“So you weren’t there simply to eavesdrop?”
“Ask me what ye really want to know,” he countered.
“And what is that?”
“Ask me.”
Slowly she leaned her face down around behind him to his right ear. “Were you jealous?” she whispered.
He looked at her sideways, her face just a few inches from his. “I’m jealous of ten years of conversations ye had with him and nae with me. I’m jealous that he made ye feel safe and protected, whether ye truly wereor nae, when ye needed someone for that. I’ve lost ten years, Rebecca. I dunnae want to lose any more than that.”
Turning further, he pulled her around across his thighs, digging his fingers into the golden hair at her temples as he kissed her. If not for the electricity crackling through him as they touched, he could almost believe he was dreaming again, that none of this was real, that she and Ian were married and far away while he sat alone in a cabin in Kentucky.
“Marry me, Rebecca,” he murmured, kissing her again. “Keep Donnach’s hands off yer business. Ye’ll nae be a target once ye’re wed. Ye’ll be safe.”
Somewhere in the middle of that she’d stopped kissing him back. Lifting his head, he caught her narrowed gaze. “You came here to murder people, Callum.”
“What does that have to do with anything? I agreed that we’d find ye proof first, and we have, I reckon.”
“After Ian died it took me nearly six months to leave the house again,” she said.
“Decide what yer disagreement is, will ye? Ye’re making my head spin.” He didn’t try to hide his scowl. He’d just proposed, for the devil’s sake. It was a new experience, aye, but it didn’t seem the time for her to recall pain.
“Then just listen for a damned minute,” she snapped back at him.
Callum lifted both eyebrows. “I’m listening, then, ye foulmouthed minx.”
She batted him in the shoulder with a closed fist. “You’re the one who taught me how to curse.” Rebecca rubbed her fingers across the spot she’d hit. “You can’t propose to me when you’re still not certain if you intend to live through this or not. I know what you said, but I caught sight of you when Donnach was gesturingwith his stupid knife. You would have killed him, and all those men in the park would have killed you. And you would have died satisfied, because you got your vengeance.”
“I’d die to save ye. I’ll nae apologize for that.”
“I know that. But I also see it as a problem. I don’t want you to die for me, Callum. I want you to live for me. I want you to look forward to something past this.Ihave to look past this. I have a daughter. If I were to marry you and you got yourself killed, then your cousin James would inherit our two portions of Sanderson’s. I would have the house here in Inverness. Everything else would have gone to Ian, because my father adored him and trusted him. I own it only while I’m unmarried. So Mr. Sturgeon would inherit everything. And he would become Margaret’s guardian.”
He didn’t like that, the idea that his amiable, easily swayed cousin would have charge of the wee lass’s future. “I’d see to it that ye had someaught, Becca. Enough to be comfortable.”
“And that’s what I get in exchange for a marriage? A promise that I’ll have enough money to buy dresses? I have that now. I want something more.” She cupped her hands against his cheeks, gazing deep into his eyes. “I will not be a widow again. If something happened to you now I would…” She swallowed. “I’m not certain how I would manage,” she finished. “If I gave you my future, my heart, my soul, my hopes, my child, Callum, and then you threw your own life away even for my supposed benefit, how would I survive that?”
She made some damned fine points, little as he wanted to admit it. “It’s ye or my revenge, then?” he asked. “That simple?”
“Yes.” Rebecca kissed him soft as the touch of a feather. “It’s that simple. It has to be.”
Chapter Fifteen
Rebecca opened her eyes. The fire in the hearth to her right side had become nothing but a dim red glow of embers, and from the dark curtains she could deduce that the moon had set. At this time of year the sun rose by five o’clock, so she put the time at somewhere just before that.
Soft, warm breath touched her bare shoulder in slow, steady rhythm. One strong, sinewy forearm lay draped over her waist, her relaxed fingers twined with his. She pressed her back closer against his hard chest, relishing his solid warmth. When Callum slept beside her like this it felt almost like she’d managed to tame a wild beast just long enough to enjoy his company, and that when he woke again he would resume his dangerous hunt.
He’d wanted her to agree to marry him. That would ease many of his worries, and part of her longed for just that, for a way to ensure that he would stay with her. But until he could prove to her that he valued something more than his revenge, she couldn’t afford to risk entangling herself with him further. This… closeness between them was bad enough, and losing him would killher inside. Even that, though, was better than giving him all her power and options and losing him then.
Ten, twelve years ago she’d dreamed about him, but those had been a girl’s dreams, full of adventure and tortured affairs and tears. In retrospect, the tears would have been the most likely outcome—especially once she married Ian. Callum would have brooded and wanted what he couldn’t have, and tempted her at every turn. It would have been torture, even knowing that he was absolutely wrong and ruinous for her.
That Callum, though, had died the moment he’d left Scotland. Yes, parts of him remained—that deadly anger certainly. But it felt more… focused now, aimed at one, or rather two, specific targets. And he’d become infinitely more patient, willing to wait for the perfect moment rather than lashing out at everyone and everything between him and his prey.
He’d listened to her when she insisted that walking up to Dunncraigh or Lord Stapp and shooting them would be a horrid mistake—for him. Not for them. Now that she’d seen Ian’s letter, heard the two Maxwell men speaking with her new knowledge in mind, revisited old conversations through the same filter, she knew. Not the details, perhaps, but she knew they’d somehow killed Ian and her father.
She wanted them to answer for that. But Callum needed to survive it.Theyneeded to survive it. Her father and her husband hadn’t told her of their suspicions, presumably in an attempt to protect her delicate sensibilities. That decision had left her feeling lonely even with both of them present, and it had made her vulnerable to the machinations of Dunncraigh and Donnach because she’d had no reason to mistrust them.
Callum not only looked at her, hesawher. He included her in his thinking, now that he trusted shehadn’t been a party to any of this subterfuge. He’d listened to her when she’d advised caution. And he clearly desired her. That could have been mere manipulation or flattery, a way to gain her cooperation, except that he’d proposed.
