Playboy's Challenge (Highlander's Series) Read Free

into his pocket and headed for the opening in the trees by the brook. Be it a dream or reality, he may as well go with it. Sitting around and waiting for something to happen wasn’t his style.
    With an overcast sky and no idea where he was, any direction would do, so he picked the path of least resistance and headed for the brook. He hadn’t gone far when he overheard voices. It took only a few extra strides to see a couple of people just beyond the stream along a small copse of trees.
    The woman, a striking dark-haired beauty, sat upon a stone bench in an old dress. A reproduction of something out of the renaissance or a little later, if he wasn’t mistaken. But the expression on her face was not a happy one. Something to do with the man, also in period dress, who stood in front of her shouting and waving his arms.
    Adam listened for a few minutes, translating the mix of English and Gaelic, a language his father and godfather had pounded into his brain since he was old enough to talk, but he hadn’t used it in years. The longer he listened, the more the hot conversation filtered through his muddled brain.
    What kind of idiot tells a woman, and at the top of his lungs no less, that she had to marry eventually , and that he was her last best option?
    “I will wed when I am ready and no’ another soul will tell me when,” she said through her teeth.
    “And I say ye be ready now,” the man replied, then grabbed her by the arms and jerked her to her feet.
    With a sigh, Adam strolled into the fray, and said, “I suggest you let her go.”
    If his father had taught him anything, it was never to abuse women. And as his mother often said, “No means no.”
    Both heads turned to him, first fury on the man’s face, then confusion as he studied him. The lady’s eyes, however, widened with what looked to be some sort of recognition, although he knew he’d never met her before. She was too arresting to forget, even loaded to the gills he’d remember her.
    “Who are ye ta be tellin’ me anythin’?” her idiot boyfriend asked.
    “I’m the man who intends to see that you think twice before handling a woman like that again.” He jerked the idiot away from the lady, breaking his hold on her.
    The moron yanked his knife from its sheath with a curse. “Ye’ll no’ be handlin’ anythin’ again,” he said, and lunged.
    It took very little effort to deflect the knife and send the cretin face down in the dirt. The man’s fighting skills were pathetic.
    Planting his knee in the guy’s back, Adam snatched the knife from his hand. “Did no one ever teach you how to use this thing?” He tsked at the state of the knife. “I see they didn’t teach you how to take care of it either.”
    “Get off, ye bastard!”
    “Why? So I can let you assault the lady and myself again? I don’t think so.”
    “I can take care of myself, thank you,” the woman said, her tone curt from where she stood behind him.
    He looked up at her scowl and grinned. “Oh? Well, then in that case…” He stood and let the man get to his feet. “He’s all yours,” he said, motioning wide.
    That made her pause for barely a second with an almost smile, but her wisp of a grin disappeared as the iciest stare he’d ever seen focused on her abuser.
    “If you e’er touch me again, Bran, I’ll gladly castrate you and pin your pathetic stones to the north wall for all to see.”
    “Ye bitch, ye’ll do as yer told. Yer da will see to it.”
    In a move so swift, she snatched the dirk from Adam’s fingers and threw the blade, piercing the ground between the idiot’s feet. “Doona think I will do anyone’s bidding. Not even the laird’s, if it isna a decision of my own making.”
    His gaze slid to Adam. “I’ll have yer head fer this.”
    “Uh-huh. I think your best bet is to call it a day, buddy.” Adam took a menacing step forward.
    The coward’s eyes widened, then he grabbed up his knife and disappeared into the trees.
    Adam let out a sigh