A Highlander's Need

by Aileen Adams

  “Aye. I ought to thank ye for taking the trouble. Otherwise, we might already have exchanged vows.”

  She gaped at him. “You would have gone along with it?”

  “Hell, I dinna know,” he snarled. “I would not have wanted to, I can assure ye. I might have made things difficult. Nay, I’m certain I would have.”

  “Well, then? How can you say we might well have wed by now?”

  Hot, angry words burst forth. “It was not only me! There ye have it, lass. Now ye know. I had more than just myself to think about.”

  For a long time, all she could hear was the jangling of the bridles, the beat of hooves against earth. And his breathing, heavy and hard.

  What did he struggle with?

  He’d made it sound up to that point as though there was no one in his life. A married brother, nothing more.

  “I am sorry, for whatever weighs on you,” she dared whisper.

  “It does not weigh on me. It might have, had ye not made your escape and freed us both.”

  “I did not know you felt as you do about marriage. I could not have known,” she mused. “I thought you might have been part of the reason the arrangement came to be. That you agreed to it.”

  His head snapped around, their eyes meeting. “Is that why you’ve behaved as ye have to me? Like everything I say is a chance to argue? Because ye thought I was part of the plan to force ye into marriage?”

  “Oh, not at all. I simply enjoy arguing.”

  Silence.

  Then, the sound of their laughter blending together in the first truly honest moment they’d shared since the afternoon in the cave.

  18

  Moira—it sometimes took a moment for him to remember her true name—curled up on her side, one arm beneath her head. She had fallen asleep soon after they reached a likely spot to bed down for the night.

  As for Fergus, he did not feel comfortable with the idea of sleeping. Not yet. Not until he knew for certain none of the other Reids had tracked them.

  He’d heard nothing, seen nothing outside the ordinary. No extra set of hoofbeats, no snapping twigs or sound of a heavy body moving through the brush on either side of the road.

  Even so, his senses were on alert. Every sound, every scent, they all fought for attention and left him wide awake.

  At least she was able to sleep.

  She trusted him enough to sleep opposite the dying embers of their meager fire.

  Could he trust her?

  She knew he held no desire for marriage, which gave her less reason to run from him. He would not drag her to the Campbells, kicking and screaming. The last thing he wanted to do was cross paths with his uncle ever again.

  Especially not while he had Moira in tow.

  She shifted slightly, muttering words he could make no sense of. She sounded angry even in her sleep, her forehead creasing.

  There was no peace for the lass no matter where she roamed, even if she went no further than her own mind.

  He had the strangest sense of her being his responsibility, and he resented the idea. He wanted no such burden dragging him down—otherwise, why not simply marry and settle down?

  His aim was freedom.

  Why, then, had he insisted she accompany him?

  And that had been before he knew her true identity. Now, with the knowledge of her running away because of their intended marriage, he supposed the least he could do would be to see her to safety.

  Though not in the village. Anywhere but there.

  For she would never cease plaguing him if she were so easy to access. Plaguing his thoughts, his dreams. Was she safe? Was she well-fed? Was there any chance of her being happy with her life?

  He understood people on the whole well enough to know Moira was not the type to place happiness at the top of her concerns. If anything, she had no desires along those lines whatsoever, as the survival of both herself and her family came first.

  She might not know of such a thing as happiness.

  She like as not would consider it daft to place one’s hopes on it, as the hope of avoiding starvation was far more pressing.

  Her face worked again, seeming to crumple as a rag might crumple inside a fist.

  What happened to her?

  No wonder he had not recognized her. She was so unlike the little lass he’d met so many years earlier.

  He leaned against the thick, sturdy trunk of a pine, the needles it had shed forming a cushion beneath him. Yes, he remembered the lass.

  Who could forget a pair of kicks to the shins such as she had delivered to him?

  His gentle laughter did not cause her to stir.

  Oh, how Brice had laughed at him for it. Not because a lass had kicked him—for who among them had not pressed a lass too far and gotten a swift kick for a reward? It was the stuff of childhood, the games lads played with lasses they fancied.

  His brother’s laughter stemmed from his having embarrassed himself in front of every lad of both the Reid and Campbell clans.

  All because he’d asked Moira for a kiss.

  He grinned in spite of himself. Now a grown man, he understood the folly of his brash younger self. He ought not to have done it, but he’d never felt so… so very alive, with all eyes on him, everyone appreciating him in a way his brother was normally appreciated.

  The knowing of it, the sense of being someone worthwhile, had gone to his head.

  He had certainly never kissed a lass prior to that day, and the thought of him doing so in front of dozens of strangers struck him as the height of folly.

  But again, he had not thought it through, had not the understanding to see the folly of his ways. He’d only taken notice of her, had seen the way she watched him ride.

  The hero worship in her eyes.

  What was a headstrong lad of twelve years to do at such a moment?

  Oh, the pain.

  Oh, the humiliation, so much worse than the pain. For as high as he had soared that day in the pen, riding the ornery stallion with so many eyes on him, he had fallen twice as far with Moira’s rebuff.

