Tess and the Highlander

by May McGoldrick

  “And I’ll do my best…to get used to you, too,” he finished hoarsely.

  Tess tried to burrow deeper into the ground, but something was stopping her. The wind was stronger and colder. Something was pulling at her. She was so cold. She had to push herself in deeper to stay warm. It was right there, so near. She couldn’t bear being separated from it, but she was being pulled away. She held on tighter.

  “You need to let go, lass.”

  She shook her head. The words were spoken very close to her ear. It was a deep voice. It was the Highlander’s voice. She tried to bury herself deeper beneath the stones. She had to hide from him.

  “I cannot be much help with you wrapped around me like this.”

  Wrapped around me. Wrapped around me. She didn’t know what he was talking about. She was wrapped around a piece of rock. She clutched more tightly. She was growing warmer. If she could just hold on tightly enough...

  “Not that I’m complaining. But you’re cold and wet and…and I suppose we need to get you out of these clothes before you come down with a fever.”

  Wrapped around me. The words were finally sinking in. She forced her eyes open and found herself looking at smooth muscles of a man’s neck. She lifted her head off a broad shoulder and looked into eyes the color of a turbulent blue sea. His face was so close to hers. Hazy and confused, she studied every aspect of his chiseled face. At the same time, she became aware that her feet were not touching the ground. Her weight was being supported by pair of strong arms. An unfamiliar warmth seeped through her, and her gaze fell on his mouth. A hint of a smile tugged at the full lips.

  “So, you’ve decided to come around.”

  “You…are n-not…g-getting me out of these c-c-clothes.”

  His expression turned sober. “I’m afraid you have left me no choice.”

  She started struggling in his arms. “L-let…me…g-go. Let…me…go!”

  Immediately, he dropped her onto her bedding, extracting a sharp cry in return as she fell. She scowled up at him.

  “You…didn’t have…to drop me!” Separated from his warmth, she felt the chills again wash through her. The skin on her face was stiff. Her eyes felt puffy and dry. She tried to tug a blanket from beneath her and pull it over her, but her hands hardly responded. She could not move her fingers. She watched him move away from her to the hearth. Squatting, he started building up the fire. Helpless in the light of her useless limbs, she put her head down on the covering and pulled her knees to her chest. She was so tired. She felt like crying but fought back the impulse. “’Tis…c-cold in…h-here. ‘Tis very…c-c-cold.”

  “You’ll be warm soon.”

  The Highlander put another piece of wood on the fire. In a moment the flames were snapping and hissing, and he rose and came to her. He crouched down beside Tess and tucked the edges of the blanket around her legs. “I am glad that you at least understand what I am saying.” His strong fingers started removing her roughly-made shoes. Tess was too weak to protest As he pulled them off, she realized she had no feeling in her toes.

  “I am Colin Macpherson. Do you have a name?”

  She stared at the pale skin of her feet as his large hands cupped them.

  “We’ll worry about your name later.” He looked about the room. “We need to get you out of those wet clothes.” He reached for another blanket that was lying at the foot of her bedding and tucked it around her bare feet. “Do you think you can manage it by yourself?”

  She nodded weakly. But the loud chatter of her teeth was making it impossible for Tess to speak clearly. “D-d-dry…clothes.”

  “Where?” He looked about him again and then followed the direction of her gaze to the ladder and the opening above. She nodded when he pointed at it.

  Leaving her, he crossed the room and climbed up through the hole to the area beneath the roof.

  Staring dully at his legs as he disappeared into the eaves, Tess realized that she no longer feared him. The man didn’t have to come after her. He didn’t have to bring her back. But he had. She managed to undo the laces of her dress in the front. Her fingers were clumsy and her skin actually hurt as she peeled away the soaked layers and crawled under the blanket. She felt the intense weariness again weighing her down. And it was so cold. She just wanted to go to sleep and forget about everything.

  Pulling her knees tightly against her chest, she closed her eyes.

