by Paula Quinn
Her wide, beautiful eyes glittered like the snow dusting the braes. He wanted to lose himself there in the expectant hope that lit her gaze.
“You’re doing just fine,” she assured him softly. “Continue, please.”
He shoved aside everything on his mind but her. What was left scared the hell out him. “I canna—”
She waited in silence while he fought his demon for her. Her hope began to fade to disappointment.
It made him smile to think her hope was to be with him and she was waiting to hear him tell her.
“I canna take my gaze from ye, lass. No matter what I’m doin’, m’ eyes find their way back to yer rich dark hair fallin’ over yer flawless jaw, the relaxed curl of your bottom lip that tempts my legs to bring me to wherever ye are. I lay awake at night imaginin’ yer soft inhalations of breath. They fill my heart with something other than mortar and fury. I want to bring ye to me but I’m unworthy of yer dreams. Still, I want to be in them, as ye are in mine.”
“You see?” she said breathlessly. “Just fine.” She closed her eyes and parted her lips when he dipped his head to hers.
He moved his mouth over hers, basking in the intimacy of kissing her, capturing her short, eager breaths. His senses came alive and he used each one of them to fill himself with her. She tasted like passion and innocence. When he slipped his tongue over hers, she opened her arms and coiled them around his neck, covering them both in his plaid. He listened to her heart beating like ancient drums. Or was it his own heart he was hearing? He withdrew a hairbreadth so he could look at her again. The sight of her dreamy-eyed and wanting more nearly drove him mad. He brushed his nose across her temple to her hair, drinking in the scent of her, like the familiar fragrance of peat and pine. “Ye’re bringin’ me back to life, lass.”
He kissed her again, barely holding back the passion raging inside him to be released.
They went back to the house when it began to snow. They were almost too cold to walk, so they ran, laughing and almost tumbling in the snow twice.
Only half the guests remained, and most of them found too much interest in their cups and in their singing to take notice of the happy pair entering the dining hall.
Gram noticed them, though, and pulled Temperance to the side. “Where have ye been, gel?”
Temperance wouldn’t lie to her. Not about this. Not about her heart. “I was in the fields with Cailean, Gram.”
Gram’s eye narrowed on her. Temperance stood her ground but prayed that Gram would understand.
“Did he kiss ye?”
“Aye, Gram.” Temperance smiled and nodded. “He did.”
“Ye look happy about it.” Her grandmother didn’t look happy—or surprised. Temperance’s heart sank, but she wouldn’t be deterred. Just like her father when he’d fought for his Sarah.
“I am happy,” she said, her smile unrepentant. “He makes me happy. Och, Gram.” She let her defenses fall with a breathless sigh. “You should have heard the things he said to me. He told me I was his candle in the dark. He said he wants to be in my dreams as I am in his.”
Gram blinked and turned to have another look at Cailean across the hall with Patrick. “And William?”
Och, for Heaven’s sake, she was tired of having this conversation! “I am not in love with William!” She realized she’d shouted when every eye in the hall turned to her, including William’s.
Instantly she felt terrible. The last thing she wanted to do was mortify her friend. “And he doesn’t love me,” she said, more quietly, but loud enough to save him the embarrassment of appearing rejected.
Gram waited for William to speak up, perhaps to deny Temperance’s charge, but he didn’t. In fact, he looked quite drunk. Poor man. No doubt he was worried for Marion. Temperance would ask Cailean later to make haste and find her.
“Yer betrothal to William is over,” Gram told her, turning away from the guests. “I’ll not have ye marry a man who’s too deep into his cups to fight fer ye. But we’ll discuss Cailean Grant later.”
Temperance did her best not to smile, but she was overflowing with joy. Her betrothal was truly dissolved! Without their leader, and since William was doing little to step up to the position, Gram’s word was as powerful as Seth’s had been.
She wasted no time in returning to Cailean’s side. When she arrived there, he moved a step closer until her shoulder rested beneath his. They laughed with Patrick and wanted to cover their ears when he took up singing a Christmas ditty.
