The Wedding Dress (9 page)

“I’d love to have a horse once my life settles down a bit,” Emma confided. “I adore Arlie, but…he’s definitely Sam’s baby. I want a baby of my own.”

Strange, Jared thought. Hadn’t the headlines on that gossip rag broadcasted that Emma didn’t want children to ruin her gorgeous figure and muck up her career? That was why her husband had left her, wasn’t it? But then, you could hire a groom to take care of a horse while you were gone for months at a time. And if you got tired of the commitment you could sell a horse. Children narrowed your options forever.

Guilt pinched Jared and he busied himself unlashing the bundle from the back of the saddle. He hated the feeling that he, too, was intruding into parts of Emma McDaniel’s life that were none of his business. He had plenty of baggage he’d never want to share. Knew firsthand that suffocating feeling of…

He cut off the thought as the bundle slid free.

“What’s that?” Emma asked, eyeing it with interest. “Some really long hot dogs for a picnic lunch…or breakfast. I keep forgetting what time it is.”

“I brought the swords along so you could practice here. We’re better off away from the site. We’d be a distraction. Here, we can bash around without a soul to hear us but old Snib. And I’d actually like to irritate him. He’s given me plenty of headaches himself.”

“Headaches?”

“Putting the fear of God in my students if they dare wander onto his property. Accusing them of everything from sheep stealing to highway robbery when the worst they’ve done is steal a kiss or two among the standing stones.”

“Why not stay right here? This brook would be a lovely place to…well, steal something besides sheep.”

Jared chuckled. “The standing stones are supposed to make men more potent and ladies fertile. There’s a story that when Lady Aislinn failed to conceive, she left offerings of flowers at the stones in desperation, hoping the spirit there would help her have a child.”

“Did it work?”

“No. But I figure it wasn’t the fault of the stones. It was more the fact that Lord Magnus was forever running off fighting for the English king.”

“I thought the Scots hated the English. Especially…” She paused a moment, her brow furrowing with concentration. “Edward Longshanks, the Hammer of the Scots.”

Surprised, Jared smiled in spite of himself. The lady had definitely done her homework. “King Edward didn’t get the name Hammer until much later, but say what you will about the man’s methods, he was canny as any fox. He gave Lord Magnus wealthy estates in England to buy his loyalty. Quite a dilemma for many Scots nobles. And our own king at that time had sworn fealty to Edward, so there were many who believed honor bound them to take up arms for England.”

“And you?”

Jared regarded her a moment, surprised.

“If you’d been Lord Magnus, what would you have done?”

“My idea of honor is a lot closer to Sir Brannoc’s. And speaking of the most notorious mercenary of his time—” He took one sword and handed it to Emma, his hand brushing hers as he transferred the hilt into her grip. He felt the weapon tug her arm down by its sheer weight.

She quickly added the grasp of her other hand. “My Lord! This thing weighs a ton!”

Jared raised an eyebrow. “My point exactly. Think if I ship one over to your director he’ll finally give this whole fight scene up?”

“No. And neither will I. It’s great conflict. So powerful. And it’s a brilliant symbol for all the strength Lady Aislinn has gained by the end of the script.”

“Have it your way then.” Jared sighed, taking up his own weapon. He ran his fingers down the flat of the blade, drawing from the familiar surface a sense of calm, of power, of invincibility. “Lay on, MacDuff. But when your whole body aches like a boil tomorrow, don’t complain to me.”

He lost himself in explanations, examples, demonstrating the simplest of fighting stances. He tried not to laugh as Emma’s skirts tangled about her legs, inhibiting her stride. In spite of that, she proved to be stubborn as any Scot Jared had ever known. Demanding that he repeat moves again and again, scoffing when even he—bastard that he was—suggested she rest a moment, take a drink from the wine sack he’d brought along.

As it happened, he could have used a moment to collect himself. Clear his mind of the distractions that had surprised him: the soft swells of breasts straining against cloth as she raised her arms to swing, the alluring curve of hip and narrow waist, as time and again he divested her of her sword.

She lunged and parried, thrust and gasped for breath, like one of the Valkyries in legends left in Scotland by Vikings invading ages ago. But time and again, Jared swept the sword out of her hands until at last she didn’t have the strength to lift it above her knees.

“See what I mean?” Jared said. “This whole sword-fight scenario is ludicrous. It’s impossible for Lady Aislinn to win.”