  Thin shafts of light from a number of breaks in the roof cut through the dim haze. Crouching beside the opening he had climbed through, Colin glanced about with bewilderment at the large open space. Yesterday, he had thought it was just a room used for storage when he’d peered in. Now it occurred to him that the loft was a veritable treasure trove…if one considered junk to be treasure.

  But it was also the most organized midden he’d ever laid eyes on.

  Colin couldn’t stand up completely beneath the low, sloping roof, and as he moved carefully in the dim light, he ducked under ropes that had been strung from one end wall to the other.

  Hundreds of castoff items, if not more, were stacked on the floor in orderly rows. A cracked flute. A rusted helmet of a design he’d never seen. A pilgrim’s bottle that looked usable. A mortar without the pestle. Some kind of clan banner with all the colors bleached out. A rusted chain shirt. Most looked like things that might have been washed ashore from sinking ships.

  Colin suddenly remembered the shivering young woman below and left his perusal of this room for another time.

  Against one of the end walls, he spied neatly folded piles of what looked to be ancient, wool blankets beside a worn sea chest. A couple of moth-eaten woolen cloaks sat on the chest. Laying them aside, he pushed open the large chest and stared.

  On top, an ornately wrought golden cross, encrusted with bright jewels, caught his attention. The piece was magnificent. He picked it up and looked at it. The cross hung from a short gold chain. The length of it was only suitable for a child. He remembered the pieces of mending he’d seen downstairs before. Carefully replacing the cross, he eyed a young girl’s dainty shoes. Next to them lay two small combs. There were other items in the chest, but his thoughts were once again drawn to the wet lass in the room beneath him. He left everything as he’d found it and closed the chest.

  Looking around, he spotted two woman’s dresses hanging from a couple of pegs. Colin grabbed for one of them and started for the ladder before pausing. Going back, he took a few of the woolen blankets and one of the cloaks, too.

  The fire had taken the worst of the chill off the chamber by the time he descended.

  “I hope this will do. ’Twas no easy task finding it up there amid the…”

  His words trailed off. Wet clothes had been cast off beside the bed, and the young woman seemed to be sound asleep. Colin was well aware of what too many hours in the cold could do to a person. He stocked the hearth with more driftwood and moved again to her side. He touched her forehead. She was still very cold, and her breathing struck him as shallow and labored.

  “You can put this other dress on yourself…when you are ready.” He spread the extra blankets on top of her and placed the dry dress within her reach.

  Colin pushed the wet strands of hair out of her face and, for the first time, really looked at her. Dark long lashes lay peacefully against skin that had been gently kissed by the sun. He stared at the perfect symmetry of eyes that he remembered were so large and dark. She had a straight nose and full lips. With her thick, dark waves of hair flowing down over her shoulders, Colin could imagine she would look like a mermaid. She was young, but very beautiful, and he couldn’t understand for the life of him what she was doing on this island.

  Colin saw her shiver again. Gently, he touched the smooth skin of her face to make certain she was warming up. She rolled onto her side and clasped his hand between her own and laid her cheek on it. The simple gesture made him smile.

  “I so wish I knew your name, lass.”

  “So c-c-cold…” she whispered wea
kly in her sleep, trying to tug his warm hand beneath the blanket.

  He disengaged his hand from the young woman and instead tucked the covers more tightly around her.

  “I am a man, my bonny islander, and there are limits to a man’s restraint.”

  Her shivering was getting worse instead of better.

  “’Twould be best for you to stop challenging all I say.”

  Shaking his head, he leaned over and pushed her closer to the wall. Then, with a deep sigh of resignation, Colin lay down on top of the blankets and nestled against her.

  “I do not know if you’ll get any heat from my body this way, but this is as much help as I’m willing to be.” He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the blackened ceiling above. “And not a word of this to the men who come back for me, understand? You’re not to say anything about me lying beside you with you all…all naked beneath this blanket. And absolutely nothing about what a bloody gentleman I’ve been!”

