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She turned to face the sun, taking him off her line of vision. “I cannot decide if that is good or not.” Surreptitiously, she gave a step to the side, regaining distance from him.
“The presence of the law should hold your uncle back, I’d say.”
“For how long?” she huffed.
“Long enough, I should hope,” his tone an octave lower.
With a slow nod, she wished him right. Rummaging for something to say, she found nothing. Silence stretched between them heavy and tense. Her nerves overstrung from her immobility.
At her side, he turned to face the sun as he crossed his powerful arms across his large chest. She dared not look at him even sideways, forcing her avid attention to stay on the ball of fire before her, not the one raging her insides. The memory of their kisses inflicted ripples and more ripples through her nerves.
With everyone gone back to their families, it seemed the world had emptied of people, leaving them in complete solitude.
Dangerous.
By her side, he braced his legs. “Duncan is healing fast,” he said to the sun.
“Thanks to you,” she admitted humbly.
“To all of us,” he added.
“I’m not sure I’d have been able to bring him out of the cottage had I gone inside it.”
“You can do anything you put this stubborn head to,” amusement seeped in his deep tone.
“I try,” she answered simply.
“And do a good job of it.”
Unbidden, she turned her head. The blast of heat that assailed her insides in reaction to him made her eyes go back to dear sun. “Why, McKendrick, I never thought I’d hear you praise a woman.”
He huffed out a half grin. “You don’t have a very good opinion of me, do you?”
“I must say I don’t.” The timbre of his voice was doing funny things to the core of her. “We hear all kinds of stories,” she said.
“Gossip is not the best source to form opinions,” he stated.
She agreed. “True, but where there’s smoke…” she trailed off, letting the proverb speak for itself.
She did not know about the smoke, but as for the fire, she could account for it every time she spied him. Every time she returned home from seeing him, in a feverish state.
They fell silent as they watched the red ball sink into the lake.
Long moments elapsed before his deep voice caressed her ears one more time. “It cannot happen again.”
She was not so naive as not to understand what he was talking about. Even if a rush of heat ran through her at the mention of their explosive episode in the study. The sun should receive thanks for pouring a red glow on her skin to disguise the veritable flood of vermillion that surfaced on it.
“It won’t,” the certainty in her reply came in total opposition to what she felt. Of course, she did not want it to happen for a second time. Wrong. Want was not the word. Because she craved it every single second of the day. For it to repeat, re-repeat, and then escalate and go up in the air. A hundred million times.
But it should not.
No, not because of the ruse they were playing. They could deal with it somehow.
As to any moral consideration, hang it! The life she predicted ahead would be lonely and dedicated to her clan. A mere tryst would not change it. Not for his too short attention span concerning women either, which made him unfit for marriage. They were not aiming at it in any case.
It should not repeat, because it was pure addiction. Already she wanted more. Foolishness had limits. Another taste and she would be crawling at his feet for everything. And then some more.
The awkward stillness returned, their gazes on the horizon until almost all light faded.