“Nothing…is…impossible.” She wheezed, bending over, bracing herself on the sword. “One day I’ll find a way to drop you like a rock. Just like Billy Callahan, the school bully.”

Jared looked her over. “You look like a stiff wind could blow you away.”

“It throws you arrogant caveman types off guard, and then—whamo. I get a perfect opening.” She slanted a “damn the duchess” glare up at him, but her eyes twinkled.

“Is that so?”

She straightened, still breathless, her breasts rising and falling from the exertion. “My grandfather served in special forces. When I was ten years old he taught me how to fight. Death shots and everything. Consider yourself warned, Butler.”

He grinned. “I’m pure terrified.”

“You should be. As soon as I find a way to use all that weight and upper-body strength against you in a sword fight, mister, you’re going to be on your butt in the dirt begging for mercy.”

A horrible yelp split the air from across the burn, followed by a cacophony of snarling that made the hairs on the back of Jared’s neck stand on end. Both horses skittered to one side. Emma caught her breath.

“My God!” she exclaimed. “What is that? It sounds like someone’s killing something.” She didn’t wait for an answer. Damned if she didn’t wade into the knee-deep water and slog toward the far bank!

“Emma, stay out of it! It’s just old Snib setting his dogs on some poor—”

She stumbled, fell, soaking her left side. Didn’t she know how wild the burn could be after a rainstorm? Full of swirling currents that could pull her under. Plunging after her seemed his only option.

That water was going to be so cold it would take care of any problems he might have being attracted to the woman. His ballocks were going to crawl up inside him and hide for a month!

He gritted his teeth on an oath as he plunged in after her, but she was already scrambling up the other bank. Just at that moment, the snarling tangle of what sounded to be canines boiled up over the rim of the valley that had concealed them thus far.

Snib’s two border collies were tearing into what looked to be a ball of mange not even half their size, as the crusty farmer with his tweed cap urged them on.

“Take the little devil, Shep and Digger. Snap his fool neck!”

Snib’s knobby old head suddenly jerked away from the fight, seeing the soaked woman stalking toward him with all the high dudgeon a straitjacket of wet wool skirts would allow.

“What the devil?” Snib swore. “You’re that film star person who—”

“Call off your dogs!” Emma bellowed, grabbing a fallen branch about as thick as her wrist. “They’re hurting him!”

“Hurting him? It’s killing him they’re after. I’ll not have a thieving stray sucking eggs in my henhouse!”

Emma thumped one of the collies in the ribs, trying to bat it away. The collie yelped, but with the intensity of its breed kept battling what it saw as a threat to its flock.

“Don’t hit the big dog, you crazy woman!” Jared yelled, clambering up onto the bank. “It could turn on you!”

Ignoring him, Emma whacked the second one while old Snib cursed her, but she might as well have been trying to knock out a swarm of bees with a cricket bat. Fangs flashed, tearing at the mangy dog, who fought back as if he were ten feet tall. One of the collies gave a yelp as the little dog launched itself and sank teeth into its shoulder. The bloody little fool held on tight.

Blood streaked the dogs’ coats. And for an instant Jared wished Emma McDaniel would do what she’d promised—and goddamn well faint. The woman passing out cold was the only thing he could think of at the moment that might get her out of danger.

Emma flung away her stick, but it wasn’t in surrender. Jared knew in his gut she was going to plunge headlong into the nastiest dogfight he’d ever seen and try to snatch the mutt to safety. Fear jolted through him as the image of Emma’s hands torn and bleeding flashed in his mind.

He reached her just in time, encircling her waist with his arms, dragging her back against him. The woman kicked and struggled as if he were trying to haul her into danger instead of out of it.

“Don’t! They’re hurting him!” Her voice choked. With tears? He’d never know. Her heel connected hard with his shin.

“I’ll get the damned dog if you settle down,” he promised with a fatalistic grimace. “I’ll heal faster.”

She stilled, her breath catching in her throat, her breasts soft against his arm. He released her. Cursing himself six times a fool, Jared dove into the fight.

Chapter Five

“H
AVE YOU GONE
daft?” Snib shrilled in disbelief.

Pain pierced Jared’s hand as one of the dogs bit him. Probably the little bastard he was trying to save. Another dog ripped at his shirt.

