Nine

Callum slumped in the chair across from where Maggie was sleeping and rubbed his fingers over his eyes. God’s blood, he was tired, but he was too wound up to sleep. And he needed to talk with Gavin about the notes Maggie had given him. And since they didn’t know how long it would be before they were forced to run, that meant doing it now.

He’d briefly glanced through the papers while he’d waited for his foster brother to join him, this time able to concentrate. The sheaf of parchments now lay in an orderly pile on the table in front of him, far different from the folded mess Maggie had first handed him when Alpin’s troops were bearing down on them.

Once he’d organized the pages into what he thought was the correct order, he’d numbered them with ink and a quill retrieved from his pack. Not that that had helped much. The notes jumped all over the place—from names of people, to clans, to different schemes Irvin was involved in, including many of the secrets he held over peoples’ heads. Much of it was confusing and illegible. He wanted to go over it with Maggie, but she lay on the bed, under his plaid, fast asleep.

The door pushed open, and Gavin, looking as tired as Callum felt, stepped inside. Callum whistled softly to tell his foster brother to be quiet and pointed to Maggie on the bed.

Gavin nodded and moved to the basin of fresh water that Callum had filled for him after he’d had his own wash. Maggie had slept through all of it, much to Callum’s disappointment. He’d rather wanted her to feast her eyes on him the way he had on her. But he’d also been relieved. She obviously needed the rest.

Gavin finished at the basin, which sat on a stool near the cold hearth, and after stopping to retrieve a leather flagon from his bag, he walked across the packed-dirt floor and sat in a chair across the table from Callum. His short, ravaged hair and the shirt under his plaid were damp, his face a far cry from that of his youth. Dark shadows circled his eyes, lines were etched deeply into his forehead, and his cheeks looked almost concave.

Lifting the flagon to his lips, Gavin took several swallows, then passed the rich mead to Callum. “Does it say anything about Ewan in there?”

“Nay. I’m sorry, Brother. At least, nothing I could decipher. We’ll ask Maggie when she wakes up.”

Gavin nodded, his mouth pulling down at the corners, before he reached for the pages. “Let’s have a look.”

Several hours later, they’d made copious notes on the parchments, fitting pieces together from what was written but also from what they already knew and what they had guessed. Callum felt sick from reading about some of Maggie’s clansmen’s and clanswomen’s secrets. And not only them, but people from other clans as well—even a laird he knew. Some of the secrets were serious, but most of them were just sad and unimportant in the overall arc of one’s life. Callum felt like he’d been subject to too much harmful gossip, like he’d showered in filth.

It was unfortunate that so much damage had been done out of fear and deception. A secret should stay a secret as long as was necessary—but not at the expense of other people’s lives.

Letters needed to be written and lairds informed when the treachery involved their clans. Irvin had various men and women spying for him in more than just the MacLean clan. The rot needed to be dug out.

More worrying, though, was the sense both he and Gavin had that something more was going on than just Irvin’s desire to take over Maggie’s clan. Too many clans had been mentioned, and too many secrets intertwined. It almost felt as if Irvin was just one of many arrows in the quiver rather than the archer himself.

Once this was over, Callum would question Irvin and then punish him for the crimes he’d committed, especially now that Callum knew the horrors he intended for Maggie.

He hadn’t realized he was staring at his betrothed’s sleeping form, nor how tightly he was clenching his fist, his eyebrows drawn together, teeth gritted, until the quill he was holding snapped in two.

“Are you mad at her, then?” Gavin asked dryly.

Callum looked over at him, surprised. “Of course not. Why would you ask such a question?”

Gavin counted down on his fingers. “She says she doesn’t want to marry you, she didn’t tell you about the caves straight away, she keeps trying to escape on her own, and she’s thrown how many daggers at your head now? That’s four reasons. Do you want me to go on?”

Callum scowled, but at his foster brother this time. “I should ne’er have told you about the second dagger. If she really didn’t want to marry me, she wouldnae have missed.”

“Or she didn’t want to murder you.”

Callum grunted dismissively and returned to perusing the parchments, but he couldn’t focus on the task at hand. After a moment, he said, “I was thinking about Irvin and what he had in store for her. How he’d planned to abuse my wife.”

