“Maybe we shouldn’t do this anymore,” she said, and then looked around to see who could have said something that stupid.
ten
Apparently she had.
His hands grew still on her waist. “What? What do ye mean?”
What did she mean?
Quinn must have taken her silence for more rejection, because his voice turned deeper. “Do I not please ye? Dinna think ye can make me believe that. Ye moaned so loudly last night I feared ye would wake poor Grandmother Mim in her grave.”
“Quinn . . .”
He lifted one hand to her face, sliding his fingers over her cheekbone and into her hair, combing the tangles gently.“What’s troublin’ ye, Maggie mine?”
Maggie closed her eyes and leaned against him, feeling the dark curly hair on his hard, bare chest brush against her face. “Quinn, this has all happened too fast. I mean, we’ve only known each other a few days, and—I’m scared.”
“Scared?” He held her tighter, his breath warm against her hair. “Darlin’, why should ye be afraid? I willna let any harm come to ye.”
“I can’t stay with you, not forever.”
Maggie looked up at him, her heart pounding beneath her ribs. He looked confused.
“Forever, is it?” He shook his head, the confusion changing to something darker, hotter, and dangerous. “Och, lass, do ye not know that there is no forever? There is today only. Tomorrow we might not even exist.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” she said faintly. “I’m—uh—I’m not from around here, you know? I have to go back home once we save Ian.”
His green eyes grew lazy as he laid her down upon the bed and stretched out beside her. “Och, lass,” he whispered against her ear, “dinna think of that now. Think only of this—” Maggie drew in a sharp breath as he caressed her breast through the nightgown, his fingers stroking her body tenderly.
“Hmm, yes, that’s—really—nice”—Maggie drew in a deep breath—“but, but—” She pushed his hand firmly away and sat up, dragging her hair back from her face. “Look. You’re amazing in bed and—”
“Thank ye,” he said, his voice smug.
Maggie rolled her eyes. “And I feel, I mean, I’m really not into casual sex. When I make love to a man, I have to at least feel like the relationship is going somewhere.”
Quinn pulled her back down on the bed. “It is going somewhere, lass,” he said as he slipped his hands around her waist again and slid his body against hers. She shivered and tried to keep her thoughts straight. This was crazy. He was a man from the past. She had to go back to her own time. She couldn’t leave her sisters on their own, not even for great sex.
She smiled as he turned her face to his and began nibbling at the corner of her mouth. She knew how to get through to him, turn him off, and protect her own heart all at the same time.
“Here’s the thing,” she said, sliding her hands up his chest to cradle his head between her hands, lowering her voice to a husky whisper. “I love you, Quinn.”
What better way to get him to run like a scared rabbit for Ben Lomond, than to start talking the L word? Great idea. Nip this in the bud now before somebody—like her— got hurt.
Her heart began to pound as if to say “Too late!” and Maggie suddenly realized she didn’t want him to run.
He didn’t. Quinn didn’t move. Just for an instant, then he was out of the bed and standing in front of the open window,like a beautiful, naked stone statue staring down at her as the soft morning light streamed in through the windowand lit his body from behind. Then he turned his face toward the rising sun, and a soft, slow smile gradually tilted the corners of the mouth she so loved to kiss.
“Ye love me,” he said, looking for all the world as if Maggie had crowned him king of Scotland. He glanced back at her, and the softness in his eyes made Maggie realizesomething even worse.
Her words were true. She loved Quinn.
But no way was she going to let him know that. She’d just laugh and act like she was teasing him. Maggie swallowedas he continued to beam at her. How could she take the light out of those beautiful green eyes?
“Well, maybe I was overstating—I mean, we’ve only known each other, what, a couple of days? That’s just silly! I think that all in all—” She shook her head and sighed. It was no use.
Maggie slid out of bed and walked back into his arms. It was too late anyway. She’d never been good at hiding her feelings. Her love for him had to be shining in her eyes. It had to be, for suddenly she realized she didn’t just love Quinn, she adored him, she idolized him. He was her hero, and she wanted him more than any man she’d ever known or had ever imagined in the most delicious fantasies of her mind.
