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Morainn MacRailt hugged the sunset-colored plaid, her latest creation, to her stomach as she stood looking out over the frozen expanse of Loch Assynt. The castle loomed behind her, but she was not ready to enter it. She’d been putting it off all day, chiding herself for being a coward. It wasn’t like her to avoid confrontation, but she was tired of fending off her would-be suitor. She missed the days when she could hide behind her mourning. No one had approached her about marrying again until her official mourning period had ended just a fortnight earlier.
She let her gaze wander over the double-peaked expanse of snow-draped mountain on the opposite shore, then up to the scudding clouds retreating down the length of the glen.
She hadn’t always been a coward but marriage hadn’t turned out the way she had expected. They had both quickly seen their mistake but ‘twas too late when they discovered it. They were married and there was nothing to undo that, until Hamish’s early death one night while reaving the MacTavishs’ cows with the chief’s sons.
She should have felt a stab of pain at the mention of him, or at least guilt, but lately even that had faded to a small hollow ache that was becoming all too easy to live with. Not that anyone else need know that.
She had been mortified that her first reaction to the news had been relief. She had been sad. He had not deserved to die so young, but deep inside where she would never let anyone see it, she had felt a door open. She had felt her true self pour forth again from where she had locked it away trying to be a good wife.
But she would never do that again. And she’d never marry again. She had thought herself in love with Hamish, but the flush of infatuation had quickly burned out and she’d been left living with a man she did not particularly like, and one who no longer liked her overmuch, either. For three years they had avoided each other as much as possible, speaking little. He had been miserable and she blamed herself for that, but she had also been miserable and that, too, she blamed on herself. He was older than she was. He knew what he wanted in a wife. She was much younger and had been so lonely after the death of her mother and the emotional retreat of her father that the gratitude at the attention Hamish heaped on her had felt like love. What did she know of love? Nothing, it turned out.
She let the calm and quiet of the winter landscape seep into her, fortify her. She drew the sharp-edged air into her lungs. Sick of her own cowardice, she faced the castle only to find herself being watched.
Baltair, the clan’s champion, stood between her and the castle. A slow smile spread across his ruddy face, pulling his narrow lips tight, and his crooked nose even further out of line than it usually was. The man really shouldn’t smile. His eyes went to slits and he looked almost as if he were grimacing.
She’d like to grimace, too, but she managed to stop at a frown.
“Is there something you need?” she asked, clutching her bundle of plaid tightly to her like armor. The man was relentless and she was tired of it. He didn’t seem to understand her when she told him she was not looking for a husband. Why couldn’t anybody understand that? One thing she was beginning to understand was that when Baltair got it into his wee little mind that he wanted something…say, her…he was just as unyielding and just as hard of hearing as the stone wall his chest resembled.
“Why are you always in such a hurry to get away from me, Morainn?” he asked, his voice low as if he spoke to a lover.
She clamped down on the urge to kick him in the shin…or maybe higher. She satisfied herself with the thought, not the action and cocked her head at him. “I have much to do. Do you not as well?”
“Not so much that I cannot take time to woo my future bride.” His nose shifted direction subtly with each word he spoke. His hair, so dark a brown ‘twas almost black, writhed around his face in the breeze that was growing stronger, and colder, by the moment. “You used to have sweet words for Hamish. Do you not have a sweet word for me?”
Sweet words meant little and she certainly didn’t have any for this big muttonhead. He was cut from the same rough cloth as the chief’s offspring, wild, willful, and too sure the world should bow down at his feet – something she would never do.
“Hamish was my husband. You are not.”
“Aye, but I will be.” Baltair grinned at her.
“Only if I am dead and lying in my grave,” she muttered, stepping around him. Unfortunately, he followed her, his long legs catching him up quickly.
“Was that an acceptance?” he asked.
She stopped in her tracks and glared at him. Irritation was an emotion she did not like and this man gave it to her in heaps.
“Baltair MacLeod, have you no ears? Can you not understand my words? I. Will. Never. Marry. Again. Not you, not anyone. Shall I repeat it again more slowly so you will understand it this time?”
The grin left his face and his eyes went black and stony. “You will marry again, Morainn, and ‘twill be to me. I am champion now,” he said. “‘Tis time for me to take a wife, have bairns.”
A jolt ran through Morainn, but she did not let him see how his words pierced through her. Once she had wanted bairns but she had given up that dream.
“You are a good weaver, a good cook, or so Hamish used to say. I am sure Hamish trained you well in the other wifely duties,” he continued, leering at her. “‘Twould be a good match for you to wed me.”
She was actually grateful he had continued, thus stoking her ire and steeling her will.
“‘Twould be a good match for you to wed me,” she said, “but ‘twill not happen.” Morainn’s patience was at an end. “I have much to do before the light fails.” She stepped around him again and set off for the castle.
She had not gone three steps before Baltair spun her around. She lost her grip on the plaid as he pulled her so close his nose doubled in her vision. She arched her back to get enough distance to judge his intent. ‘Twas a mistake, for he took the opportunity to kiss her.
Revulsion combined with anger and all her control fled. She struggled to get loose, shoving against his rocklike chest, trying with all her might to wrench away from him, but he was too big, too strong, too determined.
Too gone.
One moment she was caught in the vise of his embrace, his hard lips pressed against hers, the next he was whirling around, trying to keep his balance. She stumbled backward, catching her own balance with difficulty.
“It doesn’t look like the lass wants to be kissed, Baltair,” came a smooth voice from behind the champion.
Baltair shifted to his left just enough so she could see who her new hero was. Flaxen hair danced about an oh-so-handsome face. A smile skirted the corners of his mouth, somehow balancing between a smirk and a grin. His eyes stayed on Baltair but she could feel his attention on her. Quickly he glanced at her.
“Are you well, Morainn?”
His smoky-gray eyes held her gaze for a moment. His full-blown smile slammed into her with enough force to make her step backward. She stumbled on an icy patch and Ailig reached out to steady her, rescuing her once more. She wasn’t sure she was comfortable seeing one of the chief’s sons as her rescuer, especially not given the mayhem his smile was causing in her gut and the odd way her arm tingled where he held it. She stepped away from him, removing herself from his grip.
Ailig gave her a quizzical look, his honey-brown brows drawn down over eyes gone the color of clouds.
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