“With an eternally empty hand.” He opened her palm, and placed the handle of the pistol inside it.
She turned away, but not before he caught the bleakness twisting her features.
Wanting to fill the emptiness. His. Hers. Gavin reached for her, pulled her back against him, and brushed his cheek against the downy hair at the crown of her head.
“I am glad we made peace, bonny…”
“Just because we’re not at war, doesn’t mean we’ve made peace.” As she said this she expelled a sigh that could have been composed of eternities and relaxed against his chest in slow, careful increments.
“If ye sell Erradale to me, ye’ll not be breaking yer vow. I’ll no longer be a Mackenzie. I swear it. Perhaps ye can stay here and—”
Her body made a heave, a little like a cough but not quite. She clamped her hands over her mouth, as though to hold in a sob.
“I’ve had enough of the empty promises of charming, beautiful men!” she hissed through her fingers. Wrenching out of his hold, she sprinted for the estate, her hand firmly holding back whatever wanted to escape her lips.
Gavin winced as the door slammed against him and the bolt slid home. A strange and foreign ache settled in the emptiness of his arms.
So that was it … Someone had broken her heart and she was licking her wounds on the forlorn moors of Erradale.
Returning to his horse, he mounted and swung south toward Inverthorne, hoping to outrun the storm blowing in from the west.
The lass thought him charming and beautiful, did she? A slight warmth glowed in his chest where it ought not to have been.
That, at least, he could work with.
Because, God save him, he felt the same about her.
CHAPTER TEN
Five weeks.
The flames contained by cold stone mesmerized Samantha into an unblinking caricature of herself. Locryn and Calybrid’s bickering had become something of a lullaby in her short time at Erradale, a sure sign that the day’s hard work had ended and the evening’s rest could commence. But tonight, she barely noted the musical cadence of their singular brand of Highland harassment.
Five weeks ago, almost to the day, she’d boarded that train in Wyoming. Five weeks ago she’d met Alison Ross.
Five weeks ago … she’d killed her husband.
That fateful morning, he’d moved between her legs. That afternoon, she’d shot him between the eyes.
She’d lived a lifetime in little more than a month. Any dream she’d had of the lush Oregon coast was as cold and dead as Bennett, himself. Where were his remains? she wondered. Had Bradley been forced to burn or bury two brothers that day? Or had Boyd survived? She still wasn’t sure what all happened on that train. Who’d started the shooting, or how many people had been killed or injured.
A massacre, Alison had called it in her letter.
Dear God. What had they done? How many innocent people’s lives had been ripped apart because of her outlaw family?
Best she kept an ocean between herself and what was left of the Masters brothers.
Alison had written that life on Erradale never had to end if Samantha didn’t want it to.
Something about this land called to her. The wind sang over the moors, where it howled in the desert. The hills whispered ancient, lyrical words, where the sounds of the American West always seemed to be some sort of warning. The rattle of a copperhead. The screech of a buzzard. The yips of coyotes or the scream of a mountain lion. In Scotland, the sun became a warm, welcome, and occasional visitor, rather than a relentless nemesis. Heather and brine scented air free of dust or industry. And the water ran pure from springs with holy pagan names.
She loved it here. If only she could stay. If only … she knew what to do.
To Samantha, the future had become a nebulous uncertainty, something that barely mattered and might never arrive. She’d become incapable of seeing past tomorrow. For tomorrow, she’d wake, dress, gather cattle, see to the ranch, cook the food Callum or Locryn would bring her … And if her luck held, she’d get to do it again the next day.
But now … the future mattered, didn’t it?
Five weeks.
Five weeks ago, she’d taken a life … on the same day she’d created one.
“Are ye going to finish that biscuit, lass?” Locryn eyed the pastry she clutched in her hand, unable to hide his chagrin at how her worrying fingers had begun to reduce the precious thing to crumbs in her lap.
“What?” She blinked at him, doing her best to rouse herself from her disquieting reverie.
