Chapter Fourteen
William was surprised to see Maddy run not in the direction of town or An Tèarmann but deeper into the woods. He was also surprised by how fast she was, considering her large purse kept sliding off her shoulder and bumping against her hip, more than once snagging on a branch and almost yanking her to a halt.
He’d have to have a talk with her, he decided, about shedding cumbersome gear if she ever found herself being pursued by anyone other than him. The lass needed to realize that her belongings were not as important as her life. William leaped over a fallen tree that had forced her to veer slightly, and finally moved to intercept her.
Only his gut suddenly knotted at the stark fear he saw in her eyes when she glanced over her shoulder and realized he’d closed the gap between them; and he nearly gave up the chase when he heard her cry of panic as she grabbed a tree and swung herself to suddenly change direction.
But he was well past the point of letting her go, and had been for days now.
He caught hold of her shoulder and spun her toward him, wrapping his arms around her and twisting to take the brunt of their fall. And then he simply held her against him as she struggled like a cornered animal, her ragged, panting whimpers far more wounding than her pummeling fists.
He got one arm around both of hers, using his other hand to cup her head to his. “Hush, Madeline,” he whispered into her hair, wrapping his legs around her when her knee jerked close to his groin. “Just lie here with me and catch your breath,” he crooned, clutching her to him with the same desperation he felt in her struggles.
She went utterly still, holding herself arched tensely away from him. “Please, I just want to go h-home,” she whispered, finally admitting defeat and going limp.
He loosened his arm around her, and brushed a tear off her cheek with his thumb. “I’ll take ye home, Madeline. Just as soon as we catch our breaths, we’ll walk back to An Tèarmann and I’ll drive ye home.”
She hesitantly tested his grip.
But finding himself still unable to let her go, he released her only enough to let her sit up, then turned so she was tucked against him as he leaned against the tree he’d slammed into bringing her down. Apparently realizing that he wasn’t giving her the option of moving away, she buried her face in his shirt with a shuddered sob.
He slowly ran his fingers through her tangled hair, carefully working small twigs free. “I told ye there would never be a reason for you to run from me, Madeline,” he said thickly. “If you are frightened, run toward me, not away. If you’re angry, give me your wrath. And when you are confused or heavy of heart or simply tired, my strong arm is yours for the asking.” He kissed the top of her head. “Everyone needs a safe shelter to run to, Madeline; let me be yours.”
“I-I can’t,” she whispered, her voice quavering. “I might not survive.”
He tucked his finger under her chin and tilted her head back to look at him. “I won’t ever let anything happen to you.”
She leaned away, continuing to stare directly into his eyes. “Maybe it’s not about you at all,” she said, her voice raw as she tried to catch her breath. “Maybe it’s about me,” she continued in a raspy growl, lifting her hand to tap her bosom. “I only have one heart to give, and I’m not risking it on a man who expects me to trust him but who refuses to trust me in return.”
William took his first relieved breath when her cheeks colored with budding anger. He pulled her head back to his chest—ignoring her protest—so she wouldn’t see his scowl. Dammit to hell, she had him by the short hairs! He’d decided he agreed with Kenzie: explaining the magic would likely send her running forever.
But not explaining who he really was to her was making her run anyway.
“I would ask a favor of ye, Madeline.”
“No, dammit. No more favors.”
“I promise not to be offended if ye say no.” He took a shuddering breath of his own. “And if ye do say no, I will never bother you again.”
She went completely still for several heartbeats. “You’ll just w-walk away?”
“Aye . . . if you say no.”
She started to tilt her head back to look at him but then suddenly settled against his chest again. “What’s the favor?” she whispered.
“Take me as your lover.”
Her head popped up so fast that she nearly clipped his chin. “What?”
He fought to stifle his grin as he watched a blush spread across her cheeks. “Take me only as your lover,” he repeated softly. “Keep your heart tucked safely in a box under your bed, but give me your body.”
