Perfect Strangers (36 page)

The memory of why she'd sought him out came at her in a rush. Her breath caught, for as the reason played in her mind, it was easily recognized for what it was. An excuse to see him.

She'd not come to tell him anything he wouldn't have learned from one of his men upon returning to Bracklenaer—probably from Gilby, who was now up and about and, when not complaining about his wound, was busy practicing on anyone who'd tolerate the cusses he'd learned from Mairghread that fateful night in the tunnel.

The reason Gabrielle had given herself for being here, she realized now, was a deception, and not a very good one at that; the reason was embarrassingly shallow, flimsier than a battle shield constructed of a material no more substantial than a strip of diaphanous gauze. Only now did she understand that she harbored more deep-seated and intense reasons for disturbing Connor's bath. And only now—slowly, slowly—did she begin to realize exactly what that reason was and, more importantly, what it meant.

When she'd approached the edge of the loch, she had been dazed and only partially aware of what she was doing. Now, when she slipped her hand from beneath the warm folds of her cloak and lifted it, the motion was done with silent intent. Gabrielle knew exactly what she was doing.

Her trembling fingertips brushed Connor's. She was right, his skin felt every bit as warm and wet and wonderfully slippery as she'd imagined it would.

Because she was standing on the bank and he in the loch, he had to tilt his head in order to continue holding her gaze as he turned and took one small step in her direction. The concealing surface of the water rode temptingly low on his hips as his wet palm slid along the length of her dry one.

Then, suddenly, with a flick of his wrist they were palm to palm, the pulses in their wrists beating against each other as though vying for speed. One by one his fingers curled inward, linking and weaving with her own.

Connor's grip was possessively firm, but not painful. Gabrielle could easily have pulled away from him... if she'd wanted to.

She did not want to.

What she
wanted
to do was move
closer.

Connor's voice, when it came, was throaty and low, no more than a hoarse whisper. "I'm a mon of me word, Gabby. While I still dinny think 'twill do much to end this cursed feud, Roy Maxwell is safely back with his kin. And no doubt Johnny is e'en now rejoicing in the return of his treasured cook. Methinks he will be too busy celebrating and feasting for the next fortnight or so to ride against us or any other clan."

"Thank you," Gabrielle said, her voice equally as soft and husky. She was having trouble concentrating on the subject at hand, however. The feud between Maxwell and Douglas suddenly seemed very far away; her thoughts had latched on to something else, something more immediate.

Gabby
.

No one else called her that. While the nickname sounded foreign to her ears, at the same time she found she liked very much the soft, guttural way the two syllables rolled off Connor's tongue.

Warmth radiated from his fingertips, sinking into her skin, heating her blood. Waves of awareness radiated from that spot and out to the rest of her body. Her breath caught and her fingers flexed convulsively. His gave a reassuring squeeze in response.

"Ella's gone again," Gabrielle said, because she felt the need to say something, and her reason, no matter how feeble, for being here seemed as good as any.

"Aye, and well I ken it."

"How did you find out?"

"She did what any Douglas would do. There was no need to be told the obvious."

"If you knew," she countered, her green eyes widening in surprise, "then why didn't you stop her?"

The hint of a grin tugged at one corner of Connor's lips. The tip of his thumb was stroking a leisurely path up and down the length of her index finger. "Me cousin has a mind of her own, as ye've no doubt discovered." He muttered something under his breath about finding Ella a husband, but Gabrielle couldn't make out all of his rumbling since a goodly portion was in Gaelic. "Had I tried to stop her, she'd have kicked me in the shins, cursed me blue, then set off after him no matter what I said to her. Since arguing with the stubborn wench is maun the same as arguing with a lifeless pile of wool—and comes to the same—I thought it best to save me shins the bruising, don't ye ken?"

She blinked hard. "You didn't stop her for fear she'd
kick you?"
she asked, then tipped her head back and laughed. She couldn't help it. The thought of this man—the infamous Black Douglas, the stuff of Border legends and ballads—being in any way afraid of a wee slip of a lass like Ella was so preposterous it was comical. Gabrielle laughed until her sides ached and her cheeks hurt.

"'Tis not
that
funny," Connor said, but his mind was only partially on the words his tongue formed. A bigger part of his concentration had been snagged by the sound of her laughter, and the way her pretty green eyes and softly rounded features seemed to light up the morning.

The gentle trickle of her laughter was mesmerizing in a way he'd never known before. It took effort to continue speaking, and not drag her down into the water with him so he could feel her body pressing against his again.

What had they been discussing? Och! yes, he remembered now. Vaguely. "In case ye've not noticed, me cousin is stubborn to the core and has the kick of a thoroughbred."

"Ella is a Douglas born and bred."

He thought about that for a second, then, his grin broadening, beamed proudly up at her. His thumb continued the hot, lazy strokes that made her skin tingle. "That she is, Gabby. That she maun definitely is. One of the rare facts those cursed Border ballads have gotten right is that a Douglas is relentless. Once we set our mind to something, anyone with a scrap of sense stays out of our way. Ye could say 'tis unhealthy to try to stop us. One way or another, we get what we're after."

Connor was no longer referring to Ella or Roy Maxwell or anything so simple. Gabrielle could tell by the way his piercing gray eyes narrowed and his expression sobered.

As though she was hearing it from the opposite end of a very long tunnel, her voice seemed to come from a distance when she asked, "What is it
you're
after, Connor Douglas?"

"Ye don't 'ken?" he counted huskily.

"I think I do, but I want to hear you say it."

"Och! Gabby, I can do better than that. Come closer, lass, and I'll
show
ye."

"Don't be silly. I can't. I'm already standing on the edge of the bank. Another step and I'd—"

Connor's grin was wicked and quick. A flick of his wrist saw what she'd been about to describe happen.

