Gabby went very still. “How does he look at me?”
Gwen and Chloe exchanged incredulous glances.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Chloe exclaimed, “she’s as bad as I was, isn’t she, Gwen?”
“I think she might actually be worse,” Gwen said dryly. “It’s just a good thing the men are off elsewhere, because I can see we need to have a good long girl talk.”
They rode for hours. It was early afternoon by the time they drew their mounts to a halt at the top of a vast, sweeping ridge. The sun had passed midpoint and begun its descent, and Adam was seething with silent impatience.
Still, no matter his mood, it was impossible to remain unaffected by the beauty of the Highlands. From their lofty vantage, the whole vale was spread beneath them like a scooped-out bowl between bens, at the heart of which sprawled Castle Keltar, looking tiny and faraway. Miles and miles of untamed, lush country stretched before them, dusted with the soft pastels of summer.
Adam inhaled deeply. How he loved this land. He’d always understood why the Scots had fought so fiercely to keep it. “Ah, she’s lovely,” he said softly, “Scotia is.”
“Aye,” Dageus agreed.
Drustan grunted, then sighed gustily, as if hours of talking and debating hadn’t done it, but Adam’s appreciation of their land had somehow resolved things for him. “We’ll do it, Old One,” he said. Grumpily. Clearly at irreconcilable odds with oath-breaking but conceding the necessity of it.
A quiet satisfaction spread through Adam’s body.
That was what he’d been waiting to hear; the only thing that had been keeping him out on a horse, too far away from his woman. And with that victory, his thoughts turned with sharp focus to Gabrielle.
He knew just what gifts he would give her tonight. Tonight he would finally see his ka-lyrra in something besides jeans. Then in nothing at all.
Now he had seven glorious days stretching from here to Lughnassadh that he could spend with her, on safe ground, with no pressing concerns. Only the concern of sealing his claim to her. Of winning her body, mind, and soul. His desire for her was no longer about getting to experience sex in human form, it was only and all about simply getting inside her. Making her his. Being the one to turn those green-gold eyes all dreamy-sexy, the one to make her whimper, the one to make her shudder with pleasure. Who cared what form he wore, so long as he had her in his bed?
“Or, rather, not do it,” Dageus was saying, when Adam tuned back in. “We’ll sit back and let the walls come down. And we’ll speak with our descendant Christopher and see to it he agrees.”
Adam inclined his head, meeting the Highlanders’ gazes with unspoken thanks.
“But hear this, Adam Black,” Drustan added, “if all hell is to break loose a sennight hence, we’ll be looking for you to fight at our side. We’ll be expecting you to have our backs, as we’ll be having yours.”
Adam inhaled sharply as an emotion unfamiliar to him expanded in his chest. Drustan was looking at him as if he were just another man, a warrior to wage battle with them, to stand and hold against whatever may come. And he realized that beside them and beside his petite ka-lyrra he would stand. Even, if need be, against his queen.
“You have my word,” he said quietly.
And when they both murmured swift acceptance of his pledge, that uncommon sensation, that strange pressure behind his sternum, expanded even more.
Gwen couldn’t have been more right, Gabby reflected later that afternoon as she stepped out of the shower—she’d definitely needed some girl talk.
They’d talked for hours, whiling away the morning and most of the afternoon. The three of them had hit it off like old friends. She hadn’t realized how desperately she’d needed to discuss things with someone. She’d been all alone with her thoughts since the moment Adam had burst into her life, and so much had happened so fast, and she’d not worked her way through any of it.
Gwen and Chloe had helped immensely. They were of the same age, and were a lot like her friend Elizabeth: smart (almost too smart), funny in a self-deprecating way, with big, generous hearts. And over the course of the day the three of them had curled lazily in the sunshine in the solar, talking nonstop.
Gwen and Chloe had taken turns telling their stories about how they’d met their husbands, and Gabby had listened, entranced.
Gwen had met Drustan first. She’d been on a holiday in Scotland when she’d fallen down a ravine and plunged through the bottom of the rocky crevice into a forgotten cave, only to land on an enchanted, slumbering Highlander from the sixteenth century (talk about falling for a guy). He’d sent her back in time to save him. But all hadn’t gone well, and Dageus had broken his oaths to save Drustan’s life so he and Gwen could be reunited.