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The constable assured Kris that Jamaica would be okay. She’d come out of her coma and named Dougal Scott as her attacker. He’d have been in big trouble even if he hadn’t kidnapped Kris.
“Why would he leave her alive?” Kris wondered. “She’d seen him.”
“She should have died.” Fury suffused Alan Mac’s pale face. “Anyone other than her would have.”
“Magic?” Kris guessed, and he nodded.
“Idiot had no idea the power he was messing with. He’s lucky she didn’t incinerate him.”
“That would have required a sacrifice.”
“Something she would never do again.” Alan Mac looked away. “I wouldnae have been so generous.”
Kris heard admiration in his voice. She tilted her head, narrowed her eyes, then smiled. Maybe something more.
“Without a sacrifice, how did she have the power to save herself?” Kris asked.
“Blood magic,” Alan Mac said. “Less powerful, but effective enough to keep her breathing until someone else could.”
“Blood?” Kris began, then understood. Jamaica had used her own. There’d no doubt been plenty of it. “Ass,” she spat.
“Aye,” Alan Mac agreed. “If he wasnae dead, I might have killed him myself.”
“I don’t understand why he hurt her,” Kris continued. “Dougal knew Liam was Nessie. He didn’t need Jamaica to tell him.”
Alan Mac snorted. “As if she ever would.”
“Then why?”
“She suspected Dougal was up t’ no good, and she confronted him. But crazy folk are wily, and he—” Alan Mac’s voice broke. He remained silent a moment, cleared his throat, and continued. “She should have come t’ me. But the woman takes her guardian duties seriously.”
“She took the same vows you did,” Kris pointed out.
“That’s exactly what she said.”
At last Marty and Alan Mac left. Kris tried to sleep but was unable to. Even when darkness fell and the night stretched on and on, she sat at the window with her gaze on the water.
But Liam didn’t come.
As dawn threatened, she left the cottage and went to the loch. Sooner or later he’d show up.
She’d be there when he did.
*
Liam watched Kris watch the water. He hadn’t planned to go near her again. She’d nearly died because of him. If she had, he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to go on.
Although he had no idea how not to.
But when she came to the shore he found himself drawn from the trees where he’d always blended so well with the shadows. Perhaps if he let her tell him to his face that there was no chance for them, maybe then his foolish heart would cease to yearn.
Liar, he thought. He was no more able to stay away from her now than he’d been able to the first night they’d met.
She looked up as he approached. Liam stumbled, from both the beauty of her smile and its existence. Shouldn’t she be frowning, shouting, perhaps throwing things?
“Kris?” he whispered.
“You saved me.” She took a step toward him, but he stiffened and took a step back.
