Chapter Five #2
Their situation was risky enough, stranded on a snowy night in a hut open to the elements.
Yet the warmth she felt within was attraction more than physical warmth.
This man was not just handsome and strong; he was reserved, kind, and mysterious too.
The spark within her burgeoned like a flame, desire and more, a powerful feeling that grew wild and bright and hopeful.
Her heart slammed with a daring thought. They were alone here. No one would know if she went into his arms. Her body urged her, overtaking practical thought. She inhaled sharply against it, thinking she had gone crazy from the shock of cold.
He turned, bowl in hand, and his intent gaze took her in slowly, head to foot and back again. She knew the thin cotton shift scarcely hid her body, her breasts, bare arms, bare feet. Blushing, she resisted closing the plaid, a bold decision that came hard to her.
Yet inviting him felt very different than imagining him as her lover. Suddenly mortified, she bent to gather up her garments.
“Here.” Setting the bowl on the rickety wooden table, he took the damp things from her to spread them over the bench. As she sat in a chair at the table, he came near, holding out the silver flask she had used earlier to mix the brose.
“A little is left,” he said. “It should warm you further.”
Her fingers slid over his, accepting the flask to sip. The liquid burned sweetly down her throat. She coughed as its wonderful fire spread through her.
“Thank you,” she said, stifling another cough. Silent, he took the flask and sipped too.
Dear God, she thought, surprised at her behavior—but she had been lonely for so long. Friends left the glen, others married, had children; all the while, she cared for her father’s household, looked after him, walked the hills collecting songs, and tried not to think about her future.
But a night like this would never come again.
Mackenzie had soothed that loneliness, showing her interest, kindness, and concern.
He had a touch of brusqueness that spoke of secrets and reserve, a hint of pain and headache without complaint, and likely frustration with a situation dictated by weather and his initial injury.
But he showed patience and hid what troubled him.
Without intending it, he roused in her glimmers and sparks of passion with just a touch, a quiet gaze, the way he listened with a thoughtful frown or gave her a quick, heartbreakingly beautiful smile; heartbreaking because she would miss that, and him, later.
Did he think of her as she did of him, intrigued, attracted? Or did he focus on the dilemma?
“Thank you,” she said again. “I apologize, you have a head wound, after all, and need sleep. I have kept you awake.”
He huffed a laugh. “Earlier, you wanted to keep me awake for my health.”
“I did, but you seem healthy and strong. Though you do need sleep.”
“We both do.” He watched her, smiling in that quiet way that made his eyes gleam gold and forest colors. He was so handsome, an educated gentleman, and she was an ordinary Highland girl. When the weather allowed them to leave here, she would never see him again.
Briefly she wished that wildness, passion, could fill these hours. Instead, she took a few spoonfuls of the brose. “I do feel a bit better. But my feet are still so cold,” she added with a rueful laugh, wiggling her toes.
“Have a little more.” He gave her the flask.
She swallowed its comforting, if brief, fire. He drank after her, his lips covering where hers had touched. She watched the slide of his throat.
“Mr. Grant, the physician, says someone with a head injury should not take whisky.”
“I will wager Mr. Grant has never been stranded in a shieling hut on a snowy night with a bonny lass,” he drawled. “Go to bed and rest.”
“I am not very tired now.” She felt warm and divine for the moment, and did not want to leave him. “So, you seem to know a good bit about falling in icy water.”
“I do. Past and done.” He took a quick sip as if to cut off his reply.
That bonny lass tipped her head, watching him, curious and tousled and so lovely. Evan took another drink to avoid looking at her, avoid speaking. She plumbed secrets quickly, this one. But he could not stop another glance.
Her cheeks had gained some color, and the purple tinge in her lips was rosier.
Her deep-blue eyes were still shadowed beneath, but that was fading.
She had frightened him earlier, but her color was better, and her teeth no longer chattered.
Yet she still shivered, and he wanted to take her into his arms, rub her warm, wrap her in blankets, kiss her—
Where had that come from? His mind wanted to wander all over her, but he brought it back to the moment.
The girl needed his help. Quite simply, she had saved his life, and he felt a bond of gratitude and obligation—along with the curious bond they shared in this lamentable situation, stuck here having to make do.
“Your things should dry nicely now,” he said, changing the subject.
She nodded and returned to the thread he did not want pulled.
“Were you exposed to that sort of cold in the Alps?” She clutched the plaid under her chin and shivered.
She was tall and lovely, statuesque, yet with an adorable quality.
Perhaps it was the uptilt of her freckled nose, the dimples that came and went, eyes that sparkled blue like a loch in sunlight, or the red-gold curls frothing like filigree around her head. Or all of it.
“Not the Alps,” he replied. “We had enough layers and such to keep warm up there.” He would have left it there, but her eyes, her expectant quiet, coaxed more. “I learned the dangers of genuine cold under the water.”
“Water? I thought you were an engineer. Earth. Roads and such.”
“Bridges and such. And I am an undersea diver when it is needed. The deeper we go, the greater the risk of severe chill.”
“D-diving! How in-interesting!” She shivered again. “Equipped like the divers whose pictures I have seen in b-books?”
“All of it. The ocean can be extremely cold in places.” He reached out to tug the plaid around her shoulders, for it had slipped, showing a sweet shoulder. “But the coldest water I have felt was in a river in winter, when a bridge collapsed.”
She gasped. “Did you fall?”
He rarely spoke of it, yet felt compelled to go on. “I dove in to help some who had fallen in the water.” He rubbed her upper arm to ease her shivers. Her body was slender and strong under his hand. Enough. He stepped back.
“Oh no! But you were there to help.”
“Not just me. We saved as many as we could. But three good men died that day. I could not reach them in time. The cold took them down.”
“I am so sorry. Friends of yours?”
“Some, and a few workmen too.” He looked away.
That bridge had been his design, his project.
In the two years since the incident, he had said little about it to anyone.
Telling this girl astonished him, and yet it felt natural.
He trusted her, but was not sure why, for he did not lend his trust easily.
It was part of his inward nature, though he knew he could lay some of it at his father’s feet if he felt inclined, though he never dwelled on such.
“Were you part of the crew?” she whispered. He heard respect in that choice.
“Supervising engineer. It was my design. But it fell as we finished it. I have since come to understand the cause. It was not my doing, but it happened under my watch.” He shoved a hand through his hair, feeling an odd sense of relief in telling Catriona MacConn. “Two years ago, it was.”
“I am so sorry.” She sighed. “Tragedies can hurt our very souls, I think.”
He raised his brows, considering. “Aye, they can. They do.”
“And it lasts a long time.” She gave him a wee smile, with a hint of a dimple, then gone.
She understood, he realized. Not just because she was a compassionate sort herself, but because she had lost a brother in an accident on a Highland mountain, and she had seen people forced to leave the glen on his father’s orders, yet another tragedy he regretted.
“I felt responsible for the bridge,” he admitted.
“But it was not your fault.”
He shrugged; fault or none, it had devastated him, though that sense of guilt faded a little with time.
At first, he had felt wooden and lost, had refused bridge projects to work on designs and the building of docks, canals, and lighthouses.
Burying himself in mathematical formulas and geometric designs, he had shut himself off from friends, family, sympathy, and support.
Closing off deliberately, he let the work take over his life.