To Desire a Highlander by Sue-Ellen Welfonder Read Free Book Online Page A

fast becoming the worst day of his life, he took a deep, fortifying breath of the cold sea air—only to hear the sudden swish of skirts and the unmistakable crunch of hastening female footsteps on the pebbled shore.
    Roag swore and snapped open his eyes.
    Lady Gillian was striding away from him, hurrying down the beach toward the others. The straight set of her back and her shoulders, along with her swift gait, screamed her perturbation to anyone who might see her.
    “Prickly she-witch.” Roag frowned after her, his mood darkening even more when he saw that the men were now halfway up the cliff, about to turn a curve that would hide them from view. The great bulk of the headland would also prevent them from seeing the lass picking her way up the steep stone steps behind them.
    A light rain was falling now and the path, little more than a perpendicular goat track, would be more slippery than ever.
    If she fell, plunging to her death…
    Roag took off at a run, pounding after her. A thousand thoughts went with him, clouding his mind, making him crazy. Dark, angry, and disturbing notions, riding him like a demon, urging him on.
    Never in his world could he allow her to storm up such path in haste, in caution-blasting ire. Yet there she was, her skirts hitched high, her shapely legs and trim ankles carrying her much too quickly up the rain-wet cliff.
    “Bluidy hell!” He ran faster, his heart almost stoppingwhen she slipped, flailing her arms before she caught herself and hurried on.
    “Ho, lass, wait!” He reached the start of the path, launched himself up the rough stone steps, hewn out of the cliff centuries before. “Stay where you are, hold—”
    The wind gusted, carrying away his shouts. The fool maid climbed on, one hand on her hip and the other at her brow, surely in a futile effort to keep her windblown hair from whipping across her eyes.
    Roag doubted she could see at all.
    The thought chilling him, he hurried on, taking the steps three at a time. He also swore, though his curses couldn’t be heard above the wind. Never would he have believed his arrival on Laddie’s Isle would be such a disaster.
    He didn’t deserve the complication that was Lady Gillian.
    He had enjoyed kissing her. In truth, he was almost sorry they hadn’t met somewhere else, under different circumstances. He could still taste her lips, feel her soft, warm body in his arms, held tight against him.
    That was most irksome of all.
    Not because he regretted kissing her, but because he wanted more.

Chapter Five

    P rickly she-witch.” Gillian repeated Donell’s slur to herself on an angry huff. For sure, it was good if he despised her. But she’d been raised with too many brothers not to know he’d only hoped to goad her. She suspected he enjoyed deviling her, that he viewed her agitation as a game, a challenge to amuse him. Rough and uncivilized as he was, he’d seek to tame her, bending her to his will. And he was the sort who’d not leave be until she’d capitulated.
    A shame for him; she’d hold her ground.
    Determined to thwart him, she hitched her skirts higher, hurrying up the rocky path.
    He erred if he thought to break her.
    It was just a pity that her temper had set wings to her feet, sending her scurrying much too quickly up the slippery track. Her pride wouldn’t allow her to slow her pace. She could feel his stare boring into her back. She also thought he’d called after her, shouting for her to wait, but the wind and crash of the sea made it hard to be sure.
    Not that she cared.
    She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing that she recognized her recklessness as she ascended to his ruined keep. A cold, stony tower better suited as nesting place for seabirds than anywhere good men should attempt to carve a home.
    Knowing she daren’t look down, she did risk a glance upward. Heavy bands of dark clouds raced overhead and thick mist swirled everywhere. The wind was sharper at this height and carried the chill, wet