“I mean, we’re willing to look past ye devouring Callum’s portion of the quail, as he no doubt dined at Inverthorne with his father,” the gruff Highlander explained as though he’d reached the limits of his magnanimity. “But that’d be your fourth biscuit, while Cal and I have only had one, and if ye think I’m after splitting the last one down the middle with this idle goat, ye’ve gone daft.”
“Oh, I—” After glancing down to find the offending biscuit in her clutches, she handed it across to Locryn, who snatched it up like a thief might the crown jewels. She tried to remember when she’d picked it up. Had she really devoured three biscuits?
“Are ye mad at us, Sam?” Calybrid asked carefully.
“I’m sorry if I’ve been quiet,” she soothed. “I’m afraid I have a lot to…”
“It’s just that ye used all the butter,” he whined. “And I canna figure why ye’d do that unless ye’re in some sort of wrathful feminine state or another.”
Feminine state … that was one way to put it.
“Aye, even after we brought ye cheese from Rua Reidh,” Locryn agreed with a solemn nod.
“Which ye ate for lunch without sharing,” Calybrid grumbled under his breath.
Locryn’s brow lowered over the one eye that tended to narrow as the other one bulged with observant suspicion. “Yer appetite shames that of the cattle, lass,” he marveled. “Have ye as many stomachs as they? For I doona ken where ye keep all those biscuits.”
Samantha rested her forehead in her hand, wondering if it was truly possible to expire from exhaustion. She’d have to tell them, she supposed. Not everything, of course, as her very existence depended on her deception. At least for the moment.
But she wouldn’t be able to hide her pregnancy for long.
Strange, she thought, that it was better they think her a hussy than a liar.
“I have something of a confession to make…,” she began.
“Then find a vicar,” Calybrid huffed as he hauled himself to his spindly legs and trudged toward the door with the uneven limp of an old man. “Or at least wait until I drain the cod.”
The frigid November chill barged into the great room the moment Calybrid flung open the door.
“It’s going to be the coldest night, yet.” He shuddered. “It’s stopped raining, but the dew on the grass has turned to ice.”
“Do ye smell smoke?” Locryn queried, his bulbous nose twitching like that of a bloodhound testing the air.
“I used more peat in the fire than usual,” she replied. Though it was hard to detect any scent past the pleasant aroma of fresh cedar and clean, loamy forest that seemed to envelop her at the moment.
Just as Thorne had done with his superlative body.
She should return his cloak, she supposed, drowsily. But that meant seeing him again. Besides, it was a great deal warmer and better made than the woolen or the pelisse she’d brought from America. It didn’t carry with it the strength or the weight or the warmth that had beckoned to her when he’d wrapped his arms around her. But it was an admittedly lovely alternative.
An unmistakable crack resonated down to her bones, arousing her every nerve to instant vigilance.
Locryn’s fretful gaze collided with hers.
“Was that…?”
“A rifle shot,” she finished. “And not far off, either.”
“Poachers?” Locryn speculated.
Samantha sprang for the
gun belt hanging from the antlers of a stag head some long-dead Ross had mounted close to the fireplace.
Another shot echoed over the moors, even closer this time, and a heart-rending call of torment instantly followed.
“Calybrid!” Samatha gasped, too frightened and astonished to note that old, top-heavy Locryn beat her in a race to the door, his own rifle in hand.
Shoving bare feet into her discarded boots, Samantha checked her pistol, testing its familiar weight in her hand. She looked up just in time to keep Locryn from charging out of the door like an ill-tempered bull.
The wool of his old sweater abraded her palm, already slick from fear, as she yanked him back behind the door. “We don’t know who’s out there, how many there are, or where the shots came from.”
“I ken Calybrid is out there,” Locryn snarled. “That’s all I need to know.”
“Wait!”
A sound from behind them turned Samantha’s terror to anguish. A distinctive noise, like a gust of wind quickly ushering in a storm.
