Part 10 (1/2)

It was barely after dawn, with the light just creeping through the village. This was one of her favorite times of the day. She almost always woke up before anyone else, and she treasured the times where she was alone in the world.

But she wasn't alone, she realized as she neared the small stream that ran behind the cottage.

Ewan had beaten her awake and to her spot.

She froze the instant she saw him in the early morning misty light. His black hair slicked back from his sculpted face, he was waist-deep in the water, holding a knife to his throat as he shaved himself.

Her gaze feasted on the sight of his tanned flesh. On the way the waves of the water lapped against his bare, tawny skin, caressing and teasing it to a fine sheen.

She traced the line of his muscles with her eyes, watching the way his body bunched and flexed with every move he made.

Aye, Ewan MacAllister was the finest-looking man she'd ever beheld.

Always sheltered at home, Nora had never known such desire for a man, but she felt it now. Felt it in every part of her body. Her heart that raced, her lungs that struggled to breathe, her legs that threatened to buckle.

What was it about this unrefined ruffian that he appealed to her so? He wasn't the kind of man to woo her with poetry. Nor the kind of man who would sit for hours with her while she listened to a bard sing.

Like as not, he'd be like her father, ever impatient with a minstrel. She couldn't count the times her father had forced her mother up to their room rather than sit and listen to a bard's tale.

Her father was ever quick to bellow for her mother and never content to sit and listen to others.

Her mother, G.o.d bless her soul, was ever patient and caring as a wife should be. Whenever her father wanted to retire for the night, her mother went, even if she was in the midst of something else.

But Nora wanted more than that.

She didn't want to be the dutiful wife who lost herself to her husband's bidding. She wanted to live her life on her own terms.

When she closed her eyes, she saw her perfect man. A man of culture and thought who would read with her and compose poetry and songs.

Not one who stormed off to attack trees with an ax every time he became angry.

But as she stared at Ewan's bare form, she had to admit that attacking trees had certainly done fine things for his body. It had given him powerful shoulders that bulged with strength. Thick, muscular thighs that were dusted with dark, curly hair, and a chest that rippled with masculine beauty.

Suddenly he turned around and caught sight of her standing in the middle of a circle of trees.

Nora froze, unable to move.

Unable to breathe.

Time seemed to have stopped as they stared at each other. But what struck her most was just how gorgeous his face was when clean-shaven. The graceful lines of it...

If not for his size and manly presence, he might even have been called pretty.

But there was nothing pretty or feminine about the man before her.

He was raw masculinity incarnate.

”Did you need something, la.s.s?” he asked.

The deep tenor of his voice s.h.i.+vered through her. Nora swallowed and tried to speak, only to find herself strangely mute.

”Is something amiss?” he asked, taking a step toward her.

Nora squeaked at the thought of his coming out of the water. If she was this affected by nothing more than his bare chest and back, she shuddered at what the sight of him awake and completely unadorned would do to her.

When he'd been naked in his bed yesterday, he hadn't seemed this...

Large!

”I'm fine,” she said, spinning around and running back toward the cottage.

Ewan smiled as he watched her haste.

So the la.s.s had caught him bathing...

He smiled even more widely as his body reacted instantly to the thought of her staring at him. She had a bold, unflinching gaze. One that hadn't caused her to blush or giggle.

She had stared at him like a woman who knew her mind and her desires.

The thought made his body jerk awake with desire. Made his blood turn to lava.

Imagine taking a woman such as her to his bed...

The thought was quickly followed by another. He would never know her. Not like that. Even without his promise to Kieran, there was the small matter that she was promised to another.

He'd taken a woman from a man once before. He would never make that mistake again.

Isobail had a.s.sured Kieran that her betrothed, Robby MacDouglas, didn't care for her, just as she had convinced Ewan that his brother didn't love her. In the end both Robby and Kieran had been willing to sacrifice their lives for the viperous b.i.t.c.h. While Kieran had chosen to die, Robby had fought a feud that had almost destroyed both the MacAllister and the MacDouglas clans.

No woman was worth that.

Nora belonged to Ryan.

No matter what Ewan felt for her, he would honor her as if she were already the man's wife, his own desires be d.a.m.ned.

Nora spent the rest of the morning avoiding Ewan. Something that proved extremely difficult once they left the brewer's house and were again on their way toward Lochlan's castle.

”You are so strangely quiet, la.s.s, that you've got me fearing for your health. Are you sure you're all right?”

”Quite well,” she hastened to a.s.sure him. He'd asked that question entirely too many times.

The last thing she intended to tell him was thathe was what was the matter with her. Who knew that the absence of his beard would make such a significant change to his face?

He no longer looked quite so off-putting or beastly. There was an elegant grace now to his features. An air of powerful predator.

Why would any man with a face so breathtaking seek to bury it under hair? Surely there should be a law to prohibit such a crime.

And those broad shoulders of his...