To Tempt Highland Fate (The Mac Coinnach Brothers) (68 page)

             
“Smart lass.  ‘Tis exactly what the lad needs to get out of his own head.  He’ll be stuck in there otherwise, reliving the past over and over.  Daft he is.  Already had to lose ye once to figure out he wanted ye in the first place.  Now his own child…  Och… my work is never done with those three lads.  Not since the minute Bren Mac Coinnach was born have I had any peace.  And the youngest… oh I’m in for a time of it with that one!  Wild as the wind, he is.  He’s going to get himself into more trouble next month than… well, anyway… on to making Drust fret.”

             
Next month?
  Willa shook her head and blinked, thinking she must have missed something.

             
“Now, there are two ways to go about this… ye could actually leave, or ye could pretend to leave, but I wouldna recommend that.  No matter what kind of magic we use, Drust will still ken ye’re here.  Because ye’re his mate and all.”

             
Willa was beginning to have some major misgivings about this whole idea.  “Oh, I don’t’ think I should…”

             
Dirc held up his hand.  “Trust me lass, I do this all the time.  Come now, before he finds ye.  He’s looking already, ye ken.”

             
“A…all right.  But… Faith… will you tell her I’m, uh… not really missing?  I don’t want her to worry.”

             
“Aye, of course, lass. 
I’m
no’ daft.”  He took her by the arm.  “Now, ye just relax and let me handle everything.  When I’m through that man will be thanking the stars just to have ye back, as he should be.”

              The door burst open and slammed against the wall.  Bren looked up from the accounts on his desk he had been reviewing, to see Drust looking disheveled and half-crazed.  He raised an eyebrow in question.

             
“I canna find her”, Drust said, his voice almost desperate.  “I’ve looked everywhere.”

             
“Did ye look in the gardens?”

             
“Aye!”

             
“The stables?”

             
“Aye, Bren I’ve looked
everywhere
!  She’s gone.”  He put his palms to his forehead, thrust his fingers through his hair in agitation.  “Ah God!  She’s gone!” 

             
Drust began pacing, panting as if he’d just run through the entire castle, which perhaps he had.  He looked so wretched that Bren almost felt sorry for him.  Almost. 

             
“Well brother, she canna have gone far.  Especially no’ in her condition.  She fainted dead away only this morning.  Are ye certain she’s no’ in the tower?”

             
Drust turned to glare at him.  “Aye!  I looked in the tower, three times.  What if she was taken?  What if…”

             
Bren shook his head firmly.  “No.  No one would be able to get past our gates without our notice.  Unless… she wouldna have gone outside the gates alone, would she?”

             
Drust looked at his brother with such anguish on his face that Bren actually felt it like a stab to the chest.  This was possibly the most emotion he’d ever seen Drust express, and it made Bren uncomfortable to see him in such pain.  But still… Drust needed to fix the mess he had made of things.

             
“I dinna ken.  I… I was so angry about… about the bairn.”

             
Bren crossed his arms and regarded him calmly. 

             
“Ye were angry at yer wife for giving ye a child?  A child that ye put inside her?”

             
Drust sank heavily into a chair and scrubbed his hands over his face.

             
“No.  I was
afraid
.  God, she left me!  I’ve frightened away my own wife.  And I canna blame her.  God!  I was such an arse!  She more than likely hates me now.”

             
“Aye, ye were, but she’s still yer wife and yer mate and she belongs here with ye, arse or no’.  Ye have a wife and child now… and they are yers to protect and care for above all else.  Above even yer brothers.  That is the way of it.”  Bren stood and closed the ledger on his desk.  “Now stop feeling sorry for yerself and go find her.  You head to the north; I’ll gather some men and search the other directions.”

             
“Thank ye Bren…”

             
“Go!” Bren told him.  “No, wait!”

             
From half way across the room, Drust turned to look at him over his shoulder.

             
“What?”

             
“When ye find her, ye shouldna worry that ye’ll hurt the babe when ye’re tupping her like a mad man.”

             
“What?”

             
“I already asked Maggie, for my own reasons, of course.  I thought ye should ken, too.”

             
Drust only gave him a look that said:
Why the hell are you talking about tupping when my wife is missing
, and turned back toward the door.

              After Drust left the room, running at full speed for the stables, Faith slipped in from a side door.

             
“It went well?”

             
“Aye, he’s gone to search for her.  Dirc will see that he finds her in a few days, just long enough to have it firmly in his mind how much he’d love to be a father, if only he could find his wife, and if only she will forgive him.”

