Page 72 of Highlander’s Haunted Past

17

Rob felt the flush from the very top of his head to the tips of his toes. Kenna was looking down at him, her eyes wide and strangely unreadable.

He hadn’t meant to say it. He hadn’t even fully understood that it was something he felt for her until it had slipped from his mouth. Part of him wanted to deny it, to push her away from him with a coy laugh and a joke. But then she would believe it to be a joke, and then she would never hear it as the truth when he said it again. And he planned on saying it again.

“Aye, lass.” He sighed. “I love ye.”

Kenna seemed almost more surprised now. “Since when?”

“Dunno.” Rob laughed, thinking it over for himself. “I guess ‘twas the first time I saw ye. I dinna know it then though.”

“All the way back then? Ach, what a fool ye were.”

Rob laughed again; he couldn’t say that she was wrong. Kenna had come into his life with a force that he had never thought a woman was capable of. She had intoxicated him with only a glance and then rattled him with every word. It had been torture to be near her, and torture to be away from her. How he could have gone through all of that and still come out loving her, he would never understand.

“So, if ye loved me even then, why were ye so… I mean ye were so patient with me about doing all of—” Kenna trailed off, her eyes scanning the room, which was littered with thrown garments.

“I assume that, at some point, ye have heard about what happened to my mother?” Rob hoped she had, for he did not really care to recount the story. He did not like to revisit the memories more than he had to, hating to call up the image of his mother, her clothes torn and her face bloody and bruised, running across the field toward him.

When Kenna nodded, looking almost ashamed of herself for knowing, Rob continued, “Well, it taught me much about the ways that people could be hurt. I thought those men had only hurt her body, but as those wounds healed and she did not recover, I understood that there was more than that. They had hurt her very soul, and that wound had been the one that proved fatal.

“When ye made it clear on our wedding night that ye would be unwilling, all I could think was that I would be hurting ye the same way that those men had hurt my mother. And I couldna stand the thought of it. I told ye to beg me because I wanted to ken the very moment that yer heart had changed, and ye had come to accept me. I had to ken that I wasn’t going to hurt ye in that way.”

Kenna’s arm wrapped around him and squeezed. “Do ye miss her? Yer mother?”

“Every day. What about ye? Do ye miss yer parents?”

“Aye, though I have missed my mother more today than I have in a long time. She was such a good mother, ye ken? I just want to be like her, but I am afraid that I will never be.”

Rob turned so he could look Kenna squarely in the eye. “Ye are going to be a fantastic mother.”

“Do ye really think that?”

“Aye, I ken that ye will be. And I’ll do my best to be a good father. We are going to make mistakes, as I am sure all parents do, but we will find our footing. We will rely on each other and, one way or another, we are going to figure it out.”

Kenna smiled and leaned forward to rest her forehead against his. “Ye can be awfully amiable when ye wish to be, ye ken? But I agree—we will be the best parents we can be.”

“At the very least, we will be the best parents the babe has ever had,” Rob retorted, laughing as Kenna rolled her eyes and pushed away from him.

“Ye are such a fool, Rob Fraser.”

“Aye, and ye are so cruel, Kenna Fraser.”

“Cruel? How so?” Kenna asked, though the hint of a smile on her lips told him that she was a bit proud of herself for earning the description.

“Ye have let this be a one-sided conversation. I told ye that I loved ye, and ye don’t even have the decency to tell me what it is ye think of me.”

“Of course not.” She rolled her eyes again. “Ye haven’t begged me.”

“What? I thought that was just to find out if ye miss me when I’m gone.”

“‘Tis all of it, every thought in my head that I have of ye. Of course, I’ll tell ye that I think ye are a fool fer free, as a kindness to ye.”

“A kindness, indeed.” Rob laughed. “Well, I guess ye leave me no choice.”

With a heave, Rob rolled off of the bed, hitting the ground with a thud.

“What are ye doing?” Kenna asked, leaning over the side of the bed to look down at him in alarm.