Free Susan King - [Celtic Nights 03] by The Sword Maiden Page B

fingers touched hers, a warm, delicious shock of contact, and flexed, strong and swift, on the hasp. Eva pulled the door open, and Lachlann ducked his head under the lintel to enter the house.
    In the ruby glow of the peat fire, he loomed beside her like a faery king, all gleam and shadow, vibrant, sultry, compelling. Stunned by his arrival, she was further astonished by his wild, dark, hard beauty, which seemed more intense than she remembered. He emanated a simmering masculinity that dreams and memories could never match.
    Summoning her wits, she fetched a candle from a shelf and lit it from the peat embers. Shielding the golden halo, she turned. He was still there, and this was no dream.
    Solas leaped at him, and he laughed, rubbing her shoulders with affection. Then he took her head in his hands to speak softly to her. Grainne watched, head cocked, tail wagging.
    Eva smiled. "Solas remembers you well."
    "She does." He glanced up. "Do you?"
    She faltered, shrugged. "I do," she murmured. "Welcome home." She said it calmly, as if her heart did not race, as if her knees and hands did not quiver.
    He leaned down to pet the terrier. "I see Mairi found herself another dog. Who is this little one?"
    "She is mine. I call her Grainne."
    "Craineag , more like," he said wryly.
    "She does not look like a hedgehog!" Eva said indignantly.
    "Small and round and brownish gray, with fur standing out like spikes—she surely does. Ho, little craineag ," he said. Grainne licked his hand liberally.
    "Grainne," Eva said, enunciating the name: Grahn-ya. "Colin gave her to me."
    Lachlann's smile disappeared. He turned, looking around the house. Strolling toward the fireplace, he peered into the tiny room tucked behind the stone wall of the hearth, the private bedchamber that Mairi used as wife and widow. Solas and Grainne trotted with him.
    "Where is Mairi?" he asked, as he turned and strolled to the other end of the house. The far wall contained his bed, snug in a niche cut into the thick stone. The curtain was pulled back, exposing the bedclothes, draped askew.
    "Were you sleeping there?" he asked.
    "I was." Standing barefoot, she folded her arms over her chest, aware that she wore only a thin linen chemise. Her hair, long and loose, hung over her breasts. "Mairi is staying with her niece Katrine and her family in Glen Brae."
    "I expected to find her sister living here." Lachlann fixed her with a steady, grim look. He seemed shadowed and weary suddenly, his beard recently shaven, his hair untrimmed, his eyelids drooping. But his eyes sparked with the vibrant blue that she remembered well.
    "Her sister was here for several months," she told him. "Recently Mairi went to Glen Brae to help her niece, who had a difficult confinement. She will be gone a while, for the niece was delivered of a daughter and has three young ones already. Lachlann, please sit. Let me fetch you some food."
    He frowned. "I will go to Glen Brae. Did Muime get the message I sent?"
    "We had no word. Mairi traveled northward to see her other niece, whose children had a coughing sickness. Alpin will know when she returns, for he often goes to that side of the loch."
    He looked at her thoughtfully. "Why are you here tonight? Did Alpin refuse to ferry you across the loch?"
    "He ferries me whenever I like. I live here now."
    He shoved a hand through his hair. "I do not understand."
    "Explanations can wait until you have eaten and rested."
    "First I must tend to my mount." He turned to the door.
    "Let me show you to the stable—"
    "I know the way to my own stable," he replied brusquely. He skimmed his gaze down her body. "Besides, you are not dressed, and the wind is cold tonight."
    She blushed. "Turn away, then." He did, walking over to the door to examine the locks, his back toward her. She went to the curtained bed and snatched up her brown serge gown from a peg on the wall. Tugging it over her chemise, she left the side lacings undone and turned back to the room, and Lachlann,