Highland Warrior Read online

She shook her head, the lie falling easily from her lips. “No.”

  His frown relaxed, and he slid the bend of his finger along her cheek. “We have been wrapped up together for a night and a day, and I know nothing about ye. And I want to.”

  “Stay then,” she said, pressing closer. “Do not go back to your Scotia.”

  “It is my home, lass. I have plans to be there for Samhain to honor my father’s spirit.”

  She huffed, and her lips pressed tightly. “Come to my home first. Meet my family,” she said. “Someone in Hillside may know how to get you across the firth if Lamont will not take you.” She needed more time to convince him to help her. Getting him to stay on Orkney was the first step toward persuading him to fight for them. She interlaced her fingers with his, tugging him toward the bed. “This evening, come to Hillside. Right now, though, are you up for number five?”

  He growled low, making her gasp as he caught her around her hips to lift her in the air. He nuzzled against her breasts. She wrapped her hand around his arm over the dark lines that made up the tattooed design of his ancestors on his bicep, the head of a horse and encircling design of the ancient Gaels.

  On his back was the symbol for war, a fiery horseshoe with a sword across it. She had memorized every scar and mark on his beautifully chiseled body. He’d held nothing back from her, giving her access to every part of his physical form. Now if she could also seduce his mind and heart to stay. She must. For my people.

  …

  Snow spit down from heavy clouds in small squalls as Joshua held Kára before him on Fuil. They had slept and tupped through the night and morning. Kára was certainly not some shy virgin. With little prompting, she had told him exactly what she liked, and he was more than eager to give it to her.

  They’d emerged from her den in the late afternoon to ride to her village. Hopefully, he would be able to find a captain willing to shuttle him across the firth, although the thought of sailing away from the intriguing Kára Flett made a sourness creep into his stomach. He’d bedded his share of wild women before, but none had held his attention for more than one night. Kára intrigued him. She was courageous and willing to give boldly. When he looked into her eyes, he saw there was much going on in her mind even if she was unwilling to share it. A woman with secrets? He smiled to himself at the challenge of uncovering every single one. Could he do it in the time before he sailed? Perhaps he would visit Orkney again despite the cold.

  Joshua steered them toward one of the many rises that rolled across the treeless isle. Kára had added her flowered quilt to his wool blanket to wrap around them, and their combined body heat underneath the layers made it a cozy nest.

  He inhaled along her ear, where the warmth radiated with her spicy floral scent. “I could stay wrapped up with ye through a freezing blizzard and be content.”

  Under the blanket, her hand slid along his thigh. “I would like that.”

  As they climbed the incline, three squat stone cottages sat along the coast. Smoke snaked up from center chimney holes through their thatched roofs. “Welcome to Hillside,” she said, sitting up straighter so that she didn’t lean into him. The distance brought a little chill with it, and he resisted the urge to pull her back. Bloody hell, he’d never wanted a woman so much. Even after sating his lust for her numerous times, he only wanted more. He would have to come back in the spring.

  Ahead, several men emerged from the houses, crude pikes and swords and pitchforks in their hands. Kára worked her arm out of the blankets and raised it straight in the air, her hand fisted. Weapons lowered, and more people emerged. How many lived in three medium-sized cottages?

  Several dogs ran out of the house, barking wildly. Luckily, Fuil did not shy from dogs. “I see why ye have a den for privacy,” he said near her ear and pulled Fuil to a stop. His gaze scanned the frowning people, most of them men with a few women. Several children stood back in the doorways. Their clothes were worn but cared for, and furs wrapped their legs.

  “Joshua,” she said, turning her face partway toward him so that she would not be heard by the people. “There’s a man here who thinks I will wed with him even though I have refused him. There may be a bit of hostility from those who support his suit.”

  Bloody hell. “Explain.”

  “Dróttning Kára,” one older man said, while two other men shooed the barking dogs away. He bowed his head, and the others followed.

  “Just Kára, Corey,” she called, ignoring Joshua’s order.

