by Spear, Terry
Until he swung the sword, connecting with the wooden handle of her pitchfork, and then she refocused her attention. He yelled out at the same instant with a robust war-cry. Her heart nearly leapt from her chest.
The sword struck the pitchfork with such force, the jolt sang all the way up through her arm, sending a streak of pain with it. The pitchfork flew across the small room, clattered against the wall, and dropped to the stone floor.
Anora screamed, and then dashed to retrieve the fork, though it was hard to see in the dark. She considered running out of the room, but decided against it and would defend herself in the best way she knew how.
When she grabbed for the farm tool, the man jumped from the bed. He ran only a couple of steps with his giant stride before slamming his boot atop the wooden handle of the pitchfork, cementing it firmly against the floor. He grabbed for Anora’s arm with his free hand.
She swung her fist at him, connecting with his jaw. Pain radiated through her knuckles. She groaned and gritted her teeth. His jaw had to be made of granite.
“Charlie! Get him!” She shook her hand as if that would get rid of the pain.
The intruder dropped his sword and grabbed both her wrists, laughing a little as he studied her in the room's dim light. “’Tis a lassie who attacks me in my sleep.” He wore a silly smirk on his face, but his husky baritone voice told her that he was not only amused but intrigued. “When ‘tis loving that I would seek instead from one as bonny as you. I never fight with a lass.”
Charlie circled them, barking, bumping against Anora’s léine. “Charlie, bite the man!” Anora yelled, hoping that her dog would protect her like he was supposed to, instead of brushing against her gown.
Charlie seemed to believe the knave was playing with her instead, and her dog wanted to join in the game.
When the stranger twisted her in the direction of her bed, she struggled harder to wriggle free, fearing the worse. A half-naked barbaric Highlander wouldn’t ask permission to bed her. Not that she had known any personally, but the local laird had warned they were heathens to avoid at all costs.
Unable to loosen herself from the Highlander’s firm grip, she kicked his shins with her brown leather shoes, afraid that her struggles were doing nothing more than aggravating him.
“Quit fighting me.” His voice was still groggy with sleep and tinged with annoyance as he tossed Anora to the bed as if she was nothing more than a lightweight blanket to be cast aside.
As soon as she was free of him, she bolted from the mattress in panic, trying to get around him. Trying to reach the door.
He was too near, too big, too very muscled and masculine, and standing in her path no matter which way she went. She brushed against him, felt his heat and hard muscles rub against her breasts, the raw power, the tensing of his naked torso, saw the feral glint of something more in his dark eyes.
He grabbed her shoulders and forced her back on the bed.
“Stay,” he commanded, like she was a dog.
He sounded like he was used to giving others commands, and they would obey him. She wasn’t his to command.
He studied her for a moment, as if calculating her next move, then before she could react, he pulled her sgian dubh from her belt and slipped it into his boot! He smugly smiled, as if dismissing her as a threat. She waited, like a caged animal, ready to bolt.
He turned to retrieve his sword. As soon as he leaned over to pick it up from the stone floor, Anora kicked at his hip as hard as she could, unbalancing him. He didn’t go down like she’d hoped. He didn’t budge but barely an inch.
Her only hope now was to flee. She dashed again for the door. Time to retreat and get help. Though she seriously doubted she'd be successful. So much for doing this on her own.
She fled past him. She only made it to the door’s threshold when he grabbed her arm, his grip strong, decisive, overbearing. And then he jerked her toward the bed again and tossed her to the mattress where she landed on her back.
She had to admit she was afraid of him, but also more than exasperated with herself for not having had better foresight. As soon as she’d seen he wasn’t a scrawny man, she should have left well enough alone and gone for help.
Not that she thought anyone in the village would help her. Which was why she had made the mistake of confronting him in the first place.
“Stay there. I mean you no harm.” He sounded angered and tired, his voice deep and threatening. "Who else lives here, lassie?"
