Lucas hated that he was still so weak, but just one day out of doors had knocked the wind right out of him. Now that the sun had set, and he and Ella were back in the barn. Their barn, as he had come to think of it, he felt as if any energy he had started to get back was gone. He let out a sigh as he lay his head back on his pallet and thought of the day’s events. Looking over at the hearth where Ella was busying herself making that horrid bitter tea of hers again, he smiled. There was such beauty in even the simplest of her movements and Lucas thought he could never tire of watching her go about even the most mundane of tasks.

She, of course, said he had to drink the tea which tasted like a mixture of manure and fire ash. But he couldn’t refuse her anything when she set her severe grey eyes upon him. She prattled on something about the tea preventing a recurrence of fever, honestly he had stopped listening, struck by the intensity of her gaze when she was healing him. He was dumbfounded as to how he could have made it so far in life and a lass never had any effect on him at all and one look from his sweet English rose and he reacted like he had been turned to a puddle. Although he did think that her being English, she would be much better at making tea, even if it was laced with some of her healing herbs.

Something in her mood had shifted toward the end of the day, Lucas wished she felt comfortable enough to confide it in him. He had sensed her almost coming to tears at one point and had grabbed her hand on instinct, giving her a squeeze to let her know he was with her.

He thought of his poor mother. Who would be of comfort to her now that his Da was dead? He wished God himself he would be healed sooner so he could go to her.

“Lucas, you seem far away,” Ella said. “Are you feeling well?”

“Aye, lass, just thinkin’ on me poor mother,” he said, holding back tears of his own as she settled into her pallet beside his.

“Because of your father?” she asked, placing her hand on his chest. The warmth of her hand spread through him.

“Aye,” he said, turning to face her.

“Tell me about him,” she said. Lucas found himself without words. No one had ever asked him to describe his father before and it took Lucas a minute to call to his mind a good image of the man. The last time he had seen his father he was being run through by that bastard commander’s sword. That image of his father meeting his end had played over and over again in Lucas’s mind ever since he woke up in the barn. He didn’t know how to make it stop, and here Ella was, asking him to recall something good about his Da, and there were so many good memories. He thought of the last morning he was with him. The morning before the battle at Dunkeld. Before it had all gone so wrong. He thought about how his father had looked coming around that old tree after relieving himself only to whip him and Gavin into shape. A smile came to his lips.

“There was always laughter in his eyes, lass,” he began. “Angus MacGille loved tae laugh. He tried tae give that love intae all of us. He were always ready with a bawdy joke or story. He was a braw man.”

“Was he big like you?” she asked.

“Aye, he was bigger. He filled any room he were in. An’ he loved my mother. He loved her with th’ heat of a thousand suns. An’ he was a fair man and laird. Fair tae his family and tae his clan. Ye never find a more loyal man than me da.” Lucas felt his own tears start to pool in his eyes. He would never again hear his father’s boisterous laugh after tricking Gavin or Magnus into some trouble or another. He would never again see the smile of pride on his father’s face when Milly or his mother would insist on showing off a new dress, or project. The shoes left by Angus MacGille seemed too large for Lucas to ever hope to fill. He wondered if he would be able to be a as good a laird to his people, like his father was.

“I ken ‘tis foolish but I canae help but think on how my mother must be fairin’. The man who left me here tae heal, Magnus, he is my uncle’s son, an’ a good man. I’m hopin’ he made it back and was able to tell my mother about my da, but even with the good people of our clan around her, I worry she is alone.”

She moved closer to him onto his pallet, and they lay side-by-side, reaching up to stroke his wet cheek in comfort, she whispered, softly. “Your mother is a strong woman, even though I’ve never met her I can see her strength in you.”

Her voice like silk was his undoing. He pulled her on top of him and brought her lips down to meet his. Her kindness and her sweetness covering him like a wool plaid. In that moment she only existed to warm him and keep his broken heart from stopping completely. Using his lips. he guided and begged her to open for him. He needed to be closer, to absorb her. He could tell by her hesitation that she was innocent and didn’t know what it was he was asking for. He was selfish and asked anyway.

