Highlander Avenged (8 page)

Someone shook her shoulder, pulling her away from the stone, and into his welcoming arms.

She snuggled even deeper into his embrace, sighing in contentment as a familiar masculine scent wound about her. Malcolm. She lifted her face and found his lips waiting for her, meeting her kiss with his own. She’d missed kissing him, even though she’d only done it twice before. These last days had been made even more difficult than they already were, due to her need to fight the urge to pull him into the wood and kiss him until she was sated. He slid his tongue against hers, pulling her out of her sleepy thoughts and back to him, to Malcolm, to his lips and his tongue and his hand sliding along her back, to his hand sliding up her ribs and cradling her breast in his palm, to her own need to press her breast into his hand, to her need to pull herself closer to him. But just as in the dream, her frustration grew, sending her heart hammering.

Dream.

Her eyes popped open and she scrambled to her feet, mortified at what he must think of her wrapping herself about him like a wanton.

He grabbed the plaid where it dropped, pulling it over his lap quickly.

“I promised I would wake you if you had a bad dream,” he said, his eyes still soft with that flash of desire that had ignited between them.

“A bad dream?” she asked, pushing her tangled hair out of her face and brushing bits of leaves and dirt from her gown. “It did not feel like a bad dream.” She gasped and covered her mouth, shaking her head. “I cannot believe I just said such a thing.”

He considered her long enough to make her uncomfortable. “There is nothing to be ashamed of, Jeanette. We both were sleepy, not thinking. It was not unpleasant was it? It wasn’t for me.”

“Nay. Not unpleasant.” She turned away from him and pressed her palms to her hot cheeks. It had been far from unpleasant. So far from unpleasant, she wished to continue what they had started. “I dreamed?” She busied herself stirring up the fire from last night’s embers so she wouldn’t have to look at him, for she was sure she’d throw herself back in his arms if she did.

“Aye. You were trying to talk, I think, and you did not sound happy. You thrashed about a bit, as well. I did not want you to hurt yourself.”

She fed tinder to the fire and watched the flame surge up the twigs and dried leaves, aware of a similar heat that flowed just under her skin. “Thank you for waking me,” she said. “I did not mean to fall asleep.”

“Neither did I, but it seems we did.” He pointed at the sky, which was streaked with the rosy pale light of dawn. He stood slowly, keeping the plaid wrapped about him like a cloak, though she did not see how he could be chilled enough to need it.

When he stooped to help her with the fire, carefully setting wood in place to catch the flame she kindled, the dream came back to her as if it were a memory of something real, not the nighttime rambles of her tired mind. And she realized ’twas not a dream, not in the usual way. This was like the dreams she had had as a child. Dreams that often became reality.

But what did this one mean? Would a stag lead her to a place of great frustration? Or was there something beyond the dark passage that she must find a way to get to?

She looked up the ben in the direction she must have gone in the dream. Up there, somewhere, was a stone jutting out from the mountainside, with the figure of a deer incised into it, and a deep cleft in the rock that she must figure out how to traverse. She was certain of it. What she didn’t know was if she should be afraid of what she found there.

M
ALCOLM WAS CAREFUL
to keep the plaid he had shared with Jeanette wrapped about him, hiding the raging need that had awakened him. The lass had been pressing against him in her sleep, muttering and twitching her hands as if she tried to use them in whatever dream she was caught up in. He’d awakened her, as he’d promised, and then . . . It had taken every bit of strength he had for him not to push her on her back and have her then and there.

Of course they weren’t far outside the mouth of the cave and the auld women were early risers, so that had fortified his constraint, but just barely.

He busied himself with the fire, letting the heat that the lass had kindled in him cool before anyone else joined them.

“Did you two spend the whole night out here?” Peigi walked toward them from the cave, her gnarled hands on her hips and mischief dancing in her eyes.

“Aye, mistress, we did,” he said, but did not return her smile. He was just managing to get his body under control and he did not need that canny woman reading more into the situation than was true.

“Jeanette, will you check the porridge and make sure ’tis cooked through?” Peigi asked as she walked slowly into the wood. When she came back a few minutes later she was rubbing her hip. “I think ’tis time we turned our work to a little comfort,” she mumbled as if to herself.

Jeanette looked up at the ben, then at the auld woman. “Scotia and I can find heather and sweet grass to stuff the mattresses with this day, so you dinna have to sleep upon the hard ground another night.”

Peigi joined Malcolm where he was still tending the fire and turned her back to the fragile warmth it was at last casting into the chill morning.

