A Rogue's Heart

by Debra Browning

  Jupiter nudged closer as Mairi maneuvered herself into a comfortable position overlooking the cove. She smiled. Kip was demonstrating how to make a modest swimming costume of his shirt.

  “Ye tie it this way,” he said, and grabbed the long tails of his shirt and tied them in a knot between spindly legs.

  Conall laughed. “I’ll not look like some swaddled bairn, thank you. I prefer to swim in the raw.”

  “Och, ’tis fine here,” Kip said, “but at the village ye might wish to wear it, to spare the ladies the sight.”

  “Ah, but methinks some of them dinna wish to be spared.”

  “Rogue,” Mairi muttered. She turned to Jupiter. “Is he always so base?” The dog cocked his head.

  Her eyes widened as Conall turned slowly on the rock, affording her an excellent view of those attributes Kip thought she ought to be spared.

  Mairi sucked in a breath. She’d seen men unclothed before—lots of them—but mostly elders and youths. Never had she seen a man quite like Conall Mackintosh.

  She wet her lips unconsciously.

  His hair was loose and rested about his shoulders like a lion’s mane, red-gold, like hers, in the morning light. Her gaze was drawn to his chest—’twas lightly furred—then lower.

  “Jesu,” she breathed.

  “Come on,” Kip shouted and splashed into the shallows.

  She watched as Conall followed him, caution in every step. He inched into the loch waist deep, then stopped.

  “All right,” Kip called. “’Tis far enough.” He dove under the water and came up with a larch wood branch in hand. “Here, grab on to this and I’ll tow ye around the shallows.”

  “Are you sure about this?” Conall asked.

  “Oh, aye. I’ve taught dozens o’ bairns to swim.”

  “Aye, well, I’m no bairn.” He grabbed the end of the branch and allowed Kip to lead him deeper into the loch.

  When Conall was chest deep, Kip said, “Now let your legs drift off the bottom, and just…well, float.”

  “Float,” Conall repeated.

  “Aye, float.”

  Mairi debated about whether or not to move closer. Should Conall go under, she doubted Kip had the strength to pull him to the surface.

  “Bluidy nuisance,” she whispered to Jupiter. “I should have let him drown the first time.” The dog remained silent, his gaze riveted to his master.

  In one fluid motion Conall pushed off the bottom and propelled himself into deeper water. He sank like a rock, a thrashing dervish of arms and legs.

  “Damn the idiot!” Mairi sprinted from her hiding place, then stopped short at the edge of the wood, surprised by Kip’s swift and capable rescue.

  The boy was smart. Pride surged within her. Instead of grabbing Conall and risking a dunking, Kip pushed him with the branch toward shallower water. In less than a minute Conall was sputtering and coughing on the beach.

  Kip slapped him on the back to aid his recovery. “Dinna fash,” he said. “We’ll try again as soon as ye’re ready.”

  Conall nodded at him between huge gulps of air.

  Mairi hid herself in a thicket and marveled at the strange kinship sprouting between the warrior and the fatherless lad. Conall treated Kip as if he were a man, an equal, and with something she’d experienced damn little of from her father or from Geoffrey—respect.

  Last night she’d barely slept, worrying she’d been wrong to dismiss Geoffrey’s proposal, that she’d done her clan a great disservice merely to protect her own independence.

  Now, watching Conall and Kip together, she felt more confident in her decision. The docks would be built, the trade boats would come, she would pay the debt and be free of any man’s dominion.

  She watched as Conall sprang to his feet, water sluicing off his muscled back.

  Or would she?

  The woman clearly needed his help.

  Conall shook his head as Mairi surfaced for the third time, the heavy piling chain still in her hand. “She’ll ne’er anchor it alone.”

  “Perhaps not,” Rob said. “But she’s no’ givin’ up, that’s for certain.”

  Mairi took a deep breath and dove again. This time Kip followed her under. Harry and Dougal continued to tread water beside the construction raft. The scouts could swim well enough, but neither proved able to hold his breath for the time required to secure the piling chain to the bottom.

  “She’s doing it all wrong to begin with,” Conall said, and started toward the water.

  “Ye mean she’s doin’ it her way, and no’ yours.”

