Marti Talbotts Highlander Series 1 - Anna Rachel u Charlet

expected it when Catherin walked to him. “I am happy to see you as well.”
    “I want...I mean, Anna said...I…,” Catherin couldn’t seem to get it out and looked to him for help.
    “I will not deny you.”
    His words gave her the courage she needed. “I want to hear your heart.”
    He set Rachel down and opened his arms. She was hesitant, but she timidly moved into his arms and put her ear to his chest. He wasn’t sure if he should, but he softly wrapped his arms around her. She didn’t stay long, but it was enough for bo th of them. It was a beginning.
    “I will build you a cottage anywhere you like.” Justin picked Rachel back up and turned them toward the Keep . “Athena will be g lad to see you and she will...”
    Thomas and Clymer each grabbed one of Harold’s arms and began to walk him toward the bridge. Each demanded to know exactly how he got in this time.
    Kevin hadn’t taken his eyes off his wife. He knew she was terrified, so he waited. When she finally looked at him, he thought of his shoe problem. He smiled, pointed to the foot with the shoe and then to the one without.
    She returned his smile, but she was trembling when she slowly started toward him. Where had all her courage gone? She was still a good ten feet away when she stopped.
    “I love you,” he said.
    “Do you?”
    “I have loved you for years.”
    She nervously giggled and then she grew deadly serious. “I must know...”
    “Anything, you may ask me anything.”
    “Are you going to have your lads hold me down?”
    “Anna, my lads would never do such a thing. They would rather cut out my heart.” He wanted to reach out to her so badly it hurt. Still, he waited. “Did your father ’ s lads hold you down?”
    “No, just my mother. I saw it start once, but when she screamed , I ran away. I have been so ashamed of not helping her.” A tear rolled down her cheek and she wiped it away.
    “Would you like me to hold you?” Suddenly, she ran into his arms. He wanted to comfort her, but she wanted to be kissed, so he lowered his lips to hers and remembered to be gentle and loving.
    In the window of the Keep , Katie sighed. “At last.”

    It was another two weeks of long walks, talking, laughing and kissing before Anna began to feel more comfortable. She wanted to know every detail of what would happen when she came into his bedchamber and he didn’t hold back a single thing. Sometimes , he explained two different ways until he was sure she understood. When he told her again that she would find pleasure in it, she rolled her eyes.
    Then at last, she opened the door to his bedchamber in the middle of the night and went in to his waiting arms.

    -end-

    RACHEL

    Rachel had a dark secret and even she didn’t know what it was. She was seventeen, determined to become as good a warrior as any Highlander and was firmly against taking a husband. Connor had other ideas. He loved Rachel and when a rival clan took her, he thought he would lose his mind. How would he ever get her back and if he did, would her dark secret separate them forever?

    CHAPTER I

    She knelt down behind a tree and waited. Her prey was a Highlander, a giant of a man and a fearsome warrior. Rachel wasn’t all that big at seventeen, but she was quick, cunning and rarely missed her mark with a bow and arrow. She always carried at least one dagger and she wasn’t afraid to use it, but today she planned to topple the giant with her bare hands. If she succeeded, her joy would be complete.
    Waiting was something she was not good at. Where was he? Quite some time ago , she watched him head to the loch to bathe and it never took this long. She didn’t watch him bathe . S he hadn’t done that since she was nine and her mother told her not to. Now , she knew exactly how close she could get to the loch without accidentally seeing anything.
    Rachel smiled and her blue eyes sparkled. She didn’t think any of the men knew she used to watch them bathe; they never once caught her. If they had, her brother-in-law, Kevin, would have frowned at her for hours and then ask ed all sorts of embarrassing questions. She didn’t mind the questions so much, but she had much better ways to spend her time. Kevin never lost his temper with her, not even once, but he could frown the spots off her dapple-gray horse.
    The men in the MacGreagor Clan paid far more attention to keeping themselves clean than men in the other clans , and Rachel had been close enough to unfamiliar men to