“I think ’tis a good idea,” she said, still rubbing her hip as if it ached. “My auld bones do not take kindly to hard rock for a bed. But do not take Scotia. I have another task for her this day. Take Malcolm.” She winked at him, the auld troublemaker. “ ’Twould be good for his arm to do some work. Gathering the heather would not be too difficult for him, would it?”

Jeanette closed her eyes and Malcolm wondered what exactly was running through her mind. Did she wish to be alone with him as he wished to be alone with her?

Holy mother of God. He gripped the plaid about him as a new surge of desire took hold of him. If they were alone amongst the heather— An image of the two of them, naked, twined together amidst the fragrant heather, her skin heated by passion and the sun, filled his mind.

He tried to think of something else but could not. He made sure the plaid draped over him still where he crouched, yet tending the fire that no longer needed his care. He would need to work himself beyond fatigue to keep from reaching for her, kissing her, taking her.

He wiped away the sweat that beaded on his forehead with the back of his hand. Aye, working hard with his arm would be good for it. Working until it was sore might keep him from wanting what the lass had not offered.

“Jeanette?” Peigi said. “Will you and Malcolm stuff the mattresses for me and my sisters this day?”

Malcolm’s mind turned her question into an innuendo and he had to stifle a laugh, even as the image of Jeanette, naked under him on one of those mattresses, took hold—her blond hair spread about her, head arched back in pleasure—made him ache with a need he could not slake.

Jeanette stirred the kettle of porridge, banged the wooden spoon against the side of it, and covered it once more. She looked up the ben again, then slowly nodded.

He could not stop the quiet groan that escaped him at Jeanette’s accept
ance. This day would be difficult for more than his injured arm.

Peigi chuckled.

CHAPTER SEVEN

J
EANETTE LED THE
way up the path they had traveled into the Glen of Caves a few days before, determined to ignore the man who followed her. They each had a large, mostly empty, basket that they carried on their backs. At the moment all that the baskets contained was a little food for their midday meal and a short-handled scythe. They would gather as much heather as they could carry and take it back for the mattresses for Peigi and her sisters. Unfortunately, there were no large areas of heather within the Glen of Caves, so they were forced to retrace their journey out of the glen and almost to the shieling, the summer pasturage that was still high upon the ben.

Peigi had no idea what she had done this day, sending Jeanette and Malcolm off alone. ’Twas bad enough that Jeanette would not get a chance to look for the place the stag had shown her, but her heartbeat had tripled at the mere thought of being alone with the man in whose arms she had awakened. Her breath came faster than the exertion of walking merited and she had a hard time swallowing with her mouth gone bone-dry.

“I dinna think this is a good day for gathering heather,” Malcolm said from behind her.

She almost agreed with him, then remembered that she was trying to ignore him lest she do something daft like throw herself into his arms. She walked on as silence sliced between them until his words sank in and pricked at her pride. Did he not wish to spend the time with her?

“Why do you not think ’tis a good day for this task?” she asked over her shoulder, chiding herself for not holding her tongue. She sped her steps. If she could not ignore his conversation, she dared not trust herself should he get within touching distance of her.

“If you looked up, rather than at your feet, angel, you would not ask.” His voice was tight but she refused to look back to find out why.

Instead, she looked up to find a sky that matched her mood—dark with heavy clouds.

“Oh. Perhaps the rain will hold off long enough for us to at least get enough heather for Peigi. She is used to a feather bed and I fear she is not as resilient as she once was when it comes to where she sleeps.”

“From what she tells me, I would say ’tis true.”

His quiet laugh made her smile as she, too, remembered some of Peigi’s bawdier tales. Peigi had been quite a wanton in her younger days and took no pains to hide that from anyone. She was, if anything, quite proud of her exploits with the lads.

“I think her tales have gone to Scotia’s head.”

“Scotia?” He drew nearer to her, but still stayed a step or two behind.

It was easier to talk to him, to pretend she wasn’t drawn to him, when she wasn’t looking at him.

“Aye, Scotia has kept us all on watch for her lest she do something she would regret with the lads.”

“Your sister, Scotia?”

“Who else?”

“I have not seen anything like that with her. Indeed, she is grim-faced and taciturn every time I see her.”

Jeanette suddenly realized that he was right. She had not had to chase after her sister, or reprimand her for her behavior, since . . . her mother had been murdered and the culprit executed in front of all of them.

“She has changed with recent events. I never thought to say this, but I miss her antics. They were annoying, but amusing.”

“And what amuses you now, lass?”

