Page 33 of The Finest Scottish Fate

With a faint smile, she barely shook her head. “I just think it’s nice to believe in such things. I’m glad you honor the bees.” Then her worries returned, settling so heavily upon her that her shoulders slumped. “What will I do here, Drummond?”

“Do?”

“Yes. Do. I can’t very well stay holed up in this room until…” She flicked her hand and looked away. “Is there a place for me here? Things that I can help with?”

“Yer place is at my side,” he said before he could stop himself.

“You don’t need a second shadow.” She rose and went to the hearth, warming her hands over the fire. “Sooner or later, I’m going to have to come out of this room and meet all those people who stared at me when we arrived. I know you don’t care about what they think, but I do. I’d like to make a decent impression. At least make it so they don’t hate me or think I’m some sort of a wi—” She cut herself off, but he knew exactly what she’d nearly said.

“No one but Murdoch and myself know how ye came to be here, and it will stay that way.”

She didn’t turn away from the fire, just stood there with her back to him, staring down at the flames.

“If I hear of anyone saying ye’re a witch, I’ll have their arses.” He joined her at the hearth. Even the distance of the room between them was too much to bear. Unable to stop himself, he brushed the backs of his fingers along the velvety curve of her cheek. “Ye are safe here, Evie. I swear it.”

She turned and faced him, looking up at him with challenge and determination. “Do you believe I’m a witch?”

“No.” He cupped her chin in his palm, aching to pull her closer. “I believe ye are the woman I have always needed yet never been able to find.” He leaned in closer. “Might I please have a precious kiss, m’lady? ’Twould do this old warrior’s heart a world of good.”

She touched his cheek and made him shudder. “Old warrior?”

“Aye. Five and thirty this past summer.” He drew closer still. “A kiss, m’lady?”

“A kiss,” she whispered as she stretched and offered her mouth to his.

A rush of all-consuming energy crackled between them, igniting the connection and searing through them in a bond of fiery acceptance. No other sound or sense of anything else existed. It was only the two of them, one flowing into the other, and each giving back in turn. He caught her to his chest and deepened the kiss. Nothing else mattered. No other worries or thoughts existed. As long as the two of them were joined, all else fell away into meaningless dust.

When he finally lifted his head, his breathing was as hard as if he’d run a race. “Yer place is at my side,” he said, his voice hoarse and rasping from the inexplicable power surging through him. “By my side,” he repeated.

She stared up at him, her lips plumped and reddened by the heat of their kiss. She touched his cheek, cradling it in the soft cup of her palm. “You are so…” Her voice cracked, and she went quiet.

“So what, m’lady? Tell me what ye wish, and I will make it so.” He would move heaven and earth for her. She had but to ask.

Her eyes gleamed with a sheen of tears, but he didn’t sense any sadness. She shook her head, but it was more like a shiver. “I just want everything to be all right. I’m…afraid.”

“As long as I live and breathe, nothing will ever harm ye. I swear it.”

Lips parting in shock, she broke their embrace and backed away. “Oh my gosh, I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Thought of what, m’lady?”

“What will happen to me if something happens to you?” She eyed him as if he had turned into the greatest sort of beast in front of her very eyes. Still backing away, she placed more distance between them. “I can’t survive here. Not on my own.”

“Nothing will happen to me.” He thumped his chest. “I’m a braw Highlander. Healthy. Strong. Good with a weapon. None has ever bested me.”

She hugged herself. “You can’t guarantee that. No one can. Fate is fate. What if, heaven forbid, something happens, and I outlive you? That can’t happen. I can’t be trapped here, where I don’t know anything about anything and don’t have any resources to fall back on. I’d never survive, and who knows what would end up happening to me?”

The longer she talked, the higher her voice pitched until she squeaked like a wee mousie. With the quickness of her gasping breaths, she’d soon fall into a dead swoon.

He caught hold of her shoulders and gently shook her. “Lass! Calm yerself. Dinna let tomorrow’s imagined demons steal today’s joy.”

She fisted her hands on his chest and pushed, all the while shaking her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this. I can’t take the chance of allowing myself to love you, to build a life with you, only to be abandoned among a bunch of ruthless barbarians.”

He didn’t know whether to be thrilled that she’d already thought about loving him or insulted that she’d called his people wild and uncivilized. Granted, they could be at times. But for the most part, those of Clan MacMuirrow were good and honorable folk. “Why would ye say such a thing? Why would such a worry suddenly fill yer head?”

“Because this is the most dangerous place I’ve ever been in my entire life, and I’ve been to Chicago and even lived in a questionable neighborhood in Nashville.”

“Chicago?” he repeated with great care to ensure he said it right. “Where is this Chicago of which ye speak? And was yer Nashville so frightening as well? Should I be insulted that ye’ve compared my clan to such places?”