Page 34 of The Dragon Laird’s Obsession

“Perhaps ye simply daenae ken how to brew tea?”

Marion quaked with a little laughter as Ailis burned from her embarrassment now.

“I daenae think yers will be any better if ye were to give it a try,” she fired back at him, her lips finding a small pout as his eyes danced on hers with a glimmer she had never seen on him before.

Gordon rose to his feet as he shook his head. “Believe it or nay, Ma’am, I am a man of many talents.”

“Then we shall wager on it one day,” she said to him without thinking. The meaning of the words struck her only after it had landed between them.

Gordon’s eyes hardened for a bit as the implication settled in. Neither of them looked away from each other as the moment stretched again.

One day? That is me sayin’ I intend to be here?

Nay… Nay…

Her plan was simple. In fourteen days, she would find a way to make him call off their engagement.

That was final!

Gordon could not forget her lips. The harder he tried, the more impossible it became. It was as if his mind had completely forgotten what it was like to focus.

All I think of is that kiss.

And that was the truth he had been fighting since the morning he had left the stables.

The memory of it returned whenever his guard slipped. Her mouth beneath his. The soft gasp that had escaped her. Her fingers twisted in his leine, holding him even as every sensible instinct should have driven her away.

He had tasted the faint sweetness of her tea that morning, and the memory of it made him melt inside.

He hated that. He hated even more that some part of him wanted to know what she would taste like if he kissed her without anger between them.

Enough.

He tightened his grip on the reins. The mare beneath him shifted as they rode along the western boundary, but Gordon barely noticed. He had spent the morning with Malcolm and six men repairing a section of fence damaged by the storms. They had gathered timber, checked supplies, inspected the patrol paths, and counted every sack of grain that would need to be replaced before winter.

Those things made sense.

Me fields… me men…

A wife did not make sense. Ailis did not.

Gordon dismounted beside the broken fence and drove the butt of his staff into the earth.

“Three more posts there,” he ordered.

Malcolm followed his gesture. “Aye.”

“And send two men to the lower burn before dusk.”

“Aye,” Malcolm answered again.

Gordon looked across the fields. His people worked hard. Too hard, at times, for too little. He had seen the thin stores. He knew which families needed extra grain and which roofs would not survive another hard rain.

Every coin mattered, and every decision he made affected lives. He never took that for granted.

This is the life I chose. Me clan, me land… they are all that matters to me.

Nothing beyond it.