Jeannie’s heart leaped for a whole new reason. Relief and dismay combined to elevate her pulse.
She would still be mad to open the door.
Yet he had come back to her—no matter in the middle of the night. Her feet carried her to the door without her volition; her fingers lifted the bar and swung the panel open.
He stood there, hair mussed by the night wind, with Danny leaning against him. His eyes reached for her even before he spoke.
“I am that sorry to come so late, but I seek refuge—not for me, but for the lad. I ha’ nowhere else to take him.”
Jeannie stepped back, making of it an invitation. “Then, come in.”
Chapter Sixteen
“You are a merciful angel,” Finnan MacAllister said softly, his eyes on Danny but his voice a caress Jeannie could almost feel.
They had bedded the lad down in a corner near the hearth. He now slept, restless with fever.
That Danny remained very ill, Jeannie could not doubt. His skin burned to the touch and had a waxen quality. She could quite see why MacAllister did not want to keep him at large out on the hillside, but why did he have to come to her door?
Now she struggled to think clearly and found it far too difficult. Finnan MacAllister’s presence affected her on levels she could barely understand.
Her awareness leaped every time he moved, flexed a muscle, every time he drew a breath. He had brought the fragrance of the night in with him, along with an underlying scent of pure male that roused all her senses.
She watched his hands as he pulled the blanket to Danny’s chin and then touched the lad’s forehead—graceful, strong, long-fingered hands covered with scars and those twisting tattoos. Strange how none of those scars diminished his male beauty.
“I hope you have hidden your horses well,” she whispered.
“We did not come on horseback. We walked over the hills, and it took a toll on the lad. Still, we ha’ come through worse.”
She felt a sudden, consuming curiosity to know all he had been through, and what had befallen him. She might sit for days just listening to the music of his voice while he told her.
Beautiful hands, beautiful voice; but could she trust him?
Trust—such a fragile and tremulous thing. She had trusted her father, once. Trusted Geordie, as well. Geordie, at least, had not disappointed her; he had kept to his word. But this man beside her? Another matter completely.
He seated himself on the bench beside her, which put him less than an arm’s length away. She might reach out and touch his hand if she chose. Move into his arms.
And what then? What if she followed a heretofore unprecedented impulse, leaned in and kissed him? Would madness ensue? Would she be lost?
She chose her words carefully and spoke, instead. “They were here this afternoon, the brothers Avrie, looking for you.”
That made him stare, a sharp glance she felt like a touch. “Then I should not be here. I am sorry for drawing you into my quarrel.”
“It seems far more than a quarrel. They say they have burnt your house to the ground.”
He smiled, the last thing she expected. “Not quite. They stormed the place, aye, and gutted some of the rooms with fire, but Dun Mhor is built of cold stone and will stand long after I am dust.”
“Yet they have chased you to the hills.”
“I do not like the prospect of being caught like a rat in a trap. Anyway, the hills are my true home. I ha’ spent half my life in the wild.”
Yes, and she sensed that about him, the stillness he sometimes achieved, and the canny, measuring glance as of some creature untamed.
“We will away now, if you wish,” he added, very offhand. “The last thing I want, Jeannie, is to bring harm upon you.”
He should not be so familiar as to call her by her given name, yet hearing it in that soft, musical voice rendered her incapable of minding.
“You can hardly move him now.” She nodded at Danny. “And anyway, it is nearly dawn. Let him rest.”
