Claiming the Highlander (29 page)

Goodness, but the boy sounded so much like Sin that it gave her chills. Just what had he experienced, to make him so distrustful at such a young age?

Reaching up, Maggie brushed a stray lock of ebony hair from his forehead, then cupped his cool cheek. “Not all people are like that.”

Still, he looked suspicious.

Maggie rose and reached out to take his hand. “Have you eaten anything?”

Connor hesitated before he finally placed his hand in hers. “The women won’t let me eat anything ‘cause I’m a man.”

She tightened her grip on his hand as they walked across the yard. The lad was far from a man, even though he acted as if he were ancient.

Oh, if she ever laid hands on his aunt and uncle, she’d give them both a sound tongue-lashing! How could anyone be so cruel when it was obvious the boy had a good heart?

“Come with me,” she said gently, “and I’ll see you fed.”

Connor stopped dead in his tracks as she led him toward the castle.

“Nay,” he said. “If me aunt sees me, she’ll beat me for sure.”

Let her try!
In the mood Maggie was in, she was sure the woman stood no chance whatsoever. But it was obvious the boy had seen enough violence in his life.

What he needed now was protection, and she would keep him safe no matter what.

“Then I’ll make sure she doesn’t see you.”

Maggie kept his icy hand inside hers as she changed directions and led him behind the castle and up the back stairs to the small room Ceana had given her for the night.

It was a very cool evening to be out, and poor Connor was barefoot and dressed in a tan and
blue plaid that should have been tossed out as a rag.

It defied Maggie’s best abilities to imagine the callousness of his aunt and uncle. She could never treat a child like this, and most especially not one related to her.

Maggie opened the door to her room. “Connor, did your mother ever tell your father about you?” she asked as she moved into the room to light the tallow candles on the small table before the fire.

He paused just inside the doorway.

Maggie watched as his eyes widened, then darted about the room to take in the glowing fire, large bed, small table and chair and warm furs. He blinked as if unable to believe she was allowing him into such luxury.

He quickly headed to the fire and stretched his little hands out toward it, seeking the warmth. “She said she went to him to tell him about me, but when she got to his castle, she saw him there with a beautiful lass.”

Connor leaned toward her ever so slightly, and spoke his next words in a hushed whisper as if betraying some sort of secret. “She said they were kissing.”

He straightened then, and recited the rest as if his mother had drilled it into his mind a thousand times over. “She said she knew then that all the words he’d said about loving her were false. She said all men were false and lowly, and that if God
were truly merciful, I would have been born a daughter to her and not another man sent to break her heart.”

Maggie’s own heart lurched at his words, words he spoke with calm, quiet acceptance.

Unable to stand it, Maggie fell to her knees and drew the boy into a tight hug. At first he tensed and fought her hold, but she tightened her grip. She refused to let him go. The child needed love. He needed a hug, and she would not let another minute pass without giving it to him.

Then, to her surprise, he tentatively wrapped his thin, frail arms about her and laid his little head down on her shoulder.

“You know, Connor, God is merciful, and it is a wondrous thing to be born a son.”

He said nothing, but she could feel his hot tears against her neck.

She cradled his head in her hand and just held him as tightly as she could as she rocked him slowly in her arms.

In that moment, Maggie knew what she would have done in Aisleen’s place. She could never have let Sin stand by himself, let alone be taken by his father’s enemies. Any more than she could let this child suffer another day.

She didn’t know how Braden would react to Connor’s presence, but she knew what she needed to do.

“You know, Connor,” she whispered as she
rocked him, “if you don’t want to stay with your family, I share a small farm with my sister-in-law, Kate. She has two wee bairns, a boy and a girl. I was thinking they might need a cousin to help keep watch over them.”

He tilted his head back to frown at her.

Maggie smiled and brushed his hair off his face, then placed a hand to his soft cheek as she told him plainly what she meant. “I was thinking that if you prefer, you could come live with us.”

His frown turned to disbelief, then his eyes sparkled. “I would have a family?”

