The Morrigan: Damaged Deities (10 page)

There was something darker about him than the younger brother, something rougher about his edges that made Morrie’s heart do a little stutter.  She always loved a tortured soul and if he was a bad boy, too, she was a goner.  She had a feeling she would be
way
gone.

Morrie took a deep, steadying breath and entered the room.

Kade looked up, his eyes lighting at the sight of her as he grinned and winked.  The younger MacLeod simply peered over his newspaper before folding it up. 

Both stood as Morrie approached the table.  She noted Kade stood taller than his brother, which meant he towered over her.  Both seemed to fill the large dining room.

“Good morning,” Kamden said to her. “Morrie Brandon, this is my brother, Kade MacLeod.”

Morrie opened her mouth to say they’d already met, certain the older MacLeod had filled his brother in on all the raunchy details, but Kade didn’t let her, instead smiling and holding out his hand as he said, “Welcome, Morrie.  It’s a pleasure tae meet ye.”

Unable to help her frown, Morrie shook his hand, letting him hold it a little longer than what was proper as she questioned him with her eyes, and sat down.  

He simply winked at her.

After their first meeting she hadn’t thought anything about him could be gentlemanly, but if he’d apparently kept their encounter secret, then maybe she was wrong. 

“You never mentioned your brother being here,” Morrie said, an edge to her voice. 

“Did I no’?” Kamden replied, his eyebrows innocently raised. 

The brothers sat, with Kamden returning to his newspaper and Kade forgetting about his plate, focusing instead on Morrie while still grinning in a devilish way that put her on alert.

“Wha’ brings ye all the way tae MacLeod Manor, Morrie?” he asked.  He quirked an eyebrow. “An arrangement?”

Okay, so maybe not such a gentleman.

“No,” she answered, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl.

“Morrie’s an expert horse trainer from Oklahoma,” Kamden answered in a gruff tone. “I hired her tae catch that wild horse we have plaguing our lands.”

His smile faltering a bit, Kade’s eyebrows rose as he turned to his brother.

“Didya, noo?” He grinned at her. “Got a bit o’ a way wi’ the cuddies, do ye?”  When she shrugged, he asked, “So ye’re stayin’ until the horse is caught, then?”

“Yes, which means I’ll be leaving today.” Both brothers turned their attention to her. “I caught him last night.”

The men exchanged a look with Kade muttering, “She works quick.”

Kamden put his newspaper down, resting his elbows on the table as he leaned forward. 

“What did ye do wi’ him?”

“I have him locked up.” Morrie scowled, offended at their apparent disbelief. “He’s out in your stables, if you’d like to see him.”

“I’d love tae see this brilliant steed,” Kade said, standing as Morrie did. 

With an unreadable expression, Kamden stood as well and both brothers followed her out to the stables. 

Morrie brought the apple to feed to the horse. 

He might be a killer, but he was still a living creature.  And if they were all honest, she had blood on her own hands, as well.

As soon as the cold air hit her, Morrie wished she’d had grabbed a coat, only to remember it had been torn to shreds by the very horse they headed out to visit. 

No matter, she won’t need it once she was back in Oklahoma.

Kade sidled up beside her, hands in his low-slung jeans pockets, brushing his arm against hers. 

“Bit chilly out, aye?” he murmured, his gaze dipping to her chest.  “Could wrap my arm ‘round ye, tae keep ye warm.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” she forced a smile at him, inwardly cursing the longing in her stomach to have him wrap more than just an arm around her. 

The feeling creeping to her breasts, she crossed her arms over her chest, hoping to conceal the evidence of how he affected her.

“Ye an American?” he asked, keeping his tone light as he gave her a little space.

“I suppose so,” she answered, eyes focused on the stables ahead and anxious to encounter the horse again. 

She wondered how he would look in the daylight.  It had been hard to tell the color of his coat in the dark—would he be a deep chestnut or black as tar?

“I always wanted tae visit America,” Kade said as they approached the stable doors. 

Grabbing one door with Kamden getting the other, the brothers pulled them open and Morrie stepped inside.

The daylight broke through in streams, but the once excited horse was silent.  The other two seemed to go about their business without a care. 

Morrie approached with apprehension, only to have her mouth fall open to find the stall empty. 

What the fuck?

Absently handing the apple to Kade, she yanked open the stall gate and searched its lonely contents—the pressed hay and knocked over feed bucket—unable to accept the horse was gone.

“Where did he go?” she asked with disbelief. 

Kamden stood behind her at the gate entry frowning, while Kade rested his arms on top of the low stall walls, peering in. 

Morrie turned around to the younger brother. 

“He was here, I swear it.  I found him last night, down by the lake.  I caught him and—!”

Morrie cut herself off. 

The only valid explanation for the horse’s absence was she had bee right in her assumptions.  If the horse were really a kelpie, the stall wouldn’t hold him. 

She narrowed her gaze on Kamden, suspicions filling her mind.

A sympathetic expression passed across Kamden’s face as he studied her. 

“He wouldn’t be such a pest,” he grated, “if he were so easy tae catch.”  The hard lines of his face softened. “I didna expect ye tae catch him quick.”

Resigned to her annoyance, Morrie leaned back against the inside of the stall. 

