Chapter 11 #2
Remembering the way to the burn, he lifted her up once again without a word of warning and carried her down. There, he settled her next to a large boulder then slid his bow from his shoulder and set it down beside her.
“I am not an invalid,” she complained.
Confused by his own actions, Keane didn’t immediately respond.
Indeed, she was not. She had come miles on her own without shoes, cutting her feet along the way. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that she hadn’t yet griped. But he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her—or anything else, aside from the taste of her lips.
She had kissed him so unexpectedly this morn, arousing his hunger, and it had taken him a long, intoxicating moment to realize what she would do, and then something snapped inside him.
He wanted to taste her body with a fierceness he had never known—the same way she craved the taste of those berries.
But the truth was, not all whitebeam berries were sweet, and still some part of him craved to know what he would get with Lianae.
Would she be bitter in the end?
Would he crave her only to be denied?
Keane was not the sort of man to sew his seed with abandon. He wanted to bed her, aye, but he wanted to keep her as well—and that was unreasonable. She was not a dog to be leashed and, besides, he had no home to provide her.
Which only led him to wonder what the devil he was doing taking her to Dunloppe.
What was Broc supposed to do with the lass?
Was he merely hoping that the further they traveled together the more time he could give himself to figure it all out?
Did he think he would find a way to convince her to stay with him, even despite that he had nothing to his name?
She was a woman of substance, he was certain, and he was a border guard, with naught but a bunch of men to his name.
The more he thought about it all, the less clearly he could think, and so he ought not be thinking at all.
Stooping to test the water’s temperature, Keane peered up at Lianae and swallowed the lump that appeared in his throat.
The look of innocence she gave him felled him more swiftly than any seduction ever could.
Finding it difficult to speak, he waved a hand at the boulder where he’d lain down his bow.
“Sit,” he demanded, more harshly than he’d intended.
For an instant, he thought she would protest, but she lifted a golden brow and limped to the boulder without a word. She sat down. “Tha thu a' dèanamh cus odharmanachaidh,” she said, without much heat and a bit of a smirk.
Keane reached out to snag her right foot, without bothering to ask, irritated with his own lack of wits. “Clearly, you speak the old tongue.”
“Of course—and ye must as well?”
“Aye.”
She sounded coy. “Well, what did I say?”
Keane continued unwrapping the wool around her foot. “You said I was officious.”
She laughed. “And ye are.”
Keane shrugged, despite that his lips maintained a hint of a smile—until he saw the bottom of her foot in the broad light of day.
It wasn’t infected yet, though it was filthy, and the wounds were filled with debris.
He marveled that she hadn’t complained even once, not even with the bitter cold.
His own feet were drier than hers, wrapped in boot leather, and his toes were half numb.
He jerked her foot down a bit more roughly than he’d intended to, furious with himself for not asking after her comfort long before now.
Splashing cold water over her foot, he washed it as best as he could, massaging it carefully to be certain the blood was flowing well.
He worked quickly, plucking out the tiny rocks he encountered, and then shook out the wool and rewrapped her foot, doing the same again with her left foot, vowing to see them both wrapped more thoroughly once they returned to camp.
Glenna’s wool was tightly woven, weather tight and warm, but it was still permeable and there was only so much of his breacan he could rent, without leaving her with little to warm the rest of her body.
But he could dry her bindings near the fire and rewrap the foot again once the cloth was toasty and warm.
Later, he would find her a pair of shoes.
He didn’t give a bloody damn what his men thought as he catered to the lass. Let one of them speak out of turn.
It didn’t occur to him to wonder why he believed she would be with him long enough to supply her with shoes…
he felt connected to the lass in a way he had never quite experienced before.
In fact, come to think of it, this was the first time in his life he had ever taken responsibility for anyone besides himself—at least insomuch that he knew he must be the one to care for her, above all others, and even above himself.
It was a long, long moment before he realized that the copse had grown quiet, all but for the tinkling of the brook.
Her hand rested upon the boulder, half holding her branch of frozen berries.
If she should happen to twitch her fingers, they would drop onto the snow.
Keane peered up at her with a longing so great he could scarce defy it.
She had a glimmer of tears in her eyes and she swallowed once before trying to speak. “’Tis been overlong since anyone looked after me this way, Keane. Thank you.”