“Donald told me after ye left. I always suspected something, though. Ye don’t talk like an ordinary woman. Ye have more…”
“Self-confidence?” Bronwyn asked hopefully.
Harben snorted. “More like as it’s more insolence.” He stared at her. “The MacGregor will like ye.” His eyes went to her expanding stomach. “I see that man of yers enjoyed my home brew.”
She laughed at him.
Harben led the way into his little cottage. “One thing I don’t understand. I can see that you’re the MacArran, but I can’t see that that man of yours is an Englishman. I’d rather believe in a MacArran than an Englishman.”
They went into the cottage, laughing, Nesta smiling at both of them. It was Nesta who kept the farm going and saw that Bronwyn and Harben worked while they argued.
It had taken a few days to arrange a meeting with the MacGregor. He agreed to tell no one and to bring no men with him, just as Bronwyn did. The next morning, at dawn, in the mist of the moors, they would meet.
She pulled harder on the cow and brushed at a stray strand of hair that bothered her. She finished the milking, swatted absently at her hair, and carried the pail to the far end of the barn, noticing that it was already growing dark outside. Just as the last drops of milk splashed into the pail, she heard a noise that made her stop instantly.
There was a little bark, just a small sound, but something about it reminded her of Rab, and tears instantly came to her eyes. She remembered all too clearly seeing Rab on the ground, the gaping wound in his side.
The sound came again, and she turned, the bucket still in her hand. There, standing quietly, his eyes alight, his tail wagging, was Rab.
She just had time to drop the bucket because the next moment all one hundred and fifty pounds of the dog were upon her. The dog knocked her back against a manger and nearly broke her in half.
“Rab!” she whispered, hugging the dog in return. “Rab!” She laughed as he threatened to drown her in his exuberance. “Oh, sweet dog,” she cried. “Where did you come from? I thought you were dead!” She buried her face in his fur.
Suddenly a low piercing whistle came, and Rab went rigid. The next instant he stood on the ground in front of her. “What is it, boy?”
She looked up, and there stood Stephen. His hair was shorter but he wore the Scots dress. She looked him up and down slowly. It seemed she had forgotten how large he was, how strong and muscular he was. His blue eyes looked at her in an intense way.
“Do I get the same welcome as Rab?” he asked quietly.
She didn’t think but leaped at him, her arms going about his neck, her feet off the floor.
Stephen didn’t say a word but began kissing her with all the hunger he felt. It had been so very long since he’d touched her. He stepped backward, carrying her, and fell into a thick pile of hay. Even as they fell, his hands were on the buttons of her shirt.
“We can’t…” Bronwyn murmured against his lips. “Harben…”
Stephen bit her earlobe. “I told him we planned an orgy for the rest of the day.”
“You didn’t!”
“I did!” he mocked, laughter in his eyes. Then the expression on his face changed. His eyes widened and he looked at her in astonishment. The next moment he was tearing her clothes off her and gaping at the hard mound of her stomach.
He looked up at her in question.
She smiled and nodded at him.
Stephen’s shout of happiness scared the chickens from the barn rafters. “A baby!” he laughed. “Harben was damn right about his home brew.”
“I was carrying the child before we met Kirsty, so Morag says.”
He lay beside her and pulled her nude body close to him. “Then maybe it was me and not Harben,” he said from some deep, inner joy.
Bronwyn nuzzled against him and rubbed her thigh between his. “It may as well have been the home brew,” she said sadly. “I don’t remember anything else that could have given me a baby.”
He chuckled, then moved quickly as he pushed her face-down in the hay. In an instant he was out of his plaid. He kept his knee on the small of her back. When he was nude, he bent and kissed the back of her knees. “I haven’t forgotten you completely,” he murmured as he ran his teeth along her tendons. His hands caressed her legs as his mouth tormented her. She moaned under him and tried to turn over, but he held her fast as he continued his sweet torture of her.
His skin against hers sent shivers all through her body. His mouth traveled up to her spine, his legs against hers. The hardness and the hairiness of his thighs worked to excite her. His big hands caressed her back, played with the soft shape of her.
Just after she knew she could stand no more, he turned her over. He kissed her while his hand rubbed her stomach then inched up to her breasts. She arched toward him as his mouth touched her breasts.
