Free Highland Brides 03 - On Bended Knee by Tanya Anne Crosby

pain once more.
    A streak of black flew across her vision, drawing her attention. My Love appeared from the brush and sat watching her from a safe distance.
    Seana frowned at the sight of the cat.
    “Go away,” she grumbled. “Go back to where you came from, ye ungrateful beast!”
    My Love mewed at her, the sound a heartfelt grievance, and simply stared with yellow eyes that glimmered in the twilight of the forest.
    Seana refused to acknowledge her further. Let her stay where she sat. If the bloody cat did not like her, well and good! The feeling was mutual! She had more important things to worry about just now.
    Like winning Broc’s attention.
    Seana had no notion how to accomplish it now if Colin would not help her.
    Did one simply walk up and pledge one’s love? Or did one bat one’s eyes until they went daft or blind and her lashes fell out?
    What was the best way to gain a man’s favor?
    Would he think her silly if she preened before him? Or would he never notice her if she did not?
    Was the way to his heart through his belly? Or mayhap she should simply get him drunk with her father’s spirits and drag him before an altar…
    The thought made her chuckle.
    Like she could drag the gentle giant anywhere. Och, but if she had less conscience she might just get him drunk and lay with him and play upon his sense of honor. But she could not.
    Unfortunately, neither did she have the first inkling how to proceed from here. She had no one to ask such things—and she had no peers to watch them woo each other. She was completely at a loss as to what to do.
    But Colin Mac Brodie knew.
    Wretched man.
    He knew Broc and he certainly knew about women. She ought to hound him wherever he went and spy upon his every conquest—he was certain to make at least one a day!
    My Love sat before her, as though taunting her, watching through canny golden eyes, and Seana’s attention returned to the rotten beast. Her black fur seemed so soft, shining even at this distance. Despite Seana’s professed dislike for the animal and My Love’s skittishness toward her, she moved toward the cat, slowly, intending to pet it. Surely if it came to see her so oft, it must have some small affection for her?
    She got as far as halfway before My Love mewed a protest and darted away into the brush. Seana muttered an oath beneath her breath, and sighed.
    “Brat cat!” she called after it.
    Sad case it was, she thought, when not even the bloody cat wanted her company!
    She sat and pouted.
    She was not going to spend the rest of her life alone, by God! Her da would not live forever—he was hardly a healthy man—and while she certainly enjoyed her solitude, she craved a human touch. Companionship. She was not going to give up on Broc!
    She couldn’t walk away so easily.
    Colin had refused her once. What was the worst he could do, but refuse her again?
    Persistence was the key to success, was it not?
    That’s what her father had said when he’d worked to perfect his recipe—even after his first attempts had choked the breath from him and left him sputtering flames.
    Aye, she decided, and resolved to try again. Even Colin Mac Brodie was not made of stone. He was flesh and blood and had a heart that beat within that oversized chest of his. Seana intended to appeal to it.
     

     
    “Please!” she beseeched him.
    By God, Colin wasn’t made of stone!
    He was flesh and blood man, with a man’s desires, and unlike his brother Gavin, he had no aspirations to sainthood.
    The brazen wench stood before him now, completely oblivious to the temptation she offered. She’d barged in upon his bath, demanding to speak with him, and Colin hadn’t gotten a word in edgewise to warn her of his present mood.
    He was hungry.
    Ravenous.
    Despite who she was, or what she claimed to want from him, he was aroused by her… unlike he’d ever been before in his life. Whether it was her aloofness toward him that fired him, he couldn’t say, but he was hard as stone