Read Online Zealot by Donna Lettow - Free Book Online Page A

pinned MacLeod’s hand beneath hers when he tried to reach for his fork. “Tell me
     about Duncan MacLeod.” Stubborn she was, indeed.
    “Not much to tell, really. I own a small barge on the Quai de la Tournelle. Cold in the winter, but you can’t beat the view.
     I run a dojo back in the States. I like to read. I like to run.” He gave her a little self-deprecating grin. “I’m really rather
     boring, when you get right down to it.”
    “Yes, I know these things. You have a martial-arts studio that barely breaks even, you have no other visible means of support
     apart from dabbling a bit in antiques. And despite that, you always pay your taxes on time, and you give extremely generously
     to charities, especially those involving orphaned children. Your last traffic ticket was two years ago. You have no criminal
     record, yet your name seems to come up quite frequently as a witness in police records, which tells me you are a ‘do-gooder’
     with an overgrown curiosity.”
    MacLeod rolled his eyes. “Your Farid does good work.”
    “I asked him to. And while all that interests me, it still tells me nothing about Duncan MacLeod. Tell me how he feels, tell
     me how he thinks.”
    “He thinks your food is getting cold and you should eat it before the main course arrives,” MacLeod said, picking up his fork.
     He tore into his choucroute with great relish. “Otherwise, we may offend our host,” he continued between bites.
    Maral seemed to give in, taking a few dainty bites. Then she said, with studied casualness, “ ‘MacLeod’—your family is English,
     then?”
    “Scottish,” he corrected her through a mouthful.
    She took another careful bite. “Scottish, English, there’s not really a difference anymore, is there? I mean, after all, it
     all belongs to England now.”
    “There is too a difference,” he explained. “The Scots didn’t give up their identity just because the English took the land.
     There’s a lot of dead Scots who wouldn’t take kindly to being called English. A lot of live ones, too.” Then he realized he’d
     walked right into her web.
    Placing her elbows firmly on the table, Maral leaned across toward him and gave him a blistering smile. The light in her eyes
     was positively wicked. “Gotcha.”
    Humph. “If I’d known there would be a test, I would have studied,” he groused good-naturedly.
    “Call it a pop quiz,” she said. “You seem to know your genealogy, so tell me: How long had there been MacLeods tending their
     sheep in Scotland before the English came? Before some English lord suddenly owned all the sheep pastures just because some
     foreign king said so and made your ancestors tenants on their own land? How long, Duncan?” She could tell by the shadow that
     had come over his face that her words had somehow struck a chord deep within him. “And how long was it before your people
     sickened of being treated like animals and rose up against the English and demanded their rights?” She pressed her point.
     “And how many Scottish lives were lost over the centuries in their fight to keep their identity?”
    Her words
had
cut him to the bone. He who had buried generation after generation of young martyrs to the cause of Scotland. He who’d witnessed
     the trail of the dying, the mutilated, the violated left in the English wake. Even now, he could almost hear their voices
     begging him to help them. “Too many,” he said quietly, haunted.
    She did not relent. “Then think about this: Was Scotland’s William Wallace really that different than Yasser Arafat?”
    “It’s not that simple anymore.”
    “Isn’t it? One man’s terrorist is another man’s hero. Whether they fight for the freedom to raise sheep in the Highlands or
     the Golan Heights.” She reached across the table to grab him by the arm, almost blinding him with her intensity. “Hasn’t there
     ever been anything in your life so precious you were willing to fight for it?”
    How could she