Page 2 of Sweet Home Highlander
Niall didn’t pause to think, he just reacted. His knuckles and knee crashed out, connecting with flesh and bone in rapid succession. He ducked and weaved, his right fist and left elbow flying out in punishing sequences, driving Hamish back until he was nearly upon the people forming the far end of the circle. Blinded by rage, he swept Hamish’s feet from beneath him. The man’s thick arms did nothing to block the force of the blows that had been forged in the depths of hell, from years of pain and betrayal.
“I yield, I yield!”
It took half a dozen men to pull him off Hamish, for the bloodlust to clear, and for him to understand that his friend had fairly yielded the match. Everyone was cheering, his clansmen watching him with pride. He remained undefeated, though he took no pleasure in the fact. He’d lost control. Niall’s skill in the ring was well known, but he never lost hold of himself.Never.
Not since…
Hell.
He drew a strangled breath as Hamish rose and spat a mouthful of blood to the earth. One eye was swollen shut, and his face looked like it’d been trampled by a herd of cattle. “’Twas wrong of me,” was all he said, but the pity in his friend’s good eye was impossible to ignore.
Niall staggered back from it, panting like a wild animal. No one spoke as he reached for a nearby skin and drank deeply. He passed a second skin of whisky to Hamish, who accepted the silent peace offering. They clasped arms and moved to two tree stumps on the edge of the clearing where they sat, breathing hard. The crowd closed ranks to watch a new pair of fighters face off.
“I almost had ye,” Hamish said with a jovial grin.
Niall shot him an incredulous look. “In yer dreams ye almost had me. And dunnae think I didnae ken ’twas ye who invited the maid. She has the look of a MacLeod.”
Hamish had the grace to look sheepish.
“Aye, about the lass, I didnae mean—”
“Think nothing of it,” Niall said.
But Hamish had never known when to shut up, even as a boy. “Niall, I ken ye’re angry,” he lisped through swelling lips. “But do ye no’ think it’s about time ye moved on? Lady Aisla’s been gone for years, and she’s no’ coming back.”
“Dunnae say her name,” Niall said.
The pain surged up again, raw and fierce, as it had been the day hiswifehad left him. It had not diminished with time, but had grown and festered. His own personal purgatory. And he’d welcomed it. He’d used the anger to chisel himself into rock. To make himself impenetrable. He supposed he had her to thank for that. She’d taken a stripling of a lad and forced him to become a man. A hard man.
“Tarbendale needs a lady,” Hamish went on, unmindful of the danger that simmered beneath his friend’s calm surface. “It’s been six years, and have ye heard one word from her?”
Niall’s jaw clenched. He didn’t have to answer for Hamish to know he had not. The whole bloody clan knew as much.
“Let her go, then,” Hamish said. “Find yerself a bride, like that young lass with the huge bubbies who’s been making calf eyes at ye for the last hour.” His voice lowered. “This thing ye carry inside ye…it’ll destroy ye.”
Niall’s whisper was inaudible. “It’s already destroyed me.”
But he made no protest when Hamish waved over the lush dairymaid and a handful of other giggling women to their sides. He didn’t say a word when said dairymaid plunked a generously rounded arse into his lap. Hamish laughed and waggled his bushy black eyebrows as two others climbed atop him, caressing his bruises and cooing naughty nonsense into his ears.
“Ye fought well, laird,” the lass in Niall’s lap said shyly.
“Thank ye. What’s yer name?”
“Maggie MacLeod.”
He rolled his eyes at Hamish who shot him an unapologetic look.
Maggie smelled of warmed bread, and Niall felt something stir in his chest and not between his legs as one would hope. It wasn’t sexual, but an odd desire for comfort. He had the indescribable urge to put his head in this woman’s lap and lie there. He doubted that was what she would expect, but his beautiful, perfidious wife had done more than reject and humiliate him when she left.
Aisla Maclaren had burned the lust right out of him.
A memory of burnished golden tresses and slumberous eyes the color of smelted copper assaulted him. She’d sat in his lap, facing him, straddling him without shame.“Oh God, Niall, dunnae stop. I’m falling…”
“Fall, love,”he’d gasped to her.“I’ll catch ye.”
And he had. She’d come apart in his arms, her lithe body trembling, those singular eyes hooked on him with sated desire. For all her faults, her passion had never been false.
The maid on his lap laughed at something Hamish said and wiggled her bottom. Niall blinked, feeling the part of him he’d long thought dead stirring. Not because of the lass, but because of his utterly unwelcome thoughts of a woman who should be dead to him.
