The Highlander Series (46 page)

After fetching her shawl and wrapping it securely around her, she stepped outside and looked for the horse. To her surprise, he was right outside the window, as if he’d been checking in on his master.

She patted his neck. “I’ve no doubt you’re used to better care than I can offer, but ’tis the truth I have no place to shelter you. Think you that you’ll weather the night out here?”

The horse snorted and bobbed his head up and down, blowing warm air out his nostrils. He was a huge animal and surely he’d dealt with worse before. At any rate, she could hardly board the animal in her cottage.

With one last pat, she left the horse and went to fetch more wood for the fire. Her pile was dwindling, and in the morning she’d need to chop some more if she was to keep her fire ablaze.

She shivered when the wind howled over her, picking up the ends of her shawl and pulling as if trying to upset her balance. She hurried inside and stacked the wood by the hearth. After making sure the door and the window were both secure, she added more logs to the fire and poked until the blaze burned high and bright.

Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since she’d broken her fast before dawn. Settling on a piece of salted fish and a leftover heel of bread, she sat cross-legged by the sleeping warrior and ate by the warmth of the fire.

As she absently chewed, she stared down at his features, illuminated by the orange glow of the flames. Ever fanciful, her mind began to paint images. Pleasing images. She sighed as she imagined belonging to this man. The two of them eating after a hard day’s work. Or perhaps her welcoming him home after a fierce battle. He would have, of course, been victorious, and she would have given him a hero’s welcome.

He would be glad to see her. He’d sweep her into his arms and kiss her until she was breathless. He’d tell her he missed her and thought of her often in his absence.

A faint smile brought on by distant memories made her chest ache. She and Rionna had daydreamed as girls about the day they’d marry their warriors. That dream had been cruelly torn away from Keeley, and the friendship that had meant so much to her had gone by the wayside.

There wasn’t much chance of Keeley ever making a match. She was taboo to the McDonald clan, and Keeley had never traveled beyond her cottage.

Still, a handsome warrior falling at her doorstep had to be a sign, right? Maybe this was her one chance. Or maybe he was just fodder for more flights of fancy until he became well enough to leave again. Whatever the case, Keeley decided she was going to enjoy her dreams. Even if they were foolish and a waste of time. Sometimes dreams were all that sustained her.

She smiled again. He’d called her an angel. He thought her beautiful. Oh, so his mind was clouded by fever. It still made her chest swell just a bit that such a handsome, fit warrior insisted on kissing her at great cost to himself.

She touched her fingers to her lips, still able to conjure the tingling warmth from his kiss. ’Twas the truth that she’d made no effort to avoid his affection, and maybe that made her the whore the McDonalds had branded her. But she refused to feel guilt. There was no one left to think good of her anyway, so it wasn’t as if she could fall any further in esteem.

Put that way, her sudden wickedness didn’t feel quite so sinful. A mischievous grin widened her mouth.

Who was to know anyway? A few stolen kisses and a head full of girlish dreams wouldn’t hurt anyone. She was tired of always telling herself to put away her silly notions of love. She’d do her duty and nurse the warrior back to health. And if he chose to steal a kiss or two in the process …

Wiping her hands down her skirts, she eyed the sleeping warrior and then decided that the best way to monitor his condition was to sleep right where she’d done so before.

She gently moved his arm aside and crawled against
his side. Immediately his arm clamped around her and he turned his head as if seeking her.

It warmed her to her toes when he murmured, “Angel.”

She smiled and snuggled a little closer to his warmth. “Aye,” she whispered. “Your angel has returned.”

How quickly the angel became the devil. As the warrior’s fever raged throughout the next day, he alternated cursing Keeley as the devil’s handmaiden sent to drag him into the bowels of hell and believing she was the sweetest of angels.

She was exhausted and was never quite sure from one moment to the next if he’d try to kiss her senseless or try to cast her as far from his side as he was able. She could only give thanks to God that he was so weakened from his injury and the fever that he wasn’t able to do much more than flail his arm at her.

She felt bad for him. She truly did. She soothed. She wiped his brow. She murmured over and over, stroking his hair and even pressing kisses to his brow. He liked the kisses.

Once he moved his mouth up and caught hers in a hot, lusty kiss that stole her breath completely away. The man surely had a hearty appetite for loving because when he wasn’t cursing her, he spent all his time trying to kiss her senseless.

To her shame, she didn’t try to dissuade him. He was, after all, a very sick man. That was the excuse she used, and she refused to countenance any other reason for her tolerance of his affections.

As the afternoon got on, she separated some broth from the venison stew she prepared. She’d been extremely pleased when a grateful recipient of her healing had left half of a venison carcass at her door. It would feed her for days to come and feed her well.

Carrying the broth in a small cracked cup, she knelt by the warrior’s side and went about the arduous task of getting him to sip the warm liquid.

Thankfully he wasn’t in a combative mood and was back to thinking her the sweetest of angels. He sipped the offering as if it were ambrosia offered by God himself. And maybe in the warrior’s fever-riddled mind it was.

She nearly spilt the broth all over his chin when a knock sounded at her door. Fear gripped her stomach as she hastily looked around for some way to hide the warrior. Hide such a man? He took up her entire floor.

