Page 45 of Blood of the Thistle

He focused on the business at hand, setting his thumb again to her instep, bracing the heel in his palm, and pressed gently but firmly into the swollen welt of skin. He felt the resistance of the thorn beneath, and with careful pressure, worked it slowly and methodically toward the surface. Anastasia’s breath caught more than once, and for a moment her lashes fluttered, a silent signal of pain.

“Nearly done,” he said gruffly, hoping to regain some measure of authority over the situation, but his voice sounded thick even to his own ears.

She nodded, still holding fast to the log. The muscles of her calf tensed, and Bram felt the tremor of her effort to keep still. He coaxed the skin open with his thumbnail, and after several moments of persistence, the tip of a dark splinter breached the surface. He pinched it between his forefinger and thumb, pulled gently, and watched as the thorn slid free, leaving behind a welling bead of blood.

Anastasia exhaled sharply, shoulders dropping. “You got it?” she asked, voice hopeful, a little breathless as she lowered her head to look at him.

“Aye,” he replied, showing her the prize. “A wee bit of English wood.”

She smiled sweetly at him, and her gaze appeared bright and unguarded, and Bram, unsure what to do with the sudden warmth in his chest and the absurd lightness in his head, looked away first.

He pressed his thumb gently to the wound, to staunch the little well of blood, but that meant holding her foot another moment. The skin there was softer than he expected, the bones delicate under his touch.

Bram exhaled slowly through his nose, deciding he’d made a grievous mistake by offering to help. Removing the thorn suddenly seemed the easier part of the undertaking. Dealing with her sweet grin and infectious laughter—not to mention the distracting smoothness of her ankle and foot in his hand—was more than he had strength to resist.

***

As Bram finally released her foot and stood, Anna watched him walk toward the tethered horse.

Something had changed—in her for certain, but possibly in him as well. Bram had smiled at her, maybe even because of her, and she knew she wasn’t far off the mark to guess that was a rarity, certainly in the last few months anyway.

But Holy sheesh, what his smile had done to her...

She felt giddy as a high-school girl—as if he were the star athlete and she the invisible nerd who’d somehow, someway, just been noticed.

At the moment, she didn’t seem to care that she was lost in time, that her home and loved ones were seven hundred years away.

Whew, it was a lot. It was devastating, actually, like the sudden appearance of his smile—white teeth through that dark beard, the deep creases at the corners of his eyes—was the sort of thing that could make clothing fall off, she was sure.

She took a moment to return her espadrilles to her feet, knowing she wasn’t about to risk getting something else lodged in her foot. Yeah, his hands on her also might have contained the power to make her clothes fall off.

Like seriously, she guessed that women here in this century might just be falling onto their backs if he so much as smiled at them. Good God, he probably had a passel of little dark-haired kids running all over Scotland if...

Oh.

A thought struck her.

Oh!

The thought stopped her cold. Here she was, fantasizing about him, and it had only just occurred to her that he might be married. He could have a wife, children, an entire life she knew nothing about. The profound, staggering depth of her ignorance about him was suddenly laid bare.

He appeared then, bringing the horse to stand in front of the door, before he ducked inside the hut again. A moment later, just as Anna stood from the log, Bram appeared in the narrow opening of the doorway, holding an axe in his hand.

It was old, the handle grey and splintered near the head, but he turned it in his hands with the appraising focus of someone who judged it solid and worthy.

“Come,” he said, waving her inside. “Ye can cleave the cuff from my arm.”

Um, what? Wearing a frown similar to any that he often sported, Anna followed him inside, her eyes adjusting slowly to the dim interior. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

Bram crouched on one knee beside the short, crude table and rested his shackled arm upon its surface, the axe lying within easy reach. He turned his wrist until the hinge of the iron cuff faced sideways.

“If ye strike true,” he said, glancing up at her, “ye should be able to break the hinge.”

She stared at him. “You want me to—” She looked at the axe, then at the cuff, then at his wrist inside it. “Oh, that is so not a good idea.”

“It is.”

“Bram—”