“Nay, not your wife, Callum. You canna think like that. Maggie’s a smart, capable lass, and she’s stubborn. You say that Isobel likes being in opposition to Kerr and me—and will therefore ne’er consent to marrying Kerr, no matter how much I might want the match for my sister—but I could say the same about Maggie. She’s dug her heels in. You may not win this one.”

“How can you talk about me losing when the game’s barely started?”

“’Tis not a game,” Gavin said. “If you make a poor choice like I did, your wife can make your life a misery. Even in death, Cristel had the power to drag me down to hell with her. She didn’t care that she hurt me. That she hurt Ewan.”

“You canna compare Maggie to Cristel. She would ne’er treat anyone so callously.”

“Nay, but I can compare her to Isobel, and you’d be wise to heed your own words.”

Callum drummed his fingers on the table, not wanting to fight with Gavin, but he couldn’t let it go.

“So you think I should just ride away? Ne’er see her again?”

“I didn’t say that. I think you should be together—and I told Maggie that.”

“Then what exactly are you saying?”

They’d been speaking in hushed voices, so as not to wake Maggie, but still, it was heated.

“I said that she’s not your wife, which she isn’t. And from everything she’s said, she doesn’t want to marry you, which she—”

“—does,” Callum finished for him. He knew it wasn’t what Gavin was going to say, but Gavin didn’t know Maggie, didn’t understand the pull that existed between them. He’d never experienced it with Cristel—not with anyone, as far as Callum knew. The closest he could relate to it was the bond he had with his son.

“Would you e’er give up on finding Ewan?” he asked.

Gavin stiffened. “’Tis not the same. Ewan was just a baby. He had no control of the situation. Cristel and I were meant to protect him. We failed him. I failed him.”

“What I meant was that in your heart, you know that someday you’ll find him. That you canna give up on him, because he is meant to walk this earth by your side—father and son.”

Gavin swallowed before answering. “Aye. That I believe.”

“’Tis how I feel about Maggie.”

Gavin leaned over the table and clasped his forearm. “Are you sure, Callum? Or is it just…habit? How old were you when you and Maggie were betrothed?”

“Sixteen. She was only nine. But I didn’t feel that bond with her as a man does with a woman until we were much older. I’d always liked her. I felt protective of her.”

“I remember. She’d seemed so fierce yet…lost. You calmed her when we visited.”

“She needed to know I was there for her.” He looked across the room at her sleeping form, her hair bright against the blanket. “Maggie’s mine, Gavin. And I’m hers. It’s in her eyes every time she looks at me, every time she leans against me. Her body remembers our connection even if her mind refuses to. She’s hurt, and she has every right to be. She’s scared that I’ll leave her, like her mother did when she died, like her brothers have abandoned her.”

Gavin sighed, scratched his fingers over his bristly beard. “Aye. I would find it hard to trust a woman after what Cristel did. Especially a lovely lass. That’s all Cristel cared about—people being enamored with her face, her body. I told her not to take Ewan to the festival, that there had been rumors of plague. I explained the danger. She said she wouldn’t and then she did it anyway. I’ve ne’er hated anyone the way I hate her. It fills every inch of me. I’m glad she’s dead.”

Callum’s heart grew heavy, filled with pain over Gavin’s transformation from the lad who had the loudest laugh and brightest spirit to a man ravaged by hate and loss. “You canna blacken all lasses with Cristel’s failings. Look at Amber and Caitlin, even my Maggie. Lovely lasses, all of them, and all of them protective and caring for those they love. If Ewan is alive—and I believe you when you say he is—we’ll find him.”

Gavin nodded, then leaned closer to Callum. “All right then. What’s your plan for wooing her? If, as you say, her body recognizes the bond between you, canna you just make love to her? Then she’ll be your wife. Surely she wouldnae refuse you then.”

“I’ve thought about that, but as you say, she’s stubborn. She wouldnae think twice about riding away to Edinburgh, no matter if she were my wife or not. And she’s not afraid to leave on her own. She’s as capable as any man when it comes to defending herself—even better than some. She needs to choose me. Like Amber had to choose Lachlan. ’Twas not a decision that could be forced upon her—or on Maggie either. Nor would I want it to be.”

“So, you need to make her fall in love with you. If she did, she would ne’er leave, aye?”

“I would hope not. I can ne’er imagine Caitlin leaving Darach, or Amber leaving Lachlan.”

