“Aye, Elspeth?” he asked, his lips close to her ear.
“Can we ride someplace?”
“Ye want me to hide ye?”
Elspeth could hear his smile in his voice. She would play along. “Aye, hide me.”
He veered off to the left, rather than the direction to his house. He was quiet, and she was grateful for it. His presence was consuming. She didn’t wish to answer questions. She just needed him to be there, and he was.
He stopped the horse in a small, sunlit glen on the other side of Ben Nevis.
Elspeth smiled, looking around her. The glen was secluded and intimate. Any other time she might have tugged on at Logan’s plaid, but now, she only wanted to think about what she should say about her brother. He walked to a rock and rested his rump on it. Before him was the other side of Ben Nevis. He looked up and took a deep breath.
Elspeth watched him. Was Roderick a danger to him? Her brother killed his own parents; what would he care about killing the Lochiel’s son?
“He let ye take the blame,” she told him, going to him.
Logan turned to her, wearing a confused smile.
“Roderick,” she clarified. “He let ye and yer kin take the fall fer the death of my family.”
Logan stared at her and then the oddest thing happened; glistening pools appeared, hovering over his lower eyelids. “Does he know who killed yer family?”
This was it. She either trusted Logan or she didn’t. If she didn’t, then what was she doing with him?
“He did it.” It turned out to be easier to say than she thought. “Roderick killed them.”
Logan closed his eyes and opened his arms to her. She vanished in them.
“Och, Logan, he killed them. What am I to do?”
“My Elspeth,” he said gently into her hair. “I canna imagine what ye are feelin’. I would rather ye still think my kin did it than fer ye to know this horrible truth.”
Clutching fistfuls of his plaid, she buried her face in his chest and wept. He didn’t say another word but simply held her while she cried. A few times, she thought her tears were finished, only to find her face plastered against him again.
Elspeth knew that if she lived to be a hundred, she would never forget the way this one man understood her and how thoughtfully he cared about her.
Did he care for her because she was his property or—She pulled away. “Logan, why do ye care about me?”
If he said because she was his, she would thank him for all he had done and ask him if Ewen could take her away.
“I have been nothing but mean-spirited and even dangerous toward ye and ye allowed it,” she continued. “Why?”
He smiled, looking down at her.
Goodness, but he snatched the breath right out of her with that sculpted face, those almond-shaped eyes that turned luminous when he looked at her, as if he were thinking how much he loved—
“Elspeth, I have never been in love before, so I’m no’ completely sure aboot this, but I think I’m fallin’ in love with ye. If love makes ye feel as if ye’re starvin’ nae matter how much ye eat, then I love ye. If it makes ye feel as if ye dinna need both arms, or even one when ye are flyin’, then I canna seem to land. I dinna want to. I could continue, but my brother is the poet, no’ me.”
He laughed at himself, lowering his head. His deep mahogany locks fell around his face like a lion’s mane. A lion that loved her.
He didn’t try to kiss her but offered her his hand. When she took it, she felt something like lightning striking her, the earth. Her blood sizzled. Warmth inside her grew from embers to molten liquid.
He brought her to a small inlet, covered in sand, instead of rocks.
Elspeth pulled off her shoes and her hose and then ran onto the sea. She squeaked like a mouse, which made Logan laugh as he followed her. He pulled off his boots, tossed them aside and ran to her.
When she saw him coming, she took off running, laughing as she went. She would always be thankful to him for making her laugh on the worst day of her life.
