Campbell's Redemption

by Sharon Cullen

  There was something to be said for living so far from everyone else.

  Cait sat back down beside him. “I can’t remember the last time I sat outside and just enjoyed the weather.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever sat outside for the pure enjoyment.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “It is.”

  They fell into a comfortable silence. Iain’s eyes grew heavy, and he let them close while he listened to the birds and the slight breeze that rustled through the leaves of the trees.

  “I want to make love to you,” he said.

  Chapter 16

  Cait wasn’t as shocked as she should have been by Iain’s declaration that he wanted to make love to her. Probably because she wanted to make love to him. Their conversation that had started in anger had ended in deep confidences. That didn’t mean they would make love, but…

  “I have eight men hiding in my cellar,” she said, clinging to her last thread of sanity.

  He groaned. “I forgot about that.”

  “How could ye forget? It’s the reason ye’re here.”

  “Not the only reason.” He grinned and she laughed.

  “No fibbing, Iain Campbell. Ye came here to demand and command.”

  “It might have started out that way.”

  Her smile faded. “I want to make love to ye, too,” she whispered, finding the admission difficult. She had a fleeting thought of John. Funny, but she’d never thought overmuch of John when she’d been sleeping with Cormac.

  “Please don’t tell me you’re jesting.” Iain’s voice sounded strangled.

  “No jest. But I do have a houseful of men, and I’ll no’ make love while they’re in my home.”

  “When do they leave?”

  “Late tonight.”

  He lightly knocked his head against the barn wall. “I canno’ wait until tonight.”

  She stood and grabbed his hand, pulling him up with her. “Come,” she said, and he followed her into the barn.

  She hadn’t been this reckless since before John died. Iain would say that she was behaving recklessly every time she let refugees into her home, but this felt right, and hadn’t she just been missing a man’s warm body?

  Breathless with anticipation, she climbed the ladder to the hayloft, Iain following closely behind, his fingers caressing her ankles. She tumbled into the soft pile of hay, rolling onto her back as Iain landed next to her. They lay looking up at the rafters, breathing heavily as if they’d already made love.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve done this in a hayloft,” Iain said.

  “I’ve never done this in a hayloft.”

  He rolled toward her and smiled. He really was very good-looking when he smiled. It lit up his eyes and softened his usually severe expression. “Ye should do that more often,” she said, brushing his cheek with her fingertips.

  “Make love in haylofts?”

  “Smile.”

  His smile faded and she regretted saying anything.

  “There’s not much to smile about these days,” he said.

  “Sometimes ye have to search for the good, but it’s usually there.”

  “How can you say that when life has dealt you nothing but blows?”

  She shrugged and watched her fingers run up the sleeve of his coat. “It took me a long time to come to that conclusion.”

  He touched the hollow of her throat, a light caress that made her shiver. “I admire you.”

  “Me?” She looked at him in surprise.

  His finger traced her neck, around her jaw, and outlined the edge of her ear. Goosebumps rose on her arms, and her breath caught in her throat.

  “You.” His gaze caught on his roaming finger, now smoothing down her brow. She lay there looking up at him, watching the dip between his brows and the dark eyes that for once held a wealth of emotion. His gaze met hers. “Are you certain about this?”

  “Oh, yes.” Her body was heavy with need.

  His lids came down over his eyes. “It’s just…”

  “Just what?”

  “I didn’t know, with John and everything…”

  She touched his chin, causing him to look at her. “I’ve had other lovers.”

  His eyes widened in surprise. “You have?”

  “Does that make a difference?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “I said I liked living out here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get lonely from time to time.”

  “Who?” He looked away, his cheeks stained slightly red. It was strange to see Iain Campbell embarrassed. “I know, it’s none of my business.”

  “No, it’s not yer business. He’s dead now. Killed at Culloden.”

  His gaze flew to hers. “My God, Cait.”

  “I miss him,” she said, thinking of Cormac and his robust laugh and the ever present twinkle in his blue eyes.

  “We don’t have to—”

  She put her finger to his lips to silence him. “Aye. We do. I want to.” She pulled her finger away. “That is, unless ye don’t want…”

  He rolled until he was on top of her, a hand on either side of her head, his nose almost touching hers. “Oh, I want. I very much want.”

  She smiled up at him, his words making her insides quiver. “Then what are ye waiting for?”

  He growled before lowering his head and taking her mouth in a kiss that devoured her and melted her at the same time. This was not like their kiss the other day. It wasn’t sweet or delicate or tentative. It was all about passion and she loved it.

  She pulled him down to feel the length of his hard body pressing her into the hay. She rubbed herself against his manhood, relieving a bit of the pressure between her legs. He moaned and opened her legs wider, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough.

  At her prompting, he rolled off her and she sat up to straddle him, hiking up her skirts so there was less clothing between them. The cool air on her overheated, exposed thighs only increased her need.

  Iain’s dark eyes were filled with desire as he cupped her breasts, rubbing her nipples through the fabric of her worn but serviceable gown. She arched and threw her head back, pressing her breasts into his hands. She was wet between her legs, wet and aching. Iain was breathing deeply, his hands kneading her as his hips thrust upward while she ground down on him.

