Page 79 of Beyond Dreams

“You have a twig in your hair,” he said, still moving his hand forward. “Leaves, as well.”

He was pretty sure she held her breath while he untangled first a twig and then two leaves from her shiny locks, the strands nearly alarming for how soft they were.

Purposefully, he showed her each thing he collected from her hair before he discarded them, so that she didn’t think he was about any other business.

“You are,” she began to say, her voice halting, “you are a bit of a contradiction, brandishing a sword at me and then knocking me off my bike and now very politely plucking leaves from my hair. I don’t understand you.”

Graeme felt he should advise her, “I’m nae pleased to say it, lass, but that is nae going to improve anytime soon.”

“That sounds like the first truthful thing you’ve said to me.”

“And yet I have nae lied at all,” Graeme told her. He could see very clearly in her blue eyes that she wanted very badly to believe him. “Which way to Gairloch?”

Megan pointed over her shoulder.

“Come, lass.”

She glanced around, chewing her lip. They were completely alone up here, naught but hills and forests all around. She knew she had no choice. When she faced him, she tucked her hands into holes in the side of her furry tunic and said very curtly, “I swear to God, if you are a serial killer and you kill me, I will haunt you mercilessly all the rest of your days.”

“Aye, I dinna doubt you will, Megan.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“What now, Duncan?”Doirin bristled, chasing him from the hall. “You canna leave today. Ronan and his kin come. The wedding—”

“Is nae for another fortnight, Doirin,” he grumbled, still walking, out of the keep and across the yard, his saddlebags in hand. “I’ll be returned in plenty of time.”

“And what are you about?” Doirin persisted. “You’re going to her, aren’t you? Duncan, nae!”

Because she had not abandoned her squawking when he’d stepped outside, but followed him across the bailey, Duncan stopped abruptly, turning on her, meaning to have this—whatever it was—finished before he gained the saddle.

Doirin squinted hard against the sunlight, a mole come into the light, and blanched a bit when he turned, but she kept at it. “She’s nae your wife, never was! She lied to you. She doesn’t belong here. I wanted you to see that. That’s why I kept her missive. That’s why I tra—” She stopped suddenly, her lips clamped, her unpainted cheeks reddening.

Duncan’s face hardened. “That’s why you trapped her in the crypt?”

“I did it for you!” She insisted. “For Thallane. We canna have a MacHeth here. God’s teeth! A MacHeth. At Thallane! Your father would turn in his grave! How can you be so obtuse?”

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