Lady of Light (5 page)

“Sounds like a handy implement to have—a girdle, I mean.” He grinned. “And what, by the way, is colcannon? A kind of stew?”

“Nay. It’s finely mashed potatoes mixed with cooked cabbage, cream, and leeks.”

Evan’s grin faded. “No meat?”

“Not this eve. Meat’s verra costly. We can’t afford it too often.”

“Oh.”

Claire cocked her head at him. “Do cowboys eat a lot of meat, then?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact they do. Remember, I grew up on a cattle ranch.”

Ian ambled over. “Every night? Do you eat beef every night?”

Evan nodded. “If we want. Sometimes we eat a chicken, or some fish, or pork, or even venison or game birds in season. We always raise a few pigs, plus have a henhouse full of chickens for meat and eggs.”

Their astonishment almost palpable, Claire and Ian looked at each other. Embarrassment filled Evan. Had he overstepped his bounds, or appeared the braggart?

“Look, I didn’t mean to imply the bannocks and colcannon wouldn’t be plumb delicious,” he hurried to explain. “We all have our favorite foods. That doesn’t mean, though, a man shouldn’t be open to something new and different.”

He glanced at the girdle where Claire had placed the rounded bannock dough. “Er, shouldn’t you be putting that on to brown? I don’t know about you, but my belly’s about as empty as a schoolhouse in the middle of summer.”

“Och, aye,” she said with a laugh, reaching over to grab the girdle. “You aren’t shy, are you, Mr. MacKay, about making your needs known?”

Evan paused to think on that unexpected observation, then chuckled softly. “No, ma’am, I reckon I’m not.”

3

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

Hebrews 13:2

The next morning, as the first fingers of sunlight stroked the land, Claire rose from her own boxbed in the room across the entry hall. She said her morning prayers, then washed, dressed, and after a brief, longing look at the curved wooden clarsach sitting in the corner, left her room.

The day ahead was already busy enough. Much as Claire wished it otherwise, she didn’t dare squander even a few minutes playing her beloved, bogwood harp. She also didn’t wish to wake their guest prematurely.

Evan MacKay’s journey to Culdee, which Claire knew had been on one of the old coaches still running to the farthest limits of Scotland, must have been exhausting. The tall American slept on, she noted as she entered the living room, cozily ensconced before the hearth in his snug little nest of blankets and an old quilt. He lay on his side facing her, his dark hair tousled, his expression peaceful.

Claire tied a long white apron about her waist, then tiptoed over and reached across him to appropriate the teakettle sitting to one side of the hearth. Just then Evan stirred, rolling onto his back and throwing off the blanket that had previously covered him to his neck. With a soft gasp, she jumped back.

At the very least, he was barechested. Claire didn’t linger to discover anything more. A death grip on the teakettle, she bolted from the room and out the front door.

Her heart still pounded so hard when she finally reached the farm’s well that it took a minute or two to realize she had carried the teakettle with her. Heat flooded her face. She gave a wry laugh. Her intent had been to leave the kettle on the table, then gently stir the coals and add a few sticks of wood to get the fire going before heading to the well to fill a bucket of fresh water. The sight of Evan MacKay’s impressive chest, however, had dashed all her plans.

In but a moment of fascinated perusal, Claire had noted the breadth of his shoulders. His arms were strong and well muscled, too, his chest lushly covered with a dark thatch of hair that arrowed down his rippling belly before disappearing beneath the blanket. Gazing at him, a surprising, shameful rush of desire had filled her.

Claire exhaled an unsteady breath. It wasn’t decent that a man possess such unsettling good looks and such an equally unsettling body. Yet it was even more improper still that the sight of him just then should stir such feelings within her. She hardly knew the man! Not that he’d even stay in Culdee long enough, Claire was quick to remind herself, for
anyone
to get to know him properly.

As she grasped the handle of the well windlass and began to turn it, she lifted a fervent prayer of thanks that Evan MacKay would be sleeping in his own house this eve. It would be even better if he didn’t decide to linger overlong in Culdee, once he discovered and met with his kin. Claire didn’t need anyone or anything disrupting the peaceful, settled life she and Ian had finally managed to build here. Especially not some cowboy with the most outlandish outlooks and ideas.

“Need any help with that, ma’am?”

Claire’s grip slipped from the windlass handle. The handle spun and, with a groan of metal and wood, the bucketful of water she had nearly cranked to the top of the well plummeted back down, striking the water with a resounding splash. She wheeled about.

“By mountain and sea! Must you sneak up on a body so?” With a snort of disgust, Claire lifted her fists to rest on her hips. “Do you know you’re one of the most unsettling of men? Do you, Evan MacKay?”

“To tell you the truth, ma’am, you’re the first woman who’s ever told me that.” He managed a lopsided grin and held out an empty bucket. “Reckon I kind of like it.”

Claire glared back at him. And wasn’t he the cocky one, she thought, standing there barefoot and clad only in his black trousers and hastily tucked in shirt, the early morning sun catching in his tousled, ebony hair and glinting off his strong, highbred features? Did he realize how handsome he was? Or how the sight of him made her heart flutter as wildly as some bird’s wings?

Most likely he did, Claire realized sourly as she finally accepted the bucket. A man like him surely had the lasses swooning at his feet. She’d not be joining, however, the swarm of avid little bees sure to buzz about this particular honey pot. No good would come of it.