“Well, then…do that.”

“Do what?”

“Make her fall in love with you!”

Callum shook his head, and he slumped in his chair. “Have you lost your mind? ’Tis not such an easy task.”

“Pick her some flowers. Write her some sweet words.”

“Do you really think that will work on a lass like Maggie? She would slice off the tops of the flowers with her dagger and use my poems for target practice.”

Gavin grinned. “Aye, she would. And she’d best every single one of us. Well, maybe not Gill, although he was mightily impressed that she made the shot from the castle wall in the dark. I think he’s halfway in love with her on that basis alone.”

Anger erupted in Callum. He leaned over the table, a scowl on his face. “You tell him to keep away from Maggie.”

Gavin tched and rolled his eyes. “I guess that answers my next question, then.”

“Which is what?”

“Are you in love with her?”

Callum’s heart began to pound, and he slowly straightened. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“A lot, I’d think, if you want her to love you.”

He rubbed his hand over the nape of his neck and looked at Maggie—sleeping under his plaid. “I want her in every way a man wants a woman. And only her, no one else. I want her safe and happy and healthy. I ne’er want to be parted from her.” He returned his gaze to Gavin. “Is that love?”

His foster brother smiled, his face softening and bringing to Callum’s mind the Gavin of old. “I think so, Brother.” He lifted his flagon of mead in the air—a toast. “Aim your arrow for her heart. Strike true.” He took a swig and passed the drink to Callum. “Keep it. I’ve had enough. ’Twas sobering to look on Ross and know how easily that could have been me.”

“Aye. Thank you,” Callum said before he took another sip.

Gavin rose quietly from his chair. “I’ll go take over from one of the lads. And I’ll tell them not to come into the cottage. Maybe Maggie will wake with her mind sleepy and ask you to make her yours.”

Callum shook his head. “I need her fully awake when she asks me that—in word or in deed.” He eyed his brother with concern. “You should sleep too, Gavin.”

“I canna, not really. I’ll sleep when I find my son.”

Gavin crossed the room and left the cottage, closing the door behind him.

Feeling a little broken under the weight of Gavin’s despair, Callum gathered up the parchments and returned them to his pack. He then tidied the cottage, closed the shutters, and replaced the chairs, so it looked exactly as when they’d first arrived. If they did have to make a run for it and someone came inside the cottage to check, he didn’t want to give away that they’d been here.

He looked at Maggie sleeping on the bed, indecision making him hesitate. If anyone came in quickly enough and the bed was still warm with body heat—if it smelled sweet like Maggie, or even, God willing, held the musky smell of sex—then that would give them away too. But she needed her rest. Aye, he did too, especially if they had a hard ride ahead of them. He decided against disturbing her.

Nay, he’d let her sleep, preferably with him beside her.

She’d barely moved in the last three hours as the sun reached its zenith, and it pleased him that she felt safe enough with him there to let her guard down to such an extent. He couldn’t imagine that she’d slept well the past few years, with all the turmoil and upset in her clan. Certainly not since she’d discovered Irvin’s treachery and had to escape—twice—during the night.

It was yet another tie being woven between them. A bond of trust and care. Aye, care. He would show Maggie he had her best interests at heart.

As if his thoughts had roused her, she rolled onto her back, thrashing her head on the pillow. Callum quickly crossed to the bedside and stroked his hand through her hair, and she settled immediately. He looked one more time around the cottage, stifling the yawn that wanted to crack open his jaws, then shed his boots and plaid and crawled onto the bed beside her, wearing only his long shirt. She curled instantly into his side when he rolled onto his back, her head on his chest and hand over his waist. It was the same way they’d slept at their camp after she’d been attacked by the wolves.

Callum wrapped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her close. He yawned again, this time letting his jaws stretch wide, then shook his head in exasperation. He had Maggie on a bed beside him, soft and warm and smelling sweet. She’d let him look on her naked, every lovely, shapely inch, and she’d missed when she’d thrown her dagger at him. Twice. Yet here he was, going to sleep. And despite the ache in his body, he knew he would slumber soundly until Gavin woke him.

Never would he have guessed it was possible.

* * *

Maggie opened heavy eyelids and blinked slowly. She felt cocooned in warmth and safety, enveloped by a smell so delicious, it made her toes curl—hints of fresh air, wood smoke, and horses. The smell of fresh petals too, and clean water. But mostly, she smelled the slightly musky scent of…of…Callum.

