Claiming the Highlander by Kinley MacGregor Read Free Book Online Page A

sister simultaneously the last time you were home.”
    She shook her head at him like a doddering old maid chastising a child. “Have you no shame at all?”
    There was no mistaking the hurt in her gaze. Braden frowned at what he saw, unable to placethe source of her emotion. “Now, why would she be telling you that?”
    “For the same reason you’d be telling it to your brothers, I’m thinking. For some unholy reason, she’s proud of the fact. So proud, she was bragging of the event just yesterday.”
    Maggie gathered her skirts, then started past him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have duties to be about that don’t include being tupped by the likes of you.”
    Braden’s jaw dropped in shock of her words, and he uttered the same phrase he had been uttering at her for as long as he could remember. “Great saints, woman, where have you been that you picked up such language? What does Anghus have to say about that mouth of yours?”
    She stopped, her hands clenched tightly in the folds of her skirt, and turned to face him again. A terrible sadness darkened her eyes. He saw the tears an instant before she blinked them back and swallowed hard.
    When Maggie spoke, her voice was hoarse. “He hasn’t much to say about anything since a MacDouglas sword silenced him eternally two months ago.”
    The unexpected news sliced through his heart and settled painfully in his stomach. For a moment, he could scarce breathe from the sensation.
    “Anghus is dead?” he asked.
    She nodded, her eyes bright.
    “Nay,” Braden breathed, his tone betraying hisgrief. “How could it be? How could a warrior and man so fine be gone?”
    A single tear fell down her right cheek. Licking her lips, she quickly wiped it away. “The same way the others perished. Over a senseless feud that should never have been started!”
    His heart heavy, Braden tried to come to terms with her news.
    After the death of their father when Anghus was but ten-and-six, he had been the sole support for Maggie and her brothers. All the members of the clan had helped the family as best they could, but the ever-prideful Anghus had turned aside the offers:
‘Tis my family, and I’ll be the one taking care of them. It’s my responsibility and my pleasure to watch over them.
    His old friend had been one of the finest warriors he’d ever known. They’d trained together more times than he could count. Had drank and wenched even more.
    From as far back as Braden could remember, Anghus MacBlar had been like another brother to him.
    “How?” Braden asked.
    She spoke, her voice unsteady. “He fell guarding Ian’s back.”
    Braden took a deep breath to stave off the agony he felt. Ian was Maggie’s twin brother. The two of them had been complete terrors as small children.
    He remembered Anghus tossing Ian over hisshoulder as the scamp ran after Maggie intending to torment her.
    Lad, if you don’t learn to respect your wee sister, I’ll be tearing the hide from your bones.
How many times had he heard Anghus threaten his baby brother? And how many more times had he seen Anghus wrap his arms around both Maggie and Ian and give them the love they needed?
    I’ll always be here for you, little Mag-pie. I’ll not let anyone e’er harm you. So long as there’s breath in my body, I’ll keep you safe.
Those were the only other words he’d heard Anghus utter more times than the threat.
    “What of Kate?” Braden asked, thinking of Anghus’s wife and two small children.
    “She’s surviving. Barely. Her mother took her in to live with them for a while. And now she alternates between cursing Anghus and begging God to let all this be a bad dream.”
    Braden shook his head at the agony he heard in her voice. Dear Lord, the pain Maggie must be feeling now. Anghus had been her one true protector, the one person Maggie had always relied on.
    What would become of her now?
    Most women would have collapsed from the weight of such grief. For that matter, most men would have as