Highlander's Tempting Stranger: A Steamy Scottish Medieval Historical Romance Page 6

  But tonight, she decided she would stand her ground. There was nothing Lachlan could say or do that would make her turn back. Finding the healer for her poor ma was more important to her.

  “Ye heard me,” she said, loudly enough for her voice to carry over the rain, which was by now turning into a fearsome storm. “Head back to the Inn.”

  With that, she turned away from him to continue on but did not get far. One of Lachlan’s large hands wrapped around Maura’s wrist, tugging her back towards himself. She hit his chest harder than either of them had expected, and for a moment, she was struck dumb by the shock and indignation of the move.

  How dare he handle me like this?

  Maura broke free from his grasp, taking a step away from him. “The healer’s nae very far. I can walk and get help.”

  Lachlan scoffed at that, shaking his head in disbelief. He’d never taken Maura to be this foolhardy before. He’d assumed from the ways she’d talked to him that she would have at least a lick of sense in her head. But now, stood before him in the fading light, drenched from the rain and trying desperately to stop her teeth from chattering, she didn’t look like the sensible girl he’d first met in the Inn.

  “Ye’ll get yerself killed, walking around like this in the dark!” he snapped. “Ye think that’s what yer mother’ll want for ye?”

  “I cannae just sit there, Lachlan!” she cried out, her voice breaking. “I cannae just sit and watch her waste away like that! If there’s somethin’—anythin’—that I can do, I have to at least try. I don’t care how far I have to walk. I don’t care how slim the chance is. If there’s even a shred o’ hope with that healer, then I haven’t got a choice. I have to try.”

  She half expected him to scoff at her outburst, to call her foolish and childish, or tell her that she was being dramatic and needed to calm down. But he did neither. Instead, much to her surprise, his expression softened at her words. The frown lines around his eyes and brows were ironed out, and much to her shock, he looked sympathetic.

  But he was still torn. She had, after all, run out here into the night on her own, without a care or consideration for what that meant for her own safety. He couldn’t let her carry on the journey alone.

  “At least allow me to accompany ye,” he said finally, with a heavy sigh. “I wouldnae be able to forgive myself if somethin’ happened to ye out here.”

  Perhaps it was the sudden softness of his features, which were now creased with concern, or maybe it was the gentleness of his voice, but something about his words and behavior made Maura relent and accept the assistance he was offering to her.

  “Fine,” she agreed, albeit not enthusiastically. “We’ll go to the healer together.”

  “Thank ye.” Lachlan breathed out a sigh of relief, before extending a hand out for her to lead her back towards the path. “We’d best get ye inside. Look at ye—ye’re shivering.”

  It was true. The rain had cut through Maura’s clothing, and the fabric of her dress was now clinging to her body from the damp. The combination of the rain and wind made sure that the sodden fabric was freezing cold against her skin, and as she stood there, Lachlan could see her shivering.

  “Come,” he said gently, beckoning her closer. But still, Maura did not move.

  “Where are we going?” she asked. There was a fiery determination inside her now, and she had no desire to stop for the night anywhere. If she did so, it would only take longer to get to the healer and bring him back.

  “If ye go wandering around in the dark like this, ye’re gonnae get lost,” Lachlan reminded her. “Or freeze to death. Come, we’ll get ye warmed up, and head out again at first light.”

  Maura was still hesitant to pause the journey, even temporarily. Lachlan could see it in her eyes. It was like she was worried that if they stopped for the night, they would never start again. But despite that trepidation, she agreed that it was the best option for them.

  Lachlan was a little surprised he had managed to convince Maura to spend the night at the bothy. Over the few weeks they had known each other, he had learned one very clear fact: she would do anything for her family. It was no surprise to him that she had run off in the way that she had, with reckless abandon and no care for the potential consequences.

  The bothy was empty when they went inside, with no other travelers seeking shelter from the lashing rain that showed no signs of relenting. Lachlan was no stranger to hiding inside one of these small buildings for the night, searching for the most simple of shelters so he could rest his head, but when they walked inside, he wondered if Maura had even set foot in one before.

  Built of stone and wood, the interior was almost as cold as it was outside, but at least there was no rain or wind. With the exception of the slatted wooden bench against the far wall that served as a bed, the interior was empty, making it look even more cold and uninviting. However, the one saving grace of the bothy was the pile of firewood stacked in a pile by the fireplace, meaning they would have some source of warmth.

  The fire didn’t take long to start, and once it was going, the two lowered themselves onto the cold floor together, as close to the hearth as they could without singeing their clothes. They sat side by side for a few moments in silence, just glad for the warmth and shelter after the terrible weather outside. Then, Maura spoke up.

  “Why are ye helping me?”

  Lachlan didn’t give her an answer immediately. Instead, he stared into the fire in silence, and Maura watched as his features knitted together into a frown. It was as if the question was painful for him, evoking some memory that he did not want to revisit. Just as Maura was starting to think she would never get a response from him, he spoke.

  “Ye care for yer family,” he said finally. He spoke so quietly that his voice hardly carried over the crackling of the wood burning in front of them. “Ye’d do anything for them. And as stupid as it was for ye to run oot here alone, I understand it.”

