Highland Storm (2 page)

“Dinnae go yellin’ at me,” he said evenly. “‘Twas no more than ye deserved.”

 
Isla felt her eyes bulge again and her cheeks flush with angry, embarrassed heat. “What do you mean ye—”

“A woman shouldnae use such language,” he said, “and that was the kindest way I could think of to shut ye up before ye cursed again.” His blue gaze bored into hers. “Ye taste much sweeter than ye sound.”

There was a hint of a smile on his lips, and she was seized by the sudden urge to strike it away with her hand. Even as she imagined it, she remembered his touch, how it had brushed her hand in passing when he’d saved her from Briar’s panic.

Saved.

She shoved the thought from her mind just as quickly as it had dared to voice itself. Gordons were not saviours. They were tormentors, fiends and evil bastards, the lot of them!

 
She scowled and narrowed her eyes to slits. “Well if it comes to that, I could tell ye more than a few things that aren’t right, and all of ‘em done by Gordons.”

His blue eyes narrowed almost enough to match hers, though a thin crescent of blue iris was still visible in each of them. It was a lovely colour, too pretty for the likes of a Gordon devil.

“And I can tell ye that you and your horse are both lame, and that puts ye at the mercy of a Gordon.”

Thunder clapped overhead again, shaking the ground. Briar startled as lightning flashed, and the Gordon threw himself over Isla, sheltering her with his body as the horse danced beside them. He was surprisingly warm. How could he be, soaked to the bone as he was? His muscles were rock-hard and smooth. Was he like a stone that absorbed the heat of the sun and held it for a while after it had set? Whatever the explanation, he was hot. The stark contrast to the chilly air was such a temptation that Isla had to keep herself from pushing her body against his, from allowing herself to mould to his form.

When Briar finally calmed, Alexander rose and wrapped his arms around her, remarkably strong and impossibly warm.

“What are ye doing?” she demanded, her heart speeding as he lifted her from the ground, though whether it was from alarm or excitement she wasn’t quite sure.

“Gettin’ ye out of the rain,” he answered stoically.

Isla winced as something small and hard hit the side of her head, followed by another, and another, and another…

Hail
,
as if it couldnae get any worse…

“Just put me on my horse,” she said in as commanding a tone as she could muster.

“Your horse is lame,” he replied, his voice as firm as his body.

Isla eyed Briar askance and saw that he pranced nervously on three of his feet, favouring the fourth that had lost its shoe. What had he done to it in that mud hole? Resolve-weakening heat radiated from the Gordon’s chest, even through his soaked shirt, as he carried her. He casually seized Briar’s reins and made a clicking sound to his own horse, and the great sorrel beast followed, ambling along beside him with its reins hanging free. Isla eyed it, impressed, and wished Briar could have behaved half so well and saved her this whole mess.

The Gordon finally lowered her to the ground when they’d crossed the treacherously muddy road and found shelter at the edge of the forest at its side. There, the boughs of pines, rowans and oaks deflected most of the hail. Isla watched curiously from where the Gordon had deposited her against the base of a pine as he tethered both of their horses to trees and began to strip small branches off a nearby aspen. When he’d gathered an armful, he started weaving them in and out of the branches that hung over her head, creating a thicker roof of foliage that sheltered her completely from the hail. She was reluctantly grateful as balls of ice glanced off his shoulders and bounced to the pine needles below. He didn’t flinch, even when they struck his face and angry red patches sprung up on his cheek where he’d been hit. But then, if he built the shelter a thousand times and was struck by lightning in the process, it still wouldn’t right the Gordons’ wrongs. She glared at him stubbornly as the coppery scent of blood teased her nostrils, a phantom that was gone as soon as she’d sensed it.

“So, what’s your name?” he asked, settling casually to the ground beside her when he’d finished.

She eyed him warily, pushing visions of bloodstained tartan from her mind. He was a bit too close for comfort—the heat that radiated from his body was warming her again, and highly disconcerting memories of his strong arms plagued her. But if she asked him to move any further away, he’d be exposed to the hail. She couldn’t ask him to do that—not when he’d built the shelter for her in the first place, even if he w
as
a Gordon. And not when she needed his body beside her own—for its heat, of course.

“It’s Isla. Isla
Forbes
.”

He nodded, sending droplets of water flying from a few stray, dark locks. “I’m Alexander,” was all he said. There was no need to add ‘Gordon’—Isla was anything but likely to forget his surname. An awkward silence stretched between them, during which Briar laid back his ears and pawed the ground as another loud peal of thunder sounded.

“And what are ye doin’ ridin’ out here on your own in a storm?” Alexander eventually asked.

