Chapter Three
Disoriented, Keir gave in to the desire that woke his aching body. He guided the angel before him, her wide eyes and smooth skin shadowed in the dimness. Her lips were cold but soft as he met them. He caught her gasp in his mouth but pressed on, lifting his other arm to hug her against his body. The pangs of pain shot through his thigh as she shifted against it, and the throbbing in his head made him pause. She’d slanted her mouth against his, returning his kiss, but when he stopped for the space of a heartbeat, she reared back.
Ice slammed against the side of his face. “Mhac na galla,” he yelled and wiped the snow from his cheek. The angel had hit him.
“I know enough Gaelic to know what that means,” she yelled back, rolling off his body, her leg hitting his thigh. He grunted, the pain clearing more of his mind.
“What the bloody hell is all this?” He turned his head from one side to the other, and his arms came up to throw off the heaviness overtop of the two of them.
“You’re ruining our shelter,” she said. “And there’s a bloody blizzard still going on.”
The heavily clothed woman rose, throwing the blanket, snow, and what looked like branches down over his face. “There’s a tree on me,” he called up through the layers. He remembered the branch breaking, knocking him out, but this seemed to be a pine. Och. Beaten by a dead tree limb. If Brodie found out, Keir would never hear the end of it.
The woman cursed again, but the rest of her words were caught in the wind. Keir pushed up on his elbows and realized Cogadh was lying beside him. “Shite,” he said and threw off the blanket and tree limbs. “Cogadh,” he yelled, rising despite his leg.
“He’s lame,” she said. “I wrapped the wound on his right hock.”
Keir rubbed a gloved hand along his horse’s side under the wool blanket, feeling his friend’s strong breaths.
“He’s well enough for now,” the woman yelled over the wind. “But we all need to find shelter.”
Keir turned, sitting against Cogadh in the snow. The lass stood, white swirling around her, making her look like a small snow goddess come to earth. The lowering sun, blocked by the thick clouds, obscured her coloring, but her long hair whipped out from around her hood. The fur-lined cloak framed a heart-shaped face and large eyes. Brave and fierce, ignoring the gales shoving against her, molding her clothes to her body, she frowned. She wasn’t afraid of him, didn’t look like she was afraid of anything. Although, when he’d first found her screaming, she had been terrified.
“Either we cover back up and let your steed keep us alive with his body heat,” she called, “or we find our way back to Kilchoan.”
“Ye’re from Kilchoan?” Pushing up, he stood closer to hear her words before the tempest snatched them away.
“From Aros on Mull. I am trying to find the apothecary for a friend ill at Kilchoan, but I am lost.”
Keir looked to the rock wall that he and Brodie had ridden around. Snow blew over the top, dropping into growing drifts. “There is a cabin close,” he said, shaking the wool blanket free of snow and pine. He pushed the boughs off his horse and leaned down to peer into his face. “Up, friend.”
Cogadh flicked his ears, snorting out warm steam into the frosty air. Using muscle and a rocking motion, he rose, his strong chest working to hold his weight. He lifted his back leg where the lass had tied a bandage. Keir rubbed the thick binding on his head. Where had she found wrappings?
“Come,” he called as he led his steed by the bridle. He stepped around the snow-covered lump he assumed was the saddle. He’d return for it later.
A healer from Aros? Could she be the one he sought? Once Brodie tracked them down, they could return to Dunakin Castle when the storm ceased. Blast this snow. Foul weather and illness were the only enemies Keir couldn’t slay.
“Do you know where you’re going? How can you even see?” she asked. Her breath came in loud rasps through her scarf.
“I just traveled this way,” he answered.
The pain in his leg ached, but he’d endured worse…however, never from an animal bite. Hopefully the lass had something for fever.
Heads bent into the wind, Keir looped his arm through the woman’s to keep them together. Several times he helped her find her footing as they floundered up a hill, battered by the driving snow, which felt like ice daggers slicing his bare face. They rounded a dense strand of trees, and the rough sides of the small cabin came into view.
“Praise be,” the woman called, relief so heavy it sounded like a sob.
He pushed open the door, sword out, but nothing stirred in the darkness. Abandoned and sturdy, a palace in this freezing world of ice.
The woman passed him, stepping barely inside the door, and Keir led Cogadh into the shelter.
“There are no stables?” she asked, unwinding the scarf from her face.
“He helped save your life, and he’s injured.”
“Of course. It’s just…” She held out an arm to the small room. “I don’t see any hay for the floor.”
“He can shite without hay under him,” Keir said, shutting the door firmly against the wind.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she mumbled and slapped the snow off her skirts.
Dropping his outer cloak on a wooden chair that looked barely able to withstand its weight, he went to the small hearth made of round stones. A searing pain mixed with the deep ache in his thigh. He grunted as he knelt.
“I’ll do that,” the woman said. “You need to lie down on that…moldy lump that’s supposed to be a bed.” She grabbed his arm, attempting to lift him. Startled by the contact, Keir let her lead him to the bed. When was the last time a woman had been concerned about his welfare, or had even touched him without clawing at him with desire? Ten years ago. The last time his mother had hugged him.
“I have flint in my satchel,” she said, turning from him, her shoulders straight. He couldn’t see much of her, but he was fairly certain there was a wee lass under all the layers. One with soft lips and the face of an angel. The memory of her pressed overtop of him made him wonder if the rest of her was fashioned more for sin than angelic endeavors.