  He ignored Rob’s comment and marched out onto the rocky beach. “Harry, Dougal,” he called, “what the devil is she doing down there?”

  Harry drew a breath and somersaulted under the water. Conall waited. And waited. And—

  Harry shot from the water, sputtering. Dougal grabbed his arm and guided him to the raft.

  “Well?” Conall said, his patience at an end. “What’s happening?”

  “She’s…she’s still down there,” Harry gasped.

  “I can see that, you fool.” He pushed the small, beached rowboat into the water and shoved off before Rob could jump in beside him.

  Kip surfaced as Conall pulled up alongside the construction raft. “She’s nearly got it,” Kip said. “I’m to fetch a length of rope.”

  “Up at the house,” Harry said. “The women are working it up now. Come on, I’ll go wi’ ye.” The two of them swam for shore.

  “I’ll go as well,” Dougal said.

  Conall grabbed the back of the scout’s soaking shirt before he could get a stroke off. “You’ll stay here with me, Dougal.”

  “But—”

  “I know well enough why you want to go.” He bid Dougal steady the raft as he climbed awkwardly out of the boat. “’Tis the women, one in particular, me-thinks.” He eyed Dougal and recalled the young lass he’d seen him mooning over at supper three nights running. She was a wisp of a thing with pale, fragile looks.

  Dougal shrugged and grinned.

  “Stay away from her, lad. We’ve a job to do here, and then we’re off.”

  Dougal nodded toward the water. “Ye’d leave her, then?”

  “Who?”

  “Mairi. I thought ye fancied her.”

  “You’re daft, lad. I have no such—” His heart stalled. He scanned the surface of the water for bubbles. “Where in God’s name is she?” He thumped Dougal on the head. “Go after her!”

  Dougal arched a dripping brow. “Ye do fancy her.”

  “I don’t, I just—” He stood at the edge of the raft, gripped by an absurd sense of panic. “Damn the minx!”

  Mairi broke the surface, causing barely a ripple.

  “Thank Christ,” he breathed.

  She swam toward him. “Dinna stand there like a fool! Take this.” She was hauling something heavy, and he knelt to grab it.

  ’Twas the ham.

  Conall smiled, recalling their kiss, as he hefted the waterlogged loin onto the raft.

  “What are ye grinnin’ at?” she snapped.

  Dougal guided her to a handhold on the raft. “He was worried ye was drowned,” he said.

  She flashed both of them an incredulous look. “When hell freezes. Where’s Kip with that rope?”

  Dougal answered that and a dozen other questions she had concerning the men’s progress cutting timber in the wood.

  Conall studied her as water dripped from her hair and ran in tiny rivulets down her face and throat. Sunlight shimmered from the wet tendrils framing her face.

  “Did ye no’ hear me?” she said to him.

  “What?” He snapped to attention.

  “Give me a hand up.” She reached for him, and he grasped her hand, pulling her onto the raft. “The chain’s anchored and will hold the pier in place once the floating timbers are set.” Mairi pointed to a spot halfway back to shore. “We’ll set another one just there.”

  “Nay, ’tis not necessary,” he said. “Besides, we’re run
ning behind schedule. I think we should—”

  “’Tis necessary. Dougal, have Dora show ye the shed where the rest of the chain is stored. We’ll need three yard at the least.”

  “Nay,” Conall insisted. “Dougal, have the men assemble the timbers on the beach. We’ll start setting them today.”

  Mairi shot to her feet and glared at him. “The chain, Dougal.”

  “Nay, the timbers.” Conall glared back.

  “’Tis my land and my docks, and I’ll direct the work. Ye agreed, or did ye forget?”

  An overwhelming urge to kiss her possessed him. At the least ’twould shut her up. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the ham, lying well within her reach, and thought better of it.

  “Perhaps we might do both,” Dougal said. They’d forgotten him, floating there in the water next to the raft.

  “Both?” she said.

  “Aye.” Dougal nodded toward shore. “Nearly half the timbers are cut. Surely ’twould no’ hurt to begin to join them on the beach.”

  Conall nodded, pleased Dougal saw things his way.