  The old man shook his head. “Erik is presumed dead, and you are the next in line to lead us.” His gaze moved past her to Joshua. “Osk told us you would be away for a day, but we did not believe him.”

  Who was Osk, and how would he know that Kára would be away? But that question was overshadowed by many others. Erik? Was he the man she mentioned? The one who wanted to wed her even though she’d said no?

  A woman of mid-age, handsome in face, stepped out of the cottage. Her gaze locked onto him as she strode forward, frowning. “Who is this, and why is he up against your person?” The vehemence in her voice cut sharper than the wind.

  Kára kept her voice soft, as she turned her head toward Joshua. “And he has a mother.” Her tone held a frustration that was beginning to sprout inside Joshua as well. Hostile was quite accurate. Despite her regal bearing, the woman looked like she might throw a sgian dubh at his heart. He’d obviously dealt with aggression in the past. Before coming to Orkney, he’d thrived upon it. But he’d never had to draw on his battle experience to protect himself from a woman nearly two score in years older than him.

  I should be halfway to Caithness by now.

  Kára let the blankets fall from her body, and the cold immediately dispersed the heat around them, the wind carrying it away. Bloody damn cold. Now he remembered. Kára’s heat had managed to convince him not to continue his journey home.

  “This is Joshua Sinclair, Horseman of War from Scotia,” she called out.

  “Have you come to kill us?” one man asked.

  “Or steal our young women?” the angry mother of the rejected swain called.

  “He has come to meet those who call Hillside and Orkney their home,” Kára answered.

  “Meet? Helping would be better,” another woman called from the doorway where a child hid in her skirts.

  One of the men spit on the ground, drawing Kára’s immediate stare. “And he will be treated as a guest,” she said.

  “A guest would not lure a bride away from her groom,” the first woman said.

  “Fiona,” Kára said, keeping her voice even but full of authority. “I have told Torben that I am not marrying him. I am a free woman and intend to stay as such.”

  Fiona rattled something off in their Norn language and traipsed down the hill behind the three cottages. The remaining people all stared at him, judging and frowning. It was exceedingly apparent these people thought he was a seducer of women and a killer. They did not seem the type to lose their minds and attack him outright, bringing them early deaths, but a little intimidation would help remind them not to be foolish.

  His familiar scowl formed in the contours of his face: hard, narrowed eyes, full inhales, the edge of his teeth bared through his scowl. Joshua let the rest of the blankets fall off him because it was virtually impossible to frighten someone while wearing a flower-painted quilt. The cold mattered not, as he leaped down from Fuil, his sword strapped to his back. His height and build should deter any attack. He did not want to kill any of Kára’s people. How about the man who will not take no for an answer?

  He turned to help her down, but she’d already dismounted. “This way,” she said and caught his arm.

  “My horse.”

  She summoned two lads in her native language, and they ran forward. “They used to handle our horses before they were stolen and have some turnips to lure him to the barn.” Kára smiled wryly.
“I also reminded the boys not to eat him.”

  Joshua snorted and patted his gallant bay. He wished he could say that Fuil would not fall for another trick of turnips to get him to move, but his always hungry warhorse would prove him a liar immediately. When they returned home to Girnigoe, resisting temptation and remaining focused were lessons Joshua would be emphasizing with his young bay. Maybe with himself as well.

  He followed Kára up the hillside, watching her hips sway naturally. “Your people seem to hate me,” he said.

  “You do not seem the type to worry over what people think of you,” she said, glancing at him before turning to trudge on down the hill behind the cottages. “Once they believe that you do not work for Lord Robert anymore, they will not hate you.”

  “Ye could have mentioned this suitor before we arrived,” he said.

  “It did not seem important,” she threw over her shoulder, and he took two faster strides to come even with her.

  “Aye, it is important,” he said, stopping her by clasping her wrist.

  She turned to look at him, her eyes narrowing as she studied his face. “Why?”

