Chapter 6 #2
“I named him Connor but he said he’d like to play with a wee lass for a bit. He thinks a lass would be more fun than playing with a mean old boy.”
“Thank you, my lord,” she breathed, cradling the horse to her chest. It was painted a deep, rich brown with great big black eyes. Never had she seen anything more incredibly beautiful. “I’ll take good care of him for you.”
Braden nodded, then handed Ian a white one. “Remember your promise, Ian. You can’t kill your sister.”
“Can I hit her, then?”
“If you do, I’m taking the horse back.”
“Oh, all right,” Ian said huffily.
Maggie watched as Braden left them and in that instant she realized she loved the young lord.
He was her hero.
Clutching the horse tightly in her hands, she vowed that one day she wouldn’t be a fish’s wife. One day she would be...
One day, she would be Braden MacAllister’s wife.
Maggie smiled at the memory.
Fifteen years had passed since that day, and yet in some ways it seemed like yesterday.
So much had happened to her and Braden since then. So many things had come between them and her promise to marry him.
Of course, most of those things were other women. Women like the tall, beautiful Nera who had caught Braden’s eye when he turned ten-and-five.
But how she missed those days of childhood when she would go fishing or swimming with Braden and her brothers. How she wished she could go back for just a moment to when her life was simple.
“Are you ready, then?”
Maggie jumped at Braden’s voice behind her. She’d been so lost in thought that she hadn’t even heard his approach.
She pushed her reminiscing to the back of her mind as she turned to face him. “I was but waiting on you.”
Standing beside the dark kirk with a pack thrown over his shoulder, he was incredibly handsome. The fading light played across his face, which made the angles of his cheeks even more pronounced than normal. Even so, it in no way detracted from the perfection of his tanned face.
At that moment, she wished she were his feminine equal. That she was as perfectly formed as he, with long ebony tresses and creamy skin unblemished by freckles.
If she were, then perhaps...
Maggie pushed the thought aside. She was what she was and there was no help for it.
Banishing her wishful thinking, she picked her own pack up from the ground at her feet and went to stand beside him.
Braden assessed her as she drew near. With her breasts flattened down to make her look more mannish, she reminded him of some fey creature caught between childhood and womanhood. She’d even added girth to her waist.
But even so, he vividly recalled the luscious curves of her body.
Normally, her breasts were just the perfect size to fit into a man’s hand, and though her waist wasn’t fashionably narrow, it was shapely enough to be all woman.
A tiny smile hovered at the edges of his lips as he dipped his gaze down the red and black plaid she wore draped over her. Like his, it stopped just above her knees and showed her legs off quite nicely.
And what attractive legs she had. Strong and curvy. He could just image running his hand down over the smooth skin, tasting the strength of those legs with his tongue as he trailed it along the curve of her calf, to the back of her thighs, and then higher to her...
He paused at the thought.
With a curse, Braden realized no one could ever mistake those legs for a man’s.
“What is it?” she asked.
Braden gestured toward her. “Your legs.”
Her eyes narrowed in warning an instant before she matched his curse with one of her own. “I am not a chicken!” she snapped with such rancor that it took him back.
“I beg your pardon?”
She dropped her pack to the ground, bent over to where she could look at her knees, then she started pulling the hem of her plaid lower.
“You know, I had six brothers which means I don’t need the likes of you, telling me everything that is wrong with my body. And in spite of what Ian, Jamie and Duncan always said while we were growing up, I do not have the legs of a scrawny, half-dead chicken.”
Braden tried not to laugh, but for his life he couldn’t help himself. The image of her plucking at the plaid and gesturing in sharp, stiff movements reminded him quite a bit of poultry. Even the manner of her speech in short, angry bursts reminded him of a chicken clucking.
However, the heated glare she shot him when she straightened up succeeded admirably in checking his humor.
At least until he made the fatal mistake of looking at her boots. Enos’s words rang in his ears as he tried not to notice that the frayed, brown boots really were ugly.
“Burn the witch and her ugly shoes, too.”
Braden held his breath, but still the laughter bubbled up until he had no choice but to laugh or choke. Throwing his head back, he gave reign to his humor.
