The Bearwalker's Daughter (5 page)

Leaping up off her seat, Karin declared, “Grandpa would have forty fits and so would Joseph if Mister McCray takes any notice of me at all.”

“It’s the God honest truth, lass, and high time these hardheaded McNeals gave you a bit more rein. They’ve kept you on a tight lead far too long, and in the dark.”

“What are you on about now?”

That pensive look returned to Neeley’s pale blue gaze. “You’ll see. And I shan’t be surprised if Mister McCray has a hand in showing you the way.”

Not if Karin had any say in the matter. She could only think the mounting years had addled Neeley’s good sense. As to her own fleeting reason, she simply must recover it.

Draping her wine-colored cloak around her shoulders, she accompanied the irksome woman into the main room. As Neeley said, most of the folks who’d spent the night had gone home to their chores. A handful of men sat on chairs and stools near hearth, their easy conversation punctuated by low laughter.

In search of one in particular, Karin swept her eyes over the relaxed group. She noted Kyle Brewster, an ardent admirer, and settled on the man she had no intention of offering more than a civil exchange—Jack McCray. He sipped coffee from a mug and glanced around as she walked in.

Oh my.
His intent gaze locked on hers and scorched her like a strong wind.

Her stomach lurched and it suddenly seemed she stood too near the hearth. If only he wouldn’t look at her as though he saw her bare-naked soul. She couldn’t drag her captive stare away.

Jack appeared far more handsome than a man recovering from injury ought to, or any man for that matter. She admired the white shirt tucked into fawn britches that fitted his muscled thighs and long legs. His riding boots were Joseph’s second best pair, polished to a high gloss, and added an elegant touch.

In the space of a night, he’d transformed from rugged frontiersman to country gentleman. The snowy linen set off his browned skin and loose chestnut hair. Lighter streaks shone among the darker hues she hadn’t noticed in the night and she liked the way his hair fell around his broad shoulders. She liked him, all of him, far too well, she realized with a shooting quiver through her midriff.

She was in a great deal of trouble.

Eyes a deeper green than Joseph’s hazel gaze held hers with a whole other realm in their depths...of endless mountains, forests, and the untamed people who lived there. These eyes knew what she didn’t, but did she really want to discover their secrets?

Jack swallowed his coffee while drinking in every inch of Karin and it wasn’t lost on his heightened senses that she was equally engrossed in him.

Whew
, he whistled silently. She was even lovelier this morning than she’d been in the wee hours, or maybe he was just better able to focus. Hair the color of midnight made a luminous combination with her blue-gray eyes and olive skin. Her cloak parted in front to reveal the tops of breasts mounded above the crimson bodice edged with the narrow ruffle of her shift, a prospect he savored. The sight left him both weak and emboldened in one.

Careful
, he warned himself, guarding any outward sign of the flame flaring in his gut.

The men gathered around him now seemed pleasant enough, but he knew their demeanor could alter in an instant. If he hadn’t been surrounded by fiercely possessive males, he’d have sprung to his feet and greeted her far more warmly than the casual nod he offered. He envisioned catching her softness to himself and swirling her around in his arms, then settling his mouth over those pink lips.

Why Joseph didn’t leap up and enfold Karin, Jack couldn’t imagine. Thomas McNeal had hinted at Joseph and Karin’s probable engagement in the near future. By heaven, if Jack possessed any legitimate claim on this beauty he wouldn’t be shy in showing his affection and let the onlookers stare.

Joseph stood with a smile, any fervor he felt for her confined to his eyes. “Karin, how fine you look.”

She acknowledged Joseph as if she hadn’t yet noted his presence in the room. “Thank you.”

More men rose amid a shuffling of chairs and stools. They nodded at her and the elderly aunt in greeting. “Good day Neeley, Miss McNeal,” circled the small gathering.

Kyle Brewster, introduced as the son of a prosperous neighbor, emphasized the latter name. The young man seemed eaten up with wistfulness. But Karin scarcely took any notice of him.

“Quite restful, thank you,” she managed, with an appealing blush. “And you? Are you recovering as quickly as you appear, Mister McCray?”

Jack inclined his head. Neeley passed on by him to join his mother and the two servant girls sitting at one of the tables paring carrots and turnips for a stew.

Despite her distraction, Karin acknowledged the men with a gracious nod. “Pray be seated gentlemen.”

Her poise impressed Jack and he thought again how ladylike she was. Unusual for a girl brought up in these Virginia Mountains. But his mother clung to any trace of refinement from the days when her family had known some level of gentility in Scotland. Doubtless, she’d passed that on, honor and civility prized virtues.

Chairs scraped the floorboards and the men settled back to their conversation. Jack reluctantly sat down. He’d not betray his rising regard for Karin so readily in front of other males, like baring his throat to the wolves. Trust them to go in for the kill.

Head held high, she shifted her attention from him and walked demurely to the table where the women were encamped. Only the telltale glance in his direction gave evidence of any heated emotion on her part, but it made him smile, especially when he saw how much that disconcerted her.

Pursing her lips in an enchanting frown, she lowered herself onto the bench along one side and averted her eyes. Then she slid her furtive gaze back at him again.

He almost laughed out loud.

A servant girl swathed in a white apron poured Karin a cup of milky tea and offered her a plate of cornbread smeared with butter and honey. Jack couldn’t suppress a chuckle at Karin’s effort to eat as though oblivious of his presence.

