Once Upon A Highland Christmas (2 page)

Any moment he’d notice the blush heating her cheeks, guess how attracted she was to him. And that was to be avoided at all costs.

She had her pride.

She didn’t wish to go moony-eyed over a man who scarce knew she existed.

Wasn’t his face all stony again? The gray gaze he held so steady on her as unreadable as the steel links of his gleaming mail shirt?

“My home is no more and it pains me to speak of it. I miss Ireland, see you?” She spoke quickly, not caring if he heard the regret in her voice. “I would know why you were—”

“At the
Cailleach Nollaigh
, aye? And”—his eyes warmed a bit then, a faint smile curving his lips—“with a blade in my hand.”

“I did wonder.”

“Come, and I’ll show you.” He led her across the hall with a purposeful stride that warned her that whatever they’d find would prove her wrong. He stopped beside the hearth, frowned down at the Yule Log. “Perhaps you can guess what I was about to do?”

“Mercy!” Breena’s eyes rounded as she stared at the Old Christmas Wife.

Only the heavy oaken log no longer resembled a crone.

The stump now looked like a big-bearded, bulbous-nosed man.

Breena clapped a hand to her breast, tearing her gaze from the monstrosity that was Duncreag’s Yule Log. She blinked in confusion at Grim.

“Whatever is that?” She looked at it again, horrified.

Worse, she now detected a slight familiarity about the reworked carving.

“Dear heavens!” She gripped Grim’s arm, her gaze still on the ruined Yule Log. “That’s the face of Greer MacGregor, one of Archie’s worst enemies.”

“Indeed.” Grim nudged the log with his booted toe. “I’ve been keeping an eye on the laird of late, same as you, it would seem. Archie crept in here earlier and tried to drag the stump out of the hall. When he couldn’t, he knelt and drew his dirk, undoing the Yule Log’s magic by turning the crone’s likeness into a man.”

“One he can’t abide.” Breena was shocked.

Grim shrugged. “At least he hasn’t entirely lost his sense of humor, or his skill at woodcarving. It’s a relief to see his hand is steadier than it appears when he sits at the high table of an e’en, hardly able to cut his meat or lift an ale cup to his lips.”

“You think he’s faking his frailty?” The thought had never occurred to Breena.

“It’s possible.” Grim hooked his thumbs in his sword belt. “Sorrow and loneliness can do strange things to a man. Could be he’s looking for sympathy and too proud to ask, or show appreciation when it’s given to him.”

Breena felt her face warm, aware that she was guilty of coddling the old chieftain. She served at Duncreag as a housekeeper of sorts, an unspoken seneschal. But Archie treated her more like a daughter.

She did care for him, and greatly.

“Is that why you didn’t confront him?” She looked at Grim, sure of it. “To keep from embarrassing him if he knew you’d seen what he’d done?”

“Aye, well…” Grim shrugged again, looking uncomfortable himself.

But then one corner of his mouth lifted in a way that did funny things to Breena’s belly.

She forgot all about the Yule Log and even the strand of beribboned ivy at her belt.

She only saw the big rugged warrior standing so near to her that she could hardly breathe for how fast her heart was racing. Limned by the red glow of the hearth’s dying embers, Grim looked fiercer than ever. So magnificent that her knees weakened. Indeed, his raw, powerful masculinity seared her, heating her entire body as if the hearth fire still blazed and she’d leapt right into the flames.

He was that awe inspiring.

No bonnie lad, but a man.

He was looking at her intently, as if he knew her thoughts, every wicked, impossible notion whirling through her mind.

Breena stepped back, dusted her skirts. “You were going to fix the carving, weren’t you?” It was all she could think to say. “You meant to turn it back into an old woman before anyone could guess what Archie had done.”

“That was one of my reasons, aye.” He raised a hand then, silencing her, as he glanced toward the hall’s shadowed door arch.

Breena followed his gaze, alarm sweeping her when she heard what had drawn his attention: slow, shuffling footsteps and the telltale tap-tapping of a crummock, a tall, crook-headed Highland walking stick.

Archie was coming.

“Oh, no!” She glanced about, but it was too late to escape. “He’ll see us and know we’ve been watching him.”

“See us, he will, aye.” Grim didn’t sound concerned. “But he’ll no’ think we’re in here because of him.”

“Of course, he will.” Breena felt awful.

The last thing she wanted was to shame the old man.

