The words sounded so strange that he couldn’t believe they’d just come from his lips. And yet, they felt right. Hewasin love with Jenna MacFinnan. If he was honest with himself, he’d known this for a long time but had refused to see the truth, refused to acknowledge that something could hold such power over him. But he couldn’t deny it anymore. Nor did he want to. As he finally admitted it to himself, he felt his heart swell and a fierce joy unlike anything he’d ever felt before fill his chest. He loved Jenna MacFinnan. He wanted to climb the ramparts and shout it from the battlements.
And yet.
“She canna know,” he said, turning to Mal. “And ye willnae breathe a word of what I’ve just said to ye.”
Mal blinked, seemingly confused. “I dinna understand. Just tell her how ye feel and marry the lass.”
“She’s a MacFinnan spellweaver, man! As soon as her task here is finished, she’ll be going home, and I’ll likely never seen her again.” As he said the words, the realization was like a knife twisting in his gut.How could he face a life without Jenna in it? How could he be expected to go back to how things were before he met her? He couldn’t. He just couldn’t. But he must. She was from the twenty-first century, he was from the fifteenth. It could never be.
“Then ask her to stay,” Mal replied. “Put yer own feelings before yer duty for once.”
Oh, he was tempted. He was sorely tempted. An image formed in his mind: Jenna by his side, children at their feet, a land at peace, and his people safe. For an instant he wanted that future so badly he could barely breathe.
Then he shook his head. “I canna do that. How can I ask her to trade everything she has in the future for a life here with me? What can I offer her that would ever live up to what she has in the twenty-first century?”
“Dinna ye think she should be the judge of that?”
“Nay, I dinna. It wouldnae be fair to put her in such a situation. Whatever might have happened since, I still gave my word to see her safely home, and I mean to keep that promise.” He fixed Mal with a hard stare. “So ye willnae breathe a word of this conversation to anyone. Do ye ken?”
Mal held his gaze for a moment and then sighed. “As ye wish.”
Arran nodded. “Good.” He stood up from the bale of straw. “Then we willnae speak of this again. Now, I need to see a man about a book.”
He strode off before Mal could utter another word. He took a deep breath as he stepped out of the stable and into the warm sunshine outside. Following his conversation with Mal, the turmoil of his feelings had not abated. In fact, they’d gotten worse. While the realization of what he felt for Jenna filled his heart with joy, the realization of what he was about to lose felt like a cold icicle stabbed right through his chest.
Did ye know this would happen, Lir?he thought.
If so, then Brother Merrick had been right all along: the old gods were indeed cruel.
*
“Oh my God,that is amazing,” Jenna sighed, sinking into the tub right up to her chin.
Ingrid had tipped a powder into the water that caused a lovely lavender scent to rise up and little soap bubbles to form on the surface. As she lounged, Jenna felt all her aches and pains and tension slowly drain away. Heaven. Absolute heaven.
“Would ye like me to wash yer hair?” Ingrid asked.
Jenna was about to decline but thought better of it. It might be nice to be pampered for once. “Actually, that would be great.”
She sat up and Ingrid came to kneel behind her. The maid took a wooden scoop and began gently pouring water over her hair and then washing it with a soap made from fat and marjoram—the closest thing they had to shampoo in this time.
Jenna felt her eyes sliding closed. It was blissful to be pampered like this—but Jenna couldn’t help wishing it was Arran instead of Ingrid. She wished it washisfingers massaging her scalp,hishands gently pouring water over her shoulders.
Jenna had to bite her lip to keep from groaning. Why did she have to think about Arran? Why did he have to keep filling her thoughts at the most inopportune moments?
Okay, so they’d had fabulous sex, but that’s all it was. Purely physical. A bit of fun. Nothing else.
So why the hell couldn’t she get him out of her head? Aargh! It was infuriating in the extreme. She had come here to earn enough money to pay off her debts and save her house. Simple. She most definitely hadnotcome here to sleep with the very man who’d employed her and then moon around after him like some love-struck teenager!
Yet she could still almost feel the touch of his fingers across her skin, smell his scent in the air around her, hear his deep, rumbling voice as it washed over her.
What was he doing right now? Meeting with his staff? Discussing plans? Doing other lairdly stuff? Was he thinking about her at all? She doubted it. Arran no doubt had the pick of the ladies of Skye, and Jenna doubted she was the first woman he’d ever had a bit of fun with. Nor would she be the last.
That thought sent an unpleasant sensation sneaking through her gut, and it took a moment for her to realize it was jealousy. She pressed her lips into a hard line as Ingrid began rinsing out her hair. Ridiculous. What did she have to be jealous about? She would be going home soon, back to her normal life where everything made sense, and where people she’d never met weren’t after her blood.
She’d never see Arran MacLeod again.
That little twinge in her stomach turned into a full-on ache. Never see Arran again? She didn’t like the thought of that. She didn’t like it one bit.
