Page 25 of Highland Sky

Chapter Eight

Nash was dreaming about making love with Kellina all night long. Then he felt something hit his face and, with his eyes closed, he brushed it away. He felt it again, as well as a warm feeling encompassing him.

His eyes flickered open to find sun streaming in through the roof. Straw fluttered down atop him. That’s when he saw Kellina up on the roof staring down at him through the hole.

“Get up, ye lazy oaf. We have a roof to finish before it starts to rain.”

“What?” His head snapped around to look next to him, but he realized Kellina was no longer lying with him. For a moment, he thought she was really there and they’d been making love. Then reality hit him. He’d never consummated their marriage – only in his dreams.

“Ye heard me. It’s goin’ to rain. Now get yer lazy arse out of bed. There is work to be done.”

“Rain?” He rubbed one sleepy eye, looking up at the sky through the open roof again. All he could see was a blue sky, and not a single cloud in it.

“I think ye’re wrong,” he called back to her. “It’s no’ goin’ to rain.”

Her angry eyes stared down at him. “Dinna think ye are so smart because ye ken nothin’ about nothin’ at all.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked, pushing up in bed. “Kellina, are ye angry with me about somethin’? I mean . . . other than the weather?”

“Put yer clothes on before my sister walks in and sees ye like that!”

“Oh.” He looked down, realizing he was still naked. After their pretend consummation last night, he was so tired that he must have fallen asleep and slept through to morning. “All right, I’ll be right there. Dinna start without me.”

“Hmph,” she said with a sniff. “How about I just finish without ye? After all, ye’ve made it quite clear last night that it’s no’ hard to do.”

“What are ye complainin’ about?” he asked, hopping out of bed and hurriedly dressing. “Kellina, ye are makin’ no sense at all.”

She disappeared from sight. He heard her pounding on the roof, and she no longer glared down at him. At least that was a relief. Being married was already proving to be very confusing and complicated. Nash wasn’t sure at all what his new wife was angry about, or if she just always acted this way.

He needed to hurry, because he wanted to know how to finish the seam at the apex of the roof if he was going to master this skill. He liked knowing how to do many things, and he wanted to be good at all of them. Nash didn’t doubt for a minute that Kellina would somehow try to finish the roof without him, just to spite him. Well, he wasn’t about to let that happen.

He sat down on the edge of the bed to don his boots. He couldn’t imagine for a minute what was upsetting her so much. He thought that by faking the consummation and not touching her in a lustful manner, she’d be relieved. After all, she’d made it quite clear that she didn’t want him as her husband. She didn’t even like him in the least. Now that he’d taught her how to pleasure herself without even needing him, he thought it would have made her happy. Sadly, that didn’t seem to be the case. For some odd reason, he got the distinct feeling that it only made her mad.

Kellina was proving to be a very complicated woman – not to mention wife. Nash didn’t know what he was going to do about their situation. He couldn’t stay married to a lass who hated him. Nor could he be married to a girl who he was never allowed to make love to. If this was to continue, they would never have babies or raise a family. It was more than clear to him that these things were never going to happen with Kellina.

The trouble was, he couldn’t divorce her either. Not without bringing strife to one or probably both of their clans. Damn, why did he have to be in this situation? Why couldn’t he just have to make shoes or candles to work off his punishment like Gavin and Cam did? His friends had it easy compared to him. Nash’s punishment now was one that would last the rest of his life. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do to change that.

He looked up and saw the top of the bedcurtain hanging loose from the rings, and this bothered him. The broken bed ropes made him unsettled as well. He liked things to be as perfect as they could be. He didn’t have time to re-string the bed ropes now, but figured he could at least somehow attach the top of the bedcurtain quickly before he went to work.

The ceiling was almost touching the top of the box bed since the structure was so tall, and the ceiling low. Nash climbed up the side of the bed, reaching up high to refasten the curtain. He heard a loud thump from above and, all of a sudden, something spiky pushed through the roof. It hit him, scratching his hand and drawing blood.

“Bid the devil!” he cried out, pulling his hand away, seeing one of those damned sharp, twisted spikes sticking through the ceiling. “Who the hell did this to me?”

“Is somethin’ wrong?” Kellina peered down from the opening in the roof again. “I thought I heard ye scream. Did ye see a mouse, perhaps?” She was playing her little games again, trying to make him feel worthless. Well, he’d had enough of this, and it was going to stop.

“Ye did this to me,” he accused her, holding up his bleeding hand to show her.

“I did no’. I’m up on the roof. How could I have even touched ye way down there?”

“It was that damned sharp spike. Ye pushed it through the roof, because ye kent I was up near the ceilin’. Ye were tryin’ to kill me by stabbin’ me. Just admit it.”

“Are ye talkin’ about the twisted hazel spar that is used to hold down the thatch?” she asked, sounding innocent, although Nash knew that was far from the truth.

“Whatever ye want to call it,” he grumbled. “The fact is, that thing is downright dangerous. It could have stabbed me to death. It’s only by pure luck that it ended up just bein’ a deep scratch.”

“Well, mayhap if ye were up here instead of down there, it wouldna have happened at all. Ye brought it on yerself, and ye ken it.” So much for thinking she’d feel guilty or sorry for him at all.

Nash pulled at the bedsheet, ripping off a strip and winding it around his wound to stop the flow of blood. It wasn’t a bad wound, and would heal quickly, but that still didn’t make what she had done to him acceptable. Furious with his new wife, he stormed out of the infirmary, only to bump into North who was carrying a big bag of seeds over his shoulder. The bag fell to the ground and broke open. Seeds scattered everywhere.