A Highlander’s Homecoming (13 page)

“You’ve been baking this day?”

Jamie’s innocent expression didn’t fool Isa in the least.

“Aye. Are you hungry?” She waited for his eager nod before reaching out to clasp his hand. “When did you last eat?”

“Yesterday,” he answered apologetically. “I was working in the stable and too late for a meal last night. Then the laird sent me with the message for you before I’d finished my chores this morning.”

And, as Isa had learned from the boy on an earlier trip, with the new cook in charge there was no morning meal until chores were completed.

“What does yer grandmother say about yer missing yer meals, lad?”

They were inside now, with Jamie eagerly seating himself at her small table while Isa brought out bread and cheese.

“I dinna see her much. The kitchen lasses tell me she’s ill and has no time to be bothered with the likes of me.”

He ended all conversation by stuffing his mouth full, though he nodded vigorously, his eyes lighting in anticipation when Isa offered a mug of fresh milk.

His own grandmother, too busy for the likes of him? She couldn’t believe that. Not of Auld Annie. Annie had been the head cook at Castle MacGahan in the days Isa had been as young as Jamie, and even then the woman
had always made time for her. Nothing had gone past Annie’s notice—no flower picked, no hurt feelings, nothing.

Surely she’d do no less for her own sweet grandson. This didn’t sound right at all.

“How about you stay here for the night? I’ve a nice thick porridge for our evening meal. If you’d be willing to help me by watching over it, that is. Keep it stirred for me while I go find Rob . . . um, my guardian, to tell him yer news?”

“Aye, Mistress Isa. I’m always ready to help you. Can I visit the goats after I finish my food?”

He always asked to visit the goats. “Of course, dearling. And there’s the new lamb for you to see as well. But dinna forget—”

“To shut the gate,” he finished for her with his little half grin. “I will. I promise.”

With a nod of satisfaction, Isa set off, pleased that at the very least she’d know for a fact the child would have one more good meal. Since she’d be at the castle herself in a couple of days, she would check on his grandmother for herself to see exactly what was going on.

She stopped at the edge of the woods, the exact spot Robbie had disappeared into hours earlier, noting the broken twigs. Lucky for her he’d been in such a hurry when he’d left. Not that she should actually need to track him. He’d said he would keep to the stream. It shouldn’t be difficult at all to find him.

Chapter 11
 

“That should do quite nicely.”

Robert straightened after tying up the last bundle of saplings, an annoying little pain zinging through his chest as he did so. He must have pulled a muscle somehow last night.

Looking over his handiwork for the day and, thinking of those bundles he’d left waiting all along his path down the mountain, he felt sure he had more than enough to finish the entire wattle fence.

If he could only be equally sure he’d worked his way through the little problem plaguing him. The little problem of his unaccountable infatuation with the woman he was supposed to be protecting.

Hours ago, he’d given up on trying to figure out the whys of his situation, concentrating instead on how to deal with all these unexpected and inconvenient feelings.
The cause wasn’t important. Only controlling his reaction to Isabella mattered.

From the time Robert had passed outside the protective walls of MacQuarrie Keep bound for his first battle, he’d determined to present an impassionate face to those around him. As his father had often counseled both him and his brother, the best way to avoid having the world poke fingers in your hurts was to prevent their seeing your soft spots.

Robert’s soft spot had always been his emotions. After Elizabeth’s betrayal, he’d spent a lifetime pretending to be the aloof observer, building walls between himself and the world. In spite of his efforts, he knew better than anyone how easily those walls could be breached over time.

The odd thing with Isabella was that it had taken no time at all. Whether it stemmed from his guilt over abandoning her or his surprise at her not being what he expected, one evening spent sharing stories in her company and he found himself completely infatuated.

And infatuation it had to be.

The sort of fleeting, false emotion a schoolboy might have for his first teacher, or a patient for his nurse.

Or perhaps a Guardian for his charge?

That was the case and nothing more. It had to be. He only hoped it would pass quickly.

Not even this latest rationalization could erase his concern. He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, wincing when an errant breeze brushed past him.

No wonder Isa had taken her distance of him. He smelled like a ditch digger in the desert who’d never heard of soap and water.

The sun was moving lower in the sky and he still had work to do. There were too many bundles for him to carry back. He should have brought his horse along, but that would have required his having used logic and sense when he set out from Isa’s cottage, and logic and sense were nowhere to be found in his emotional arsenal at that moment. Base lust had pushed everything else aside.

He was none too sure his arsenal was back to normal even now.

Remembering the small waterfall and pool he’d spotted in the distance farther up the mountain, he decided on a short detour in that direction. If the setting sun did catch him, he’d only need to follow the stream that ran from the pool straight back to Isa’s cottage to find his way even in the dark.

Without the weight of any saplings or his axe, he covered the distance quickly. In no time at all, he’d chucked his plaid and shirt and plunged into the deep, dark pool.

Once the shock of the cold had passed, the water enveloped his body, soothing his aches and pains. He ran his hands across his chest, looking down quickly as his fingers brushed over a sensitive spot.

His scar. Odd. It had been almost ten years since he’d taken a sword to his chest saving Connor MacKiernan’s life, but the scar looked much newer. Pink and sensitive to his touch.

He didn’t think Isa’s elbow to his chest last night could have somehow caused new damage, but he had felt a sharp pain with her blow.