Temperance wasn’t sure how she managed to keep her eyes off Cailean when some of the villagers sought his attention. She wanted him to kiss her again, move his hands over her again, as he’d done in the fields, as if knowing all her slopes and hills was vital to his existence.
She didn’t want the night to end, but soon only a handful of villagers remained. Anne Gilbert and William were among them.
The first fell into a fit of crying soon after midnight. Poor Anne missed her love, the man who’d asked for her hand just hours before he was taken from her. Nothing could comfort her save Gram’s gentle touch and promise to see her home.
Cailean offered to walk them to Anne’s house and escort Gram back. Patrick pulled William to his feet and promised to get him home without their falling into a hole and freezing to death.
They left Temperance alone, and while she cleared up the tables, she spoke to her father. “You would like him, Papa. He can pick heather without ruining it. I think ’tis him I wish to marry. I think ’tis him who I love.”
Chapter Eighteen
Where’s Gram?” Temperance asked when Cailean returned with Patrick a short while later.
“Miss Gilbert wanted her to stay the night.”
“And Gram agreed to leave me here alone with you?”
“Nae,” he told her, removing his plaid and tossing it to a chair. “She agreed after Patrick vowed to keep me away from ye.”
Patrick aimed a cheerful grin at her and snatched a tankard of whisky from the table. “Night then,” he bid them. “I’ll likely see ye sometime after noon tomorrow. I’m off to meet Maryanne Menzie.”
“But you gave your word to Gram,” Temperance called out as he opened the door. Not that she wanted him to stay.
“I willna tell her if ye dinna,” Patrick called back, and left.
“He’s a heedless rogue,” Cailean said, coming to her side.
“’Tis Christmas,” Temperance reminded him when they were alone.
“So ’tis.” He smiled at her, turning her insides to liquid. “D’ye want to celebrate it with me, lass?”
“I shouldn’t,” she whispered honestly. But oh, how she wanted to.
“Nor should I.”
They laughed together before he took her hand and pulled her closer.
She looked up at him, wanting to spread her fingers over his bristly jaw and plump, pouty lips. “Thank you for a wonderful night. I shall never forget it.” Her voice went low, honest, and grateful. She smoothed her thumb over his fingers. “I… I don’t want you to leave, Cailean.”
He stared into her eyes, making her doubt the good of her senses, her logic. He had a home to go to, and he’d be going after Hogmanay. She was a fool to lose her heart to him, but it was already too late.
Bending to her, he kissed her remaining thoughts from her head. His lips were soft, tempered with something he leashed… something she wanted to set free.
This had to be what her father had meant about love. It hit her like lightning, buckled her knees, set her heart racing at the very thought of him. She could love Cailean Grant.
“Cailean,” she whispered as he withdrew, bent to sweep her up in his arms, and carried her to her room.
Temperance should have stopped him. But she had no intention of doing any such thing. Tonight she’d realized that she was falling in love with him. She wanted to tell him, the way her mother had told her father on Christmas Eve. She remembered the way he’d kissed her while the wind howled around them. Her b
lood still sizzled in her veins. That had to be why she cupped Cailean’s face in her hands while he carried her and drew his mouth to hers again and again.
When they reached her room, he kicked the door shut and brought home the bolt with one hand. He used the other to keep her drawn against him.
“Gram,” she worried.
“She willna return alone in the dark,” he assured her.
“Then”—she pulled him to her and kissed him again—“we have all night.”
She hurried him to the bed and sat him down. “Wait here.” She left his side and went to her chest of drawers. “I have something for you.”
He waited, smiling and shaking her world at its core. “’Twas my father’s,” she told him, bringing a box to where he sat.
He looked down at her offering and then accepted it from her. The sight of his long fingers undraping the silk around the box scalded her blood.
“I know how you like to use the quill and ink.” She waited while he opened the box to reveal a beautiful quill and a small bottle of black ink. “My father tried to learn the art of writing but never got around to it. He would have wanted you to have it.”
