Page 40 of Sweet Home Highlander
He pushed a somewhat forced grin to his mouth. “Good, because no other woman would put up with me.”
Aisla shook her head, reaching for her friend’s hand, sorrow filling her. “Did the letter say anything else?”
“Only that she wishes more than anything to see me settled. I’m sorry, Aisla, that I put us both in this position.”
“You didn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my past sooner.” She squeezed his fingers. “You’ve been my dearest friend through thick and thin. I’ve never told you, but your friendship saved me. I owe you this. I’ll fix it, I promise,” she said, forming a smile just as she saw a familiar dark russet head of hair emerging from a stone shaft.
Niall’s sleeves were rolled to the elbow, exposing his muscled forearms, and his shirt was open at the collar. The white shirt had a coating of dust and dirt, just like the other miners that had been entering and exiting the shaft. His steel blue eyes found her—and her joined hands with Julien—almost immediately. She released her hold with a blush.
“I should ask Lady Makenna to accompany me back to Maclaren,” Julien murmured.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of being shot at?” Aisla asked, recalling her husband’s threat.
“Perhaps I only wish to give you a bit of privacy to have it out with your current husband,” he replied with an insouciant grin.
She grimaced as her mount shifted beneath her, tracing her unease. “I hardly know what to say to him.”
The thought that she should apologize for not believing him when he’d insisted he had not had a drink at the tavern that evening, a week before, crossed her mind. But then…it would be some sort of admission of defeat.
“My Aisla speechless? I cannot believe it.”
She felt an infinitesimal push of denial at that.My Aisla.If she secured the divorce from Niall, she would be Julien’s, at least in name. She didn’t expect to feel bereft at the thought. God, what was wrong with her? It was as if her brain and her foolish heart were on opposite sides of the ring.
You owe Jules.
She was here for a divorce, not to make calf eyes at a man who had broken her heart and would do so again without a second thought. Niall had walked toward one of the stone and wood-beamed huts near the shaft, busy conversing with several other workers. He spared her a prolonged glance, and it fairly crackled with possession. Aisla huffed a sharp breath. Odd that she did not rebel as much tohisclear stake, as if this was the man she belonged to. It infuriated her as much as it thrilled her.
“You don’t mind if I ride ahead with Lady Makenna?” Julien asked.
She broke her husband’s gaze and turned to her friend. “Not at all. I’ll catch up in a bit.”
Julien nodded, and with a circumspect glance at Niall, followed after Makenna. Aisla gathered her wits—and her spine—and climbed down out of the saddle. Niall was already walking toward her, the breeze on the top of the ridge rustling through his thick hair and plastering his work shirt to his chest. He’d been sweating heavily with whatever task he’d been at inside that shaft, the rivulets of perspiration along his temples and in the glistening skin in the hollow at the base of his neck drawing her attention. She was more than accustomed to a few of the inventive contraptions usually lashed to his left wrist, but right then, with the fierce set of his eyes and the stealthy, stalking look of his approach, the dagger-like lance struck her as ferocious. And unbelievably seductive.
She clenched her trembling thighs together, suddenly feeling quite unnerved. “Is that new?”
He glanced down. “Aye, I had it made to help with lifting the topaz.”
“Oh, that’s clever.”
“What are ye doing here?” Niall asked, his eyes pinning the backs of Julien and Makenna as they rode away.
“Am I not welcome?” she countered.
He brought his glare back to her, and it softened a little. “Of course ye are. I just didnae expect ye.”
He brushed his right hand on the side of his thigh, probably trying to clean it. But nothing but a dunk in a hot bath would do that job well, she figured. And then the image of Niall, muscled and unclothed in a tub full of steaming water, assaulted her. She swallowed hard.
“I didn’t expect any of this,” she said, gesturing toward the structures and the workers, most of them sneaking brief looks at her. “What you’ve created here is impressive.”
“The mine’s still growing,” he said, shrugging off her compliment. “There’s much work to be done, and we’ve faced a few setbacks lately.”
“Setbacks?”
Niall hesitated as if deciding how much to tell her. “A collapsed tunnel, misplaced tools, missing cairngorm hauls. Accidents that may no’ be accidents.”
“You suspect they are not?” she asked.
“Things with the Campbells have no’ been calm of late.”
