He turned and gave her a look. But half clad he was, as she’d caught him changing to a clean tunic. All the bruises on display could not disguise so fine a body—lithe and sculpted with broad shoulders, the chest smattered with fine brown hair. His gray-green eyes gleamed at her, holding an expression she understood all too well, and she went a bit weak in the knees.
“I could not lie here.” He tossed his head so the mane of brown hair slapped his back. “I thought I would go mad.”
“Aye, so. Here, let me help wi’ that.”
She laid aside the food she’d brought and stepped up to him. Struggling into the clothing with a set of battered ribs had to be agony.
The fine hair felt soft when it brushed her fingers, the skin beneath warm and supple. Aye indeed, he was a beautiful man.
Standing so close to him made her feel very odd indeed. He was tall enough that his chin was level with her nose. A perfect height for kissing.
How was it that being in his presence made her feel mad and wild and sane all at once? As if her world, slightly amiss all her life long, suddenly came right.
To distract herself, she smoothed the tunic down carefully. Avoided gazing into his eyes. “How d’ye feel this morning?”
“Better. I ventured out to the midden.”
“Did ye!”
“Lying in that bed—with or without the company o’ Wen—makes me far too vulnerable.”
“Sit wi’ me and eat. I have brought enough for all three o’ us.”
They shared the food companionably. Sitting there with him, Bradana had to admit their relationship had changed.
A woman could not beg a man to stay with her, lest it meant something.
“I spoke wi’ Kendrick this morning,” she told him. “He canna say he can keep those two sons o’ his from attacking ye again. And I do no’ believe he will ever part wi’ a portion o’ his lands.”
“I ha’ been thinking about that.” His gaze met hers again. “Ye ha’ asked me no’ to leave ye.”
She had.She had.Whatever that might mean.
“And yet”—his gaze clung to hers—“empty-handed or no’, I will eventually ha’ to take an answer home to my father.”
True, she thought.
“Why do ye no’ come with me, Bradana?”
She stared. “With ye?”
“Aye, to Erin.”
“Och, nay.”
“Why not? Ye would be welcome there, ye and Wen both. I ha’ lived somewhat o’ a feckless life, ’tis true, but I would put all that aside. Take myself in hand. Train hard for a place at the head o’ my father’s men. I will no’ inherit the land. That does no’ mean I could not make a good enough war chief.”
Bradana’s thoughts blurred. She might be with him so. In a foreign place.
“Ye would ask me to leave Alba? I could no’. ’Tis part o’ me, deep inside, born and bred, just as I imagine Erin is a part o’ ye.”
Slowly, he nodded. “’Tis the land I love. A land I would hate to lose. Yet…”
Yet she could not ask him to stay with her, to give up all for her, and remain unwilling to do the same for him. Did it matter which of them sacrificed for the other? Who gave up what, for the sake of…
Love.
Did she love this man? Or did she, on some heretofore unperceived level, merely need him? That, she had yet to determine.