  “Oh, yes,” she whispered. A tight coil was forming inside of her, and she knew the bliss when it uncoiled. She knew it and she wanted it desperately.

  She raised herself off his hips and unbuttoned his breeches as he lifted his hips and helped her slide the breeches down his legs. His manhood lay heavy against his smooth belly, red and engorged with need.

  Cait gathered her skirts in her hand and pushed them aside. She wished she could get completely undressed and feel the hard muscles of his chest against her bare breasts, but that was too risky. Maybe another time.

  She sighed as he slid into her and grabbed her hips, thrusting upward to impale her. She moved above him while he moved with her, finding a rhythm that worked for both of them.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered.

  She’d always loved the act of making love. There was something about two people who cared about each other coming together and expressing it in such a physical way. But today her need was too great, and the time she liked to take needed to be cut short due to the fact that they were nearly outside.

  That coil inside her was tightening. She reached between her legs and flicked the nub there. It made her gasp and Iain groan as he watched her touch herself.

  He brushed her hand away and pressed the pad of his thumb to the nub, causing her to cry out in pleasure. He kept his thumb there as she rode him, and each time she moved, she rubbed against him. The faster she moved, the better it felt, until she was pumping up and down so quickly she was nearly breathless.

  Iain was biting his bottom lip, his hips keeping time with hers. “God, Cait,” he groaned. “Hurry. I’ve not much time…” He yelled
out, surging up until he was almost sitting, his face twisted in what looked like pain, though she knew it wasn’t. She watched his expression as he spurted his seed inside of her, and it was then that the coil exploded. She grabbed his shoulders and bit her own lip to keep from screaming as she ground down on his cock until he couldn’t possibly be farther inside her.

  Breathless and weak, she tumbled to the side to roll onto her back. The insides of her thighs were sticky and that secret part of her was still vibrating, little quivers that felt so damn good.

  “That was magnificent,” he said.

  “It was, wasn’t it?”

  “In a hayloft, no less.”

  “Pretty damn good for my first time in a hayloft.”

  He chuckled and reached for her hand, twining his fingers through hers. The afternoon was edging toward early evening, she could tell by the slant of the sun through the small window. She had a hundred things to do but didn’t want to move.

  “Cait?” The male voice drifted up to the hayloft and she froze. “Miss Campbell?”

  She bolted to a sitting position and looked at Iain, who was frowning up at her. “Who’s that?” he asked.

  “Sergeant Halloway.” She scrambled to stand and smooth down her skirts, plucking bits of straw from here and there. She had to look a sight after rolling around in the hayloft with Iain. She felt her hair and groaned.“Where are my pins?” Her hair was completely undone, falling down her back in tangles and curls.

  Iain sat up. “What is Sergeant Halloway doing here?”

  “It’s a long story that will have to wait. We need to get down there before he starts looking for me in earnest.”

  Iain pulled up his breeches and buttoned them.

  “Miss Campbell?” The voice was directly below the hayloft window. Cait and Iain froze and looked at each other.

  “I’ll be right there, Sergeant,” she called down.

  “Stay here,” she whispered to Iain and scurried down the ladder, having given up on finding her hairpins. She hurried through the barn, shaking out her skirts and throwing her unruly hair over her shoulders.

  Halloway was standing just outside the barn, and the shocked look on his face when he saw her barreling out of there, with her hair down and more than likely hay sticking to her in various places, would have been laughable if her heart hadn’t been pounding through her ribs and Iain’s seed running down the inside of her thighs.

  “Sergeant Halloway,” she said with a smile and a surprised note in her voice.

  “Miss Campbell. Cait.” He looked her up and down and raised his brows in question.

  “I was just, uh…” She flapped her hands toward the barn. “In the hayloft.”

  “I see.”

  An awkward pause followed. Cait cleared her throat. “Is there something I can do for ye?”

  “Oh.” He seemed to shake himself from his thoughts. “Yes. I came to check on you. Captain Palmer said he had been by earlier today.”

  “He was here,” she said flatly, remembering Palmer’s inquisition.

  Halloway seemed taken aback by the coolness of her tone. “I apologize if he offended you. He’s passionate about finding the killers.”

  “Did he know them? Is that why he’s so…passionate?” She wasn’t certain that was the correct word. Palmer had been zealous.

  “I knew them. They were good men who didn’t deserve what happened to them.”

  She bit her tongue from saying, And the Scottish people being hunted by your fellow soldiers deserve their fate?

  “Palmer told me some of your conversation, and I wanted to assure you that I told him there is no possible way you could be involved in the murders.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  The expression in his eyes was making her uncomfortable, and she realized they hadn’t spoken since he’d declared his feelings for her. At first she’d given that conversation a lot of thought and had been worried about what she should do. But since her kiss with Iain, and then the murders and the encounter with her grandfather, Halloway’s declaration had fallen by the wayside.

  He took a step closer and reached for her hands, but she quickly folded them in front of her. He hesitated, his face turning red. “I’ve thought a lot about you in the past few days. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to come to you sooner.”

