Hero in the Highlands by Suzanne Enoch Read Free Book Online Page A

bosoms could spring loose at any moment, and then who knew what might befall?
    â€œBrian, I’m nae telling ye again,” she snapped, losing her footing and nearly submerging. “Either get in here and help me or go fetch Tormod and the others. This is yer damned cow.”
    The farmer looked back over the clearing as if he heard his lad returning. “There’s nae need fer two of us to be trapped in the mud. And the blacksmith’s likely all the way to the loch, by now.”
    â€œYe did notice that Brady trotted off to Strouth, when MacKittrick’s closer. Ye ken he means to get a good look at Tessa Dinwoddie’s bosom before he returns, aye?” The boy was fourteen. They’d likely never see him again if he got an eyeful of Tessa’s breasts.
    â€œWhat does th—”
    â€œRemain calm!” a male, decidedly un-Scottish voice bellowed. “If you struggle, you’ll only sink faster!”
    Straining against the sucking pull of the mud, Fiona turned around. A tall, broad-shouldered man in the crisp red coat of the British army skidded down the bank toward her, one arm outstretched for balance. Black hair cut not quite short enough to disguise its wave, a flash of pale gray eyes, a hard mouth, and a thin scar running down the left side of his face—her heart jumped into her throat, and not entirely from surprise. Ares, she decided instantly. The god of war. And he’d appeared out of thin air to claim her for his queen.
    â€œGo away!” she yelled belatedly, backing up against the cow’s rump. For Boudicca’s sake, an Englishman in uniform charging at her should have been the stuff of nightmares. Was the stuff of nightmares, she corrected herself, no matter how instantly … compelling he looked. And upended by his arrival or not, Sassenach or not, she had to admit that he was toe-curlingly magnificent. Where the devil had he come from? And what in the world was he doing here?
    He paused just long enough to catch the end of a rope thrown by a second soldier farther up the bank and still on horseback. “You’re in distress. I’m here to rescue you,” he returned, cocking his head at her as if she were the one who’d lost her mind.
    If she was imagining English soldiers to be gods of war, perhaps she had gone mad. Fiona shook herself. “I’m nae in distress.” She did have a sudden flash of the sight she must be, up to her armpits in mud, more muck likely spattered on her face and in her hair. Glancing up at the far bank to send a glare at Brian Maxwell, she caught sight of the farmer’s backside as he ran off in the direction of the village. Damnation. He’d left her alone to deal with a Sassenach. A military one whose mere appearance seemed to have turned her brains to mush.
    She scowled as he waded closer, his white trousers disappearing into the dark brown muck. “Go away,” she repeated, and turned back to shove at the heifer again. If she could get the red beastie out of the mud, he’d have no reason to come any closer. Because if he touched her, bad things would happen. She was abruptly certain of that.
    The first sign of anything resembling civilization in over two hours, and it came in the form of a woman in mud up to her tits. “Kelgrove, back Union Jack on my order,” Gabriel Forrester continued, wading deeper into the cold muck as he knotted a loop into the rope he carried.
    She’d returned to shoving at the cow’s backside, though why she thought a slip of a female like her could budge the big animal, he had no idea. For God’s sake, he imagined she barely came to his chin. “Stay still, miss,” he ordered, tossing the loop over her head and down her shoulders.
    â€œYe bastard!” she exclaimed. “Dunnae—”
    â€œMy apologies,” he interrupted, stepping closer to her before she could lose her balance and fall. A woman wriggling against