The Chief (Highland Guard #1)(91)

But no matter how skilled a warrior or how cooperative he appeared, Tor did not trust him. MacRuairi was like a sleeping snake waiting to strike. He had a mercenary heart; his only loyalty was to himself. He could never fully become part of a team. So why had he agreed to fight for Bruce? Money? Revenge? A death wish, or a complicated plan to go out in a blaze of glory?

Tor could read most men, but MacRuairi was an utterly impenetrable hole of blackness. Maybe that’s what bothered him. It was hard to understand your enemy—brother, he reminded himself—when you didn’t know what motivated him.

Where the hell was he?

Tor’s uncharacteristic impatience did not stem solely from the cold or even from the desire to best MacRuairi, but from the desire to finish the job he’d set out to do so that he could return to Dunvegan. Not to his castle, but to his wife.

Damnation, he missed her. He couldn’t stop seeing her face. Even high in the rocky peaks of the mighty Cuillin she haunted him. Maybe it was the very desolation of his surroundings—the harsh, bitter isolation—that made him think of her. She was warmth and light to a man who’d been living in a barren wasteland for too long. Hell, he was starting to sound like one of those bard’s tales she loved.

Reaching the top of the narrow ridge just below the summit, he scanned the mountain again in the fading daylight, catching sight of Campbell opposite him, who’d climbed the “easier” route up the great stone shoot. Tor motioned with hand signals to check the other side of the peak before heading down, making sure there wasn’t an opening they’d missed.

He wasn’t looking forward to another night on this mountain, but time was running out. It would be dark soon.

Christina would be sitting by the fire with her needlework …

He had to stop this. He couldn’t focus. His thoughts kept shifting back to his wife. She had him all twisted up in uncertain knots. He couldn’t stop replaying in his mind the scene in the solar with her before he’d left. Her excitement. His initial shock over her learning, and then the fear that made him lash out in anger when he learned she’d read his private correspondence. He couldn’t shake the memories of her crestfallen expression and her hurt, tear-filled eyes.

For some reason the accounts were important to her and his reaction had disappointed her—badly. Fear had made him react harshly. He realized it now. Misguided though it might have been, she’d only been trying to help him. She’d been so eager to surprise him, and all he’d been able to think about was how her attempt to help might put her in danger.

Worse, he’d been too damned close to telling her why. And if he’d stayed, he knew he might have done so. Restraint. Resistance. It seemed he had neither when it came to his lovely wife. The spurious good-bye kiss had proved that well enough.

Under his skin? Hell, she was in his blood—his bones— and he didn’t know what to do about it. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to turn into just as big of a fool as his brother—acting on emotion, and not on what was best for the clan. What kind of leader would he be to dance to a woman’s whims.

It was almost dark by the time he started back down. Not concentrating as he should, he took an ill-placed step, causing his foot to slide out from under him and sending a slab of ice tumbling down the steep hillside below him, setting off a small avalanche of rock and snow. He caught his balance without difficulty but berated himself for the lapse. He’d better focus on what he was doing or he was going to end up dead.

Then he saw it.

At the base of the steep cliff below him, perhaps five hundred feet straight down, nearly buried by the snow, was the carcass of a deer. Not in the corrie as it should be if it had fallen to its death, but on a narrow ridge.

That’s how MacRuairi had done it. The mini-avalanche had uncovered his hiding place.

Tor’s blood heated with the rush of the hunter who’d finally sighted his prey. With a burst of renewed energy, he made his way swiftly down. There was just enough light to navigate.

Nearing a narrow scree ledge, he slowed his step, landing each footfall with care, all of his senses honed on his surroundings.

He was about halfway along when disaster struck.

The ground gave way beneath his foot. He slipped. His body slammed hard on the rock, face first, and he began to slide over the ledge. He fought to grab onto something, but the snow and rock fell along with him as he careened sharply toward the edge of the cliff.

He was going too fast. Wind roared in his ears. He clawed with his hands and kicked with his feet. Momentum was starting to take him backward into the air when he slammed into a jagged rock, slowing him down just enough to dig his fingers into a crack in the rock face.

He kicked at the wall, finding nothing for his feet to latch on to. Heart racing, he tried to pull himself up, but it was useless. The sheer wall of rock and ice gave no mercy.

He was dangling by his fingertips at a dead hang, his body battered by the fall and weighed down by the pack and heavy cache of weapons strapped to his back. He dare not let go his grip to attempt to release them, or to reach the rope he had tied to his side—if he moved, he was dead.

Which, unless he found a miracle, was probably how he was going to end up in a few minutes anyway.

His fingers were slipping. The leather gauntlets he wore were as slick as the skin of an eel, providing little traction.

With as little movement as possible, he turned his head in the direction he’d last seen Campbell. He shouted out in the darkness, hearing only the dull echo of his own voice reverberating in his ears.