Fear as to what he would do to her if he learned she was alone, mixed with fury that he would take her hostage—washed over her in a cold sweat. She refused to answer him. Breathing hard, she stayed this time, glowering at him, not believing he spoke the truth. If he learned she lived alone, what then? She was strung tight like a new bow, ready to fight him further if he touched her again.
After retrieving and sheathing his sword, and then setting it on the chair, he turned to Anora. She realized then how haggard he looked. Her gaze shifted again to the bloody strip of cloth wrapped around his waist.
He was incredibly handsome, a shadow of a beard covering his square set jaw, a face with character, smiling lines beneath his eyes, and a wrinkle across his forehead. Most women would surely have found him appealing, she imagined. Even she couldn’t quash the way her traitorous body responded to him after brushing up against him—the way her breasts ached and felt heavier, the way her stomach quivered with a queer little flutter, the way her heart beat faster as he studied her.
He could pretend he had no interest in her, but she knew the look in his eyes said otherwise. He gave her another long, wicked inspection, raking her with his gaze.
“I must rest a while longer, then I will leave you be,” he finally said, sounding resigned. “Where is the man who crofts this land?”
God's teeth, he couldn’t stay here. He’d soon learn she lived alone.
“You cannot stay here, whosoever you are.” Anora scowled at him as he towered over her, while his darkened eyes studied her as she leaned back on her elbows on the straw mattress. She thought to reason with him even though he was one of those heathens from the Highlands. Surely some were honorable. “What do you want?”
The man’s eyes rested on the lay of her gown as the folds dipped between her legs. A glimmer of a smile settled on his lips. He wasn’t going to be honorable.
Panic returned. Anora jumped up from the bed again.
His hands flew up to stop her, and he shoved at her shoulders, pushing her to the mattress. “I will stay longer and if you dinna allow me to sleep, I will truss you up first. Will you permit me to rest a wee bit?”
Despite his looking ragged, she couldn’t match his strength. Staying here alone with him was not an option, though. Even if he didn’t rape her, if anyone should learn she stayed alone with a man through the night, they’d assume the worst of her. Not that she imagined she had much of a reputation anyway because she lived alone. But she liked to think she had.
Anora attempted to stand, and as he empowered her to rise, she waited for a moment, his eyes warily watching her. His whole posture stated he wasn’t letting her go. Her meek acquiescence most likely wasn’t fooling him.
In a last ditch effort to escape, she dashed for the door.
“Nay!” His singular word filled her with dread, right before he seized her arm and scowled. “I dinna believe this will work.”
What did he think? She’d be willing to allow him to dictate to her? Make her his willing hostage?
Never.
Armed with his sword, he pulled her into the larger room and glanced around at the bare furnishings. “Where is your rope, lass?”
Shaking her hair braided in one long rope down her back, Anora turned her eyes upward to look at him, chin held determinedly, eyes narrowed at him with indignation. “You wish for me to tell you where my rope is so that you may bind me with it in my own home? You must be mad. Who are you anyway?”
He grunted. “You have the right of it, lass. I
will tie you up as you willna obey me.” He pulled Anora from the cottage and surveyed the byre. “You willna run off to warn anyone that I am here.”
She lived too far from the village. Too far from a living soul. If she screamed, no one would hear her. But him. And that would most likely make the Highlander angrier.
Not that she was about to give up fighting him. Just as soon as she had another chance, she was taking it.
Chapter 2
His head and side hurting something fierce, Niall led the stubborn lass to the byre, not needing this further aggravation. He couldn't believe he'd fought with a pitchfork-armed lassie when he only vaguely remembered entering the cottage in the first place, looking for help.
He hadn't recalled hardly anything, except for seeing the cottage, then barely remembered he'd walked in and found no one. God's knees, she could have run him through with a pitchfork while he was sleeping.
He smiled at the thought, particularly because of just who had been poking him gently with the farm implement. Still, his mistake could have cost him his life if a burly sheepherder had come after him instead.
