Chapter Fifteen
Torin looked downat Braya’s sleeping face and felt his heart and his breath stall.
How was it that he cared so much for her? He’d done everything for peace between Bennett’s men and her family and now, just a few short days after he stood before her family and apologized, he faced fighting them on an even larger battlefield. He’d known it was coming. He’d failed to keep possibly a thousand enemies away from the king’s men…his men. He should have let the reivers and the border guards battle it out over five dead fools. Who gave a damn about them? He surely hadn’t…until he had to meet their mothers and fathers.
Hell.
He reached her front door and knocked. He knew her father was inside. He’d left him not too long ago.
Rowley opened the door. The look of stunned disbelief on his face when he saw his daughter asleep in Torin’s arms was so comical, Torin almost smiled at him.
“Come.” He stepped aside and waved Torin in. “I’ll show you to her bed.”
Torin followed him inside. Galien stood at the entrance to the kitchen watching the spectacle, almost as shocked as their father.
Torin wondered what they were seeing that produced such a reaction. Her vulnerability? She was slight, but not weak or helpless.
He suddenly felt honored that she let herself be vulnerable to him.
Hell. He was in trouble.
He had never felt this way about anyone, not even Florie. Braya had his sword. He would kill for her. What did that mean for the Bruce and his men?
Torin followed her father to the other end of the house and a curtained wall. Her father pushed the curtain aside and Torin looked into the dimly lit, cozy little space where she slept.
He smiled at her humble life. What could he give her if he took her as his wife?
He set her down on her straw bed and lingered over her for an extra moment. He was thinking of her as his wife. What the hell was happening to him?
He had Bothwell Castle in Glasgow, or his smaller keep in Thornhill, both given to him by the Bruce.
“Did you speak to my wife?”
Torin pulled away from Braya and looked at her father. “My wife?”
“What?” the older man asked, confused. “Your wife?”
“No, no. I’m not wed.” Torin knew he sounded like a fool. He felt like one. “Forgive me,” he said with a soft chuckle as he stepped away from her room. “I did not hear what you said.”
“Of course,” her father nodded, eyeing him as if he’d just sprouted a third eye. “I asked if you spoke to my wife.”
Torin knew his face went up in flames. Damn it all! He was a warrior who never lost a battle and he was blushing!
“Eh, no, I did not see or speak to her.”
“I should go see to her. If she did not nap, she will be worse off than Braya.”
Before Torin had a chance to say a word, Rowley Hetherington hurried to the front door, pulled his jack from a hook close by, and disappeared outside.
Alone with Galien Hetherington, Torin eyed the man while he went to the door. He didn’t trust the reiver not to stab him in the back as he left.
“Gray.”
Torin stopped and looked at him, waiting for whatever it was that Braya’s brother wanted to say.
Not that Torin cared really. Galien made no secret that he didn’t like him. Torin felt the same. Galien was rash and led by his emotions. Not a good trait to have in a leader. He would end up getting his entire family killed.
“What are your intentions for my sister?”
