Page 14 of The Laird’s Sinful Obsession

Even in the dark, even at that angle, he could see the particular expression that crossed her face. The one that meant she was about to argue with him and had already worked out several of her best points.

"Barra," she said. "That's days away."

"Aye. And Torquil willnae expect it. He's watching every road north because he assumes we'll try tae get ye home. He's nae watching the sea routes south." He kept his voice even. Calm and certain, the way he'd learned to sound when giving orders in the dark before a fight. "Ye'll be under me protection. Ye'll be safe."

"Calum…"

"Is in England. He cannae help ye taenight." He said it plainly, because it was plain and because she needed to hear it. "By the time he's back, this will be sorted. But right now ye need tae trust me."

"I dinnae like this."

"Neither dae I." And that, at least, was entirely true.

She was quiet for a moment. He waited, giving her the space to come to it herself rather than pressing.

She was Calum's sister. She had the same stubbornness, the same instinct to meet a wall head-on rather than route around it and pushing her rarely achieved anything except a longer argument.

"And if I refuse?" she asked.

Despite everything, he felt something ease slightly at that. She was still herself. Whatever Torquil had put her through in the last hour hadn't taken that.

"Then I'll put ye back on this horse and take ye anyway," he said, "because I'm nae lettin' Torquil get another chance at ye, and that's exactly what will happen if we stay here arguing."

"Ye cannae just say that."

"Fight me all ye want, Alba." He lowered his voice, not threatening, just final. "But ye're comin' with me. That's the end of it."

She held his gaze in the dark for a moment. Then she faced forward.

"Fine," she said. "But Calum will hear about this."

"Good. He can thank me when he daes." He turned the horse west, away from the roads, away from the torches, toward the rougher country and the hidden ways he'd ridden since he was sixteen. "Hold tight. The path gets narrow."

She leaned back slightly as they picked up speed, settling her weight against him with a pragmatism that had nothing sentimental about it.

Simply a woman who was exhausted and cold and had decided that falling off a horse was a worse outcome than accepting the support available.

He tightened his arm around her and didn't say anything about it.

The hours passed.

He kept them moving steadily, watching the treeline, reading the land by memory and instinct.

The paths he took were not on any map. He'd learned them young, had ridden them in the dark before, knew where the ground was soft and where the rock held firm and where a horse could push to a canter without risk.

She didn't complain. Not once. She asked one practical question about direction in the second hour, and after that was quiet, her head dropping gradually until it rested against his shoulder.

He noticed but did not remark on it, and kept his eyes on the path ahead, and tried not to think about the fact that Calum MacKinnon's sister was asleep against his shoulder.

That some part of him, the part he'd been managing very carefully for longer than he wanted to examine, found the weight of her there entirely natural.

That was Torquil's fault. The attack, the night, the proximity. It was the circumstances making everything feel weighted with significance it didn't have.

He told himself that for the better part of an hour.

The sun was beginning its descent toward the horizon when the cove appeared below them, the water catching the last of the orange light, the familiar dark wood of his boat tied at the far dock.

"There," he said.