Chapter 13
"I have only got enough for one, lassies, so do not all come rushin' me at once," Oran yelled out as he burst through the huge wooden doors leading into the hall.
Corkie was the first one to greet him, as she had been tending the pots on the hearth while the rest of the women worked in the kitchen area cleaning the vegetables they had rummaged up. Sandra followed the others out but at a much slower pace than their excited scurry, having no reason in particular to stop her cooking as far as she was concerned.
Corkie proceeded toward Oran at a leisurely pace as well, but hers was with purpose. With slow, almost threatening strokes, she wiped the black soot from each hand. By the time she was finished she was standing a foot's distance from Oran, her cleaned hands now on her hips, her plump elbows sticking out from her already generously curved body to make her even more intimidating.
"Ya ain't even got enough for one, ya skinny old bird," Corkie greeted him with what Sandra was beginning to realize was Corkie's way of saying she liked you. The more she growled, the fonder she was.
"I was callin' to the lassies, not the crones," Oran said with a twisted sneer to match Corkie's. They both leaned in closer to each other's faces. Teeth were bared from the snarling of their lips, and their noses nearly touched in challenge.
"Well lucky for you I was out here then. One of those lassies might have mistaken yurr skirt for a game bag and peeled your pecker raw before they realized yurr root was not worth the bother."
Oran growled deep in his throat and shook with rage. Obviously no woman had ever insulted him this way before. The other men slowly filed through the doors, yet stayed a safe distance back from the battling duo. It only took a wise man one look to know things were about to collide, like fists.
"One more, wench. Just give me one more reason to redden yurr shanks."
"Ha," Corkie hooted out, her head whipping back with the force of her hearty laugh. "Redden my shanks? As in givin' me a spank?" Her head came back down to face him again only to fling back with another hoot of disbelief after looking him over. "I will give ya more than one, hell I will lift up me skirts for ya if you think yurr man enough ta strike me and live through it."
Oran reddened over all his exposed skin, looking like he was about to act, but then Corkie stole the chance from him. Her bear-like hand reached out with the swiftness of a water serpent and snatched the bouquet of weeds he held in his hand as his bribe. Without giving him even enough time to flinch, she struck him across the face with his offering, then shoved the fistful of scratchy greens down the front of his kilt.
"Ahrrr!" Oran screamed with rage as he lunged for two handfuls of her wiry brown hair. His red face and open mouth met Corkie's closed fist. He landed with a loud thud as his old bones crumpled into a heap, knocked back about two strides from his intended goal. He had no chance to regain his lost wind before Corkie graciously used him for a bench.
"Offer me weeds and a spankin' again and I might just take ya up on it, but I cannot vouch you will be in any better shape when we are through." Her infectious laugh had everyone around them smiling at poor Oran's misfortune.
"I have seen the men crawl from her room," Lex said as he lifted Oran up from the stone floor once she released him. "You are lucky she did not take your bribe."
Sandra's smile faded. It had taken her most of the morning to rationalize away what had happened last night, at least as rational as helping long-dead relatives could be. One look was all it took to bring back the ache that crept up her throat each time she recalled the cold glare he pierced her with when he left their chamber this morning. For everyone else he had a kind word and a light-hearted jest, but none of it was ever aimed at her.
He caught her glance and held it for a moment. What was it she saw there? Anger? Pity? Or was he actually staring at her in a daze? No, that was definitely not it. She knew he felt nothing for her, nothing pleasant anyway.
She saw no bag at his side or flowers in his hand. He must not have done well in the hunt, no wonder, since he was no longer familiar with the terrain. At least she would not have to play the dutiful wife in front of them all when inside she wanted to do what Corkie had done, put him in his place and know he would stay there.
With a quick adjustment of her drooping blouse and a flick of her hair out of her eyes, Sandra ignored Lex's continued stare and made her way over to stand at Oran's side. Thin red welts were already visible on his tough freckled skin, lingering evidence of the power behind Corkie's threats. He reached down into his kilt and pulled out his bribe. The stems of the green weeds were bent and sagging, the fluffy tops that had added to their wild beauty now crushed beyond repair.
"A fine bribe I have to offer now," Oran said with a dejected look from his crumpled bouquet to the bulging leather hunt sack still slung across his chest, even after his trip across the floor.
"Indeed it is," Sandra said as she reached for the wilted bouquet with one hand and gently stroked his reddened cheek with her other. She stretched up on her tiptoes and softly placed three kisses along the swollen trail left by the weeds. "I will gladly clean your catch for such a beautiful bribe. It takes a Highland eye to see its real value." As if they were delicate blooms of heather, Sandra cradled them in the crook of her arm with pride.