Writers often described the din of a large fire as a roar, a narrative she’d never before understood until this moment. She turned in time to see flames race along an invisible path toward the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the back pasture as it crawled to the sea.
Fire didn’t move like that. Not without an accelerant of some kind.
Smoke had already begun to cloy against the ceiling, spilling in from down the hallway that led to the manor’s deserted living quarters.
Dropping low, Samantha dragged Locryn down with her, but what she’d seen in the racing line of flames didn’t leave her time to think.
Sparks.
Sparks meant gunpowder. And if her attackers had used that to hasten the fire, then they might have stowed some beneath the window, or even the house.
An explosion meant certain death. She had better chances with a rifleman in the dark.
“Go,” she ordered. Pushing Locryn out into the night, she plunged after him, veering right along the house toward the stables and corrals. As much as she didn’t want to, it would be easier to hide her movement in the herd that stood between her and the small copse of dilapidated cottages on the other side of the square.
Small fires surrounded her home, and seemed to be cropping up everywhere, impeding her ability to see past the smoke and flames.
Samantha bent as low as she could, keeping her head down and her body ensconced in what shadows she could find. Though her night rail was thin and white, Thorne’s dark, heavy cloak aided her escape. Her unlaced boots encumbered her speed, but the grasses crunching beneath her footsteps and the cold seizing in her lungs kept her from abandoning them.
In her haste, she tripped over something warm, something that made a very recognizable, very welcome sound of indignation.
“Calybrid.” She gasped her relief.
“Fucker bit me in the side,” he groaned. “Knocked me down.”
“Can you walk? We have to keep moving.”
Locryn swooped in from behind her, and dove for Calybrid. In one shockingly graceful motion, he plowed his meaty arm beneath the prone body, and scooped the man onto his shoulders without seeming to miss a step.
At Calybrid’s howl of pain, he hissed, “If ye doona stop yer havering, I’ll drop ye in a bog.”
An explosion shattered the unnatural quiet of the darkness, and wood splintered behind Samatha, cutting into her calf.
Locryn kept moving in front of her, Calybrid’s thatch of white hair bouncing along with his unsteady lope. Good. The shooter had missed his mark.
And had given away his position.
The shot had come from behind them, back toward where smoke and flames now ate up half of the manor house.
Samantha dropped down to her belly and aimed, hoping to buy the old men some time to find cover.
There. The shadow of a man rushed toward the house, backlit by one of the fires. Samantha pointed her pistol toward the next fire he’d reach if he maintained his trajectory, and only had to wait the space of a breath before his silhouette flashed in front of it.
She squeezed the trigger. He fell. She shot again at the ground for good measure.
She blinked at the route she’d last seen Locryn and Calybrid going, but was unable to find them. The canny Scots were likely making for the dark ridge of the trees, beyond which they could skirt Loch Gorm on their way to Rua Reidh.
The fires had been lit in the direction of Inverthorne, so to attempt escape that way was nothing but folly as they’d be easy marks for any half-decent rifleman.
Had their attackers come from Inverthorne? Had the earl tired of her insolence and decided to lay claim to Erradale by turning it, and her, to ashes?
Her stomach churned at the thought, reminding her just what was at stake here.
Where were her cattle? They were no longer in the corrals. Also, the fire she’d seen rushing toward her back window had come from the direction of Rua Reidh.
Which meant they were surrounded.
Her best hope was to reach the corner of the manor and sprint along the tall grasses to the caved-in outbuilding built into a small knoll. There would be a good place to make a stand.
Surging to her feet, Samantha took off at a sprint.
And crumpled back to the freezing earth. Her calf. The moment she put weight on it, fire had skewered clean through it.
She wanted to scream, but knew it would bring whoever else lurked in the darkness.
A small pop permeated her shock at the pain, and she looked up to see flames licking at the roof. So, they’d not laid enough oil and gunpowder to make an explosion, but enough to devour the entire dwelling in a matter of minutes.