His fingers were broad and elegant, holding the quill perfectly. His eyes moved over the sleek feather slowly, taking in the shape, the color, and the weight. His eyes flicked to hers when she began speaking again.
“Tis the first flight feather of a greylag goose. ’Twill retain its shape and requires infrequent—”
“Sharpening,” he finished, proving that he was familiar with the quill’s superior quality. “Temperance.”
He spoke her name and her blood scalded her veins. Her mouth went utterly dry. How in blazes did her name on his lips make her feel so warm and wanton?
“Thank ye. The set is fine indeed, but…” He dipped his eyes, shielding them behind his long, sooty lashes, and clenched his jaw.
Och, why had she stopped kissing him? She wanted to leap into his lap and kiss him senseless.
“I canna accept it,” he said quietly.
“Of course you can,” she corrected, sitting next to him on the bed. “’Tis a gift.”
“Nae.” He handed it back to her. “’Tis too fine.”
He had to accept it. She’d been so anxious to give it to him. Her eyes widened and she lowered them to conceal her disappointment. “You don’t like it.”
He reached his fingers under her chin and smiled when she met his gaze, exposing his slightly crooked front tooth. “If ’tweren’t fer ye, ’twould be the most breathtakin’ thing m’ eyes have seen in a long time.”
Her heart flipped, making her cough and then sigh. “Then please.” She pushed the box back into his hands. “Take it and write something for me.”
Goodness, she couldn’t believe she was so bold! What had come over her? Write something for her? But wasn’t that what she’d been thinking about since Patrick had told her Cailean wrote?
“Did you write poems or songs about Alison?”
He shook his head. “Nae.”
“Am I too bold in asking you to pen something for me?”
He stared into her eyes and shook his head again. “Nae, lass. But ’twas yer faither’s,” he continued. “I canna accept it. I shall find another way to write aboot ye, Temperance.”
He stood up and moved toward the door. He always tried to leave whenever they spoke about her father. This time she wouldn’t let him go.
She rose to her feet and called out to him. “Please, Cailean. Don’t go.”
She watched his shoulders tighten as if the weight of something tremendous were settling on them, and then straighten again as if he were resigned to bearing it.
He turned to look at her from the door. His tortured eyes called to her and she took a step nearer. “’Tis best that I do, lass.”
Best to run away from her? Why? What was so terrible about her?
No! He was afraid. Afraid of caring for her. But she couldn’t let him go, for she cared for him already.
“You set my blood racing in my veins, Cailean,” she confessed on short, shallow breaths. “Please, don’t shut me out. I understand the fear of losing someone you love, but I…” Her voice faded as he came to her as if drawn by something stronger than chain.
He took her in his arms in a rush of breath and surrender. Arched over the crook of his arm, she gazed at him with restless anticipation as he smoothed her brow and bent his mouth to hers.
“Ye are braw, Temperance. Ye call to me and I can do nothin’ but follow ye.”
He quirked his mouth into a smile just before he kissed her, making her wonder if he would truly follow her to the edge.
Clutching his sinuous shoulder in the fingers of one hand and tunneling the fingers of the other in his hair, she pulled him even closer, until she almost couldn’t breathe from his weight over her.
His lips did not deceive. They settled across hers, tenderly consuming her in flames that scorched below her navel. He dipped his tongue into her mouth, cautiously at first, exploring her deepest shadows.
She groaned and tried to calm her nerves. They were alone in her room behind a locked door. Her heart leaped and pounded. Was she ready to take this path with him? She had denied her best friend in search of love, the kind of love her father had told her to seek. Now, free of her betrothal, she could shape her own future. Her father would have understood, for he’d known the desires of her heart better than anyone else.
She trembled in Cailean’s embrace when he laid her down on the bed. She should say something. Tell him she’d never taken a man to her bed before. But then he kissed her again and all thoughts of speaking vanished.
