She stiffened. “I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“Nay,” she said, twisting her hands in the fabric of her brat. “I mean I can’t go back there.”
“Whyever not?”
“Because I’ve already left a note saying that I ran off with you.”
Two
By his face, Nora could tell she had just uttered the most horrific words imaginable to the man. His skin tone was a strange, mottled mixture of fury, disgust and disbelief.
“What the hell do you mean you left a note?”
Judging by the wrathful gleam in his eyes, she had most definitely said the wrong thing.
Suddenly, Nora was terrified and that didn’t happen often. Indeed, her father oft said she had been born without a single fear in her body.
But right now, her heart hammered with panic at the sight of his barely leashed wrath. Ewan MacAllister was no small man and she had no idea just how dangerous he might prove when riled.
“I had no choice.” She prayed she could offset his temper.
“Woman, we all have choices.” Ewan came off the bed and winced as if a fierce pain had shot through his head.
Nora gasped and spun about to give him her back, even though a tiny, wicked part of her wanted to stare at all that lush strength and tawny skin.
He was truly a fierce man.
She could hear him cursing and grabbing his clothes, then pulling them on, all the while she felt his glower. It was hot, powerful and terrifying, and it set her to trembling.
“How could you have done such a lack-witted, cursed thing?” he snarled. “Whatever got into your mind to pick me to say you ran off with?”
Because she’d had no other choice.
“Please,” she said, her voice soft and pleading. “I can’t marry Ryan MacAren. He is egotistical and arrogant. He smells of bad hygiene and eggs--he likes to eat raw eggs which is a disgusting habit to say the least and now that I think on it, it is probably his most endearing one. I would sooner die than wed him.”
Ewan growled again. “The last time a woman said those words to me, I believed her and it caused a feud for my clan that resulted in the deaths of untold men and women on both sides of it. It cost my brother his life and his soul. Now I ask you, why should I give a witch’s damn about your feelings when I don’t even know you at all?”
Nora was baffled by his words. “Someone else ran from Ryan MacAren and caused a feud?”
He came around her to glare. A vein throbbed in his temple as he narrowed his eyes. “Are you trying to anger me more?”
“I’m not trying to anger you at all. I am trying to gain your help. I can pay you, if that’s your concern.”
“I have no need of your money.”
Ewan had never in his life met a woman like her. How dare she come here and ask him such a thing.
Surely she had no more sense than a leek pea. What kind of woman would traipse alone into a man’s home and ask him, a total stranger, to lead her astray of her parents?
And as he stared at her, he wondered just how much like Isobail she really was.
Just how far would she go to gain his help...
He gave her a hot, lustful once over. “Is there anything else you would offer me?”
She gasped then raked a repugnant stare over him that duplicated his own. There was no guile or artifice about her. She was truly offended by his question.