  “But Mairi’s right,” Dougal added. “We’ll need another anchor point. Just there—” he pointed “—like she said.”

  Mairi crossed her arms over her chest and arched a brow at him.

  Conall scowled. “All right, then. At the least we’ll lose no more time.”

  “Fine. Dougal shall help me with the chain.”

  The hell he would. “Nay,” he said. “Dougal shall oversee the timber work, along with Harry. I shall help you with the chain.”

  “You?” She smirked at him. “Ye canna swim a stroke.”

  “I can. I’ve been practicing.”

  “Oh, aye, ye call that swimmin’? Why if Kip hadna been there, ye’d have sunk like—” Her mouth snapped shut.

  He knew it!

  She’d been there, at the cove! He’d felt someone watching him, and when Jupiter had disappeared, he’d known. Had it been anyone but her, the mastiff would have alerted him. For some unfathomable reason the dog liked her.

  He was beginning to like her, himself.

  He smiled, and a flash of color bloomed on her cheeks. She quickly looked away.

  “I wasna worried,” he said to her. “You would have saved me, had I been in any real trouble.”

  “Dinna be so sure of it.” She brushed past him and fiddled with the raft’s anchor line.

  “Here, let me.” One sharp tug, and the rope was freed.

  She eyed him with suspicion.

  “I’m good at knots,” he said.

  “Aye, well we’ll see what kind of a knot ye can make with that.” She pointed toward the shore, where Rob and Dora were busy stretching out a long length of anchor chain.

  Dora’s children, all six of them, buzzed around Rob like bees to the honey. To Conall’s surprise, Rob stopped what he was doing and chased them along the beach. Even at this distance, he read the unmistakable joy in Dora’s expression.

  “Now there’s a pair,” Dougal said, as he pulled himself onto the raft.

  Conall snorted. He’d never seen Rob behave so. The two of them had wenched together for years, across the whole of Scotland and abroad. Rob’s interest in a woman rarely lasted much beyond one night. If he couldn’t bed her after a single evening of wooing, he’d move on to the next willing lass.

  And now, his friend was rolling in the sand with a half-dozen squealing bairns as their mother looked on in delight.

  “Hmph.” Mairi grabbed a long pole and shoved it into the water. “I’ll be speaking with her this evening.”

  “And I with him,” Conall said.

  She grunted as she poled the raft toward shore and the second anchor point. Conall now wished he’d not volunteered to help her set the chain.

  “Aye,” Dougal said, eyeing them both. “A pair.”

  Mairi spent the better part of the next day with the rest of her kinswomen in the wood above the village, braiding lengths of boiled wool into rope. Dora did not let up the entire time.

  “Dinna even think it,” Mairi said, and shot her friend a hard look.

  “I was only sayin’ how much better your father’s house looks since the Chattan have come to stay.”

  Mairi snorted.

  “Aye, and the village,” Judith said. The girl’s gaze was fixed on a small group of men repairing one of the cottages.

  Mairi recognized Dougal’s tall, lean figure among them. “I’ve told ye both, they’re no’ stayin’.”

  “But Dougal said—”

  Mairi arched a brow, and Judith clamped her mouth shut.

  “When the docks are finished, they’ll return home.”

  “No’ all of them, surely,” Dora said, and reached for another pile of wool. “Some will have to stay—permanent, I mean.”

  “Permanent? What for?”

  “To manage the trade,” Judith said.

  Mairi noticed the girl’s cheeks had taken on an uncharacteristic bloom. She seemed livelier of late. Prettier, if that were possible. She watched as Judith fashioned the rope, her eyes glued to Dougal’s every move in the village below them. The two had been meeting in secret, Mairi was sure of it.

  “We can manage the trade ourselves,” she said. “We’ve no need of the Chattan. They can come for their goods once a month.”

  Dora snorted. “Oh, aye. As if any man in his right mind would agree to that.”

  “What’s wrong with it? ’Tis a fine plan. I’ll propose it to Conall on the morrow.”

  “I’ll tell ye what’s wrong with it, ye ninny.” Dora dropped her work in her lap. “We are what? Thirty at most, and nearly all of us women and children.”

  “There’s Walter,” Mairi said.