She sighed and shrugged. “I do not ken. These days, there is little to be amused by, not even by Scotia.”

“And so I have a task.”

She looked back at his beautiful, grinning face, though she had promised herself she wouldn’t, and she felt the dark clouds of her mood lift a little. “And what, pray tell, is that?”

“To find a way to amuse you, of course. I would hear you laugh. Laughter lightens even the heaviest of hearts.”

He spoke the truth, yet she could not imagine laughing of late.

As they neared the shoulder of one of the sheltering bens, Malcolm stepped in front of her, making it impossible for her to keep her eyes, and her mind, off the comely man as he led her down a deer trail they had followed into the Glen of Caves a few days ago. Finally the forest opened enough to reveal glimpses of a hillside blanketed in heather. In the fall it would be shades of pinks and purples, but now it was green and while it would not make as fragrant a bed without the blossoms, ’twould still be better than most anything else in a mattress. And it would certainly be better than a plaid on the bare ground.

Which brought to mind the fact that that was exactly how she had slept the night before, though curled up against her companion . . . and she had slept well until the morning dream, and the part that wasn’t a dream.

Heat burned in her cheeks and she was grateful Malcolm walked in front of her so he would not ask why she blushed so.

Malcolm signaled for her to stop just inside the cover of the forest. She set her basket down, unloaded the sack of food for their midday meal and the sickle-shaped knife she’d brought for cutting the heather, then she waited while he circled along the edge of the meadow. Eventually he waved her out of the shelter of the trees and met her in the heather.

“We should take care where we cut,” she said, “so that it will not be obvious from a distance that this heather has been recently harvested.”

He held out his hand for the sickle and she briefly considered not giving it to him. But then she reminded herself that part of why they had come on this task was to help with strengthening his hand and arm. The effort required to grip the knife would keep him busy and tire him out so that she would be able to better remember her role as healer for this man, and perhaps forget the feel of his lips on hers and his hand on her breast this morning. Her nipples tightened at the mere memory and she quickly handed him the knife.

It took him a few tries to figure out that he could not grip the knife hard enough in his injured right hand, but that he could manage it in his left, using his right to stabilize the branches instead. Once that was sorted out, he moved quickly from one bush to another, and another. She followed along behind him, collecting the cuttings as he liberated them, stacking them in the deep basket, while, all the time, trying her best to ignore the deep, yearning ache that built within her each time she found herself watching him work, admiring his determination, and the way he moved—the flash of his muscled calf or sinewy forearm as he worked.

He straightened to his full height, startling her out of her distraction, and shook out his right hand, wiggling the fingers as if they pained him.

“We should take a rest,” she said as she picked up the cuttings and added them to her nearly full basket. “I need the other basket anyway.”

He nodded, wiping his brow with his sleeve, and then took one side of the basket while she took the other. Together they moved quietly back into the cool dimness under the cover of the trees.

Jeanette pulled a waterskin out of the other basket and drank deeply before she turned to offer it to her companion. He was sitting on the ground, his back to a tree and his long legs stretched out in front of him. He arched what she was sure was an aching back and he smiled as she proffered the waterskin. Jeanette was transfixed by the man before her, his gold-streaked hair lifting and tangling in the breeze, his tawny skin that seemed to beg for her touch, and his smile . . . she remembered the feel of his lips upon hers and heat arrowed deep into her belly, increasing the ache there and leaving her restless and oddly out of sorts.

“How is your arm, and your hand?” she asked as he passed the skin back to her. She took another long drink, hoping the cool water would quench the heat that seemed to build within her.

When he didn’t answer, she realized he was watching her drink, a look of hunger in his eyes that fanned the heat within her into flames.

“Your arm?” she asked again, annoyed at the slightly breathless quality to her voice.

“My arm is well enough. ’Tis my hand that will not do as I tell it.” He pushed himself up to his feet and showed her his right hand.

Nothing looked wrong with it, but she was well aware that his grip strength was not anywhere near what it should be, what it had been. She feared he might never regain much strength in it, but she did not say that to him . . . not yet.

“Can you make a fist of it?” she asked, focusing on her healing lore to distract herself from how close he was standing to her now, and how the scent of fresh-cut heather mingled with a muskier scent that she was coming to know was Malcolm. She breathed it deep into her lungs.

He held his hand out, palm up, and curled his fingers but he could not make a fist. He pushed his fingers where he wanted them to be with his other hand, then grimaced as his right hand spasmed, contorting into what looked more like claws than fingers.

