Page 48 of The Scot Beds His Wife
Gavin winced as the door slammed against him and thebolt slid home. A strange and foreign ache settled in the emptiness of his arms.
Sothatwas it… Someone had broken her heart and she was licking her wounds on the forlorn moors of Erradale.
Returning to his horse, he mounted and swung south toward Inverthorne, hoping to outrun the storm blowing in from the west.
The lass thought him charming and beautiful, did she? A slight warmth glowed in his chest where it ought not to have been.
That, at least, he could work with.
Because, God save him, he felt the same about her.
CHAPTERTEN
Five weeks.
The flames contained by cold stone mesmerized Samantha into an unblinking caricature of herself. Locryn and Calybrid’s bickering had become something of a lullaby in her short time at Erradale, a sure sign that the day’s hard work had ended and the evening’s rest could commence. But tonight, she barely noted the musical cadence of their singular brand of Highland harassment.
Five weeks ago, almost to the day, she’d boarded that train in Wyoming. Five weeks ago she’d met Alison Ross.
Five weeks ago… she’dkilledher husband.
That fateful morning, he’d moved between her legs. That afternoon, she’d shot him between the eyes.
She’d lived a lifetime in little more than a month. Any dream she’d had of the lush Oregon coast was as cold and dead as Bennett, himself. Where were his remains? she wondered. Had Bradley been forced to burn or bury two brothers that day? Or had Boyd survived? She still wasn’tsure what all happened on that train. Who’d started the shooting, or how many people had been killed or injured.
A massacre, Alison had called it in her letter.
Dear God.What had they done? How many innocent people’s lives had been ripped apart because of her outlaw family?
Best she kept an ocean between herself and what was left of the Masters brothers.
Alison had written that life on Erradale never had to end if Samantha didn’t want it to.
Something about this land called to her. The wind sang over the moors, where it howled in the desert. The hills whispered ancient, lyrical words, where the sounds of the American West always seemed to be some sort of warning. The rattle of a copperhead. The screech of a buzzard. The yips of coyotes or the scream of a mountain lion. In Scotland, the sun became a warm, welcome, and occasional visitor, rather than a relentless nemesis. Heather and brine scented air free of dust or industry. And the water ran pure from springs with holy pagan names.
She loved it here. If only she could stay. If only… she knew what to do.
To Samantha, the future had become a nebulous uncertainty, something that barely mattered and might never arrive. She’d become incapable of seeing past tomorrow. For tomorrow, she’d wake, dress, gather cattle, see to the ranch, cook the food Callum or Locryn would bring her… And if her luck held, she’d get to do it again the next day.
But now… the future mattered, didn’t it?
Five weeks.
Five weeks ago, she’d taken a life… on the same day she’d created one.
“Are ye going to finish that biscuit, lass?” Locryn eyed the pastry she clutched in her hand, unable to hide his chagrin at how her worrying fingers had begun to reduce the precious thing to crumbs in her lap.
“What?” She blinked at him, doing her best to rouse herself from her disquieting reverie.
“I mean, we’re willing to look past ye devouring Callum’s portion of the quail, as he no doubt dined at Inverthorne with his father,” the gruff Highlander explained as though he’d reached the limits of his magnanimity. “But that’d be your fourth biscuit, while Cal and I have only had one, and if ye think I’m after splitting the last one down the middle with this idle goat, ye’ve gone daft.”
“Oh, I—” After glancing down to find the offending biscuit in her clutches, she handed it across to Locryn, who snatched it up like a thief might the crown jewels. She tried to remember when she’d picked it up. Had she really devoured three biscuits?
“Are ye mad at us, Sam?” Calybrid asked carefully.
“I’m sorry if I’ve been quiet,” she soothed. “I’m afraid I have a lot to…”
“It’s just that ye used all the butter,” he whined. “And I canna figure why ye’d do that unless ye’re in some sort of wrathful feminine state or another.”
