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“He hasna awoken, but he’s no’ feverish.” Her eyelashes fluttered, and her mouth trembled. She was trying so hard to be brave. “I have ye to thank for savin’ his life, I’m told. He’s all I have left. My only laddie still livin’—”

Her ragged voice caught on a sob, and tears flooded her kind eyes as her face crumpled.

Kendra came swiftly to her side. After placing her cup on the bedside table, she kneeled beside the distraught woman and took Mrs. McGregor’s free hand between hers.

“He’s a braw, strong man. Too mulish and stubborn to die from a measly little poke to his shoulder. Ye wait and see, Mrs. McGregor, he’ll be up, swaggerin’ about in nae time.”

“I dinna swagger,” came a raspy, barely audible male voice.

“Och,” cried Mrs. McGregor, swiftly placing her cup on the nightstand and leaning forward to grasp Broden’s hand. “Ye gave me a terrible fright, ye did.”

She blinked rapidly, trying to dispel the moisture in her eyes as she beamed at him, her love for her son shining on her face.

The dark arcs of his eyelashes fluttered, and he opened his eyes, looking first to his mother and then Kendra. His hooded gaze took in her night robe and the plait draped across her right shoulder.

A flash of awareness zipped across the room, an almost physical connection, yet they weren’t touching. Did he feel the current, too? The pulsating, magnetic pull?

Utterly implausible. Wholly indescribable.

And, she very much suspected, completely life-altering.

In that instant, the heavens shifted, and her world upended.

Kendra knew, beyond a doubt, that things would never be the same between them.

“Thank ye, Kendra.” He lifted his hand, palm upward, reaching for her hand.

She bit her lower lip.

It wasn’t appropriate to hold his hand, especially attired only in her night clothing. But he was an invalid, and his mother was present to assure no impropriety.

Sidling around the bed, she pondered this unexpected change in him. Was it simply because he was, quite literally, flat on his back, weak as a newborn calf, and had nearly lost his life?

Or was something else at work here?

No. It must be gratitude. People often behaved differently when direly ill.

She imagined if he’d saved her life, she’d be grateful, too.

As she slipped her hand in his, and he curled his fingers around hers, his touch singeing her so that she nearly gasped, Kendra pondered the warmth and surprising strength. And what was that gleam in his brandy-colored eyes?

“I’m glad ye are recoverin’ Broden,” she said softly. “Ye’ve been asleep for hours.”

I’ve been worried about ye.

That she could not say aloud.

His mother finished her milk, her earlier despair having evaporated.

The punch had done its job. Excellent.

If only Kendra might’ve finished her cup, her nerves wouldn’t be humming with tension and uncertainty at this moment. She felt wound tighter than a top. Or a corkscrew. Or any number of other things wound around and around until they were tightly coiled.

“Are ye hungry, Broden?” Mrs. McGregor asked as she straightened the perfectly tidy linens, pulling them a trifle higher over the delectable ridges spanning his torso. She, too, must have realized how inappropriate it was for Kendra to see his unclothed state.

“Aye.” He still didn’t relinquish her hand, even after his mother’s pointed look.

Mrs. McGregor’s right eyebrow arched high, and her attention fixed on Kendra, giving her a look quite similar to the one her mother had given her earlier.

A flush swept her, and for some unfathomable reason, Broden chuckled then winced and glanced at his bandage.

She very much suspected Broden and his mother shared a secret she wasn’t privy to.