  That was the only time he’d so much as spoken to her until the day a storm brought them together, and a landslide brought them together again.

  If he were the sort who believed such nonsense, he might question whether some greater power wished for their union.

  What happened to that lass, seated on the fence with her skirts pulled up to her knees and her feet swinging to and fro?

  Then again, what happened to him? He’d seen war, brutality, more blood than a man ought to see in an entire lifetime. He’d witnessed firsthand what men did to one another, both when ordered to do so and when they felt their lives depended upon it.

  He knew what it meant to look into another’s eyes with the certainty that he could either kill them, or be killed by them.

  Such memories hardened a person. He was a man, it was expected of him.

  What hardened Moira?

  Something had. Something terrible and lifelong.

  Her mother died. She’d cared for her brothers. He knew what from what she’d shared already.

  What else, though?

  Perhaps she simply needed someone to care for her. She had spent her life caring for others. She’d never had the chance to be cared for, to feel secure and provided for as a grown woman.

  Not that he was in any way willing to take up the task.

  He was not.

  She shifted again in her sleep, a lock hanging over her face. Her lips pursed as if to claim the kiss she had denied him years earlier.

  In some ways, she reminded him of a dog who’d been beaten too many times. Once, twice, ten or twenty beatings and a dog might still come back to its owner in search of love. It might still believe if it loved its owner enough and was a good dog, the beatings would end.

  After long enough, it would stop trying. It would harden. It would snap its jaws at sudden movement and bite anyone who ventured too close.

  That was her. That was who she’d
become.

  He sighed, tipping his head back at that it might rest against the bark.

  If he had the chance to meet her father, he’d give the man the beating that one such as he most assuredly deserved. Leaving his daughter to fend for herself and her brothers, nothing more than wee bairns at the time. The scoundrel.

  She’d been little more than a bairn herself, the poor lass.

  A breeze shook the branches above him, sending the scents of pine and sap through the air.

  It also sent a pinecone falling to the ground near Moira’s head.

  She sat up, eyes wide open.

  Dirk in hand, at the ready.

  He froze in place. “Moira?”

  She blinked hard, her eyelids fluttering. Her chest rose and fell in short, sharp gasps.

  “Moira, ‘twas merely a pinecone,” he murmured.

  She reminded him of lads in the army who would sometimes wake screaming, thinking themselves in the throes of battle.

  “What?” she all but shouted.

  “There is nothing to fear.” His eyes moved back and forth between the dirk and her pale, wide-eyed face.

  She came to her senses slowly, the dirk trembling as she understood where she was and what had happened.

  “Do you sleep with dirk in hand?” he asked once she’d calmed.

  “No. Beneath me.” She eased herself down onto the blanket, tucking the dirk out of sight.

  “Why do ye do this, lass?”

  She curled her arm beneath her head, staring into the dead fire. “It helps me sleep; though I never sleep well.”

  “So I see.”

  Her eyes met his. “You were not asleep.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Do you have trouble sleeping?”

  He shook his head. “I was keeping watch. I do not require much sleep.”

  “You do not need to keep watch over me.”

  Her eyes slid shut, though he doubted she was going to sleep. She merely wished to put an end to their speaking.

  “I will keep watch over myself, then, lass. If it helps ye sleep better.”

  He thought the corners of her mouth curled into a smile.

  What was he to do with her? He could not bear the thought of her living her days alone, either in the woods or in a cottage by herself. Sleeping with a dirk tucked beneath her body in order to protect herself from unseen threats.

  Perhaps those threats were what she dreamed of when she frowned as she had.

  She had to go home. It was that simple. If it meant beating her father half to death and warning him away from behaving as he had in the past, he would do it. If it meant threatening to kill the man, he would be pleasured to do it.

  For whatever the man had done to her—either with his own hands or by leaving her to take care of herself in a cruel, dangerous world—had broken the lass.

  “You ought to sleep,” she murmured.

  “How do ye know I am not already asleep?” he murmured in reply.

  “Because you spoke.”

  “Before I spoke.”

  She winced, easing one eye open and fixing it on him. “You will not like it.”

  “Out with it, woman.”

  “I could not hear your snoring.”

  “I snore?”

  “Loudly. I thought a bear had wandered into the clearing on the first evening, when we slept apart.”

  He barely stifled his laughter, forcing a stern expression instead. “Ye do not know what ye speak of, lass.”

  “It’s a wonder I’ve slept at all these last nights,” she murmured as she rolled to the other side.

  He only closed his eyes, smiling as sleep overtook him.

  Aye, he would hurt the man who’d hurt her.

  19

  Fergus was rather pleasant when he made an effort to be so. Not that it mattered, as Moira had humiliated herself by behaving as she had.

  Jumping at the slightest noise, drawing her dirk. All the more reason for him to think her a daft, frightened woman.

  And now, the way he smiled. The way he tried to draw her into conversation.

  He pitied her. Not much in the world infuriated her more than the feeling of another’s pity.

