That radiant smile faded as he remained baffled and planted in one spot.
"Mackinnon? Did ye hear me? You've won. I'll be your bride." She paused. "If you'll have me."
"If I’ll have ye?" The painful torrent of love rushing through his veins made his voice crack. "Aye, mo chridhe, I'll have ye. Forever."
Her face lit up, and she rushed forward until he caught her around the waist. He stared down into brilliant blue eyes, before he bent his head and kissed her with all the passion he’d stored up in his heart since the day he’d first seen her.
She melted into his hold, and her lips moved upon his. He ran his tongue along the seam and to his delight, she opened. When he'd taken her lips in that first, furious, despairing kiss, he’d caught her by surprise. He suspected she was too innocent to know how to respond. When his tongue delved into the honeyed cavern of her mouth, she made a faint astonished sound, confirming his guess at her innocence.
Slowly he withdrew, savoring her flavor, then returned for a deeper exploration. This time, her shuddering sigh conveyed a wholehearted surrender he’d given up hoping to win from her.
Exultant happiness washed over him, and he dragged her closer into his body. Then in an instant she was free. Her whimper this time had expressed pain, not pleasure.
"This sling is proving blasted inconvenient," she muttered.
He took her hands and kissed them with a reverent adoration that turned her eyes misty. She was flushed and bonny and his. He could hardly believe it. "We'll have plenty more time for kisses, my braw lassie."
She blushed. "If you'd kissed me like that when ye caught me, I might have come round sooner."
He gave a grunt of self-derisive amusement. "Och, dinnae be daft. You'd have scratched my eyes out." He sobered and holding her hand, brought her over to sit on a tussock. "Tell me what changed. I'd given up all hope of ye. God’s teeth, ye spent the night running away from me. Ye were willing to throw in your lot with a murderous witch like Sheena because you were so eager to get back to Bruard. Am I dreaming all this now?"
She raised her good hand to stroke his cheek. "If you're dreaming, I'm dreaming, too, my darling."
It had been a day of shocks. Another one exploded through Callum when he heard her call him her darling. He liked that. He liked it very much indeed. But before he could be sure of her, he still needed to trace the path that brought him to this transcendent moment. "Every time I asked ye to marry me, you refused."
She stared up into his face, still with that dazzled expression. "I hated ye at first."
He winced. "I ken."
"But it was soon clear that there was more to ye than just a ruthless kidnapper."
"Oh?"
Her smile turned teasing. "For a start, I saw that ye were a handsome ruthless kidnapper."
"Mhairi," he said in warning. "Tell me. Today you've tossed me from hell to heaven and back again, and it’s not even nine o’clock. I need to understand."
The amusement faded from her face, and she shifted to kiss him again, a sweet salute that was over in a second. To his regret. "Well, there was the fact that after you'd snatched me, ye were kinder than I expected. I saw straightaway that your people love ye. And I admire the way ye think before ye react."
He frowned. "None of those things sound too lovable."
"Perhaps those things didnae make me love you, but they showed me ye werenae the ravening beast I'd been taught to fear and hate. I started to wonder whether there might be a good man hidden under all that Mackinnon arrogance. Then…" Her gaze clung to his as if she couldn't bear to look away, even for a second. "Then ye spoke those beautiful words yesterday, when you told your clan that I had your loyalty and that any wrong done to me was a wrong done to ye."
Callum hardly remembered what he’d said. He'd been so angry when he'd seen Mhairi’s bruises and learned that she'd suffered his kinswomen’s spite. "That's when I confessed ye had my heart. I laid my soul at your feet, my lady, and ye had the hide to dismiss my admission as mere rhetoric."
"I dinnae think that anymore," she said softly.
This time he kissed her. Their lips clung and parted.
"Yet still ye ran from me." The joy of knowing she would become his wife wasn't yet enough to banish the horrific memory of Sheena brandishing a knife and forcing Mhairi back toward the dizzying drop behind her.
Guilt shadowed her eyes. "I'm sorry."
He shook his head with wry fondness and cradled her delicate jaw in one hand. "Dinnae be."
"I wanted to talk my father out of besieging the castle."
“It was more than that.”