She had to get up. She had … to … keep … moving.
Gritting her teeth and pressing her tongue to the roof of her mouth to keep from making a noise, Samantha willed herself to stand. Dragging her lame leg behind her, she used the side of the house to support her weight as she made terrifyingly slow progress. How was it possible some shards of wood splinters from her house skewered through Thorne’s thick cloak?
A shadow stepped from around the corner. A man. Tall, wide, and only as far from her as the barrel of his shotgun would allow.
“Hands up, or I’ll—”
Samantha slapped the barrel away in time for the blast to deafen her, and shot him at such close range, his cowboy hat flew off his head, catching in the wind created by the gathering inferno that was her home.
Another fire crawled up the only building tall enough to rival that of the modest Erradale Manor.
The stables.
Smoke hung thick enough in the cold air that she had to squint against the burn in her eyes as she hobbled toward the burning structure.
The stable doors flew open, and Locryn emerged with their three horses and the gelding Callum stabled there against the cold.
Samantha tried to call out to him, but smoke invaded her throat, closing it with spasming coughs. Finding a wellspring of will she hadn’t known she possessed, she reached Locryn right as he managed to help a sagging Calybrid onto the dappled pony’s bare back.
Two of the horses broke away, racing for the Gresham Peak, their panicked equine screams an eerie cry against the night.
Callum’s mount danced beside that of Locryn’s in obvious eagerness to put as much distance between it and the flames as possible, but it stayed, as though obeying the Mac Tíre even in his absence.
“Can ye ride, lass?”
Samantha nodded. Though the Erradale horses remained bridled, Callum wasn’t in the habit of bridling or saddling his steed, so Samantha had to use the gelding’s mane to haul herself onto his back.
The last of her reserves depleted, she leaned low and held on for dear life, unable to use her leg to maintain a stable mount.
Locryn swung up behind Calybrid, and spurred his horse up Gresham Peak toward Inverthorne.
Samantha allowed her mount to follow, knowing for sure now that Lord Thorn
e, scheming as he was, could have had nothing to do with the devastation she left behind.
She knew this, because Highlanders didn’t wear cowboy hats.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I see who you are. Alison Ross’s words echoed at Gavin with all the weight irony could wield.
Was that not his line? Was he not the cunning huntsman with the capricious veneer that no one had yet to permeate?
No one but a lass who’d spent less time in his company than almost anyone else, and somehow coaxed him to reveal more about himself than he’d ever intended.
The four stone walls of his chamber at Inverthorne had become a cage and he the lion pacing within. The tapestries padded his beloved prison and his bed was a snarled, empty study in discouraged restlessness.
Alison had gone to Ravencroft, to Liam, and made a case to his bleeding-heart marchioness, Mena. God love the dear woman, but she had a weakness for lost causes.
Look who she’d married.
And his love-addled brother followed the buxom British wench about like a daft spaniel. Yes, Mena, mine. I like to kiss yer lips the most when they’re smiling.
It was enough to induce vomiting.
If Mena and Liam were in accord, then Lady Ravencroft would certainly contact her friend, coconspirator, and sister-in-law Farah Blackwell. Farah would ensure that Dorian Blackwell, Gavin’s bastard half brother and the Blackheart of Ben More, would align with them.
Thus gathering the Magistrate’s Bench against him. The bully who would steal Alison Ross’s land from beneath her wee, stubborn arse.
Would they take into account that he offered her twice what it was worth? Nay. Because the truth was, if he pushed the document in his possession through to the Magistrate’s Bench and Erradale did, indeed, revert to Liam, then the fucking Laird would probably just give it back to her by way of reparation for the hell their father had visited upon her family.
Fine time for the Demon Highlander to go all penitent and altruistic. Just in time to fuck Gavin up the arse with repentance.
To take away the one thing that could make him happy. The one thing he wanted.
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