“Okay,” she said, “look, I know this is dumb. Dumb of me to think and dumb of me to admit. Maybe I’m sort of mesmerized by the spectacular sex we’ve had, but—” she broke off, feeling stupid as Quinn smiled at her, his eyes amused, but something tender there, too.
“Och, lass, ye dinna love me.”
Wait a minute. Maggie frowned. “Yes, I do.”
He shook his head and slid his hands over her shoulders.“Ye love the way I make ye feel,” he said, “just as I love making ye feel that way. It is easy to confuse the two.”
Great. He was going to talk her out of being in love with him. Fat chance, buddy.
Maggie took a step back, and his hands fell to his sides. “I am not confused. I don’t give my love easily, Quinn. I’m not some teenybopper with a crush on her favorite TV star. I love you!”
Quinn frowned. “I have no idea what ye just said.”
“Forget it,” she said, turning away from him as her heart began to ache. “I take it all back.”
His warm hand closed around her arm and he spun her into his arms again, immediately bending her backward as he lowered her to the bed. “Dinna take it all back, just dinna take it all so seriously,” he murmured as he slid into bed beside her.
Maggie folded her arms over her chest. If Quinn Don’t-Take-It-Seriously MacIntyre thought he was getting laid after that, he had another think coming!
Raising up on one elbow, he gazed down at her, his mouth quirking up in amusement.
“I’m not in the mood,” she told him.
He laughed softly and began to nibble the side of her neck.
“I mean it, Quinn.”
“I know ye do, lass.” He unwound her arms from her chest and began to caress her breasts, sliding rough fingers over the material, making her nipples harden and tingle.
“Do you really think I’m this easy?” she asked, trying to keep the anger in her voice, but oh, he did make her feel so good.
“Nay, Maggie mine,” he said, sliding her nightgown up around her waist as he positioned himself between her legs. “I think ye are the sweetest lass I have ever lain with in my life, but ye are far from easy. In fact, I would say ye’re a bit difficult sometimes.”
“I am not!” she said, staring up at the ceiling.
“Nay, ye are not. I was trying to make a jest.”
Then she met his eyes and sucked in her breath. Quinn held himself above her, hands pressed into the bed on eitherside of her shoulders, his gaze warm and affectionate and very, very sexy.
She wanted to tell him that sexy looks were not going to make everything all right, that if they were going to continueto make love, he needed to be in love with her. But he was busy pulling her nightgown up higher and she hated to interrupt him.
“What do you think you’re—”
Quinn took one taut nipple in his mouth, and Maggie gasped and arched against him.
“Don’t you think Rob Roy has already heard that Ian is alive?” Maggie asked as the two rode toward Loch Lomond. It was just after dawn, and the grass and heather across the hills were bright with dew. Diamonds on amethyst, Maggie thought, distracted as Quinn remained silent.
After her startling pronouncement of undying love, Maggie had spent the next two days, while scrubbing the kit
chen floor, kicking herself metaphorically black-and-blue.Quinn had continued to act as he always had, so apparentlyher confession had neither scared him away nor endeared her to him. To punish him just a little for being such a smug—man—Maggie had spent the last two nights in Jenny’s room, pleading the need to rise early to take care of Ian before Pembroke made his morning rounds. Quinn had just shrugged and said for her to do whatever would ensure Ian’s health and well-being. The jerk.
She’d spent those rather sleepless nights beside Jenny trying to figure out one, how to keep from falling even more in love with Quinn than she already had, and two, how to make Quinn see that he needed to handle the problemof Ian’s escape with brains, not brawn. So far, she’d come up empty on both.
But when Bittie told her that Quinn was going to talk to Rob Roy, Maggie had bribed the cook with a trial-sized bottle of cologne from the bottom of her backpack to give her a day off. She wanted to be with Quinn when he talked to Rob Roy again. When he’d picked her up that morning, a mile from the manor, the happiness in Quinn’s eyes made her heart fill with longing.