Then again, if her family arrived soon—he let out his breath with exasperation. He had to get rest.
He glowered, the notion he could be in for further trouble, unsettling him. He glanced down at her unveiled hair. Wisps of chestnut and golden strands mixed together, lightened by the sun, struggling to break loose of their confinement. His scowl softened.
“Are you an unmarried maid?” Mayhap that’s why she was so skittish around him. Then again, even if she was married, he was a stranger and had slept in her bed so she had every reason to be wary of him.
He had another thought. “Are you a concubine then?”
He suddenly realized something else, his head clearing a little, not much, but a wee bit. The bed had smelled like her, sweet, womanly, a flowery fragrance, and straw. No man had recently been in the bed.
He glanced down at her then. She lived alone?
The lass glowered at him. “Release me at once, you… you, barbarian!”
Ignoring her demand, he smiled a hint. He couldn’t recall any lass calling him such a thing. Most thought he was charming. “If no’ a concubine then, does your father manage the croft lands?”
But he now suspected she lived alone. Why else wouldn't she have told him she lived with family?
“Are you always this forceful with the people you first encounter? I imagine you do not win too many new friends this way.”
Again, he couldn’t help but smile at her audacity. He was a battle-hardened warrior, who had fought numerous times against clansmen who encroached upon the MacNeill lands. Yet, this slip of a woman did something to him he’d never expected. Made him consider hearth and home and a woman to warm his bed in more than a temporary way. He was an honorable man—so he thought—but seeing her lying on the bed, the folds of her léine dipping between her legs, and the way she so haughtily considered him, he couldn't help but think of what it would be like to bed such a bonny—and feisty—lass.
Uncomfortable with the way his thoughts were going, he said brusquely, “I dinna seek friendship, lass, only sleep.”
“Seek it at the local tavern in the village then. They will offer you room and board for a fair price, or have you no coin or naught to barter with, either?”
He didn’t answer her query. He might have thought her perversely obstinate, but he had noted she’d been genuinely concerned about his intentions. He assumed her haughtiness had more to do with covering up her fear than anything else. Not wishing to harm her, he was desperate to get more rest before he ventured out across the glen to search for Gunnolf and continued to look for the French lass.
When they'd been inside the cottage, the lass had been so fearless when she brandished a pitchfork against him, a Highland warrior. If his cousins and Gunnolf, their childhood friend, had seen the way Niall had reacted to the lassie poking at him with the prongs of her pitchfork, they would have laughed their fool heads off.
The fight wasn’t out of her yet. He would have to remain on-guard. Because of the wound on his head and his side, he didn’t want to battle the lassie any further.
He pulled her into the byre where he was about to search for the rope, but saw a wooden tub used for bathing and still wet from an earlier use. Instantly, he thought of the lass sitting in that tub, wet and naked. He smiled a little at the notion. Mind back on business, he spied the rope hanging looped in several rings on a wooden peg attached to one of the timbers.
She looked utterly annoyed, as if she wished she’d hidden it somewhere else where the likes of him couldn’t have found it so easily. He smiled down at her, unable to help himself. He enjoyed how she entertained him, helping to take his mind off how badly he was feeling. She scowled back at him, which made him smile all the more.
He tugged the lass toward the rope as she struggled to loosen his grip on her arm. He could envision her fleeing for the door, attempting another escape, and him running after her to stop her, which would make his head pound even harder, and the wound in his side bleed all the more.
So he held on with fierce determination, while she tried to wriggle free with just as much resolve. She was like a wild cat, only her teeth and claws were still hidden.
Outside the byre, the dog began to bark in an excited tone, greeting someone he must know. Niall's whole body tensed, his blood heating in anticipation of fighting a new battle.
Damnation! What if it was one of the men of the Murray's clan? He looked down at the lass, who had suddenly stilled in his grasp. He could imagine she was thinking her savior had arrived. What if she was a Murray? Bloody hell. He hadn't believed so at first as they lived further northwest than this. But what if she was kin to them?
