Loving the Highlander

by Janet Chapman

  Nay, probably not.

  Better to leave some things a surprise.

  Chapter Two

  Seven weeks later

  Sadie Quill squinted through the brightness of the noonday sun, her attention focused on the opposite shore of the narrow cove of the cold-water lake. Holding her breath, careful not to make any noise, she watched the young moose calf slowly step into the water where its mother stood. The calf was only three months old and already had learned a few lessons about survival, judging by his reluctance to move into the open.

  Mama moose lifted her head to watch his progress, water pouring from her mouth as she chewed on the succulent growth she had pulled from the lake bottom. Startled by the cold water dripping onto his face, the calf staggered backward and fell on his rump on the slippery bank. His angry bleat of protest was lost on his mother, however, as her head was underwater again.

  Sadie stifled a chuckle and raised her camera, pointing the long lens through the honeysuckle bush where she hid. This scene was priceless, exactly why she loved her job so much.

  She was still in awe of her luck. She was being paid to help put together a proposal for a wilderness park. She was scouting locations for trails and campsites while cataloging both geographical areas of interest and animal activity. These last ten weeks had been a pleasant dream she never wanted to wake up from.

  Well, most of it had been a dream job, except that some of her work was being sabotaged. But having her trail markers stolen was more of a nuisance than a setback. The orange ribbons were nothing more than a visible tool for her project. She had the coordinates written on the large wall map back at her cabin, and she still could locate them by satellite, using her handheld global positioning system device.

  It was only an inconvenience that some shortsighted fool thought he could slow down the progress of a wilderness park by stealing the ribbons. Still, Sadie had turned her attention away from scouting trails for the time being, hoping the jerk would think he had won.

  This week she had been exploring the flora and fauna of the valley, noting in her journal areas that future hikers would want to see.

  At the urging of his mother, the calf again stepped into the shallow water of the protected cove. Sadie depressed the shutter on her camera, captured the shot, and advanced the film. No noise betrayed her position, thanks to her father’s ingenious skill with equipment, which made the mechanics of the camera silent.

  Sadie and her dad had walked these woods for years, taking pictures as she was doing now, and Sadie’s heart ached with sadness that he was not here with her today.

  Frank Quill had taught Sadie the fine art of moving silently among the animals and had instilled in her not only an appreciation of nature but a respect for it as well.

  And now she was thanking him by the only means she could find, by helping to build a park in his memory.

  The mother moose suddenly lifted her head and looked toward the open water of the lake. Sadie used the telephoto lens of her camera to scan across the calm lake surface. And there, near the opposite shore, she saw the movement.

  Something was swimming toward them.

  Sadie leaned forward to get a better view. The mother moose heard her, whipped her head around, and stared directly at Sadie. For a moment, their eyes locked.

  There wasn’t much in these woods that worried a full-grown moose, but a mother had to be more cautious of the vulnerability of her calf. Sadie’s presence and whatever was swimming toward them were apparently more than the mother moose was willing to deal with. She gave a low grunt of warning and stepped out of the cove, pushing her baby ahead of her.

  With a sigh of regret for scaring the moose, Sadie turned her attention back to the lake. She couldn’t imagine what was swimming directly across the widest expanse of water, when walking around would be much easier. Most animals were lazy by nature or, rather, more efficient with the energy they were willing to spend.

  Whatever was swimming toward her was too small to be another moose and too large to be a muskrat or an otter. Sadie sharpened the focus on her lens and watched, until finally she saw the rise and fall of arms cutting a path through the water.

  Arms? There was a person swimming across the lake?

  Sadie could count on her fingers and toes the people she had run into this summer: kayakers taking advantage of the last of the spring runoff nine weeks ago, a biologist, a game warden, a small fishing party, and a middle-aged couple from Pine Creek searching for mushrooms to eat.

  Sadie settled herself deeper into the bushes, making sure she was well hidden as he moved ever closer. Yes, she could see now that the swimmer was male. And that he had broad shoulders, long and powerful arms, and a stroke that cut through the water with amazing ease.

