by Paula Quinn
The mention of her brother drew a curious slant to her lips. He knew Robert? She had trouble believing her brother would consort with any friend of the clan responsible for killing their father. “Why would my brother tell you anything about me?”
“We were friends.”
Kate offered him a suspicious smirk, certain he was lying.
“Ye see? She fancies him,” Jamie pointed out, seeing her smile. “I told ye she meant Graham.”
Graham reached for her hand and was about to lift it to his lips for a kiss, when the MacGregor snatched her wrist back and returned her hand to her lap. His fingers remained, covering hers possessively. He used his chin to gesture toward the rest of his men, ending any further charming introductions. “Brodie, Jamie, and Angus. There, now get the horses ready. Ennis and his wife have put themselves in harm’s way long enough.”
“Can she travel so soon?” the one named Angus asked. He was eyeing a barrel of what Kate imagined was whiskey. She suspected he was not really concerned for her well-being as much as he was about getting into that barrel. He was an enormous man with wavy red hair and a scar that laced his face from his left temple to his neck. When he looked at Kate, his expression softened and he reminded her of a fearsome dog she once had who used to lick her face clean after he’d chased raiders around her land, eager to take a bite out of one.
“I will not be traveling with you,” Kate assured them.
The chieftain rose to his feet. “She can travel, Angus,” he said as if she had not spoken at all. “She’s a fit lass.”
Kate glared up at him and pronounced each word clearly so that he understood her this time. “I’m staying right here until my brother comes for me, you callous swine.”
His expression did not change as he bent to her and scooped her off the bed and into his arms once again, ignoring her protests. He stopped when he reached the elderly couple waiting at the door and offered them his thanks, muffling Kate’s venomous insults with his hand over her mouth.
Mae Stewart looked ready to swoon when the Campbell lass took a bite out of one of his fingers. Callum MacGregor was a large man with a taste for blood that rivaled the kings of England. Mae shoved a small package into his hand, hoping to stay his temper before he struck the poor lass and killed her. “Her salve,” she offered him nervously. “She can apply it to her chest, but she’ll need help applyin’ it on her back. Try no’ to strangle her, laird, if ye be the one applyin’ it.” She rushed to a small shelf and picked up another package, this one larger than the one she offered Callum, and handed it to Graham. “Just some dried meat and black bread fer yer journey.”
The men thanked her, though Angus continued eyeing the barrels like a man being torn from the presence of his only love. Graham shoved him out the door, and Ennis followed them outside.
“Remember,” Callum told him, placing Kate on her feet hard enough to make her teeth knock together. He leaped into his saddle. “If ye’re questioned, ye were forced to aid us.”
He leaned down, fit his hands around Kate’s waist, and lifted her sideways to his lap.
“Does yer arm pain ye much?” he asked her, a little too softly and close to her ear for her liking. She pushed herself away from him and nearly tumbled to the ground. He caught her, snaking one arm around her belly.
“Laird,” Ennis entreated one last time. “Scotland is changin’. Leave the past where it belongs.”
“I have tried,” Callum answered solemnly. “But the past willna free me.”
Ennis nodded and bid him farewell with a smack on the horse’s rump. He stood in the grass, watching them leave, and offered up a silent prayer that the unruly bunch make it to Camlochlin alive.
Chapter Five
KATE CURSED HER SKILL for failing her and herself for not killing this MacGregor when she had the chance. She swore by the saints if he ever muzzled her again, she would bite his fingers completely off! Her arm throbbed in perfect rhythm with her heart. Where were they taking her? She fought the panic rising in her chest. Screaming would do no good. The miscreants would likely take great pleasure in her hysteria. She consoled herself with the knowledge that at least she had not been abducted by the Devil MacGregor. This chieftain might be the most arrogant man she had ever met, but he did not behave like a madman bent on killing Campbells. In fact, he had risked his life saving one. She relaxed a bit and shifted across his hard thighs, trying to gain a little more comfort if she was going to have to remain perched upon them all the way to . . .
