He knew it was time when he heard movement outside. It was the moment he had been waiting for. Sword in hand, he shoved the door open and swung, ready to kill Jimmy the Snout before he knew what was happening.
Only it wasn’t a brutish outlaw standing there ready for a battle. It was the most enchanting creature he’d ever seen. He was already swinging his sword before he was able to stop himself, at the last possible moment bringing his arm to a halt, the sword so close to her he winced.
He looked at her closely as he withdrew the sword. She had long blonde hair that was uncovered and looked freshly washed and brushed. It framed the face of a Goddess. In an instant he took in her red lips, her wide frightened eyes, her strange attire. What was she wearing?
“Who are you?” he asked. “Speak with haste, where did you come from?”
She just looked blankly back at him. He had to force his eyes to remain on hers. They kept wanting to stray downward to the tightness of her clothing, the way it accentuated her wonderful figure.
“You need not fear us,” he said, taking a step out of the doorway. “But you must conceal yourself. Quick, we have little time. They are coming.”
She shook her head. “You were going to kill me.”
The thought of her ever coming to harm because of him made him feel sick. “I am Gavin, laird of the MacGregors. I do not kill innocent women.”
A low whistle from the tree. Jimmy was coming. Time had run out. He reached out and tried to grab her but she was already running, straight toward the distant figure of Jimmy the Snout who had appeared from around the bend in the track.
Gavin had no choice. Motioning for his men to stay where they were, he dropped his sword and sprinted after her. She was surprisingly fast but he was faster.
Scooping her up into his arms, he dragged her back toward the broch, ignoring her protests. “Shut your mouth,” he growled. “Or you’ll get us all killed.”
She tried to scream but he got his hand over her face, stifling her cries for long enough to run back to the broch. He shoved her through the door, following her in and quickly pulling it closed. “Keep her silent,” he said, glancing back through the crack in the doorway. “Be ready.”
The door was pulled open and Lachlan stuck his head in. “Too late. He saw you. He’s showing a clean pair of heels.”
Gavin cursed and then spat. “The coward. Come on, before he gets too far. Alan, you keep an eye on her. Dinnae let her go. She’ll only get herself killed.”
She scowled back at him, trying to fight her way free from Alan’s grip. “Bind her if you have to.”
He grabbed his sword on the way out and then he was sprinting for the second time in as many minutes, trying to catch up with Jimmy the Snout.
By the time he realized it was a trap, it was almost too late. He saw Jimmy disappearing into a glen, three men close behind him. That made it seven to four. It should be easy enough to take him. His mind flashed back to the woman. Who was she?
It was Lachlan who noticed something amiss and for a long time afterward Gavin cursed himself for not spotting it. He almost got them all killed because he was thinking about the woman, about the way her body had felt when he’d carried her back to the broch, the warmth of it, the softness of the fabric that covered her skin. He should have been concentrating on the sign that was right in front of him, the clear sign of the trap he almost stepped blindly into.
“Look, my laird,” Lachlan said, pointing at the ground as they reached the top of the glen.
“Good God,” Gavin said, skidding to a halt. How could he have missed that? Footsteps in the mud, many more than four. There was an army waiting down there, no doubt gathered in the dark.
It was one thing to fight bravely for justice. It was another entirely to run into certain death and leave the clan without a laird. He had no heir. They would be at the mercy of a strong man taking them over, a man like Jimmy the Snout.
“Back,” he said. “Fast as you can.”
Turning on their heels, they sprinted back the way they’d come. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Jimmy the Snout at the head of at least fifty men, all of them running.
Gavin made it to the broch a few seconds later. Throwing the door open he had shouted, “To the castle. We must flee.”
He grabbed the woman by the hand. She tried to fight herself free again but he ignored her squirming. If he let go she’d be dead in minutes. Or worse given some of the stories he’d been told about the outlaws.
He tossed her over his shoulder and ran, holding her tight, picking up the pace as his men sprinted toward the copse of trees on the shore of the loch.
The horses had been hidden there ready to take Jimmy’s men back to face justice. Instead, they were what made the difference between life and death for the MacGregors.
Gavin glanced back over his shoulder again as they ran. Past the woman’s kicking feet he could see no disorganized rabble. Someone was in charge of that lot and it wasn’t Jimmy the Snout.
No outlaw could control a group like that. He could see the marks of various crimes on the chasing men. Branded arms, sliced off lips and noses. They were scum but they had become organized scum.
Time to work out how later. First they had to survive.
