Defending Destiny (The Warrior Chronicles) by Leigh Morgan Read Free Book Online

lips twitched. He was tired. Mostly of himself.
    He closed his eyes and lowered his head, shaking the cobwebs from his brain. His stomach growled loudly and he laughed at himself, finding that he enjoyed the last few seconds and he didn’t want to pretend that he didn’t.
    She laughed with him and he found he liked that too. He looked at her with a smile and began again. “I’m renting Kilmartin House. I was told I could find the caretaker here.”
    Her eyes seemed to confirm something she’d only been thinking until that moment. “Ahhh. So you’re the MacBain.”
    He didn’t know he was “the” anything. “That’s me,” he said, relaxed now that he wasn’t fighting the invisible waves of sensuality flowing from her, into him.
    “Well, my fine mon, let’s get you sorted, shall we?” She pushed a spiral-bound guestbook toward him. “Sign in and you’ll be on your way to a new adventure.”
    He didn’t know what she meant by that, but before he could consider her words more carefully, she was touching him again, leading him arm in arm through the coffee shop tables, still all occupied with patrons, none of whom were paying either of them the least bit of attention.
    Before he knew it, Lauren was seated in the kitchen, a steaming bowl of creamy soup, a basket of bread, and a large slice of chocolate cake before him. She poured him a glass of water from a pitcher filled with cucumber slices and set that just to the right of his soup. She reached up to a shelf behind him, her breasts brushing his shoulder, and pulled down a cloth napkin. Before he could stop her she was placed it in his lap, grazing his groin with the backs of her strong, capable hands.
    She smiled at him and said, “Eat.”
    Then she was gone, taking her whirlwind of energy with her. The air was less oxygenated without her near. Lauren shook his head at his own folly and did as he was bidden. He ate.
    After finishing the best meal he’d had in a long time, he wiped his mouth with his napkin remembering the name emblazoned on her apron: Merry Peacock . The name fit. She was merry, and as colorfully flamboyant as a peacock.
    Suddenly his day was looking up.
     
    CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    Telling Magnus she didn’t love him anymore didn’t make it true.
    Loving Magnus was like breathing; it just was one of those things done without thought or conscious intent, yet without it there was no life. There may not be a way of getting around her soul-deep love for the man, but that didn’t mean she had to like him. In the last twenty-four hours he hadn’t done anything all that likeable, so, he was making disliking him easy.
    Thank God and Goddess alike.
    Daisy didn’t know what she’d do if she began liking Magnus again. She’d probably commit some other outrageously stupid act that would send her back into hiding. No…no…no…Not. Going. To. Happen.
    “You’re talking to yourself again.”
    Daisy refused to look at Magnus, choosing instead to be enchanted with the rolling hills and the long loch outside her window. She should have been enchanted, it was as beautiful, probably more so, than any of the photos she’d seen of Argyll. “No, I’m not. I’m just enjoying the view.”
    Magnus made a rude sound and downshifted around a curve in the road, then pulled abruptly into a passing place; a small, crescent-shaped patch of gravel on the side of the road where cars pulled over to let oncoming traffic pass, since the road would not accommodate more than one vehicle at a time. He looked at her and she could feel his gaze, as the delivery truck passed by them within inches. “You were saying ‘no’ like you were having another nightmare about being forced to eat pea soup.”
    She hated pea soup with a passion others reserved for spiders and snakes.
    “I was just thinking about the lack of sheep here. I’m thinking there should be more sheep. Hope there’s not a sheep shortage. I’d really like to buy some sweaters.” Since it was June,