If Caitlin was pretending to sleep, she was going a good job of it. He thought he even heard her snore once or twice, quite convincingly.

She was near exhaustion. It was natural. No one could lie there after going through all she’d suffered that day without eventually falling asleep. No matter how determined she might have been to stay awake, her body had won out.

This came as a relief, and not just because he had no desire to chase after the lass through a moonless countryside with which he was unfamiliar. There were many things he’d do for her, and do gladly, but that wasn’t one of them.

Och, but she was beautiful. The fact that she slept meant he had the chance to admire that beauty unnoticed. Her full mouth curved into a pout, as though she were unhappy with what she dreamed of. Fair brows against creamy skin. The fine, straight nose and gently curved jaw.

He longed to run his fingers over that curve and hold her chin between thumb and forefinger, drawing her to him. Her sweet breath on his face, the slight flaring of her nostrils as her breathing sped up the closer he came.

He longed to taste her lips, to feel the racing beat of her heart as he pulled her, clutched her, held onto her for dear life. He wanted to move his mouth deliciously slowly against hers, listening as she sighed, drinking in the curves of her body with both hands.

Starting with the waist and working down.

He shook his head, alarmed at his growing ardor.

There was more to be considered. He was wasting time imagining all manner of private fantasies while he needed to keep watch on her.

He’d already gone over the plans with each of the men, and everyone knew the part they’d play. He didn’t doubt their faithfulness, not for a moment. He would do the same for them if they asked.

The fire was dying out, dwindling until it was little more than a pile of dying embers; occasional cracking and popping were the only sounds to puncture the otherwise silent night. He’d never heard a night so silent.

It was as if all the world knew something was out of place. Something vital. A life-or-death matter.

Or perhaps nature itself knew of the death which had already occurred that day. So much death. It was one thing to witness such horrors on the battlefield but another to bear witness on a farm, in the middle of an otherwise quiet countryside with not so much as a neighboring cottage to mar the pastoral purity.

Perhaps if there had been a neighboring cottage, there might have been assistance offered to the now-deceased pair. Or, more likely, the neighbor who’d come on the run would also have been killed.

No, there had been no assisting Caitlin’s cousin. The moment McAllister had remembered the distant relative to whom Caitlin must have fled, her fate had been sealed.

Like as not, the fact that his stepdaughter had all but stepped foot on his very territory in order to pay respects to her uncle had infuriated him.

He would’ve taken the most direct route back to his home, in a rush to catch up with his stepdaughter—that was, if he knew where she had gone. Perhaps Fiona and Kent had kept the knowledge to themselves. All he could do was hope they had feigned ignorance of where Caitlin had run to or to what purpose she’d fled.

Otherwise, Connor would pay a visit to Sorcha.

On the one hand, woe to the man who believed he could force Sorcha McMannis to do anything she did not wish to do. If he alleged that she’d seen Caitlin or had harbored her in the house, she would never admit to it.

She loved Caitlin nearly as much as he did.

On the other hand, he might show Sorcha the same mercy he’d shown Fiona—then again, no, that would be a terrible mistake on his part. It would mean setting fire to a home or murdering the woman inside when she lived just beyond Anderson borders. The McMannises had always been good friends of the Andersons, too. It would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

Would Connor go that far?

He jumped when a large branch broke apart in what was left of the fire, the sound breaking the otherwise silent evening.

Caitlin jumped, sitting up entirely, eyes wide and chest heaving. He was at her side in an instant, ready to take her in his arms and perhaps indulge in what he’d only just been imagining.

Which was more than enough reason to keep his hands to himself.

“What is it?” he murmured, hoping to sound calm and reassuring.

She was still panting for air as if she’d just run a footrace. “I was startled. I… I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep.”

“Aye, ye did. For quite a while, in fact.”

“I did?” She ran both hands over her head, distracted and perhaps frustrated with herself.

“It’s what people normally do at night, after all.”

A brief smile flitted across her face. “I was unaware. Thank you.”

