Page 113 of My Brave Highlander

Ninnies. Surely helping the chief bathe was a job best suited to a lady and a widow anyway. She'd helped her former husband bathe a few times. Dirk had kept himself busy for the past three days, and she'd hardly seen him. She was starting to wonder if he was avoiding her.

Isobel knocked at the door to the chief's chamber.

"Come." Dirk's deep voice sent a thrill through her.

She opened the door and found him sitting in the huge wooden tub before the hearth, much as she'd imagined. His broad naked shoulders and muscular arms stirred her female instincts.

"What the devil?" he muttered. "I sent for a servant. Not you, m'lady."

"Why not me?" After entering, she closed the door firmly behind her. She considered barring it, but that might give him the wrong impression… or the right impression. She hid her grin. "I am well accustomed to helping a man bathe. I helped my husband many times before his death."

Dirk let out an exasperated breath. "Nay. I'm asking you to leave. Now," he said firmly.

"There is no need for stubbornness. Do you need your back washed or not?"

"You cannot. You have a splint on your finger."

"Nay, I removed it today." She held up her hand, showing him.

"You shouldn't have. 'Tis too soon," he grumbled. "I doubt your bone is knitted back together yet."

"'Tis fine, I assure you." She moved forward.

He muttered a curse under his breath. "You are not a servant. You are betrothed to another man."

"What does that matter? I'm but helping you bathe. Not… seducing you."

He gave her a harsh glare and, for a second, she understood why the servants feared him so much. He appeared a blood-thirsty Norse invader like the ones her father's bard had told stories about from hundreds of years ago, ready to lay waste to the entire country. But she knew he wasn't like that.

"You think I am incapable of helping you bathe?" she asked, stopping before the tub and crossing her arms over her breasts.

"Not incapable. 'Tis simply a terrible idea."

"Don't be silly." She ignored the frown and approached him. His naked torso above the water was enough to distract any woman. Dirk's chest, shoulders and arms were composed of large iron-hard muscles. Heavens, the sight of him near took her breath away. A sprinkling of light hair on his chest tapered downward toward his waist. A quick glance told her a linen cloth lay in the water over his lap.

She moved in behind him and found the soap on the floor beside the tub.

"Could you lean forward?" she asked.

When he did, she had a splendid view of his back in the firelight… the ridges of muscle, the scars, and the birthmark in the shape of a dirk. She'd heard the clan elders talking about it and how the mark proved who he was. The scar below it was especially fearsome and rough but did not appear to be a sword wound.

"What happened here?" She ran her fingers over the uneven white scar tissue.

He blew out a hissing breath. "That's where I slid down the cliff twelve summers ago. The jagged rocks tore into my flesh, but 'twas those same rocks that stopped my fall when they caught my plaid."

"Oh." She smoothed her soap-slicked fingers over the mar to his perfect body. If this scar meant his life was saved, then she was thankful for the wicked mark.

He could've so easily died when he was fifteen and then she would've never had this opportunity to appreciate him. As she ran her soapy hands over his shoulder blades, and his massive shoulders, she found herself cherishing and admiring him. Not only his impressive body, but him as a man. She had never known anyone like him.

Wetting her hands and soaping them again, she washed his back, attempting to dig her fingertips into his hard muscles, but that was impossible, tense as he was.

"I know what you're trying to do," he muttered.

"I'm trying to wash your back," she assured him, hoping he couldn't read her mind.

"I'm not daft, lass."

"Of course not. You're highly intelligent."