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In the days that followed, Fingal rode Fiadhaich in the stockyard several times with her as an observer. Then they took the horse by the reins to other parts of the grounds for him to make his recognition.
Finally, they tried a ride through the estate. Catriona rode Debranua by Fingal and Fiadhaich, stopping many times for the stallion to rest, eat, or drink from the lochs or brooks along the way. The ride proved uneventful.
Catriona’s time in the McKendrick had come to an end.
Not that she became too happy about it. Not at all. For more reasons than one. She would have to leave Scotland, to start with, without knowing when or whether she would return. And leave the man—the most wrong, improper, maddening man she had ever met.
Melancholy feelings mixed with a certain relief that her life would go back to its watery normality without anyone being the wiser. Not even this obliterated the certainty that whatever ‘normal’ life she attained, it would pale in comparison to what she dreamed for herself. Her beloved Highlands eternally far away. And this man, well, this man would remain a memory of what could never be.
“I’ll leave tomorrow,” she informed him as they returned from the ride. She would send word to Flora and Peter before she packed.
Fingal rounded on her, a frown between his luminous eyes. “Stay a day more.”
Her head shook slightly. “I can’t. It’s been too long.” No point postponing the inevitable.
Staring directly ahead, he gave a curt nod.
They did not speak until they returned to the stables. The stallion stayed in the smallest one of the complex where no stable hand slept so the Arab beauty could rest properly after his intense training.
Catriona prepared for her trip the next day. After bathing, she packed her things in her trunk, separating the practical dress she would wear for the trip that would last for several days, if the weather held. Or more, if not.
She retired to bed early to start refreshed in the morning.
But sleep eluded her.
Thousands of agitated thoughts crossed her mind in gnarled succession like a wheel that never stopped. Tired of tossing and turning, she got up, threw her cloak over the nightgown and left her tower room with a lantern.
She exited through the back door and roamed aimless in the fresh night. Deep silence greeted her, broken only by the occasional cricket. Without consciously knowing where she was going, she neared the stable where Fiadhaich stayed. Maybe unconsciously she wished to say a last good bye to the courageous horse who succeeded in overcoming his sad story.
Hanging the lantern on a nearby peg, she headed to his stall. The horse put his head over the low door to welcome her. Long minutes passed as she talked to and stroked him.
The poor beast needed rest, so she hugged him a last time. “I’ll miss you, darling boy,” she murmured.
“Will you miss me too?” a deep voice said from the entrance.
CHAPTER NINE
Her feet swivelled to Fingal as her heart gave a huge somersault. Dark eyes bulged on him, tall, broad, ruffled hair, tartan in disarray. Shirtless. Did the man not know what the sight of his steel torso did to her? Transformed her into a famished creature.
He closed the door with a resolute click that caused goose bumps on every inch of her. As he prowled to the stall, her breath hitched in her throat.
“I saw you from my study,” he explained as he halted less than four feet from her.
Her lips drew an ‘oh’ that made his eyes flay them and continue down to her cloaked silhouette, to raise back up to the gaze that had not torn from him since the first moment he arrived, speech nowhere to be found. His presence had the power to subvert every brain function as she froze there with a thousand feelings coursing through her.
“You didn’t answer my question.” Two more steps and he stood so close she registered the heat emanating from him.
The rasp mushroomed steam to all those forbidden places. “I—maybe,” she blurted as her head bent back to sustain his intense glare.
Every single cell clamoured for him as if they pulled her in his direction without her mind allowing it, so uncensored it never ceased to amaze her.
Square hands clasped her tiny waist. “Why do you insist on lying, Sassenach?”
Somewhere in the farthest precinct of her mind, a timid thought told her to leave. To tear her darned eyes from him and trudge to the door to save her body, her soul, and even her tattered pride, of which there was no sign at the moment.
“I’m not—”
And then one of his hands slipped under the cloak to cup her breast. Everything else lost meaning, her name, her clan, her future role in his life. Every single thing lost meaning. In this dim, enclosed place, she was merely a woman that needed this man more than an eagle needed to fly. The world outside served for nothing more than to impose its meaningless rules on mortals incapable of following them. And by Jove, she was a mortal, more than willing to commit mortal sins. Revel in them, die laughing at them, like a mad woman who was happy once. Only once.