Her lashes dropped to hood her eyes from him, and her blush intensified. “A-and if I say no, y-you’ll just walk away?” She looked directly at him again. “Just like that, you’ll stop giving me gifts and coming to the nursing home? And you’ll s-stop kissing me?”
“No more gifts or kisses, but I would like ye to keep the pin and cell phone.” He took another painful breath. “And if ye insist, I will stop visiting Elbridge and the others.”
“And if I say yes?” she asked in a tremulous whisper.
“Then we are both free to indulge our senses.” He squeezed her gently. “I have but one stipulation: I admit to being somewhat possessive, so as long as we are enjoying each other’s company, I must be the only man in your life.”
She dropped her gaze to his hand resting on her thigh, letting the silence of the forest settle around them.
“Do I have to give you an answer right now?” she asked, not looking at him.
He gently brushed his thumb on the inside of her thigh and felt a small quiver run through her. “How about if you give me your answer tomorrow morning, when I get back from my ride with Elbridge?”
Silence settled between them again.
“Do ye need longer?” he asked. “Because I have to tell ye, lass, I’d prefer to know where I stand with you sooner rather than later.” He smiled crookedly when she looked up. “Because if ye do say yes, I would like to clear up last night’s unfinished business between us as soon as possible.”
“We have unfinished business?”
“You’re not one of those women who likes to leave a man . . . hanging, are ye?”
“Hanging?” she repeated, her brows drawing together in a frown. But then her eyes suddenly widened and her cheeks turned a lovely pink again. “You mean . . . you didn’t . . . omigod, you didn’t!”
Unable to stop himself, William threaded his fingers around the back of her neck and pulled her mouth toward his. “Just one more taste of ye, Madeline, just in case ye say . . . no,” he murmured against her lips.
But when he hesitated, she leaned forward and softly touched her lips to his.
Using all the restraint he possessed—and some he borrowed from the devil himself—William held back from claiming her mouth.
His patience was rewarded when her arms came around his neck just as she gave a small hum of frustration, and her tongue sought his—only to pull out and begin tracing the contour of his lips.
His restraint shattering with her boldness, he canted her head to capture her teasing tongue, and got serious about loving her mouth. He devoured her softness, sipped her sweetness, and almost shouted with joy when she melted against him.
But he quickly realized that if he didn’t stop, there was a very real danger that he really would find out what color underclothes she was wearing. And as delightful as that might be in the short term, it certainly wouldn’t help him reach his ultimate goal. He broke their kiss and pulled her head back down to his chest again, smiling at her initial protest and then her sigh of contentment.
His beautiful, maddening Maddy, he thought, stifling his own sigh, so full of passion and yet so frightened by it. It wasn’t so much him she was afraid of, he was coming to realize, but herself.
He would like very much to meet her bastard ex-husband who had stolen her courage to open her heart to another man. When he’d asked, Trace had told William that Billy Kimble hadn’t made it past puberty, and that if Maddy hadn’t divorced the bastard six years ago, she probably would have killed him by now out of sheer frustration.
Apparently his cousin, Trace had said, had started taking on the role of caregiver when she’d found herself raising a husband right along with her daughter. Then, when her father had died, she’d moved home to finish raising Rick and had even begun mothering her mother. It was easier, Trace had said, for Maddy to focus on everyone else than it was to deal with her own insecurities.
William knew he was pushing her to do exactly that by asking her to give him only her body; and that if she did, she would more often than not push back with the fierceness of a bear if she felt anything other than lust start to blossom between them.
A large buck suddenly snorted not a hundred paces behind them and went crashing away in alarm at discovering that he no longer owned the woods.
Maddy scrambled off William’s lap with a yelp of surprise, and he grunted at the sharp pain that suddenly shot through him when her knee drove into his groin, the blow completely unmanning him.