“I didnae ken it was goin’ to storm,” she replied, eyeing his soaking shirt, which still clung to his lean, hard body like so much wet paper. “And ye didnae ken, either, from the looks of ye.”

He nodded. “Aye, it came quickly.”

More silence. He gazed at her curiously and she glared back at him. “It isnae a Gordon’s business where I’m ridin’ to.”

He eyed their surroundings and shrugged as if to say, ‘isn’t it?’

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and said nothing as she wished her cloak were dry. Alexander’s heat, significant as it was, didn’t quite penetrate the damp wool that covered her shoulders.

 
Alexander rose from beneath the shelter of branches and began to walk away. Isla stared after him. Was he leaving? The idea made her feel strangely lonely, and it shamed her. She should be glad to watch a Gordon leave.

He stopped a few yards away. When he reached the place where he’d tethered the horses, and she breathed a small sigh of relief as he bent to feel Briar’s leg. He caressed the joints and tendons with his large hands, feeling with visible tenderness for signs of injury. Though his callused fingertips were rough, his touch was clearly not. After several moments, he stood and turned again towards the shelter. Isla tried to ignore the relief that surged through her when he sat beside her, warming the space between them with his body heat.

“I dinnae think he’s broken anythin’,” Alexander said. “It’s likely just a sprain.”

She nodded. “Och, that’s good.” Still, she frowned. ‘Just a sprain’ or not, she couldn’t expect Briar to recover within two days. What would she tell her father when he returned? She’d have to stick with her original plan of telling him the beast had hurt himself out at pasture and hope he’d believe it.

“What about your foot?” Alexander asked. “How’s it feel?”

“Like it’s full of shattered glass.”

Alexander frowned, his full lips turning down at the corners while his dark brows plunged between his blue eyes. The beginnings of panic struck Isla as his gaze came to rest on her foot. “I dinnae think it’s broken!” she lied.

“I wouldnae be surprised if it was. That horse came down hard on it.” He reached for her foot.

Isla jerked her leg away and gasped as white-hot pain flared in the top of her foot, as if her boot were on fire. She was afraid to move it again, and the fresh memory of agony kept her still when Alexander began to gently pry off her boot, though she was frightened then, too. When it was off, he peeled away her stocking and grasped her ankle, holding her foot slightly aloft so he could inspect it without actually touching it. Heat crept up her leg, all the way to the juncture of her thighs, as she eyed her carefully removed stocking and tried to focus on anything but the feel of his pleasantly rough fingertips against her skin. Fortunately, the throbbing pain that lit every inch of flesh below her ankle proved a rather effective distraction.

 
“Now,” he said, hovering his hand over her toes, “just tell me where it hurts.” He placed his fingertips on the top of her foot and began moving them slowly, gently pressing against her bones, feeling for a break.

“Ahh!” Isla cried. “There! Stop!” Pain flared white-hot again as Alexander bore down lightly on one of the long bones that stretched from her ankle to her toes.

He removed his exploring hand while still holding her foot aloft and bare in the chilly air.

“Dinnae touch me any more!” she cried, gripping her ankle in an attempt to pull it from his grasp in the least painful manner possible.

“I fear it’s broken,” he said, brushing her hand aside and lowering her foot gently to the ground.

“Aye,” Isla breathed, leaning back against the tree and inhaling deeply, her face surely paper-white as she turned it up to the roof of pine boughs above. “Maybe it is.”

And I thought it couldnae get worse than when I found he was a Gordon…

“Dinnae fash yourself,” he said, “I’ll help ye get where you’re goin’.”

“No,” she said, “ye mustnae do that.”

“Don’t be—”

“I dinnae want any more help!”

He scowled at her, his blue eyes burning. She glared back.

“I’ll be damned if you’re not the most stubborn lass I’ve ever met,” he declared. “A Forbes to the bone, to be sure.”

“And
I’ll
be damned if you’re not—”

“Dinnae make me shut ye up again!”

“Och, how I wish my foot wasnae broken, for then I’d use it to give ye a good kick in the—”

Thunder crashed, obscuring the final word of her would-be threat. The angry gleam in Alexander’s eyes said he’d got the message regardless.

“Well, fine,” he said, rising. “I’ll leave ye and your lame nag here, and if ye die of the cold or get eaten by a wild beast, then hell slap it intae ye!” He stalked away, taking long, purposeful strides towards his horse.

The hail had turned back to rain and was quickly re-soaking his shirt and tartan. The muscles of his back tightened slightly beneath the pathetic cover, tight with obvious agitation. She tried not to admire the way they shifted, or how smooth his stride was. She was no more successful in that than she was in quelling the unease that twisted her stomach as Alexander untied his sorrel stallion, led it out of the trees and mounted, heeling it into a trot that was rendered risky by the weather.