Out of the corner of her eye she watched Lex glare at her but she would not turn his way. With a rude nudge and a shove as he went, Lex stalked off through the couples and families exchanging kisses for bribes. Now that his back was to her for the first time, she saw that he had a beautiful pine wreath hanging from his black waist belt. Two young branches had been joined into a perfect circle that looked to be the perfect size to fit her head. Strung through the deep green needles of the wreath like a bold stripe on a dark plaid were small red blaeberries, definitely the best find of the hunt. She took two steps to catch up to him before she stopped between Erin and Kate, about to kiss.
Lex had stopped as well. He scanned across the room until he found her watchful eyes on him, then with a spiteful raised brow he turned away and placed her wreath on Mira's head of fluffy golden red hair. It looked beautiful, as beautiful as Sandra had thought it would look on herself.
Lex took unnecessary care to adjust the headpiece and arrange the red berries so they were displayed perfectly. He removed his hand from the wreath and was bending over to receive his kiss when a gust of wind sent the circle of pine flying off Mira's head. It hit Lex squarely in the chest with more force than seemed possible from a gust of wind. Lex looked toward the open doors behind him, then snapped his head back to Sandra with an accusing glare. He said nothing, and with much less concern or care this time, he positioned the wreath back on Mira's waiting head.
Mira’s hopeful face. His spiteful look. Both of them made her sick to her stomach. Neither had even stopped to consider how they were dishonoring her in front of their whole clan. But then she was a MacEwen, the one who had ruined all of their chance for peace by committing the most regrettable error of her life, and then repeating it...no, topping it off with her actions last night. Fool she might be, but by her own making. If he thought nothing of disgracing their hand-fast so openly, then she would give him something to ponder that might just awaken some feelings in his ice-cold blood.
Knowing what had triggered his temper more than once, or rather who had triggered it, Sandra searched out her ever-faithful Rory and was immediately by his side. The move brought her even closer to Lex and Mira, perfect for what she had in mind.
"I do not see much in your bag for such a lovely bribe," she said as she grasped his offering of three large lavender thistle blooms and slid her hand over the smooth fur hunt bag hanging just below his waist. From the stiffening of Lex's posture to his towering full height, Sandra knew that he had indeed been affected by her actions.
"I...I...I...did not have much time for huntin'," Rory stuttered, his shyness suddenly engulfing his face in a deep red flush, "but I wanted ta...ta...ta...make sure I brought something back for Mira so--"
Lip to lip with her, there was no way Rory could finish his sentence. It was all she could think to do when she saw Lex scoop one large hand behind Mira's head in preparation for his kiss. She opened her eyes for a peek in Lex's direction, then smiled and deepened her efforts in Rory's kiss. It had worked. It had stopped him cold. He was still in the same position, his hand holding Mira's head stiffly, probably ready to crush it like an egg.
A lift of her foot backward into the air for good measure, and she backed away from Rory. His eyes were still closed and his mouth still slightly open, waiting for more. It was then that she realized she had made another error in judgment because of Lex. She had no right to drag Rory's unblemished heart through their briar patch of problems.
"I am sorry, Rory. I forgot myself for a moment when I saw..." she said quietly to him and looked toward Lex and Mira, still in the same tentative kiss position.
Rory gave her an understanding frown. "I know why ya did it, but ya need not be sorry. I am not complainin'."
Sandra clasped Rory's hand in thanks, then turned toward Lex. His eyes were on their entwined hands, his own hand still holding Mira at the back of her neck. It was the second gust of wind from the wrong direction that finally drew everyone's attention to what their chieftain was doing. This time the wreath not only blew off Mira's head with enough force to send it across the room, but her long thick hair came tumbling up over her face just as she was about to grace Lex with a hearty kiss.
"Enough of your witchery, MacEwen," Lex bellowed out with a dark scowl across his face, a face that was drawing closer and closer to Sandra's with every pounding stride he took.
Inside she felt a slight terror at his fast approach, but seeing Mira fuss with her pile of unruly locks, trying to return them to some semblance of order, and knowing full well Iain had stirred it up to help her, Sandra could not stop the smirk of a smile that forced its way onto her face. It only made Lex angrier, if that was possible, but she could not help it, nor did she really care to spare his feelings after his crass behavior.
