Page 12 of Taken By the Heartless Highlander
“Are ye always this demandin’?” he asked.
“Yes,” came the response from both her siblings, just as Keira said “Never!” rather emphatically.
CHAPTER6
“Ow,would ye stop prodding it, woman?” the laird said as he winced. “T’is merely a scratch, lass; I’ve had worse.”
“Nay by me brother's hand ye havnae,” she admonished. “I cannae get to it with yer léine on.”
“I dinnae need ye to ‘get to it’; it’ll heal just fine without ye pokin’ it.”
“Off!” she said before she had really thought through what she had said.
Keira had seen many naked men’s torsos in her line of work, and she barely considered what she had asked him to do until he actually pulled the thing over his hand.
As his hair swung back into place, falling over his shoulders, and he placed the shirt on the log beside him, she tried to keep her gaze firmly on his wound.
The man had the most muscular chest she had ever seen. It was rare that she worked with anyone other than farmers and laborers. They were lean, fit men but undernourished and usually smaller in stature than this man. He was enormous, both in height and breadth, and his muscles had been honed over years of fighting.
She swallowed, her mouth going dry as she reached up to palpate the wound, and he rolled his eyes as she huffed at him.
“Ye are as bad as a bairn, and they have far more excuse than ye,” she said firmly as she satisfied herself that the cut was not too deep, although it was not, as he had said, ‘just a scratch’.
She was well accustomed to men insisting that an injury was nothing to bother about. A few days later, they would turn up at her doorstep with a sore head, sweating from head to foot, and she would have to deal with the problem several days after it would have been much easier to fix.
“I’ve never been ordered about as much as I have today,” he muttered.
“I doubt that, Me laird, and I am only orderin’ ye about because ye willnae sit still. I am tryin’ to help ye.”
His dark gaze fell on her, and she caught her breath at the power in it.
“Ye’d be surprised to learn, lass, that I am usually the one givin’ orders.”
She swallowed as his eyes remained trained on her for several seconds. The weight of his words made it sound as though he were not just speaking of ordering his men, but of orderingheraround. Keira wasn’t sure why that idea was so appealing.
She imagined him refusing to take no for an answer, ordering her to do his bidding. Perhaps she was his personal healer, waiting on his requirements day and night—beholden to every command he chose to give her. Something about that made her shudder in anticipation.
She placed her hands on either side of the wound as she continued cleaning it, trying to distract her mind from her wayward thoughts.
“And what would ye order me to do, Me laird?”
His voice was low as he responded. “I havenae decided yet.”
She felt a tremor of anticipation run through her and quickly went into her bag to retrieve a fresh bandage in order to distract herself. She was accustomed to carrying medical supplies everywhere she went, and she was grateful that Scott had brought Cuddy, their donkey, with them, as Cuddy’s pack had everything she needed for a wound such as this.
As she began to wrap the wound, she felt the laird’s muscles relax beneath her fingers.
She would never have suspected that her love of healing would have brought her to where she now was in her life.
Shaking off unpleasant memories of Lucas and what he might be planning for her, she bandaged the laird’s wound tightly, ensuring that there was no room for air to reach it, and bound the gauze beneath his shoulder.
As she did so, something occurred to her, and she frowned, leaning away from him.
“Thank the heavens,” he muttered as she released him, moving to pull his léine back on. On instinct, she reached out a hand and took hold of his wrist. He turned to her, only inches between their faces as she held on to his arm and waited for him to stop resisting.
“I wish to see that it has stopped bleedin’;” she said softly, “if ye cover it, I willnae be able to observe it.”
Slowly, she ran her fingers over his wrist and took hold of the léine, plucking it from his grasp and placing it back on the log. Their bodies were so close she could feel the heat from him warming her chest.
