Page 63 of Highland Seduction

She swatted his arm. “Ye will no’ kill my cousin.”

Amid strange looks from those around them for such a statement, Tor moved his wife to the side of the road. “It was them,” he said. “They are alive.”

“And ran from us,” Ainsley said, indignant.

“My lady?”

Both she and Tor spun around at the sound. There, behind a table, was a man, and a boy holding Ivy. Ainsley ran to them. The boy handed her the kitten as Tor approached. He introduced himself, purchased honey for his wife, and watched as she and the boy fawned over the kitten.

“Did I see ye running past?” the merchant asked.

“Aye. We were looking for something here in Berwick.”

“Did ye find it?”

Tor was about to correct him, tell him it was a couple that they’d been searching for. But then he caught his wife’s eye. She was handing Ivy back to the boy, her smile bright, her eyes filled with love for the wee kitten and, as they exchanged a glance, for him.

Despite that they’d lost Marta and Ian for the second time, his chest swelled. His desire to pull Ainsley to him, to hold her, to love her . . .

“Aye,” he said to the merchant. “I believe I did indeed.”

Epilogue

“Who will be more surprised, do ye think?” Ainsley asked.

They stopped to water their horses, and as Tor led their mounts back to them, tying both off, he came to her. The expression on his face was not of a man ready to be on his way.

“My sister,” he said. With each step toward her, Ainsley’s suspicions were confirmed. Tor had not simply stopped here for the horses. He had something else in mind as well. She backed away, teasing him.

“I thought ye wished to reach yer home by nightfall?”

“Our home,” he said, taking another step.

“I believe my brother was more surprised,” she said, thinking of Broden’s expression when they would eventually return to Castle Shaw happily married.

“Nay,” Tor said as Ainsley backed up as far as possible into a tree behind her. “Yer brother knows well yer capacity for love. My sister will no’ believe such a thing was possible for me.”

“To love?” she asked as Tor pinned her to the massive tree with a hand on each side of her head. “Ye love yer family. And yer clan.”

“’Tis no’ the same as loving and being bound to one woman.”

“Bound, are ye?”

Tor silenced her with his mouth, his lips gliding across her own. As he deepened the kiss, Ainsley attempted to bring her hands to his shoulders, but Tor captured them. Pinned them above her head.

The ease with which this man melted her heart, her insides . . . every time he looked at her it was with an intensity that she could hardly grasp. Ainsley had never felt as loved or protected, despite that she had a family that did both. There was something quite different about a husband, especially one such as Tor.

They’d come across no trouble on the way back from Berwick. But with each traveling party they passed, Tor had been alert to danger. The warrior in him, dormant in the safety of Berwick, had been on full display.

Breaking their kiss, Tor glanced up to her hands. “And now, ye’re bound as well, wife.”

“I could break free if I so chose.”

“Can ye, now?”

She wiggled her wrists and of course could not budge them. Her husband was a strong man, and in truth, she had no wish to be free of him.

“We willnae make it to Castle MacRob before the sun sets if we are no’ on our way,” she reminded him.