“Perhaps he has heard Ian is alive,” Quinn said as Saint ambled across the dew-bright grass beneath his feet, “but I told him I would return when I knew where we stood, and so return I must.”
Maggie frowned and ran over her knowledge of Scottish history and Rob Roy MacGregor. Yes, 1711 was right before Rob Roy had been declared an outlaw. At this point, he was still trying to raise money to pay back the Duke of Montrose. He had borrowed one thousand pounds from Montrose to finance a herd of cattle, but before he could give the man his profits, the money had been stolen from Rob.
Now Montrose was threatening to put Rob Roy in the Glasgow Tolbooth, the local prison. Would they take Ian there? It would be impossible to break him out of that well-guardedfortress.
“He’s just afraid it will hurt his negotiations with Montrose,” she told Quinn, pushing the thought of Ian to the back of her mind. “If he can repay the duke the money he owes him, he might be willing then to take a bigger risk for Ian.”
“How do ye know about that?” he asked. “I dinna tell ye.”
Oops. “Uh, I heard a rumor about it at the manor.”
“Aye, no doubt the gossips have spread it far and wide by now. But Ian is part of Rob’s clan. He shouldn’t refuse to aid him.” He fell silent again.
Thankfully, Ian was slowly getting better. There had been plenty of the broad spectrum antibiotics, which Maggiehad been forgetting to take, for Ian, and the medicine, along with fresh, daily dressings on his wound, and hot food, had made for a marked improvement.
“Are you worried about what Rob Roy will say?” she asked, as Saint started downhill next to a babbling brook that ran down to the glen below, and they began to ride beside the dark waters of Loch Lomond.
“Nay, I am not worried,” he said grimly, “for I fear I already know.”
When they arrived at the outlaw’s house in Craigrostan, Rob’s wife, Mary, met them at the door, shook her red head, and tsked under her breath before taking Maggie inside while the men stayed outside to talk. Maggie would have rather stayed with Quinn, but she didn’t want to be rude.
“So,” Mary said in her low, melodic voice, after usheringMaggie inside and offering her a wash at a wooden bowl full of water sitting on a table in the corner. “How long have ye been with our Quinn and when will the weddingday be?”
Maggie took the towel the petite woman handed her. She smiled hesitantly and blotted her wet face. “Oh, I only met him a few days ago. We’re just, er, friends.” With benefits, she thought, fighting back a smile.
“Och, friends, is it?” She gave Maggie a knowing look as she crossed to the stone fireplace and lifted the lid from a pot hanging over the flames. A savory smell swept through the cabinlike dwelling.
“That smells wonderful,” Maggie said, racking her brain for a subject that would steer them away to more neutralground. “Do you have children, Mary?”
“Oh, aye,” she said, taking a ladle from a wooden table nearby and dipping it into the pot to stir. “I’ve two sons and pray to have another before another year passes.” She glanced up. “And what about ye and Quinn? Any bairns in the makin’?”
Maggie just laughed and tried to think of an excuse to run out the door. She turned and looked out the open windowbeside her. Over a dozen men had gathered, and Quinn stood in the middle of the group. Maggie could tell that he was not a happy camper.
“What’s going on out there?” she asked, glancing back at Mary. The woman moved to stand beside her and then cursed eloquently under her breath before running to the door.
“I told that man not to do this, but does he ever listen to me?” She jerked open the door and stormed out, with Maggieclose on her heels.
Rob had started off amiably enough, listening to Quinn’s report on Ian, but as they had talked, more people had arrived,first one by one and then in small groups. As the men began to cluster around him, a low murmur began.
The door to the cottage opened, and he saw Mary MacGregor hurrying toward them, with Maggie in tow. Beforethe women reached the fire, upward of thirty men had gathered. Most gave him dark looks as he concluded his story.
“And so, Ian is alive, and I need yer help, the help of the clan, to set him free.”
Rob’s dark eyes met his levelly. “Do ye now?” he said.
“Aye.” He glanced around at the other men. “If ye are willing.”
“Willing to put our necks in the noose by walking into Montrose’s keep and trying to waltz out with one of his prisoners under our arms?” one of the men called out.
