Free The Reluctant Highland Groom by Marilyn Stonecross

 
     
    The Reluctant Highland Groom
     
     
     
    “ No one said ye had to marry her,” Ramsey said as he approached. “Yet.”
     
    Alec pretended to be engrossed in the task at hand—brushing down his horse Fingus for a fourth time.
     
    “ The beast willna have any skin left on his hide if ye keep scrubbing at him like that,” Ramsey caught his hand as it rose for another pass. Alec jerked it free and turned his back on his older brother.
     
    “ I know I doona have to marry her,” he said at last. “But Da promised, and it shames me to break his word. I’m not ready to face them yet.”
     
    “ Well, they’re here,” Ramsey said gruffly. “And ye canna hide in the stables for two days.”
     
    Alec mused that he might give it a hell of a try, but kept his mouth closed. Ramsey had enough to deal with—he didn’t need Alec acting like a petulant child.
     
    It was a silent standoff for a few more moments before he heard Ramsey let out a long sigh and left.
     
    Finally.
     
    Alec patted his horse ruefully on the shoulder. Ramsey had been on pins and needles ever since the McHugh emissary announced they would be paying the Munroes a visit. Ramsey had never presided over things like wedding arrangements or alliance-building, beyond a rather ineffectual friendship with de Montfort in England, and the McHughs’ arrival would be his first big test.
     
    Damn the McHughs.
     
    Alec let out a long breath he’d been holding on to and closed his eyes, leaning forward against the rough wood of the stable wall. It wasn’t the McHughs’ fault, really. Alec’s Da and the McHugh laird had been childhood friends and wanted nothing more than for their middle children to wed someday. Alec searched his memory for anything Cara McHugh. What he remembered was the fat little girl with a messy face and a constant frown. Time might have been kind, but he doubted it was a miracle worker.
     
    Beyond the unfortunate things he remembered of Cara, he wasn’t in any position to be taking on a wife. A family. That was Ramsey’s job, and he and Sabrina were doing a mighty fine job of it. Their boy Jamie had been born last summer, and by the looks of things, another baby would be born next year around harvest time. Ramsey was the family man and always had been. He and Sabrina were meant for each other, and Alec had watched his brother ride all the way to England to claim his beloved.
     
    Granted, the actions he’d taken to claim the lovely lass had gotten him outlawed—the deceased Lord Archer had important friends—but Ramsey had emerged the victor in the end. None of his English enemies dared cross into Scotland, and so long as Ramsey kept to himself in the Highlands, his would-be foes seemed glad enough to forget he existed.
     
    It left him conveniently free to raise his family.
     
    Things were different for Alec. Since their father’s death, he’d felt responsible for their younger brother Logan. Ramsey saw to keeping alive an entire clan, and Alec saw to it that Logan didn’t break his neck or fall into one of the Gunns’ traps.
     
    The Gunns. Yet another reason he’d never marry, and very nearly the reason Ramsey and Sabrina didn’t marry. His brother had loved the English lass since the Munro boys landed in England on the run, and had never forgotten her in the years since they left the de Montfort lands as men. But the Munroes were a people under siege, and innocent kinfolk died every day in this part of the Highlands. No man in his right mind would bring a bride into this and expect he could protect her and whatever children might come of it.
     
    But Ramsey had, and so far, he’d kept Sabrina not only alive, but blissfully happy, if the smiles on her face were any indication.
     
    Perhaps it would not be so terrible. Alec’s better angels whispered that he ought to at least give Cara McHugh a chance, that Ramsey would not force him to marry a rat-faced wench he could never love.
     
    But then again, Ramsey