Free MacLean's Passion: A Highland Pride Novel by Sharon Cullen Page B

“Maggie…”
    Maggie lifted her chin. She couldn’t discern the expression in Evan’s eyes, and that was almost as bad as knowing what he was thinking. “Ye need to release MacLean.”
    He dropped his hand and stared at her in surprise. “I
need
to release him?”
    She almost backed down at his soft voice. That softness meant he was barely holding on to an anger that could erupt at any time. But stupidly, she didn’t heed the warning in her head.
    “Ye need to.”
    “He molested ye,” he nearly yelled, making her flinch.
    So
that
was what Gilroy had told him? That MacLean had molested her? Oh, dear Lord. “He kissed me, ye dolt.”
    “That’s molesting ye!” She rolled her eyes and Evan pointed a shaking finger at her. “Do no’ be rolling those eyes at me, lass. Ye’re in a fine bit of trouble.”
    “I may be in trouble, but it’s no’ for kissing MacLean. He saved my life, Evan. Ye have to let him go. Please,” she added when it seemed he wouldn’t budge in his convictions.
    “Gilroy saw ye.”
    “Of course Gilroy saw us. How else would ye know that MacLean was kissing me?”
    “Gilroy said he was molesting ye.” Evan’s tone seemed a little less sure, but he wasn’t backing down yet.
    “Gilroy is an ass.”
    “I’ve told ye before, stop cursing like that.”
    “Why?”
    “Because it’s no’ ladylike.”
    She threw her arms out to the sides. “Have ye looked at me? I’ve never been ladylike. I’ve always cussed and sworn and wore breeches.”
    His jaw worked and she held her breath, waiting for what he would say next. It seemed they were always at odds lately. She’d blamed Innis but she wasn’t entirely sure she could put this one at Innis’s feet.
    “I raised ye wrong, Maggie. I see that now. Our mother would be appalled if she saw ye, and I’d be embarrassed if she knew ye dressed and acted this way.”
    Hurt and humiliated, she was shocked into silence. Though she and Evan had not seen eye to eye, never had he said anything this cutting. “I’m sorry if I embarrass ye,” she said through a throat that was threatening to close up.
    Maggie had been the fifth child born of Marion and Matthew Sinclair. The three between Maggie and Evan died, two at childbirth and one of a breathing sickness when he was four years old. Their father lived five more years after his wife’s death, but Evan always said that Matthew Sinclair was never the same after that. Evan was fifteen when their father passed, Maggie five.
    Evan knew nothing about raising little girls. She’d had nannies who had tried to make her more civilized, but Maggie loved her brother and would escape to find him wherever he may be. Eventually, she became his shadow. If he trained, she trained. If he wore breeches, she wore breeches. And that seemed to be well and good until now.
    Now she was an embarrassment not only to him but to their dead mother as well.
    “Ye don’ embarrass me,” he said wearily. “But it’s far past time ye start acting like what ye are.”
    “And what am I?”
    “A woman.”
    “I do no’ want to act like a woman.”
    “Well, ye must,” he said in exasperation. “What will ye do for the rest of yer life? Do ye think to keep running away to fight in battles? My God, Maggie, do ye know how worried I was when I found out ye went to Culloden?”
    His voice cracked, and whatever Maggie was about to say dried up in her throat. She saw now what her absence had done to him. There were worry lines around his eyes. He looked older, more worn. Defeated. Had she done that to him by being reckless and running away when she should have stayed and argued?
    “I’m sorry I ran away,” she said weakly. “But I felt I had no other choice.”
    “I’m sorry ye felt that way, but marrying is no’ a death sentence.”
    So he hadn’t reversed his decision, as she’d hoped. Her absence hadn’t changed anything other than making her more determined not to marry. How the hell was she supposed to go from