Warrior’s Redemption

by Melissa Mayhue

  “To drink.” Surely he didn’t really expect her to drink from this stream. They’d just ridden their horses across it, not five feet from this very spot. “I want water to drink. Do you have any idea how many germs are in here?”

  His blank expression assured her he did not. Lord, did he even know what a germ was?

  “Okay, fine. I need something to put this in so I can boil it.”

  Without a word he disappeared into the ramshackle structure he’d brought them to, reappearing with a disapproving frown and an iron pot that had obviously seen better days.

  “You dinna say you wanted yer water hot.”

  He leaned down and scooped the pot full before turning his back on her to head into the hut.

  Dani scrambled to her feet to follow him inside through the small opening.

  Four walls, no windows and a hard-packed dirt floor greeted her. The only two features in the building, if she could even call it that, were the opening that served as a doorway and a small protrusion in the far wall that was meant to be a fireplace.

  Malcolm worked over whatever materials were stacked there and within minutes a tiny flame flickered to life, quickly growing into a crackling fire.

  Now that was better. Much better.

  She huddled close to the fire, holding her hands extended toward it, surprised to realize how badly her fingers ached with the cold.

  Next to her, the iron pot hung over the fire, flames licking up around the bottom of the metal.

  “Give me yer wraps.”

  Dani did as asked, too tired to argue over the obvious cold in the room. Instead she scooted closer to the fire, turning her back to it to watch as Malcolm shook the woolen and furs just outside the doorway, sending droplets of water flying.

  When he stepped back inside, he stretched something over the doorway, looping one corner over a hook in the wall.

  “Tanned hide,” he said when he caught her watching. “It will keep the better part of the weather out.”

  Offering to help as he bustled around the little room might have been the proper thing to do but she simply sat, watching while Malcolm unpacked the contents of the bag he’d carried on his horse.

  As her hands and feet warmed, they swelled and tingled and every movement shot burning needles through the skin. Even the ring she wore felt as if it was cutting off her circulation. Clumsily, she twisted the band, working it round and round to get it off her swollen finger in an attempt to remove it before it was too late. When at last it gave way, it flew from her grip and she pushed herself to her knees, feeling around the dirt floor, hunting for her treasure.

  “What are you doing?” Malcolm paused in his chores to stare at her.

  “I dropped my ring. It has to be here somewhere.” A flicker of panic formed in her stomach at the thought of losing the only physical reminder she had of her old life.

  Malcolm dropped to his knees beside her, helping her search, and a moment later, he was successful.

  “Here it is.” He held the ring up toward the fire to examine it before handing it over to her. “I’ve no ever seen the like of this delicate jewelwork. It must be very valuable.”

  “Only to me,” she said, accepting the ring and placing it on her little finger for safekeeping until the swelling in her hands subsided. “Thank you for helping me find it. It was a birthday gift from the aunt who raised me. It’s not worth much money, but it means more to me than anything in the world.”

  Aunt Jean had been the only mother Dani could really remember, and the ring was her only tie to her memories of her aunt.

  Silence reigned in the little hut as Malcolm spread a small cloth between them and laid out bread, cheese, and bits of hard, dried meat.

  By the time he offered her a carved wooden ladle filled with water, she felt too guilty to even question how dirty the implement might have been. He had dipped it in the boiling water, after all, so maybe that had killed the majority of whatever nasties might have lived on it.

  She blew across the surface of the liquid, concentrating on the little ripples that formed before she tested her first sip. Warmth filled her mouth and trickled down her throat, and for the first time in hours, she began to feel almost normal.

  Malcolm sat cross-legged across from her, eating quietly, his gaze fixed on her face.

  “What?”

  He shrugged, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “Thinking about the fine work on the jewel you wear, my mind runs to fancy, I must confess, contemplating the differences in yer world and the wealth of knowledge you likely possess, coming from the future as you have.”

  “So you believe it, now?” She wasn’t at all sure he had before.

  “The Elf said—”

  “Faerie,” she corrected. “Elesyria said that she’s a Faerie, not an Elf. She seemed pretty emphatic about it, too.” And more than a little bit irritated as well, but Dani didn’t add that.

  “Faerie,” he conceded. “She said it was so and I’ve no longer any reason to doubt her word.”

  Apparently their day’s adventure had precipitated quite a shift in his thinking. Only this morning he’d insisted she join him on this godforsaken quest precisely because he didn’t believe Elesyria. Though why he’d need to verify the word of someone who lived in his home made almost as little sense as his quick switch in attitude.

  And the fact that neither Malcolm nor his brother seemed very enamored with magical beings, period, regardless of what name they called them, made Dani even more curious.

  “From the sound of it, you don’t seem to think too highly of Faeries. So how is it you have a Faerie living with you, anyway?”

  “No by my choice, I can tell you that.” Malcolm’s brows knit together in a frown, a fleeting expression that he quickly wiped away. “Elesyria is mother to the woman I married. I have no right to turn her away, no matter what I may think about what she is.”

  A small lump formed somewhere in Dani’s chest, a hard blockage around which she suddenly found herself struggling to breathe normally.

