Page 4 of A Hot Scot for Christmas
“You did hurt yourself,” she said.
"It's not serious." He was gruff-voiced, taking off his coat with more care.
“I could look at it.”
Mr. MacLeod pinned her with a knowing gaze, which she met with a smile. He was a puzzle, this Highlander, and the sight of him rolling his velvet coat into a pillow offered another revelation. With each twist of his hands, chiseled biceps rippled under linen sleeves.
“How can you expect to fight if you’re hurt?” she asked.
A manly snort and “I’ll manage.”
“And how will you do that? Just walk into the village and announce your intentions?”
He shook his head. “I’ll go south to Carlisle. With Hogmanay coming, it won’t be hard to find brothers of the blade willing to prove their mettle.”
“Because nothing welcomes the New Year quite like a hot and sweaty brawl.”
He laughed low and snapped his great coat like a blanket. “Words to win a man’s heart.”
“Then, you’ll want to visit The Spider and Fly in Carlisle. A rough public house, it’s frequented by soldiers garrisoned at the castle.”
“Thank you. I’ll look into it.”
Mr. MacLeod crossed his legs at the ankle and settled his great coat over the bulk of his frame. He’d left his boots on and set a finely wrought pistol on the straw beside him. Polished silver on the butt of his pistol glinted a warning: he was a man of action. A brother of the blade, he’d said. Both his bearing and stature stamped him a former military man, but the disorderly sort. She was sure of it.
Which made him perfectly suitable for her terrible idea.
Outside thunder cracked. The Highlander could be the answer to her prayers.
Sleepy-eyed, he laid back in the hay and hooked one hand behind his head. “Is there something else, ma’am?”
She bristled.Ma’am again.She was easily a half dozen years younger than him, if not more. Despite her mild irritation, something of greater importance niggled her.
“You don’t mind mixing with English soldiers?” she asked.
“I was in the Black Watch.”
Highlanders who’d served in the English Army. A number of them had mutinied just before the Jacobite rising of ‘45.
“Was that before the rebellion? Or…after?”
Blue eyes glimmered behind dark lashes. He knew—something’s afoot.
“I was fighting for the crown in Flanders when the uprising started.”
She looked away. One could never be too careful. Emotions still ran high for some. Though a myriad of questions danced in her head, now was not the time to ask them. The filly snickered, her near-black liquid eyes taking in the two people interrupting her sleep.
Or the filly could be telling Sabrina to get on with it because she knew a good man when she saw one.
Sabrina eased off the post with deceptive calmness and petted the filly’s nose. “You’re not upset at my rather pointed questions.”
Hay rustled when he shrugged. “It’s understandable. You should know who’s sleeping under your roof.”
Heat climbed up her breast bone. Mr. MacLeod madesleeping under her roofsound sensual. The man, however, was in her barn—a fact that made not one whit of difference. Rain-soaked hair clung to her cheeks, her neck, but the dripping water would not cool her skin.
It’d be so easy to curl up on the hay beside him to converse with him…and see what happened next.
“Anything else, ma’am?”
