Page 36 of Awoken
His mouth lifted at the corners. “I’m not rightly sure … all I know is that from the moment I agreed to ride to Kilbride and abduct ye, my conscience has not given me an instant of peace. With each passing day, as MacKinnon’s behavior worsened, I have felt as if I am traveling into a land that I have no wish to explore. I knew that if I journeyed much farther into it, I’d be lost forever.”
He took a few steps closer, and suddenly he was towering over her. Leanna didn’t shrink back though. Even when she’d been a captive at Dunan, Ross Campbell’s presence had never intimidated her.
“I owe ye an apology, Lady Leanna. Because of me, ye did not attend yer father’s burial, and have been frightened and abused.”
The directness of his admission threw Leanna. She tilted her chin up, something that was necessary to meet his eye. Heat flowered out from the center of her chest as the moment drew out.
She didn’t know how to respond. Warmth crept up her neck now, and she realized that his proximity, and the fierceness upon his face, flustered her. She’d had little to do with men of late and was suddenly aware of him in a way she hadn’t been before.
Likewise,heseemed to be affected by the moment. His eyes darkened, and his throat bobbed. He looked like he wanted to speak, and yet he didn’t.
Instead, slowly, almost hesitantly, he reached out, the back of his hand brushing her cheek. Leanna caught her breath, yet didn’t step out of his reach, didn’t shrink away. That feather-light touch set her pulse racing.
After MacKinnon’s brutal treatment the night before, she’d flinched away from contact with Campbell during their escape. Yet as the soft light of dawn filtered over them, and a sky lark warbled above, something shifted within her.
Honesty had a way of shattering reserve.
“Ye are lovely, Leanna MacDonald,” he said, his voice turning husky. “Lovelier than men like MacKinnon, or myself, deserve. Ye were meant to be treasured. I vow I shall get ye to safety, no matter what it costs me.”
His knuckles feathered across Leanna’s cheek once more, before he dropped his hand and stepped back from her.
Cold air rushed in between them, and for an instant disappointment lanced through Leanna. She wasn’t sure exactly why her heart suddenly felt as if it was shrinking.
Surely, she hadn’t expected him to kiss her? After everything that had transpired between them, that would have been an enormous breach of trust. And yet as Ross Campbell stepped away, their gazes still holding, she felt strangely bereft.
His words had surprised her. She had no idea how to respond to them, and so she held her tongue. Truthfully, she felt out of her depth.
“Come on.” Campbell crossed to the courser and gathered the reins. “We have rested here long enough. MacKinnon is likely to be on our trail by now … but if we ride hard, we can make Duncaith by sundown.”
Ross’s mood was oddly dark as he guided the horse to the top of the wooded slope. They wound their way down the other side, their pace slowed, for the courser had to pick its way through clumps of bracken. It was rough country for travel and would slow their progress south-west into MacDonald territory. However, this route was necessary.
MacKinnon would send men ahead along all roads out of Dunan. Cross-country was now the only way to travel.
Ross’s brooding was not due to their situation though, as serious as it was, but more to do with himself.
Leanna had asked honesty of him, yet he felt as if he’d revealed too much. He’d bled out in front of her, giving her details of his past that he’d not revealed to any other soul. His near drowning was a memory that he preferred not to dwell on. His brother Doug was a man cast in his father’s mold. After losing sight in one eye as the result of nearly killing Ross, he hadn’t been sorry. Instead, Ross had become his enemy.
He hadn’t scripted any of his responses to Leanna, and had been unprepared for how raw his answers had been. He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to draw close to her, and to have the audacity to reach out and stroke her face—twice. He was lucky she hadn’t slapped him for his trouble.
After what he’d made the lass endure, he deserved no less.
Aye, he’d more or less ripped himself open when he’d told her why he’d come to her aid, and then apologized, but it didn’t make him feel any better.
Words were easy. He would show Leanna how sorry he was by taking care of her, by ensuring she reached her kin safely. He would die before letting MacKinnon capture her again.
Ross’s belly knotted at this realization, and he frowned, trying to push aside the discomforting sensation. After years of hard-won self-control, he felt as if his life was unraveling before his very eyes.
There had been security in his old existence, but this new path was carrying him into the wilds, literally and figuratively. He wasn’t sure he was going to emerge unscathed.
At the bottom of the valley ran a shallow burn. They splashed through it and then turned, following the water-course south-west. Wooded hills rose either side, at the feet of huge sculpted mountains that reared up. In order to catch a glimpse of the pale sky, Ross had to crane his neck right back. And when he did, he saw an eagle circling, its screech echoing through the valley.
“Do ye know where we are?” Leanna asked, breaking the tense silence between them.
“Roughly enough,” he replied. “I’ve hunted stags in these valleys before … if I’m right, this vale lies around half a league north of MacDonald territory.”
“Won’t MacKinnon just follow us onto my father’s land?” He could hear the tension in her voice, the worry. Like him, she knew the chase had not ended. Just because they couldn’t hear dogs baying at their heels didn’t mean that MacKinnon wasn’t tracking them down.
“Of course he will,” Ross replied. “He’ll be desperate … and with yer father dead, he’s bolder than before.”
