From Chapter One:
Jeannie didn’t think. She heard the crack of a twig behind her, the
sound of a footstep, and reacted.
Instead of grabbing the sark, her fingers closed around the cold brass
handle of her puffer pistol. She murmured a silent prayer of thanks for
the foresight she’d had to leave it primed.
She swung around, leveling the gun in the direction of the noise. All she
could see was the gigantic shadow of a man so tall and heavily muscled he
made her heart jolt in a moment of sheer panic.
She’d learned only too recently the extent of her vulnerability at
the hands of the Mackintosh scourge who’d tried to abduct her. She
was strong, but even the strongest woman was no match physically for a fierce
Highland warrior—and this one certainly qualified.
He started to say something, but she didn’t give him a chance. She
wouldn’t be taken again. Squeezing the trigger, she heard the wheel
lock click, smelled the burning, and then a few seconds afterward, the kick
of the blast sent her stumbling back.
The brigand let out a vile curse and slid to his knees, cradling his stomach.
Her recent instruction paid off, her aim true.
He had his head down, but vaguely it occurred to her that his clothing
was far too fine to be that of a brigand.
“A knife in the back wasn’t enough?” he groaned. “You’ve
decided to finish the job?”
Every muscle, every fiber, every nerve ending curled on end—an instinctive
reaction of self-protection. The rich, deep sound of his voice resonated,
probing the farthest reaches of her memory. In the dark forgotten place
she’d locked away forever.
The blood drained from face, from her body. Her heart constricted with
a dull throb.
It couldn’t be.
Her eyes shot to his face, taking in the hard square jaw rough with dark
stubble, the wavy jet-black hair, the firm nose and wide mouth. Handsome.
But hard—too hard. It couldn’t be him. Then she looked at the
eyes beneath the steel of his knapscall. Crystal clear, as blue as the summer
sky, they bored into her with an intense familiarity that could not be denied.
Her chest tightened to the point of burning. She couldn’t breathe.
The shock was such that she could have been seeing a ghost. But this was
no ghost. The prodigal son had returned. Duncan Dubh Campbell had finally
come home.
For one ludicrous moment her heart leapt and she stepped forward. “You
came back!” she cried before she could call the words back, all the
hope of the innocent young girl who didn’t want to believe that she’d
been deserted by the man she loved in her voice. At one time, she would
have given anything to see his face again.
At one time. She jerked back.
That was before he’d broken her heart. Before he’d taken her
innocence, promised to marry her, and left her without a word. Before she’d
sat by the window for days on end, staring at the horizon, praying with
every fiber of her being for him to come back to her—for him to believe
in her . . . in them. Before she’d wept and wept until every last
bit of love for him had been purged from her soul.
Her heart twisted as the memories came flooding back. Not one word for
ten years. Only the first had hurt. The other nine had been spent alternating
between hatred and self-recrimination.
Duncan Campbell was the last man she ever wanted to see again.
Many times she’d dreamed of putting a lead ball in his stomach, she’d
just never thought it would actually happen. Her first instinct was to rush
and help him, but she forced herself not to move. Once she thought she’d
known him better than anyone else in the world, but this man was a stranger
to her.
Her mouth fell in a tight line, refusing to think about the blood rushing
between his fingers as he tried to staunch the bleeding that flowed into
a crimson pool at his side. He wouldn’t die . . . would he?
She shook off the fear and found her voice. “What do you want?”
Despite the pallor of his skin, his gaze burned as his eyes slid over her,
lingering on her breasts and between her legs.
All of the sudden she realized why. Dear lord, she was naked.
Her cheeks burned more with anger than with embarrassment as she quickly
yanked a dry sark over her head. Eager to shield herself from his eyes,
she left the kirtle in the pile and grabbed the plaid she’d brought
to lie on, wrapping it around her in a makeshift arisaidh.
“Still fond of swimming, I see,” he said.
She flinched, not missing the heavy sarcasm in his voice at the pointed
reminder of a night she longed to forget. Anger burst inside her. After
all he’d done to her, how dare he taunt her with memories of her naïve
foolishness. Her fingers tightened around the pistol she still held in her
hand. Were it re-loaded, she just might shoot him again. Her gaze met his
just as intently and she smiled coldly. “And you’re still a
bastard.”
She caught the glint in his blue-eyed gaze and knew her barb had struck.
If Duncan Dubh—aptly named, though it should be for his black heart
and not his hair—had a weak point in the steely armor that surrounded
him, it was the nature of his birth.
He covered his reaction so quickly, if she didn’t know what to look
for she did she might have missed it. But they knew well how to hurt one
other, that skill had been honed to perfection years ago.
The smile that curve his mouth was about as warm as the icy mountaintops
of the Cairngorms that surrounded them in the dark of winter. “Some
things never change,” he said matter-of-factly.
But he had.
She stared into the face that was at once heartbreakingly familiar and
completely different. The youth had become a man. If anything, the passage
of time had only served to make him more attractive—something she
would have thought impossible. The black hair and blue eyes had always been
a striking combination, but with age his boyish features had become more
sharply defined and chiseled. He wore his hair shorter now—the soft
waves that had fallen to his jaw had been cropped to just past his ears.
The deeply tanned skin had been weathered by the elements and nicked by
war, yet it only served to make him more brutally masculine—imposing,
almost dangerous.
Despite his undeniable appeal, nothing stirred inside her. Looking at him
she didn’t feel anything. He’d killed what was between them
long ago.
“We don’t have much time,” he said. “The shot will
have been heard.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe
you shot me.”
He was trying not to show how much pain he was in and his mouth was quirked,
revealing the dimple in his left cheek. She sucked in her breath, stunned
by the aching familiarity. By the reminder. Her heart pounded in a hard
panic as the force of everything she had to lose by his return came crashing
down on her. “Why are you here, Duncan?”
“I came back to prove my innocence.” He looked at her. “I
need your help.”
He held his face impassive, but she knew how much those words had cost
him.
“Why would I help you? I thought I betrayed you?” She couldn’t
keep the twinge of bitterness from her voice.
Nothing flickered on his expression. “And I thought you claimed otherwise?” he
challenged.
He sagged backward, falling from his knees to the ground, but she made
no move toward him. Any compassion she might have felt for shooting him
paled beside the danger his return could bring. He’d nearly destroyed
her once before, he would never have the opportunity to do so again.
And now it wasn’t just her life at stake.
Her eyes narrowed. “Now you wish to listen to me?” She laughed
harshly. “You are ten years too late for that. You should never have
come back, Duncan, the only thing waiting for you is a noose. And I’ll
be happy to help them put it around your neck myself.”
