Page 7 of Trapped with the Vicious Highlander
Who was this woman? This big lady before him, challenging his every statement and calling him to order before he could even say a word?
“Huh,” he murmured.
“So far, all I’ve heard is that she’s your daughter, you’ve come to take her, and you’re the Laird of Clan MacDunn. For all we know, this isn’t your daughter.”
“Dinnae mock me intelligence and assume I would be foolish as to nae recognize me own bairn, miss.”
“Maybe she just looks similar to your daughter. Maybe your daughter is elsewhere, waiting for you to find her.”
Ava didn’t miss a beat. She had found full courage once again. It’d take more than a tall, practically shirtless man with muscles she couldn’t take her eyes off to flounder her stride.
Brodrick scoffed. “Is this how this is going to be?”
He took a step towards her, his eyes holding hers the entire time.
Ava swallowed.
He took another step. They were only inches apart now. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, smell the sweat that trickled down his skin, feel his eyes burning holes into her.
“Look into me eyes and then hers, miss. Are ye goin’ to tell me that we dinnae share the same?”
“Unrelated people share the same eye color all the time. This is not a fascinating discovery. If I’m going to hand Margaret to you, I need to make sure you are truly her father—that you will care for her. And protect her.”
“I have always protected her.”
“And yet here we are.”
Brodrick stared down at the floor, still in disbelief at this woman standing in front of him, basically ensuring he didn’t get off easily. He rubbed his eyes, before looking back up at her.
“If me eyes arenae proof enough that the girl is mine, then the birthmark will prove it.”
Ava frowned. “The birthmark?”
Brodrick lifted his right arm and pulled back his sleeve. Ava could see even more of his muscles glisten in the overhead sunlight, and the sight almost made her collapse to the ground. He brought his arm closer to her and pointed at it.
Ava stared for a second at the red dot on the bottom of his arm, right above the front of his elbows, at how it shifted when his muscles flexed, at the determined expression on his face.
“Does she have the same mark?”
She swallowed. “I will have to check.”
She reached for Margaret, her eyes wide and her heart beating with anticipation. “Child, if I could just check your arm for a minute?—”
She raised Margaret’s right arm, and sure enough, right in the same place Brodrick’s mark was located above her elbow she could see a faint red dot. It almost stuck to the bone, due to how frail the child was.
Brodrick saw the mark as well and did not wait for Ava to give him a response before he crouched down once again.
“It’s me, lassie. It’s me. Yer faither.”
Silence fell between them, and Ava could tell that he was waiting for Margaret to say something—anything.
“We are goin’ back home today, ye hear me? We are leavin’ today,” he said again.
But he was only met by more uncomfortable silence.
He shifted his gaze to Ava. “She doesnae speak,” he noted, his voice low. “Why isnae she replyin’? What the devil have ye done to me daughter?”
Ava straightened to her full height. “What have I done?”
