All the people she’d lost.
All the time she’d wasted.
Trapped here in this godforsaken castle while the world went on without her.
She’d mourned her mother, her father, her brother, her cousins. Their bones had withered and turned to dust while she was roaming the empty halls of Blackmoore, searching for a way out. But therewasno way out. There was no end.
Unless…
She dug her thumb into the second knuckle of her index finger and felt a responding pinprick of pain. But how many more days did she have left before there was nothing there? Nothing but the memory of what a touch used to feel like.
“Give me yer hand,” she said abruptly.
“Me hand?” His brow furrowed. “What do ye want with it?”
“I’m not going tae cut if off, if that’s what ye’re asking,” she said impatiently. “I dinna save ye from the cliffs just tae start hacking off yer limbs now.”
Hair fell across his temple in a wave of auburn as he gave a bemused shake of his head. “Bluidy hell, ye’re a peculiar one.”
Ye have no idea.
“Yer hand, Callum Campbell. I havena all day.”
“Ye can just call me Callum, if ye’d like,” he said before he warily held out his arm, revealing a rough, callus-covered palm that had seen its fair share of hard work. “Or Campbell. Ye dinna have tae use me entire name.”
“I like saying it. Callum Campbell rolls of the tongue quite pleasantly.” The remnants of butterflies danced in her belly as she slowly, slowly placed her smaller hand on top of his larger one and sealed their palms together by sliding her fingers between his.
For an instant, there was nothing.
How she’d come tohatethe nothing.
And then…in a flash of lightning…there was everything.
Everything she’d missed.
Everything she’d yearned for.
Everything she’d feared that she would never feel again.
Except this was evenbetterthan before. Better than any of the lukewarm affection that she’d experienced with Hugh. This was heat and flame. Passion and hope. The sun bursting through the clouds after a terrible storm and the first bloom of heather after a cold winter.
And she wasn’t the only one that felt it.
“What the devil?” Callum breathed, his blue eyes stark against a face that had suddenly gone pale. His gaze went to her mouth, lingered for the span of a heartbeat, then rose. Desire burned in his pupils; a banked fire ready to ignite. “What is this? What…what areye?”
“Lost,” she said softly. “I’m lost, Callum Campbell. Willna ye come find me?”
Breaking free of his grasp, she spun on her heel and ran for the castle.
Chapter Four
Callum followed her.Of course, he followed her. Cursing, and a tad more wobbly on his feet than he cared to admit, he chased after Mara as she fled like a cat around the side of the keep and into an overgrown courtyard guarded by a towering hedgerow of wild roses.
Their sweet scent invaded his nostrils as he ran. Through the tall grass, up a set of wide stone steps cracked straight through the middle, and into a looming foyer decorated in old, faded tapestries and furniture coated in dust.
“Wait!” he shouted hoarsely at her retreating frame, but she didn’t heed his command.
Pausing only to kick off her ankle-high boots, she raced nimbly up a set of spiral stairs and disappeared through a doorway that slammed shut in her wake.
