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“I went down and Freya fought the three of them.” The matter-of-fact tone did not fool anyone.
“Freya?” A surprised Wallace blurted.
“Stood up to three men.” Confirmed Lachlan, disbelieving.
“And won. They scurried away.” Completed Drostan.
“The lass saved your sorry hide.” Fingal as his blunt self.
“You could say that, yes.” The Laird responded as he put down his glass.
“Her parents certainly got i
t wrong when they named her after the Nordic goddess of love.” Fingal mocked.
Drostan did not share in this opinion, but under the circumstances a rebuttal did not fit in. And he would not tell them why he regarded her as the very goddess of love, exposing their intimacy in the process.
“Aye. Boudicca would be more like it.” Lachlan jested.
“Did Ewan get hurt?” Wallace did not plan to lose the grand-son and heir he had just met to mere bandits.
“Under his mother’s guidance, the wee bairn climbed a tree and stayed safe.” Provided the father of said boy.
“Like mother, like son.” Provoked Fingal.
Even if his brother implied a son should take after his father, Drostan was grateful for the care his wife took of Ewan and the boy’s consequent positive behaviour.
He excused himself, rushing to his bedchamber. His very empty bedchamber.
After breakfast, Ewan ran outside to play by the loch while she tidied his bedchamber.
“Good morning.” Her husband’s deep tones caressed her ears behind her.
Her eyes snapped to his broad frame, taking in his windblown hair and his old-whisky eyes burning a hole in her insides. “Good morning.” She clipped out, heart jumping with loud beatings.
She started questioning her decision of accepting to stay in this too near, too accessible cottage. And his too near, too accessible presence. In the enclosed space of that hall, she could even hear his breathing. With him that close, to the cottage, to her, her own cravings would undermine an already crumbling will.
“The door was open.” He explained as his inspection did not miss the tight bun on her nape, the simple, practical dress and her attempt to breathe normally.
“Ewan must have forgotten to close it.” She blurted the clarification, hoping he did not detect the turmoil his proximity caused.
Pacing to the front room, she put a safe distance between them as he followed her. The air became rarefied while she stared at him and he stared back in a steamy silence. The memory of that ravaged mistake from yesterday invaded her mind with a thrill cording every nerve.
“How is your shoulder?” She asked in a struggle for something to say. Only to regret it at once as the other ravaged memory from yesterday threatened to melt her on the spot. The one where she touched his bare taut biceps.
“Lachlan helped me change the bandaging today.” His sensuous lips rasped. “Want to check?” His long-tanned fingers moved to his shirt’s top button.
This simple movement unleashed a hot rush of blood to the surface, tainting her skin with undeniable arousal. “No!” She answered too quickly. And too silkily. “Clean, it should be alright.”
The look he cut her was exceedingly lacking in innocence and exceedingly abounding in undisguised raunchiness.
Her gaze yanked from him with strenuous effort as she busied her hands clearing the breakfast table. “Ewan is outside playing, if you came to see him.” And turned to the back window where she saw him with the wooden toys his father had sent him.
His attention followed the same direction. “He needs the company of other children.”
As though she did not know that. “Usually, he met other children when I took him to the village.”
“Which village?” His stare snapped to her with all the onslaught that slapped on her insides.
