The Love of Her Life (Highlander Heroes Book 6)

by Rebecca Ruger

  Ah, but his Katie Oliver was a fierce soul, so brave. Didn’t even flinch, didn’t bat an eye. If not for her mouth pressed so tight, forcing her rapid breaths out through her nose, he’d have guessed her completely unaffected.

  Alec lowered his eye to her chest, watched the faded blue wool of her gown heave and settle again as she struggled to breathe evenly. When he lifted his face, he found her regard now given to his mouth. He quirked one corner and reminded her, “Aye, but lass, you have to ask for it.”

  That jerked her gaze from his lips, her fiery eyes meeting his, so much willpower shown, silently promising him she’d do no such thing.

  But then, he’d have thought that Katie would have verbalized her refusal, would have vowed with great vehemence once more that would never happen. Yet, she did not, was unmoving still, that Alec had to wonder if she were too afraid to say anything, too afraid to open her mouth at all.

  He leaned down toward her and caught the quiver in the movement of her chest, as if she held back a whimper. Still, she didn’t move, didn’t run.

  “Two words, that’s all you need,” he whispered, heartened, enflamed by the struggle she fought with herself. “Kiss me,” he said, reminding her of the words.” He set his hand on her hip, warm and familiar.

  Katie closed her eyes. She rolled her lips inward.

  Jesu, but she was exquisite. Long and thick lashes swept across her cheeks; milky blue veins marbled over her eyelids, her skin so pure and white; a beautiful blush stained her cheeks; the column of her neck was exposed, heightened by the proud lift of her chin and her rigidity.

  So fragile under all that strength.

  “I’ll no’ throw it back in your face, Katie. I want it—Christ, how I want to kiss you.” He lifted the hand from her hip to push a stray tendril of her blonde hair away from her cheek.

  “Please,” she begged. She opened her eyes, but could not meet his, stared only at his neck.

  “Please...? Please go? Please stay? Please kiss me? Tell me what you want, Katie.”

  She nodded, but said nothing, only closed her eyes again.

  It wasn’t a lack of courage that kept the words inside her, he imagined, but pride. Pride was a curious creature, so often keeping you from getting what you truly wanted. But Alec had given his word, had said he’d not kiss her unless she asked.

  Dropping his fingers away from her face, he shifted to step away.

  “Kiss me,” she said, breathless, her voice small. Startled mayhap as well, by her own daring.

  He didn’t smile outright, wouldn’t taunt her in such a manner, but oh, how he was filled with pleasure just then.

  “There’s that fearless Katie Oliver I ken,” he said and lowered his head to her.

  He let the first touch be light, gave her one last chance to push him away, to come to her senses. He wanted to devour her, truth be told, but held himself in check. But then Katie Oliver tipped her face up to him and sought his lips, reached up for more of him, and from him. Alec growled low in his chest and swept her into his embrace, arms encircling her, hands digging into fabric and flesh while their tongues met and teased and tasted.

  Their first kiss had shown him that she was possessed of so much passion so that he was not surprised when her hands rather made free with his body. She’d allowed this much, asked for it, that she wasn’t about to sit back and let it happen to her. She wanted to live it, to breathe and feel and be a party to it. Her slim hands ran up his arms and over his shoulders and wound around his neck, holding him tight and close, clinging to him. Her fingers rose up, into his hair, content there, or forgotten when he began to move his own hands, sliding one up her side, over her ribs and above, to cover her breast. She made a sound in the back of her throat, encouragement enough that Alec began tugging at the neckline of her gown.

  He broke their kiss when her shoulder was exposed and pressed his lips to that familiar sloppy scar. Dragging the gown and chemise lower, his lips followed, touching each inch of bare skin until it settled with divine delight upon her rosy tipped nipple. All of Katie was lean and trim that she was not generously endowed or even curvy, but damn, how she provoked him. Her bosom was modest, rounded to perfection, pale and eager for his touch. He fondled them possessively with his fingers and his mouth. Katie held him close, tipping back her head, her fingers yet entwined in his hair.

