Ronan stood taller. “Nay.” The muscles across his broad chest and shoulders rippled as though his body was tensed to spring.
A pointedahemechoed from the corner of the room.
Mairi turned in time to catch Granny giving Ronan a threatening look. Mairi turned back to Ronan. “This is your last chance to tell me the complete truth. All of it.” She raised a tensed hand and jabbed an accusing finger at him. “If there are any moresurprises,any moreomissions. . . we are done.” Mairi shook her head. They were pretty much done anyway, but she’d wait until later to spring that revelation on Mr. Lie-by-omission.
Ronan steadied his stance and lifted his chin higher. “I understand . . . there is nothing else I wish to add.”
CHAPTER22
“Ye are a damn fool. She’ll skin ye alive when she lays eyes on yer wolf mother and yer dragon friend. And what the hell do ye think she will do when she sees ye shift?”
Ronan balanced his forearms on the wagon’s side and shook his head. “If I play this just right, she will never see them until they have resumed their natural forms.” He slowly turned and glared at Gray. “And I will never shift in front of her—ever.”
Gray shook his head. “How the hell will ye keep them hidden when the woman is going with ye to fetch them?”
“She is not going with me.” Ronan sucked in a deep breath of the icy air and held it against the pain gnawing at his core. “Winter in the Highlands is no place for a woman. Ye ken that as well as I.”
Gray tightened a rope lashed around several bundles. “Aye. Ye have the truth of it there, but ye ken there will be hell to pay when ye tell her of yer plans.”
“Aye—well, I have already worked up quite the debt with hell. I might as well add this to the tally.”Ronan circled to the other side of the wagon and yanked on the rope. “Better to endure the pain of a tongue lashing than bear the ache of watching the woman I love freeze to death.”
“And how do ye plan to wed the lass in the presence of yer mother and Graham without her noticing there is a wolf and a dragon standing among the witnesses?”
“Ye have a fine deep loch here that will hide Graham and caves to hideMáthair.” Ronan shrugged a fur hide around his shoulders and secured it with a heavy brooch encrusted with the Latin phrasea mundo ultraA world beyond. The ancient phrase that opened the mists and allowed access to the reality of Draegonmare, his ancestral keep built on the shores of Loch Ness. “Ye can wed us on the bit of ground between the caves and the water.Máthairand Graham can witness the joining and all will finally be settled.”
Gray shook his head. “Would it not be easier just to tell her, man? Ye weave a treacherous path when ye use the slippery stones of half-truths.”
Ronan clenched the knotted rope and yanked so hard; the rough fibers burned his palm. “I canna lose her. To do so would mean losing my verra soul.”
Gray clapped him on the shoulder with a sad shake of his head. “I ken that feeling well, my friend. At times I’ve wondered if it is a blessing or a curse to love a Sinclair woman.”
Ronan agreed. A deeper uneasiness rubbed an icy hand across the hairs on the back of his neck. He spared a glance back at the gray-green of the sea churning out to the cloudy horizon. What miserable evil did those waves hide? And would that evil remain at MacKenna Keep or follow him to Draegonmare? That was the one fear he could not assuage. Was he leaving his precious Mairi unprotected?
A heavy thud drew his attention back to the wagon. Two burly men hoisted another stained wooden keg up into the wagon and rolled it to the front, snug against its twin.
“Two barrels of fine MacKenna whisky?” Ronan turned to Gray, now standing a few feet back from the rear of the wagon as he scrutinized the loading of supplies.
“Aye,” Gray said without smiling, his dark hair flying wild in the cold winter wind. “It is a long journey and ill-advised for this late in the season. MacKenna whisky will warm ye better than any fire.”
Ronan hooked one hand on the wagon’s side. “I dare not wait ’til spring to finish this task.” Gray knew that as well as he. It was far riskier to stay at MacKenna Keep with the curse unbroken than pass through the Highlands in the midst of winter.
Gray stared at him a long moment before he spoke. “I wish this done and over.”
Ronan nodded. “As do I, my friend.”
“Brother.” Gray held out his right arm, hand open, palm up.
Ronan linked his own sword arm with Gray’s, his heart warming at the gesture. “Aye.” He acknowledged the pact with a curt nod. “My brother.”
A scrawny lad with a runny nose ledAirgeadslowly across the bailey. The boy raked his dark sleeve across his face and sniffed before tying the silver gray horse’s reins to the side of the wagon.
“I canna accept another fine horse from yer stables.” Ronan smoothed a hand down the great horse’s muscular neck then patted his side. He felt an affinity with the blue roan, but he couldn’t accept such a valuable beast.
“Consider it a wedding gift.” Gray waved at the piles of blankets and cloth sacks of provisions stacked in the back of the wagon. “Know our blessing is upon yer vows whenever ye return to say them.”
Ronan nodded. Words escaped him. He hoped and prayed the vows would in fact be said. A knot tightened at the core of his chest. Mairi had been strangely cold ever since yesterday in the solar. He supposed he shouldn’t blame her. Not after witnessing such a strange unholy sight. But something deep in his gut told him it was much more than the attack troubling his dear sweet lass. Whenever he caught her studying him, he didn’t care for the hurt he saw in her eyes.
He turned and searched for the small, cloaked figure huddled atop the skirting wall. His heart was heavy with the task before him. Mairi had already bid a tearful goodbye to her family. Now she stared out at the sea, waiting for the final supplies to be packed. He had yet to tell her, she would not be crossing the Highlands with him.