  She tucked her cold nose into the crook of his neck.

  Colin rolled toward her and drew the bundled woman tightly to him, enveloping her in his warmth. “I have a reputation to protect. So none of this gets out. Do you hear me, lass?”

  She didn’t say anything in agreement, but she didn’t contradict him, either.

  A very good start, he thought.

  CHAPTER 3

  “He is alive. I know it,” Alexander Macpherson said curtly to the two sailors preparing to take the news of his youngest brother’s mishap overland to the family at Benmore Castle. “You tell them that.”

  The ship, still buffeted by the strong winds and stinging rain, strained at its anchor in Anstruther harbor on the Fife coast. They had been lucky when there had been a slight lull in the storm around midnight. Taking shelter in the barren, windswept harbor, Alexander had been striding across the deck all night, cursing the storm that was holding him hostage.

  Just because his ship was trapped, though, the ship’s master was not about to sit idle. Alexander had already sent off a dozen men on foot and horseback to the north and a dozen more to the south with directions to comb every beaches and inlets from Fife Ness to Kincraig. But the area being searched was only a small stretch compared to the shoreline south of the Firth of Forth, and he would need more men to broaden the search. He would find his brother.

  As the two messengers dropped into the small boat that would take them to the shore and to waiting horses, one of the ship’s mates spoke up to the small group gathered by the railing. “I for one have never seen a better swimmer than Master Colin.”

  Alexander understood the words were said as much for his sake as anyone else’s.

  “Aye,” said another. “That sea could easily have carried ‘im all the way to Leith.”

  “Knowing how ready the lad was to be done with that lot at St. Andrews,” an old tar added, “I’ll wager he’s swum all the way to Dundee. Why, the young devil’s no doubt sitting in front of the fire at the Cock ‘n’ Crown right now, a cup o’ ale in ‘is hand and a lassie on ‘is knee.”

  “Ye mean both knees.” The other corrected. “The way the lassies throw themselves at the lad…” The sailor paused, shaking his head in wonder. “What young Master Colin says is right—why settle for one when ye can have ‘em all?”

  As the men laughed uneasily, Alexander looked out across the harbor at the storm-lashed sea. He wished he could be so sure. He wished he had Colin here now.

  His ship’s mate laid a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll find him, m’lord. ‘Tis a sailor’s lot to end his days in the sea, but Master Colin’s time was not up. I’m certain of it.”

  The ship’s master silently cursed the storm in frustration. Though he’d continue to have his men scour the shore, it would be much easier to sail up and down the coast in search of him.

  “While we’re trapped on this barren harbor, I’m joining ashore to join the search to the south. Send someone after me if you get any news from the others.”

  “Aye, m’lord.”

  As Alexander called for a boat, he tried to push back the nagging voice in his head that kept telling him that perhaps he was not doing enough. But then, maybe all of this was for nothing. Perhaps Colin was indeed lost at sea.

  Nay. He wasn’t ready to deal with such a possibility. His brother had too much life in him…too much fight in him…to die like that.

  Her first conscious thought was the realization that she was warm.

  She snuggled into the familiar comfort of her bedding. Warm and dry. Tess let out a deep breath. She could hear the sound of the wind and rain against the walls, and the stormy sea in the distance. She’d get up in a moment and see about getting together something to eat. Aye, she was hungry and thirsty, and she needed to relieve herself. Just a moment more, she thought, stretching her muscles beneath the blanket, savoring the lovely warmth surrounding her. Her legs bumped against something hard.

  Tess opened her eyes and froze, too stunned even to breathe. Inches from her face she could see the mouth and chin of the sleeping Highlander. The two were both lying together on the narrow bedding! On her bed! One of the man’s lean, muscular arms rested on her bare shoulder. She had been using his other arm as a pillow. She could feel his warm breath caressing her forehead.

  And she was naked, she realized with a hot flash of panic. She didn’t have to lift the blankets to know she was bare to skin.