"I will not stand for any more of your tricks in this place," he shouted through his clenched teeth as he grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a fierce shake. His rage was out of control, yet Sandra could only laugh. She felt no threat at all for some reason. Rory, on the other hand, took offense for her.
"Take yurr hands off her," he said. His lean but promising frame nudged ever so slightly up against Lex's arm. His hand wrapped tightly around the hilt of his dagger but it remained sheathed.
Green eyes met green eyes. MacLachlan temper met MacLachlan rage. Any moment Rory's body would meet the floor if she did not stop them. Fortunately Mira saved Rory the shame.
"I cannot be cleanin' a thing so big." The young woman's mouth and eyes were both wide open in disbelief, as if she had somehow been tricked. A quick glance over to where her finger was pointed and Sandra knew why.
Lying at the threshold of the doors to the hall was a large red deer with its innards already pulled out and what was left of its blood draining out the gash onto the cobbled entrance. No wonder Mira felt tricked. Clan MacLachlan rarely had access to the deer that lived in the forests on the MacEwen side of the stream. A sheep was probably about the biggest thing Mira had ever had to clean.
"Corkie will help you," Lex said, but Corkie was already shaking her head, and her arms were stubbornly folded under her bosom.
"You picked the one you wanted to give your goods to, now ya have to live with your choices," Corkie said with a smug grin.
"You took the bribe," Lex reminded Mira.
"Nay, I never actually took it or gave a kiss in return. We have no bargain." Mira grabbed Kiss by the arm and pulled her along back to the kitchens without another look backwards.
All eyes were on Lex now, waiting to see what he would do. It seemed everyone was against him: Mira, Corkie, Rory, and even his own wife. Sandra knew that horrible feeling of not belonging. The experience was still painful in her heart like a bandaged wound, and the one who had bandaged it was Lex. He had come out into that fury of a storm to find her, which meant he had been watching her all along. In actuality, the whole situation had stemmed from her first taking Oran's bribe over Lex's. Would it really be so hard to extend her olive branch a little further and try to reach out to him again?
"I will clean the doe. It is my responsibility as your...hand-fasted partner." She put a calming hand on Rory's arm and pushed him back. Then she held out her hand for Lex's knife.
"I offered you no bribe." His reply was as hurtful and cutting to her pride as his previous actions with Mira.
Sandra's flare of anger about snapped her olive branch of good intentions in half. No, she scolded herself, she could not let him get to her again. It mattered not what he did with another woman, just as long as he was gone at the end of their hand-fast and Mangus was back in his place. She would not tarnish her honor or disgrace her clan name.
"I require no bribe, only your blade, that way I owe you no kiss either." She met his angry stare defiantly.
"I would think your lips have had enough kissing for one day."
"For one day, maybe, but there is always another day right behind the next. I have just begun my kissin' days."
A slap of cold metal in her waiting palm was Lex's only answer before he turned to leave.
"You will be needin' my help if you want to be done with that skinnin' by dark," said Rory as he pulled out his dagger to join her.
"I suppose I can clean my own to aid yurr tasks," Oran added with his usual gruffness that Sandra knew was his way of saying he cared about her.
Lex stopped and turned back around when he heard their offers. "I will cut while you hold the skin," he said. It was obvious he did not want to help her, but for some reason he could not stand for any member of his clan to help her in his place.
"The cutting is the easiest part," she said as she walked past him and slapped his dagger back into his hand just as he had unceremoniously given it to her. "As chieftain you should take the easiest jobs and leave the rest to me."
Lex wanted to use his dagger on much softer skin than that of his red deer as he followed Sandra's plaid skirt outside. An especially nice part to cut out first would be his wife's insolent little tongue. She squatted down next to the carcass lying on the ground and dug her fingers into the fleshy skin to pull it back for him to cut away. Her smug little smile never left her lips as she sat there looking as innocent as an angel, the white flakes of falling snow softening the look of her golden hair even more.
Mesmerizing tricks. Just more tricks.
Lex focused his eyes on the knife in his hand and the lifeless deer he had to use it on. "So how do you do it?" he asked without looking up from the skin he was slicing away from the meat.
"Do what?"
"Your magic tricks that make me look the fool in front of my clan."
"You made a fool of yourself without my help by throwing your bribe at that young girl when I was no more than two steps away." Sandra jerked back on the skin with more effort than necessary, ripping it away from the meat before Lex even had a chance to cut through it.
"As I recall, it was you who was too busy with an old goat to take my bribe." Lex sliced through the stretchy tissue between the muscle and skin with a swift swipe of his sharp blade. The sudden give of the skin sent her falling back onto her butt. "I will do it myself if you cannot manage," Lex said, picking up the loose skin that had slipped from her hands.
