Read Online Much Ado About Highlanders (The Scottish Relic Trilogy) by May McGoldrick - Free Book Online Page A

work.”
    Kenna was surprised to see the hilt of the dagger stretch toward her. She paused in taking it, searching his face for any sign of a trick.
    “James might have had the best of intentions, but there’s danger here.”
    She took the weapon and tucked it in her belt. Limping into the woods, she realized this was the first time he’d trusted her.
    Kenna tried to not place too much importance on it. Right now she needed privacy, which she found under a tree close to the river.
    The two of them left alone. What was everyone thinking? What did they hope to accomplish? That all their past trouble would just vanish? Alexander and Kenna couldn’t string two sentences together without fighting.
    She stood up and shook out her skirts. The dream she’d had wouldn’t leave her. And what if she did somehow clamp her mouth shut? Cut back on insults that seemed to come so naturally when she spoke with him?
    Remembering Alexander’s weight on her made Kenna’s heart race, even now. She wasn’t immune to his looks or to the way he had with women. He knew exactly what to do, what to touch, how to make her skin tingle and have her breaths catch in her chest. And he’d returned her dirk.
    She touched her mane of hair and cringed at the thought of how bad she must look. No better than a fairy woman, the
Bean Nighe
even. A nightmarish sight, to be sure. Her wild hair. Her ruined dress. All she was missing was webbed feet, a great tooth protruding from her mouth, and breasts hanging to her knees.
    Kenna walked to the river and stepped out onto some rocks. The surging waters ran deep and fast all around her. The current was too strong. She leaned down and washed her hands and face. The sane decision would be for Kenna to walk back in the direction they’d come. She could take shelter in some crofter’s cottage while Alexander moved north. His brother and the men would come back for him once they had the ship.
    A movement across the river caught her attention. More than a half dozen men emerged from the trees at the water’s edge. They carried bows and English halberds. All were armed with short swords. She crouched low on the rocks. Perhaps they wouldn’t see her.
    She was wrong.
    “We can ford up stream,” one of them shouted in English, moving quickly upriver. The rest followed on his heels.
    Her first thought was to warn Alexander. There was no way the two of them could fight off so many.
    She stood up and turned to see him coming toward her.
    “Kenna.”
    She recognized the urgency in Alexander’s hushed voice. He must have seen them, too.
    “Go. Run,” she told him. His fate would be much worse than hers, she imagined. With her bad ankle, she would only slow him down.
    “We go together,” he said, lifting her by the waist and plunging them both into the rushing current.

    Gold and revenge. They were the only things that gave a man real pleasure. And, of course, a good fire.
    Sitting on horseback beside Sir Ralph, Donald Maxwell felt, even at this distance, the heat of the flames rising above the roof of the burning tower house. He breathed in the smell of scorched wood and thatch and flesh.
    He’d gotten back to Evers too late to take part in this raid, but what he had learned was worth three days of hard riding.
    “The healer was the wife of Magnus MacKay, a laird far to the north.” Maxwell turned in his saddle and nodded toward the blue mountains in the distance. “She’s the one Cairns told you about. She had a carved stone, and it passed on to her daughter Kenna when the lass
married the son of the Macpherson laird, half a year since.”
    “Where is she now?”
    “I sent a raiding party to bring her back. The lass has been in a priory—”
    “I don’t care where she’s been or who she’s married to. I want the stone.”
    “My men know what you want. They’ll bring it.”
    “Where is she now?” Evers asked again.
    “Near Oban.”
    “Good. Send word to them. They’re to come back with the stone