  The woman I married.

  A wife? Malcolm had a wife? No one had ever said anything about a wife.

  “I didn’t realize you were married.” There were likely many, many things she didn’t know about this man, so why that one tiny piece of information should bother her so much made absolutely no sense at all.

  But bother her it did.

  “My . . .” He paused, like a man unwilling—or unable—to speak the next word. “Isabella is dead.”

  His statement sounded bitter, final, as if he wished to end the discussion.

  It absolutely was not relief she felt at his declaration. It was more along the lines of some detached sense of sympathy, skewed by her physical discomfort. That had to be it. No other emotional response was even close to reasonable.

  Dani inhaled, slowly, deeply, attempting to clear her confused emotions, nodding in what she intended to be a show of real sympathy.

  He didn’t sound as if he wanted to discuss it anymore. And she meant to drop the subject right there. Aunt Jean had always told her you didn’t go picking at the scabs of someone’s emotional wounds. Truly, she didn’t want to make him deal with a painful past.

  Only, try to let it go as she might, his story just didn’t quite jell, and curiosity drove her to continue.

  “Your wife must have been young. Really young.” Like maybe twelve or thirteen, if even that. Because Elesyria didn’t look to be much older than Dani, and if she’d had a child when she was barely a teen, that still wouldn’t make her child more than, well, twelve or thirteen at the oldest.

  And even if this was the Middle Ages, the idea that a man clearly in his twenties would marry someone that young added a whole new “ick” factor to their conversation.

  His head cocked to one side and his brow furrowed as if she’d just commented on painting his face purple. “No, I dinna believe that to be the case. In fact, I’d reason Isabella to have been older than you. What would make you t
hink otherwise?”

  “Because you said Elesyria was her mother. And Elesyria can’t be much older than me right now.” If even.

  That brought the smile back. Along with a laugh. “Are you daft, lass? That Faerie,” he emphasized the word with a raised eyebrow, “is well advanced beyond yer years. You’ve only to look at her to ken that. Her hair is grayed; her face is wrinkled. Though she may not yet be a crone, her days as a maiden are long gone.

  Was he blind? Or was there some mental defect there she’d just totally missed?

  “Are we even talking about the same woman? Elesyria’s young. And beautiful. There’s not a gray hair anywhere on her.”

  Malcolm nodded thoughtfully, his fingers absently stroking his chin. “That’s what you see when you look at her, is it? All the more proof that is of her Faerie blood, as if I still needed proof. Which I do not. It would appear she wears a spell for our benefit. But is it a spell that canna fool you, or one that canna fool us? Interesting, that is. I wonder why it’s so?”

  A spell? “So . . . you mean to tell me that you actually see her as old?” And if he did, why didn’t she?

  He shrugged and pushed up to stand. “It’s the way of the Elves.” Catching himself, he held up a hand to forestall her correction. “Yer pardon, my lady. Faeries. All the legends speak of it. The Magical Folk can appear to mortals in any way they choose.”

  Which still didn’t answer why she didn’t see Elesyria the same way he did. That question, along with any others she might have, was left on hold when he stepped outside, dropping the skin down to cover the opening behind him. Moments later, when he returned leading their horses through the opening, any questions Dani might have thought up completely fled her mind.

  “What are you doing?”

  She’d earlier considered the interior of the hut close quarters for perhaps five or six men. The thought of how many horses might fit inside would never have been on her list of size comparisons.

  Middle Ages, she reminded herself, scooting to the far side of the fireplace.

  “These lads have fed and watered—directly from the stream,” he turned to look at her, one eyebrow raised. “And without the need for boiling. They’d fare little better overnight in the cold snow than yerself, my lady. And, to our advantage, having them inside with us will only add to the heat of the room.”

  Could be. She was pretty sure their being inside was going to add to the fragrance of the room, too. And not in a pleasant way.

  “Okay, then. In that case, I guess I won’t have to share my freshly boiled, pretty much germ-free water with them. Wait.” His whole comment penetrated at last. “Overnight? We’re staying here?”

  “That we are, my lady. With the time we spent at the circle and our stop here, we’ve lost the light. There’s no even a sliver of moon showing out there and I’ve no taste for forcing you on in both snow and dark.”

  So it was because of her they stopped for the night.

  Dani briefly considered pointing out that she could continue on if he could. Very briefly. The short time he’d had that flap open had confirmed that it was much warmer in here than it was out there. Besides, the rest would do them both more good than harm.

  He settled the horses where they’d entered, directly between them and the door.

  Glancing first to the fireplace and then to the lack of an easy exit, Dani felt it was no more than her duty to point out the obvious hazard.

  “You know, if we have a fire or an emergency or something, getting out of here in a hurry is going to be really difficult with the doorway blocked.”

  “Aye, you’ve a point there, lass.” He tossed his pile of woolens and furs to ground at his feet, an equal distance between the horses and her, and then dropped down to sit on them. “On the other hand, if it’s difficult for us to get out, it’s equally difficult for anyone else to get in, aye?”

  He was right. Apparently she needed to start thinking more medieval.