             
Faith grinned.  “Dirc knew just what to do.  Scare some sense into him.  Drust never would have come around so fast otherwise.  Or at all.  Mac Coinnach men are notoriously stubborn.”

             
Bren grabbed his wife and pulled her onto his lap with a contented sigh.  “Aye, I will admit Dirc often kens what is best, as long as I am no’ on the receiving end of his manipulations.  And
I
am no’ stubborn.”

             
She punched him playfully in the arm.  “Yes you are.  And wasn’t it Dirc’s
manipulations
that brought us together?”

             
“Oh aye, I suppose I can make one exception, then.”  He leaned in to capture her lips in a kiss.

              Willa looked around as her horse plodded slowly through the trees.  This forest was lovely, cool and peaceful with giant, moss-covered oaks, but she was too nervous to truly appreciate her surroundings.

             
“Dirc?”

             
“Aye, lass?”

             
“Do you really think it’s possible… that Drust will change his mind about the baby?  What if he never does… I don’t think I can…”

             
“Och, lass… he will.  Ye must remember that he saw his own mother die a tragic death when he was naught but a young and impressionable child.  He’s had all the years since to convince himself that he must never risk another he loves that way, because he couldna stand to see it happen again.  He had resolved to live a solitary life of service, and within a few short weeks he finds himself a husband and a father, the two things he has always dreaded more than death…  err…” He glanced to Willa with an apologetic smile.  “That didna sound quite right… I mean, no offence, lass.  Anyway, it will take some time, and perhaps a bit of a shock to the system, to… er… make him see things differently.”

             
“Hence my temporary disappearance?”

             
“Aye.  Exactly.”

             
“What if he doesn’t come for me?”

             
Dirc turned partway around in his saddle to look back at her, heedless of the plaid slipping off his shoulder.  “I told ye lass, he’ll come for ye.  He canna
no’
come for ye. 
That’s
why my plan, as always, is so perfect.”

             
Willa heaved a sigh.  Her life had never been simple.  Why did she think things would be any different now?

             
“A simple life does not offer the greatest rewards, lass”, Dirc commented.

             
“Ah!  Stop doing that!”  That had to be the tenth time today he had replied to a thought she was certain she hadn’t spoken out loud.  It had gone from being creepy to just plain irritating.  “Where are you taking me?  To my brother?”  It would be nice to see James and Maura… she missed them already.

             
“No”, came the curt reply.

             
“Where then?”

             
“No’ much further.”

             
“If we go too far, Drust will never be able to find me.”

             
Dirc snorted.  “Of course he will, he’ll be able to sense yer fear.  From leagues away.  The two of ye are connected now.”

             
“My fear?”  She
was
growing alarmed now...  “My fear of what?”

             
“Och lass, ye ask too many questions.  If I tell ye that, ye’ll ken no’ to be afraid and my plan willna work.  Hush now.”

             
It was growing dark when finally they came to a stop in a tiny woodland glade.  Dirc slid from his horse, motioning for Willa to do the same.  She followed him into the clearing, where he stood watching while she walked slowly around the edge, looking at the thick stones nearly covered over with moss and vines.  There was magic here, she could feel it.  Old, old magic, as much a part of the Earth as the stones themselves.

             
“What is this place?”  Her voice held a reverence that was born to her.

             
“A place of power.  Long forgotten by most.”

             
Willa turned to look at the old sorcerer, who looked much like he belonged in a place like this.               

             
“And what are we doing here?”

             
He smiled.  “Ye will stay here and wait.”

             
“Alone?”  Not that she was frightened, exactly, but neither had she been paying particular attention to the way they had come.  She had been too busy stewing over Drust.  She missed him already.  She wasn’t sure she could find her way back, if it came to that.

             
“Aye.  But not alone for long.  A few days at the most.”  He raised his hands up over his head, but then looked over at her once more.  “Stay here!” he told her sternly.  “Within this circle, ye’ll be safe.  Dinna leave.”

             
Then he was… gone.  She blinked.  Yes, gone.  And the horses, left standing just outside the glade turned as one and trotted away.

             
Pressing her lips together in either determination or annoyance, she wasn’t sure, Willa walked to the nearest stone and sat down. 
A few days?  Really?
  Guilt ate at the edges of her mind.  If Drust disappeared for that long, she would be beside herself with fear.  Panicked.  She would stop at nothing to find him.  Even if he was an incorrigible arse.  She loved him.  She had loved him from the very beginning, if not before.  She loved all of him.  His strength and honor, as well as the fear and insecurity that had driven him to hurt her.  All of him.  He belonged to her, and she would keep him no matter how stubborn or irritating he was!  Her hand moved to cover her stomach, and the barely noticeable swell there.