Page 31 of Return to Clan Sinclair
“And they settled in Boston?”
“Not originally,” he said. “Canada first and then a branch of the family moved to America.”
“Preston isn’t a very Scottish name.”
“My mother was Moira McElwee. My father’s family came from the border. She used to accuse him of being mostly English, while he always said she was a stubborn Scot.”
She wanted to ask but was afraid to.
“I lost them both during the war. Nothing to do with the fighting. My father died of heart trouble and I think my mother just willed herself to die not long afterward.”
He finally dropped his hand and she returned the rock to her pocket.
“If Nessa collects turtles, what does Darina like?”
She shouldn’t have been surprised he remembered her children’s names. She suspected he didn’t forget very much.
“Animals,” she said. “She rescues everything she can find, and there are a great many animals around Iverclaire. Our little cottage is the home of two cats and one very hairy dog. She’s nursed an owl back to health and he rewards us by sitting on a tree not far away and hooting all night.”
He smiled, then reached out to tuck a tendril of hair behind her ear.
She should have moved away from his touch. She should have told him to keep his hands to himself. Instead, she just looked up at him. Caught by emotion, she was held silent by the need to offer him comfort.
To anyone else he was probably strong and forbidding, but she’d seen through to the heart of him. She wanted to hold him and take away a little of his pain, as he had unexpectedly eased hers.
He took her elbow and guided her close to the cliff where the earth was hollowed out and the overhanging grass provided a little shelter from the wind.
Leaning closer, he shielded her. She placed her hand on his chest, feeling the warmth of him. He was so alive. He was so real, so much a man, surely any woman in his vicinity would be aware of him.
“Will you kiss me?” she asked, feeling brazen and daring.
“Are you tempting me, Ceana Mead?”
She felt like a creature of the wind or the sea, a goddess of either or both. Right at this moment there was no need for earthly laws or social rules of behavior.
She reached up, placed her hand on the back of his neck and drew his head down. Lifting her face up, she watched as he came closer, noting when his smile faded.
When his mouth claimed hers, she sighed.
What kind of hedonistic creature had she become? To crave the touch of this man, to think about his kisses to the exclusion of any common sense? She didn’t care. She entwined her fingers behind his neck, holding onto him because he was a force greater than any wind or swirling sand.
“I want you,” he said, lifting his head. “I’ve wanted you ever since I saw you. I haven’t been able to forget the night we were together. I want you in my bed for days on end. If anyone knocks, I’ll tell them I’m otherwise occupied. For the first time in my life I’m willing to push aside my obligations. What kind of magic do you hold, Ceana Mead?”
She lowered her forehead until it rested against his shirt. A hollow cavern opened up in her chest. He couldn’t say such things, but oh how glad she was he had. He’d given her power with his admission. She was no longer just a widow, a woman to be pitied for her loneliness, but one who inspired lust.
Kiss me again.She didn’t realize she said it aloud until he smiled, wrapped his arms around her and lifted her to his kiss.
Take me here against the good earth of Drumvagen. Take me here with the ocean only feet from us, with the lichen-covered stone formations proving this was an ancient place.
Her cries would be silenced by the seabirds above them, by the oncoming rushing tide. Their joining would be as elemental as nature itself.
Instead, he stepped back and shook his head, more in control of his needs than she.
His finger traced a path from the corner of her lips to her temple.
“Ceana.”
“Bruce,” she said, smiling.