What foolishness! Surely it was a trick of the fading light and nothing more that caused the scar to look strange. No time to go blaming Isa.

Even if she
was
a redhead.

He glanced to another jagged silver line, this one on his forearm near his elbow. There had definitely been a redhead to blame for that one.

It was the summer he’d turned fifteen. He’d gone to Inverness with his father and Richard to sell the flock of sheep his father had given him the year before. The silver he made from the sale was the first money he had been able to call his own. He’d invested months into dreaming of how he would spend that silver.

And then he’d met Marie.

Robert and his brother had waited until their father was meeting with a group of merchants. They’d hastened off to one of the seamier local taverns, though they’d been strictly forbidden to go there.

Marie had struck his eye the moment they’d entered, and a short while later, emboldened by the heat of forbidden whisky burning in his chest and Richard’s goading, he’d approached her table.

It had seemed like a dream when she’d invited him to her room in the back of the tavern, where she’d given him another tankard of drink, promising him a trip to heaven when he finished it down.

Whether the whisky was drugged or just too much for his young system, the next thing he remembered was waking in a haze, to find her sneaking out the door. He had tried to stop her but his legs refused to work properly. He managed to grab her skirts, but she attacked him with his own dirk and he fell backward, hitting his head. When he awoke the next time, Marie was gone.

And along with her his silver.

No, he had no doubt that redheads were dangerous. It had taken him only two encounters with them to learn that lesson and learn it well. He had the scar on his arm from Marie and another on his heart from the even more treacherous Elizabeth to prove that fact.

He closed his eyes, splashing water over his face as if he could wash the memories of those two women from his mind. While the first had been an embarrassing lesson, the second had driven him to leave his family, trekking across the world, throwing himself into battle, risking his life on foreign soil. The campaign where he had met Isabella’s father.

Isabella. Another redhead.

To clear his tangled thoughts, he swam over to the waterfall, allowing it to crash down over him like an icy shower.

It wasn’t as good as what had become part of his daily ritual back home, but it would do. Next time he came up here, he’d have to bring along some soap so he didn’t end up stinking on a regular basis.

Like everyone else in this time.

The thought had barely formed before he realized with a start it was a falsehood. Not everyone smelled bad.

Isa smelled of a summer breeze and fresh-mown grass, not the common stench of unwashed body. Even now, if he let his mind wander, he could recall her enticing scent as if she were somewhere nearby, but, of course, that was no more than his overactive imagination.

The same overactive imagination that forced his body to harden with need at the thought of her.

He dove under the water and turned, pushing off from the bottom to propel himself to a shallower spot before he stood. Breaking through the surface, he rose, lifting his face to the setting sun, hoping the waters would wash away his impure thoughts of Isa.

To no avail.

The memory of her standing before him, her wet nightdress clinging to every enticing curve, filled his mind even as her scent filled his nostrils, stronger than before.

Surely she should be asking some higher power for forgiveness. She was wicked. Truly wicked. She should back away as quietly as she’d come upon this scene. Back away, run down the mountainside to her cottage and forget she’d ever seen any of this.

And yet, Isa could not bring herself to turn away.

Ahead of her, Robbie bathed in the waters of her pool. What she’d only glimpsed last night, she stared at openly today.

He dove, then burst up through the surface, water sheeting down his sculpted body as he stood. When he flung back his head, droplets from his hair glinted in the sun’s last rays as they flew into the air, forming a shining arc around him. Not even the scars on his body could detract from his allure. He was more beautiful than any nature god could ever hope to be.

Isa sank to her knees and huddled next to a broad tree trunk. She was ashamed of her inability to turn away, ashamed of hiding in the foliage where she could continue to watch. Ashamed of the physical need building inside her.

She might be inexperienced in the ways of men and women, but that didn’t mean she had no knowledge of such things. You couldn’t function in the natural world or raise your own animals without knowing the ways of life.

Except that the difference between the knowledge of what happened and the feelings she actually had coursing through her body right now was vast beyond belief. It left her with a frustration beyond anything she’d ever encountered.

Once. To have a man like that take her in his arms and sweep her off her feet. To crush his mouth to hers and lower her body to the ground underneath him. To put an end to the heavy wanting filling her loins right now. What she wouldn’t give to experience that for herself just one time.

Her freedom. That’s what she wouldn’t give.

She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, rubbing as if she intended to force the vision of his naked beauty from her memory.

Pointless, of course. And damned unfair.

She’d realized long ago that people simply served to bring grief and unhappiness into her world and she would be better off without them. All of them. As a result, she’d spent the last eight years building her own life of solitude, away from everyone. She’d learned to hold her emotions tightly in check and spend her days doing as she pleased.

Now
he’d
come along, determined to insert himself into her life whether she wanted him in it or not, bringing with him all these . . .
feelings
. All these wants. All these needs.

And if she gave into these feelings? If she followed the path her body urged her down?

She would never be rid of him. Any man who held on to an unfulfilled vow for twenty years took honor much too seriously to dally with a woman he saw as his responsibility and then leave simply because she told him to.

She wanted him gone. Didn’t she?

She opened her eyes and focused on an early wildflower blooming just in front of her, crushed by her own footstep when she’d first arrived in this place. The delicate weed had struggled to make its way here, alone in the forest, constantly pushed aside by the larger plants, wanting nothing more than a bit of sun and rain. It had needed so little to live.

It had needed to be left alone.