“Where are you taking me?”
Before he answered her, he grunted something in Gaelic, then pushed her dangling legs off his wounded thigh. “To Skye.”
She swung around, hitting his chin with the top of her head. “Skye?” She hoped she hadn’t heard him right. She wasn’t exactly certain where Skye was, save that it was far from Glen Orchy, but its name conjured visions of some very far away, heaven-bound place. Mayhap where he sought absolution for whatever sins he had committed. And being a MacGregor, he surely had many.
Tilting her head back, she peered at his face. He kept his gaze fixed on the trees straight ahead. “Why are you taking me there? What do you intend to do with me?” Her eyes narrowed on his features, the indomitable set of his jaw. There was an air of cool detachment in his bearing that made Kate doubt he even cared about his transgressions. Well, she did not care about them, either. She wanted to go home.
He glanced down at her, weighing her with a dark, brief look of impatience. “I’ll answer one of yer queries.”
“Only one?” Kate quirked her mouth at his attempt to intimidate her. Why, this brute was even more arrogant than her uncle!
“Aye.”
“Are you always so uncompromising?”
He inclined his head, giving her his full attention. Kate defied the urge to pull back at the virility in his bold gaze, the vivid beauty of flames fired with the power of some fervent purpose within. She met his strength of will head on—until his eyes swept over her face, lingering on her mouth and heating her cheeks.
“Verra well.” He returned his gaze to hers. “To show ye that I’m agreeable, I’ll allow ye to choose which query ye want me to answer.”
Kate’s brows flew up at his haughty self-importance. “Two queries,” she parried, challenging his amiability.
He conceded with a slight nod.
“Why are you bringing me to Skye?”
“Because there are over fifty dead bodies loiterin’ on yer doorstep in Glen Orchy.”
“Och.” She blinked. “I see.” She twisted her body forward and leaned back against his chest with a heavy sigh of relief. She had forgotten about the bloody battle on her front lawn. She certainly did not want to return to that alone. She would have to bury the bodies, unless her uncle returned to retrieve his men, which she could not fathom him doing. And there were the McColls to consider. They would seek revenge once they discovered what had become of their kin. “I confess, you have a point. It would not be wise to return home just yet.” She turned toward him again and gave him a measured look. “I thought you were abducting me.” His lips curled into a smile she suspected he’d used a hundred times before to frighten a horde of enemies. Kate’s mouth tightened; she refused to yield so easily. “You are a MacGregor, after all.” She shrugged her shoulders and her expression relaxed. “But you did save me, and I don’t want you to think that I—”
“I dinna trouble myself with thinkin’ of ye at all.”
His curt insult grated on her last nerve. “Of course.” She shifted her position again and brought her legs down with resounding thumps on his injured thigh. His body went rigid, but he did not move her.
“What do you intend to do with me?”
“Slicin’ off yer head would be a good beginnin’,” he ground out through clenched teeth.
“Och, but then who would you practice your frightful scowls on?”
Her bravery to mock him right to his face fired his blood. “Yer kin.”
Oh, what Kate wouldn’t have done for her sword at that moment. “Alas, then, you would frighten no one.” To prove her point, she didn’t turn away when his eyes swept over her face. She should have, though, because the smile that graced his lips made her heart quicken.
“What are your plans for me?” she asked again, turning away.
“I have no’ decided that yet.”
Kate prayed she hadn’t heard him right. He had not decided yet? What did that mean? Was he going to return her to her brother, safe and sound? Or was he going to kill her?
“Well, I’d rather go home than to Skye,” she informed him, deciding that he was simply trying to frighten her again. “So I’ve made your decision for you.”
Dear God, how could she find a MacGregor so dangerously appealing? Damn her, but the indulgent slant of his mouth made her knees go soft.
“Thank ye. That is exactly what I will do.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“Return ye home to yer brother.”
“To Inverary?”
“That is where he lives.”
She lowered her gaze lest he see the trepidation in her eyes. She didn’t want to live with her uncle. Oh, why had Robert left Glen Orchy?