“William! Come on,” she hissed in a whisper as she crawled away and started fumbling with her purse. “It’s those wolves. We have to get out of here!”
Rolling into a tight ball of agony, William fought for breath even as he wondered how his not wringing her neck would help her decide to give herself to him.
“Come on!” she cried, tugging his sleeve. “The woods are getting dark. William, I don’t know which way the road is!”
“N-not wolves,” he gasped. “It was a—” He snapped his mouth shut when he saw the huge gun clutched in her hands, her arms stiffened to hold it pointed into the woods as she knelt over him. “Christ’s teeth!” he shouted, clamping his hand over hers as he sat up. “What in hell are ye doing with a gun!”
She started wrestling him for control of the weapon, and when her knee came too damned close to his groin again, William spun her around and slammed her back against his chest. Not knowing exactly where her finger was but hoping it wasn’t on the trigger, he repositioned his grip over the barrel and twisted the gun free, immediately tossing it out of her reach.
“William!” she cried, struggling to go after it. “The wolves!”
He wrapped both arms around her in a bear of a hug, and squeezed her until she squeaked. “Maddy, darling,” he rasped, fighting to keep the edge out of his voice. He spread his legs so that she was sitting on the ground instead of his throbbing groin, but he didn’t dare loosen his arms. “That was a buck snorting.”
She went very still, tension humming through her. He brushed her hair back with his jaw, so his lips could touch her cheek. “What are ye doing with a gun, lass?”
“Protecting myself!”
“Where did ye get it? Was it your father’s?”
He felt her take a deep breath. “Billy bought it for me when we got divorced.”
William knew he couldn’t have heard right. “Why would he have done that?”
“So I could protect myself,” she repeated, her tone exasperated. “I was moving to a house in the middle of the woods with a toddler, and he wanted me to have it for security.”
Oh, aye, he really wanted to meet Billy Kimble, preferably on a dark night with no one around. “Are ye saying the bastard handed you a gun and just walked away, leaving ye alone in a house in the middle of nowhere with a child? His child?”
“You mean, as opposed to leaving me in the middle of nowhere without any way to protect myself?” She twisted just enough to glare at him. “He took me to firearms classes and helped me get a permit. I don’t call that just walking away.”
All of the little pieces suddenly fell into place, and William realized that the mask Maddy had built around herself was as complex and as powerful as the one he had worn for several centuries; only where he’d become a dragon everyone feared, she’d become a giving person everyone couldn’t help but love.
He repositioned her to face away from him again, so she couldn’t see the anger in his eyes, and made sure it wasn’t in his voice. “Eve told me it’s common knowledge that you divorced Kimble, but right now I would have the truth from ye, Madeline. Who asked for the divorce?”
She started struggling to get away, but he merely tightened his arms around her.
“Ye tried for three years to make your marriage work, didn’t you?” he whispered against her face, feeling her cheek grow cold with paleness. “But Billy Kimble wasn’t interested in being a husband and father, was he?”
“He loves Sarah,” she rasped.
“But he never loved you. Did you love him?”
She said nothing.
“Or were ye only a young lass clinging to the hope that you could make it work?”
Her head dropped forward, and William felt burning tears fall onto his hands. “I wanted to love him,” she said softly.
“Shhh,” he whispered, turning her in his arms so she could bury her face in his shirt. He smoothed down her hair. “I’m sorry to say so, but I’m glad ye didn’t succeed.”
“W-will you do me a favor?” she stammered.
“Yes.”
He heard her breath hitch in surprise at his quick declaration, and then he felt her shudder. “Will you please not tell anyone that Billy’s the one who wanted the divorce?”
“Ye have my word.” He ducked his head so she could see his smile. “And could ye do me a favor?” he asked, brushing her damp cheek with his thumb. “Could ye not tell anyone ye had me rolling on the ground in agony with only a flick of your knee?”
