“Aye, it is that.” The trees made a leafy avenue, shielding them from prying eyes. “No one has ventured back here for an hour or more.”
“Hmm…” she said speculatively, the smile turning real.
“Hmm? What do you have in mind?”
“Only this.” And she backed him against a poplar, leaning up on her toes to crush her mouth to his.
After a stunned moment, he responded, gathering her into his arms, letting her lips and body comfort him the way words never could. She’d rejected him for so long that he found himself wallowing in her sudden acceptance. Her soft fragrance surrounded him, more potent than aged whisky.
A long, intense minute later, he drew his head to the side, still holding her close. “You’ve never kissed me first before. What’s got into you,leannan?”
Silent save for the uneven sound of her breathing, she searched his eyes. The wind came up, sending the poplar’s white-bottomed leaves into a silvery dance, and she leaned back in his arms. “It’s this kilt, Trick. It drives me wild.”
Though he was sure it was something more than that, he grinned and tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “I will have to ask Niall if I can keep it.”
“The idea is not displeasing.”
“But only if you kiss me again,” he added, then lowered his mouth to hers before she had a chance.
This new passion of hers made him desperate and demanding. He kissed her again and again, trying to lose himself in her. She leaned into him, slipping her hands under the plaid to rest against his shirt. Beneath her fingertips, the beat of his heart matched hers that he could feel through her gown. Frantic.
Pulling away, he pressed his forehead hard against hers. “Is this wrong?” he asked in a whisper. A strangled whisper, because he knew the answer.
Another gust of wind sent the brown shawl flying, but she let it go. “No, of course it’s not wrong.” Scant inches away, her eyes looked confused. “We’re married, Trick.”
“That’s not what I meant.” How the hell could he keep her at arm’s length for the sake of respect, when after all these weeks she’d finally come around? He wanted her to understand. He wanted to understand, himself. “I buried my mother today. And now I want…I want only to be with you. To have you. As though her death, her life, didn’t matter.”
“Of course she mattered.” Her hands clenched on his shoulders; her eyes cleared of the confusion and filled with concern instead. “It’s natural, Trick. To want to reach out, reconnect. With people, with living. Like thedraidgie, don’t you see? Niall said it was to celebrate your mother’s life, rather than dwelling on the death that ended it. It cannot be wrong.”
She made a sort of sense, and he wanted to be convinced. Powerless to resist, when she touched her lips to his, his shoulders relaxed beneath her fingertips. The kiss turned from sweet to devouring, and for a long, euphoric minute, Kendra was the center of his world.
The only person, it seemed, who had ever really cared.
“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered, wondering when this would end. Because everything good in his life always did.
A soft smile on her lips, she went on tiptoe to kiss him again.
“Patrick! Kendra!” Niall’s voice slashed through the leaves overhead.
Trick tightened his hold around her waist. “What does he want?” he muttered against her mouth. When his brother appeared on the tree-lined path, he dropped his arms and groaned.
“Da is awake,” Niall said. “And this seems to be one of his good days. He wants to talk to you both.”
Forty-Four
“ELSPETH WASN’Tdying.” Though Hamish was still in bed, he was sitting up for the first time since Kendra had met him. “When she wrote that letter, she was in perfect health.”
His voice was strong and sure, which Kendra hoped meant he was getting better. Seated at his bedside next to Trick, she reached to touch one of his hands. “Perhaps she was already ill but didn’t want to tell you.”
“Nay, lass. Elspeth and I kept no secrets.”
A look of disbelief crossed Trick’s face. “Why, then?” he demanded. “Why would she have written saying she was dying if she wasn’t?”
“She wanted to see you,” Hamish said simply. “She was hoping the thought of her death would bring you here to Duncraven, even though you’d never answered any of her other letters.”
“I never received any of her other letters.”
“So Mrs. Ross informed me quite tearfully this morning.”
