Unwanted (5 page)

“What happened after?” he prodded.

It was
Rhona’s
turn to be shocked.
 
Why did he want to know all this?

“There isn’t much to tell after Mira… a woman at the market brought her grandson to me.
 
His mother had died in childbirth.
 
I nursed the babe for several months.
 
The woman’s husband was a beast-keeper and he gave me my goat and three chickens for payment.
 
 
After that, the woodcutter’s wife had their fifth child and her milk dried early.
 
I nursed her baby daughter for a few months, and they sent me dinner and wood to warm me.
 
But her child started on solid food almost a month ago…”
 
Rhona
trailed off.
 
The stranger,
Finn,
knew everything about her now.
 
More than he probably wanted to.
 
But she felt surprisingly better, unburdening herself like that.
 
Lighter, somehow.

“You didn’t hate your child?”
 
Finn asked bluntly.
 
“What if her sire was one of those men who—” He didn’t finish his sentence, and
Rhona
was glad.
 
She didn’t want to hear the words on his tongue.
 
She didn’t want to actualize the thought in his mind, not while they were alone and she was so exposed.
 

“Nay,” she murmured.
 
“None of that was her fault.
 
She was an innocent gift born of all that ugliness.”

The sudden sound of movement startled her and she had the distinct impression that the giant had stood.
 
Surprisingly, it didn’t disrupt the baby who had fallen asleep at her breast.

“Someone’s here,” Finn’s voice didn’t sound alarmed, but still held an intensity that worried her.
 

“How would you know—
”

The second insistent knock of the night tested the meager strength of her door.
 

Shocked that the noise didn’t wake the sleeping child,
Rhona
gingerly set the babe on the bed and rushed to buckle her shift.
 
She stood and turned to grab her fur, then backed into something so solid and warm that it stunned her into stillness.
 

She hadn’t known he stood so close.
 
Her breath quickened pace with her heart.
 
“Please don’t show that you are here,” she whispered.
 
“It would be disastrous for me.”

“I won’t.”
 
His breath warmed her ear as he bent to whisper to her and gooseflesh broke over her skin.
 
She didn’t want to open the door.
 
She didn’t want to move.
 
His chest was so solid against her back.
 
So stable.
 

The knock sounded again, this time louder, and the babe let out a muffled squeak that spurred
Rhona
into action.
 
She lunged for the rickety latch and pulled the door open.

James MacLauchlan, the woodcutter, loomed in her doorway, smelling as though his most recent bath had been in Islay scotch.
 
Even the strength of the wind couldn’t whip the overpowering scent away from her.
 
 

She stepped onto the stoop and closed the door behind her, the cold stone freezing her bare feet.
 

He leaned down to her and
Rhona
shrank from the grimy unmentionables caught in his dirty, russet beard.
 
“I noticed
yer
chimney was cold.
 
I’ve brought a full load for
ye
.”
 
He took his time running his eyes over her, noting the thin hem of her shift peeking from beneath the ratted fur she clutched about her shoulders.
 
He staggered a bit when he motioned to the wood piled haphazardly in his cart and covered with a skin to protect it from the storm.
 
It would be enough to warm her for at least two weeks.
 

“I’ll be taking the payment we agreed upon now.”
 
His hand snaked out and grasped her elbow.

“Wait.” She made to pull her arm away but kept her voice low, hoping the storm shielded their words from Finn.
 
The stranger knew too much of her shame already, and she depended on his gold for survival.
 
“I’ve taken a job.
 
I have a babe in there with me and enough to pay you.
 
If you come back tomorrow night, after I’ve changed the coin with the smithy—.”

His grip became painful and he pushed forward, as if to force her inside.
 
“My wife is invalid after the birth of this babe.
 
It’s been months since I’ve lain with her and I
havena
the coin for whores.”

Rhona’s
heart dropped into her stomach.
 
How was she going to get rid of him?
 
“I’m sorry, but I’ll pay you—”

“Ye promised me a
tup
for a fire and I mean to collect what’s owed me.”
 
He reached over her and pushed the door open, making to shove her inside.
 

Rhona
resisted, but paused when she saw his eyes widen in shock.
 
Her instinct told her to scramble out of the way seconds before the heavy woodcutter flew several feet backward into a bank of snow.

Finn did, indeed, appear the avenging angel as he stalked the woodcutter.
 
Rhona
inched toward the door, squinting against the stinging crystals of ice cast at her by the storm.
 
