Black Falcon's Lady (Celtic Rogues Book 1) by Kimberly Cates Read Free Book Online

crushing him from all sides kept him on his feet.
    In one lithe movement Tade swung off the horse, pulling Maryssa down with him. Her side skidded down the hard plane of his stomach, then the jutting bones of his lean hips, but she scarcely had time to keep her rubbery knees from buckling before he hauled her toward the door with an impatient yank.
    "Quiet, damn it!" The support of his hand vanished, and she groped for it as she stumbled, catching herself on the smooth length of the doorjamb. She looked up to see Tade's palm clamping over the mouth of a boisterous ten-year-old.
    "Hush you little rogues!" he hissed. "Do you want the whole blasted Sassenach army to know Dev's here? Get inside." Maryssa felt herself encompassed with the others in the curve of his arm as he herded the group through the cottage door, prodding them forward as though they were a band of lightsome colts. Her eyes swept over a welcoming peat fire aglow in a huge stone fireplace, rainbow splashes of rag rugs, and scatterings of crude handmade toys. A home, Maryssa thought, a stab of emptiness shooting through her. She slipped into the shadow of the door, even the soft sound of her footsteps seeming an intrusion.
    "Next time I'll have a town crier announce that Devin's home and be done with it," Tade said wryly, giving the now-sheepish ten-year-old's freckled nose a tweak before setting the boy free.
    Maryssa turned just in time to see a tall, slender girl leap up from beside a cradle. "Devin?" With a shriek of joy the girl hurtled across the wooden floor to battle her way through the others, all but trampling a tiny red-curled waif in her path. She flung her arms around the tall man's neck, burying her face in his shoulder, as she sobbed beneath a rich curtain of spun copper hair. "I thought—thought it was just Tade!"
    "Just Tade?" Tade feigned a look of wounded dignity. “Good to see you, too, Deirdre!”
    “You-you know what I mean," Deirdre sniffled. "Oh, Devin! I—"
    "Look at you, Dee," Devin said softly. "Last time I saw you, you had a scrape on your nose and had given Phelan Fitzpatrick the worst black eye this side of Derry." Devin forced her head back gently, brushing the curls from a face that was totally feminine, yet at the same time so like Tade's that Maryssa could scarcely believe it. Devin grinned at the sniffling girl. "Look at you now. You're a woman grown."
    "Woman grown, hah!" Tade laughed. "Just last wash day she snipped the stitches in poor Phelan's breeches when they were laid out to dry on a thorn bush. He went to make his bow to Aileen Nolan and split the seam wide open."
    "Served him right, the way he was mincing about," Deirdre bristled, shooting Tade a murderous glare.
    He winked at Devin. "The only reason Deirdre objects to Phelan's mincing is that he's not mincing around her."
    A door at the far side of the room opened. "Tade? Who—" At the sound of a soft voice the mass of children parted as if by magic, all the heads turning to where a woman wavered upon the threshold, a damp rag clasped in her hand. Honey-brown linsey-woolsey hung loosely around her rawboned frame, her angular face pale beneath straggling wisps of mouse-brown hair. Maryssa felt an odd sense of loss as she stared at the woman who was, from all appearances, mother to the brood of children and. . . wife to Tade Kilcannon?
    His grin lit his whole face. "Rachel. How do you think my da will like the surprise I brought him?" Tade stepped out of the way, revealing Devin behind him.
    "Like it? He'll . . . Tade! Oh, Devin!" With a sob the woman threw herself into Devin's arms. He laughed, stroking her hair, patting her shoulders until Tade grabbed her as well. The two men dwarfed her in a crushing embrace the children couldn't seem to resist. Seven pairs of arms wrapped around the three adults, the joyous babble of tears and laughter making Maryssa's throat swell shut with tears of her own.
    Forgotten, she huddled against the wall, the rough clay surface