by Hazel Hunter
“I dinnae take sick, and the cold willnae harm me,” he said flatly.
In her mind Rachel heard his thoughts just as clearly.
She doesnae believe me, but I cannae tell her that I will never be sick again, or age like her. I willnae allow her to sleep on a stack of blankets on the cold floor. Mayhap I can fashion a cot and put it by the fire. But can I sleep with her in my bed, but ten steps from me?
The carnal desire that accompanied Evander’s last thought poured into Rachel, blazing through her breasts and belly to pulse between her thighs.
“I’ll get more tea,” she said, and quickly went into the kitchen. She poured some water from the urn onto her hand and splashed it on her hot face.
She knew how much he wanted her. Every day she felt it, and often at the oddest moments, such as when she sat and brushed out her wet hair by the fire, or when he watched her while she swept the floor with his reed broom. Despite all that lust, Evander never put his hands on her, or tried in any way to seduce her. She was beginning to think he would keep treating her like a housekeeper forever.
He’s waiting on me.
Rachel dried her face with a kitchen cloth, sighing into it. She no longer loved her psychopath husband, but what David had done to her made her reluctant to get more involved with Evander. For one thing, he really didn’t care for women. Not in the sense that he preferred men, but more like he had been burned so many times he didn’t trust anyone female.
Even if she could overcome his aversion to her gender, there was the stuff going on in his head. Having sex with such an intense man might be thrilling, but some of the strange things he thought made her wary—like just now while they were talking. What kind of man genuinely believed that he would never age or get sick?
“Rachel?”
She whirled around to find him standing just behind her.
“Oh. I’m okay. I just wanted to wash my face.” She reached out with the damp cloth to pick up the still-hot handle of the brew pot, but he caught her wrist. “Would you rather have some perry?”
Evander tipped up her chin to study her face. “You’re afraid of me now. Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said without thinking. Really she was more afraid of herself, and the stupid decisions she was quite capable of making. It didn’t help that she was totally, hopelessly attracted to him. “I know I can be annoying, and I don’t want to make you angry.”
“You cannae do that. I’m never no’ angry.” He smiled a little. “Say what you will.”
“Okay. You can’t go on spending every night in the barn. You will get sick, Evander, and…you don’t have any medicine here,” she finished, feeling like an idiot.
“They’ve a healer in the village,” he murmured, and stroked his thumb along her jaw line. “You shouldnae worry on me, lass. I’m never ill.”
His mind filled with his need to kiss her, and Rachel’s eyelashes fluttered as she stared at his mouth. The desire she felt now wasn’t all coming from him, or maybe it was and she simply didn’t care. Then she thought of how it had felt to stare up at her new husband as he shoveled dirt on top of her paralyzed body.
She’d wanted David, too.
“I got married seven days ago,” she told him, her voice unsteady. “You were still in love with Fiona when you found me. We’re both hurting, Evander, and we need more time to heal.”
“Aye. We can heal each other.”
His eyes darkened, and he bent his head as if he meant to kiss her.
“Not that way,” Rachel said and put her palm to his chest. She frowned as she felt his flesh throbbing under the fabric. “Are you having muscles spasms?”
“’Tis my skinwork,” Evander said, sounding mystified. He pulled down the collar of his tunic, exposing part of a primitive-looking tattoo. “You rouse my war spirit.”
Without thinking Rachel traced one line of the ink, and felt him shudder. She drew her hand away, but he brought it back and pressed her palm over it.
“Never fear to touch me,” he told her, his voice going deep and rough. “Your hands are as soft as fine silk, and cool as a spring rain.”
“Your skin is so warm,” she whispered, her throat so tight she could barely breathe. She took a step back. “This…I don’t want you sleeping with the horses anymore. Please, stay in the cottage with me so you don’t freeze. That’s all I want…for now.”
Evander’s jaw tightened, but he released her hand and picked up the brew pot.
“I’ll fashion a cot. Come and eat, and after you can walk the woods with me.”
