His voice softened. "Especially when ye were so much more than I could ever have expected."
"Bonny Mhairi Drummond," she said with a hint of rancor.
One elegant hand swept through the air, dismissing her words. "Aye, you're bonny. Bonnier than a beautiful spring morning. But a pretty face alone could never break my heart."
His words shuddered through her, left her staggering. Mhairi licked her lips and forced herself to respond in a steady voice. She couldn't take the chance of getting anything wrong. There could be no possibility of misunderstandings. These next few minutes promised to be the most important in her life.
"I didnae ken hearts were involved." Her voice sounded rusty, as if she hadn't used it in a long time.
"Of course ye do." He frowned at her. "I called ye the bride of my heart yesterday. Do ye no’ remember?"
She did. "I assumed that was just rhetoric."
"Rhetoric!" He stared at her as if she'd lost her mind. As if he feared he had as well. "I'll show ye rhetoric."
Before she could think to move, he caught her face between his hands and held her still for a desperate kiss that told her so much more about his feelings than his chaotic explanations had so far managed.
She'd never been kissed before. Nothing prepared her for the spreading heat or the way his lips claimed ownership over her whole body. Shock held her paralyzed in his grasp, before wild rapture like lightning zapped through her.
At last, she moved her lips under his. He made an incoherent sound of encouragement and shifted closer.
Wanting him closer still, she reached to draw him nearer. Lost in this extraordinary kiss, she forgot her injured arm. She couldn’t muffle a whimper of pain.
Abruptly she was free and Callum was standing a couple of feet away. He stared at her with the same fierce despair that, despite her inexperience, she'd tasted in his kiss.
"I'm sure ye want to kill me for that piece of…rhetoric." He snarled the last word as if it was a curse.
She stayed where she was, studying him and trying to make sense of what happened between them. Her good hand rose to touch lips that still tingled from that ferocious kiss.
"No’ right now," she said softly. She squared her shoulders. "You've only known me a few days. How can ye claim to love me?"
Because that must be what he was saying. She couldn’t have got that wrong.
His shrug conveyed every ounce of his frustrated desire and self-loathing. "I fell in love with ye that first night when ye played that trick on me and ran away. How the devil could I no’?"
"How the devil could ye?" she retorted. "I was horrible to you."
"Ye were enchanting."
That sparked a snort of disdain. "You're insane."
"Aye. That’s true enough. Or at least it has been since the day I laid eyes on a troublesome redheaded lassie whose lips promise passion and whose eyes flash hatred."
"No’ always," she admitted, but he was too sunk in misery to listen.
"From the moment I saw ye, I wanted to make you mine. You're the woman for me, Mhairi, and it's my own damned fault that I'm the last man you'll ever take as a husband. I wish to Hades I'd never laid eyes on ye."
She flinched at that. He sounded like he hated her.
"Do ye mean that?" she asked shakily. "It doesnae sound verra loving."
"How the hell do ye expect me to sound?" He made another of those slashing gestures. "I'll spend the rest of my life eating my heart out for a woman who would happily see me dead."
Hearts again. Interesting. "That might have been true at first. It’s no’ true now."
He bit back a jagged groan. He suffered from such a fit of self-hatred, she didn’t think he even heard her reluctant admission. He might be a man of his word, but she was also a woman of hers. She couldn’t help cringing to recall how she’d sworn black and blue that she’d loathe him to her last breath.
"Ye should be delighted with what’s happened. Because of ye, the Drummonds have won their final victory over the Mackinnons."