Joseph raked him with suspicion. “Whatever’s so amusing?”

“I’m just glad to be here.” That was the untarnished truth. Nowhere else in the world beckoned to him like this homestead, which jarred him a bit to consider.

He was fast succumbing to Karin’s charms, not at all what he was supposed to be doing. He might as well shoot himself now and be done with it. If one of these brawny Scots didn’t dispatch him, Shequenor surely would.

Speaking of the wolf at the door, the sturdy oak opened and John McNeal stumped in. Deep lines etched the older McNeal’s weathered features like a map of his many years on earth, but his towering figure exuded vitality. He looked every inch the chieftain of a clan, and so he was in his way.

Karin took no notice of Joseph as he snatched his hat and coat and left the house. Part of Jack pitied his younger brother. But only part.

“John dear. Come sit by the fire.” Jack’s mother greeted her impressive husband with a soft smile that almost made her seem a girl again. She really must love the old coot.

For the life of him Jack couldn’t fathom why. It was as strange a phenomenon as Karin’s mother falling head over heels in love with Shequenor. Granted, sweet Mary McNeal had gentled the intimidating warrior, until her removal from the village and subsequent death shredded all of that.

Sarah pushed a mug of tea into her husband’s hand and he took Joseph’s vacated seat with the masculine gathering by the hearth. Kyle Brewster’s lovelorn gaze wandered to the table and not for the first time. “I declare, that granddaughter of yours is bonnier every time I see her, Mister McNeal.”

“So she is, Brewster. Just so all you do is gape at her.” John McNeal answered evenly enough, but warning glinted in his ice blue eyes.

Jack didn’t doubt the caution was also meant for him, but he’d be damned if he’d let that deter him from finding some means of pursuing her. They’d have to hogtie him and toss him into the stream to stand any chance of dampening his ardor, not that he doubted the senior McNeal might do just that. Only devotion to Jack’s mother bought him any hospitality.

As it was, his stepfather considered him with the grudging demeanor of a host forced to shelter a guest he didn’t particularly like. “I was out in the stable. Mighty fine bit of horseflesh, that stallion of yours. You gonna race him tomorrow?”

Jack lifted his shoulders and let them drop, mindful of the soreness in his left arm. “I hadn’t thought on it.”

Mister McNeal tightened his mouth above a chin roughened with reddish-gray stubble. “Well do, man. We take pride in our stock around here, McCray.”

“As do I.” Though he regarded Peki as more than a horse, his close friend and hope for the future.

The older man appraised him with a hint of the devil in his sharp regard. “Good. Then we’ll count you in. That is, if you think you’ll be up to a sporting challenge.”

So, that’s how the wily patriarch planned his demise.

Jack smiled to himself. He could outrace any man alive, and met John McNeal’s challenge with flinty resolve. “Oh, I’m up to it, Mister McNeal. And once I set my sights on winning something, I rarely lose.”

“Lost the damn war, didn’t you?”

Every muscle taut, Jack tossed back, “I didn’t battle alone, nor was I in charge of strategy. But I race that way and I’m not easily bested.”

John furrowed his craggy brow. “None of us are. And we’ll fight like demons from Hell itself to keep what’s ours.”

Jack refused to be intimidated by his thinly veiled threat, the old cuss. “As will I.”

****

Though she despaired of her acting prowess, Karin composed her expression into the semblance of a disinterested facade while she sat and peeled tart red apples for dumplings. She’d nearly gasped at Jack’s sly wink, giving them both away, and prayed the others attributed her flustered reply to shyness.

Thankfully, Sarah seemed in ignorance of Karin’s absorption in her eldest son. But she squirmed under Neeley’s watchfulness, like an aged owl’s, and fought the nearly breakaway urge to dart stealthy looks at Jack.

Failing in that, she observed him from the corner of her eyes. Had there ever been such a perfect man? Perfect looking, anyway. His manners could do with a polish. What cheek!

Grandpa dozed in his chair and the other men headed out the door. Jack stood with catlike grace and stretched his long frame. Karin watched him rotate his sore shoulder a little gingerly then he gathered his fringed pouch and weapons from beside the vacant seat. She hadn’t noticed them lying on the floor.

Rather than the woven belt at his waist, he slid the Indian-styled pouch and sheathed knife over leather buffed to a new shine. She recognized this belt as one that had belonged to Jack’s father. For some reason, Sarah hadn’t passed the favored keepsake to Joseph. Jack buckled it at his waist.

The knife hung at his left side and he slung the tomahawk on his right. The frontiersman in him returned, and with it, the primal summons swelling in Karin. She couldn’t keep her eyes from trailing after him as he strode to the plastered log wall inside the front door and took a brown-caped coat from the peg.

He slid his arms into the sleeves and fastened the pewter buttons into the tabs down the front. The hem reached to his knees and he turned up the wide collar around his ears. “I’m right grateful for everything you’ve given me, Mama. This wool coat is so thick I’ll scarcely notice the cold.”

Sarah nodded. Pleasure at having him home shone in her eyes. “Don’t overtire yourself, Jack. ’Tis so soon after your injury to be up and about, no matter what that stubborn husband of mine says. Honestly, don’t think of racing yet.”