Relieved that things hadn’t gotten out of hand, Rachel quickly finished her oatmeal, and retrieved the gathering basket. Before they left, Evander draped her with his tartan, and folded an edge over her head to form a hood. He pinned it with a spiral of hammered bronze.
She glanced down at the heavy wool. “It won’t be that cold today, will it?”
“With the heavy frost comes the wind from the sea,” he told her. “A wee wisp of a wench like you cannae endure it.”
“I’m not that small,” Rachel said as they left the cottage and headed into the forest. “I’ve also put on some weight since I got here.”
“Aye, and I’ve boots that are still heavier,” Evander said and stopped to listen before he nodded to the left. “That way we’ll find berries.”
Rachel didn’t know what he heard, but five minutes later they came upon a huge patch of trees heavily laden with garnet-red berries. Beneath the branches a small herd of deer had their necks stretched as they nibbled on the lowest clusters.
She was still learning the names of what was edible. “Are they currants?”
“Wild cherries,” he said and pointed to a cluster of bushes with much darker fruits near the trees. “And blaeberries there.”
As soon as they approached, the herd scattered, making Rachel feel a bit guilty. Her shame faded as soon as Evander plucked a handful of the cherries and offered them to her. She bit into one, and moaned a little over the sweet-tart taste.
They stain your lips red, lovely lass. How I want to kiss that mouth now. Only I wouldnae stop with one kiss. I want a dozen, all tasting of cherry and your own sweetness.
Rachel took the little stone from her mouth before she choked on it.
“How did you know they would be here? Can you hear them growing?”
“I heard the deer,” he said and placed a handful of cherries in her basket. “The frost sends them foraging for the last of the summer fruit. They must feed as much as they can so they may grow fat before the snow arrives.”
She glanced down at the cherry pit. “We should plant some of these closer to the cottage. Do they bear fruit right away? It would be nice to have cherries in the garden next summer.”
He gave her an odd look. “You mean to stay so long here, my lady?”
“Unless you kick me out. I don’t have anywhere else to go, remember?”
Before he could suggest otherwise she hurried over to the bushes. Her fingers shook as she began picking the blaeberries, which looked like smaller, blackish versions of American blueberries.
Evander wasn’t thinking anything as he gathered the wild cherries, but he kept watching her, and the weight of his gaze made her clumsy. By the time she brought back a skirt full of berries to drop in the basket, her hands dripped with reddish-purple juice. Of course he didn’t have a drop of cherry juice on him, which made her feel even more inept.
“I don’t suppose there’s any water close by,” Rachel said as she studied her sticky hands.
“A branch of the river runs beyond those pines. You can wash there.”
He picked up the basket and led her deeper into the trees. The river turned out to be much larger and wilder than she expected, and Rachel stopped in her tracks as she surveyed the rushing currents.
“I think this is a bad idea. I am a wee wisp of a wench, and also not a great swimmer.” She gasped as Evander swept her up in his arms. “What are you doing?”
; “Helping you with it.”
He strode down the bank and waded into the water, and stood in the center as he flipped her under his arm and lowered her toward the surface.
Rachel yelped as soon as she immersed her hands in the icy currents, and rubbed them together quickly. When she took them out of the water dark, mottled patches still stained her skin, but all of the sticky juice had been cleaned away.
“Okay,” she said quickly.
Evander carried her up to the bank, and lowered her onto a flat-topped rock before he climbed out and sat beside her.
“Better now?” he said.
She felt like hitting him. “Do you realize how dangerous that water is? If you had fallen over, we both would have been swept away.”
His eyes caught the sunlight and blazed like burning emeralds.
“I am no’ a lousy swimmer, lass.”
A rush of memory came back to Rachel, who stared at him as she remembered him ordering her to close her eyes, and hold her breath.
“You went into the stream with me on your horse. You rode under the water. How did you do that?”
His mouth hitched. “I told you, you dinnae ken me. Do you wish to?”