"I can do it," she said between gritted teeth as she grabbed the fur-covered hide with both hands and jerked it back away from him. The force of her pull set him off balance. He tried to correct but it was no use once his hand hit the slippery exposed ribs of the deer. Bone to bone, he heard the slight crack of his nose as it hit cold, bloody meat. "Serves you right," was her remark. Not “I am sorry” or “are you hurt”, but another insult.
Lex checked his nose for blood that might be his, and then with a swift slash cut clean through the section of skin Sandra had jerked back. Again she went tumbling to the ground, and this time her face was not so angelic when she sat up.
"I am sorry, I did not realize what I was doing," he said sarcastically as he offered out his bloody hand to help her up.
She hit his hand aside with a hard slap and grabbed the knife from his other hand. "Just like you did not realize what you were doing when you ruined my wedding, or when you offered your bribe to another woman when your wife was within spitting distance? Do you not know a thing about Highland ways?" The knife blade came dangerously close to Lex's face with each of her questions. He never backed up, never flinched, not even a blink of an eye.
"I did not think my kissing another woman would bother you so much," he said with a smile he knew would bait her.
"I care not what you do or with whom," she declared in almost a shriek of denial. "And your kisses are the last thing in this land I would be bothered by losing."
"That is not what it seemed like last night." He had goaded her into a fury and was quite proud of it. Seeing her in a state of anger was an even lovelier sight than her fairylike beauty alone.
"Last night was for them, not me."
"Them? Oh, yes, our spirited kin who needed our help. Quite an amusing twist to trapping a man."
"It was no trap!" The severed skin in her hand was the only thing within her reach, and she used it. Slick cold fat slapped up against the side of his face as the hide wrapped around his head from the force of her swing.
Lex caught the free end of the skin and jerked it hard enough to bring her rolling over the deer and face to face with him. "If it was no trap or magic trick, then why was my body acting against my will?"
"That was by your own agreement with Iain and Derrdra. Nothing forced you to stay through the second and third time you came to me last night. Iain was long gone before the first was even completed."
Lex opened his mouth to respond, then closed it when he realized he could not refute her. He had stayed with her all night. He had made love to her over and over again...but only because he pitied her for what she was being forced to do, for having to trick a man into taking her maidenhead to appease her father's wishes. He had done it to ease her pain, not for his own pleasure.
"Be assured no magic will make it happen a fourth time." Lex wrapped his blood-wet fingers behind her neck and pulled her face even closer to his so she would not mistake his meaning. His voice was menacingly low. "For the time you live under my roof and in my protection you will cease with your tricks and kissing of my clansmen." He expected a little sob or quiver of her lip from his reprimand. What he got was totally unexpected.
She grabbed him by the back of the neck with her small hand and pulled his face another inch closer. Now their noses were about touching and her eyes blurred into one stunning color. Her own voice was a whispered threat as well. "As long as you pretend to be my husband you will honor me as a wife, kiss no other woman, and cease in accusing me of witchcraft. Do we have an understanding then, MacLachlan?"
The strength of her grip on his neck was not the only thing pulling him toward her. Strength...guts...beauty...tenderness. She had them all, and he wanted to throw her to the ground and smash all that defiance out of her with the pressure of his body hard against hers, his lips to her lips, until she...until she smiled and begged for more, and laughed out his name off her lips.
He felt her tug her head backwards against his hold. A flash of fear widened her eyes before she was able to shield her reaction from him. Looking deep into those dual-colored eyes in that instant, he knew they had just experienced the same desire.
Relentlessly, they held each other’s necks, neither willing to show even the slightest weakness to the other. They searched each other’s eyes. It was something that could not be seen, but it was there. It pushed to their every pull. It inflamed desire with every surge of anger. He needed to feel her release!
"No!" she barely got out in a hoarse whisper as she broke free from his hand. She was shaken. It showed in her every move away from him. She was up and slowly walking backwards toward the hall as if she were afraid to turn her back to him. "There will not be a fourth," she declared in a soft voice that trembled slightly.
"There should have never been a first," he said before he threw his dagger to the ground and headed off in the opposite direction.
He needed to be away. Away from his needy clan, away from his dark manor, away from her tempting eyes. The mountains beyond the wall were the only place he could go. They had always been there for him before. They were the only thing in the Highlands that had not forsaken him yet. The only thing, including himself, that he still trusted in.