He sighed again and ran his hand through his hair, leaving it ruffled around his shoulders. Usually he wore it clubbed back, but today it fell about his face in raven waves. He’d left Achnasheen too quickly to worry about tying it back, she guessed.
Her fingers curled in Kelpie's mane as she fought the urge to reach out and touch his hair. She knew how cool and soft it was. After days of battling the Mackinnon at close quarters,
she was far too familiar with how it felt to touch him. The firm, smooth skin. The hard, capable hands.
The knuckles on the hard, capable hand he laced through Kelpie's bridle were white with tension. "I've changed."
The stark words crashed down between them, sharp and wounding as a mighty claymore. She swallowed to moisten a mouth that went dry with dread and crippling anguish. "Ye dinnae want to wed me?"
He made a low growl deep in his throat and swung away, releasing Kelpie who shifted with an uneasy whicker. The tension flaring between the humans on this bare brae upset the horse.
Mhairi tightened her grip on Kelpie’s mane to keep her balance and stared at those rigid shoulders in front of her. It was plain to see how tightly he held himself.
Her mouth went even drier as she contemplated the magnificent sight he made, wearing only his kilt and with his black hair loose down his ruler-straight bare back. Away from that perceptive dark gaze, she was free to feast her eyes on this superb example of the male animal.
She'd always thought Black Callum handsome, right from the very first when his handsomeness hadn’t stopped her from wanting to kill him. When had those good looks started to intrigue instead of threaten?
"Mackinnon?" she said when he didn't answer.
He still didn’t answer.
She shifted clumsily, clinging to the saddle with her good hand. With her arm in a sling, negotiating her way off this oversized beast was no simple thing. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't stifle a whimper as an unwise stretch jarred her wounded arm.
Black Callum whipped around and covered the distance between them in a couple of strides. "What the devil are ye doing, ye daft female?"
His hand closed around her waist. His touch conveyed neither tenderness nor desire, but despite that, it blasted through her like a clap of thunder. When he set her on her feet and released her, she missed that touch the moment it left her.
"I'm trying to talk to ye," she said.
"Why?" he asked in angry bewilderment. "Shouldn't ye instead be dancing with joy to ken that you're going back to your kin? You've just spent half the night trying to get away from me. God’s blood, you wanted to get away from me since the moment I snatched ye. You're bloody contrary to want to stop and have a wee discussion about my decision now."
Mhairi had to agree. By heaven, she understood his impatience. Her reaction made no sense.
She planted her feet firmly on the ground – ground that still belonged to the Mackinnons – and faced him down. "Ye dare to call me contrary? What happened to the laddie who locked me up and who slung me over his shoulder and who defied my father to send an army to Achnasheen if he wants to get me back?"
A grimace contracted the Mackinnon’s face, and his hands clenched at his sides. He looked tormented and desperately unhappy.
His voice emerged low and anguished. "Mhairi, I vowed nae harm would come to ye, and circumstances have turned me into a foul liar. You've suffered injury in my care. It’s clear I cannae keep ye safe at Achnasheen."
Speechless, she stared at him. With a shaking hand, she reached out to hold onto Kelpie's saddle. Otherwise her knees threatened to fold beneath her. "So you’re setting me free?"
"Aye," he said, the single word as heavy as lead.
"What about ending the feud?" she asked, bewildered.
He swung away as if he could no longer bear to look at her. "Right now I couldnae give a rat's arse about the feud." Then his belligerence faded, and he almost sounded like the man she knew. "No, that's no’ true. But it turns out ye were right all along."
She regarded him doubtfully. At this precise instant, she could think of very little she'd been right about. "In what sense?"
He still didn't look at her. "I was an arrogant fool to imagine that peace could come out of an act of war. Kidnapping ye was a damned idiotic thing to do, especially when…"
"Especially when what?" she asked after he broke off.
Mhairi released the saddle and stood tall. She had a feeling that Black Callum wasn't the only fool standing on this mountainside that overlooked the boundary between Mackinnon and Drummond lands.
He faced her. He looked strained and stricken. He looked like he sacrificed his dearest dreams on a reckless gamble he'd never win.
Was she his dearest dream?