Page 38 of Dark Victory

She trembled, angry and distraught now. “Stay put, damn it! I am asking you to stay put!”

“Tabby?” She heard Randall walking toward the bathroom.

Tabby raced out of it, slamming the door closed as he turned the corner from the living area. He halted the moment he saw her, his eyes widening.

Tabby felt her color increase. She’d been having sex on the bathroom floor. Did she look like a woman who’d just had a huge, almost endless orgasm? Impossibly, she felt herself flush even more—and not with guilt.

“Are you okay? I just saw the evening news!” Randall hurried toward her.

Tabby was acutely aware of Macleod in the bathroom and what she had just done. “It’s surprising that you care,” she began. Now, the fact that he’d let himself in with her keys—for the second time—hit her.

Randall strode to her and crushed her in his arms. She tried to press away from him. “You look like hell,” he said. “And of course I care.” But the words weren’t even out of his mouth when he stiffened—at the exact moment Tabby heard the bathroom door open.

She tensed impossibly as Randall released her, his face turning pale with shock. “What the hell?”

“Hallo, a Rhandaill.”

Tabby whirled and groaned. Macleod stood there smiling, clad only in the plaid, which was wrapped around his waist. He looked smug and satisfied.

Randall’s eyes popped. “Oh, my God,” he said. “I don’t believe this!”

She didn’t owe him any explanations, but Tabby flushed with shame. “It’s not exactly what you think,” she tried. But it was exactly what he was thinking. What had happened to old-fashioned, morally conservative Tabby Rose?

Randall looked at Tabby, incredulous. “This is what you’re doing? Shacking up with a steroidal illiterate jock?”

Tabby covered her face with her hands. She did not have any reasonable explanation. “My personal life is not your business. We were done almost two years ago. I can sleep with whomever I want.” His eyes widened impossibly. Tabby trembled, amazed that she would be so harsh with him. “You can’t barge in here, Randall. And you can’t call Macleod names.” Oddly, that last dig really bothered her.

“What did he just call me?” Macleod asked her very softly, but his stare never wavered from her ex.

Randall whirled and took in his mostly naked body. “I called you a steroidal illiterate jock.”

Tabby cried out. “Macleod, ignore him!”

But Macleod had seized Randall and was spinning him roughly across the room. “Ye ken I kill men fer such insults.”

“Macleod!” Tabby cried, aghast.

Randall fell and Macleod towered over him. “Yer little wife has no more use fer ye. Ye can give me the keys.”

Randall scrambled to his feet.

“Can ye understand my English?” Macleod asked softly.

He flushed, thrusting Tabby’s extra keys at him. Then he began backing away. “I don’t believe this.” He looked at Tabby. “I want to marry you again, and you’re playing around with that moron?” He looked at Macleod. “I’m slapping you with assault charges, bud!”

Macleod’s mouth curved and he seized Randall by the shoulder. “Tabitha isna foolish enough to marry ye a second time. She wants ye gone. I want ye gone. Leave afore I cut yer throat an’ give yer carcass to the dogs.”

Tabby cried out. “Randall, you had better go.”

“Holy shit,” Randall cried. “He’s a psycho! He means it!”

Tabby nodded desperately. “I think he does mean it.”

“Then you’re crazy, too!” Randall cried. “A crazy, lying whore!”

Macleod reddened. It took Tabby one moment to realize he was furious, and by then, lightbulbs were popping, pots and pans were rattling and her curtains were flying around the windows. Macleod pushed Randall toward the door so violently that he fell to the floor again, face-first. Tabby cried out. “Macleod, stop!”

“I can manage insults from such a womanly man,” Macleod spit. “I dinna think ye deserve his insults, Tabitha.”