  The cove she was hiding in, and that he was heading toward, was strewn with boulders. The swimmer moved with lazy, rhythmic grace, right up to one of the larger rocks. He placed two large hands on the rock and pulled himself out of the water in one strong, seamless motion.

  Sadie blinked, then tore her eye away from the viewfinder. She no longer needed the vivid clarity of the telephoto lens to see that the man was naked.

  She looked through her camera again and adjusted the focus. He was as naked as the day he was born. He sat on the boulder, brushing the hair from his face and wringing it out in a ponytail at his back.

  Well, heck. The guy’s shoulder-length, dark blond hair was almost as long as hers. Sadie pushed the zoom on her lens closer, aiming it at the top half of the man. She almost dropped the camera when he came into focus. He was huge, and it wasn’t an illusion of the lens, either. His shoulders filled the viewfinder, and when he lifted both hands to push the water away from his forehead again, his chest expanded to Herculean proportions.

  Sadie noticed then that the guy wasn’t even winded from his swim. His broad and powerfully muscled chest, covered with a luxurious mat of wet, dark hair, rose and fell with the steady rhythm of someone who had merely walked up a short flight of stairs.

  Who was this demigod of the woods?

  Sadie zoomed the lens of her camera even closer, on his face. She didn’t recognize him from town. She’d been back in the Pine Creek area for only a few months now and had gone into town only six or seven times for supplies since returning, but she would have remembered such a ruggedly handsome face on a man his size. She definitely would have remembered such startling green eyes framed by such a drop-dead gorgeous face. His jaw, darkened with a couple of days’ growth of a reddish-blond beard, was square, stern, and stubborn-looking. His neck was thick, with a leather cord around it that dangled an odd-shaped ball of some sort over his chest.

  Sadie zoomed the lens out again until his entire body filled her viewfinder. His stomach was flat and contoured with muscle. He had long, powerful-looking thighs, bulging calves, and even his feet dangling in and out of the water looked strong.

  The man could have been made from solid granite.

  And he was turned away just enough to keep his modesty intact. Too bad. It wasn’t every day she was treated to such an exhibit of pure, unadulterated maleness. And despite her own sense of shame for being a blatant voyeur, Sadie wished he would turn just a bit more toward her. She was curious, dammit, and made no apology for it.

  She liked men. Especially big ones, like this guy. Sadie was six-foot-one in her stocking feet, and she usually spent most of her time talking to the receding hairlines of the men she knew. Since she had hit puberty and shot up like a weed, Sadie had wished she were short. Like the heroines in the romance novels she loved to read, she wanted to be spunky, beautiful, and petite. And she was tired of having only one of those traits.

  About all Sadie could say for herself was that she did possess a healthy dose of spunk. She may have come close to beauty once, but a deadly house fire eight years ago had ended that promise. And no matter how much she had willed it, she hadn’t stopped growing until her twenty-third birthday. She was taller than most men she met, and every
bit of her height was in the overlong inseam of her jeans.

  She’d bet her boots that the guy on the rock had at least a thirty-six inseam and that he wore a triple-extra-large shirt he had to buy from the tall rack.

  The vision in her viewfinder suddenly began to fade, and Sadie had a moment’s regret that it had all been a dream.

  Until she realized that the viewfinder had fogged up.

  Well, she did feel unusually warm. And she was breathing a bit harder than normal.

  Wow. Either she was having a guilt attack for being a peeping tom, or she was experiencing a fine little case of lust.

  Sadie didn’t care which it was, she wasn’t stopping. She used the back of her gloved right hand to wipe the viewfinder dry before she looked through it again.

  The man was now laid out on the boulder, his arms folded under his head and his eyes closed to the sun as he basked in its warmth like an overfed bear.

