t always have to be so hard.’ He spoke to himself, as well as to her.

  ‘You said the king would not take you back if you did not do his bidding. Life at court sounds no more forgiving than that on the Borders.’

  ‘It isn’t. But two people can make moments that are.’ The best liaisons had playful moments as well as passionate ones. And he remembered, long ago, private laughter behind the door of the master’s chamber and shared smiles across the table. ‘They can laugh and sing and be happy together, even when life is harsh.’

  She studied the warrior’s vest on her arm, as if she might find an answer there. Then, she raised her eyes to his. ‘If that is true, then I wish such a life for you some day.’

  ‘But I want you to be happy, too.’

  Her jaw sagged in speechless surprise. Hunger filled her eyes.

  ‘Has no one ever wanted that for you before?’ he asked.

  She shook her head.

  He sighed. Rob and Bessie supplied food and shelter. But happiness? They might not even hope that for themselves.

  ‘Let me show you. There are ways for men and women to be happy.’ The words galloped out before he knew whether he sought Cate’s happiness or his own.

  ‘Like our moment by the stream?’

  He nodded and he held his breath, hoping.

  ‘So it is in a woman’s body you think to look for happiness?’ Disappointment tinged her words.

  ‘No! I mean...’ What did he mean? He had found happy hours of mindless escape in the arms of too many women. ‘You are different from other women.’

  She shook her head. ‘And you, Johnnie Brunson, alas, are the same as other men after all.’

  And she turned away before he could admit, even to himself, that Cate’s body was not the only thing of hers that he wanted.