by Paula Quinn
“Stay here, lass,” Patrick told her while he helped Beth dismount. “Gunns and I will fetch him.”
“What a thoughtful man.” Beth swooned over him. “He doesn’t want Marion to walk alone in the dark.”
Patrick smiled, then winked at Cailean, who knew better. His cousin had promised Deware that they would discuss the shooting. Cailean hoped William arrived with all his teeth.
“And bring my cat, please!” Temperance called out to Patrick, then smiled at Cailean as he helped her out of the saddle. “She’ll want to see you and never want to let you out of her sight again.”
When her feet touched the ground, he pulled her into his arms. “And what of her mistress?”
She laughed softly against his ear and pulled a slight groan from the back of his throat.
“I will see that her wish is granted.”
He bent his lips to hers, hungry for her, eager to begin sharing his life—his bed—with her.
“Gels!” Gram called from inside. “Come inside before ye all catch yer death.”
Cailean sank his forehead to Temperance’s as Marion, Beth, and Esmé hurried inside. “’Tis goin’ to be difficult to keep m’ hands off ye until tomorrow.”
“What’s tomorrow?” she teased, wiggling out of his embrace.
“When we find the priest.”
“Are you that anxious for me?”
He hauled her back and pressed her against him, letting her feel the evidence of his desire. “Aye, lass, I am. But I shall be patient fer one more day.”
She ran the back of her hand across his jaw, tempting him beyond reason to kiss her. But she stepped away from him before he did. “’Twill be more days than that,” she said over her shoulder. “Gram is planning for a spring wedding.”
“Spring?” he nearly choked out. Och, hell, there was no way he was going to wait until spring! He’d think of something. He had to or he’d go mad.
He followed her into the house, enjoying the view before him.
He stepped inside still reeling at the thought of months before he could take Temperance as his own. He breathed in the sweet, familiar scents of Christmas evergreen and laurel and let them soothe him. He liked this house. He had from the moment he’d stepped out of Temperance’s brightly lit room and into its warm halls.
He made his way to the dining hall now and lit the hearth fire. He lit more candles and turned to look around the spacious hall. Warmth filled every hollow, seeping from dark-red wood, a child’s paintings hung on the walls, and cheerful boughs of pine and holly throughout.
The home built by Seth Menzie was intimate and inviting, designed by a leader who loved the people he led.
Cailean wished he could have met him.
He would have thanked him for raising a daughter like Temperance—a name, Cailean decided, that fit her perfectly. Cailean would tell him he was sorry his freedom had cost Seth his life.
But now he had a future to see to. He realized the villagers hadn’t had their Christmas Day feast.
He smiled as a new plan hatched in his mind.
The sound of Temperance’s laughter interrupted his thoughts. He would endeavor to do whatever he could to make her happy every day. He followed the joyous sound to the kitchen and came up behind her, wrapping one arm around her waist.
“How is it possible,” he lifted his face from Temperance’s hair and asked her and Gram, “that ye’ve only been in here fer a few moments and it already smells so good?”
Gram smiled, standing at the oven, and stirred whatever she was brewing so late at night. “A cook must keep some of her secrets, ye know.”
He smiled back, finding that opening his heart to love Temperance had opened it to love others as well. He let go of Temperance before he found it any harder to do so, and made his way to the oven and Gram.
“There are only a few days left before Hogmanay.”
“I know,” Gram replied, stirring.
“We should do something grand the day before, while ’tis still Christmas.”
She looked up from her broth and narrowed her eye on him. “How grand?”
He smiled at her. According to Temperance, Gram loved feasts. “As grand as ye like.”
He knew he had her then. He also knew it was devious to dangle the joys of cooking for the village over a small old woman’s head, but he didn’t want to wait until spring!
“And what day is it we’re celebrating?” she asked, forgetting her pot. “It should have a name.”
“Call it Yer Dove’s Weddin’ Day.”
His grin faded when hers did. “Ye want to marry her in two days?”
