The Blessed Blend by Allison Shaw Read Free Book Online

Euan’s family was extremely wealthy and if he was here to take the children there would be little she could do to stop him. That kind of money could buy off county officials easily.
    Time seemed to stand still, holding Callie in a warp. It was real but unreal, her head felt light but her legs had turned to lead. She couldn’t think and yet her thoughts were flying through her head at light speed.
    She stared at this man, this intimate stranger. She knew this face with its Celtic features - slanted cheekbones and eyes, long nose, sensuous mouth - looking like some elven lord of old. She knew this body, every inch of the tall, perfectly masculine frame. She knew this musky, earthy, male scent. Knew how it felt to be in his arms with him inside her, and longing began pooling warmly between her legs.
    But she didn’t know him, not anymore, and probably never really had.
    Then why was her body responding to him like it used to? As if the past four years since his betrayal of her had never happened? Oh dear God, was she still such a fool for him?
    Memories flooded her mind. The day they had met. The dance he had taken her to that first night and others over that summer. The evenings at the local pub talking, laughing, playing darts, singing.   That deep, rumbling laughter of his and how easily she could evoke it with her jokes and funny stories. Working side-by-side on his croft. Hiking in the Grampians. The first dinner she had fixed for him in his small cottage. The rainy day they had started out playing chess and ended up making love for the first time and she had given him her virginity.
    She remembered the feel of her hand in his, his arm around her shoulders. His arms around her. Their first kiss and all that followed. The way his deep voice tickled her ears and thrilled her whole being. Falling in love. All of the passion and desire that had run through her like molten fire, passion he had awakened and stoked until it had consumed her. How she had lived and breathed him for three months.
    And how he had crushed her heart under his heel with a few words. How it had taken every ounce of self-control she’d had not to burst into tears in front of him. How she had fought the leaden weight on her soul to get her things together and go home when her heart had cried out for her to stay and hope for him to come around to the fact that they were going to have a baby. Going against her family by refusing to tell them anything about him. Going through pregnancy and childbirth alone. Holding herself together through the weeks and months and years that followed. Seeing him every time she looked at her children and hiding from them the sorrow, loss, and anger she felt towards their father.
    All of this rushed in like a torrent that was both crushing and tearing her apart. She felt helpless at the onslaught and was shamed by her weakness. She couldn’t even muster enough of the hatred she had convinced herself that she felt for him to break this spell she was bound up in.
     
    Euan had spent the last three months wondering what he would feel when he stood face-to-face with Callie again. When he had seen her emerge from the woods desire had smacked him across the face before heading straight to his groin, and guilt had kicked him in the groin before wrenching his gut and stabbing at his heart. The sight of his children filled him with a joy he had never felt before and tears had welled in his eyes. His whole world had shifted to the three people on the back of a buckskin-colored horse and he realized that he no longer cared what he might have to give up for them.
    Now that she stood before him his gaze swept across her features like a caress and his hands itched to follow. He noticed that the blue-gray of her over-shirt matched the color of her eyes and complemented her coloring. He wasn’t turned off by her backwoods attire at all. This was Callie, this was who she was.
    Her hair was longer but still looked as silky as he remembered