Margo Maguire Read Free

Anna knew there would be hell to pay when her stepsister Catrìona realized he was already there and Kilgorra Keep was not fully prepared.
    At least she and the other servants had already cleaned the bedchambers that were to be used by the men from Braemore, sweeping out the old rushes, washing the floors, putting fresh linens on the beds, and laying fires in the grates. She had directed Alex and Graeme to prepare the barracks where the laird’s warriors would reside, so there could be no complaint there.
    Anna reached for the basket of berries she’d picked on the isle, but the familiar sharp wail of a wee bairn caused her to turn and look for the infant’s mother, her very dearest friend. Kyla Ramsay staggered toward Anna, her face and arms bruised and bloody. It looked as though she was about to faint.
    Anna quickly took the child from Kyla’s arms. She was about to ease her friend down to the curragh when there was a rush of footsteps, and then a pair of brawny arms caught Kyla and cradled her against his chest with ease.
    “Where’s the best place to take her?” the highlander asked, his voice deep and rich. “The public house?”
    “No!” Anna cried. For Birk might well be there, drunk and mean and ready to do further damage to his wife. “Ah, no, sir . . . ,” she said more calmly. “If you would carry her just there . . .”
    Holding Kyla’s bairn, she led Lachann MacMillan to Janet Carnegie’s cottage, some distance from both the public house and the lane where the stone croft Kyla shared with her husband was located.
    Janet came out as they approached her cottage, and led the way inside to a simple pallet near the fire. “Put her there,” she said. “ ’Tis good that ye brought her here, Anna.”
    The highlander laid her down, then stood back, his arms crossed over his broad chest.
    “Ach, the clarty bastard has beat her again,” Janet remarked with a frown, as though ’twas every day that a stranger brought a broken and bleeding young woman to her cottage.
    Anna could not help but take note of MacMillan’s kindness toward her poor friend. He must have seen Kyla’s wobbly approach on the dock and recognized her distress, else he wouldn’t have known to move so swiftly. If not for his quick actions, Kyla might have crashed to the wooden decking at the harbor, causing even more injury to herself than Birk had done.
    “You are called Anna?” he asked, and Anna nodded. “You know who did this to her?” His tone was gruff and incredulous.
    “Her husband,” Anna replied. His deep blue eyes captured Anna’s full attention. They were rimmed with the blackest, thickest lashes—far too beautiful for a man. But Anna sensed a wariness in those eyes, as though he trusted no one and nothing.
    Good, she thought. Then he would not be taken unawares by the leeches up at the keep. Anna’s stepfather was a useless drunkard, and Catrìona was the vilest woman on the isle.
    Anna could not understand what the appeal of Kilgorra could possibly be to a braw fellow like this warrior from the mainland. Who would ever choose to stay here?
    “Lachann.” One of MacMillan’s men stepped into Janet’s cottage and placed Anna’s basket of forgotten berries on a table. “I’m sure they took note of our approach into the harbor up at the castle. Laird MacDuffie will be expecting us.”
    “Aye,” MacMillan replied. He wasted no further time in Janet’s cottage but turned quickly and made his exit.
    And somehow, Anna found her breath again.
    T here was little that Catrìona MacDuffie liked better than a man’s intimate touch. Some of her earliest memories were of the impossible yearnings she’d felt while watching the young men in the fields and the fishermen hauling in their nets. She’d always loved the hard, heavy lines of their bodies—their square jaws and thick whiskers, their solid muscles bunching and flexing as they’d worked.
    She’d grown into a plain face and body, and she knew she would