“Nae.” He shook his head. “I want to marry her tomorrow.”
“Ye’re daft if ye think I can prepare fer that kind of celebration by tomorrow!”
Damn it, now what was he to do? Just looking at Temperance made him want to take her to bed.
“Two days, and not an hour sooner!”
Had she said two days? Cailean’s smile returned. It was better than spring.
He bent to kiss her head. “Thank ye, Gram.” But she wasn’t listening. He could almost hear her conjuring recipes in her head.
They all heard the front door open. Cailean was the first to move. When he stepped into the hall, he sheathed his sword and smiled at Patrick, or rather at the mound of fur under his cousin’s arm.
Deware followed closely behind, along with a half-dozen others who’d heard of their return and had come to welcome them home.
Hell, Cailean thought as he bent to catch a running cat in his arms, who would have ever thought that such a fickle creature would choose him to love?
Just as Sage had. He smiled and kissed the cat’s head.
William hurried by him and Cailean returned to the kitchen to watch the reunion.
“Marion.” When he saw her, her name left William’s throat as if it pained him. Cailean knew William would never have loved Temperance the way he did Marion. “My love.” He hurried to her and gathered her into his tight embrace. “I searched for you. Oh, to have you back!” After a long kiss and another moment or two spent staring into her eyes, Will turned his attention to Cailean and Patrick.
“I can never repay you.” He released Marion long enough to pull Cailean into his embrace. “You brought her back to me when I feared she was lost for good.”
“Aye.” Cailean knew how good it felt to get your life back.
Deware turned to Temperance. “There is something I need to tell you.”
“That ’twas you who shot Patrick?” she asked, letting her dear friend off tenderly. “Or that my father knew it?”
“Both.” He opened his mouth to say more, but her loving smile stopped him.
“The past is over, aye? Let us make our own future now.”
Cailean couldn’t help but bask in the sight of her. This was the woman he loved. Their futures would be bright.
But he still hadn’t kissed her.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Why don’t Will and Marion say their vows with us?” Temperance turned to Gram. “Can we?”
Gram nodded with a sigh. “I don’t see why not. Save that ’twill rob us of another day’s feast.”
Cailean was still contemplating what they had said when someone screamed outside. What made it all the more chilling was that they screamed Cailean’s name.
“Everyone stay where ye are!” he shouted, and turned immediately to Patrick. His cousin was already on his way to the front door to bolt it.
He peered out the window and called back to Cailean, “Black Riders!”
Damn it, he’d thought Gunns had sedated them. How had they arrived here so fast? His blood boiled. If they wanted a fight, he was going to give them one. He called out orders to everyone present. Patrick and Gunns would stay with him while Deware remained inside, keeping the others safe.
“You don’t seem all that fazed by this.” Temperance came to him while he packed two pistols in his boots.
“What’s t
here to be fazed aboot? I’m goin’ to end this tonight.”
“I’m not going to let them take anyone else,” she vowed, picking her bow and arrow up off the floor, where they’d landed the day Duncan had taken her. “Even if I die, I’ll go knowing I did all I could this time.”
“Ye willna die,” he promised while he plucked her weapon out of her hand.
Temperance tugged on his sleeve, her face a mask of dread. “Well, since you’re so certain I won’t, will you? Die?”
His smile was wide, boyish, with a hint of badness deep inside. “Nae, I willna die either. Have faith in me.”
She nodded. “I do.”
“Cailean!” Duncan Murdoch shouted from outside. “Show your face or I will burn this village to the ground!”
Temperance lifted her hands to her mouth. “Don’t let him do it, Cailean!”
“No harm will come to Linavar,” he vowed while she threw her arms around him and whispered that she loved him.
Invigorated by her affection, he left the house and stepped into the shadows against the wall cast by the torches lighting the outer yard. From his position he could see the riders well enough, though they couldn’t see him. He curled his mouth at Fergus MacRae and the other Black Riders surrounding Duncan.