  Sadie suddenly remembered that she was looking through the lens of a camera. If this guy was willing to parade around the forest naked, why should she feel guilty about a couple of pictures? She just wondered where in her journal of fauna she should place his photo.

  Probably at the top of the food chain.

  Feeling pretty sure that the man had fallen asleep, Sadie snapped the shutter on her camera and quickly advanced the film. She zoomed in the lens and snapped again.

  But just as she advanced the film for another picture, the man leaped to his feet in a blur of motion. And suddenly he was looking directly at the bushes where she hid.

  Dammit. He couldn’t have heard that. Animals couldn’t hear the damn thing, and their lives depended on their ears.

  Sadie sucked in her breath and held it; she wasn’t sure if she was doing so from fright or because she now had a full frontal view of the man.

  She snapped the shutter down one last time and scurried backward to free herself from the bush. She foolishly stood up, then immediately realized her mistake when she found herself face-to-face with the giant, with only a hundred yards of water between them.

  She couldn’t move. He was magnificent, standing there like a demigod, his penetrating green stare rooting her feet into place.

  “Come on, Quill,” she whispered, her gaze still locked with his. “Move while you still have the advantage.”

  He must have heard that, too, because he went into action before she did. He dove into the water and began swimming toward her.

  Sadie snatched up her backpack and headed into the forest. She broke into a run as soon as she hit the overgrown trail and set a fast, steady pace toward home.

  She grinned as the forest blurred past.

  The swimmer didn’t stand a chance of catching her. He had to get to shore first and then find the trail as well as the direction she had taken. Sadie’s long legs ate up the ground with effortless ease, and she actually laughed out loud at the rush of adrenaline pumping through her veins.

  This was her strength; there were very few people she couldn’t outrun. Especially a barefooted streaker who looked as if he outweighed her by a good sixty pounds. It took a lot of energy to move that much weight through the winding trail, ducking and darting around branches and over fallen logs.

  Yes, her long legs would give her the edge this time, rescuing her from the folly of trespassing on a stranger’s right to privacy.

  Sadie slowed down after a while, but she didn’t quite have the courage to stop yet. Only a maniac would have followed her, but then only a crazy person would be swimming naked in a cold-water lake.

  So Sadie kept running, easing her pace to a jog.

  Until she heard the branch snap behind her.

  She looked over her shoulder and would have screamed if she could have. The man from the lake was fifty feet behind her. Sadie turned back to watch where she was going, the adrenaline spiking back into her bloodstream.

  There was nothing like seeing a fully naked, wild-haired, wild-eyed madman on her heels to make a girl wish she had stayed in bed that morning. Sadie ran as if the devil himself were chasing her. She could actually hear the pounding of his feet behind her now, could practically feel his breath on the back of her neck.

  She grabbed a small cedar tree to pivot around a corner, and that was when he caught her, hitting her broadside in a full body tackle. Sadie wanted to scream then, too, but he knocked what little air she had left out of her body. They rolled several times, and Sadie swung her camera at his head. He grunted in surprise at the blow and grabbed her flailing arms as they continued to roll.

  When they finally stopped, he was on top of her…and her wrists were being held over her head…and her back was being crushed into the ground…and she had never been so scared in her life.

  Sadie thought about really screaming now, but her throat closed tight. She pushed at the ground and tried to buck the man off her, at the same time as she lashed out with her feet.

  That was when he shifted from sitting on her to lying on her, trapping her legs with his own.

  Sadie instantly stilled. This was going from bad to worse; she now had a naked madman on top of her—and she was wearing shorts.

  Oh, God. Now that she had such a close look at him, he was no longer a demigod. He was a full-blown god, Adonis, maybe. His broad shoulders and amazingly wide chest blocked out the sunlight. His warm breath feathered over her face. Sadie could feel every inch of his muscled legs running the length of hers. And she could feel something…something else touching her bare thigh. Something firm.

  He was excited, either from the thrill of the chase, their suggestive position, or the anticipation of what he was planning to do. Sadie didn’t want to scream anymore. She wanted to faint.