He watched as she collected herself, amused the way a child unwilling to admit the truth to an adult always amused him. “Why are you so upset with yourself for having fallen asleep?” he couldn’t help but ask.

“I was simply alarmed. I’m not upset with myself.” She fixed him with an icy stare. “Have you ever been startled out of sleep?”

“Many times,” he whispered. He could remember very many times, in fact.

“Well, then. You ought to know.” She stretched, groaning. “Sleeping on the ground doesn’t do any favors for my back.”

“You are not alone in this.”

“I know.” She looked around. “Are the others asleep?”

“Aye—at least, they’re supposed to be.”

“I see.” She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “And you? Are you not tired?”

“I’m quite tired and would like very much to go to sleep. In a large bed with a fresh straw tick and linen sheets which have been hanging out in the sun all day.”

A slow smile spread across her face. “A soft pillow.”

He nodded. “Aye, and no reason to get up early in the morning. To lie about until I was good and ready to get up.”

“That would be wonderful,” she sighed, pulling her knees to her chest before wrapping both arms around her legs. “I haven’t slept in a bed in so long. Floors, the ground.”

“I rarely have the luxury of a bed,” he commiserated.

A breeze blew past them, catching her before reaching him. The fragrance of her skin, her hair, the certain something that made her different from all the other women who’d ever lived. It touched him, wrapping itself around him like a blanket.

The longing built in him again. He wanted so badly to touch her.

He reached out, catching a strand of light hair between his first two fingers and testing its softness before tucking it behind her ear.

She turned her face away, just slightly.

“Should I not have?” he whispered, keenly aware of the presence of the other three so close to where they sat but unable to stop himself nonetheless.

She shook her head. “No. Or, rather, yes. I don’t know. It’s all right.”

He allowed himself the luxury of running the backs of his fingers over her jaw. “Caitlin. Lass. I know what you wanted to do tonight.”

It was the wrong thing to say. The wrong time to say it.

She jerked away, springing to her feet. He stood, too, holding a hand to his mouth to signal her silence. It wasn’t that he worried over waking the men for their sake, but rather for his own. He had no desire for them to learn how clumsy he’d been.

She glared at him, stomping one foot in impotent rage and shaking her fists. “You are a brute. A horrible, horrible thing.”

“Because I’m not the fool you take me for?” he hissed.

“You’re so terribly… indelicate.”

“Do not change the subject, Caitlin. You were planning on running away.”

“What of it, then?” she challenged.

“It’s the most foolish idea you could’ve come up with.”

She stomped her foot again, harder this time. “You call what I wanted to do foolish, when you don’t understand that I only wanted to do it for you.”

And like that, in the length of time it took to blink an eye, she sank to the ground and buried her head in her arms. Her shoulders shook with the force of her sobs.

He’d hurt her. The last thing he’d ever wanted to do. He loved her, he wanted nothing more than to protect her from those who would do her harm, and he’d brought her to this state.

He sank to his knees, close to her but careful not to touch in case she should become further upset. How absurd this was—he’d killed men, eviscerated and maimed and ridden endless days and nights over rough, rocky terrain. He’d survived his own wounds and tended to them on his own for lack of a healer, all of them far too concerned with the more severely wounded to treat a bloody head or broken shoulder.

Yet he couldn’t stand the sight or sound of a sobbing woman.

Especially when he was the reason for it and even more so because it was her.

“Caitlin. I didn’t mean to make you cry so. I shouldn’t have said it.” He wondered if she could hear him over the force of her sobs, but he wouldn’t have raised his voice for anything. Better they not know he’d reduced the lass to tears with his clumsiness.

He took a chance then, touching her back.

She flung him off. “Leave me alone,” was the broken whisper he received in reply.

He stood, knowing it was hopeless and knowing with even more certainty that he could not afford to let her out of his sight. Instead of his awareness dissuading her, she’d only be more determined than ever to show him she could escape.

He returned to where he’d been seated, suddenly miserable and full of self-recrimination.

Brice stirred. “I’d say that could have gone better,” he muttered before rolling to his other side.