Page 58 of His Stubborn Mate

I reached for the small block of soap Sevren had traded for months ago, scented faintly with roses. Cataline opened one eye.

“You own soap that smells of roses?”

I made a show of sniffing it. “My younger brother Sevren is our clan’s trader, which is why he’s rarely here.”

One of her dark brows twitched. “That does not answer my question.”

“What? Ye think a braw warrior such as me doesnae wish to smell of roses occasionally?

Cataline snorted, but her lips were curled with humor. With a satisfied one-shoulder shrug, she presented her back to me once more.

I rubbed the soap between my palms, then washed her shoulders, arms, and the back of her neck before carefully working my fingers through her hair. There had been a time when touching Cataline’s bare skin meant something entirely different, and my body remembered it well enough, but that was not what she needed from me today.

Today, thank the gods, she allowed me care for her. My Kteer hummed at her trust.

After a while she opened her eyes and looked across the steaming pool.

“I nearly did not come here. You must think me ridiculous.”

“Nay. Stubborn, aye. But no’ ridiculous.”

She turned her head. “You complain about my stubbornness constantly.”

“A male can admire something and still find it inconvenient.”

That earned a laugh, and I smiled as I worked my thumbs down either side of her spine.

“Besides, yer stubbornness has served ye well.”

She made a doubtful sound, and I felt my hackles rise that she didn’t believe me. So ‘twas my responsibility to make her understand.

“Ye kept Ewan fed and alive through a summer alone. Ye taught a wee lad to split kindling because ye planned for the day ye might need his help. Ye refused John when refusing him cost ye nearly everything, because ye knew what accepting him would cost later. Then ye survived months in that croft, birthed Edan with snow around us, and spent the journey afterward insisting ye could walk when ye could barely stand.”

“I could stand.”

That’s what she took away from my lecture? I felt the chuckles rising in my chest, and I bodily lifted her from her stone bench and turned her so she could sit across my knees, resting against my chest.

“Love,” I murmured against the top of her head, “my point is that yer stubbornness kept ye alive. It kept Ewan alive. It stopped John from frightening ye into giving him what he wanted.”