"You're not welcome here. Let Ian go and I won't shoot you," I warned.
The other men stared at me with mixed looks – amusement, anger and surprise. None held weapons as I did, however rifle butts protruded from two of the packs. They sat relaxed in their saddles, hands resting on the pommels.
"Would the lass shoot us?" one man asked Ian. His accent matched Ian's brogue.
My husband hadn't taken his eyes from me, although they narrowed at the question.
"I dinna ken," he replied. "Emma, put the gun down."
"No," I replied, shaking my head. "I won't let these men take you back to England." I lifted the rifle so it pointed at the man on the far right. His hands came up slowly, and so did his eyebrows.
"I assume this is your wife," the man commented.
"Aye," Ian replied, his voice in that stern, low octave. "Emma, put the gun down." His repeated words were more insistent.
"We aren't taking your husband to England," the other stranger said. I shifted the gun his way.
"They're not, Emma," Mason added.
"How do I know you aren't lying?" My palms were damp and my shoulders began to ache from holding up the heavy rifle, but I held true.
"Because I said so," Ian said. He nudged his horse forward until he came along side me and grabbed the weapon from my hands. I exhaled at the relief of Ian taking charge and so did the other three men. "So did Mason."
Up close, a tick pulsed in his jaw, his eyes narrowed not in lust as I so wanted to see from him, but in anger. "Are ye daft?" he asked, his voice loud. "Waving a gun around, approaching men ye dinna ken?"
His Scot's brogue was stronger than usual.
"You're innocent," I affirmed.
"He is," a man behind him said.
I paused at the words, looked to Ian for confirmation.
"These men are MacDonald and McPherson. Scots like me. They were part of our regiment in Mohamir and have come to join us. They have surnames, but they've never shared them."
I looked around Ian and to the men. They tipped their hats at me and I blushed. Mason just gave a subtle shake of his head as if he were in disbelief.
"Oh dear," I whispered, my shoulders slumping.
Ian turned and tossed the rifle to one of the other men, caught easily and readily in the way only those used to such weaponry did. My husband slid from his horse, came around and stood at my side, arms out. "Get down, Emma."
"Then why are they here?" I asked, ignoring his order.
He sighed, but did not dim his anger. "As I said, they've come to live here. They emigrated to America."
"What?" That was the last possible scenario I'd expected. Turning my head to the men briefly, I saw the truth of the words with slight nods from each.
"MacDonald, the lug, is Simon's brother. Now get down from the bloody horse."
Now that it was made apparent, the resemblance was clear. Oh dear. I was in dire straits.
I looked down at Ian for the briefest of moments, knew from the look in his eye, the set of his jaw, the timbre of his voice that I was in the worst kind of trouble. Tossing one leg over the saddle, I let Ian lower me to the ground, take my hand and drag me several feet away to a large boulder, one of many that dotted the rugged landscape. He sat and abruptly pulled me over his knees, my belly down.
"Ian!" I shouted, right before the air escaped my lungs in a loud oomph. I'd expected him to pull me into a hug, a kiss, something to end the drought of attention
and affection his days away had brought.
Unceremoniously, he hoisted my skirt up and over my back, exposing my naked ass to the air, Ian and the three men. He did not talk, did not delay, only spanked me – hard – all over my ass so that the flesh there and on the upper part of my thighs prickled with heat.