Which was exactly what Angus hoped for. With Colin reluctant, Angus could pursue Shona without fear of reprisal. He might not be laird, but he also could not appear to be attempting to cuckold the man who’d beaten him out of the job, as much as he might enjoy doing exactly that.
Angus snorted. He’d better turn his attention to the men moving the next beam into position on the ground. They were nearly ready for him and the other men, perched like ungainly birds on a limb, to haul it up and into place.
Bairns, too young to assist in any of the rebuilding stayed wide-eyed by their mothers, watching the men work. The task didn’t fascinate the lasses, he suspected, as much as the flex of arms, backs, and legs of the men wrestling beams into place. In the warm spring weather, most of the men had stripped off their shirts. When not busy with their chores, the lasses gathered in groups to watch and call out to their favorites. Angus enjoyed hearing their laughter—something that had been painfully absent for months over the winter as the clan struggled to recover. He’d wondered if someone should tell them to stop ogling and go back to their own tasks. Then he noticed the men tended to work harder and faster when the lasses were around, so he’d let them be.
It took but a moment for him to spot Shona standing off to one side. Her hair was a coppery beacon in the sunlight. Though she worked with the other lasses, helping to fetch and carry, she seemed to spend a lot of time just watching. The way her hand moved now and again made Angus think she crossed herself and clenched her fists out of anxiety over the men she watched. Had she been bound for a convent before the invaders destroyed her village? That might explain her reaction to his advances when they first met. Then again, so might the amount of ale and whisky he’d consumed. If things didn’t work out with her, he’d never forgive himself. Losing the election was bad enough. Losing a chance at a future with such a beautiful lass might turn out to be worse. Nonetheless, he welcomed her concern for the men on the beams, especially if it meant he enjoyed her attention, too.
Angus used the scaffolding to make his way to the hall’s more finished end and retrieve his shirt from where it draped over a beam they’d hauled up yesterday. He dried the sweat from his face and neck with it while he studied the lass. His new vantage point gave him a better angle to observe her as she looked toward one of the half-finished walls. He wanted to see her even better—and for her to see him. He climbed back up onto a beam and tried to catch her eye, but her attention never turned his way. Was she watching the stonemason? Or one of the men helping him? They, too, had stripped off their shirts while they hefted stone blocks into place in the ground-floor wall.
The muscles in his jaw flexed as he recalled the way she lowered her gaze if she saw him approaching her. He wasn’t bad looking. He’d always been considered a good catch. But, he was not the laird, and he hadn’t made the best first impression on her. Still, he didn’t understand it. His lass—and when had he started thinking of her as his lass?—seemed determined to avoid him. He ached to hear his name on her lips. Once, he’d called her over just to hear her voice. When she asked what she could do for him, the implied intimacy of those words tightened his groin, but he dared not act on the heat in his blood. He’d contented himself by requesting a drink of water.
He needed another excuse to talk to her.
Shona’s gaze suddenly locked with his. Her eyes pulled him into the mysteries of their rich depths, stilling his heart. For a moment, his balance slipped and he flung out an arm, heart racing, fighting for his footing. When he found it, he sucked in a breath, trying to slow his pounding pulse. He’d nearly fallen. The ground seemed farther away than ever. Shona’s gaze might be as deep as a loch, but it was also as deadly to him if he let it unsettle him again while he walked these beams. He stood for a moment, willing his clenched muscles to loosen.
When he looked her way again, Shona’s hands were gathered into fists in front of her chest. Had she seen him stumble and crossed herself? He appreciated her piety, but mostly he was glad she wasn’t bent over him, making the sign of the cross as his broken body breathed its last. Her lips lifted into something that was not quite a smile before she turned away. She did not look frightened by his wobble. She looked satisfied. Nay, such thinking was too fanciful by far. He didn’t know her well enough to read her expressions—certainly not while his heart still pounded.
He frowned. He’d let his attraction to the lass knock him, literally, off balance. He needed to pay attention to what he was doing and forget the lass, at least until he was back on solid ground.
“Are ye steady, Angus?” One of the men approached, stepping carefully along the beam above the twenty-foot drop.