She laid the cup aside and put a soothing hand on the warrior’s forehead, hoping he wouldn’t choose now to start muttering blasphemies. Then she rose and hurried toward the door.

She opened it just a crack and peered out. It was nearly sunset. The sun was barely visible over the distant mountaintop. She shivered as the wretched cold wind blew over her.

She breathed a little easier when she saw it was simply a neighboring crofter. That is, until she remembered the warrior’s huge horse that had taken up residence on the side of her cottage.

She stepped outside with a smile and glanced left and right, frowning when she saw no sign of the animal. Where had the beast gone? The warrior surely wouldn’t be pleased if he’d lost such a fine animal. Perhaps the horse had even been stolen. It wasn’t as if all her attention hadn’t been consumed by caring for the warrior. Guarding a contrary animal wasn’t part of her duties.

“I’m sorry to be bothering you, Keeley, on such a cold day at that,” Jane McNab began.

Keeley snapped her attention back to Jane and forced a smile to her lips. “ ’Tis no problem at all. I just ask you keep your distance. I find I’m ailing, and I wouldn’t want you to be similarly plagued.”

The other woman’s eyes rounded and she took a hasty step back. At least now she wouldn’t expect Keeley to invite her inside her cottage.

“I wondered if I could trouble you for some salve for Angus’s chest. He’s coughing something fierce. Happens every time there’s a turn in the weather.”

“Of course,” Keeley said. “I made a fresh batch just two days ago. Wait here and I’ll fetch it.”

She hurried inside and rummaged in the corner where she kept her mixtures and potions. She’d made an extra supply of the thick paste Angus used because she had several regulars who suffered the same affliction. Using one of her cracked cups, she portioned out enough of the concoction to last a week and then brought it back out to where Jane shivered in the cold.

“Thank you, Keeley. I’ll pray you are back to rights soon,” Jane said. She pressed a coin into Keeley’s palm and before Keeley could protest, Jane turned and hurried off.

With a shrug, Keeley went back inside and secured the coin in the knotted piece of linen where she kept the rest of her meager funds. With the coming winter, she’d have need of all the coin she could rummage for when the food supplies ran low.

Her warrior was quiet and seemed to be resting even if fitfully. He twitched and stirred in his sleep, but he’d ceased his ramblings. She heaved a sigh of relief. ’Twas the truth she hadn’t had to fake the weary, half-sick look to convince Jane that she was ailing. She was exhausted.
Probably looked on the verge of death herself, and she’d give anything for a restful night.

She knelt by the warrior and laid her palm over his brow, frowning at how dry and hot his skin was to the touch. He gave a light shiver and his muscles coiled and tensed as if trying to ward off the cold.

She eyed the hearth and knew she’d have to venture out once more to replenish the wood stock for the night ahead. Already the wind howled and whistled by her window, ruffling the skin covering the opening.

Knowing it was better to have done with it so she could spend the rest of the night in the warmth of her cottage, she pulled her shawl around her tightly and ventured out to collect another armful of wood.

By the time she returned, her shawl had ripped away from her and blew in the wind, held only by one corner. She shoved inside, dumped the wood on the floor by the hearth, and set about stoking the fire until the blaze licked high up the chimney.

She was hungry but was simply too tired to eat. All she wanted was to lie down and close her eyes. She surveyed the sleeping warrior and pondered the likelihood of getting a sleeping draught down his throat.

Thrashing about did his injury no good, and neither of them got much-needed rest when he flopped around in the throes of God knew what kind of delusion.

Wondering if she’d ever take her bed this night, she mixed the draught and knelt back down, curling her arm underneath the warrior’s neck. She hoisted him as far up as she could muster and held the cup to his lips.

“Drink now,” she said in a soothing voice. “ ’Twill set things to right for this night. You have need of a peaceful sleep.”

And so do I
.

He drank it down docilely, grimacing only as the last washed down his throat. Blowing out her breath, she
lowered him back down, arranged a fur over him to keep him warm, and then settled beside him, her head resting in the crook of his arm.

It wasn’t the most modest of accommodations. If anyone saw her, they’d be scandalized and she’d be labeled a whore all over again. But no one was here to judge her, and she’d be damned if she allowed it under her own roof. She’d given up her warm bedding for the warrior. The least he could do was share his body heat.

Some of this trembling eased as she melded closer to his body. He even gave a sigh of contentment and turned blindly, his arm sliding over her waist. He smoothed his hand up her back until his palm was splayed wide between her shoulder blades. Then he simply tucked her into the shelter of his body and pulled her head into the hollow of his neck.

It was like being surrounded by a blazing fire. Heat seeped into her flesh until her muscles were bathed in it. She was careful not to touch his side, though she longed to throw her own arm possessively over his side as he was holding her. She contented herself instead with tucking her hand between their chests, feeling his heart thud against her palm.

“You are a beautiful man, warrior,” she whispered. “I know not where you hail from or whether you are friend or foe, but you are the most beautiful man I’ve ever encountered.”

As she drifted into a blissful sleep, warmth surrounding her like a blanket, the warrior smiled in the darkness.

An uneasy prickle skittered over Keeley’s skin a bare moment before she opened her eyes. She gasped and would have screamed, but a huge hand clamped over her mouth.