He turned when he heard Patrick leaving the house, oaths spilling from his cousin’s lips. Their eyes met and Cailean nodded. They didn’t want to kill these men they’d eaten and drunk with for four months, but Cailean would. If that’s what it took to protect the woman he was going to marry in two days, and Gram and her guests huddled in the house, terrified.
“Step out of the darkness and let me see you,” Duncan demanded from his saddle. Cailean, Patrick, and Gunns held their positions.
“Duncan, where’s yer faither?” Cailean called to him.
The lord’s son held his pistol aloft, trying to get a better look. “Getting cold on his castle floor. Where do you think he’d be after he betrayed me and gave everything that was mine to you?”
Cailean swore under his breath and felt his resolve falter for a moment. Edward Murdoch was dead? No, he hoped it wasn’t so. Now more than ever, Duncan had to be stopped.
He stopped Gunns from cocking his pistol. Not yet.
“Ye’re goin’ to protect him after he killed yer lord?” he called out to the men.
“Edward Murdoch’s dead. We fight for the man with the key to the coffers.”
Patrick had been correct. Cailean wasn’t one of them. He could never be.
“Put the pistol doun, Duncan,” he warned, “before ye tempt me to kill ye.”
Duncan laughed and pointed the barrel in the direction of Cailean’s voice. “One of us will die tonight, Grant, and it won’t be me.”
Cailean didn’t wait to discover if Duncan would fire or not. He reached for his dagger and with lightning speed hurled the blade at Duncan’s hand.
The blade struck the pistol and propelled it into the darkness. Duncan shouted and the men around him drew their weapons.
Cailean had leaped forward, ready to drag Fergus MacRae from his saddle, when another horse came barreling out of the darkness and almost crushed him underfoot.
Cailean looked up at the rider and was about to reach for the pistol in his boot when he saw a familiar face smiling down at him.
“D’ye mind gettin’ oot of the way, Cailean? I didna ride all the way here to kill m’ brother.”
Malcolm. His brother had arrived, and with others, Cailean realized as their horses whipped past him. And they were early!
Cailean’s face broke into a grin as something flew by his ear.
Draped in his fur cloak, Malcolm Grant groaned like the dangerous wounded bear he resembled, and clutched the arrow jutting from his calf.
Cailean turned to see who had fired the arrow and found Temperance by the door, bow in hand.
What the hell was she doing out here? Cailean’s heart resounded in his ears, reminding him that although he’d felt invincible earlier, they were all human.
Get back inside. Get back inside! He wanted to shout it at her, but Duncan hadn’t seen her yet and Cailean didn’t want to give away her position.
“Cailean!” Malcolm shouted to his brother as Cailean took off running. “Tell me that isna the lass ye penned me aboot.”
He had to get to her and bring her back inside, but the MacCormack brothers blocking his path thought differently.
There was only one way to get by them. Cailean reached for his boot. “Let’s get this over with quickly, then.”
No one in Glen Lyon would deny that Duncan Murdoch was a fool. But to come at Malcolm Grant, Earl of Huntley and lord of Ravenglade, with a knife, was indeed unwise.
Wheeling on his dark stallion, Malcolm struck the first Black Rider who got in his way, knocking him out of the saddle and onto the ground. The rest all attacked at once, bringing Patrick and Gunns, as well as Edmund MacGregor and Darach Grant, into the fray.
“Stop this before ye force me to hurt ye.” Patrick tried to reason with Fergus MacRae as the others fought around him.
“Apologies, Pat.” Fergus drew his sword. “Duncan has a month’s wage on your head, and I could use it.” He swung, missed, and cried out when Patrick caught his arm, twisted it back, and broke it.
Darach Grant, a bard when he wasn’t hacking into his enemies, swiped the blade of his huge claymore across the belly of Tavish Innes and then chased down another man before Tavish’s body hit the ground.
Edmund MacGregor swung a set of claymores, one in each hand, and made quick work of three more men.