  His voice was tight and controlled, as though he was trying very hard to prevent any of his emotions from coming out. But even so, Maura could hear a hint of his true feelings, simmering just below the surface. There was a sadness to his voice, a pain that he was trying so desperately to hide.

  “Ye do?” she pressed. He closed his eyes as though that would help him suppress what he was feeling and keep it from bubbling up.

  “Aye.”

  It was strange, seeing him like this. In the time that she had known him, Maura had seen Lachlan go through a range of emotions. She’d seen him angry, indignant, courteous. But never, not in any of their interactions, had she ever seen him vulnerable.

  “How?”

  Lachlan sighed heavily, resting his elbows atop his knees. The light of the fire danced over his face, highlighting the strong cheekbones and arches of his brows, and deepening the frown lines that had begun to form as they spoke.

  This was not a tale he told lightly, nor was it a part of his life that he had been willing to share with another soul since it had happened. In fact, outside of Lachlan himself, at present, there was only one other person alive who knew of this.

  “The position ye’re finding yerself in…I know what ye’re feeling. I know that desperation. I know that pain. I’ve felt it before, and there’s nae a human alive I’d wish it upon.”

  Maura leaned in, stunned by his words. Was this that murky history that Lachlan had hidden from her for so long? Was she about to find out who he really was, and where he had really come from before showing up on her doorstep out of nowhere?

  “I lost my family. In the famine,” he whispered. His voice was so soft that it was almost drowned out by the fire, but there was no mistaking those words.

  The famine that had passed the summer prior had swept the country like the hand of Death itself, touching near every family around in some way or another. Thankfully, Angus and Isobel were both too young to have remembered it properly, but Maura would never forget it. Each time she felt the pang of hunger in her stomach she was re
minded of the agony she’d gone through while waiting for a meal. She’d never forget that feeling or the fear that had gripped her when she’d not known when the next meal would come.

  She knew of people who’d lost children, parents, or spouses, but never had she seen someone who’d been left without a family at all. It explained much of Lachlan when she considered it. It explained the way he’d blown in from the road, with no direction or destination to his travels, and the way he seemed so distant, but at the same time, so desperate to be close to people.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. Lachlan pursed his lips, and a muscle in his jaw pulsed as he clenched it tight. He blinked rapidly a few times, before continuing.

  “The famine took everything from me. But it needn’t have. There was a man that could have saved us. A man who watched while we starved, who turned a blind eye to our suffering, who was deaf to our cries for help. He could have saved my family, but he did nothin’.” By now, Lachlan had given up any and all pretenses of remaining calm. His voice was shaking with barely controlled anger and anguish, and the pain on his face was clear, even in the dim light. “He made more money in a year than ma maw and pa ever saw in their lifetimes, but when I dropped to ma knees and begged him to help, he did nothin’ for them. He let them die.”

  He breathed out a shaky sigh, clenching his fists into balls so tightly that Maura could see the knuckles straining against the skin.

  “He owed us a debt. My sister had worked for him as a maid, but when she left his employ, he never paid her what she was owed. When she came back to us without the money, and the famine hit, I went to him to collect the dues. I set aside every shred o’ dignity or pride I had left in me. I begged him like a child, and he just sent me away.”

  There was another pause while Lachlan gathered himself and tried to calm himself down. “I had nay choice but to return home a failure and watch my parents and sister suffer. One by one, the famine took them from me. That-” he said touching the neckless on his chest. “-is all I have left from. My sister gave it to me.”

  His voice cracked on the words, as though they were physically painful to him, and Maura felt her heart break for him. She could still remember the anguish she’d felt when her own pa had died shortly after the birth of Angus. As nothing more than a wee bairn, Angus had no memory of their father—neither did Isobel, for that matter. That left Maura and her mother to shoulder the burden of mourning for him alone.

  Losing a family member cut deep into a person’s soul. It was a wound that never quite managed to heal despite the best efforts of a person, and even when it did begin to, there would inevitably be something that would reopen that wound and allow for fresh bleeding to happen. It was a pain like no other, and Maura had only gone through it once. She could not even begin to imagine how difficult it must have been to go through it three times.

  Surprising even herself, Maura reached out and laid her hand over Lachlan’s forearm, in a move she hoped was comforting to him. The fabric of his shirt was already starting to dry from the heat of the fire, and it felt soft and warm to the touch. At the weight of her hand against his arm, Lachlan looked down at it, but he did not move to pull away from her, which Maura took as a good sign.

  “I cannae imagine how hard that must have been for ye’,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Lachlan.”

  “It was hard,” he admitted, raising his gaze to look at her. “At first I just drifted with nay regard for where I was going nor what I was doing. With no family, I saw no purpose to my days.”

  He fell silent for a moment, and then the frown lines at his forehead and around his eyes began to fade. It was subtle; the hurt was still there, lurking behind his eyes, but it was as though someone had applied a salve to help manage it.

  “Then, I found yer family. I cannae say why, and it may be that I sound like nothin’ more than a fool for this, but when I walked into that Inn, it was the closest I had felt to normal in a long time. I felt as though I had a duty to protect ye, yer mother, and the wee ones. I wanted to stay close, to know ye were safe.”

