Winter Heat by Dawn Halliday Read Free Book Online Page A

tramped over to Logan. “This is ridiculous.”
    He looked up from the deep groove he’d shoveled in the snow. He’d been working hard, and sweat beaded his brow despite the cold. “What do you mean?”
    “We’ll catch our deaths if we continue. It’s hopeless.” She clamped her jaw tight, but her lip trembled and a tear slipped from her eye. “Damn it.” Angrily, she brushed the moisture away with the back of her hand.
    “Ah, Maggie.”
    She’d never known how much that brooch meant to her, but losing it felt like she was losing her mother all over again. Emotion welled up within her, and then it overflowed. She buried her face in the woolen lapels of Logan’s jacket. He dropped the shovel and wrapped his arms around her, enclosing her body in a protective cocoon, and she clung to him and sobbed.
    Finally, exhaustion crept through her bones, and she brushed away the last of her tears. Darkness had chased away the last vestiges of daylight, and all was silent in the snowy gloom.
    Wrung dry, she looked up at him. “Take me back to the cottage, please, Logan. Let’s leave this place.”

Chapter Four
    Damn it—he’d wanted to find her brooch. With Maggie at his side, Logan strode through the snow in rising frustration, his wounded thigh throbbing. He’d return, search again. It was imperative he find it. The pin was important to Maggie, and therefore it was important to him. He wanted her to have it.
    Through the flurries of snow, the cottage came into view, their tiny haven in a dismal, charcoal world. The idea of returning at dusk to a warm cottage and food appealed to him, but the idea of returning with Maggie at his side made an odd feeling flutter in his chest.
    “Juniper!” she suddenly announced.
    “Juniper?”
    “Aye.” She gestured at a clump of trees just beyond the cottage. “Every year for Christmas and Hogmanay, we decorate the laird’s castle with wreaths of juniper and mistletoe.” She glanced up at him. “May I borrow your dirk? I’ll cut one small branch to hang from the rafters. Just to remind us it’s Christmas.”
    “Of course. I’ll cut one for you.”
    Her lips twisted. “I’m quite capable of cutting a branch of juniper.”
    “Nonetheless, I’d like to help.”
    When they reached the clump of shrublike trees, Maggie chose a long branch heavy with berries, which he sawed off and carried into the cottage. She helped him hang the branch from the center roof beam. Finished with the task, they both stared up at it, inhaling its sweet, woodsy evergreen fragrance.
    “Perfect,” she announced.
    He grinned at her, and this time it came naturally, easily, without having to crack through that layer of ice he’d believed permanently encrusted his skin.
    Outside, the storm gathered force. The temperature dropped severely, and wind blasted through the eaves. Within the warm haven of the cottage, Maggie and Logan drank ale and ate a supper of oatcakes and salted beef. Maggie, sitting on the plaid he’d laid before the fire, cocked her head. “Perhaps it will storm through the day tomorrow.”
    The wistfulness in her words spiked under his skin, and Logan kept his eyes hooded so she wouldn’t see how easily she fired his blood. Any indication that she wished to stay longer with him was enough. “Why?”
    “A windy Christmas bodes very well for the year, according to my mother.”
    “Does it?”
    “Aye. My mother also encouraged the old laird to burn a cailleach on Christmas Eve.”
    “A cailleach ?”
    “The men would carve a log in the shape of an old woman to represent the Queen of Winter. We would build a great bonfire in the castle courtyard, and everyone would watch the queen go up in flames. As she burned away, so did all the terrible things, like death and poverty and grief, that had occurred during the year. Once she turned to ash, the clan could begin the New Year afresh.”
    “Your mother was superstitious.”
    “She was.” Maggie sighed. “I miss