She dropped the waterskin to the ground and took his hand in hers, not so gently massaging his palm, then each of his fingers, loosening the cramping muscles. “You can do this yourself, you ken. ’Twould be good for your hand, loosening the muscles. When we get back to the caves I will fashion a ball out of cloth for you.”

“Why would I want a ball, angel?” His voice was soft, as if he was lost in her touch.

“You must squeeze it as often as you think of it.” She wadded up a corner of her arisaid and put it in his palm. “Try to squeeze that.”

He did, the cloth giving just enough to exercise the muscles in his fingers and hand.

“The ball will strengthen your hand again and as you can close your hand more, you can remove the outer layers of cloth to make it smaller.”

He tried it a few times, then dropped the cloth, holding his hand out to her. “I like it better when you ease my hand.” He grinned at her, then he closed his eyes and let his head tilt back as she once more massaged his hand. “But I will do as you bid when you cannot.”

When his hand finally relaxed, she pushed up the sleeve of his tunic, and continued her ministrations up his arm, working the tense muscles until she felt them begin to give way and soften.

“That feels good, angel,” Malcolm said quietly.

“Why do you call me that?” she asked, still working on his forearm. “You have called me that almost from the moment we met.”

He touched her cheek with his free hand, drawing her attention away from his arm and up to his face that was only inches from her own.

“Because the first time I saw you, you looked like an angel, a warrior angel, come to help me.”

His touch was like spark to tinder, igniting a desire inside her unlike any she’d experienced before. No matter how much she tried to calm her heart, her breath, she couldn’t. She licked lips gone dry, and he ran his thumb over her lower lip, tracing the path her tongue had taken.

She looked up and was captured by hazel eyes gone dark, intense, and hungry. His gaze was trained upon her as if she were the only thing in the world and she knew she looked at him the same way. What had started out as a way to lessen his pain had become a means for her to touch him, to touch his skin, to feel its warmth against her hands, to caress the hand that she wished was sliding over her skin.

“If you want to take off your tunic,” she said, her voice just barely above a whisper, “I can continue working on your arm.”

Without a word he whipped his tunic off and placed his hand back in hers.

“Sit down,” she said. He complied before she had the words out of her mouth. She knelt and worked her hands up his forearm, then his upper arm, gentling her strokes over the now closed, but not yet fully healed wound, working her way up to his shoulder, knowing she had already stopped his muscle spasm and relaxed his arm muscles, but she did not want to stop touching him. Her hands trembled and an odd tingling flowed up from her feet and into her hands where she touched him. It was as if the feel of his skin under her hands called up a hunger she hadn’t even known she harbored until he had come into her life.

Without thinking, she pressed a kiss to the top of his arm where it met his shoulder.

Malcolm groaned and hooked his injured arm around her, pulling her into his lap, leaning her back into his good arm as he covered her mouth with his in a kiss that was at once giving and taking, soft and demanding. She could feel the hard length of his desire against her hip and she could not help but press herself closer to it, nestling her bottom in the cradle of his lap in an attempt to ease the ache that had set up between her legs.

Malcolm kissed her jaw, then her neck, as she moved her head back. Jeanette ran her fingers into his hair, holding him close so he would not stop kissing her, would not stop touching her. His weak hand moved up and down her side as he kissed her, pulling her even deeper into his lap, tantalizing her with each upward stroke as he came nearer and nearer to her aching, swollen breast. He pressed his palm to her side, his thumb just grazing the bottom of her breast, and he stopped.

“Do not stop,” she whispered, and he covered her mouth with his once more. At the same moment he swept his hand up to cover her breast, his thumb running over her sensitive nipple, the heat of him penetrating even through two layers of clothes.

And then he was lifting her with his good arm, guiding her to straddle him with his weak one, pressing the focus of all her need against the rough wool that separated her from the heat of him—and through everything he never ceased his kissing. She lost herself in the pressure of his lips against hers, their tongues dancing against each other, until suddenly his hands were under her skirts, drawing her attention to other parts of her that yearned for his attention. He slid his fingers along her calves, pressing, smoothing, much as she had done to his arm, though he did not linger as long, sliding his big hands now over her thighs.

Somewhere in her head there was a whisper that she should stop this, but the need, the inferno burning so hot within her shouted that quiet voice down, demanding more, more, though she could not say what more there was.

His hands slid between them, his fingers skimming over sensitive skin up and down, ever higher, his thumbs running along her inner thigh, stopping just short of the center of all her frustration. She wanted to cry out with her desperation.