She sighed in sleepy contentment, knowing she was exactly where she was meant to be. She pulled his arm farther around her waist from behind, weaving their fingers together at her navel, just like she’d wanted to do when they were on Aristotle.

She closed her eyes, let sleep begin to pull her under, then a thought surfaced in her mind. Why is Callum in my bed?

She opened her eyes, fully awake now, and stared at the log wall of her grandmother’s cottage just a few feet away. Pressed up behind her, warming her, was a hard, male body. Her heart sped up. She looked down at their linked hands to confirm that it was indeed Callum. She’d been riding with him for hours on the way here, had been touched by him, kissed by him, even slept with him through the night on one other occasion, though that time, he’d been gone when she’d woken. She knew the feel of him, the height and breadth of him.

She knew his scent.

He released a heavy breath, and the hair on her crown stirred. Is he awake?

She hesitated, then unlinked their hands and turned to him, only to find him fast asleep. Her breath caught as she stared at his face, so handsome. When she’d first seen him as a lass, she’d thought he was an angel come straight from heaven. Sent by her mother to comfort her. When she’d found out he was just a regular lad and that she was meant to marry him when she was older, she’d felt a confusing mix of disappointment, excitement, dread, anticipation, and resentment. A lot of resentment.

Why couldn’t he have stayed her angel? He was supposed to have been her last gift from her mother.

Maybe he is and I just can’t see it.

Her throat tightened, and she found herself blinking back tears. She should get up. She wanted to get up, but her body refused to move. Just like earlier when she stood in front of him without a stitch of clothing.

Aye, he was right. She had wanted him to see her naked. Not that she’d tell him that.

A lock of hair fell over his forehead, and she lifted her hand to sweep it away before stopping herself. If she woke him now, what would happen? How would she say no if he wanted to tup her, when she longed for his weight on her, wedged between her legs, pressing her into the mattress?

Instead, she drew her fingers down his face, just a hairsbreadth from touching him. She traced the sharp angles of his eyebrows and cheeks, softened a bit in slumber; the perfect formation of his lips, neither too full nor too thin; the dark sweep of thick lashes against his tanned skin.

She wanted to press closer, get inside his skin. Have him reside in hers. She wanted to crawl on top of him, roll around on him like a foal in a field of clover.

God’s blood! At this rate, she wouldn’t stay a maid much longer, and she would find herself married to Callum by way of intimate congress. She should leave now before that happened. Before she was forced to make that decision…or she gave up and let her body decide.

But she couldn’t make herself move. She couldn’t stop staring at his face and seeing the boy she’d once thought an angel.

It pleased her the sky had not darkened yet and she could drink him in to her heart’s content. The light coming through the partially open shutters had the tinge of late afternoon, perhaps early evening, which astounded her. How long had he been here? And how long had she been asleep? She hadn’t stirred once since she’d lain down.

When was the last time that had happened? Maybe before Eleanor had died, or before John had left the castle. Perhaps as far back as when her mother was still alive.

Aye, that was probably it. The last time she’d felt…safe. Truly safe.

Until now. Which made no sense, as Irvin’s men were nipping at their heels like a pack of ornery dogs.

Yet somehow, Callum took it all away—the worry, the uncertainty. The loneliness.

She closed her eyes and pressed her face into his chest, not wanting to let the emotions free. She had to hold herself together or she might just fly apart. She worked to control her breathing, stop her heart from pounding.

It wasn’t working. Then Callum’s arm slipped beneath her, pulled her into the crook of his arm as he rolled onto his back. He muttered something under his breath, and she looked up to see that he was still sleeping.

Slowly, she laid her head on his chest and crept her arm around his waist, inch by inch, until she squeezed him tight. She breathed in his scent and felt warmed from the inside out. Finally, the jagged emotions inside her softened, subsided.

She drifted then, thinking vaguely about her plans—how she should climb out of bed, sneak out of the cottage and into the caves. Steal one of the men’s horses. She should make her own way to John as she’d first planned. Far away from here, from Irvin and Ross, from the memory of her mother. From Callum.

Aye, especially from him.

She was still thinking that—about how she didn’t need him. She was a capable lass. She didn’t need anybody. She could take care of herself.

When she fell asleep.