“Lookin’ fer me?” His voice was as deep as an erotic drumbeat against her ear, his breath warm as it fell to her nape.
Aye, she loved him well.
“Kate?” He slipped his arms around her waist and bent to look into her eyes. “Somethin’ troubles ye?”
She shook her head. “I was just pondering some things. It is naught to fret over.” She blinked back a rush of unwanted tears and stood on the tips of her toes to kiss him on the mouth.
She couldn’t help herself and watched the sensual way his lush forest of lashes closed over his eyes. His lips molded beneath hers, firm, yielding, while his fingers splayed over her spine and drew her closer. She wanted to live and die in his arms. She loved him, and it filled her heart to bursting.
“Now tell me what troubles ye, Katie,” he coaxed in a low voice when she withdrew from their kiss.
How could she ever begin to tell him the depth of what she felt for him? He would pull away. Tell her it was too dangerous. He cared for her. It was clear, but how could he ever give his heart to the granddaughter of Liam Campbell? Still, when he looked at her . . . She reached out and swept her fingers over his brow. “Your eyes tell me things I do not understand.” The words fell from her lips before she could stop them.
“Aye?” His gaze softened with some deep emotion that made her heart thud in her ears. “Is it so difficult to understand that ye mean more to me than anything I am willin’ to admit?”
“You are afraid.” She nodded, understanding.
“Of many things, but that never stopped me from doin’ them.”
“Aye, because you are brave and strong. But this is different, Callum.” She looked up at him and cursed her quivering lower lip. “This has naught to do with your brawn or your pride.”
“What has it to do with, then?” He played with a curl winding down her temple, her trembling lip not escaping his attention.
“Your heart.”
“Ah, that.”
“Aye.” Kate dragged her sleeve across her nose, then broke free of his embrace and stepped back. “Forgive me. It was foolish of me to—”
“I love ye, Kate.”
Her lips parted, but only a short gasp fell from them. He smiled, and finally his eyes fully revealed what was there all along.
“I’ll love ye until my dyin’ day, and if I have any say aboot it, long after that.”
She leaped into his arms, quite certain that had he been a smaller man she would have knocked him clean off his feet.
Angus and Jamie watched from a parapet along the castle walls. With a world more experience than Jamie might ever possess, Angus waited with relative ease until Callum carried his wife inside the castle before his belch erupted from his lips.
“I think she was the only one in the whole bloody castle who didna know he loved her. Women are thick-skulled. Dinna ferget that, lad.” Angus passed Jamie more brew.
“Aye, thick-skulled,” Jamie brooded and almost teetered over the edge of the wall.
Angus caught him easily enough by the scruff of his plaid before the younger man toppled over. “Hell, but ye canna hold yer whiskey.”
“Get off me, ye flea-ridden son of a barn rat.” Jamie tugged and almost fell over the edge again. His mood was even more sour than Maggie’s. But Angus had not been happier since the day he first broke Brodie’s nose. He’d thought all hope was lost for any more good, clean sport when Kate demanded that he and Brodie quit brutalizing each other. Doom settled over his heart every time he watched his ruthless cousin tenderly kissing his new babe’s head. But now, oh now, a new spark of hope and exhilaration gleamed in Angus’s eyes.
“Did ye just insult me, Jamie Grant?” he asked carefully. He would not want to injure the lad in error.
“I did?”
Angus decided to ignore the glassy, bewildered set of big blue eyes staring back at him, so desperate was he for a hearty fight. He nodded and sent his fist into Jamie’s guts with a satisfied sigh that rivaled any belch he could produce.
In response, Jamie promptly emptied the contents of his belly onto Angus’s boots.
Chapter Thirty-Six
DUNCAN CAMPBELL BLEW DIRT out of his mouth. He waited in the thick brush until he was sure the MacLeod scouts had moved on before scrambling on his belly toward his men.