He felt so big poised over her, so powerful when he slipped one arm beneath her and drew her up. She held on when he dipped his mouth and raked his teeth down the column of her throat.
She liked his strength and dominance. The night she’d helplessly stood by while her father fell at her feet had stripped her of her power.
She wanted it back.
Breaking their kiss, she smiled up at him and spoke quickly, before she lost her nerve. “Come here.”
She pushed him down and slipped over him. With his back pressed to the mattress and all the muscles in his hard front pressed against her, he thrilled the breath right out of her.
Emboldened when he didn’t protest, she took both of his wrists and spread them over his head, loving the control he allowed her to wield over him. He was hard as a damn mountain beneath her and she wedged her hips against him a bit deeper.
He closed his eyes and tossed back his head to groan, exposing the tense muscles in his neck. Someplace between her thighs ached and made her want to bite him.
Acting purely from instinct and deep desire for him, she spread her tongue over the thick column of his throat and felt him go hard between her legs. Her own crux swelled and throbbed. When he lowered his head, she kissed his dimpled chin, and then his hungry mouth.
She let go of his wrists and he reached for her face and then cupped it in his hands. He held her away for a moment, his smile fading, the fire in his eyes growing dim.
“What?” She lifted her fingers to his mouth and traced his lips. “What is it, Cailean? Tell me.”
What if he told her he had no fondness for her? She lifted herself off him when he didn’t answer her. But he pulled her close again, back against him, so they lay side by side in the soft rose-gold glow of the firelight.
“I…,” he began, and then paused again, his eyes staring into hers. “Temperance, I… Och, hell.” He closed his eyes and looked a little pale.
She didn’t want him to leave, so she didn’t push him. Instead she smiled and rubbed her thumb over his dimpled chin.
“I like your face.”
It worked. His smile returned. He covered her hand with his and kissed each of her fingers.
“I like yers too.”
She smiled, trying very hard not to shout in victory because he did indeed like something about her. “Would y
ou let me cut off your whiskers tomorrow?”
“I would let ye do whatever ye wanted to me,” he whispered in a rough voice. “Save if it could harm ye.”
So he believed that going further with her in bed could harm her. He was correct. It could. It was honorable of him and she knew then that a part of her loved him because of it. But the other part desired him, ached for him, more and more of him.
“Tidying you up won’t hurt me.”
He nodded, his gaze the color of storm clouds. “Temperance?”
She blinked. “Aye?”
“I’m no’ certain m’ heart is open to love again.”
“Is it terrible, then,” she whispered, their gazes locked on each other, “that I am jealous of Alison?”
“Nae.” He shook his head and then laughed a little. “Nothin’ aboot ye is terrible.” He leaned forward and kissed her, making her lips tingle when he withdrew.
“You can pen that to me with my gift to you.”
He grinned at her and rolled his eyes heavenward. “Och, but ye’re stubborn.”
“Will tells me that all the time.”
He leaned up on his elbow and rested his head in his hand. “Tell me who ye are, Temperance Menzie. Tell me things only Will knows. I would know them too.”
She told him between kisses and amid laughter and intimate smiles. “I’m a farmer, and the daughter and granddaughter of farmers. I love the spring and dirtying my hands and growing the food that sustains us. I love the harvest in autumn and the lush carpet of flora in summer. Up until now winter was my least favorite season.”
“What has changed aboot winter?” he queried, knowing full well, as his intimate kiss revealed.
“You have changed it,” she told him, looking deep into his cool gaze when he withdrew. “’Tis less gloomy, less frozen and hopeless. You brought life back.”
“Nae, lass,” he told her quietly, meaningfully. “Ye did that.”
Dear God, she wanted a life with him. She wanted to roil in his arms, stir up a storm she believed more every day was coming. She missed her father. She was angry at those responsible for his death. Her determination to kill Duncan and those responsible for killing her father hadn’t changed, but Cailean made her forget. He gave her peace in a violent world. His arms were safe and she didn’t want to leave them.