Gabrielle gasped when she felt her hand jerked suddenly forward, felt herself tip precariously in the same direction. Her toes curled within her shoes, as though trying to claw through the hard soles and dig into the earth beneath in an effort to find some purchase.

The chilly water of the loch loomed closer, then receded somewhat when she flailed her free arm. Unfortunately, that arm was still buried beneath the thick folds of her cloak; moving it about did precious little good to stabilize her wavering balance. If anything, the panicky gesture had the opposite effect.

She could feel herself again lurching forward. In a final attempt to save herself a frigid dousing, her fingers tightened around Connor's. She pushed with all her might against his hand. It might have worked, had Connor not been prepared for it. She'd intended to use his resistance as leverage, but there was no resistance to use. Instead, he let her push his hand backward even as his fingers meshed more tightly with her own.

"Connor!" she cried, and in the same instant the ground beneath her feet disappeared. The pressure of his grip pulling her forward made Gabrielle helpless to stop her body from following.

The last sound she heard before hitting the water face-first was the deep, rich sound of Connor Douglas's laughter.

Gabrielle's belly took the brunt of the collision; her cloak and gown provided precious little padding against the slap of pain as she hit the water. Momentum, coupled with suddenly drenched, water-heavy clothes, dragged her under. Her breath burst from her lungs in a rush that made an explosion of bubbles scurry to the surface.

Connor had not let go of her hand. Gabrielle clung to his grip as she willed her quickly numbing feet, snarled in the folds of her saturated skirt and cloak, to find the soft, muddy bed of the loch.

The water had only been up to Connor's hips. She knew that if she could only find her footing, she'd be able to push herself to the top. Unfortunately, her feet were hopelessly ensnared; it seemed like the more she kicked and tried to work them free, the more tangled they became.

Panic, dark and blinding, clawed at her insides. With effort she swallowed it back.

C-c-cold. My God, she was soooo c-c-cold!

The frigidity of the water made her limbs feel unnaturally heavy and unresponsive. Just when she thought her lungs would burst from their burning need for oxygen, she felt a strong arm slide around her waist and haul her upward.

She broke the surface with several loud, choked, shuddering gasps that supplied an abundance of blessedly sweet morning air to her deprived lungs. Her teeth chattered against each other so violently that the clicks of them knocking together filled her head and drowned out the panicky throb of her heartbeat.

A tiny portion of her mind recognized the hard, strong body she was being held tightly against. A much larger portion recognized, and appreciated greatly, the heat that body emanated. It was a heat that washed through her, seeming to chase away the most desperate part of the cold that felt as though it had settled right into the marrow of her bones.

Gabrielle's eyes were closed. She opened them now and blinked away the droplets of water clinging to her lashes.

Green eyes narrowed, her gaze fixed with furious disbelief on a smugly grinning Black Douglas. Her lips were blue from the cold. She could barely feel them, and could move them only by exerting extraordinary effort.
"W-w-why did you d-d-do that?!"

Would she understand if he told her? Nay, Connor thought, she would not, especially not in her current, indignant frame of mind.
Showing
her, however, as he'd promised himself before dragging her into the water with him, was something else again...

Connor angled his head, his mouth swooping down hungrily to cover hers.

Gabrielle's lips felt icy cold and, at first, unresponsive.

The heat of his passion soon thawed them.

Connor groaned low and deep in his throat and dragged the tip of his tongue over the crease separating her upper lip from her lower. Her mouth opened for him, and he delved inside the sweet inner recesses, darting and stroking and driving the chill from her with an intensity that stunned them both.

She squirmed against him, her feet finally finding their way free of her skirt and touching the floor of the loch. She stood on her own now, leaned forward, pressing her upper body against his.

Her arms stole about his neck, her splayed fingers combing through his wet hair, clenching, fisting it in handfuls so close to his scalp that the roots of his hair stung. Soon the gooseflesh-prickled skin on her forearms and shoulders was also warming as she drained the heat from his body and drew it into her own.

It was only as Connor began to slip his other hand around her waist, yearning to pull her temptingly soft body closer still, that he realized their fingers were still entwined. Without missing a beat, he diverted the course of his arm. Water dripped down his forearm as he lifted their linked hands, turned them at the wrists, then slowly, slowly stroked the quivering line of her jaw with the back of his knuckles.

"Beautiful," he whispered hotly against her lips. "Och! but ye be so ver beautiful."

"You're blind to even think it," she replied with sudden shyness, and equal huskiness, against his mouth. A blush warmed her cheeks, the pinkness creeping up to her hairline, washing down the length of her neck.

"I dinny
think
anything, lass, I
ken
it." Connor pulled back and looked down into her eyes, breathtaking green eyes that swam with confusion and... aye, a hopefulness that yanked at the strings of emotion this woman had somehow, without his knowledge and certainly without his consent, wound in a complex web he'd never be able to untangle around his heart. "I be many things, but blind is not one of them. I see ye for exactly what ye are. And I like ver maun what I see."

"Are you saying that you meant those things you said to Roy Maxwell about me?" She caught her lower lip between her teeth. "Truly?"

"With all my heart, Gabby." His voice rang with a sincerity that was echoed in the flash of candor sparkling in his eyes. "I meant—I
mean
—e'ery word."

Gabrielle's mouth gaped open. The question hovering in her mind slipped off her tongue before she could stop it. "Then mayhap you like me well enough to...?"

The words trailed softly away. Her head spun and she leaned weakly against him, positive she would have collapsed without the support, her knees suddenly felt that weak and shaky.

Had she gone insane? Aye, Gabrielle thought, she must have. What other reason explained why she'd just come so perilously close to asking this man to—?