  She did close her eyes, so she wouldn’t have to look at his triumphant, very male face. Why didn’t he move?

  Then she opened her eyes to find him staring at her hands, which he still held firmly over her head. She immediately opened her bare left hand and let the camera fall onto the ground.

  Still, he kept staring over her head.

  He reached up and tugged at the glove on her right hand. Sadie closed it into a fist, to keep her glove on. Momentarily deterred from his task, he turned his attention to her face.

  She turned her head away.

  He pulled her chin back to face him, then gently ran his thumb along her bottom lip, watching as if fascinated.

  Good Lord. Was he going to kiss her?

  His finger trailed down her face, over her chin, to her neck, and Sadie felt him touch the opening of her blouse. She twisted frantically and tried to bite the arm holding her hands over her head.

  He lowered the full force of his weight onto her then, and Sadie fought to breathe. Well, heck. She hadn’t realized he’d been holding himself off her before. She stilled, and he lifted himself slightly, allowing her to gasp for air.

  Their gazes locked.

  His long blond hair dripped lake water on her chin and throat. The heavy object dangling from his neck nestled against her breasts, causing a disturbing sensation to course all the way down to the pit of her stomach. Sadie could feel her clothes slowly sopping up his sweat, his hairy legs abrasive against hers, his chest pushing into her with every breath he took. The heat from his body scorched her to the point that she couldn’t work up enough moisture in her mouth to speak.

  Not that she could think of anything to say to the brute.

  As if sensing her discomfort, he slowly turned up the right corner of his mouth, and his gaze broke from hers and returned to her right hand. This time Sadie was unable to keep him from pulling the glove off. She balled her now bare hand into a fist as she felt her face flush with embarrassment.

  And that made her mad. Why should she care that this man found her disgusting? Her disfigurement could well be half of her salvation.

  He sat up suddenly, still straddling her, and released her wrists. Sadie instinctively rushed to push down her twisted clothes and cover her stomach, but her hand bumped into his groi
n. With a gasp of dismay, Sadie jerked, hiding her scarred right hand in her shirt.

  The other side of the brute’s mouth turned up, setting his face into a cocky grin, his forest-green eyes sparkling with the pleasure of scaring her spitless.

  Dammit. Why didn’t he speak?

  He leaned forward, and Sadie froze in anticipation of his kiss. But he only picked up her camera. He carefully lifted the rewind and popped it open. He was not so gentle, however, when he ripped the film from it. He tossed the exposed film and the camera onto the ground beside them.

  He opened her pack next, spilling the contents onto the ground. He poked around in the mess he’d made and found her handheld GPS. He turned it over, pushed several buttons, and tossed it back onto the ground. He picked up her cell phone, flipped it open, then discarded it like trash.

  Next, he picked up her roll of orange surveyor tape.

  He stared at that tape for several seconds, turning it around in his hand as he looked from it to her. He pulled a three-foot section free and tugged it between his hands until it snapped in half. He threw both pieces down onto the ground next to the GPS and the cell phone.

  And then he picked up the small roll of duct tape she used for emergency repairs.

  Now, Sadie had heard that victims often were killed with their own guns. She suddenly understood that concept when the man freed a length of her own tape and grabbed her wrists. He stopped, though, when he saw the eight-year-old scars on the palm and wrist of her right hand.

  He handed her back her glove. Sadie struggled to put it on, the chore made difficult by her uncontrollable trembling. He was still sitting heavily on top of her, he was still disturbingly naked, and he still hadn’t uttered one single word.

  He took both her hands as soon as she finished putting on her glove and taped them together. He slid down her body and started to take hold of her legs.

  Sadie kicked him hard enough in the stomach that he grunted, then she rolled and scrambled up to run. She didn’t make it past her camera before he grabbed her by the ankles and pushed her back to the ground, on her face this time. Sadie looked over her shoulder as he wrapped duct tape around her legs.