  He returned to her lips, the kiss demanding now, while one hand began to lift her skirts. His hand touched the smooth warmth of her thigh before skimming around and cupping her bottom, crushing her to him, to his own growing need.

  Some demon reared its head, made him say, “Stop me now, or I’ll just keep taking.” It was for her own good.

  She whimpered. He couldn’t discern if it were a cry of need or wretchedness.

  Yet, she still held him tightly, did not push him away. Her eyes were firmly closed.

  “Katie,” he warned, his voice thick.

  Her lips trembled. She wanted to push him away, wanted to deny them, and this. Possibly her need, her desire was stronger though, that she was completely still, leaving the decision—to stop now or to continue—to him.

  Alec growled. He didn’t want her like that, to come to him in some hopeful yet ambiguous haze, letting the choice be only his. “Aye, and then you’ll rage at me when it’s done? Say I forced you, I gave you no choice. Hating yourself but taking it out on me.”

  Dropping her face forward against his chin, she shook her head so starkly, so minimally he’d have missed it if she weren’t pressed against him, her hair moving along his chin.

  Damn her.

  WHY DID HE HAVE TO speak? Why did he have to throw those things out there?

  Of course, she knew why, but had chosen to disavow the reasons, had let his kiss and his touch realign all her previous indifferent convictions.

  She kept her head bowed against him, but he’d stopped touching and teasing her so gloriously, had dropped her skirts and lifted the bodice of the woolen fabric to cover her breasts. Just now, she was so very sad that he’d stopped, even as she realized that he’d spoken truth: later, soon, she would be very sorry for what she had done. These emotions—whatever they were regarding Alec—were so useless. ’Twas naught but a physical need actually, one she’d not ever imagined lived inside her, and something she considered quite impractical. It was foolish to make decisions and be guided by such folly as this, mere minutes of pleasure stacked against all the trouble it would cause, not least of which would take up residence in her head.

  Eventually, he shifted, his hands falling away from her completely that Katie had no choice but to raise her face to him and take her hands from him.

  His extraordinary eyes blazed with some unfathomable darkness. For a brief second, she tried to let an apology show in her own tortured gaze.

  “You are right,” she admitted. “I would hate myself.”

  “Why?” This came with some anger. When she didn’t answer, he asked, “You ken you are your own worst enemy?”

  Her brows lowered. She stepped back. “What does that mean?”

  “Means you dinna ken when to feel and no’ think.”

  Spoken like a man bent on seduction but lacking any proper emotion to attach to it. Katie rubbed her temples for a moment and then pivoted, about to collect the basket she’d dropped.

  “And let’s go now, back to the keep,” he called after her. “I’ve wasted enough of my time.”

  She bristled at this. Possibly the words were merely off-handed, possibly laced yet with his own residual frustration, but they raked over her, nonetheless. She whirled and challenged, “Is it that you want me to hate you? Have you no goal, no agenda, but to see me loathe you?”

  “I dinna think that was loathing kissing me a moment ago.”

  She couldn’t resist throwing back at him, “I dinna think there’ll be any more kissing.” Childish, she recognized, but blamed him, that this is what he’d reduced her to.

  Ugh. She would never win. She could rage a
t him, call him names, but it was all for naught. The man was a stone. He felt nothing. Not for anyone. Katie sighed, more resigned to a lifetime of occasions such as this—pushed and prodded and wrecked by him—than she was filled with any hatred or animosity toward him. It was simply too exhausting. She turned once more, headed for the shoreline, calling over her shoulder a dismissive, “You needn’t wait. I’ll be returned to Swordmair before supper.”

  His voice reached her, bereft of that huskiness that had so aroused her only moments ago, overtaken by that harshness, that need for control. “We’re leaving, Katie. Now.”

  “Leave me be! I found my way here. I’ll find my way back.”

  “Your stubbornness might see you killed.”

