Bound by Wish and Mistletoe (Highland Legends #1.5)(12)
Robert moved close behind her, his amazing heat penetrating through her cloak and dress. “Do you feel it?”
“Feel what?” she asked.
“Close your eyes, lass. Somethin’ comes our way.” Robert took a step ahead of her, physically shielding her from whatever approached.
She closed her eyes, uncertain what he meant. Cold flakes of snow hit her cheeks, but a distinct heat weighed heavy in the pit of her stomach. An ember deep inside glowed hotter, and she clutched at her belly.
Susanna recognized the sensation, only she’d never felt it from a great distance before. The wind carried a message only those attuned to the vibration could hear...and they all understood its meaning.
“My father,” she whispered.
Robert had been right about something coming, and yet, a force greater than any of the men realized was at work. More than a simple feeling reverberated through her belly and seeped into her bones. Susanna opened her eyes. On the horizon, from a thick mist that hovered low to the ground, dark figures emerged. But they faded from her awareness as an epiphany sharpened into focus.
She’d escaped a threatening past, seeking to seize a secure future, but among three warriors who’d vowed to protect her—even against her tenacious will—every part of her snapped to life. Her perception had twisted from total independence to oneness...with others.
A surprising inner warrior emerged. She moved from behind Robert and stood tall beside him. Unarmed, yet unafraid for the first time since Robert had captured her, they now shared a common goal.
“All I feel is an enemy’s arrogance.” She kept her eyes trained on the growing shapes that galloped toward them. “However, I feel far less welcomin’ to their breach of your clan lands than you were to me.”
Robert glanced at her. “Ah, lass, you’ve no idea how pleased I am to hear those words.”
Power emanated outward from Duncan and Seamus, from Robert...and from her. A trio of warriors and a petite woman stood strong against an unpredictable and obsessed enemy.
Susanna had never felt more secure.
CHAPTER FIVE
Brodie Castle—Thirteenth Century
Isobel struggled with the heavy oak chair, puffing an unruly lock of hair out of her face. With the toe of her favorite Brooks Brothers calfskin boots, she literally shooed away the growling wolfhound that staked his territory. The ornery beast gave her another inch. She took two with a final shove, making him move. Breathless, she leaned over the back of the chair, pleased that she’d made headway with the hearth’s sitting area...and the dogs.
“Isa!” The growled shout of her name echoed through the great hall.
She smiled, looking up at her beloved Iain. Flames from the hearth glinted off strands of copper in his dark-brown hair, but it was his hazel eyes that sparked with fire.
“I strictly forbid you to move the furniture!”
She smiled at his stern expression and stood, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him passionately. His severe countenance softened under the assault of her lips, and she nipped at the corners of his mouth with playful butterfly kisses.
“You strictly forbid?” she teased. “You know I want to bring Christmas here. If you won’t help, I’ll do it myself,” she said.
“Not at the risk of my bairns, you won’t.” He moved his hands forward and cradled her swollen belly. “Doona test me further, Isa. I’ll chain you if you push me.”
Mischievous thoughts flickered through her mind. “Promise?”
Iain growled and smacked her ass. “Behave, woman.”
Isobel planted her hands on her hips and lifted her chin, arching her brows in stubbornness. Iain knew well from repeated experience, his woman did not take kindly to orders. Or restrictions...
Iain stared at her for exactly fifteen seconds—she counted. On a labored sigh, he relented, the last of the angry furrows in his forehead relaxing. “Where would you like the chairs?”
She smiled triumphantly. That rumbling deep voice in his tantalizing brogue never failed to melt her heart.
She puffed the wavy lock from her lips again, but tucked it behind her ear when it failed to obey. “Over in a tighter arrangement to one side of the hearth.” She pointed to the area she had in mind. “Robert promised to bring me back a tree, and I want there to be plenty of room.”
Iain hoisted the mammoth carved oak chairs off the ground like they were nothing more than inflated beach balls. Powerful forearms flexed and released beneath the rolled cuffs of his linen shirt as she pointed and he placed, positioning them into an open but intimate sitting area for easy conversation.
“Robert’s bringin’ you a tree? Why not Uilleam? He’s our woodcutter.”
She hesitated, weighing Iain’s inevitable reaction to her disobedience. Evasion tactics always failed with him, and she refused to lie, so she took a slow, deep breath, hoping to soften the blow with reasoning before admitting her transgression. “Iain, you know the personal nature of a Christmas tree, and our clan has never had one before. We’ve never had one. It had to be just right. So...I scouted one out.” She sucked in another deep breath, desperate for oxygen in her baby-cramped lungs after blurting out her explanation all at once.
Iain froze in place, his back to her. He held the last of the two-ton chairs in midair, looking as if Michelangelo had carved an ad for a medieval furniture store.