“Dinnae look so stricken, lass.” Grim stepped closer and cupped her face in his hands. He leaned down, spoke against her ear. “He’ll no’ suspect a thing.”

Breena wasn’t so sure. “Why not?”

“Because”—Grim straightened, slid a telling glance upward at the ball of mistletoe above their heads—“I’m about to kiss you.”

Grim knew his folly the moment he lowered his mouth toward Breena’s.

Rather than stiffening as he’d expected her to do, she leaned into him, almost melting against his chest. They stood beneath the mistletoe, their bodies pressed together from shoulder to thigh. She even slid her arms up and around his neck, twining her fingers in his hair. A tiny tremor rippled through her then as if she’d been waiting for this moment, hoping for his kiss.

A shame he suspected it was someone else she truly wanted.

Several of the younger garrison lads had tried to court her, wooing her with pretty words, gifts of woven cloth, and once—or so he’d heard—an armful of loveliest heather. Talk among the men was that she pretended not to hear the compliments, passed on the cloth to young mothers who needed it more, and placed the heather on graves of Duncreag’s fallen.

A few more persistent lads claimed she’d declined their attentions by saying her heart belonged to another.

And that she’d gazed wistfully into the distance when telling them so.

The lads said she looked toward Ireland.

Grim was sure she did. He was also certain the young man who held her affection ached for her as well.

It was a notion that pierced him to the core.

No saint, he swore beneath his breath, his blood heating all the same. Passion raged, fierce and demanding as he held her fast, claiming her lips with a bold roughness he just couldn’t help.

She was in his arms now.

And she tasted sweeter than the nectar of the gods.

When she lifted up on her toes and parted her lips to flick the tip of her tongue against his own, his agony was complete. Never before had a woman returned his kiss with such ardor. He believed most lasses feared him, big and rough-hewn as he was, without courtly manners. Breena was an angel beyond compare, a prize so rare he was stunned to have her in his arms, so soft and pliant.

He didn’t want to desire her.

Someday her Irish lover—if he’d survived the raid on her village—would ride up to Duncreag’s gates to claim her, taking her back across the sea. Grim certainly would if she were his. And he doubted Donegal men were any less possessive. He shouldn’t lay a finger on her.

Yet she set him aflame.

Knowing he was leaping into an abyss he could never escape, he nipped the lush curve of her lower lip and then deepened the kiss, letting his tongue glide into the soft velvet-warmth of her mouth. She kissed him back, her own tongue tangling with his, tantalizing and intimate, making him forget every reason he shouldn’t be touching her.

He pulled her closer, not caring. He shut his mind to the hurtful truth. That every time he thought she’d glanced his way, she quickly looked elsewhere. Indeed, she didn’t pay heed to any of the men at Duncreag. Not even bonnie younger lads so much more appealing than him.

Grim bit back a growl, not wanting to think of her yearning for an Inishowen lad in Donegal. Perhaps imagining such a lad now held her. Yet she was soft and warm in his arms. Her lips so yielding, her glossy tresses a spill of cool silk across his cheek, the dance of her tongue bewitching him. She even made a little mewing sound, responding eagerly as she returned the kiss.

What man could resist such temptation?

He surely couldn’t.

So he swept an arm around her, splaying his hand across her lower back until she was crushed to him. He plundered her lips, drinking deeply of her as if he were dying of thirst and only she could quench his parched need. The fever was a raging in his veins, making him burn.

Shocking him, too, for no other woman had ever affected him so powerfully.

Not with a mere kiss.

He could so easily devour her whole. By Thor, he wanted nothing more.

But something was jabbing into his side. And in the moment he realized it was the end of Archie’s crummock, the aged laird let out a hoot jarring enough to split the ears of the loudest banshee.

Breena started, her eyes flying wide.

Grim tore his lips from hers and lifted his head. His heart thundered and his breath was ragged. “By all the glories of Valhalla,” he snarled, releasing Breena from his arms, most regretfully.

“Sir!” She stared at the old man, her eyes even rounder at the sight he presented in his flowing bed-robe and with his hair sleep-mussed and standing up in tufts. “It’s late for you to be about.”

“Pah! A good chieftain ne’er sleeps, lassie.” Archie turned to Grim and gave him another poke with his walking stick. It was a hard jab that belied his yammers about being achy and frail. Leaning forward, he waggled his brows. “What did I just see here, eh? Kissing the maid, were you?”