“Please Ella, heal me,” he whispered into her as she opened her mouth allowing his tongue to explore and taste every inch of her. Her hands rubbed his bare chest as he stroked her back. She let out a small moan and he deepened the kiss in response. She moved her body tightly against his. He groaned as he felt himself begin hardening in arousal with her sweet friction.

Tearing his lips from her mouth he trailed light kisses down her neck and slipped his hands over her breasts teasing each taut nipple through the tight fabric with his thumbs. Turning and rubbing hoping to give her just a hint of pleasure. His own mind reeling from the feel of her. As his touch on her sensitive breasts grew more urgent, she groaned and began to move against him. She was so responsive and so sweet. He fought back every urge to rip her dress from her body to give her what she didn’t even know she was asking for.

How would he be able to leave her?

Leave her, he thought. Impossible.

Reality quickly set in, he would have no choice. His people needed him. His family needed him. He would have to leave her. Breaking their contact, he gently pushed her away, mad at himself for allowing the kiss to go so far.

“Did I do something wrong?” Ella asked, her innocence mixed with her lips swollen from his kisses, her hair tousled, making him moan as he set her on her own pallet.

“Nay, lass, ye did naething wrong. ‘Twas I who went tae far, I shouldnae hae kissed ye again,” he said running his hands through his red locks. “Not like that.”

“I like your kisses,” she said, sweetly, looking confused by his sudden change in mood. She had no idea what she was doing to him. Why did she have to be so damn sweet, he thought. His erection, evident through the plaid that barely covered him, was torture. He willed it to go down but the more she looked at him wide-eyed and hungry for something she didn’t know she needed, the more he wanted her. Her golden hair shimmered in the dim fire light, her body shook with desire, and he wanted to damn decency straight to hell and take her right then and there.

Getting up slowly, paying close attention to his wounds, he wrapped his plaid around his waist. He needed fresh, cold air to cool his rising temperature. God how he wished for an autumn-chilled loch close by where he could dunk his aching body.

“Lucas, where are you going?” she asked. “You will catch your death out there.” He noted how quickly her tone had changed from romantic innocence back to the forceful healer, he knew her to be.

“I will be braw, lass. I willnae go far. I need a breath of fresh air is all,” he said, walking out of the barn with his back to her. Before I steal your maidenhead, he thought. And there would be no forgiving that.

Ella stared after Lucas, dumbfounded as he left her alone in the barn. What on earth had just occurred? One moment she was listening as he told her lovingly of his father, and what he feared, her heart bled for him. She meant only to comfort but before she knew it, they were locked in a delirious embrace. Then without a moment’s hesitation he had pushed her off and stalked out of the barn.

“You confounding man,” she groaned into the empty barn. She had had every intention of speaking with him about taking her with him when he left to return home, but when she saw the faraway look in his eye, she knew it wasn’t the best time. He still needed to heal, and a part of that healing was talking about the losses he suffered in battle. She still had every intention of asking him, but had decided when he started talking about his mother and father that it could wait until a later time.

Getting up from the pallet, she moved to prepare new bandages and lay out herbs she may need to tend to Lucas in the morning. She put out the waning fire.

Ella touched her fingers to her lips, still swollen from her kiss with Lucas. How wonderful it had felt to be in Lucas’s arms. She felt wanton. If only he would come back to the barn. She wanted him to explain why he reacted to her the way he did, but she knew she didn’t have the courage to ask him. They were growing so close, it was hard for her to imagine not being so near him or hearing the soft snores of his contented sleep. She only wished she were able to erase all the worries from his mind with a simple touch.

Remembering his hands, and how they traveled up and down her body, stopping at her breasts, she felt a familiar warmth spread through her middle. Lucas was the only man who had ever made her feel at once steady on her feet and then unsure of every move she made at the same time.