Maybe he was hiding something from her, just as she was concealing her mind-reading ability from him. It didn’t seem fair to demand an explanation while keeping from him the fact that she could tap into his thoughts any time she wanted.
“That’s okay. You saved my life that night. That’s all that really matters.”
His amusement faded as he stood and rubbed his chest, and then offered her his hand.
“’Tis growing colder. We’ll walk back.”
Evander didn’t say anything more until they reached the cottage, where he retrieved his snares and spear.
“I’ll return before dark.”
She nodded, and watched him go before she went inside to put away the berries they’d gathered. When she took off his tartan, the bronze spiral dislodged and fell to the floor matting. As Rachel retrieved it, she saw something under the dish cabinet.
The dusty little scroll had been written by a shaking hand in a language Rachel didn’t recognize, but the name at the bottom was only too clear: Fiona. Whatever it said, only Evander could translate it. The sudden urge to tear it to pieces shocked her, as did the wave of jealousy that came with it.
Carefully she placed the scroll on the stone table, and went to curl up in Evander’s chair. Fiona had lived a miserable life, and had died a terrible death. She had risked her life to protect her lover from her murderous masters. Evander had destroyed his own life to protect her, too. Their love affair must have been pretty epic. Rachel knew all that, and still she felt a needling resentment.
What if the scroll was an old love letter? Hadn’t Evander suffered enough?
She glanced over at the standing loom, the one constant reminder of Fiona.
“I don’t know if you’re haunting this house, lady, but if you are, could you give the guy a break? He still loves you, but he’s trying to move on. Let him, okay? Don’t you want him to be happy?”
A sharp sound made her jump, but it came from the fireplace, where a log that had cracked in half fell in two glowing white-red pieces.
“And now I’m talking to myself and burning wood,” Rachel muttered.
Finally she forced herself to get up and begin the process of making a stew for their evening meal. She pitted two bowls of wild cherries, which she planned to lace with cream and a dash of the sweet red wine Evander liked. She set out the dishes, trying her best to ignore the scroll, and went out to pick the last of the white heather to make a bouquet for the table.
The highlander returned just before sunset with a brace of ptarmigan and two rabbits, which he stowed in the pantry before joining her. As soon as he saw the scroll on the table he stopped in his tracks.
“What is this?”
“I found it under the cabinet,” she said and forced a smile as she handed it to him. “I can’t read what’s written on it, but Fiona signed it.”
Evander unrolled it, studied the words and then looked as if he’d been punched in the face. He started to put the scroll down, eyed the bouquet of heather, and grabbed it. He carried the flowers and the scroll over to the fireplace and pitched both into the flames. From the rigid set of his shoulders and the white-knuckled condition of his fists, he was absolutely furious.
How could she do it? Why would she go, and to where? To them? Did she mean to kill or save herself? Did she never love me?
Rachel waited for a few minutes until he calmed down before she went to him.
“What can I do?”
“Naught. ’Twas a farewell letter from Fiona,” he told her. “She meant to leave me. While I was out hunting she went to the shepherd’s farm. He was to drive her down to the village docks so she could buy passage on a ship. Only she found the shepherd and his family dead from plague, and had to return to me. She died before she could try again.”
She curled her hand around his. “I knew I should have burned that damn scroll. I’m so sorry.”
“She didnae stab me in the back and leave me for dead,” he said through clenched teeth. “No, she waited to gut me from her grave.”
“Maybe it wasn’t you. Maybe she was so afraid of your enemies that she couldn’t stay here anymore,” she said, and endured his frigid glower. “You said all she did was worry that you would be found. Maybe it got to be too much for her.”
Evander went over to Fiona’s loom, which he knocked over to the floor. The tremendous crash made Rachel flinch, but then he broke the frame apart with his bare hands. He selected several pieces, which he leaned against a wall, and then grabbed Fiona’s yarn basket.
“Go and have your meal while I build my cot,” he told her. “I am no’ hungry.”
