Chapter 13
Thirteen
Sin darted away from the women, to the back of the stable.
The I-told-you-so look from Braden was such that Maggie almost laughed. Until the youngest of the women headed straight toward her with a swing to her hips and look in her eyes that told Maggie exactly what the woman was after.
Her.
Oh, bother me! She’d better move—fast.
Maggie started for the stall behind her, but tripped and fell.
“Och, now,” the girl said as she bent over Maggie and pressed one pale hand to Maggie’s forehead. “Do you have a boo-boo I need be kissing?”
The girl’s lips were dangerously close to her own as the girl pressed her breasts against Maggie’s arm.
Seeking a way to pry the hoyden off her, Maggie curled her lips in disgust.
“Uh, nay,” Maggie, said, dropping her voice an octave as she struggled to roll out from under the girl. “My boo-boo is just fine. Thanks.”
“Now, ladies …” Braden sidestepped Tara’s outstretched arms. “What would your Da be saying if he caught you out here?”
Tara backed him against the wall.
Undaunted by Braden’s evasive tactics, Tara laughed. “Oh, he’d be after the lot of you for sure. But he’s off asleep already. Now …” She grabbed his plaid and pulled his face closer to hers. “How bout another taste of those sweet lips of yours.”
Braden ducked and twisted out of her clutches.
Maggie was appalled. Never in her life had she seen such. Braden had been right about the women.
Mo chreach! They were in serious trouble.
Just as the girl reached to grope Maggie, strong arms pulled Maggie back.
In one fluid motion, Sin lifted her from the ground, tossed her up on a horse and smacked the rear of the beast. The horse shrieked, then bolted from the stable at a dead run.
Struggling to bring the horse under control, Maggie panicked.
The horse flew into the woods with the bit between its teeth.
She pulled at the reins, but the horse paid her no heed as it dashed through limbs that clawed at her body, threatening to knock her out of the saddle.
Her heart pounding, she leaned forward and latched onto its neck, praying she didn’t fall off and kill herself.
It was probably a good five minutes before Sin and Braden caught up to her and brought her horse under control. Braden leaned over and took the bridle in his hand, then used his horse to slow hers down. Her heart still pounded in her ears as she gave a quick prayer of thanks for the deliverance.
“Are you all right?” Braden asked her.
Still too terrified to speak, Maggie took deep breaths and nodded.
Braden patted her arm comfortingly, then turned on his brother with a furious glare. “Och, man, what have you done to us now?”
“I saved your bloody arse. What do you think would have happened had the women discovered Maggie wasn’t a lad? Were you ready to explain?”
A tick started in Braden’s jaw. “Now, we’ll be hanged for horse thievery!”
Sin shook his head. “I left more than enough gold for these nags. Their owners will be thrilled to have it.”
Maggie watched as some of the tenseness faded from Braden. “My thanks, then.”
Sin shifted in his saddle and cast a pitying glance to Braden. “You know, little brother, it seems to me you must live in eternal hell. I can’t take you anywhere that the women don’t seize upon you like the last morsel of their last supper.”
Braden reached up and raked his hand over his own neck. “Aye, I just wished you’d acted sooner. That Tara had nails like a hawk. I swear, I think I’m bleeding.”
It was then Maggie realized the truth of Braden. He wasn’t just a conscienceless rapscallion out to seduce any woman he found. Indeed, other than a little flirting, he hadn’t really done anything to make Tara pursue him.
And though both he and Sin had tried to tell her that, it wasn’t until this moment that she actually believed it.
“Where are we to sleep now?” she asked the men as they slowly picked their way through the dark woods. “And what are we going to do with the horses?”
It was Braden who answered her. “Since we have the horses, I say we ride them into the MacDouglas lands until it starts to draw notice, then we leave them to graze. As for the night, anyone feel up to riding through it?”
Sin growled. “Now you think to ride? Where was that thought two days ago before I wore my legs out walking?”
Braden laughed. “You should be grateful. Better these nags be stolen than your warhorse or my Deamhan.”
Sin grudgingly ceded the point.
“I would just as soon see this behind us,” Maggie said quietly. In truth, too much had already happened on this journey and all she really wanted was to get this last confrontation over and done with.
So, they rode in silence.
Long after midnight, and once the rain had ceased to fall, Maggie began to dose in the saddle.
Braden paused as he saw her nodding off. Afraid she might fall and hurt herself, he pulled her into his own saddle.
She awoke with a start.
“Shh,” he said. “I didn’t want you to fall. Go back to sleep.”
Instead of the argument he’d expected, she nodded once, rested her head against his chest and instantly renewed her sleeping.
Her trust amazed him. But not nearly as much as the strange tenderness he felt in his heart as he gazed down at her russet head leaning against his bare chest. Her breath tickled ever so slightly as she breathed against his shoulder.
And it was all he could do not to cover her lips with his own and run his hand through her short curls.
His body roared to life, demanding her soft form.