He watched her frown, and then her eyes suddenly widened. Seeing that she was about to unman him again as she tried to leap up, this time he all but threw her off his lap and then immediately rolled to the side and sprang to his feet.
“Omigod, I’m sorry!” she cried.
He smiled, though she was too busy staring at his crotch to see it. “How sorry?”
She lifted her gaze to his face, her own face blistering red. “Really, really sorry,” she said, dropping her gaze to his crotch again.
“Because I’m thinking ye look more worried than sorry.”
She looked up. “Worried about what?”
“That ye might have indefinitely postponed clearing up our unfinished business.”
She gaped at him, but then a faint smile worked its way into her eyes. “Is there anything I can do to . . . speed up your recovery?” she asked, deadpan.
William felt most of his blood rush to his wounded groin, and turned away with a bark of laughter before she could see the effect she had on him. “My God, woman, you need a keeper,” he said, going over and picking up her purse and then her gun. He turned to her in surprise. “Christ, this thing weighs more than your whole purse.”
“It’s the nine bullets that make it so heavy,” she said, holding out her hand.
He gave her the purse but continued studying the weapon. “Have ye actually shot it?” he asked, looking at her.
He saw her chin lift. “I shot it this morning before work.”
“So those were your shell casings we found at the gravel pit?”
She held her hand out for the gun again.
“Maddy, I know ye said no more gifts, but would ye let me buy ye a new weapon? One a little less heavy, and that would fit your hand better?” he asked, carefully turning the handle toward her as Trace had shown him—only to flinch when she merely grabbed it and stuffed it into the side of her purse.
She stilled when she saw him step to the side. “Hey, don’t worry; I don’t keep a bullet in the chamber. That way, if Sarah got hold of it, she couldn’t accidentally shoot herself.” She smiled at him. “And thanks, but I like this gun,” she said, slipping the strap over her shoulder and patting her purse. “It’s big enough to scare the bejeezus out of people, and Billy said that if I ever have to actually shoot someone, they won’t be able to get up and start chasing me, whereas anything smaller might just piss them off.”
William laced his fingers through hers and started walking toward the road, only just noticing how dark the woods were getting. She might be right about the gun’s stopping power, but he didn’t care that she was carrying her ex-husband’s parting gift.
But if he’d learned anything about maddening Madeline, it was that pushing her was like trying to herd chickens. He led her to the road in silence, and when they reached the bushes, he had to let go of her hand so she could jump the ditch. But he found himself smiling again when she slipped her hand back in his as they started walking toward An Tèarmann.
“If I give ye a ride home and just drop ye off, how will ye get to work tomorrow morning?” he asked.
“I suppose I could have Mom drop me off, but then she’d have to take Sarah to rec and come pick us both up tomorrow night.” She sighed. “I guess I’m going to have to try to get a car loan now instead of saving up for one.” She frowned at him. “You didn’t drive Eve’s car off that gravel bank, did you? You got out and then rolled it over the edge.”
He grinned. “I suppose I did.”
“But why?” she asked, looking back at the road they were walking on. “I realize you might be a bit . . . obsessed about getting your way, but I can’t believe you’d wreck a perfectly good car just so I would have to use your truck.”
“I was doing Kenzie a favor by destroying that demonic machine.”
She stopped walking. “What are you talking about?”
He started them walking again, seeing that if he didn’t get her home soon, she was going to fall asleep on her feet, as he’d noticed her steps faltering with fatigue. “If that car were to get in an accident with something even as small as a mailbox, the mailbox would win. I don’t like the idea of you and Sarah riding in anything smaller than my truck, any more than Kenzie would want to see Eve driving that car again. Would ye promise me that when you buy yourself a new vehicle, you’ll choose a large truck?”
She laughed. “Trust me, if I ever win the lottery, I will buy myself the biggest, baddest SUV they make.”
He noticed the air starting to chill as they drew near An Tèarmann, a soft sea breeze pushing fog in off the ocean. “Are ye chilled, Maddy? Would ye like my shirt?”