  Even as a child, she had resented the pity of the few neighbors who lived close enough to the farm to offer assistance after her mother’s death. She had refused much of their help, aside from that which might be of use to the twins.

  So, she’d learned to care for them thanks to instruction from the older women, but she’d refused to allow more than that.

  In time, they had stopped darkening her threshold.

  Leaving her alone.

  Never an easy decision to be made, between one’s pride and one’s survival. There were times when she’d cursed the loneliness, but then the twins had grown and proven likely company.

  It did not come naturally, then, conversation with Fergus. Exchanging pleasantries when her embarrassment was still fresh.

  Perhaps he only wished to ease her mind.

  Even that irritated her more than she could explain to herself.

  In some ways, then, it was fortunate of her to notice their change in direction. She had something to which she might turn her attention.

  “Where are we going?” Between the previous day and that morning, riding abreast in the bright, early sunshine, the Grampians had gone from sitting in front of them to sitting at their left.

  The sun, meanwhile, rose at her right, rather than behind her.

  “We are riding north.”

  This caught him by surprise, making him stutter in reply. “Aye. Aye, lass, we are that.”

  “You told me the village was to the southwest.”

  “I did not.”

  “You did. I am never wrong about such matters.” She pulled the mare to a stop. “I will not allow the horse to take another step until you tell me why we’ve suddenly begun riding north.”

  “The village is not the place for ye, lass.” He kept his eyes trained on the road ahead.

  Her chest tightened, as did her hands around the reins. It was a matter of supreme self-control, keeping her voice level. “Would you pay me the respect of looking me in the eye when you decide what is and is not the right place for me?”

  He did, though grudgingly.

  She steadied herself, but barely. “Why are you leading me north? What have you taken in your head to do now?”

  “Ye need to be somewhere safe.”

  “Why do you believe you are the one to decide that for me? You have no say in anything I do!”

  “Nay, but the least I can do for ye, as ye did me a good turn by making your escape, is help make your life easier. Why is it so difficult for ye to understand?”

  She dismounted for fear of harming her mare, holding fast to the reins as she stomped her foot on the dusty road. “Why is it so difficult for you to understand that I did not ask for your help? I did not ask for you to decide these things for me, either. I have made my own way quite well for the last twelve years, and I intend to do so for many more. You cannot stop me!”

  “I can at least see to it that ye live more comfortably, lass. I can take ye home—”

  “Home!” She’d never known such fury, had never been quite so sickened by the sensation of hot blood racing through her body until it made her head ring. “You’ll not be taking me home, now or ever, Fergus MacDougal! I would rather drown myself this very morning than allow that to happen!”

  He rolled his eyes, a heavy sigh blowing from his mouth. “If ye would only allow me to explain—”

  “There is nothing to explain!” She realized she shrieked when the mare cringed away from her, but there seemed no calming herself.

  Panic had touched her rage, turning it into something entirely its own. Panic at the thought of seeing that terrible man again, at the idea of facing him in the morning and cleaning up after him in the evening. At the notion of enduring another beating.

  “I swore to myself I would never do it again
, and I will not break that vow. I will kill any man who defies me, even if that man happens to be you, Fergus MacDougal.”

  Fergus dismounted, his brow deeply lined as he drew near. “Will never do what again, lass? What is it that has ye so frightened?”

  “I am not frightened.” She threw back her head, peering at him over the bridge of her nose. “I am not frightened of anything.”

  “Nay, only of the slightest noise in the dark.”

  Her hand shot out and struck him across the face before she’d had time to think it through. If his cheek stung half as much as her palm, he was in a great deal of pain. And rightly so.

  “How dare you?” she demanded, her voice trembling terribly and betraying her aching heart. To think, she’d considered him handsome and worthy of her admiration.

  She had even asked herself what it might have been like to marry him.

  Now, she knew. He was as cruel as all other men.

  When he did not respond or so much as flinch, which inflamed her further, she raised her hand again to provide relief from her pain, but he was quick enough this time to catch her wrist before she could strike.

  His hand easily ringed her wrist along with half of her hand, yet he did not squeeze. He did not try to cause her pain.

  “I deserved the first one,” he muttered, the shape of her hand a red splash on his cheek. “I will not allow ye to deliver another.”

  “Just as I will not allow you to tell me where I ought to live, or how.” When she wrenched her wrist free, he did not strive to hold her fast.

  “I had intended to see to your comfort and safety upon your return.”

  “There is nothing you can do.”

  “Ye do not know me well, lass.”

  “And you do not know my father.” She took him by the hand. “Come. I want to show you something.”

  He walked beside her without argument, leading his horse and she led hers into the trees beyond the road.

  She had never shown anyone. Not even the twins. Sometimes, if she twisted herself a certain way and stretched her arms, she could feel the raise scars he’d left behind.

  “What are ye on about?” Fergus asked, tying off the gelding when they came to a stop in a place with enough of an opening in the branches overhead to allow sunlight through.