The barbarian all but disappeared into the snow with his light furs and fair hair.
 

James sprawled on his back in the bank, moaning and cursing.
 

Finn said not a word as he lifted his gigantic boot and stomped on the woodcutter’s chest.
 
It seemed like he used little effort, but James folded in on himself and rolled to his side, his mouth gaping and closing like a fish starved for water.
 

Rhona
gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.
 
Part of her wanted to stop Finn.
 
What he did would bring dire consequences upon her head.
 
The whole of the village would surely turn against her.
 
But God help her, she could do naught but watch, hoping that his punishment was indeed as painful as it looked.
 

Finn moved behind him, his features contorted with satisfied wrath as he delivered vicious kicks to MacLauchlan’s middle and lower back.
 
This man knew exactly how to
wreak
pain and did so with brutal efficiency.
 
Though James was a large man with a body honed of hard work, Finn didn’t once unsheathe his weapons, as though the woodcutter didn’t pose enough of a challenge.
 

Something dark and violent rose within her belly as Finn’s boot covered the side of James’ neck as the man curled into
himself
.
 
Rhona
couldn’t call it excitement, per se, but it was a thrill so foreign that it frightened her.
 
It spread a trembling, moist ache deep into her womb and caused her feminine muscles to clench tightly.
 

“When you are again able to breathe, you will crawl home to your
wife
.”
 
Finn’s voice was chillingly soft, but it somehow reached her through the howling of the wind.
 
She saw James’s head move in a frantic nod and his neck was released.
 

Instead of coming toward her, Finn marched to the cart and started stacking wood into his arms.
 

“Wait,”
Rhona
cried.
 
“I don’t want anything from him.
 
I’ll find another way.”

Finn shook his head and wordlessly continued stacking an impossible load of wood into his arms.
 
When he could no longer see over, he hefted it to rest against the dry part of the stable building, moving as though the burden didn’t impede him in the slightest.
 

 
“Did you not hear me?”
Rhona
followed him, ignoring the biting cold on her feet.
 
“I told you I did not want it.”

Finn cast
her an
indecipherable look and didn’t pause in his work.
 
“He was defeated.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that what was his now belongs to you.”
 

“That’s ridiculous,” she gasped.

“
That
is the way of things.”
 
Finn stood and tromped back into the snow for another enormous armful of firewood.
 
Honestly, a man shouldn’t be able to carry so much.
 
It was unnatural.
 

 
“I appreciate you defending me, I really do.”
 
She moved to block him from a third and final trip.
 
“But he’s going to claim that I stole it and that will be no end of trouble.”

Finn stepped around her without even breaking a stride.
 
“No he won’t.”
 
He spat in the direction of the now gasping woodcutter and loaded the last of the wood.
 
“He’ll be busy pissing blood for the next few days.”
 
It appeared the prospect very much pleased him.
 

“And what about after that?”
 
Rhona
burrowed deeper into her fur.
 
“What about next time, when you’ve moved on and no one is here to protect me?”

The barbarian paused, holding a stack that would have taken three normal men to carry, and considered her question.
 
His face remained impassive, as though it were set that way.
 
“There is no other woodcutter in the village?”

Rhona
shook her head. “I would get firewood on my own if I had any boots to wear in the snow.
 
As it is, I’d lose my toes to frost if I tried.”

Dumping the last bit of firewood, Finn looked down at her bare feet as if for the first time.
 
Letting out a foreign, ugly curse he lifted her into his arms before she could protest and carried her inside.

***

Finn leaned against the door and used his elbow to secure the latch.
 
For a woman living alone, the door didn’t lend much in the way of security.
 
He remembered being afraid he’d shatter the rotting wood when he knocked.
 
It left her so vulnerable.
 
Defenseless.
 
That would have to be remedied if he were ever to get a peaceful night’s sleep again.
 

“What are you about?
 
Put me
down
,” the woman demanded in a loud whisper, glaring blindly at his chest in the darkness.
 

Finn frowned.
 
He didn’t know what he was about.
 
Some sort of unraveling was taking place within him.
 
When he’d noted her feet, bared and red in the snow, his only instinct had been to shield her from pain.
 
He’d not thought past picking her up and taking her inside.

She smelled like juniper soap and cinnamon.
 
Finn leaned down to breathe her in.
 
He’d been able to control his inexplicable desire for her, so far.
 
But having her in his arms like this, at his mercy, caused his control to slip in dangerous increments.