“I will check your wound, sir, when I’m finished warming us.” She dodged around Cogadh, reaching out to pat the horse’s shoulder, ducking under his muzzle. She wasn’t afraid of his gigantic war horse, either.
“I am not a sir,” he said, his voice gruff from yelling in the storm.
“Give me a name to call you by then,” she said, lowering onto her knees and striking against a small piece of flint to catch on a bit of wool. Luckily, there were dry twigs and peat already inside the small hearth.
“Keir. Keir Mackinnon of the Isle of Skye. From Dunakin Castle.” He waited. Would she recognize his infamous name? It had been known to steal the breath from people.
She glanced over her shoulder and nodded to him. “I am Grace Ellington. Since we have both worked hard to save each other’s lives this day, you may call me Grace.”
“Ye are a Sassenach.”
“Yes, I’m English, originally from York, but lately from Mull.” The sparks caught on the wool and then the kindling, and she bent low to blow life into them.
“Aros? Ye are a healer there?”
She sat back on her heels and added some more dry grasses to feed the little flame. “Yes, and I’m on my way to Barra Isle to help a friend. But first, I must return to Kilchoan to help Thomas.”
“Your husband?” The word tasted like bile on his tongue. If the fearless lass had a husband, she certainly wouldn’t let him kiss her again. And he’d like to see if she tasted as sweet as he thought when he’d first awoken.
“No, he is a friend.”
“A lover?”
Grace stood to look at him. It was dark with the fire beginning to grow behind her, but he was sure she glared. “A friend. An elderly friend who is married to a lovely, elderly woman back at Aros. He was escorting me to Kilchoan to sail to Barra when he was taken ill. I need to tend him before I continue my journey.”
“Ye are going to Barra to heal someone?”
“To help with a birth.”
He watched from his seat on the bed as she unwound the scarf and slid her wet cloak off her shoulders. Would she be a fragile waif, cold and easily crushed? He watched as she pulled off an overgown, leaving her in a kirtle and bodice that hugged her ample bosom. She turned, and her lush body silhouetted against the fire. Bloody hell, she was all womanly curves, sloping to a middle that was perfect for a man’s hands. She raked fingers through her long hair before the heat of the fire, drying the length. Despite a body perfect for loving, she was more angel than devilish siren. An unwed virgin, perhaps, and someone who would want nothing to do with him.
The fire lit the small room, and she pulled the blanket from off Cogadh, snapping the melted snow from it and hanging it on a peg. “We should dry everything out.” She dumped the contents of her leather bag on the crude table. “And dine on two oatcakes, dried venison, and a crushed tart.” She looked up, meeting his eyes. “A feast.”
“Your feast. Cogadh and I can do without.” Deprivation was part of war, and they were both familiar with hunger pangs.
“Pish. Healing wounds need sustenance.” She walked over to Cogadh and let him sniff her hand. Patiently waiting, she raised her palm, giving his horse ample time to examine her smell. Shifting slowly, his mighty warhorse leaned forward until his muzzle pressed into her palm. “There now,” she said softly and stroked down his muzzle. She held up a bit of broken-off bannock for him to lap out of her hand. “You are a beauty, and I thank you.”
Keir watched in amazement as she bent her forehead to touch his horse’s. Humph. “I also saved your life,” he said.
“Yes, you did,” she said, still stroking his horse’s face. She glanced his way. “Thank you.” The fire glowed against her face, revealing the woman’s creamy skin, perfect, straight nose, rosy, round cheeks, and large eyes. But it was the lovely bow of her full lips that caught his full attention. She smiled pleasantly without a hint of fear or lust. Slowly, one of her brows rose, and her smile flattened. “And I saved your life,” she said, dragging out the last of the sentence in a blatant encouragement for him to thank her.
“I wouldn’t have been bitten if I hadn’t been saving ye.”
A frown darkened her face. “The limb may still have dropped on you.”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t have been near it or on the ground, but even so, I would simply have woken up and gone on my way.”
“Arrogant,” she mumbled and returned to stir up the fire. “You’d be a large, plaid-wrapped icicle, frozen until spring.”
“Ye’ll find Cogadh is as arrogant,” he said as she fed his horse another bit of bannock. “He just doesn’t talk.”
“Maybe you should follow his example.”
Keir snorted and felt his mouth curve into a grin. The lass was feisty, like his sister, Dara.
“What does his name mean?” she asked, taking an iron pot from the hearth.
“Cogadh means war in Gaelic.”
“You named your horse ‘war’?” She looked at him like he was insane. “When he was a sweet foal, toddling around the pen, nuzzling his mother to nurse, you named him ‘war’?”
“My sister called him Little Laoch when he was a foal. It means Little Warrior.”
Grace patted Cogadh on his hindquarters and shook her head. When she opened the door, the wind blew about the room, killing the warmth. She scooped up snow with the pot and slammed the door. “God’s teeth, we aren’t going anywhere tonight.”
She sounded furious and forlorn at the same time. It was fortunate she could not read Keir’s mind. Snug up in a dry, warm cottage with a lass as brave and beautiful as a goddess, Keir couldn’t remember a more promising predicament.