Chapter Nine
IN THE DAYS that followed the discovery of Fiona’s Dear John letter, Evander barely spoke to Rachel, and spent most of the day hunting. At night he either chopped wood for the fire or worked in the barn on a new saddle he was making. The hollow tree he used to smoke game smoldered around the clock. The woodpile had gone from substantial to mountainous.
Rachel couldn’t fall asleep at night until she heard him come in and stretch out by the fire. The cot he had made from the wood frame of Fiona’s loom didn’t look particularly comfortable, but when she offered to take turns with him sleeping on it, he flatly refused.
Then there were the long nights when she couldn’t drift off even after he came in, when he began dreaming. The memories of battles should have been the worst, and in some ways they were, but he was an amazing fighter. Watching through his eyes as he relived countless skirmishes with the clan’s enemies, Rachel discovered he could hurl a spear hundreds of yards and hit any target, even one he could barely see.
He often dreamt of a strange, primitive tribe that at first seemed like prehistoric people. But then she began to pick up on the subtle sophistication of their society and tools. Among the tribe he was always a young boy, and never treated especially well. An older man worked him like a slave, and never offered him a kind word no matter what he did. Evander received terrible beatings for even the smallest mistake, and had to fight with older brothers for food, battles he often lost until he grew bigger.
Rachel tried everything she could to block out his dreams, but there came a night when she was so tired she just closed her eyes and let him take over her mind. He took her to a little village of cottages, where he slipped into one and walked up behind a dark-haired woman at a loom. When she turned around Rachel expected her to be Fiona, and was shocked to see her own face smiling up at Evander. She nearly fell out of bed, and then felt the sensations coming from him that made her nipples bead and her clit throb between her legs.
In his dream Evander sat down with her on his lap, and fondled her as he watched her face. His long fingers soothed her puckered peaks with circling caresses, and then teased them with little pinching tugs. Rachel wriggled on hi
s lap, impatient for more, but then he turned her over his knee and yanked up her skirts.
She felt the hard, stinging slaps on her bottom as he spanked her in his dream, and while it didn’t arouse her it made his chest heave and his penis swell. He loved the domination, the dominion over her, and thought she wanted it as much. He dragged her hand to the confined ridge of his member and pressed her palm against it before he scooped her up and carried her to the bed. He flung her onto it face-first before he stood behind her and hauled up her skirts again.
Rachel’s back arched off the bed as in the dream he penetrated her with hard, jabbing strokes. It felt so good she had to pull her pillow over her face to muffle her moans. From the dream she felt what he did, and it was exciting her so much in reality she was ready to come. As her body tightened with need, she slipped her hand between her thighs and quickly stroked her clit. When he ejaculated in the dream it triggered her own climax, and she shook so hard the bed bounced against the wall.
The images and sensations came to a sudden stop, and Rachel heard footsteps approaching from the front room. She closed her eyes and didn’t move as she felt Evander bending over her.
Oh, God. She still had her hand between her thighs. What if he could see that she’d been touching herself? What would he think of her?
Evander drew the old tartan over her, covering her body with it from toes to neck. He placed one hand on her belly, and then moved it to rest on the hand she had used to stroke herself. He didn’t move her hand or touch her himself, but he knew exactly what she’d been doing. He was thinking about it.
No, he was fantasizing about it.
Rachel held perfectly still as Evander started dreaming again, this time fully awake. He imagined pulling aside the coverlet, and twining his fingers with hers to help her rub her hard little pearl. With the other hand he wanted to tug down the loose collar of her night shirt, baring her breasts to his mouth. He wondered how she would taste, and if sucking her breasts and rubbing her clit would make her come in her sleep.
Oh, please, do it.
Just before she opened her eyes and spoke, Evander drew back from the bed, and the fantasy in his thoughts evaporated. Instead of seeing her, he saw an open grave. Shame and self-disgust filled him as he backed out of the room and hurried out of the cottage.