Haley realized she'd been holding her breath. Her eyes had inadvertently gone back to his shirt, and she was both a little relieved and a little disappointed to see that he'd shifted and was no longer backlit by the sun.
He took the knife and, first wiping his mouth roughly on his sleeve, began to saw long strips from the end of the tartan. The thick muscle of his thigh flexed inadvertently, and the sight of it snagged her gaze, pure instinct dragging her eyes mindlessly along the light dusting of black hair, and the solid column of muscle framed by the slit up the side of his shirt.
MacColla dropped to a squat, and, coming to herself, she quickly glanced away again. Her eyes went automatically to Jean, who was bustling about, nudging aside brush and rocks to clear a spot pristine enough to warrant her tender bottom. Haley once again tried out her best evil eye on the girl.
A throaty chuckle brought Haley's attention back to him. “Easy, lass.” he said, pitching his voice for her ears alone. Then louder, he added, “Jean, love, will you fetch us some water then?”
Jean looked at him as if he'd asked her to translate something from the Greek.
“Aye, you.” He nodded at her, a wide smile on his face. “You ken the word. I've a wee flask tied to the pony. We need water, and I'd have you refill it for me.”
Jean rose with a high-pitched huff.
“And you, caile bhorb.” MacColla stood and strode slowly toward Haley. Her heart gave a single sharp thump to attention as she watched that smile bleed first from his eyes and then from his lips.
He knelt just before her, placing his palm on the ground between her crossed legs. “I ken those daggers you shoot from your eyes would be caused by your injury. That it's simply your pain that I see darkening that bonny face of yours.” He leaned even closer. “I ken a lass like you knows better than to wish ill upon my sister, aye?”
“Mm-hm.” She nodded weakly. Sister? No kidding. Haley experienced a curious reaction to that last bit of information. A peculiar, brief quivering on the edge of thought. Not relief, not excitement, not anticipation, just an electric flash of awareness. Brother and sister.
He smiled, broad and easy. Haley noticed a chipped front tooth and tried to disregard the ache in her chest from the single sudden pound of her heart.
“What's to be done then?”
“Huh?”
MacColla held the wool strips up in answer. “What's to be done? You've that frock about you. I'll need to swaddle the skin directly, or the plaid will slip hither and yon.”
“Oh.” Haley glanced down at her dress. “I… give me a moment.” MacColla didn't budge, so she told him more explicitly, “Turn around.”
Haley swore she saw that thick black brow flinch just before he turned his back to her. She pulled one arm, then the other, through the neck of the stretchy black knit.
Despite her care, she heard the thin crackle of threads popping and frowned. So much for her favorite dress. At least she'd worn a tank top underneath.
She wondered what had become of her scarf and, with a pang, pictured the cobalt blue length of it tossed atop the storeroom table. Remembered how one of her brothers had loosened it for her at the bar. Who had it been, Colin or Conor? Their faces flashed in her mind's eye, bringing an ache to her throat. She sniffed sharply. She'd need thoughts of her family to gird her, not tear her apart.
She had to get back to them. She couldn't bear to have them worry anymore about her. She'd put them through so much before. Her whole family had been traumatized after her attack. She wouldn't put them through something like that again.
Haley tugged her dress hard to her waist, revealing a white cotton tank beneath. She'd let this man wrap her ribs. Rest awhile.
And then she'd run.
Chapter Six
He stole a glance, fascinated, as she wriggled her arms and torso through the neck of her dark dress. She shimmied and maneuvered, a look of such intense concentration on her face. It was amusing and arousing both.
The sort of shirt she'd worn underneath her gown was foreign to him. MacColla fought not to ogle, but that shirt clung to her, its white fabric looking soft to the touch, and not leaving much to the imagination.
The skin of her shoulders was pale, her collarbones delicate slopes in contrast to the firm, lean muscle of her upper arms.
MacColla distractedly rubbed his thumb along his fingertips, wondering if that ivory skin was as silky as it looked.
While she was focused on arranging the dress around her hips, he let his eyes graze her chest.
MacColla grew hard, watching as she reached her right hand across her stomach to roll the fabric down along the opposite hip.
He clenched his hands into fists, his breath suddenly shallow.
The movement crushed her arm up against the bottom of her breast, squeezing it high and tight against the white shirt. The fabric strained, revealing the barest outline of her nipple.
She folded her top up and neatly over her breasts to expose her belly. It was pale and smooth, and M acColla let out an inadvertent groan.
“Turn back around.” she snapped.