  Lachlan paused, his eyes flickering over her face as he took in all of the little details that were highlighted by the firelight. That fact was still true now—he still had the urge to make sure Maura and her family were safe. He still wanted nothing more than to protect them, and to him, it did not matter what lengths he had to take to ensure that. Perhaps that was why he had followed her out into the night so quickly, racing after her desperately.

  “I’m glad that ye came through our door, Lachlan,” she admitted. The corners of her mouth tugged into a warm smile, a genuinely affectionate expression he hadn’t seen from anyone in far too long. “I like seeing ye at the Inn.”

  “Ye do?”

  “Aye.” With her hand still resting on his forearm, she began to stroke her thumb over the fabric of his sleeve rhythmically. “Angus and Isobel have grown fond of ye. It’s been too long since a man has been so kind to them. And me maw is glad to have ye around. She feels safer, I think.”

  “And ye?” Lachlan pressed. “What do ye think of me being around yer family?”

  A silence fell over them after he asked that. It was punctuated by the crackling of the fire in front of them, and the occasional pop of wood as it burned. Maura paused, as though considering her answer seriously before giving it to him.

  They’d fought before, and at times Maura could feel her blood boiling in her veins because of him, but despite that, she seemed to have a deep-seated affection for the man. She still thought he was too quick to jump into a fight, and carried too much anger with him, but she saw a softness in him as well. It was rare, hidden deep beneath the surface where it could be hidden from prying eyes, but it was there. She could see it now.

  “I’m glad to have met ye.”

  Lachlan seemed happy with that answer. Although he said nothing in response, Maura saw his eyes crease in the corners as they filled with joy, and the first genuine smile she’d seen on him lit up his face.

  His lips pulled back into a smile, and then he spoke again. “As am I, Maura.”

  Another silence fell between them, but this time there was something different that Maura could sense. There was an energy surrounding the two of them that she could have sworn was drawing them closer together.

  Lachlan’s eyes, which had been firmly locked on hers, dropped to her lips for a moment, before he lifted them back up to look at her again, and Maura could not help but mirror his movements. He had shaved recently, so there was only stubble lining his cheeks and jaw, except for the space around his mouth. His lips, which she had paid no mind to before, looked a little chapped and dry, but a sudden urge that Maura had never felt before overcame her.

  She wanted to kiss him.

  She had never wanted that before, not with any man who had crossed her path. She, of course, knew what it was, and had heard about it from other girls from neighboring villages. They would tell scandalous stories about illicit rendezvous with men, hidden from any other prying eyes, but Maura had never experienced it. In fact, despite how exciting those stories had all seemed, the prospect of actually doing it herself was not one that had ever appealed to her.

  Until now.

  8

  Maura found herself suddenly drawn to Lachlan in a way she had never been before, and it was at that moment that she realized her hand still rested atop his arm. She did not pull it away—she could not pull it away.

  As they sat there, bathed in the warmth of the fire, it seemed as though the rest of the world had melted away into the darkness around them. Side by side, they were the only two people left in the world, and nothing else mattered. Perhaps that was why it felt so natural to Maura when she leaned into Lachlan slowly, closing what little gap was left between them.

  She leaned in close enough that their breath mingled in the air between them, and the tip of her nose brushed against his. However, she did not kiss him. In her inexperience, she had little idea of what to do next, so she jus
t hovered there, desperate to act but uncertain of how to do so.

  “What are ye doing?” Lachlan whispered. Maura did not know how to answer him, not properly at least. She could not put into words what she was feeling and had no idea how to articulate what was going through her mind. So instead of trying to speak, she just pressed her lips to his.

  Having never kissed a man before, Maura was unsure of what to expect when her lips touched Lachlan’s. Of course, she had heard different things from other girls, but some of their stories were so overblown and dramatic that it was hard to know what to believe. One girl had once told her that kissing was how a girl ended up pregnant, and another had gleefully described the bruising that had been left on her lips after her first kiss.

  As it turned out, Maura’s first kiss was nothing like that. There was no bruising, and certainly no pregnancy. Instead, when she kissed Lachlan for the first time, it was little more than a gentle peck on the lips.

  She moved to pull away from him, but Lachlan caught her arm with his hand and held her there, only a few inches from him. They were so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath against her face, and when he spoke, his lips brushed against hers.

  “Ye want a kiss, hm?”

  “Yes,” Maura whispered.

  “Have ye kissed a man before?”

  “No.”

  Lachlan smiled. This girl in front of him seemed so young and innocent. It was no wonder she had caught Malcolm’s eye. With her golden hair that glowed in the firelight and that pure innocence, it was as though he was sat beside an angel.

  “Do ye want me to kiss ye, Maura?”

  “Please.”

  At first, Maura expected that he would move back in and kiss her straight away, claiming her lips with his own in the way she had only heard tales of. And if he was being completely honest (which he was not always one to do), Lachlan wanted to do just that. He wanted nothing more than to kiss her right here on this hearth and take her fully. But he knew he could not do that, not with a girl as chaste as Maura.