To Capture A Highlander's Heart: The Beginning Read online

re A Highlander’s Heart

  The Beginning

  A Highland Moonlight Spinoff Short Story

  Teresa J. Reasor

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  COPYRIGHT © 2013 by Teresa J. Reasor

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Tracy Stewart

  Edited by Faith Freewoman

  Teresa J. Reasor

  PO Box 124

  Corbin, KY 40702

  Publishing History: First Edition 2013

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9886627-3-5

  ISBN-10: 0-9886627-3-6

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  To Capture A Highlander’s Heart: The Beginning

  Books By Teresa J. Reasor

   

  Scotland 1330

  Gabriel eyed the bedclothes and other garments spread on the bushes around his hut. He approached his cottage with a combination of caution and curiosity. The wee folk had visited his home while he was away again? This time they—she—had been cleaning.

  In the months since the visits began, his surprise and pleasure had melted into wariness.

  The fresh baked bread, the herbs tied with a scrap of ribbon, his mended shirt, though appreciated at first, now made him feel…obligated. Whatever was given, there would be a price to be paid later. Were these small gifts the bait? Would the trap be sprung today?

  The scent of stewing vegetables and meat wafted to him before he reached the door. Shoving open the portal, he ducked his head to clear the lintel and swept the cabin with a quick, questing look. His clothing hung upon pegs, his wooden plates and bowls, now washed, were stacked on the shelf. The hearth, swept clean of ash, boasted a newly laid fire. The stew he smelled bubbled in a pot balanced on the iron stand above the flames. Aye, she had been cleaning—and cooking. He breathed an oath. Who was she? And what was she about?

  Grace tucked the empty basket beneath her arm and raised her skirts to climb the steep hill to the village. She had bolstered her nerve to announce her presence, but one look at Gabriel’s expression had shriveled the urge like a dried pea, and she fled. Why had he been angry? What had vexed him so?

  Her steps flagged, and she stopped midway up the hill to rest amongst the wild hyacinth blooming along the path. Setting aside the basket, she plucked one of the clustered blossoms and raised it to her nose to enjoy in its fragrance.

  She was nothing like Tira, the woman he had once loved. She could not give him beauty, but she could mend his clothes, clean his cottage, and cook his food.

  She could bear him children.

  And she would do it with a love in her heart that would make the offer sweeter.

  If only he could see her.

  She studied the work-roughened fingers that grasped the flower’s stem. But why should a man such as he settle for a homely little mouse when he could have beauty as well?

  Her love was no small thing. Was that not a prize worth more than a pleasing face?

  She lay down amongst the flowers, and their scent embraced her. If men’s bellies were full and their clothes mended, did they ever think of love? Mayhap not.

  Then why would she not do as well as any other woman?

  But for him to consider her, she had to make him see her. But how? And if he did and turned away? Pain grabbed her throat and threatened her composure.

  At the snap of a nearby twig, she jerked upright.

  A gasp escaped as the object of her thoughts emerged from the stand of trees and came to a halt in the clearing. Black trews hugged his muscular legs. He wore the shirt she had mended for him beneath a leather tunic that clung to his torso and emphasized the width of his chest and shoulders.

  Grace scrambled to her feet, her cheeks hot.

  Gabriel’s long strides seemed to eat up the distance between them, and with every step her heart beat a flighty rhythm.

  “Good morn, lass.”

  The deep timbre of his voice, with its hint of raspiness, sent delightful chill bumps down her arms. She fought the sudden breathlessness making it difficult to speak to him for the first time. She swallowed and forced her voice to work. “Good morn.”

  His dark brows, angled in a V over the straight slope of his nose, hinted at the anger she had recognized earlier. His neatly trimmed beard, darkening the lower half of his face, outlined the sensuous curve of his lips.

  “How long have you been here, lass?”

  “Only a wee time.”

  “Have you seen anyone about? Has anyone passed you on the path?”

  She shook her head. “Nay.” He was hunting for the person who had been in his hut. He was not happy about their trespass—her trespass.

  He nodded once, a quick jerk of his chin. “Good day, then.”

  As she watched him ascend the hill, Grace hitched a despairing breath. All he saw when he looked at her was Lady Mary’s maid, not a woman. For a man who was known as one of Alexander Campbell’s most fierce warriors, he was as blind as a hairy coo in a snowstorm. She climbed the path behind him.

  Gabriel topped the rise and looked down into the village. There were few people about, and none of them women. Who was she? Where could she have gone?

  At the whisper of skirts behind him, he turned and waited for Grace to come abreast. His attention dropped to her basket. The ragged container looked familiar. Was it not the same one that had held the loaves of bread someone had left for him? Shock punched the breath from his lungs, and his eyes leapt to her face.

  “Who sent you, Grace?”

  Pain whipped across her features. She straightened her shoulders and met his gaze. “No one sent me.”

  She strode past him and started down the path to the village.

  In two paces he caught up and matched his long strides with her shorter ones. “Why would you clean my hut and prepare food for me, lass?”

  “You are not dull-witted, Gabriel.”

  From the bite of her tone, nor was she. He studied the tender slope of her jaw. She had a small heart-shaped face, dominated by large, dark-lashed eyes. Freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose.

  “Grace.” He grasped her arm, compelling her to stop. “You are a wee, young lass. Too young to waste your youth on a man nearly half a score older than you.”

  “I am a score and one year old. Old enough to be a wife. Old enough to be a mother.”

  Surprise held him immobile.

  “I am not the same young, ignorant girl I was when first I came here to Castle de Sith. Lady Mary has taught me to read. And though I have not grown in body, my mind has grown, and I am more than I was. Good enough for you or any other man. If you canna believe that, I have made a grave mistake in my judgment of you.”

  Gabriel’s face flushed at her tone and his jaw grew taut. “And how many other men have you been cooking and cleaning for, then?”

  Color stormed her cheeks and her eyes narrowed. She swung the basket, hitting him in the shoulder. Reeds, fragile with age, splintered, and the vessel collapsed. As she broke into a run, she hurled the wreaked container with a backwards sling.

  Only his quick reaction kept it from smacking him in the face. He eyed the basket. Dry bits of debris flaked away to scatte
r upon the ground. All the thing would be useful for now was to feed his fire.

  He studied the angry twitch of Grace’s hips while she stormed down the path toward the castle. He frowned at the response that ran straight to his groin.

  The bread had been fresh, and the stew he tested before leaving the hut had been well seasoned and tasty. But marriage seemed a steep price to pay for them. And marriage was what she was after. But why him?

  It was after he had supped on the stew Grace cooked that he looked around his small cabin and noticed how her light touch about the room had changed the cluttered space. And how contentedly the food rested in his belly.

  As he climbed into his bed, the soft scent of soap and greenery on his threadbare sheets wafted over him. Grace had washed and hung them on the brush outside his door to dry.

  Gabriel punched his pillow and turned on his side. ’Twas nonsense. She was too young for him. To wee for a man as large as he.

  His response to the tight swish of her hips when she stormed down the hill, however, gave a lie to the belief. He had never thought of her in that manner. Before. But now it was all he could think about.

  Gabriel’s eyes narrowed while he watched Grace’s braid swing back and forth like a pendulum at the small of her back. She whipped the length of tartan fabric from around her shoulders and hung it on a peg at the door.

  In the four days since their conversation, every word she had spoken wove through his thoughts, triggering feelings he had tried to deny but could not. Fed by the knowledge that she had already been inside his home, he found himself envisioning her in his hut, preparing a meal, mending his shirts, sleeping beside him. The images had taken root in his mind and whetted