  “Aye, and he can barely lift a bucket o’ pig slop these days, what with his bones ailing him. Mairi—” Dora reached for her hand, and Mairi let her take it. “Whether ye want to admit it or no’, ye need him.”

  “Who?”

  “Ye know verra well who.” Mairi tried to pull her hand away, but Dora held it fast. “And make no mistake, lass. Geoffrey will come for what’s owed him.”

  “Aye, but no’ until the new year.” Mairi looked away. She and Dora both knew Geoffrey would be back long before then.

  “He’ll come soon, and for more than the debt. He’ll come for you.”

  She yanked her hand from Dora’s grasp. “Aye, let him try.”

  “Just what d’ye think ye’d do? And all of us alone.”

  “Conall’s men would stay and protect us,” Judith said. “I’ve heard them talking, and—”

  “Who was talking?” Mairi demanded. “When?”

  “Why…nay, I…”

  “Spit it out, girl!”

  “’Tis just that…well—” Judith wrung her thin hands “—Dougal said that—”

  “Dougal again,” Mairi snapped.

  “And Rob as well.” Dora pursed her lips. “They’d all stay if we’d but ask them.”

  Mairi threw down a half-braided length of rope. “They’ll none stay, if I have anything to say about it.”

  “Ye need him, Mairi,” Dora said.

  “I need no one. Least of all that…that…” The image of Conall’s muscled body, wet and naked, leapt unbidden to her mind.

  “A woman needs a man,” Judith said, “to protect her.”

  Mairi beat the image away and replaced it with one more familiar, one easy to despise. “Oh, like my father protected my mother, ye mean.”

  “Sorry,” Judith breathed.

  “’Twas no’ his fault, Mairi,” Dora said. “Will ye ne’er stop blaming him?”

  “Never.” Mairi slowly shook her head. “Alwin Sedgewick Dunbar, may ye burn in hell for your sins.”

  Judith gasped.

  “Stop it, now,” Dora said.

  Mairi ground her teeth and fisted handfuls of her gown in her lap.

  Dora’s hand lit on her shoulder. “I know, lass,” she whispered, “I know.”

  Mairi drew a co
ntrolled breath of autumn air and buried her pain deep where no one could touch it, where she couldn’t feel it. She shrugged Dora’s hand away. “I need no man, and neither do you. Just look at ye—six bairns and all of them fine and strong.”

  “Aye, and I’m half-dead from the work of it.”

  “Ye’ve managed fine on your own, and so shall I.”

  A quaking boom shook the ground. Judith yelped. Mairi shot to her feet as a thousand spent leaves rained down on them from the trees above. “What was that?”

  “Some o’ your fine management, methinks.”

  She followed the line of Dora’s pointed finger, down through the woods and onto the beach. “Oh no.”

  “Is that no’ the huge pine ye ordered felled?” Dora asked.

  Her stomach tightened as she watched a dozen men struggle to move the downed tree. “Aye, ’tis.”

  “The very tree Conall Mackintosh told ye no’ to touch?”

  “Why, it smashed all the new piers the men fashioned on the beach,” Judith said.

  Mairi’s face burned.

  “’Twill put us behind a week,” Dora said.

  “Look!” Judith cried.

  Mairi sucked in a breath as Conall and Rob rode into the camp at a near gallop. She hadn’t even known they’d been gone. She watched as Conall dismounted and marched onto the beach. Even at this distance, she could hear him swearing.

  “He’s wicked angry,” Judith said.

  “Aye, as he should be.” Dora arched a brow at her, but Mairi ignored it.

  Conall spun on his heel and shaded his eyes with a hand.

  “He’s looking this way!” Judith cried.

  Mairi ducked behind a fat larch.

  “Ye should have listened to him from the start,” Dora said.

  Conall started up the hill, heading directly for them. Fine. Let him come. Mairi stepped out into the open and prepared herself to face him.

  “Ye’d best do as he says from now on,” Dora said, “if ye want to finish the docks on time.”

  Mairi balled her hands tightly on her hips. “I’ll be hanged if I’m going to let him, or any man, tell me what to do and how to do it.” She dug her heels into the soft earth, fixed her gaze on his and waited.

  Chapter Five