She laughed again, anxiously this time. “Keep your shirt on, Killkenny,” she said, her voice husky as she glanced down at their clasped hands. “But if you’re chilly, maybe you should roll down your sleeves,” she finished in a near growl, suddenly picking up her pace.
She stopped when they reached the driveway. “Eve can take me home.”
“I said I would drive you, and I will.”
“But then you’ll be driving back here without anyone accompanying you, and that’s illegal. And it was illegal today, when you came to the home all alone.”
“I’ve decided I don’t like that rule.”
She smiled at that. “And if you don’t like something, you what . . . either ignore it or bash it over the head with your sword?”
He frowned at that. “Ye dare tease me, when you’re walking around with a gun in your purse that weighs as much as a car?”
Still holding his hand, she started walking in the driveway. “I tell you what—while I’m deciding whether or not to . . . grant your favor,” she said thickly, “I will borrow your truck this one time and drive myself home. And that way, it will be at the nursing home for you and Elbridge to use tomorrow.”
“Deal.”
They stopped by the driver’s door of the truck, and William opened it but stopped her from getting in. “Is there anything I can say to help you make your decision?”
There was still enough light from the setting sun for him to see color rise to her cheeks. “If I say yes, you would hold yourself to the same stipulation about not seeing anyone else?”
He grinned. “That’s the thing with possessive men—like dogs, we’re too busy guarding our territory to be sniffing out new ones.”
That brought her color up a notch. “And the gifts would stop?”
His grin vanished. “Aw, lass, I am having such fun shopping on the Internet with Janice.” She tossed her purse across the console with a snort, and William couldn’t help but wince. “Are ye sure there isn’t a bullet in the chamber?”
She climbed into the truck and looked down at him. “I’m pretty sure,” she said with a cheeky grin. But she suddenly sobered. “One more question.”
“What would that be?”
“Will you tell me who you really are?”
“Yes.” He saw her jaw go slack and smiled. “But not today. Or tomorrow.”
“Then when?” she snapped.
“When you’re ready.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“You have my word, Madeline. When you are ready, I will tell you everything.”
She sat there fuming at him for several heartbeats, and then her shoulders slumped. She turned away and reached for the key.
“Another thing ye might wish to think about as you decide tonight,” he said, causing her not to start the truck—though she also didn’t look at him. “And that’s if you are prepared to let your bogeyman boyfriend go.”
She looked at him. “He’s not real, William.”
“Oh, I’m thinking he’s quite real to you, and quite safe, because ye feel he can’t steal your heart—at least not as long as ye have it tucked away in a box under your bed.” He canted his head at her. “I tell ye what; how about that if you do agree to my favor, I give you something I hold equally dear, and you can keep it safe for me?”
“What is it?”
He shook his head. “I’m no more ready to open my box than you are to open yours.” He smiled. “Maybe someday we’ll each work up the courage to finally open them together.” Her shoulders slumped again, and he could see her fatigue. “Go home, Madeline, before ye fall asleep,” he said, moving to close her door.
“William,” she said, although she was looking at the steering wheel and not him. “I-I want to say yes,” she said, her voice whisper-soft.
“I know ye do, lass. And I want very much for you to say yes.”
“But I’m scared.”
“I know that, too. But remember, ye have my word that you’ll not find a safer place than in my arms.” That said, he softly closed the door and stepped back.
She stared out at him, and William gave her a tender smile, then turned away and started walking toward the barn. He heard the truck start behind him and stopped at the door just as Kenzie walked out, obviously also having heard the truck.
“I’m seeing, but I’m having a hard time believing,” Kenzie said. “How did ye get her to change her mind?”
William stared at the taillights disappearing up the road, wondering why the devil himself expected a man to settle for possessing only a woman’s body, when even a fool knew her true value lay in her heart. “It’s simple, really. I just opened the gates of hell and walked in.”