She breathed a little easier when she saw it was simply a neighboring crofter. That is, until she remembered the warrior’s huge horse that had taken up residence on the side of her cottage.
She stepped outside with a smile and glanced left and right, frowning when she saw no sign of the animal. Where had the beast gone? The warrior surely wouldn’t be pleased if he’d lost such a fine animal. Perhaps the horse had even been stolen. It wasn’t as if all her attention hadn’t been consumed by caring for the warrior. Guarding a contrary animal wasn’t part of her duties.
“I’m sorry to be bothering you, Keeley, on such a cold day at that,” Jane McNab began.
Keeley snapped her attention back to Jane and forced a smile to her lips. “ ’Tis no problem at all. I just ask you keep your distance. I find I’m ailing, and I wouldn’t want you to be similarly plagued.”
The other woman’s eyes rounded and she took a hasty step back. At least now she wouldn’t expect Keeley to invite her inside her cottage.
“I wondered if I could trouble you for some salve for Angus’s chest. He’s coughing something fierce. Happens every time there’s a turn in the weather.”
“Of course,” Keeley said. “I made a fresh batch just two days ago. Wait here and I’ll fetch it.”
She hurried inside and rummaged in the corner where she kept her mixtures and potions. She’d made an extra supply of the thick paste Angus used because she had several regulars who suffered the same affliction. Using one of her cracked cups, she portioned out enough of the concoction to last a week and then brought it back out to where Jane shivered in the cold.
“Thank you, Keeley. I’ll pray you are back to rights soon,” Jane said. She pressed a coin into Keeley’s palm and before Keeley could protest, Jane turned and hurried off.
With a shrug, Keeley went back inside and secured the coin in the knotted piece of linen where she kept the rest of her meager funds. With the coming winter, she’d have need of all the coin she could rummage for when the food supplies ran low.
Her warrior was quiet and seemed to be resting even if fitfully. He twitched and stirred in his sleep, but he’d ceased his ramblings. She heaved a sigh of relief. ’Twas the truth she hadn’t had to fake the weary, half-sick look to convince Jane that she was ailing. She was exhausted. Probably looked on the verge of death herself, and she’d give anything for a restful night.
She knelt by the warrior and laid her palm over his brow, frowning at how dry and hot his skin was to the touch. He gave a light shiver and his muscles coiled and tensed as if trying to ward off the cold.
She eyed the hearth and knew she’d have to venture out once more to replenish the wood stock for the night ahead. Already the wind howled and whistled by her window, ruffling the skin covering the opening.
Knowing it was better to have done with it so she could spend the rest of the night in the warmth of her cottage, she pulled her shawl around her tightly and ventured out to collect another armful of wood.
By the time she returned, her shawl had ripped away from her and blew in the wind, held only by one corner. She shoved inside, dumped the wood on the floor by the hearth, and set about stoking the fire until the blaze licked high up the chimney.
She was hungry but was simply too tired to eat. All she wanted was to lie down and close her eyes. She surveyed the sleeping warrior and pondered the likelihood of getting a sleeping draught down his throat.
Thrashing about did his injury no good, and neither of them got much-needed rest when he flopped around in the throes of God knew what kind of delusion.
Wondering if she’d ever take her bed this night, she mixed the draught and knelt back down, curling her arm underneath the warrior’s neck. She hoisted him as far up as she could muster and held the cup to his lips.
“Drink now,” she said in a soothing voice. “ ’Twill set things to right for this night. You have need of a peaceful sleep.”
And so do I.
He drank it down docilely, grimacing only as the last washed down his throat. Blowing out her breath, she lowered him back down, arranged a fur over him to keep him warm, and then settled beside him, her head resting in the crook of his arm.
It wasn’t the most modest of accommodations. If anyone saw her, they’d be scandalized and she’d be labeled a whore all over again. But no one was here to judge her, and she’d be damned if she allowed it under her own roof. She’d given up her warm bedding for the warrior. The least he could do was share his body heat.
Some of this trembling eased as she melded closer to his body. He even gave a sigh of contentment and turned blindly, his arm sliding over her waist. He smoothed his hand up her back until his palm was splayed wide between her shoulder blades. Then he simply tucked her into the shelter of his body and pulled her head into the hollow of his neck.
It was like being surrounded by a blazing fire. Heat seeped into her flesh until her muscles were bathed in it. She was careful not to touch his side, though she longed to throw her own arm possessively over his side as he was holding her. She contented herself instead with tucking her hand between their chests, feeling his heart thud against her palm.
“You are a beautiful man, warrior,” she whispered. “I know not where you hail from or whether you are friend or foe, but you are the most beautiful man I’ve ever encountered.”
As she drifted into a blissful sleep, warmth surrounding her like a blanket, the warrior smiled in the darkness.
CHAPTER 5
An uneasy prickle skittered over Keeley’s skin a bare moment before she opened her eyes. She gasped and would have screamed, but a huge hand clamped over her mouth.
Terror swept through her when she took in the warriors gathered around where she and the injured warrior lay. They didn’t look at all pleased.
They wore fierce scowls, and it dimly registered that two of them bore a striking resemblance to her warrior.
She didn’t have time to give it much more thought before she was hauled to her feet by a man wielding a sword easily capable of cleaving her in two.
She was about to demand what they were about when the warrior fixed her with a glare so fierce, she promptly swallowed and clamped her lips shut.
It appeared the warrior had questions of his own.
“Who are you and what have you done to him?” he demanded as he pointed to where her warrior lay on the floor.
She gaped, unable to call back her gasp of indignation. “Do? I’ve done nothing, good sir. Well, except save his life, but I suppose that’s paltry.”
His gaze narrowed and he pressed in closer to her, gripping her arm until she gave a small cry of pain.
“Leave off, Caelen,” the apparent leader barked.
Caelen scowled but eased his grip and shoved her a foot away so that she bumped into the chest of one of the other men. She turned, intending to scramble away, but he took over where Caelen had left off and grasped her arm, albeit much more gently.