“Aye,” Angus answered, waving him off. “I’m fine. Are we ready for the next, then?” He pivoted and studied the lashings his ground crew had finished. They tied off the last as he watched.
When he glanced again toward Shona, she was gone.
* * *
Shona moved out of Angus’s view and rested her back against a sun-warmed wall. Through a gap between two buildings, she could keep an eye on the men walking the roofing beams, but he could not see her. He’d nearly fallen! Her heart still pounded from watching Angus recover his footing, arms flailing, muscles bunching as he fought for balance. Suddenly, she regretted pushing him away yesterday and avoiding him since. If he’d fallen, she would never get to know him. There was more to this man than she’d expected that first day. More than a ready grin and broad, work-roughened hands that held hers gently, then gripped her shoulders when a gleam lit his dark eyes. The other women said he was a good man. Driven and protective of the clan, which sounded very much at odds with his earlier behavior. He’d been about to kiss her when she pushed him into that puddle of ale. So she was right to blame the whisky for his behavior. Suddenly, she dearly wanted to know what his kiss felt like…and what it might do to her.
She glanced over to where Colin and his closest advisors sat. Conferring, of course. Over whisky, no doubt. There’d be no dangerous, back-breaking work for them this day.
Seeing Colin reminded her she needed to avoid marriage with him—or any man—even Angus. She had too much to hide, and a husband would demand to know everything about her. Would control her. Would forbid her from using her ability, feeble though it was. Looking about her, she wished yet again for greater strength, for the ability tomovelarger, heavier burdens. If she had been able to, her village might have fared better. And it would be good to be useful here. For her ability to be accepted, even needed. She’d never attempted even so much as a man’s weight and couldn’t imagine what it would cost her tolifta wooden beam or stone block.
She watched Angus step across the gap from one beam to the next, praying for him to be careful. The other men lined up with him and picked up their ropes, ready to haul the next beam into position.
Shona tensed. She used her talent sparingly, helping as much as she could to lift their burdens with them. Just being vigilant, ready to prevent a fall, exhausted her. She had to notice someone on a beam was off balance in time to steady them without making them, or anyone watching, aware that the way they recovered their balance was out of the ordinary. At the same time, the men working on the walls needed her attention. They maneuvered heavy blocks of stone and other men climbed scaffolding. She couldn’t see them all at once, nor the bairns who strayed into danger underneath, where something might fall. She’d be glad when the men finished the hall and prayed they didn’t decide to add a tower house or, heaven forfend, a castle. People would soon start to remark on her apparent sloth. If only they knew what she did for them. Still, she much preferred to escape anyone’s notice.
Even Angus’s, despite how he fascinated her.
Once the men secured the beam, Angus called a halt for the midday meal, and Shona let her shoulders drop. With a weary chorus of profanity, the men climbed down and went in search of food.
She sighed, relieved to see all of them, not just Angus, back on the ground.
“Shona, come help us!” Christina called.
Shona joined the women handing out oat bread and venison stew. Suddenly her stomach rumbled, and she realized how many hours it had been since she’d broken her fast. Though she’d used her ability tomovethings only a little, doing so tended to make her hungry. Smelling the food, watching others eat, made her ravenous. It seemed hours before the line ended, and Angus stood before her.
“Is there any left for me?” he asked with a smile.
Shona gulped and lowered her gaze. That smile could melt any woman’s heart, even hers—especially hers. She dared not let it. She handed him a bowl, and let herself relax when he moved away without trying to talk to her. The women were finally filling bowls for themselves, and Shona did likewise.
Suddenly, Angus stood in front of her again. “Would ye join me?”
Shona’s breath caught in her chest. “I shouldna,” she replied with a glance at the other women. Christina was talking to another man, or Shona would have used her to escape being the focus of Angus’s attention. She lowered her head. She dared not meet his gaze or she’d be lost, unable to deny him.
“Ye would refuse a hard-working man?” His light and jesting tone didn’t fool Shona. She sensed a hint of command in his request, and saw the stiff set of his shoulders. Though sitting with Angus would make others notice her, making a scene by refusing him would be worse.
“Of course no’,milord.” She acquiesced with only a touch of sarcasm, picked up her bowl and took a step back from the serving table.