The chieftain leaned forward, and his breath caressed her temple when he spoke. “Ye have made it clear that ye dinna care fer yer uncle. Why?”
She raised her eyes to his, unable to find the sudden concern in his voice any less noble than that of the most gallant knight. She shook her head at herself. Was she daft? This was no knight, but a savage outlaw. Kin to the beast who murdered her father. She could be thrown into the tower for finding him anything but vile. But he had rushed headlong into a melee of swinging swords and saved her from certain death. He had not abducted her. He had carried her all the way to the Stewarts’ homestead to remove her arrow, when he could have easily left her to tend to herself. He had held her and comforted her when the pain of her wound was unbearable. And most important, he meant to deliver her to the safety of her brother. Of course, she had not forgotten how he’d let her almost fall off his horse when she had demanded he release her. Or the way he had clamped his strong hand over her mouth at the Stewarts’. He was an overbearing brute, to be certain, but he had not harmed her.
“My uncle means little to me.” She offered him a slight pat on the arm to ease his obvious concern. “But I fear he would punish Robert for befriending you.”
He severed their gaze and straightened, moving his body further away from hers. “Nae more talkin’.”
Kate’s nostrils flared as she inwardly scolded herself for fancying him to be anything more than an obstinate worm. She prayed the man didn’t have a wife waiting for him in Skye. Poor wretched thing she must be if he did. “Though I owe you my life, I find you immensely dislikable.”
He arched an eyebrow at her and gave her a measuring look. “Come, Campbell,” he challenged with a slow, rapier smirk. “Be the first of yer ilk braw enough to tell me what I’ve done to provoke yer scorn.”
“Your kin,” she accused without hesitation, “murdered my father and left my brother and me orphaned to a man who did not want us.”
The laird’s hard expression faltered, but his voice was firm, his gaze steady on hers. “’Twasna I who killed him.”
Kate nodded. “I’m thankful for that.”
Jamie watched them curiously from a few feet away, momentarily distracted from his examination of a particular patch of powder-blue blossoms. The lass was bonny, aright. Fer a Campbell, that is. But did she think she could make his laird like her by staring up at him with that trusting look in her eyes? He reined in a bit closer. “You willna make him like ye. His mind’s made up. He hates ye,” he said.
Callum would have whacked the young warrior right off his horse, but he could not tear his eyes away from Katherine Campbell—a discomfiting condition he’d suffered from more than once since first laying eyes on her. He dipped his gaze from her large coal eyes to the luscious contours of her clenched mouth. Hell, he didn’t know which was more dangerous of the two. Fortunately for him, she turned away, her spine stiff.
“Then my enemy and I have something in common,” she replied coolly.
Callum shifted uneasily, wanting to say something. But what? Could he deny Jamie’s charge—or her own? They were enemies, her name as hated as his was worthless.
He bent forward slightly and inhaled the scent of her hair. He shouldn’t want her. But he did. And every time he looked at her, each time her body yielded against him, he wanted her more.
Her braw spirit tempted him with unbidden images of her in his bed, just as fiery. She could wield a sword, that much was evident by the throbbing in his thigh, but hell, her tongue was even sharper. Twice he was torn between grinning at her saucy mouth and kissing the belligerence off her lips.
He was daft. She was a Campbell, and he could not wait to be rid of her.
Chapter Six
THEY RODE THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT without stopping and traveled alongside the still waters of Loch Leven the next afternoon. They passed grand mountain ranges whose summits were hidden by swirling clouds and vast verdant fields where grouse basked beneath the sun. Kate took in every detail of the new landscape around her. With such raw splendor surrounding her, her awareness of the man behind her intensified. The sleek strength of his arms around her waist. The knotted steel of his thighs beneath her. Had these MacGregors somehow convinced Robert not to kill them? She simply could not believe her brother would consort with MacGregors. Had they come to Glen Orchy to kill her uncle? Why had they protected her? Had Robert asked them to do it? Had he somehow discovered his uncle’s true intentions for her? And why would he risk his life by trusting MacGregors?
