Page 24 of Pretty in Plaid
“I will protect ye. We can get through whatever life throws at us, together.”
* * *
Kenna staredup into Sorley’s eyes, feeling as though she might not be alone for the first time since her parents had been murdered. Aye, she’d had her uncle, her cousin, the servants at the grand house who’d helped take care of her, but none of them truly saw her for who she was.
Or embraced it.
She’d always felt like an outsider. As if she walked on a thin stone wall that threatened to collapse if she put the wrong amount of pressure on one particular spot. She marched through life prepared to fall without the help of anyone else as she made herself stand up. Sometimes, it even felt as though there were feet on her spine, holding her down.
But not with Sorley. He’d been challenging her, tempting her, holding her hand, since the moment they’d met.
Though she felt a connection to him, and he made her melt under his kisses, that was not a reason to say “Aye,” and forever bind herself to him. True, she had been the one to propose to him in jest the night before. But after hours of thinking on it, she worried she’d been rash—except that her heart and her mind told her to leap with both feet toward him.
“Let’s speak with my uncle first,” she said. “I want to know what his plans were for me. What he’s thinking.”
A little flicker of disappointment kindled in Sorley’s gaze, but he was quick to snuff it out.
“I understand completely, and I’d no’ hold ye back from that.”
Even that acceptance made her heart warm toward him. He’d said he thought he was falling in love with her, and she thought she was, too. But she needed to speak with someone about it before she rushed in, even if her heart bid her do so. “Thank ye.”
Once they’d reached the shore, they mounted their horses and waved farewell to the boatmen. They’d not made it ten feet before at least a dozen MacLeod warriors greeted them. They were dressed in their Highland garb and armed to the teeth. Not something Kenna saw very often near Inverness where the redcoats swarmed on anyone wearing anything that remotely resembled a tartan.
“We’ve been waiting for ye,” one said. “Glad to see ye back on Skye. Your uncle has been expecting ye. ’Twill take us several days to reach him.”
Nerves prickled through her. They were getting closer. She barely remembered Skye from when she was a child, yet she could already breathe easier for some reason. “Thank ye. I verra much want to see him as well.”
“How was the journey?”
“No’ without complication, but we made it,” Sorley answered.
They rode in silence over the moors, stopping at a traveling inn where Kenna slept in the warmth of a small chamber. With the men doing most of the talking, she didn’t have a chance to converse with Sorley, which left her plenty of time to think.
She watched him on his horse, the way he maneuvered his mount with ease. When they dismounted to rest the animals and themselves, he always thought of her comfort first, fed her first, escorted her to privacy, barring the way from any enemy that might attack her when she was behind a bush with her skirt up.
On the last day of their journey, she dallied a little bit longer with him in the comfort of the woods.
“The men seem to like ye a great deal,” she said, untwisting her hair from its bond and working the knots with her fingers.
“They are a good lot. Have become my family.”
She smiled at him. “Ye’re lucky.”
“So too will ye be, lass.” He winked at her, and a thrill of excitement thrummed in her veins.
“We’ve no’ had a chance to talk much.” Kenna twisted her hair back up, securing it with her dagger.
“Aye.” He plucked a stray hair from the shoulder of her gown, and gooseflesh rose on every inch of her skin. “Have ye missed it?”
“Very much. I’m rather fond of ye, I fear.”
He grinned. “As am I, lass.”
“Ye’re fond of yourself?” she teased.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and inched her closer until her chest was flush with his. “I’m rather fond of ye. Riding near ye, dining near ye, sleeping near ye—it has been torture no’ to have ye closer.”
She looped her arms around his neck. “Kiss me once before we go.”