His eyes whipped up to meet hers. Her voice was indignant to match her simmering gaze.
He promptly did so, using the opportunity to gather his wits. Last time he'd lost them, he'd taken her to his mouth for a taste. It would do him no good to forget himself with his very own prisoner. And a Campbell no less, he thought with disgust.
But something about the lass riled him. Intrigued him. What sort of woman was she to stand up to him as she did? He was used to all and sundry cowering before him. But there was no cowering in this woman. She merely held her chin up with a dare in her eye as if he were some ordinary crofter instead of a leader of warriors.
And then to watch the lass peel her clothes away with mingled modesty and purpose? He scrubbed his hand over his face. It was enough to send him over the edge.
“Okay.”
MacColla heard that strange word again and took it to mean she was ready. Upon turning, however, he quickly realized that he was not.
She sat before him, rigidly upright, enduring what was surely extraordinary pain. And yet her bearing spoke to resilience, not defeat. MacColla had thought her a wildcat, but he saw the truth of her now. She might adopt the persona of predator, but shedding her strange garb, she satbefore him a long, gorgeous swan, with pale throat and breasts that were only accentuated by her thick black hair and white undergarment.
Her shoulders were creamy and broad, but not masculine. Hands clasped in her lap, she held her arms crooked out at her sides, those smooth, firm limbs speaking to strength, but not toil.
And then his eyes went to her stomach, and a flash of pure heat stabbed him. Rather than bones or loose flesh, her belly was firm, a sweep of polished alabaster that he had to fight not to touch.
“I… ” He fumbled with the plaid for a moment, and then noticed it. Her neck. MacColla sucked in a breath. And this time he did reach for her, unthinking. “Och, lass, your bonny neck.”
He drew his thumb gently over her scar, a ragged, bulging line marring the otherwise perfect stretch of throat. He used the back of his hand to carefully push her hair from the skin, then traced his thumb along it once more, marveling that a thing could answer as many questions as it raised.
“How?”
He didn't need to say more than the single word. He could see in her averted gaze, in the stiffening of her spine, how this single mark defined her somehow, had been a turning point. MacColla saw true how, rather than be defeated by it, whatever tragedy had befallen her had instead scraped away the nonessential to reveal some deeper power and spirit that was the root of this woman.
“None of your business.” Her voice was measured, but strained too.
He looked in her eyes, won dering at her words, and he saw a sheen of tears there. But more than her sadness, he saw her strength.
“In good time, then,” he said softly.
He unrolled the fabric between them and made quick work of it, trying his best not to flinch at what muted sound s of pain she allowed to escape. MacColla leaned close, wrapping his arms around to reach behind her and back again. He worked silently, his great, thick hands fumbling to tuck fabric gingerly along the top, tugging and tightening as gently as possible.
His knuckles brushed the firm underside of her breast, and he froze. He flicked his eyes up to meet hers. What was but a moment stretched long between them, their breath held, neither choosing to look away first.
Those eyes that had at first appeared otherworldly in the dark stared at him unblinking. Gray and fathomless, spattered with black flecks like drops of ink, they were more mysterious to him now than they'd been in the shadow of Campbell's castle.
Campbell. The thought was a distant flare, recallin g MacColla to himself. He had a duty to his sister. And, in taking the strange woman, he'd claimed an obligation to her too. But more so, he had a duty to his clan. These two women held him back, when what he needed to do was remember what he was truly about.
“Haley. Such an odd name.” His voice was gruffer than he'd intended, and he saw her recoil as if struck. “What are you to the Campbell?”
The delicate thread that had stretched shimmering between them disappeared like a cobweb moving from sunlight to shadow.
This man, this whole scenario, had gone beyond confusing, past surreal, and was moving well into madness. That he kept mentioning yet another famous seventeenth-century figure eclipsed her pain and slammed her back into reality. She took a moment to focus.
“What?” she asked.
“I asked what you are to the Campbell.”
She knew her history well, knew Graham and Campbell had been enemies, but what did the latter have to do with the gun?
“How about you talk first?” Haley held her body as straight as she could, trying to minimize the fresh stabbing in her ribs with a rigid spine. Stars glittered for a moment over her vision, and she was forced to swallow convulsively from a sudden wave of nausea and the saliva it brought to the back of her tongue. “I know you know about the gun.”
“Gun?”
She gritted her teeth and pressed on. “What do you know about James Graham?” Her question was an accusation, and she felt the man stiffen as he tucked the last of the tartan into itself.