They sat in smiling, companionable silence for several moments while they finished their meals and Evelyn mulled over the consequences of sating her curiosity to its fill.
She wanted to know about Nonna, the woman in Conall’s life before her. But she didn’t know if inviting the ghost of the MacKerrick’s recently dead wife into the hut was wise. Would it prompt the highlander to draw comparisons between the two women? And if so, how would Evelyn measure?
She had to know.
Evelyn set her empty bowl on the flagstones near Alinor’s head. The wolf immediately raised up and attended the remaining flecks of stew.
“Did Duncan and Nonna get on?” she asked casually.
MacKerrick tensed. “Nonna…” He paused, looked to the floor as if trying to order his words. “Nonna didna get on with many. She was…private. Wild as a girl, but she grew into a hard woman. I reckon she figured life had played her false.” MacKerrick shrugged. “And Duncan, well—Duncan is mayhap a bit of a dreamer. He loves a good yarn, a fine tune. A bit superstitious, too, I’d dare to say, although he’d likely deny it if asked. He and Nonna had little tolerance for each other until the very end. They came to an understanding.”
Evelyn was morbidly intrigued. “Before she died?” MacKerrick nodded. “Will you tell me about it?”
“Nonna was…ill. For several months before she died.” The highlander’s voice lowered and became gruff. “Duncan cared for her when I had to be about town business. He…tended her when she passed.”
Evelyn was so shocked that the next question had left her mouth before she’d had time to think better of it.
“You weren’t there when she died?” She shook herself. “I mean to say, you have cared so well for me, I would think—”
“Nonna didna want me,” MacKerrick said. He raised his head and met Evelyn’s eyes and she saw hurt in them, still fresh and raw. “At the end. In truth, she never wanted me. We were matched as bairns, but she never wanted to be the wife of the MacKerrick.”
“But…why?” Evelyn could not understand.
“She had her reasons, I suppose,” was all MacKerrick would say. “Mayhap she told Dunc at the end. I doona know. I didna ask.” Then he rose, signaling in no uncertain terms that the discussion of Nonna was over. And Evelyn was glad of it. “I tire, wife.”
He held out a large palm to her and Evelyn took it, letting him pull her to her feet. Once she was standing, the highlander wrapped his arms about her. His demeanor had gone from maudlin reluctance to smoldering desire in an instant. He pressed his groin to Evelyn’s stomach.
“MacKerrick,” Evelyn began, the old worry springing into her mind. She did not wish to tempt fate by lying with him again.
But he dropped his mouth to her neck, kissed her there, and spoke softly into her ear. “Doona deny me, Eve. Please.”
And she knew he was asking her to want him, as he had claimed his first wife never had. The sound of his request, so heartbreakingly vulnerable from a man so seemingly strong and able, melted Evelyn’s resolve and her caution.
Besides, MacKerrick was right—she’d had no season for months. One more indulgence in his body could do no more damage.
“MacKerrick,” she said again, raising her arms to circle his neck, the innocent action feeling wanton in itself. “Would you please take me to bed?”
Chapter Eleven
Three weeks passed what seemed like overnight to Conall, weeks full of peace and contentment that he had not known since he was a boy. Tucked away in the hut in the vale with Eve, buffered from the world by the mountains and rivers of thick, white snow, Conall felt he was living in a fantasy far removed from his previous existence of famine and hardship and death and curses. He drew a deep breath of the morning air, hitched his pack higher on his shoulder, and could not help but smile at the simple, cold, clean beauty of the forest around him.
He and Eve had not rowed a single time in three weeks, their days occupied instead with a deepening companionship, the hours buoyed by long discussions over the hearty venison and caring for the animals that resided with them. Conall now knew that Eve’s favorite color was yellow, her favorite treat was boiled pudding. Her father’s name was Handaar, and when she had been but four winters old, her sire had gifted her with her first horse—a buff pony Eve had dubbed Princess Dandelion.
The days were easy and joyous, aye, but the nights! God in Heaven, the nights! Gone were Conall’s cold, hard hours alone on the icy floor, replaced with close, humid forays of Eve’s silky-smooth skin, and waking with her warm, naked body draped over his. Dependable nourishment was transforming Eve, slowly bringing gentle cushion to her prominent hip and collarbones, softening the angle of her jaw, and bringing healthy color to creamy cheeks no longer hollowed by worry and illness and hunger.
Seven times they’d made love since promising themselves as man and wife. Seven glorious, mind-dizzying times, and Conall remembered each interlude distinctly. Each a separate miracle. Seven times.
’Twas more sex than he’d had with Nonna in the seven years they’d been married.
Conall tried to push thoughts of Nonna out of his mind as he hiked toward the morning sun, but it was difficult as he was headed to the MacKerrick town. When he’d left there weeks ago, it had been under the poisoned fog of grief and guilt, his thoughts centered on escape—escape from the loss of his family, the indigent state of his town, the burden of finding an end to the ancient witchery that was systematically destroying the MacKerrick clan. His burdens had been many and huge, his hopes few and emaciated.
He was returning to his town a new man, a newly married man, with a wife to care for and to care for him. And Evelyn Buchanan MacKerrick—God, even the name itself was nearly unbelievable—had cleaned out Conall’s untapped wellspring of optimism and opened his heart to the possibility of a future full of…life.
For the MacKerrick town and for Conall. His fingers went to the precious knot of leather around his neck.
Had Eve been a pot-bellied, toothless harpy, Conall had to admit that he would have still gone ahead with his scheme to win her. She was a Buchanan, after all, and the only chance at destroying the old witch’s curse on his people. But she was not some dowdy, haggard lass—she was kind and funny and had eyes the color of the gray winter sky. She was learned and mannered and passionate, generous with affection and curious about everything. She always wanted to know more, his Eve. More about—
Conall halted in the snow, the silence shot with the occasional birdsong pressing on his ears.
