To Tempt a Scotsman (Somerhart 1)

Pain spiraled tight, rising from his gut to his throat and squeezing everything in-between to ruin. The room was only two steps away and he had to do this.

The first thing he saw, the first thing that carved itself into his brain, was Fergus's long, tanned arm—a swipe of skin and hair that curled over the gentle hill of someone sheltered beneath the quilt. Collin's eyes followed the curve of the blanket, swept down the bed to see another of Fergus's limbs—his leg, naked and bent and thrown over one tiny female foot that snugged against his calf.

Something fractured in the quiet of his chest, a concus­sion of silence that nearly broke him.

"You are a God-damned traitor."

A sweet female gasp assaulted his ears as the bed shud­dered.

"You can have this woman if you want her, but you will not have her on my land."

Fergus sprang naked from the bed. His fierce snarl fell to blank shock at the sight of Collin looming over his bed. "Jesus Christ, man, what the hell are ye doin' here?"

Collin's vision blurred, swirled, until the world was a jumble of Fergus's nude body, and his own rising fists, and the trembling shape of a woman hidden in her lover's bed. "Drills."

Fergus's face burned crimson, or Collin's vision turned red, he couldn't tell which. "She is not a whore, you bas­tard spawn of the devil, and I'll kill you if ye say it again."

Collin barked in disbelief, reaching for the quilt instead of his friend's throat. "You'd dare to defend my wife when she lays in this very bed, naked and filled with your seed?"

The blanket felt like paper beneath his hands, so light that it floated halfway across the room with the tiniest jerk. The roar in his head was his own blood or Fergus's growl or the sob of the woman he'd bared. His mind tripped, lurched, just as his body did, just as he saw the nude length of a woman who was not his wife, just as his chest caught Fergus's shoulder and his body fell back.

Breath burst from lungs caught too hard between the floor and the body that fell upon him.

"How dare you?" A hand fisted in his hair. "How dare you come into my home and . . . and—"

"Where is she?"

The hand wrenched. "Get out."

Fergus's weight left him and he felt himself pulled to his feet by his scalp, but the pain couldn't penetrate his shock. "Where is my wife?"

"God damn ye, man, are ye mad?"

A blink brought his friend's face back into focus, re­vealed the rage in his eyes and lips a line of white in his beard. Collin's eyes rolled and swung past him to catch on the sight of Jeannie Kirkland, crouched and hiding herself behind the paltry shield of a pillow clutched to her chest. She stared, horror-struck, breath panting out between her lips.

Collin's hands hung limp at his sides even as he saw the open hand fly out to crack against his cheek.

"There is a lady present, ye daft prick, and you'll leave this moment or I will dig your eyes from your head."

Collin turned, stumbling when Fergus yanked the quilt from beneath his feet and pulled it back to the bed. Mur­murs, fierce whispers flew to his ears, but he couldn't begin to decipher the words. Nothing here made sense to him. He walked from the room and out into the platinum day and stood, waiting.

Five minute*must have passed before the door creaked open behind him, perhaps another five before he turned to stare at the stony face of his best friend.

"I've lost my wife." The words sounded hollow in his ears.

"You do not deserve her."

He did not wince. His face felt slack with the truth of it. He did not deserve her, and wasn't that the problem?

"Did you really expect to find her here?"

Fergus's voice had grown so solemn that it drew Collin's gaze back to his face. He no longer looked hard with anger. No, grief had softened his eyes to a terrible sadness. Collin was shocked at the prickling behind his own lids.

"I did not want to."

"But you thought ye would."

"No. No, I didn't, and that is why it killed me to see . . . to think I saw her . . ."