“Perhaps we can sneak the lad out under our plaids,” anothersaid. Laughter greeted that remark, and Quinn turned on the speaker, but Mary MacGregor spoke first.
“Whist, now,” she said, " ’tis no time to be jesting, with a man’s life at stake.” She shot Rob Roy a pointed look.
“Aye, Mary,” Rob agreed, “but I wonder”—he turned to Quinn—“were ye concerned with that possibility, Quinn MacIntyre, when ye took Ian into this recklessness with ye?”
Rob’s voice cut through the laughter and everyone grew quiet.
Quinn felt a muscle in his jaw begin to twitch. “Ian knew the risks. Ye talk as if he were a wee bairn instead of a man.”
“Did either of ye consider the risks, I wonder,” Rob said, one booted foot propped on a stone. He wore his customarykilt of blue and gray plaid, with a fairly grimy shirt beneath and a leather jacket atop it. He leaned his elbow against his thigh, a long clay pipe in his hand.
“Did ye or Ian think of anything save yer own foolish selves?”
Quinn took a deep breath and released it, fighting for control. It would do no good to lose his temper now. “We stole from Montrose, our sworn enemy. We gave away as much wealth as we kept.”
“And brought more of the duke’s anger down upon our heads!” Rob said sharply, lowering his foot to the ground and straightening. " ’Tis one thing to reive his cattle or take the paltry sums he collects from his tenants, but when ye begin raiding his supplies and stealing from his aristocratic friends, that is when ye will bring the wrath not only of the duke down upon us, but the Crown itself!”
The voices of the crowd rang out in loud agreement. Quinn shook his head, a sense of betrayal sweeping over him. He had expected Rob to balk, but had hoped otherwise.
“How can ye turn yer back on yer own kin?” Quinn demanded.“Ye would protect Montrose, when the man is in the process of putting ye to the horn?”
Rob shook his head, his ruddy face bright in the fire-light.“’Tis exactly why I canna conscience this wild plan of yers. Ye know the position I am in right now. Until I pay back the money that was stolen from me, I willna bring Montrose’s anger further upon us.”
“I welcome other ideas,” Quinn said stiffly.
“And I have none to give ye.”
“And yet ye can stand there and rebuke me.” Quinn shook his head in disgust. The crowd of me
n began to mutterand murmur again.
Maggie had crossed to Quinn’s side, but she did not touch him. He was grateful, both for her presence and her restraint. She stood beside him, slightly behind his shoulder,as a good Scot’s wife should, showing support by her disapproving silence. Wife? He frowned at the thought.
“Whist!” Rob Roy cried out. The crowd grew quiet and silence stretched across the people waiting. “I will think upon it,” Rob Roy finally said. “But I make ye no promises. First I will want to hear a new plan—one that willna sacrifice the whole of our clan!”
“Robert,” Mary said, fire in her eyes as she strode towardher husband, “what are ye saying? That ye will leave Ian MacGregor, yer own kith and kin, in Montrose’s dungeonto rot?”
“Stay out of this, woman,” he cautioned.
“’Tis all right, Mary,” Quinn said, unable to keep the quiet bitterness from his voice. “I will rescue Ian, and I will do it without the help of the MacGregors.” He turned and took Maggie by the arm, letting her know it was time to go.
“Robert!” Mary cried again, and then, seeing no responsefrom her husband except a glower, crossed to Quinn and Maggie. “Ye can stay the night, Quinn MacIntyre,” she said. “Ye and the lass, and give my husband and these lads time to come to their senses.”
“Nay, Mary, though I thank ye for yer kindness. We have a place to stay.” He put his arm around Maggie and guided her toward Saint, grazing near the cottage.
She was unusually quiet as they walked, but regained her voice when they reached the horse. “Quinn, are you sure we shouldn’t stay the night? Maybe in the morning—”
“Nay. His mind is made up, and so is mine.”
He lifted her up on Saint’s back and they rode away, she in front of him, Quinn holding himself so stiffly she thought he might crack. After a long while, she spoke again.
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