  Tess moved her head only slightly to look down at his body. From what she could see, the Highlander was fully clothed and sleeping on top of the blanket.

  Bits and pieces of a one way conversation rattled around in her mind. He seemed to talk quite a bit. She also remembered him being concerned about her. Aye, he’d come after her. He’d even carried her back here! And then she faintly recalled taking off her own wet, half-frozen clothing before falling sleep.

  Falling sleep naked. Her entire body flushed hot at the thought.

  She glanced again at him. But nothing had happened. He was fully clothed even now. Layers of blankets separated them.

  Tess stared at the man’s full lips. So near. A shadow of growth was already darkening his chin. His shoulders were wide. His strength was so potent even while sleeping. And still she found she was not at all afraid of him.

  Tess instantly knew that spending too many hours in the cold must had done some serious damage to her mind. She had to somehow escape this bed and dress herself before the Highlander…

  Her stomach growled loudly.

  Tess held her breath as the man mumbled something in his sleep. Before she dared to move, his two arms wrapped around her like bands of steel, and he drew her tightly against him. Her head was tucked under his chin and her body was aligned perfectly with his.

  As she was trying to think of some way to extricate herself from this situation, she was shocked to feel his hands move up and down over her back, as if he were trying to warm her. And it was working. Too well, in fact. In her entire life, Tess had never had anyone do such a thing to her, and a wild thrill raced through her at the feeling he was producing in her.

  The thrill turned to real panic the instant she felt his hand stray a bit too low on her back. She was ready to awaken him with a jab, but then the Highlander rolled to his back and tucked her into the crook of his arm.

  From this angle, she had a much better view of the room. The fire in the hearth had burned down to red coals. The wind was whistling through the small windows, and she knew the storm was still continuing unabated. The light was dim in the large room, and Tess guessed that night was approaching again. She spotted her wet clothing in a pile near the hearth. Next to the Highlander’s other shoulder, she caught sight of a dry dress he must have brought down from the loft where Garth and Charlotte stored things. She’d slept there as a child.

  Ever so slowly, she stretched her arm over his chest and tried to get hold of the dress. She couldn’t reach it. Waiting another moment and making sure his breathing was even, she lifted her body slightly and tried
again to reach over his wide chest for the clothing.

  Getting hold of it this time, Tess gathered the woolen dress in her fist and slowly started to disentangle herself from him.

  He released her, rolling slightly toward her. She sent a silent prayer of thanks heavenward when he didn’t wake up. Pressing back against the stone wall, she sat up and—as the blanket fell away—wrestled the dress hurriedly over her head.

  By the time Tess knelt up breathless on the bedding with the dress nearly covering her, she realized it was a miracle that the Highlander was continuing to sleep on like the dead.

  After all the trouble she’d given him the day before, he certainly deserved some entertainment. Watching her struggle to put on the dress was all that and more, Colin thought. Her body was perfect, her skin smooth as polished ivory.

  He made another mumbling sound, as if he were asleep, and turned onto his side.

  Colin had been trying to imagine the different possibilities of how someone like her might have arrived on this island. From all accounts he could recall, the couple who lived here before were far too old to produce someone as young as this. So she was either brought here and abandoned, or she too had washed ashore. But when? And who was she? And who were her people?

  He contemplated letting her know that he was awake, but the sight that moved before his half-closed eyes stopped him. She approached the hearth and quietly placed small pieces of driftwood on the fire.

  Colin held his breath as she stood stretching the muscles in her back. Her long hair, an unbound mass of waves and ringlets, hung nearly to her waist. Flecks of gold reflected in her auburn locks from the firelight crackling to life beside her. She cast a hesitant glance in his direction, and he closed his eyes a little more.

  A moment later, he opened them again and found her washing her face with water in a basin. From a leather pouch, she repeatedly filled a cup—a large shell, actually—and drank the water down. As she did, Colin’s eyes were riveted to the smooth and beautifully shaped column of her neck.