My voice shakes as I ask, “Did you say come up? Up there?”
“I did indeed.” He swings his legs over and scampers down the ladder, fast and effortless, skipping the last several rungs.
He lands beside me with a softthud, a whisper of heat at my side.
With a flourish, he gestures back up to the loft. “After you, Rosie-love.”
Chapter
Twenty-Six
The moment I touch the ladder, I freeze. The wood feels brittle, like it might crumble beneath my fingers. “This thing’s about to collapse.”
“Then you’re lucky.”
I shoot him an incredulous look. “How do you figure?”
He steps closer, voice soft but certain. “Because I’m here to catch you.” His raised brows suggest this should be obvious.
But that sort of thing isn’t obvious. Not to me.
I let the words settle between us. They sounded playful enough, but the glint in his eyes tells me they were anything but meaningless.
“Go on,” he murmurs, more serious now. He reaches around to unclasp and remove my cloak, heavy with damp, and hangs it from a hook beside a nearby stall. “I’d not let you were it not safe.”
Then he steps right up behind me, close enough that the heat of him presses against my back. His hand finds mywaist, firm and steady. He leans in, his breath warm against my neck. “I’ve got you.”
The thing is, I believe him.
Somehow I’m able to put one hand up, then a foot, then another hand, but just as I reach the top and am feeling pretty good about myself, I get tangled in my stupid dress. Mumbling an excuse, I try to kick my legs free, but there’s so much fabric and it’s so heavy. I’m starting to panic…then Callum’s hands are on my hips.
“Don’t.” I shoot a look down at him, and nerves jangle up the backs of my legs when I see how far the ground is. “You’ll fall.”
“No one’s falling.”
“How are you holding on?”
With an encouraging smile, he bobs an elbow, showing how he’s hooked it around the ladder to steady himself. “Ready?” he asks, and before I can answer, he hoists me up and over the edge. By the time I roll to my feet, he’s right beside me, standing slightly hunched beneath the low, pitched ceiling.
“Thanks,” I manage. Heat lingers where he touched me, his handprints seared onto my body. I’m buzzing, like my blood is fizzing with carbonation, like maybe Iamfalling, only it has nothing to do with gravity.
Needing a moment to gather myself, I pretend to be fascinated with the surroundings.
Then I am fascinated by the surroundings.
This is Callum’s world.
A quiet, hidden place. His nest. His refuge. It’s mesmerizingly simple. There’s a thin mattress whose lumps suggest it’s stuffed with hay—or heather, I realize with a pang. Twoblankets are stretched over it, and they’re rumpled, like he was just lying down.
The thought hums through me. I can’t help myself from picturing it: that big body, stretched out right there, inches from where I am now.
I look away. My gaze lands on his sword, carefully laid out, parallel to the mattress. There’s his sporran. A water skin. And beside that, a linen square with a hunk of bread and some cheese.
I must make a pathetic noise, because Callum laughs.
“Fancy a bit of cheese, do you?” He plops onto his bed like it’s no big deal—because it isn’t, this is no big deal—and he scoops up the napkin and holds the whole thing out to me. “Come on then. I can see you’re fair famished. Please, take it.”
His expression is grimly serious. If I ran into this guy in a dark alley in New York, I’d be terrified…if not for the piece of hay sticking adorably from his hair.
