Chapter 18 #3
Patrick leaned in close. “Well, she’s not yours, so you’d best not look too hard, had you?”
Cameron thought Patrick might have that aright.
But he looked anyway, because he couldn’t help himself, and continued to look until he found himself standing in Ian MacLeod’s backyard.
Well, it wasn’t precisely a backyard; it looked more like a training field.
There was space enough near the house with children’s toys and places for adults to relax, but Sunny didn’t stop there.
Cameron followed her and Patrick to where Ian MacLeod was waiting for them in that training field.
Ian pulled Sunny over and put his arm around her shoulders. “So, this is the soft-handed woman Pat said you were bringing,” he drawled loudly. “What sewing circle did you drag him away from?”
Sunny smiled dryly. “Cameron Hall, which you knew, where he is laird, which you also knew. Have a little respect for your betters, Ian.”
Ian only laughed. “Lord Robert and I have met before and he knows I’m merely provoking him to get his blood going.”
“He’ll need it,” Patrick said shortly. “Ian, give him a sword.”
Cameron judged by the look on Patrick MacLeod’s face that he would need all the heat in his blood he could muster.
Patrick had also just tossed away the scabbard to his sword as if he’d done it thousands of times—which Cameron quite suddenly had no doubt he had.
He took a deep breath, then turned to look at Sunny.
He saw something in her face that he’d never expected.
Hope.
Something inside him shifted, something so elemental that he couldn’t quite catch his balance for a moment. He had to stop himself from reaching out and yanking her against him. But he couldn’t stop himself from walking over and putting his hand gently on her shoulder.
“What is it, love?” he asked quietly.
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Nothing. Go have a good time.”
He put his arms around her before he thought better of it. Ian said nothing, Patrick didn’t fling a sword into his back, the world didn’t end.
But something inside him wrenched its way out of its moorings, shifted, then settled in a place he’d never expected.
Sunny hugged him suddenly, tightly, then pulled out of his arms and backed away. “You’d better go before Pat comes to get you.”
He was too winded to speak. He looked at her again and saw that despite her lighthearted words, she still wore that same look on her face, as if she hoped for something so dreadful she didn’t dare voice it.
He wondered what it was. He also wondered why in the hell he had allowed himself to be backed into any of this.
He could have invented half a dozen excuses to avoid finding himself facing men who he was quite sure knew which end of the sword to point away from themselves.
He supposed he could still walk away. After all, he’d been studiously ignoring his past for eight years now, a past where he might or might not have grown to manhood with a sword in his hands.
A medieval sword. Given to him by his very medieval father.
He wondered what Sunny would think when she saw what he could do.
Before he could think any longer on any of it, Ian chucked a sword at him.
He caught it without thinking. And once it was in his hands, there really wasn’t any point in leaving it sheathed, was there?
And once the blade was bared, there was even less point in not using it for its intended purpose, was there?
Patrick attacked him suddenly and with a ferocity that left him stumbling backward.
Briefly.
Eight years fell away as if they’d never passed. He held that heavy sword in his hands and wielded it as if he’d done nothing the day before besides train with a sword from dawn till dusk. He fought back now out of habit, fought hard, fought with every canny trick he’d ever learned.
He felt as if he had stepped back in time hundreds of years.
He would have enjoyed that, but he was too busy.
Patrick MacLeod was a spectacular swordsman and just as ruthless as every other MacLeod clansman Cameron had ever fought.
Cameron had to stretch himself far beyond what he normally did to keep up with him. It felt marvelous.
An hour passed, perhaps longer, before he managed to look over to see what expression Sunshine was wearing. At that point, he wouldn’t have been surprised by anything. Surprise, horror, disgust; he was prepared for any of the three.
He wasn’t prepared to see tears streaming down her face.
Only a lifetime of knowing when he was about to have his head chopped off saved him from it at present. He threw up his sword and listened to Patrick’s screech down the length of it. He looked at Patrick in shock.
“You almost killed me.”
“Best pay attention then, hadn’t you?”
Cameron felt his eyes narrow. “You’ll regret that.”
Patrick snorted. “I doubt it. But I don’t doubt that you and I are going to have serious speech together very soon. I’ll make a list of pointed questions for you.”
“Can you manage that and fight at the same time?”
Patrick laughed out loud, then suddenly slapped Cameron’s sword so hard, he almost dropped it.
But he wasn’t William mac Cameron’s son for nothing, and he had grown to manhood with a sword that he’d made a point of keeping in his hands, not on the grass at his feet, so he kept his sword where it belonged.
He shot Sunny another look, saw that her expression hadn’t changed, then had no more time to wonder about it.
MacLeods were MacLeods no matter the century, apparently, and demanded his full attention.
He would, however, be turning that attention to their witch just as soon as he was free to do so. He wondered why she had pushed him into this so ruthlessly. He wondered why she seemed to wish for an outcome he couldn’t divine.
He wondered if he would be able to bear the answer when he learned it.