Read Online Morna's Legacy 04 - Love Beyond Measure by Bethany Claire - Free Book Online

floor, arms and legs spread wide.
    Eoghanan laughed loudly. Although I kept myself on the floor, folding in one arm to shield my eyes, I could imagine his body shaking from the effort of it. As I listened to him step forward to help, I held up my other hand to stop him. “Wait. Go get a towel or something.”
    With the only injured party being my big toe, I pushed myself up to stand and turned right into Eoghanan’s approaching chest as he grabbed both my arms to steady me. With hesitation, I glanced downward and exhaled loudly in relief at finding him wrapped in a towel.
    I didn’t need to see him naked again. I’d not been on a date since before Cooper was born…or made for that matter, and the sight of that too perfect body left me quite hot and bothered.
    “What was yer name again, lass? I doona think it can be Grace. ’Tis no verra fitting.”
    I laughed. He couldn’t have been more right. “Yeah, it never has been very fitting. Why did you scream? And who showers with the door open?”
    Reluctantly, I tore my gaze away from his chiseled chest and looked up to see his face contorting with embarrassment.
    “I dinna expect ye to walk into me bedchamber, and I dinna scream. I doona scream, lass.”
    I rolled my eyes—typical man. “That was a scream if I’ve ever heard one.”
    “No,” he released me, but reached up and thumbed my nose gently with his thumb and the corner of his forefinger. The gesture was playful, and I smiled as he moved back toward the bathroom. “Will ye help me with these beastly…,” he hesitated, “ye call them knobs, aye?”
    I nodded, my brows pulled in. He baffled me. How could a grown man, seemingly containing all his mental faculties, know so little?
    I needn’t say anything for him to see how odd I thought the question. “I told ye, lass. I dinna grow up amongst such things. I nearly melted me skin off trying to run the water.”
    “Alright.” I stepped into the cramped bathroom with him, reaching down past him to fiddle with the shower knobs. “Just exactly where did you grow up? Did you wear a butt-flap and swing from the trees while being raised by monkeys?” He certainly had the physique to be a type of Tarzan.
    Eoghanan shook his head, testing the water temperature with his fingers. “No, I doona think I’ve ever seen a monkey. Thank ye, the water feels much better.”
    He tugged at the corner of his towel, and I knew it was time to take my leave. That, or just jump right in with him. Appealing as the idea was, I thought it not the most ladylike of ideas.
    “Good. I’ll leave you to it then.” I stopped walking just as he started to close the bathroom door, my own grumbling stomach reminding me of my manners. “Have you eaten anything in a while? I thought I’d go round up something for myself. I’ll bring you up something, if you’d like.”
    I could just see his face in the doorway, and I couldn’t help but think how likely it was that his towel had dropped already. “Aye, I’d love that, lass.”
    Smiling, he shut the door to me. Taking a breath to regain some sense of composure, I went down to the kitchen.

    *

    I spent the entire length of our salted cracker lunch apologizing at regular intervals for our lack of food choices. “You’re going to be starving by dinner. I truly am sorry. It’s as if she cooks her meals with magic. Seriously, I don’t understand it. She’s always cooking, but she has nothing in her cupboards. It’s…” I truly had no word for it, “astonishing.”
    “Grace,” he reached out and squeezed my hand, holding it long enough to quicken my pulse. “If ye apologize once more, I willna eat another bite. ’Tis no yer job, nor Morna’s, to see me fed.” Winking, he popped another cracker into his mouth.
    I watched him eat, observing him closely. He lifted every cracker with his left hand, leaving his right arm hanging at his side. He did such a good job of compensating with his left arm that I’d not noticed how