Dear God, had her brother betrayed them? Nae! She would never believe it. She pushed the thought out of her mind and replaced it with a dozen others. There were so many questions, and she was too sleepy to think on them all now. She leaned against the chieftain’s chest, mindful of her sore shoulder, yawned, and made a mental note to question him about it more later.
Callum’s muscles flexed involuntarily when her body sank into him. The lass was bone weary, and he didn’t fancy the notion of her sleeping on him again. They would have to stop. Sleeping outdoors anywhere but in Skye was unwise, but he would rather travel a few more leagues north, into friendlier territory. There were some who knew him by sight and would risk all for a chance to take his head. ’Twas not safe to stop, but more dangerous was the pleasure he took from her ease with him, the softness of her curves, the scent of peat lacing her feathery curls when they blew across his face. He shifted back, separating himself from her.
He reined in his mount at the crest of a windswept ridge and scanned the dense patches of pine nestled in the glen below. “We’ll stop there fer the night.”
Stopping beside him, Graham studied his profile with concern creasing his brow. “Ye look pained. Yer wound needs closing.”
The only sign that Callum had heard him was the tightening of his jaw. His commander was correct. His leg was stiff, and every time the lass in his lap inhaled, it felt like she was digging a dagger into his flesh. The slice had to be closed before fever set in. He’d had many injuries put to the fire in the past, but the mind simply could not prepare for the brand.
When they reached the trees, Callum set Kate down first and then glared at her after a painful dismount.
“I apologized for wounding you!” she charged, though he hadn’t said a word. His brows dipped over his eyes, but she didn’t shrink away from his blackest scowl. “You should have called out! I didn’t know you had come to aid me.”
He peered down at her for a moment, looking like he wanted to say something. But then he turned without a word and snatched Angus’s pouch from the warrior’s lips.
“We need a fire,” he called out to Jamie and limped away.
Callum stopped when he reached a tall pine, leaned his back against it, and tipped the pouch of brew t
o his mouth. When he spotted the lass storming toward him, he raised his eyes to the heavens.
“Why did you not have your friend’s wife tend to your leg?” She reached for the hem of his plaid to take a peek at his thigh. He swatted her hand away.
“Get some rest, Katherine. I willna—”
“It’s Kate.”
He stared at her with eyes a heart-stopping shade of stormy blue, then took another swig of whiskey.
“I willna have ye sleepin’ on me, Kate.” He closed his eyes, letting the potent brew warm his muscles. When he opened them again, she was gone. Against his will, his gaze scanned the campsite until he found her again, sitting on the ground a few feet away, her knees drawn up to her chest. She watched Jamie start the small fire between them and shook her head when Angus offered her some of Mae Stewart’s black bread. Callum studied the shape of her face, the bonny luminance of her deep, dark eyes, the sensual fullness of her mouth. Fire flushed through his veins. Damned whiskey. He ran his hand over his stubbled jaw. He would never compromise his convictions by bedding one of his enemies. No matter how enticing she’d felt nestled between his thighs for the past day and night. When she rubbed her arm, he felt a sharp sting of pity for her. She had not complained once about her wound, though he knew it pained her. He quaffed another long drink from the pouch, determined to douse the embers of desire and mercy she ignited in him. If he had any sense at all, he would leave her here in the morn.
Her eyes shimmered like the gabbro of the Cuillins when Jamie’s flames finally sprang to life. As if sensing his silent vigil, she shifted her gaze to his. Callum’s knees buckled beneath him. Of course, his weakened state could be blamed on the whiskey he’d consumed and not on the tender look she aimed at him. Damn her, where was the seething contempt in her eyes? She was a Campbell, for hell’s sake! Why was she looking at him like he was anything but her worst enemy? If she hurled a few oaths at him, cursed his clan to hell, he might not find her so pleasing. His back slid down against the trunk, and he landed with a heavy thump that rattled his teeth. God help him, he felt like grinning at her.