For most of his adult life, he’d survived on the frailest strand of hope. Surely after today, he could cling to hope a little longer. Against all the odds, he’d found his son. Even more miraculous, he’d found his lost love alive and prospering. Compared to where he’d been this morning, he had cause for optimism, even if Rhona was glowering at him the way she’d glower at an adder slithering across her path.
“Are you here to insist I go to the inn?” Devil take it, he was reluctant to go. After all the lonely years, some superstitious fear insisted that now he’d found her, he must never leave her again. Or else she might disappear from his life the way she had before. But this time, he’d never find her again, no matter how hard he searched. “If you are, I’ll go, but it’s a reprieve not a rescue. I’ll be back tomorrow. You won’t chase me off so easily.”
That cold gaze didn’t soften. “Better you go back to Dun Carron. There’s nothing for you here.”
How wrong she was. This isolated farm held his entire world. He’d felt half-dead during these years without her. Even with Rhona hating him, he felt more alive at this moment than he had at any time since they’d parted.
Be careful, Malcolm. You know nothing of her circumstances. Don’t start building castles in the air.
It was too late. As a boy, he’d given her his heart. That heart was still hers, despite time and separation and sorrow. That heart wouldn’t relinquish the hope of her until it stopped beating altogether.
Malcolm said none of this, because even the world’s stupidest man could see that she was a million miles away from being ready to hear it. Perhaps she’d never be ready to hear it. But he had to try to establish a truce, and be damned if he was going to let her seething resentment banish him before he had a chance to know his son.
“Now I’ve found you, I’m not giving up.”
Her eyes narrowed on him as if he was her enemy. “I’ll show you the door.”
“You may have forgotten, Rhona, but I’m a patient man and a determined one.” Regret stabbed him, along with more puzzlement. “A pout and a sulky look won’t frighten me off when I want something.”
He saw her fear bubble closer to the surface. “You won’t take Patrick away from me.”
Dear God. He was horrified that she could imagine he meant her any harm. He made another calming gesture and kept his voice steady. “Don’t be a henwit, lassie. I don’t want to take him away from you, but he has a right to know his father.”
“I’ll fight you.”
He heaved another sigh, heavier this time. “You don’t have to.” He gentled his voice. “This has been a shock. For the three of us. You’re in no frame of mind to listen to me right now, so I’ll go. But I’ll come back tomorrow, after we’ve all had a chance to reflect on what’s happened. You and I can talk then.”
“You might have made it to the inn an hour ago. You wouldn’t get five yards now.” Displeasure flattened her lips. “I’m not going to spend Christmas Day digging your stiff and frozen corpse out of a snowy ditch. You’ve caused me enough trouble already.”
He gave a grunt of admiring laughter. She wasn’t going to make this easy for him. She’d been a termagant as a girl when her temper flared. She still burned bright as a beacon. If he’d ever feared that life had defeated fiery Rhona Macleod, he knew better now. He was thankful for that, even if he wished she hadn’t chosen him as her target. “And I intend to cause you more.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Thank you for offering me your hospitality.” He ignored the disdainful arch of her eyebrows, although they both knew that calling her grudging cooperation hospitality was an exaggeration.
Her sigh indicated endless annoyance, then her eyes sharpened on him. “What on earth are you doing, playing the stablehand?”
He leaned against the side of the stall. The way she vibrated with hostility told him to keep his distance. “I had a lot to think about. I couldn’t settle down, so I decided to be useful.”
After meeting his son and discovering Rhona was alive, his head and heart had been in a ferment. Despite his exhaustion, he was too keyed up to sit still. He felt like he must burst out of his skin, unless he found some way to use up his energy. Not to mention that hard work helped him to ignore his rumbling stomach. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
Rhona stepped back and waved toward two hay bales in the aisle. “I might have rocks in my head, but I brought you some supper.” She must have seen his surprise, because she continued in a stony tone. “It’s no gesture of reconciliation, so don’t imagine it is.”
“I wouldn’t presume,” he said, echoing her earlier accusation.
Still looking like she might explode at any moment, she waited for him to sit down, then passed him the basket. He’d been too focused on Rhona and the emotions raging between them to notice that it emitted a delicious aroma. When he lifted the lid, he found a bowl of rich beef stew, a couple of slices of buttered bread, and a flask that he guessed contained ale. “This is a feast indeed. Thank you.”
“Eat it before it gets cold.”
Malcolm took the ungracious invitation at face value. He spread the white napkin over his knee, lifted the plate and a fork and began to eat. “This is good.”
It was. It would have been even better if she’d invited him to eat at a table inside the house, instead of in the barn. But something in Rhona’s flinty manner told him that the barn was as close as she meant to let him get to her tonight.
He should be grateful she offered him even that much. Right now, he could be a couple of miles away at the inn, having battled his way there through a snowstorm.
After a little while, she unbuttoned her coat and perched on the bale opposite him to watch him eat. Her forbidding expression didn’t encourage questions. Since they’d come so close to quarrelling, she’d banked her hostility, but it still simmered close to the surface.
Nonetheless Malcolm wasn’t altogether dissatisfied with the way things were going. He was still here. She’d deigned to feed him. However much, however inexplicably, she might hate him, he was in a better place than he’d been in two hours ago.
She slid the shawl away from her head. In the golden lamplight, her extraordinary beauty pierced him like an arrow. Under the heavy coat, she was dressed in a high-collared plaid dress in reds and blues. With her vibrant hair and pale skin, she’d always favored vivid colours. That hadn’t changed either, he was pleased to note. She’d been a breathtakingly pretty girl, but the years had refined that prettiness to a pure delicacy that enthralled him.
He’d spent years dreaming of her and mourning her loss. It seemed unbelievable that she was here with him tonight. To all appearances, whole and unharmed.
Ignoring her glare, he took the time to study the changes in her. Her face had thinned, and her high, slanted cheekbones lent her features a tinge of the exotic. Fine, winged eyebrows, darker than her hair, arched over large eyes of a peridot green he’d never seen on anyone else. A straight, rather haughty nose. A pointed chin. A pink mouth that had once been soft and full and passionate. Now that mouth was stern and unsmiling.