Page 59 of Bride of Ice
“’Twasn’t a fall,” Colban reflexively corrected. He’d made a reckless choice in leaping from such a great height. But he hadn’t fallen. He wasn’t clumsy.
“Right.”
Meanwhile, his eyes were on his leine, which he was beginning to need with a quiet sort of desperation. At the moment, her fists were clenched in it, twisting wrinkles into the linen.
When she finally faced him, she seemed to have forgotten his state of undress. Her eyes flared with a quick intake of breath.
“You should get dressed,” she muttered in distress.
“I would, but…” He gestured toward his leine.
She looked at the garment in her hands as if she had no idea how it had come to be there. “Oh!”
She thrust it toward him. When he reached for it, their fingers met. She recoiled as if she’d been burned.
He slipped the leine over his head and tugged it down over his lap, grateful to cover the rapid appearance of desire.
She cleared her throat. Then she picked up a poker and jabbed at the fire, which was already crackling with cheery flames. A curious conflict warred in her eyes. Something between worry and irritation.
Finally she replaced the poker. Faced him. Crossed her arms. Raised her chin.
“Listen,” she said with uneasy authority. “You must cease leaping from windows and…and fighting off wolves on my behalf. I command it.”
He almost laughed at that. She might as well command him to cease breathing.
But she was serious.
He lowered his brows and fought back a grin. “Is that so?”
“Aye.”
He mused over that, rubbing his chin. “And why exactly?”
Hallie blinked.
Why. She’d been asking herself that ever since he’d faced off against the beasts in the woods.
Why would he want to help his enemy? Why should he care what happened to her? And why should he so cheaply value his own life?
The conclusion niggling at the back of her mind was—as Isabel kept insisting—the Highlander had affections toward her.
The idea was ludicrous. Preposterous. Inconceivable.
Yet her heart fluttered at the thought.
What other reason could there be?
No one defended Hallidis of Rivenloch. Her little brother was right. She wasn’t the sort of woman who needed defending. Trained as a warrior, destined to be laird, she’d been taught to be self-sufficient.
She had to be as strong as any man. Thus no man had ever tried to be her champion.
Now, for the first time in her life, a stranger sought to protect her, not because it was his duty as a member of the clan, but purely because he didn’t want her to get hurt.
She was touched. Flattered.
She was also troubled.
First, because it was a dangerous mistake to trust a captive, whose prime objective was always to escape.
