Her words trailed off as her head lolled over and her knees buckled beneath her, her body crumpling down.
“Bollocks!” Malcolm dove forward to catch her before she hit the ground, lifting her once again into his arms.
Behind him, Patrick snorted. “I said it before, did I no? Plain and simple. This one’s trouble.”
Settling onto his mount, his new charge in his arms, Malcolm shook his head in denial.
Not about the trouble part. Though Patrick always claimed that of any woman in his path, he could very well be right about trouble this time. But there was nothing either plain or simple about this woman. And even if she weren’t the trouble his brother claimed, neither was she the delicate flower he’d earlier imagined. In fact, if he were to compare her to any flower at the moment, it would have to be one with thorns.
He rubbed a hand absently over the throb in his jaw.
Sharp, prickly thorns, with a temper to match.
Nine
DANI AWOKE FROMthe nightmare, acutely aware of the chill in her room.
Damn.
The mind was certainly a powerful thing. That bizarre dream had felt so real, her hand actually hurt as if she had really slammed her fist into someone’s face.
Not that she couldn’t figure out why her subconscious would conjure up a scenario like men on horseback taking her captive. After all, she’d spent her evening fending off that octopus-handed, wannabe cowboy, Clay Carter. So much for the horses and captive part.
She pulled the heavy coverlet up and snuggled down in the big bed, thankful her alarm hadn’t screamed at her yet. Just a few more minutes to savor bits and pieces of the dream. No matter how foolish it might be, a part of her wished some of that dream had been real.
Or maybe it was only the man she’d dreamed up whom she wished had been real.
It took no effort at all to re-create him in her mind’s eye. Ol’ Steely Jaw had been something to look at, all right, though if she was going to start regularly making up Scottish warriors to dream about, maybe it was time to give up reading so many of those Highland romances.
Or time to go buy some more.
She smiled to herself, thinking once more of the man. How her imagination had managed to create something as wonderful as him when she’d gone to bed thinking about that poop Clay was beyond her.
Wait.
The night before flickered through her mind like a grainy movie. She hadn’t been thinking of Clay when she’d gone to bed. In fact, she couldn’t actually remember going to bed. The last thing she remembered was standing in that Faerie Circle she’d built.
Dani tossed the covers off as she pushed up to sit. The light in the room came not from the streetlamps out in the parking lot but from the glow of burning wood in a fireplace across the room from where she huddled.
A fireplace that hadn’t been there when she’d gone to sleep.
She held her breath, listening for any sound of the big rigs that came and went all through the night. Nothing. No sound at all but the crackling of the wood fire in a fireplace she didn’t have.
This can’t be real.
She denied her surroundings even as she crawled to the side of the bed and pushed away what appeared to be heavy curtains to peer down at the distance to the floor. Swinging her legs over the side, she dropped, a move she instantly regretted when her feet hit the cold stones.
Who in their right mind had cold freakin’ floors like this, anyway? Even when she was a kid back on the farm they’d had scatter rugs on their old wood floors.
She hugged her arms tight around her middle, realizing as she did that what she was wearing was nothing she’d ever owned. It was a thick, long-sleeved, shapeless shift that just hung from her shoulders, so long it trailed on the floor.
Not that she was going to complain about it right now. It was a good bit warmer than the gauzy summer dress she remembered having on. At least, the last time she remembered anything at all.
This can’t be real.
The room was big. Big enough, anyway, that the corners were swathed in dark. The kind of dark that could easily hide any number of unpleasant surprises for someone with an overactive imagination.
A ledge to the side of the fireplace held an unlit candle, which seemed a prudent item to get her hands on at the moment. A little more light would be welcome. Not that her imagination was overacting or anything.