  “If your hate doesn’t do me in first,” she mumbled to herself and kept right on walking.

  “It’s no’ my hate, lass.”

  Katie rolled her eyes, not having known he’d followed, that he might hear her.

  But she ignored him, until he said, “I’m sorry.”

  This halted her, drew her brows together.

  She faced him again. He stopped, leaving several feet between them. The bare wind, which had throughout the day hastened to disrupt things, lifted the hair off his forehead and pushed it away to the left.

  “Sorry for what?” She couldn’t imagine he was about to apologize for trying to seduce her again.

  “For whatever was done to you that you will no’ let yourself feel any personal joy.”

  It dawned on her then, the difference between them. He’d had this fantastic catastrophe happen to him, had been held prisoner by the English, and while he put out that aura of ruthlessness and invulnerability, he’d really just closed himself off to any deep or great emotion. He would not feel pain, would allow pain no chance to claim him, had closed himself off to even his parents, to some degree. His idea of personal joy might only be wrapped up in physical gratification.

  Katie hadn’t ever been hurt or harmed, truly. However, there had been no warmth or joy in her youth and no emotion tied to her brief marriage. She’d not known love, save from and for her son. It just wasn’t something she went out searching for. Another insight emerged just then, as she realized that her refusal to lay with Alec might actually be her seeking, and not accepting anything that wasn’t, love, not subjecting herself to more of the same.

  “There was nothing done to me,” she finally told him. “This is just who I am.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next morning, Katie was standing in front of her cottage, chatting with Ann and Agnes, listening with fascinated delight as Agnes recounted the tale of how just last night the entire family of nine had chased around a mouse inside their cottage.

  Grinning, Katie acknowledged, “That would explain the shrieks heard then.” She’d been alarmed initially when she’d heard the first cry in the dark and otherwise quiet night but had settled soon enough as those loud cries had been followed with so much laughter, drifting down to her own home.

  Agnes rolled her eyes. “More harm done by the lads chasing it than the poor little mite would have managed. The lads tore up the place, flinging everything away from the walls as it scurried around.”

  “After the first scream,” Ann said, “I thought, well, this is it, she’s finally fulfilling that promise to skin her dear Niall after all these years of threatening.”

  Niall, Agnes’s husband, was as quiet as his wife was not, but then his inability to be roused to excitement, over anything, often had his wife regularly hollering at him, in any small or large calamity, to Do something!

  “He’ll be spared, ye ken, for the next few days,” Agnes allowed, “since he was the only one makin’ use of his noggin’—opened the door that the thing was finally chased outside.”

  She went on, giving more detail of the upset to her home, and how much time it would take to set it to rights.

  Henry was near, at the end of the lane with Ronald and Martin and another lad, while they amused themselves with Boswell, throwing short, fat sticks that the hound happily returned to them.

  It was cold today, the sky gray and the wind mean. Katie had already planned that she must devote some time to her cloak, in need of general repair, and now a way to keep it secure about her, as the threads of the frog closure had finally frayed enough to have given way completely. Katie tucked her left hand under her right arm and held her shawl closed at her neck while she enjoyed the company of these two women.

  “Oh, he’s coming fast,” Ann said then, watching over Katie’s shoulder.

  Glancing behind her, Katie saw that indeed he was.

  It was Alec, flying from the trees on his big horse, turning down their lane. Even before he’d come very close, Katie could see that his gaze was set on her. What now? She wondered, with some residual harshness for yesterday’s awfulness with him. Honestly though, as she’d discovered yesterday with the unavoidable deliberation that had come when finally they’d parted, her emotions regarding that confrontation with Alec at Loch Oykill were infuriatingly mixed. She was caused no wee amount of vexation that his kiss was so intoxicating, that his hands brought so much pleasure, but that he was so often ornery and confounding.

  In the end, after that wild interlude at Loch Oykill, he’d allowed her “twenty minutes and not one more,” to collect the algae that was indeed quite prevalent at that spot in the valley. When they’d ridden back to Swordmair, she’d been chastised, “And if you even set foot outside Swordmair to anywhere that takes you farther away than the eye can see, I’ll task Eleanor as your personal guard—she’ll no’ ever leave your side.”

