Beloved Highlander

Time Gregor intervened.

“Duncan, lad. ’S been a long time.”

Duncan appeared to freeze on the spot. His eyes swiveled around to Gregor’s and widened.

“The Laird,” he whispered. “Dear God, ’tis you.”

Gregor nodded somberly, pretending he wasn’t about to slide off his chair into a puddle on the floor. “What do y’here, Duncan? And in s-such fine company.” His gaze slid over Meg, taking in her haughty looks. “A’ f-firssht I thought sh’ was an angel,” Gregor added in a mock whisper. “An angel in trews-s-s.”

She flushed, but her voice was heavy with disgust. “He’s drunk. You told me he was someone we could depend upon. Do you still think so, Duncan?”

“He is.” A new voice, making them turn around. A man stood behind them, as broad as he was tall, his eyes blue and piercing. He looked as if he had worn the same clothes for a week, and slept in them too. There was a tear in the sleeve of his shirt, and a hole in his plaid where it wrapped across his shoulder.

Meg was aware of Duncan stiffening like a dog on a scent beside her, but she kept her gaze warily on the stranger.

“And you are?” she asked haughtily.

He bowed a head covered in wild fair hair. “Malcolm Bain MacGregor, my lady. I am Captain Grant’s man.”

Being someone’s man should have sounded subservient, but when Malcolm Bain said it, it was a matter of pride.

“Malcolm Bain is from Glen Dhui,” Duncan added woodenly. “He was.”

“I see.” Meg cast her eye over him. She sensed there was something unresolved between Malcolm Bain MacGregor and Duncan Forbes, but that must wait until later. At least Malcolm Bain appeared sober, which was more than she could say for his master, who had dropped his head onto his arms on the tabletop and appeared to be sleeping.

“We have come to speak to Captain Grant on a matter of great importance. Unfortunately he is…tipsy.”

Malcolm Bain gave her a curious look, before bending over Gregor Grant, resting his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Gregor, lad? Are ye up to listening to this lady?”

With an effort, it seemed, Gregor lifted his head and scowled at his man, before his gaze shifted to Meg. She raised an eyebrow at him in mock inquiry. And waited.

Through the haze of whiskey and the savage pain in his arm, Gregor noted that she had closed her mouth in a taut line. She would be the sort, he decided, who would always need to have the last word. Unless she were kissed breathless first. What would that little mouth taste like? Would she be all fire and passion beneath her fitted coat, or would she prefer to let him do all the work?

Gregor grinned at her, and seeing her confusion and outrage, chuckled aloud. A red curl had flopped over her brow, and she brushed it away crossly and tucked it behind her ear. She was neat, apart from that curling hair. Neat as a pin. Gregor knew a desperate urge to rumple her.

“Surely,” he said slowly, “you have no’ come all this-s-s way just to see me?”

Those pale blue eyes collided with Duncan’s and slid away, but Gregor had read their doubt and uncertainty. They had come to see him. Come all the way from Glen Dhui, the Dark Glen, tucked away in the distant hills, isolated even by Highland standards. They had come to find him after he had been twelve years adrift, and if they had come now, then the reason must be something very special indeed.

A coldness washed over him, sank into his very bones. The Glen Dhui he remembered was the one he had left behind him when he was seventeen, a little shabby from lack of money, but still grand and beautiful. He had left everything behind, taken nothing into his new life. Only his memories.

Were they, too, about to be soiled?

“What’sh ’appened to Glen Dhui?” he demanded, his words slurring into each other, making him angry that he could not make himself better understood, that he was not his usual self. He leaped up, but everything had slowed down. The floor shifted beneath his feet, like a rolling ocean wave, so that he could not find purchase. His arm hurt

like the very devil where Airdy had cut him, and he caught his breath in a hiss.

The angel was so close now that he was drowning in the sweet, warm essence of her. He could see the dark pupils centering the blue of her eyes. He swayed toward her, lost his balance, and instinctively reached out for her. As he did so, he knew what he wanted. He wanted to feel her soft breasts beneath her blue jacket, the brush of her pink lips on his hot brow, the gentle touch of her fingers on his hair, the whisper of her breath against his fevered skin.

As he fell she caught him in her arms. Or tried to. He heard her gasp of shocked surprise, the little whoosh of her breath when she took his weight. For a brief, heavenly moment he was encased in her warmth, his head resting upon her bosom, just where he had wanted it to be. He tried to open his eyes against the black dots that were filling his vision, and found that her fiery hair had tumbled from its pins, covering him.

He was on fire. Burning. Maybe even dying.

If he were dying, then this seemed as good a place as any to do so, and better than most. With a groan, Gregor sank into unconsciousness, and wrapped in his angel’s arms, tumbled to the floor.

Chapter 3

Gregor Grant was so large and tough, so masculine, so much a man. Much bigger than her imaginings, much more real…