Page 60 of The Wolf Laird's Obsession
“Ye should be,” he said quietly.
“Rowan Maclaren!” Morag’s voice broke the moment.
Rowan went rigid. His hands dropped from Sorcha’s waist as though he had been burned. He stepped back, putting distance between them that felt like a wall.
Sorcha’s breath came in ragged gasps. Her back was still pressed against the stall door, her dress wrinkled where his hands hadbeen. She could not think. Could not move. Could only stand there, trembling, as the world came rushing back.
“Rowan!” Morag’s voice came again, closer now. “I ken ye are out here. Supper is gettin’ cold, and ye have kept Elspeth waitin’ for an hour.”
Rowan scrubbed a hand down his face. His chest was still heaving, his lips still wet. But his eyes, those grey eyes that had been dark with want moments ago, had gone cold.
“Morag,” he called out, his voice steady. “We are comin’.”
“Daenae we are comin’ me. I have raised ye since ye were small enough to fall in the well, and I will come out there and drag ye by the ear if I must.”
Sorcha pressed herself harder against the stall door, willing herself to disappear. Her cheeks burned. Her hands shook as she smoothed her skirts, trying to make herself presentable, trying to erase any evidence of what had just happened between them.
Morag cannae ken. She cannae see.
Morag’s shadow fell across the stable doorway. She stood with her arms crossed, her silver hair escaping its braid. She took in the scene immediately: Rowan’s flushed face and Sorcha’s disheveled state, the hay scattered where they had stood. Her eyebrow rose.
Neither of them spoke.
“There ye are,” Morag said finally. “Both of ye. In the stable, wet from the rain, while supper grows cold and a six-year-old girl wonders why her faither has forgotten her.”
Rowan wore his shirt. He pulled it over his head in one motion, the damp fabric clinging to his shoulders.
“I havenae forgotten her,” he said.
“Could have fooled me.” Morag’s gaze flicked to Sorcha, then back to him. She did not ask what they had been doing. She did not need to. “The pair of ye, soaked through and red-faced. Get inside before ye catch yer deaths.”
Rowan said nothing. He walked past her without looking at Sorcha, without waiting to see if she would follow.
Morag watched him go, then turned to Sorcha. Her expression softened, just slightly.
“Come along, lass,” she said, not unkindly. “Ye look like ye have seen a ghost.”
Sorcha pushed off the stall door. Her legs were unsteady, and her lips still tingled. She followed Morag out of the stable into the rain, her heart pounding in her ears.
Rowan was already halfway to the keep. He did not look back.
Morag walked beside Sorcha in silence for a moment. “He has always been like that, ye ken. Pushin’ people away before they can get close.”
Sorcha said nothing.
He pushes people away.
Was that what he was doing to her? Keeping her at arm’s length, even as he pulled her closer in the dark?
The thought twisted painfully inside her, stirring up fear, frustration, and an ache she didn’t want to name.
She swallowed hard, her throat tight, but the words wouldn’t come. She could only stare straight ahead, Morag’s voice ringing in her ears.
And the worst part was that she was terrified the old woman was right.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The corridor was quiet, torchlight flickering against the stone walls as Rowan walked with Ewan beside him.