  Because he wanted to tear apart any man that might lay a claim on the wild beauty standing before him, but he bloody hell couldn’t say that. “A warrior must always know when he could be seen as the enemy, so he can be on guard against attack.”

  One side of her lush mouth lifted into a half smile. “I did not think the Horseman of War would worry over a group of women and old men or a simple man whom I had sent off with a refusal.”

  She was using shame as her weapon. Joshua knew the tactic of irritating an opponent so that they walked away from what could be an argument. He’d employed it often back home, along with poking at vulnerabilities and plucking at anything a person found uncomfortable. Mo chreach. It was a wonder his brothers hadn’t locked him up or exiled him for his crimes against their peace.

  Joshua met her challenging gaze with narrowed eyes. “Do not keep anything else from me, Kára Flett,” he said and watched her smile slip away. A strike of warning shot through him, but she turned away and trudged on before he could pry out any truths. They walked in silence next to each other.

  Over the crest, the hill fell away where a series of doors sat cut into the back side. He counted five crude doors. With the size of the hill, there could possibly be ten rooms hidden under the windblown sod. Smoke snaked up from various holes in the hillside, but the wind scattered it so fast that the holes were hardly noticeable unless one inadvertently stepped into one.

  Kára waited for him by an open door, tipping her head to get him to follow her inside. Joshua ducked to enter the stone passageway. As in Kára’s den, the rocks were fitted tightly together to make walls, held in place by the thick earth packed against them. His head brushed the stone ceiling, and he bent to move quickly down the tunnel. It opened into a good-sized room with a central fire pit that was lit and radiating heat throughout, along with a haze of trapped smoke. Furs sat along a wall beside a stack of pallets. A long table held bowls and baskets in the middle.

  “Follow me.” Her voice, alluring as the first time he’d met her, came from an open doorway on the interior wall.

  She could be a siren and this a trap, but her bloody spell had already been cast back in her barn the moment she’d lowered her legs onto his shoulders and he’d inhaled her scent. Mind made, he walked directly into what looked to be a bedchamber, half the size of the first earthbound room. Kára stood beside a bonny lass who was quite obviously with child and the lad with the sparse beard from the village. An elderly woman, with her white hair braided and coiled around her head, sat on the bed.

  “Horse thief,” Joshua said, nodding at the wide-eyed young man, who did not strike him as a suitor for as capable a lass as Kára.

  “You brought him here?” the lad said to Kára. She answered in their own language, making Joshua frown. Those who spoke purposefully in another language were hiding something. But then he’d already guessed she had secrets.

  “Where is Geir?” Kára asked in English.

  “Learning with Corey,” the man said.

  “Corey met us on the hill. Geir was not there.”

  “He probably stayed inside when you two rode up.”

  Who was Geir? Not knowing the players in all this…whatever this was, put him at a disadvantage. Joshua’s instincts prickled. Why exactly had Kára brought him there?

  Joshua turned to the elderly woman, bowing his head. “I am Joshua Sinclair from Caithness in the north of mainland Scotland. Thank ye for welcoming me into your home.”

  The woman’s firmly set mouth turned up at the corners, her brow rising. “Robert’s Horseman of War has manners.”

  “I am God’s Horseman of War,” he corrected.

  She stared at his eyes for a long moment and then nodded. “I am Harriett Flett, Kára’s grandmother.” She pointed to the horse thief. “And Oskar’s. He is her brother.” Brother? Had Kára been helping her brother steal Fuil the other night?

  “I am Brenna Muir,” the pregnant woman said, slowly lowering into the one chair in the room. “Kára’s closest friend.” She rested her hands on her stomach and blew upward at a piece of hair that had fallen over her nose. The whole time she stared between Kára and him, her eyes wide with questions.

  “Brenna?” a man called from the front room. “The Horseman of—” He stopped when he ran into the room that was now quite tight with all the bodies. “Stay away from her,” he said, going over to help the woman out of her seat even though she’d just sat down. He ran a hand over her large middle with obvious familiarity, and she didn’t swat his hand away. At least Joshua knew he was not the man who wanted to wed Kára.