  “You’re busy,” she said. “It’s understandable.”

  His chest puffed up at the implication that he was an important person in the English army. “Have you thought about my marriage proposal?”

  She hesitated, struggling with her answer. She didn’t want to offend him and create an enemy, but she also knew that she couldn’t pretend to have feelings for him, even if it helped Sutherland and kept her a bit safer.

  “Sergeant Halloway—”

  “Francis.”

  Francis?

  His gaze drifted to a spot behind her and the color drained from his face. Cait closed her eyes, knowing what she would find when she turned around. The heavy fall of Iain’s boots on the hard-packed dirt was enough to tell her.

  Iain stepped up beside her, and Cait opened her eyes to see that Halloway’s gaze was jumping between her and Iain, taking in the straw on both of them, her unbound hair, and how close Iain stood next to her.

  “Sergeant Halloway, I’d like ye to meet Iain Campbell, chief of clan Campbell.”

  “I hope I’m not interrupting,” Iain said.

  Chapter 17

  “I just came by to…” Halloway seemed to search for something to say, and Cait felt the young man’s painful embarrassment.

  “To get more poultices for his back,” she said a bit frantically.

  Iain looked Halloway up and down with that inscrutable expression. “You’re a wee bit young to be in such bad shape,” he said.

  Cait threw him a narrow-eyed glare and turned her back on Iain to speak to Halloway. “Come with me and I’ll get you another poultice.”

  Halloway followed her to the front of the cottage. “I apologize for Campbell’s behavior,” she said. “That was uncalled for.”

  Halloway shrugged, but his face was still red. “I’m accustomed to the derision of the Scots.”

  “I’m a Scot, Francis.”

  His brows dipped in confusion. “But you’re not like them. You accept us into your home and you heal us,” he said.

  Oh, dear. “I heal people because that’s my calling. For a healer it does no’ matter if ye’re English or Scots, but that doesn’t discount that I was born a Scot and am proud to be a Scot.”

  “But…” He seemed at a loss for words, confused. “I thought…”

  “Ye thought that I was Scottish but no’ really Scottish?”

  “I…I don’t know. You’re so different…”

  “I’m no’ different, Sergeant. I’m the same as the other Scottish women. Ye just choose to see it differently.” She touched the sleeve of his red coat. “Sergeant, I can’t wed ye. I can’t move to England with ye, because my home is here.”

  His expression hardened. “With him?” he spat out, lifting his chin toward the back of the house where they’d left Iain.

  “I don’t know what will happen between Iain and me, but I’m needed here in Scotland.”

  His jaw worked as his gaze moved over her face. “I’ve heard what the officers are saying. Scotland will be destroyed. Rumors have it that the clans will be abolished.”

  She recoiled at the thought. Clans abolished? She couldn’t imagine such a thing. The clan system was everything to the Scots. It was their way of life, their judicial system. Their family.

  “Then Scotland needs me even more than I thought,” she said.

  “I can provide for you in England.”

  She squeezed his arm in sympathy. “I wouldn’t be happy in England. And I don’t think yer family would be happy with ye bringing home a Scottish lass.”

  “They would love you.”

  She smiled sadly. Oh, to be young and full of ideals and so passionate that
you thought everyone would believe what you believed just because you said so. “There is a lass in England waiting for ye to find her, and when ye do, ye’ll forget all about me.”

  “No.” Though he shook his head, she saw the doubt in his eyes.

  “Aye. Ye’re a good lad, Francis Halloway.” She patted his arm. “Now let me get that poultice.”

  It took her no time to grab the poultice. He was standing in the same spot she’d left him, and Iain was nowhere in sight.

  “I did come to warn you about Palmer,” Halloway said. “When he questioned me about you, I told him you were sympathetic to England.”

  “I appreciate that ye defended me. I’m a healer. I save lives. I don’t take them. I think Palmer will see that.” She sounded more hopeful than she felt; Palmer frightened her.

  “I’ll uh…I’ll be off now.” He hesitated. “Can I come around again?”

  “Of course. Ye’re no’ banned from the cottage. Let me know when ye need another poultice.”

  He nodded, seeming to want to say more, but turned to his horse, mounted, and rode away.

  Cait watched him go, her heart heavy. She truly believed that he would find the right English lass to spend the rest of his life with, but that didn’t mean she liked hurting him. Silently, she wished him well and asked God to keep him safe.

  Iain stepped in front of her, his face a mask of fury. “What game are you playing?”

  “The same game ye’re playing,” she said wearily.

  “It’s a dangerous game.”

  “I’m in no more danger than ye are. Less, probably.”

  “How do you figure less? Halloway asked you to marry him.”

  “Aye.”

  “And you encouraged it?”

  She sighed and turned to go back in the house, then remembered she had a house full of wanted Scotsmen and she didn’t want them to hear this conversation, so she once again headed toward the bench. “Of course I didn’t encourage him. Do ye think I’m a big numpty? That I have no feelings for the poor lad? But I did entertain the thought. Being connected to an English soldier would buy me protection.”