“So I was, aye.” Grim discreetly stepped before the
Cailleach Nollaigh
, hoping to avoid a confrontation about the Old Christmas Wife’s transformation into Greer MacGregor. “There is a ball of mistletoe hanging o’er our heads.”

“Is there now?” Archie tut-tutted but didn’t look up.

“Indeed, and a very fine ball it is.” Grim glanced at the heavy black ceiling rafter and the sacred plant dangling at the end of a bright red ribbon.

Archie harrumphed. “Kissing unsuspecting lassies…” He let the words trail off, shaking his head disapprovingly.

“I didn’t mind, sir.” The breathlessness of Breena’s tone confirmed her admission.

“No good comes of such foolery.” Archie remained grumpy.

“It was my festive duty to kiss her as we passed beneath the mistletoe.” Grim held out his hand to display a white mistletoe berry. “I claimed a berry before my lips touched hers, as the old gods demand.”

“Humph! I dinnae care about the ancient ones and their auld, moldy customs.” Archie glowered at the berry before turning a fierce scowl on Grim. “Belike there’s folk beneath my roof who cannae remember a man’s simplest wishes. That fashes me more than tradition.

“There’ll be no Yuletide at Duncreag. No roaring fires, no feasting. To be sure, no merrymaking.” He looked from Grim to Breena and then back to Grim, shaking a finger at them both. “No’ this year or e’er again.

“Men should spend their nights patrolling the battlements and keeping their eyes on the shadows, no’ dancing jigs and reaching for mead horns.” His bushy brows drew together. “Such frivol can cost a man, dinnae forget.”

“Everyone respects your wishes.” Breena went over to him, her soft voice soothing. “Indeed, it would seem the gods agree with you.” She flashed a warning look at Grim as the night wind howled past the windows. A strong gust, it rattled shutters and even lifted the edges of the leather curtains that kept the worst chill from the hall’s raised dais where Archie’s high table stood empty.

“See?” Breena gave the old man a fond smile. “Haven’t they sent a cold north wind to blow into the hall and carry away every bit of greenery?

“I shouldn’t have decorated.” She patted his arm. “We’ll have the mistletoe removed as well, I promise.”

“Aye, then!” Archie swelled his chest, importantly. “I wouldnae ken who dared affix such foolery to my great hall’s rafters, but”—he shot a narrow-eyed look at Grim—“I’m having none of it.”

Grim folded his arms and said nothing, knowing when to keep his peace.

An empty linen sack was tied around the crook-head of Archie’s walking stick. And Grim had a good idea what the old laird had intended to fill it with: the last of Breena’s decorations.

Apparently she agreed, because she lifted a corner of the sack, questioningly.

“Sir,” she began, gentle reproach in her voice, “you weren’t going to try to collect the mistletoe yourself?”

“Me? Did you no’ hear what I said?” Archie spluttered, giving a good show of looking offended. “I didnae ken there was any hanging about! Though I’ll no’ say I’m no’ glad the winds be ridding my hall of such frippery.”

He slipped the sack from his crummock and shook it out, demonstratively. “This was to hold a bit of late-night victuals, is all. ’Twas the hunger that woke me, it was. I’ve a fierce appetite, see you?”

As if to prove his words, he gave a stiff little bow and then shuffled past them to a nearby trestle table, still laden with a few rounds of cheese and several platters of leftover roasted meats. Clearly dismissing Grim and Breena, he started thrusting food into his sack. First an entire head of ripe green cheese and then a large wedge of barley bread along with a small pot of butter and another of honey. He finished with more beef ribs than even Grim could eat.

When he turned away from the table, his eyes glittered with defiance.

“I’m hungry,” he declared, patting his middle.

Grim and Breena exchanged glances.

“The mistletoe should remain.” Grim spoke first, not wanting to offend, but aware others at Duncreag needed Yule as much as Archie, even if the old man was loath to admit it. “Some of the men traipsed far into the snowbound glen to fetch the greenery and mistletoe,” he added, ignoring Breena’s foot lowering over his toes. “The garrison men and the serving lasses deserve a bit of merriment.

“Yule is important to them, bringing reassurance that the long dark nights will draw to an end, the warmth and light of spring nearing by the day. A few kisses will boost their spirits as they wait for the sun’s rebirth.”