Niall jerked the lass toward the narrow window at the opposite end of the building and carefully peered out.
Wearing a tunic and breeches, a lanky man strolled up the stone path to her cottage, and began whistling some tune.
Niall whispered to the lass, “Were you expecting to see someone? Is it your father, mayhap?”
She didn't answer him.
He reconsidered the man's age and realized he was much too young to be her father.
The sandy-haired man, as tall as Niall, but lean and wiry in build, stopped to pet the dog, peering at the cottage for a moment, then continued toward the door. He had a boot knife, but no sword. He was not a warrior.
As the visitor grew closer to the cottage, Niall shook his head at the lass. “Nay, he is too young to be your father. A lover then, or a brother?”
She mutinously didn't say a word, just glowered at Niall. The last time a bonny lass, such as this one, had given him so much grief, he had kissed her and that had melted the glower away. He didn't believe it would work on the lass though. He could imagine her giving him bloody hell, alerting the man outside, and him coming to her rescue.
“Anora? ‘Tis me, Matthew,” the man shouted, breaking into Niall's thoughts of kissing this lass. “Where is Anora?” Matthew asked Charlie, as the dog stuck close to him. He reached over and petted Charlie’s head again, and then continued on his way to the door of the cottage.
Anora. A lovely name for a lovely lass.
“He will know something is amiss when I do not answer him,” Anora said, her voice hushed as she jerked her arm in an attempt to free herself, but Niall gripped her tighter so she couldn’t break loose.
“Who is he?” Niall whispered into her ear, got a whiff of lavender that scented her hair, and wanted to kiss her in the worst way. What was wrong with him? Mayhap the bump on the back of his head had addled his thoughts more than he had believed.
“A friend, Matthew,” she said darkly under her breath, trying to move her face away from Niall's. Her body was so tense, yet she shivered.
Afraid of Niall? Or was the tension more to do with her building anger? He hadn't wanted to frighten the lass.
“And you are alone?” he asked.
The lass shouldn’t have been meeting the man when she was unchaperoned. Not when she was an unmarried miss.
Niall shook his head. “He will go away. Be still.”
But Niall worried that Matthew might seek her out in the byre next. What would Niall do then? He didn't wish to fight the man unless he had no other choice.
Matthew rapped at the door to the cottage.
Anora struggled to get free from Niall. He was certain she hoped to get Matthew’s attention. To ensure she knew she wasn’t going to warn the man, Niall pinned her arms close to her body and held her tightly against his chest. “I will kill him if you call out to him,” he whispered in her ear.
He didn’t believe it would come to that. But if he was in the enemy’s territory—and because of his injuries and since he was without his horse and clansmen’s protection—he wasn’t about to reveal that he was staying here until he’d rested up. In the event those who nearly killed him were still nearby, he couldn’t let the word get out that he was here.
Anora was breathing so hard, he was afraid she might swoon from distress. “You are safe with me, lass,” he said, hoping to calm her.
She gave him a chilling glower in return, and he grinned. Now, she was like a wild-spirited filly, and he had the greatest urge to keep her for his own, take her back to James’s castle, and tame her.
The Highlander’s soft breath sent chills sweeping down Anora’s spine, and she stared up at the grinning beast. God, he was ruggedly handsome. So much more fascinating than Matthew—the way he touched her, controlled her, and appeared more than slightly intrigued with her. If she didn’t get her breathing under control, she was going to faint.
When she never did anything of the sort. The way he was pressing her against his half-naked body was making her lightheaded. She felt his muscles flexing against her as he shifted slightly, trying to get more comfortable, or see out the window, or something. His moving next to her body was making her all the more aware of how hard he was. His mouth hovered over her ear, even brushing it when he spoke to her as if it was a whisper of a kiss, his breath warm, his words hushed, dark with warning.