If only she weren’t English, that must be part of it. Or maybe it was because she was betrothed to another. She had told him it was a match she would rather die than submit to, but was it possible he was so honorable that the thought of kissing another man’s intended was beyond the pale? It wasn’t often that she hated the lack of status and control she had, as a woman, over her own destiny. How could she convince Lucas that she would rather die than marry that evil man? They had the barn. Their barn.

Lucas, I wish I knew what you needed, she thought, laying her head back down on the pallet, waiting for sleep to overtake her. She knew she couldn’t have Lucas forever, but if she were destined for a life alone, surely there wasn’t that much harm in him allowing her his kiss, was there?

By the time Ella had woke the next morning, all was back to normal in the barn. Lucas was gently snoring in his pallet. Having come in sometime after Ella had fallen asleep, she had not heard, nor been disturbed by his return.

She found Sarah in the kitchen preparing what smelled to Ella like a heavenly soup.

“What are you cookin’ up Sarah?” she asked pleasantly.

“Och, Em. I be cookin’ a braw stew fur Fergus. I will make him regret leavin’ me e’en fur a day,” she responded with a hearty laugh.

“Well, if it tastes anywhere close to as lovely as it smells, he shall never leave you again,” Ella replied laughing with her. She found that she greatly enjoyed the company of the older woman. Her no nonsense way of speaking and working was unlike any woman Ella had ever encountered in her sheltered life, and Ella found that she preferred it to the gently, quiet ways of English ladies.

The day went on, and Lucas and his kiss from the night before still danced in the back of her mind, but Fergus had left early for Glenrich, and there were plenty of chores around the farm that needed doing. She led the sheep out of pasture, helped gather fresh eggs from the few hens that Fergus and Sarah kept. She went to the well and filled the water buckets for the main farm house and the barn. She hadn’t ever worked as hard. It was enough to keep her confusing emotions at bay, at least for a time. And she found she rather liked having tired muscles from a good days’s work. Ella wondered if Gwen ever felt as tired after a day of being with her and Amelia. Were the sisters as much work as chores on a farm? She hoped not, but suspected they were.

Look at yourself, working yourself to the bone, thinking so hard on a man who could never have feelings for you, she thought, as she came around from the far side of the barn where she had been gathering more wild herbs to dry and store for the winter. Planning for a winter and not knowin’ where you’ll be. She looked at the plants in her hand and decided she shouldn’t be so hard on herself, after all it never hurt to be prepared.

Sarah would be expecting Fergus any moment and no doubt he would be hungry after his long day away. She saw the familiar outline of Lucas as he slowly made his way from the barn to the house. She felt her breath catch. Looking at him without him knowing she could take her time to watch his strong body as it moved. His arms and legs darkened by weeks out of doors on the road held their muscular shape. Even though they had not been worked due to his injury, she was in awe of how they still held a sturdy strength that took her breath away.

Suddenly aware of how dreadful she must have looked from her day of work, she wanted to wash a bit before heading back to the house. Tucking her haul of plants into her apron, she walked around to the water well. She could at least clean up a tad before heading back into the house to wait with Sarah and Lucas to hear of Fergus’s adventures into the village.

The cool of the deep well water chilled her face and hands sending a shiver down her spine. How she longed for the luxury of a bath. A nice warm bath with the rose scented soaps she and Amelia had found in that small shop in London. Letting out a small sigh. She closed her eyes, remembering the sounds and smells of her regular bath.

The sound of approaching hooves snapped her out of her daydream, catching her attention. Looking up toward the line of trees that bordered the farm to the north, she saw a man on an unfamiliar horse racing toward the farmhouse with speed that seemed to scream urgency. Whoever was coming this way was the bearer of bad news. Her heartbeat quickened as she surveyed her surroundings, looking for any place to hide before the horseman saw her.