Free A Fire Within (These Highland Hills, Book 3) by Kathleen Morgan Page B

"For all her headstrong ways, she's a good lass.
And it isn't her fault what happened to yer kin, or yer brother.
That's the work of men, not women."
    "Aye, well I know that," Dar replied, steadily meeting his gaze.
"And I give ye my word I'll treat her gently. Or, leastwise," he
added with a quirk of his lips, "as gently as she allows me. She's
going to be a handful, and well I know that too."
    He extracted a small packet from a pouch on his belt and tucked
it in Jamie's shoulder plaid. "Give that to yet chief. It'll explain
what must happen if he wants his sister back. We'll await him at
Dundarave. And no tricks or treachery. Just have him bring my brother-alive and well-and do so posthaste. I've no stomach for
this sort of thing, and wish it over and done with." Dar pushed to
his feet. "I'm sorry to leave ye two like this, but I need to buy time
before it's discovered what I've done. It can't be helped."

    Jamie sighed. "Nay, I suppose it can't. Nonetheless, this'll go
verra poorly for ye. Niall isn't the sort to take such an affront
lightly."
    "And what does it matter?" Dar shrugged. "Any way ye look
at it, we MacNaghtens are all dead men. As ye've already said,
I've naught to lose."
    He turned then and strode away. When he reached the horses,
Kenneth tossed him his mount's reins. Wordlessly, Dar threw
them over the animal's back. A second or two more and he had
leaped into the saddle.
    Reining the horse around, Dar pointed in a northeasterly
direction. "Let's be off then. We've miles of hard riding before
dark, and the further we are from Kilchurn by then, the better
for us."
    Caitlin chose that moment to try and fling herself backward off
the horse. Maintaining his seat with the pressure of his legs, Dar
all but lifted her in the air and, slipping an arm beneath, flipped
her over to sit beside him. Then, pulling her close, he signaled
the gelding forward. The big horse leaped out into a canter that
soon quickened to an all-out run.
    "Ye were right, ye know," he said, releasing his tight grip on
her a bit.
    "Wh-what?" came her muffled reply as she shoved back a bit
from his chest to glower up at him. "Whatever are ye talking
about?"
    "When ye said I was too cowardly to shoot ye. Ye were right. I
don't shoot women. Even lasses," he said, a wolfish grin spreading
across his face, "in desperate need of more sense not to insult a
man with a pistol pressed to their heads."

    They rode hard that day, stopping only twice to refresh themselves and water the horses. As the rolling hills gave way to narrow
glens, dense patches of forests of rowan, oak, and birch, then
open meadows, Caitlin watched with sinking heart as they moved
farther and farther from home. They forded countless rushing
burns that Darach frequently had them remain in for a mile or
two before breaking back onto dry land.
    She knew why he did so. It would make their pursuers' task in
tracking them all that more difficult. He was used to being followed, which, upon further consideration, Caitlin knew shouldn't
surprise her. Everyone in these parts had heard the tale of how
Darach MacNaghten had been banished from his own clan, even
before his people had been proscribed.
    Rumor had it he had lain with his older brother's betrothed and
gotten her with child. The hapless lass had been the only living get
of Clan Colquhoun's chief. Her marriage to Athe MacNaghten
would've greatly enriched MacNaghten fortunes.
    But once Athe had learned of her illicit liaison with his younger
brother, he had refused to wed the lass. The MacNaghten chief
was so enraged that he turned on Darach, banishing him. That,
unfortunately, so the story went, wasn't the end of it. A month
later, the Colquhoun heiress was found dead at the bottom of a
cliff near Dundarave Castle, her neck broken.
    Rumor also had it that Darach MacNaghten, promising to
make the now unmarriageable girl his wife, had lured her from
her home one cold, late autumn day.