But that was where the similarities between the two men ended. Patrick had had little reason to smile in the sixteen years since he’d witnessed their parents’ deaths and been forced to take up the mantle of chieftain to a persecuted clan. But Niall on the other hand… Niall did nothing but smile. A wicked, cocksure smile that lit the blue in his eyes with a silvery twinkle and made her feel as if she’d just stepped out into the bright sunlight every time he looked at her.
Even that first time when she was ten and he’d come up behind her after she’d punched that horrid Torquil MacNeil in the nose for trying to kiss her.
“Now, that’s the lass for me,” Niall had said, breaking out into peals of laughter.
His words had seemed prophetic. They were perfect together. And in the dozens of times they’d met since then, she’d never had cause to doubt it. It was in the way he looked at her. The way the light jumped into his eyes. The way their gazes would catch and hold and something pure and powerful would pass between them. It happened every time.
Except this time.
This time when he looked at her the broad smile that had been on his face held for one long instant and fell. It slid from his eyes and took the twinkle—and the feel of sunlight—along with it in a hard crash of disappointment. He turned away so quickly to talk to the man beside him—his brother Malcolm, she realized—that the ground under her feet seemed to shift and roll. She felt unsteady. As if she were still standing on the planks of thebirlinnshe’d just gotten off of and bracing herself against the violent pitch of the sea.
His reaction was so unexpected—and so instantaneous—that she almost wondered whether he’d seen her.
But he had.
Annie’s unfailing confidence where Niall Lamont was concerned dimmed. But not for long. Not when she noticed her brother’s fearsome gaze in Niall’s direction.
That was it! Her blasted brother was the reason for Niall’s reaction. Annie knew the two men had had words last time she’d seen Niall. Patrick had discovered them in the barn together. They weren’t doing anything, but he’d ordered her to leave and said something to Niall that had sent him running off with Iain with barely a goodbye.
She’d had to corner him to get that.
“I’m sorry, Annie. I can’t do this. It isn’t right.”
She didn’t understand what he was talking about. “What isn’t right?”
He wouldn’t look at her. He seemed pained somehow. “You’re too young; you don’t understand.”
She’d gotten angry then. Those were her brother’s words. “I’m seven and ten.”
He smiled at that, and the sun came out again. “Practically an old woman.” He laughed, but then quickly sobered. “People might get the wrong impression of us spending time together. They may think…” He seemed embarrassed. “They may think badly of you.”
“Why? We aren’t doing anything wrong.” Much to her disappointment. “And youlikespending time with me.”
He didn’t deny it. How could he? Niall loved her every bit as much as she loved him. Everyone knew it. He’d always made a point to seek her out. He talked to her in a way he didn’t talk to anyone else. Told her things. Confided in her. Trusted her. There was an intimacy between them that went beyond friendship and compatibility.
“Then what’s the problem?” she asked. “Why do you care what everyone thinks?”
She didn’t care. The women who gossiped about her were just jealous.
He looked at her, shook his head, and laughed. “You’re impossible to argue with.”
“Good,” she said with a lift of her chin. “Then don’t. You can kiss me goodbye instead.”
His face darkened ominously. Anyone who thought Niall only carefree and good-natured had never seen him get angry. He could turn terrifying in an instant. But all that male intimidation was lost on her. Niall would never hurt her. He would protect her with his life. “Annie… you have to stop saying that.”
“Why?”
“Because you make it hard for me to do the right thing.”
“It isn’t right to kiss me?”
He looked down at her, and the fierce expression on his face—the longing, the desire, the nearly palpable hunger—made her think he’d finally relent. That he’d finally give in to the attraction that had been building between them for years.
The air seemed to be sucked out of the space between them, and every inch of her skin was humming. She felt a crackle that sent sparks of heat racing through her blood as he leaned closer…
“No, damn it,” he said, more to himself than to her, and jerked back. “Not when you are so young. You aren’t even eighteen, for Christ’s sake.”
It took Annie a moment for her senses to clear from the almost kiss to manage a reply. “I won’t be seventeen forever,” she told him.