For once, Braden took comfort in it. After what had transpired with Tara, he had begun to wonder foolishly if perhaps something was wrong with him. But the fire in his groin for her confirmed his earlier suspicion. It was Maggie he wanted.
Maggie alone.
He shook his head.
Who would have ever thought that he, Braden MacAllister, would be pining away for plain little Maggie ingen Blar and her ugly shoes?
Marry her.
The words flitted across his mind so fast that he almost missed them. And for a minute, he allowed the thought to tempt him.
But it was impossible. He refused to marry a woman he might be in love with. ‘Twould be suicide.
“What is on your mind?” Sin asked all of a sudden.
Startled, Braden looked up to see Sin turned around in the saddle, watching him. “What’s that?”
“You’re looking a bit pensive back there and I was wondering what thought you had tormenting you.”
“Who says I’m being tormented?”
Sin reined his horse to where they could ride apace of each other. “Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps that death grip you have on Maggie and the way you’re looking at her as if you can’t decide to cradle her or toss her from your horse.”
Braden hated the way Sin could read him so easily. “That is one uncanny ability you have there, brother. No wonder those English friends of yours swear you sold your soul to the devil.”
Sin looked at him stoically. “A man has to have a soul before he can sell it.”
Braden grew quiet. There was a lot hidden in those words.
Years of pain and suffering. His brother had lived through the worst life had to offer and his strength was amazing.
But more than that, Braden felt guilty for it.
The other lairds had sent their youngest sons as hostages to the English.
And by rights, it should have been him who suffered in Sin’s stead.
If he lived to be a thousand years old, he would never come to terms with the fact that Sin had gone while he had stayed.
“Is there any way you will ever forgive my mother for what she did?” Braden asked at last.
Even in the dark, Braden could feel Sin’s hatred. “They tell me anything is possible. But since I can’t forgive my own mother for what she did, why should I ever forgive yours?”
Braden said nothing. He remembered that fateful day every bit as well as Sin did. The day King David had come to their castle and demanded a son to help make peace with the English king after the war they had waged for northern England.
His father had turned a wary, thoughtful eye to each of his sons. The five of them had collectively held their breaths in fear, knowing one of them would have to go.
Lochlan had bravely taken a step forward when all of a sudden, their mother had grabbed him and pulled him back. She gathered her four sons to her side and left Sin standing alone. Isolated.
“You take a son of mine and I swear I’ll kill myself,” she had said.
His father, who had loved her with all his being, had offered no argument. And to this day, Braden could still see the horrified look on Sin’s face as he realized his father was about to betray him.
And why.
“Go ahead, old man,” Sin had snarled bravely, balling up his fists. “Send the mongrel bastard back to England while you coddle your Scottish whore.”
Their father had answered Sin’s angry words with a vicious backhand that had made the boy stagger. “No son of mine insults my wife.”
“Then I’m no son of yours.” His eyes filled with rage and loathing, Sin had straightened from the blow that had left blood trailing down his face.
Then, he had spat his blood at his father.
Their father had raked the blood off his face with his lips curled in disgust. “You’re nothing to me, boy,” he had said coldly.
The pain on Sin’s face at that moment was forever etched in Braden’s memory. “Tell me something, old man, that I didn’t already know.”
King David’s men had taken Sin then, and only Braden and his brothers had screamed out in protest.
His father had merely turned his back and called for their nurse to take them to their room.
Not once had his father looked back at Sin, or even mentioned his name. From that day forward, his father had lived as if Sin had never existed.
Braden had never forgiven his father for that.
And it had been on that day when his eldest brother had left that Braden had sworn never to fall in love. He’d never allow a woman to mean more to him than his own blood. Never turn his back on a son because of a woman’s vindictiveness.
It was for that reason alone he’d been careful over the years. Careful not to leave behind a child to suffer for his actions, for he knew of the nightmares Sin had lived through. And hell would surely freeze before Braden allowed a child of his to suffer in such a manner.
Maggie mumbled in her sleep.
Braden cuddled her closer. She was such a mystery to him. That she would traverse this path for the sake of her brothers and the lives of the clansmen spoke a lot for her.
And he found himself wondering what choice she would have made in his mother’s place. Would she have given up the child not hers, or would she have stood to defend all of them equally?
Och now, what does it matter?
Who wants the seriousness of a wife?
But deep in his heart, he knew there lived a tiny piece of himself that really did want a family.
Maggie was right. He did love the fanciful tales bards sang of women who would defend their families with their lives.
He wanted that dream. A dream of that one perfect soulmate who would never ask more of him than he could give.
An unselfish woman who would never betray his trust or his love.
And to his immense shock, he found himself looking at Maggie and wondering if perhaps she could be the one...
You’re a fool, Braden MacAllister. And a damned one, at that.
Aye, he was. Already he’d allowed her to lead him off against his common sense on a fool’s errand that would most likely get them killed.
A lass such as Maggie was poison to a man such as he.
No woman was worth his life. Not now, not ever.
Not even Maggie.