“Let’s get back on the horses,” her captor replied from closer than before. “We’ll backtrack and see if we can find another set of tracks. They can’t have just disappeared.”
They’d done it! She couldn’t believe they’d actually done it.
A frantic scurrying sound from above, followed by a sharp “ouch” from Roger, put an end to her celebration. A moment later, Roger shot out of the tree and was quickly followed by a brown creature about the size of a cat with a bushy tail. Apparently, their log was already occupied—by a pine marten!
She rolled out from under the log after Roger, praying that the men chasing them hadn’t heard. But one peek over the log quashed that particular fantasy.
“There!” The young warrior shouted from about forty yards away. “There they are.”
Panic shot through her. Grabbing Roger’s hand, she started toward the woodland ahead. “Run!”
Racing over the uneven terrain, she had to release her nephew’s hand so she wouldn’t take him down the hillside with her if she slipped. It was also clear that she was slowing him down.
The footsteps behind them were closing in. Whatever chance they’d had of escape had disappeared with one angry pine marten, but she had to at least try. “The rocks,” she gasped, already breathing heavily. “Hurry.”
Roger shot off. Rather than follow after him, she stopped, hoping to slow their pursuers enough to give her nephew time to hide. She hadn’t anticipated the man right on her heels. He lunged for her, catapulting them both back into the dirt and mud.
She cried out from the force of the ground slamming against her back, and then, an instant later, from the big, solid leather-clad slab of granite that landed on top of her—theverybig and very solid slab of granite.
The air was knocked out of her lungs with a hard jolt. She couldn’t breathe. But in that stunned moment her gaze locked on that of her captor’s, and she felt an altogether different kind of jolt. One of recognition.
She gasped with all the air she had left in her lungs. Dear God, itwashim! Robbie Boyd. The Scot she’d released from prison all those years ago. The handsome, strapping young rebel who’d so captured her young girl’s heart. She was certain of it. Even from a tower window, the strong lines of his face had been burned indelibly on her consciousness. His dark hair was shorter, and his eyes were blue, not brown as she’d assumed from his dark coloring, but God in heaven it was him.
Her heart leapt. In that one instant of recognition, all the youthful fantasies came rushing back to her in a crashing romantic wave. If she’d secretly dreamed of meeting him again, it seemed her dreams had come true. “It’s you,” she whispered.
The softly spoken words seemed to break the strange spell that had momentarily entranced them both. Recognition was clearly one-sided. His gaze hardened and his mouth pulled into a tight, angry line. Suddenly, the veil of her memories cleared, revealing not the young warrior of her memories but the cold, merciless man before her now.
The romantic wave crashed, taking her heart to the ground with it.
If she’d ever doubted the stories she’d heard of Robbie Boyd, one look told her they were all true. He appeared every inch the ruthless enforcer. Every inch one of the most feared men in England. Every inch the black-hearted devil who’d laid scourge across the Borders.
He’d changed. She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he looked even more imposing. The distinctive height and muscular build was the same, but six years of war had honed it to a razor-sharp edge, erasing any vestiges of youth. There was a hardness, a solidness, an imperviousness to him that hadn’t been there before. He looked like a man who did nothing but fight.
His features were the same, though she would no longer call him handsome. It was far too gentle and civilized a word. And there was nothing gentle or civilized about the terrifying-looking barbarian staring down at her. From the bone-chilling ice-blue gaze to the line of dark stubble that shadowed his blunt jaw, he exuded wild and untamed menace. Fiercely good-looking—perhaps that was more apropos.
He was older than she’d initially thought—probably close to Cliff’s two and thirty—and he wore the years of battle in every line and scar on his face. And in the fierceness of his expression. It was as if every bit of good humor had been leached out of him.
Her eyes slid to the mouth that was hovering only inches above hers. It seemed impossible to believe that the wide, sensual lips that had so briefly touched hers in her first kiss could have become fixed in such a cold, hard line.
But she did remember, and in spite of the circumstances, a flush of awareness ran through her. A flush that turned to a full-fledged shudder as she became aware of the intimacy of their embrace, especially the part of him that was wedged between her legs.
Over the years of battle, Robbie had been hit on the head a few times by a war hammer. The stunned, discombobulated, slightly dazed feeling was about the same as when he first saw the face of the woman beneath him.
“Beautiful” seemed too pedestrian a word for the masterful perfection of her delicate features. Big, dark-green eyes framed by long, feathery lashes, porcelain-white skin as flawless and powdery as freshly fallen snow, high cheekbones tinged a delicate shade of pink, a slight, straight nose, a softly pointed chin, and a mouth so cherry-red and sweet it took everything he had not to taste it.
Long, wavy tresses of softly spun silk were splayed out in a golden halo behind her head. He’d never made a poetical allusion in his life, but this woman could inspire even the most prosaic of men to think of angels and goddesses descending from the heavens.
When their eyes met, he actually startled. The force of the connection had all the subtlety of a lightning rod prodding at the base of his spine.
There was something about the way she was looking at him that made him feel as if she knew him. But hers was a face he would have remembered, even in the crowds of women who thronged around him at the Highland Games.
Then she spoke, and he was reminded why he didn’t know her: she was English.
His head cleared just enough to make him aware of other things. Such as the warm softness of the body underneath him, the fullness of the breasts crushed against his chest, and most significantly, the opportune placement of his cock nestled in that sweet little juncture between her legs.
Ah hell.Now that he was thinking about it, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. How good it felt. How good she felt under him. How it had been over a week since he’d had a woman.
The wave of desire that hit him was so hot, so powerful, so intense that it took him aback. It rushed up between his legs, lengthening a part of him that was far too big to hide.