  He leaned across to the fire, pulling and pushing bits about until the flames burned low, and then, with a muttered “Sleep well,” he rolled into his plaid and grew silent.

  Dani fussed with her own pile of woolens and furs, finally getting as comfortable as possible, her back to Malcolm and the horses.

  He lay two and half, maybe three feet from her, at most. If she rolled to her side and stretched out her arm, she could touch him.

  Not that she would.

  Still, the knowledge was unsettling. Almost as unsettling as the vision that danced through her mind of him on her first night in this world: his dark hair falling loose at his shoulders, his skin gleaming bronze in the firelight, that mark over his heart that had captured her attention, highlighting what she’d admit was one very impressive chest.

  She’d been mere inches away from him then. Close enough she could have traced that mark with a fingertip. Traced it over skin she had no doubt would be warm and solid and—

  Stop it! Right now, before she started to breathe heavier than the damn horses.

  She tried to fill her mind with the stone circle and, when that failed, with the faces of all the people she’d met at MacGahan Castle.

  Each try failed, fading back into that flickering room and the expanse of decorated muscle that even now lay within easy reach.

  “What’s that mark on your chest mean? That round tattoo thing?” She blurted out the question, desperate to distract her thoughts from the path they were on.

  “A family mark,” he said after a moment, his voice deep and rumbly. “Protection for the House of Odin. Now go to sleep. We’ll need to be up and on our way at first light.”

  She rolled to her back, considering what he’d said.

  Odin. These guys were descended from Vikings? She’d read somewhere about Vikings invading Scotland, hadn’t she? Which would also explain Elesyria calling Patrick a Northman.

  Her mind raced as she tried to concentrate on the mark, but each attempt simply filled her mind’s eye with flexing pectoral muscles.

  She rolled to her side and found him staring at her.

  “Go to sleep,” he said again, more like an order to an unruly three-year-old this time.

  With a tug on her blanket and an audible huff, she rolled to her other side, her back facing Malcolm.

  Sleep? Not likely. Not now. Not unless counting ripples on his chest would work as well as counting sheep, because chest ripples were all she was able to envision when she closed her eyes.

  It was shaping up to be one very long night.

  Thirteen

  WITH THE SUN little more than a promise in the sky, Dani stood in the doorway, surveying her surroundings. Sometime in the night, the snow had stopped, leaving only a light covering on the ground. It was still cold, but hopefully that would improve as the sun actually made its appearance.

  A few feet away, Malcolm stood next to her horse, as if waiting to help her mount.

  Right, then. New day in her new world. According to Elesyria, this was her reality now, so she might as well make the best of it with a fresh start. After so many years of feeling as if she merely existed on the sidelines of other people’s lives, waiting for whatever it was the Fae had planned for her, she was more than ready to jump into this life with both feet.

  She simply wanted to make sure that when she landed, those feet were firmly planted, and the best way she could see for that was to start off with a clean slate. No regrets, no secrets.

  Especially since the man in whose home she’d ended up didn’t seem to want her here very much. If this was where she belonged, she needed to make sure nothing interfered with her being here until she could determine exactly why it was she belonged here.

  Besides, there was another, more personal, reason for making sure she started off right with Malcolm. Maybe his wanting to get rid of her was why she was so obsessed with him. She always had found the unattainable more interesting than the freely offered. If she could only set everything straight between them, then he might not be so
intent on getting rid of her.

  Maybe then she could stop dreaming about his body.

  Face already heating, she hurried over to where Malcolm waited. As he grasped her waist, she placed a hand on his chest, thinking to stop him.

  Now was the time to talk it out.

  “I have a couple of things I need to get off my chest.”

  Malcolm, however, appeared in no mood to stand and talk. He responded with a frown and lifted her to her saddle as if she were no more than a sack of feathers.

  “You’d best be keeping everything on yer chest, my lady. Though the sun promises to shine on us this day, it will no be so very warm for a good many hours.”

  “No.” She shook her head, waiting for him to mount his horse next to her. “I meant that there are things I need to say to you. To clear the air between us.”

  She sighed at his confused look. “Fresh new start” would need to include her thinking about what she said before she said it.

  “There are those at the castle who will fash themselves over our not having returned last night. We need to be on our way. But certainly you are free to speak as we ride, my lady.” Another little frown. “Into the clear air, if it pleases you.”

  She deserved that one.

  With a click of his tongue, he pulled his horse ahead of hers, leading the way. That was okay. She could talk loud if she needed to.

  “First thing, let’s start with this whole ‘my lady’ business. I have a name, not a title. It’s Dani. I’d appreciate your using it. We’re not real big on royalty where I come from.”

  “We have a few issues of our own with royalty.”

  Of course they did. She’d seen the Braveheart movie. “So you understand, then. You call me Dani, I’ll call you Malcolm. Deal?”

  He slowed his horse, waiting for her to pull up beside him. “As laird of the MacGahan, I’m usually addressed as—”

  “Look, I’m a cook and a waitress, but I don’t want people using my job title to talk to me. You might be the laird, but you’re also Malcolm. It is your name, right?”

  They sat in silence for a short time as he appeared to contemplate her argument.