  Sitting before him, she’d ignored his scolding. She’d closed her eyes and leaned her back against him, reveling in his arm around her, allowing herself just for a moment to wish that they were made differently. She wished she might actually allow herself to be seduced, and only for the sake of knowing the sure joy he would bring to her. Nothing else. She wished he were capable of feeling something for her, other than what he did, naught but physical desire.

  Katie could not yet understand, though she’d certainly given it thought of late, how it had come to be that she knew she wanted more than just to lay with a man. Possibly the want had been borne in her subconscious, during any or all of the perfunctory, cold couplings with her husband. Mayhap she’d come to resent being only a vessel to his needs. Mayhap she wasn’t as strong as she’d always hoped she could be, that she did crave affection and emotion. Even as she wondered this, she chastised herself for even considering that such sentimentality should be something she might desire. How silly and nebulous and useless must be love between a man and woman.

  She’d snorted yesterday when these thoughts had come, quietly and inelegantly. Mayhap she was only bitter that life had not allowed her the chance to discover what all the fuss was about.

  Now, Alec reined in sharply and didn’t bother to greet either Agnes or Ann. His gaze was hard—not unusual—but then didn’t seemed to be so for her personally.

  “Word from the Listers over near Spotswood,” he said to Katie. “Bring what you need for a birthing.”

  She reacted instantly, the speed at which he’d come spurring her to move quickly.

  “I’ll keep the lad here, Katie,” Agnes called as Katie dashed inside her cottage. “Dinna ye worry.”

  When she’d gathered her supplies, she returned to Alec, who had dismounted and awaited her. He received the many different sized pouches and bags and tucked them into his saddlebags before lifting Katie up into the saddle and pulling himself up behind her.

  And they were off, Alec’s arm secure around her waist that she wasn’t caused too much consternation for the swift pace he set.

  When they were away from the village, heading west over the barren fields, he explained what he knew.

  “Lad rode up all the way from Spotswood, said Avrel Lister’s been laboring since early this morn.”

  “Oh, my. But who are the Listers and where is Spotswood.”
She had to lift her voice and turn her face toward him, that he might hear over the noise of the wind and pounding hoofbeats.

  “Edge of Swordmair. Tom Lister manages most the logging, felling of trees for all our lumber, sells some off down in Glasgow as well.”

  She nodded. She needed to know nothing else.

  They rode hard the entire way, more than half an hour, until a huge but simple two story building came into view. The vista was amazing, as the building sat at the base of a heavily treed beinn, the trees rising behind it displaying so many different colors, autumn’s orange and red and yellow, though there was plenty of green yet, the forest filled with so many pines as well. The sky above, angry yet, sat atop that forest, adding yet more color, the thick clouds purple and gray and white.

  As they neared, Katie saw that indeed a lumbering operation took place here, as stacks of huge felled and limbless trees lay behind the building. Several carts and long wagons were lined up near the structure, and saws and tools, appearing to have been dropped quickly, were scattered around the ground. A lone horse idled, tethered to the back of one cart.

  Alec dismounted first, pulling Katie to the ground with hands at her waist. The door, the only opening on this huge side of the building was pulled open before they reached it.

  She let her gaze wander only briefly over the interior, a cavernous shed which showed more production capabilities, larger saws and tools and half-finished wood products taking up more than half of it. Against one wall leaned a stack of doors, thick and arched, not yet fitted with hardware, the wood pale but carved well.

  Alec ruffled the hair of the lad who’d pulled the door open. “You did good, lad. Rode the old mare well.”

  The lad, only a few years older than Henry, nodded and twitched his lips. “She’s back there.” He tipped his head toward the back of the building where two walls of long red wood planks had been erected, enclosing one corner of the building.

  Alec led Katie there, slowly pushing open another door.