“Call them off, Snib.” Jared’s hands finally closed about the wriggling mass of fur. Jared booted the collie nearest him and pulled the little dog in to his chest. “Hey,” Jared yelped in pain as the mutt snapped his sharp little teeth into the only thing he could reach—Jared’s pecs.

“Down, Shep. Digger. Heel,” Snib commanded. The collies dropped, shaking from tail to snout as they fought the urge to finish the kill. But if their master had changed his mind, they’d obey him.

Jared’s hands dripped blood, the bite in his chest burned, the terrier eyeing him not with gratitude but plain old resentment for ending the fight.

Eyelids peeled back from black button eyes. The terrier showed its sharp fangs and yipped at his attackers as if to say “Let me at ’em, bloody cowards.” For God’s sake, with its lip curled like that it looked like an angry rat—the kind who carried distemper and bubonic plague. A rat determined to bite whatever happened to be in reach.

Jared shifted the dog away from its apparent target: Jared’s jugular. He didn’t need another souvenir from this debacle. Sensing a chance to break free, the little demon writhed in Jared’s grasp, flailing its spindly legs, its ribs so sparsely fleshed the bones seemed to grind together.

“Settle down, or I’ll strangle you myself,” Jared warned, holding on for dear life. Damned if he wanted to go plunging into the creek a second time in pursuit of the dog.

Emma swept off her surcoat, stepping close to Jared to cut off the mutt’s hope of escape. In spite of the squirming flurry of dog in his hands, Jared noticed the points of her nipples thrusting against the damp linen of her shift. “Let me bundle him up in this,” she said.

“He’ll bite.” Jared gritted his teeth as one of those razor-sharp fangs slit his knuckle. A thump on the head from God, Jared figured.
That’s what you get for staring at a Good Samaritan’s breasts.

“He’s just scared,” she murmured, moving closer, crooning softly to the mangy creature. But she wasn’t a complete moron. She used the cloth to protect her arms as she took the quaking scrap of dog out of Jared’s grasp.

“I don’t care how many rotten films you’ve been in back in America, lassie,” Snib groused, wrinkling his nose at Emma as if he’d stepped barefoot in dog droppings. “You keep that stray away from my land or next time I won’t bother me dogs, I’ll just shoot it.”

“You’ll have to shoot me first!” Emma cried, outraged.

“Don’t tempt me.” Snib gave a thunderous snort from his bulbous red nose. “I’ve got no patience for interferin’ women. You tell her that, Butler. Now get on your own side of the burn, all three of you!”

Curving the arm that felt the least like a badly chewed sausage around Emma’s shoulders, Jared urged her back toward the water. This time the cold felt good. As soon as he was sure she had her footing, he plunged his arms into the water, letting the chill cool his pain and wash away the worst of the blood. He only wished the water was deep enough to cover his chest.

By the time he joined Emma and the rat of a dog on the shore, the mutt had decided burying his nose in the nice lady’s breasts was a far friendlier pastime than being savaged by a pair of collies.

Smart little bugger,
Jared thought.

“I suppose we’ll have to take the dog with us,” Jared said, more to himself than to her. “It’s stupid enough to swim right back over there to go another round.”

“He’s hurt. His ear’s all torn. Is there a vet someplace close?”

“We won’t be needing one.”

“But—”

Jared shot her a quelling look, then shook his head in bewilderment. “You, there. Dog,” he addressed the disreputable ball of fur. “What kind of eejit takes on someone so much bigger?”

Emma’s grateful smile hurt Jared’s heart. “The same kind of eejit who gets between two dogs in a fight,” she said as if it were the highest accolade.

E
MMA
M
C
D
ANIEL PERCHED
cross-legged on Jared’s unmade bed, her shift hiked halfway up her golden-brown thighs so the excess fabric could form a nest for the half-drunk dog in her arms.

She’d protested giving the mutt any alcohol at all, but since it was the only anesthetic available, she’d given in. Jared’s main objection was that the only liquor he had in his tent was the bottle of twenty-five-year-old Macallan Scotch he’d been saving for the day he made the vital discovery he sensed was hovering somewhere in the future of this dig.

But wasting fine Scotch didn’t upset Jared’s equilibrium half as much as the presence of a woman in his tent did. For six summers the roomy canvas enclosure had been the kind of inner sanctum even Davey was forbidden to breach.