Temperance tried to aim her next arrow at Erik or Dougal MacCormack when they rushed at Cailean. They knocked him down while he was reaching for his boot. Almost instantly the three of them became a writhing mass on the ground. She couldn’t shoot without risking hitting Cailean.
Erik landed a punch to Cailean’s jaw from a vertical position. Cailean answered with an elbow to his throat. He turned on Dougal next and hammered his fist into his nose. While the brothers were down, Cailean rolled to his feet and swiped at his bloody mouth.
He was about to turn for Temperance when someone else struck him between his shoulder blades with something hard, bringing him to one knee. He heard another arrow whistle through the air and then heard his attacker fall to the ground behind him.
Temperance.
Hell.
Erik had recovered and swung his damn fist again. Cailean took a hit to the jaw, shook his head, and then seized Erik by the throat. Dougal tried to help his brother but received a crushing fist to his nose for his effort. Cailean had to hurry. He reached for his pistol and pointed the barrel in Erik’s face.
“I dinna want to kill ye.” He cocked the flint in case he had to.
“Grant! Don’t!” Dougal pleaded with him. “We won’t fight you. Don’t do it.”
Temperance’s scream shattered the warrior’s heart and brought him to his feet, forgetting the MacCormacks. Duncan stood behind Temperance with one arm snaked about her waist, the other hand in her hair.
“Duncan, let her go!” Cailean aimed his pistol. His finger was steady against the trigger.
“Go ahead and shoot, Grant. This fever ravages me.”
“’Tis the poison I fed you,” Temperance told him. “Payment for my father.”
Duncan pulled her back by her hair. “You bitch.”
Cailean fired and the bullet found its mark. Duncan’s knees hit the ground first.
Temperance followed, the glint of a hilt in her back.
For an earth-quaking moment, Cailean couldn’t move.
Not her! Nae, not her!
He dropped his pistol and took off running.
Not her. He couldn’t lose her. When he reached her, he fell to his knees to gather her in his arms.
“Temperance, m’ love, please. Please, dinna go.” Not her. Not like this.
Men were beginning to crowd around him but he didn’t see who they were. He didn’t hear what they
were saying. He’d gone back somewhere in time and was holding Sage, Alison while they died. But this, this was so much worse. This was unbearable. There was too much rage in him for him to contain it any longer. William came close and moved to take her, but then backed away when Cailean threatened to kill him.
“Cailean.” It was Patrick, his voice stern but ridden with sorrow. “Let Gram have a look at her. I think she still breathes. Come, Cousin, let her have a look.”
He didn’t want to let her go. Not ever. But if she still lived… Did he dare to hope?
He looked up at Gram’s eye saturated in sorrow and moonlight, and let her examine her granddaughter.
“Please, Gram,” he begged her, begged God. “Please help her. She canna die.”
Gram smiled at him and it was the most glorious thing he’d ever seen. “’Tis not a serious wound, son. Look, she opens her eyes to see ye.”
He looked down, though it was hard to see through the tears that blurred his vision.
“Tem…,” he choked out. Unable to say anything else, he pulled her back against his chest.
“You aren’t getting rid of me that easily, Cailean Grant,” she told him a bit weakly. “We have a wedding day feast to attend.”
He smiled at her, then laughed. She was here. She was his. They had a future together.
A future he trusted.
Finally.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Early the next morning, Temperance looked up from her bed at the faces staring down at her. Goodness, one was more handsome than the others. Of course no one came close to Cailean, although presently he looked like hell.
She remembered how he’d fought the Black Riders. She’d never seen a man fight with such determination to win. He was a warrior indeed. And yet now he held her cat tenderly to his chest.
She reached for his free hand, which rested beside her, and squeezed. He leaned down and kissed her head.
“Never frighten me again like that, Tem.” His tone was light, but she knew what the thought of losing her had done to him.
“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard Cailean say he was afraid.”
She cut her gaze to a man with lovely green eyes filled with more mischief than TamLin on the prowl for a mouse.