“Say you!” Archie jutted his bristly chin. “I say a man’s hall is good for more than kissing beneath pagan gew-gaws on cold winter nights.” He slung the food sack over his shoulder, weaving slightly beneath its weight. “Nothing like a fine late-night repast to cure what ails a man,” he vowed, lifting his walking stick in salute before tap-tap-tapping his way out of the hall.

Grim stared after him, not sure whether he should chuckle or frown.

Archie’s back might’ve bent a bit beneath the heavy sack, but in his agitation, he’d forgotten to assume his slow, shuffling gait.

He’d tap-tapped, but his stride was sure and true.

“The only thing ailing him is a broken heart.” Grim shook his head as Archie disappeared into the deeper darkness beyond the hall’s entry arch. “Few men half his age could make such a hasty retreat.”

“He’ll never allow Yule.” Breena sounded crestfallen.

Something else entirely troubled Grim.

She turned to face him now, the hall’s dim light not hiding the soft flush on her cheeks or the lustrous sheen of her glorious hair. Unbound and tumbling to her hips, her hair was a cascade of burnished, coppery-bright temptation. He couldn’t think of a man who wouldn’t ache to see such tresses spilled in riotous, wayward abandon across his bed sheets. As for the rest of her, the lush curve of her hips or the full roundness of her breasts…

It was perhaps best she was distressed.

Otherwise, he might seize her again, pulling her close, and kissing her even more soundly than before.

Indeed, he might anyway.

“You did your duty well, my lord.” Her words stayed his intent, especially her slightly displeasured tone. “I do not believe Archie guessed why we were in the hall so late.”

“That was our aim, my lady.” Grim wasn’t about to tell her he’d have kissed her anyway. Mistletoe or nae. He’d wanted to kiss her the moment she stepped from behind the tapestry, all righteous indignation and so lovely she stilled his heart. But he said nothing, not wanting to give her a reason to mention her lost love in Inishowen.

Just the thought of such a man twisted his gut. He didn’t care to imagine someone else holding and kissing her. Or her standing alone on Duncreag’s battlements as she sometimes did, staring off across the hills, toward the western horizon. No doubt yearning for her sweetheart.

Grim bit back a frown.

The gods knew, his face was anything but bonnie. He didn’t want to look more fierce by scowling.

He also wished Breena wasn’t standing so near that he kept breathing in her delicious scent.

“Aye, well.” He rubbed his thumb along his jaw, pretending to consider, hoping his tone wouldn’t reveal his agitation. “We now know beyond doubt that Archie has been snatching your Yuletide decorations. He didn’t bring along that woven sack for victuals.”

“I didn’t see you pluck a mistletoe berry.” Breena glanced at the nearby table where he’d set the berry. It gleamed like a snowy white pearl, a beacon in the hall’s darkness. “I’m sure I would’ve noticed.”

“It dropped onto your hair as we kissed.” Grim resisted the urge to touch his Thor’s hammer amulet. He believed the falling mistletoe berry was a sign from the gods.

Their approval that he’d kissed her.

Indeed, he was sure of it.

Didn’t the old gods demand that a man pluck a mistletoe berry before he claims a kiss from a lady?

“I didn’t feel a berry land in my hair.” Breena’s voice held a note of suspicion.

“I removed it before you would have.” He meant to dry the berry and keep it as a talisman. A token to remember the only kiss he was likely to ever enjoy from the maid who came closer to holding his heart than any woman before her.

Knowing she loved another made him feel like an arse.

In truth, he was one.

He was especially wicked for the thought rising so irresistibly in his mind. One that surely had charitable roots, for his idea would serve Archie well if all went according to plan. But Breena was an equally powerful inspiration, and after kissing her, his mind was veering in a direction he’d usually avoid.

Where women were concerned, he didn’t gladly go where he knew he’d burn his fingers.

Yet Breena had returned his kiss with equal fervor. She’d melted against him. He’d even felt the slight tremor rippling through her when she’d parted her lips more fully, allowing him to deepen their kiss. Her tongue had bewitched him, twirling and rolling with his. She’d dug her fingers into his hair, holding tight. Her heart had hammered against his chest.

He’d felt the rapid beats.

She couldn’t have pretended such passion.

So he stood straighter and wished she’d turn aside for a moment so he could comb quick fingers through his hair, smooth the front of his mail shirt so it shone properly. But she didn’t take her gaze from his, her lovely emerald eyes peering so deeply into his that he was sure she could see clear to the bottom of his soul.