  “Are you well?” the man asked, passing only a quick glance to her to catch her nod, before continuing to keep Joshua before him. He held a dagger in his other hand.

  “I do not slaughter unarmed women, especially those heavy with child,” Joshua said, annoyed. They held as many untruths about him as he did about them eating horseflesh. Although he was responsible for their mistrust by encouraging the wild rumors of his warring feats and brutality for the last three months. His intimidation had been honed to perfection over his score and seven years.

  Brenna frowned and looked behind her. “There are no women heavy with child here. Just us maidens.”

  “Maidens?” Joshua looked to Kára who was very much not a shy, innocent virgin and then to Brenna. “Ye are ripe enough for us to worry that a bairn will drop out from your skirts any moment.”

  She gasped, and Joshua heard Kára’s brother snort.

  “Maybe your husband should explain this to ye,” Joshua said, indicating her protruding belly while meeting the man’s gaze.

  “Calder is not my husband,” Brenna said.

  “God may disagree,” Harriett Flett said.

  Brenna blushed. “It is not God who needs convincing.”

  Calder tried to hold her hand, but Brenna yanked it away. “I have not been wed, asked to wed, or barely wooed,” she said. The woman’s face had turned red as she snapped angry eyes toward the slack-jawed man. “Not a peep about wedding me. So I am a free, foolish woman who acted without a care because I drank too much mead.” She turned in her seat as much as her middle allowed to point at Joshua. “I could drink some fine whisky and bed him next.”

  “No,” Kára said.

  “No,” the bairn’s obvious father said at the same time.

  Joshua looked between Kára and Brenna. Brenna’s brows raised high as she stared back at him, her lips pressed tightly together. She nodded, tipping her chin up and down slowly.

  Joshua blinked, turning his gaze to take in the people surrounding him in the room. Even though his instincts bellowed that this was some type of trap, he was not about to draw his sword against an old woman and a pregnant lass who could possibly be mad.
His gaze stopped on Kára. “What exactly am I doing here?”

  Chapter Five

  “Victory comes from finding

  opportunities in problems.”

  Sun Tzu – The Art of War

  A blast of cold air funneled past the bedroom door flap seconds before a man threw it aside to enter. Tall and broad, he looked like someone who could be trained into an effective warrior. Light-colored hair was tied at the back of his head, making him look as if he could be another of Kára’s brothers.

  “Kára,” the man said, pinning her with a frown that quickly moved to Joshua. He then rattled off a question in their Norn language.

  “’Tis none of your concern,” Kára answered, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Whitna whalp!” the man yelled, turning his glare on Joshua before rattling off more in Norn. He had the obvious look of a wooer who’d been scorned. This was Torben.

  “The lass said it was none of your concern,” Joshua said, his voice low in warning.

  The man met his stare with a sneer. “You are the enemy.”

  Osk rubbed his chin, looking between the man and Joshua. “Perhaps that is something my sister already knows, Torben.” He tipped his head, brows raised high in a comical frown at the man.

  Silent communication seemed to ping about the cramped room. It was obvious Kára had a mission of her own, one that involved more than carnal bliss. His chest tightened. I care not.

  The pregnant woman, Brenna, whispered something into her mate’s ear. He took two steps to stand in front of Torben. “Come away, friend,” he said, clasping the jilted suitor’s upper arm to pull him back out the door.

  “Leave off!” Torben yanked away to dodge around Calder, going straight toward Joshua.

  Brenna squealed and climbed awkwardly onto the bed. The spry elderly woman followed her, throwing out her arms to shield Brenna.

  “Torben,” Calder yelled, and Osk leaped forward to stand next to Kára. But Torben was going for Joshua. The fool. Joshua kept his stance ready. The man probably had a blade on him, and the space was too small for Joshua to pull his own sword, but he, too, had blades about his body.