She’d never let a horse get the better of her before, mystical or otherwise.  Her mind could barely comprehend it.

“Ack, that’s a shame,” Kade said, shaking his head as he held the apple up before his mouth.  “Guess ye’ll be staying awhile longer then, aye?” 

He took a big bite, filling his cheek, and grinned at her.

Narrowing a glare on the cocky Scotsman, “Yes, I guess I will be.”  Morrie sighed and straightened up.  She turned to Kamden. “Will you still take me to the lake, though? I’d like to get a look at the area in the daylight.”

Kade straightened, frowning at his brother.  Kamden stepped back to let Morrie pass and said, “Tis Sunday.”

So?
  Morrie turned to Kamden, eyes inquisitive, hoping further explanation would follow.

“We have church tae attend this morning,” Kamden explained.  “Do ye wish tae join us?”

“No, thanks,” Morrie replied with a snort and barely contained derision. 

Humans and their superstitions.

“I’m afraid we’ll have tae make that trip tomorrow, if the weather allows.  Make yerself at home around the manor and if there’s anything ye need in town, Lorna can take ye.”

Morrie watched as Kamden dropped a hand on Kade’s shoulder and led him away.  She stewed in her rage and spent the next hour scouring the fields around the manor for any sign of the beast.

 That horse was dead. 

Or at least as good as.  Morrie did not like being made a fool and the horse had made a fool of her. 

She
had
caught the damn thing.  She had overpowered and controlled him and somehow he’d escaped.  She wasn’t going to let it happen again. 

Knowing the manor’s lack of Dr. Pepper was making her grumpy, Morrie found the old truck in a shed with the keys inside and decided to take a trip to town without the company of the chatty and odd Lorna. 

The roads were muddy and the trip arduous and it had been a while since Morrie had driven anywhere or anything—she had never trusted the mechanical beasts of the modern age.  The clutch screamed in protests as she shoved and yanked on the gearshift, unsure how it really worked so she just pressed the pedals at random. 

With a little shock and amazement, Morrie managed to get the old heap into town, bringing it to a staggering stop in front of a small grocer at the edge of the village. 

She wrenched the keys from the ignition, anxious to be out of the truck.  Taking a calming breath, she grabbed her bag, threw her whole body into opening the heavy, metal door and slipped out.

After slamming it shut, she glanced over her shoulder, and started to walk inside the grocer only to stop and turn back around. 

Just across the street was a small cemetery lined with a low, crumbling stone wall, willows dipping their heads low over the graveyards.  Cracked and black headstones rested at crooked angles, partial angel faces of statues mourned in their decrepit state. 

But past the graves and markers, Morrie spied the hulking frames of the MacLeod brothers.  Their backs were to her, but she would know them anywhere, even if she’d only just met them. 

Guess church was over.

Kade stood before a grave, head bent and Morrie frowned, wondering for whom it was he mourned.  Looking around beside him, Kamden seemed less focused and more nervous. 

After a moment, he put a hand on Kade’s back and they both left for another grave. 

Shaking off her clingy curiosity, Morrie turned away and headed into the grocer.

No matter what Kade had said, she had no intention of staying there “awhile longer” so she only looked for the Dr. Pepper that would save her from insanity as well as some better soap than what they had in the guest bathroom. 

The grocer was small and cramped with soft music playing and a young teenage girl standing behind the counter.  There were more rows of vegetables and beans than the comfort food she was accustomed to back in Oklahoma—nothing looked like it could be deep fried in beer batter. 

After picking up a bar of lavender-scented soap, Morrie traveled the aisles looking for the soda.  Instead of the normal soft drinks aisle like at the Safeway back home, here there was just a small display at the end of a row, Coke and Pepsi mixed in with a few unknown brands.

Sighing heavily, Morrie approached the counter and waited for the teenager with music blaring from her hot pink headphones to notice her.

“Excuse me?” Morrie placed her hands on the counter and leaned in.  The girl didn’t respond.  “Excuse me?” she repeated with more force.

“Whit ye need?” the girl asked, still bouncing along to painful sounds that passed for music nowadays. 

Morrie opened her mouth to speak when the girl’s eyes widened, focusing past her.  She smiled a wide, toothy grin. 

“Good mourn, Laird. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen ye ‘round.”

Morrie’s body registered the heat of his, standing too close and rushing her senses, and she knew the laird would be Kade. 

The impulse to press into his warmth gripped and shocked her, that instinct such a foreign one.  Fighting to control her reaction, she glanced over her shoulder. 

Kade smiled down at her, his hands in his coat pockets, cheeks flushed from the cold outside. 

Her stomach did an annoying little flip at the sight of him.

“Mornin’, Carrie,” he greeted the girl without taking his eyes off Morrie. “Ye’ve quite grown up since last I was here.”

“It’s been five years, Maister MacLeod,” Carrie said breathlessly. “I was just a wee school girl back then.”

With a hard scowl, Morrie glanced at the girl—it wasn’t like she could have grown so much since, despite her scant dress and overuse of makeup.  And she was obviously taken by Kade, her cheeks rosy and her eyes never leaving him. 

A flurry of a long forgotten feeling fluttered inside Morrie—was it jealousy? 

Jesus, what was happening to her?