Maggie nodded. “Aye. One that wanted you, and you would have a mother who loves you. Not to mention one who makes the best elderberry tarts you’ve ever tasted.”

For the first time, she saw him smile. Her eyes misting again, she reached up and touched the deep dimples that punctuated the gesture.

“I promise I’ll be a good lad and only eat what you give me. I won’t ask for any more, ever.”

“You can eat as much as you can hold.”

“Really?”

She nodded.

“Wahoo!” he shouted, then he quickly cringed and placed a hand over his mouth as he glanced about furtively. “I’m sorry about that.”

“I don’t mind noise,” Maggie said. “I was raised with six boys and they were always shouting and screaming.”

She rose to her feet and ruffled his hair with
her hand. “You wait here and I’ll bring you some food.”

Again that mistrust came into his eyes, but he said nothing as she left him.

A myriad of emotions whipped through her as she descended the stairs and quickly gathered a tray of food, telling the servants that she wanted to eat alone. No one questioned her.

Once Maggie had enough to fill Connor’s belly, she headed back to him, cursing his callous family with every step she took.

Why hadn’t Connor’s mother told Braden anyway?

Maggie didn’t know for sure, but she suspected Braden would have gladly taken the boy in. And even if he hadn’t, Lochlan most assuredly would.

Don’t judge his mother, Maggie
, she told herself.
‘Tis for God alone to do.

But it was hard not to.

In fact, at that moment, she didn’t know whom she wanted to thrash more, Connor’s mother or Braden.

Laying the matter aside for the moment, she pushed open the door to her room to see Connor sitting on the bed. He jumped off as if terrified she would scold him, and when he saw the food in her hands, he wahooed again.

Maggie placed the tray on the small table by the fire and watched in delight as he crammed roasted beef, carrots, peas, onions and apples into his mouth.

Once he finished eating, she tucked him into her bed and left him there to dream of better days to come.

He fell asleep almost as soon as he closed his eyes.

Maggie listened to his gentle snore as she brushed her hand through his hair.

“Oh, Braden,” she whispered, wondering how she was going to tell him he was a father.

On the one hand, she could kill him for leaving the boy, but on the other, she knew he had no way of knowing about Connor. Poor Connor’s mother probably had no idea what she should do, and the sight of Braden kissing another had probably cut her all the way to her heart.

Had Maggie been in the woman’s shoes, she would have marched herself across the yard and confronted Braden while he groped another.

But that was her, and not the poor woman who had been brokenhearted.

Suddenly a shiver went through her as she thought about herself. What if she carried his child already?

The answer was simple.

“I will love it as much as I love its father,” she whispered. And she would. Just as she loved the little part of Braden that was snoring softly in her bed.

Like father, like son.

Leaning forward, she brushed her lips against
his forehead in a light kiss. “Happy dreams, sweeting.”

She pulled the covers over him, then went to find his father.

Braden sat alone in the hall. Everyone else had long taken themselves to bed in preparation for what they would do on the morrow.

Even Sin had wandered off, making Braden wonder if his brother had finally found one of the Scottish lasses to his liking. And there had certainly been a number of them to choose from.

The bad part was that, for the first time in his life, none of them appealed to him in the least.

Braden cursed.

“She’s turned me into a bloody eunuch,” he muttered as he drained the last of his ale.

And then he thought of Maggie’s words:
You prefer mulled wine
…

Cursing again, he set the tankard back on the table. How had she done it? How had she wormed her way into his carefully guarded heart?

Over and over, he could feel her against him. Hear her murmurs in his ear as her breath stirred against his skin. Closing his eyes, he savored the memory.

And then he cursed it.

He would banish her from his thoughts. Aye.

“Braden?”

He almost jumped out of his chair at the sound of her voice coming from behind him.

Turning, he saw her standing in the shadows. “I thought you would be in bed by now.”

“I can’t sleep,” she said, moving closer. She paused at the table, turned to face him, then leaned her buttocks against the table’s edge so that she could see him while they talked.

