Free Highlander's Return: The Sinclair Brothers Trilogy, Bonus Novella (Book 2.5) by Emma Prince

and his chest—and
against his nose. He inhaled again, savoring her unique scent. She must use
rose infused soap on her hair, he thought idly as he wound a dark lock around
his index finger. But it was more than that. Something about her skin, her very
essence, intoxicated him, claimed him.
    She stirred, and he realized that a beam of morning
sunshine had filtered through the barn’s slats and now landed on her face.
    “Good morning, love,” he said, then kissed her hair.
    “Say that again.” She lifted her head so that she
could look up at his face.
    “Good morning?” he asked, intentionally innocent.
    She pursed her lips and lowered her brow at him in a
mock frown, but it didn’t have the desired effect of chastening him. Instead,
he chuckled at her beautiful pout.
    “Nay, you churl. The part about love,” she said,
cracking a smile.
    Suddenly his desire to tease her vanished. “Good
morning, my love . My Meredith.”
    Her dark brown eyes softened, and he felt his heart
squeeze. In the morning light, he could see that she was indeed paler than she
had been as a younger lass, and that the merry smattering of freckles that once
sprinkled her nose had faded. But her cheeks were the rosy pink of a well-loved
woman, and though her eyes held depths he still didn’t understand, there was a
contentedness in them now as well.
    Suddenly she frowned. “I hope Beth hasn’t come to my
bedchamber yet this morning. My absence, along with the ladder being down, will
send her into a panic.”
    She sat up, and the edge of her cloak, which he had
pulled over her shoulder in the night, slipped down. The golden light of
morning haloed her, softening her curves and making her skin glow.
    He must have been gawking like a green lad, for she
looked at his face quizzically, then glanced down at her naked body.
    “Nay, don’t be ashamed,” he said quickly when she
moved to cover herself. “You are so beautiful.”
    She smiled shyly at him, and if it were possible, he
loved her even more at that moment. Now was the time to speak what had been in
his heart for nearly ten years.
    “Meredith, will you make me the happiest man on
earth? Will you marry me?”
    Her eyes widened and her lips fell apart slightly.
He searched her face for a sign of her answer, and he saw both her deep love
for him and her fears, likely for those who still might threaten to destroy
their happiness.
    She took a deep breath. Just as she was about to
speak, the barn door was pulled back and sunshine flooded inside.
    Meredith’s breath turned into a gasp.
    “What the devil?” a male voice said loudly from the
doorway. Burke couldn’t quite make him out, backlit as he was, but the man,
drawing a horse behind him, could clearly see them in the loft at the back of
the barn.
    “Ansel!” Meredith said, shock and panic pinching her
voice.
    “Your brother?” Burke said to her as he fumbled in
the hay for his kilt and belt.
    “Aye, I’m her brother! Who the bloody hell are you?”
the man bellowed, dropping the reins of his horse and striding into the barn.
    “I am Burke Sinclair,” he began in as calm a voice
as he could muster as he fastened his kilt around his hips, “and I have come
to—”
    “ Sinclair? ” Burke’s eyes had adjusted enough
to see the fury clearly written on the face of the man whose sister he had just
slept with.
    “Aye, and I have been sent—”
    “You’ve been sent to dishonor my sister?” Ansel
reached the base of the ladder leading up to the loft, and his hand gripped the
great sword at his hip.
    “I have been sent by Laird Sinclair to discuss a
resolution of tensions between our clans,” Burke went on levelly, though his
teeth were beginning to clench.
    “And you think the best way to open a peace talk is
to bed my sister?”
    “Ansel, please, hear us out!” Meredith said. She had
quickly pulled her discarded chemise over her head, and covered herself further
with her cloak.
    Ansel rounded on her. “I left Dunrobin