He pushed her away. “So yedolie.”
“I willna stand here and let ye whip me with mean words, Adam. I’ve had enough of that to last two lifetimes. Aye, I care for ye. No one could deny that. But I’ll no’ have ye control me life and make me choices for me. Me sisters are a legitimate reason to return home. And nothing to diminish because ye are jealous of that fact.”
“Maybe I am,” he admitted. “Or perhaps I have grown tired of everyone around me—me sire, me clan, and the expectations put upon me. Then there’s ye… Ye refuse to listen to reason, to find another way to get everything ye want and more.”
“Did ye argue with yer sire again?” Her voice softened the slightest bit.
“Aye.”
“Then this has nothing to do with me, does it?”
“It has everything to do with ye, I told ye that already. Listen to me, lass. Ye are going to stay here with me. We’ll eventually marry. Yer sisters can live here…”
“Nay. Ye doona get to command me like I’m one of yer soldiers. And is that how ye tell a woman ye want to marry her? By demanding it? I thought men asked for the hand of the woman they wanted, even in the Highlands.”
“Nay, lass. Not all the time. Sometimes we steal a woman in the middle of the night…”
“Ye mean kidnap?”
“Call it what ye will.” He shrugged, gazing long and hard at her. Then he lunged at her, and not surprisingly, Kali ran away like a frightened doe.
Good, he had wanted to scare her away—to make her hate him. That way, their futures would be easier to live apart.
…
Unable to keep to herself the next day, Kali sought Adam out, knowing they needed to make peace. She loved him, and he deserved to know that, no matter what their futures held. She found him in the woods again, near the same spot from which he had chased her away.
“Why are ye here, lass?” He looked up from where he was sitting on a boulder, the usual fire in his eyes gone. He flicked at the dirt with his fingers.
“I had hoped to find ye.”
“Why?”
“We were unfair to each other, Adam.”
“Aye, I was an ass. I deeply regret it, believe me.”
She moved closer to him, unsure what she could say to lift his spirits. Kali had never seen him so broken. “Tell me what I can do to help ye feel better.”
Once again, he gazed up at her and shrugged. “Wish that we both came from different places and had different names so we could freely be together.”
“Oh. Adam.” She kneeled beside him and caressed his unshaven cheek. “Can ye not see the truth?”
He nodded. “Clearer now than ever before, lass. What I want, what I need, is denied me.”
“If ye could stop feeling sorry for yerself, ye’d realize I have something to tell ye.”
“I am listening.”
“Ye told me ye loved me.”
“I do.” That seemed to awaken something in him, for he sat up straight and took a deep breath. “Has something changed since yesterday?” He sounded hopeful.
It took her a moment to speak up again. “Only in me heart,” she said, “where no one can read me secrets.”
“Does that mean…”
Kali cupped his cheek, her touch light. “I love ye, Adam.”