“Well, don’t let your pride get the best of you,” she muttered. “Anyone in Culdee could tell you I’m not the sort easily swayed by sweet words or empty compliments. Best you save them for the other lasses.”

Evan’s grin faded. Blast, but the woman could get her dander up in the blink of an eye! He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. Anyone with such red hair most likely couldn’t help having a temper. And it wasn’t as if he didn’t find her feisty nature appealing. He always liked a challenge, whether it be an unbroken filly with fear in her eyes or a maverick steer ready to cut and run.

Problem was, the last thing Evan wanted was for Claire to be afraid of him, or mistrust his intentions. He meant her no harm or dishonor. On the contrary. When he looked into her deep green eyes, all he felt was admiration, attraction, and a fierce protectiveness.

The reason for his sense of admiration and attraction was obvious. Claire Sutherland was like some beautiful doe with those big eyes and long dark, lashes, her lithe, slender, but wonderfully feminine body, and delicate features. For the life of him, though, he didn’t know why he felt so protective of her.

Perhaps it sprang from the realization that, just like some wild thing of the forest, there was an air of vulnerability about her that belied all her attempts at a fierce independence. There was also a pain glimmering deep in her eyes, a haunted anguish that plucked at him more strongly than her beauty and grace ever could. It touched something in Evan, something familiar that spoke to him of his own pain and unrequited needs.

But how to reassure Claire he only wanted to get to know her better, be her friend? With a sigh, Evan walked to the well and leaned against its stony bulk.

“So what would you have me say and do, Miss Sutherland?” he asked, shooting her an inquiring glance. “I’m trying to be friendly and honest. Can’t you just accept my comments at face value, until I prove myself otherwise?”

His blunt query seemed to take her momentarily aback. She stared at him, narrow of eye, as if she were trying to probe his mind. Then she shook her head.

“I don’t know how to answer you.” Claire set down the bucket, once more grasped the windlass, and began to turn the handle.

“Why not just say what comes to mind? Treat me as a friend, rather than as the enemy. It’s as good a place to start as any.”

She gave a shrill laugh. “Aye, and how about you treating me the same way then—as a friend—rather than as some lass to tease and goad for the sheer sport of it?”

Evan straightened and turned to her. “It’s not just me, is it? You don’t really like men at all, do you?”

Claire couldn’t quite meet his gaze. “Not most men,” she admitted reluctantly at long last. “I haven’t had much reason to trust them.”

He smiled, inordinately pleased she had been willing to confide even that much. “Nor should you, especially not me, who you met just yesterday. All I’m asking, though, is that you give me a chance.” At her look of surprise, he laughed. “Do you have any inkling how enchanting you are, one moment the fierce and fiery warrior and, the next, the startled, naïve little girl? You really shouldn’t fault a man for finding you so appealing.”

“Och, aye, and if I don’t, next you’ll be thinking I’m playing the flirt!” Coloring fiercely, she lifted the bucket from the well. “You mustn’t imagine this is all some game, you know?”

Evan stepped up, took the bucket from her, and poured the contents into the bucket he had brought. “I don’t. Can you at least begin by believing that?”

Chewing on her lower lip, she studied him for a long moment before replying “Mayhap.” Then Claire picked up the teakettle, and fell into stride beside him as he next headed back toward the cottage. “It would be the hospitable, Christian thing to do, I’d imagine.”

“Yes, it would.” Deciding it best not to press his luck, Evan changed the subject. “So, what’s the plan for the day? Our landlord did say I could move into my quarters, didn’t he?”

“Aye. After breakfast, I thought we might spend the morn cleaning up the bulk of the mess and fixing you a bed to sleep in for tonight. Then, after the midday meal, we could return to St. Columba’s and see what we could discover about your kin.”

“I can’t think of a more pleasant way to spend the day, in the company of such a bonnie lassie.”

Claire rolled her eyes. “You can’t stop yourself, can you? From the rich and honeyed words that flow constantly from your tongue, I mean? Are all cowboys, then, so quick with the compliments?”

“I couldn’t say, ma’am.” Evan laughed. “Perhaps it’s just my rich and honeyed Scots’ blood rising to the surface. Who wouldn’t wax eloquent in such a wild, glorious land?”

“And
I
say, have a care, Mr. MacKay,” she replied with a husky chuckle, “or you’ll surely toss all sense and caution to the four winds, and soon take to wearing a kilt.”

“Heaven forbid!” he said in mock horror, then laughed again.

He was such a happy, easygoing man, Claire thought as she walked back into the house. Nothing appeared to darken his mood for long. And, for all the teasing he seemed to enjoy at her expense, he could just as quickly turn it on himself.

There was something disarming about Evan MacKay, something that could, bit by bit, undermine the hardwon fortress guarding a woman’s heart. If a woman wasn’t careful, she could fall under a certain cowboy’s spell before she even knew it. Even a woman, Claire realized with a sudden ripple of unease, who had made a solemn vow, that horrible night now a year past, never to trust anything but her own motives and efforts ever again.

Breakfast, as always, was milk and porridge. After sending Ian off to school and washing the dishes, Claire gathered an assortment of rags, buckets, brooms, and brushes, and promptly headed for the second crofter’s cottage. Evan, a bemused smile on his lips, followed close behind.

The smaller house was in an even filthier state than Claire had imagined. She took one look at it, heaved a big sigh, and handed two wooden buckets to Evan. “Fill them both, if you please,” she said. “We’ll be needing plenty of water to get this dwelling fit for human habitation.”