Maggie balled her fists at her side as she glared at him. “You better be glad I’m a woman, Braden MacAllister, or I’d be taking a sword to you right now.”
And she probably could best him, too, especially in those ugly shoes.
The thought made him laugh even harder.
“You beast!” she said an instant before something wet slapped him upside his head.
“What the...?” Braden pulled it away from his head to see a damp cloth in his hand.
“You’d best be glad I didn’t have anything harder in my pack or else I’d have used it on you instead.”
“Just so long as it’s not your shoes.” He choked back another wave of laughter. “I could survive anything but that.”
“My shoes?” she asked, her anger wilting beneath her confusion.
Braden cleared his throat as he fought with himself. “I wasn’t laughing at your legs, little blossom. But rather at something Enos said earlier.”
Suspicion hovered in her eyes. “You swear it?”
“On my completely unrepentant soul, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m sure you’d find something harder to slap me with than that cloth, I’d be willing to show you just how unlike a chicken I think those legs of yours really are.”
Her cheeks pinkened at his compliment as she looked about bashfully. “Then, what were you going to say about my legs?”
“That they’re far too feminine to be exposed. We need to lower your plaid and pad your...” In spite of himself, he laughed again, “boots.”
“Oh,” Maggie said quietly. “I’m sorry about the wet cloth, then. I hope it didn’t hurt.” She came forward to take the cloth from his hand.
“It didn’t hurt.” He released the cloth to her.
Her hand gently brushed his and for a moment he couldn’t focus on anything except the tender softness of her skin, fairy light on his own. Unbidden, his gaze dipped back to the exposed flesh of her legs, and his mind played through several interesting scenarios he’d love to experience with her.
Aye, as passionate as she was, he could just imagine her deep throaty moans as he taught her the true meaning of pleasure.
He lifted his gaze to her flat chest and the laces that drew her shirt closed. In his mind, he could imagine reaching out and unlacing them, exposing the binding on her chest and then freeing her breasts to his touch.
His body drew hot and hard.
“You know, Maggie...” Braden stopped himself before her propositioned her again. Any other woman would be his in an instant, but to get her, he would have to play the game more slowly. Subtlety.
She wasn’t the type of woman to just fall into his arms and demand his kiss.
“What?” She folded the cloth and returned it to an animal skin bag in her pack.
Change the subject, his mind warned. Now!
“Why are you carrying that?” he asked in a deliberate effort to refocus his thoughts.
“In case it’s needed. I always pack a damp cloth for washing and such.”
Braden didn’t understand that, but then there were many things about women in general he didn’t understand. And a lot of things about Maggie in particular that defied even his best cognitive abilities.
Letting the matter go, he dared a glance to those ugly boots. “We’ll have to find something to pad your boots with. Do you have—” he broke his voice off as he finally looked up at her head and noticed her hair.
The moonlight caught in the strands he had assumed she’d braided or twisted about her head. And it was only standing this close to her that he could finally see what the dark auburn locks really looked like.
“Good lord, woman, what have you done?” he asked in disbelief as he fingered her sheered locks. Her soft hair curled about his fingers as he carefully brushed his hand over her head.
“I didn’t want my hair to betray us.”
Braden felt as though he’d been slapped in the face with something a lot harder than her rag. Her hair barely reached her thin shoulders. And it was then he noted the tears in her lashes. He cupped her cheek in his hand and ached to pull her close to comfort her. “Maggie.”
“It’s just hair,” she whispered. “It’ll grow back.”
“But it was beautiful hair. Hair a man dreams of holding in his hands.”
Her eyes sparkled in the moonlight as she looked up at him. “Did you ever dream of that?”
Braden answered her question with a kiss.
Maggie moaned at the fierce tenderness of his embrace. Never in her life had anyone kissed her, and the thought that it really was Braden who had finally done so thrilled her more than anything else ever had in her entire life.
O mo chreach, but it was wondrous. This feeling of those strong, beautiful lips on hers as his arms wrapped about her, pulling her closer to his rock-hard chest. It was better than even her sweetest dreams. And her entire body thrummed with the rush of excitement.
He tasted of ale and honey. Of raw, earthly desires, and in that instant she understood why the women had complained so mightily at being deprived of their husbands.