Braden kept his gaze on the tankard. He didn’t dare look into those deep amber eyes, lest they captivate him and make him forget what he must—or, more to the point, must not—do to her.

“What is on your mind?” he asked with a nonchalance he didn’t feel.

“I was thinking of something you said to me earlier.”

She paused, and when it became apparent that she wasn’t going to finish her thought, Braden made the mistake of looking up at her.

His heart ached at the confusion and sorrow he saw in her eyes. Her gaze on the floor beside his chair, she had her brows knitted.

“And what was that?” Braden prompted her, in spite of the voice in his head that told him to leave the matter be.

Maggie looked up and pinned him with a probing stare. “You said that you would love to have a family of your own. Did you mean that?”

His gut wrenched. So that was what was on her mind. She was now looking for him to marry her. And he couldn’t do that. He mustn’t.

“Now, Maggie, don’t be thinking—”

“I’m not thinking of marrying you,” she said sharply, cutting him off. “I am not the woman for you, and we both know it. I just wanted to know if you meant what you said. Do you want children?”

He couldn’t imagine why she would ask such a thing.

Unbidden, an image of a child popped into his mind. One with her mother’s curly russet hair and her father’s bright hazel eyes. He could see the child so plainly in his mind, hear her gentle laughter as she ran, that one would think she was real.

And worse than the image was the sudden need he found within his heart to make that child a reality.

“Nay!” he roared, wanting to push the thought out of his mind as quickly as possible.

Maggie blanched.

“I see,” she said quietly, then pushed herself away from the table. And him.

Braden reached out to take her hand and keep her at his side. “Maggie, wait, I didn’t mean that.”

“Aye, you did,” she said, pulling her hand away from his. “I heard the passion of your denial all too plainly.”

“It wasn’t directed at your question.” It had been directed at his own senseless need.

“Then what was it directed at?”

Braden opened his mouth to respond, then
quickly snapped it shut. He didn’t dare tell her the truth. It would hurt her even more to know that what bothered him was the thought of the two of them being united eternally in the form of a child.

He would never hurt her that way.

“I…” He struggled to think of something. Anything he could tell her that would save her feelings but would not be a complete lie.

But he could think of nothing. Either he had to tell her the truth or lie. So, for the first time in his life, he lied to her. “Nay, I don’t want children.”

“Why?”

Again he saw the image of the little girl reaching out to him.

Closing his eyes, Braden blurted out the criticisms he had long chastised Lochlan over. “They’re messy, and they smell.”

Maggie gaped at him. “They’re children, Braden. I daresay you weren’t overly clean in those days either.”

“But I never bit anyone.”

Heat suffused her cheeks as she glared at him. “‘Tis a pity I didn’t bite you harder.”

She moved away.

Without thought, Braden caught her arm and pulled her back. “Don’t go away angry at me.”

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t.”

He tried to think of one. But he couldn’t. In truth, all he could do was stare at the moistness of
her lips as he remembered the way they had tasted.

Without conscious thought, he reached out and cupped her face in his hand.

The anger fled her eyes as they turned a dark, deep brown. “Braden—”

She never got the chance to finish. Braden pulled her to him and claimed her lips for his own. Och, but she tasted so good to him. He could feel her breath against his tongue and he inhaled the sweet, feminine scent of her.

She had corrupted him in a way no woman ever had. She had made him noble. Caring. Kind.

Maggie saw in him things he had never known existed. Worse, he wanted to be the man she saw him as.

“Maggie,” he murmured as he pulled her into his lap.

Maggie knew she should fight him. She should probably hate him. But she couldn’t. Regardless of his faults and his past, she did love him. She would always love him.

And so she gave herself over to his magnetic power. She let him capture her and take her wherever he wanted to.

And right now, she needed him, wanted him more than she had ever wanted him before.

He ran his hands over her back, raising chills as he massaged and rubbed her skin beneath her shirt. Maggie deepened her kiss, biting and licking
his lips as she fought the escalating heat of her body that craved his.