“Mam, mam, don’t weep.” Her bones felt sharp under his hands as he patted her back to soothe her. “Ye can see I am well.”
“Ye are a wretched son to stay away so long.” She slapped his arm, but she was smiling at him through her tears.
“Auntie Beitris, I know ye missed me, too,” Alex said, as he held his arms out to Ian’s mother.
“And who is this braw man?” Ian said, turning to his brother.
Their mother had lost three babes, all of them girls, before Niall was born, so there was a nine-year gap between Ian and his brother. When Ian left for France, his brother had barely reached his shoulder. Now, at fifteen, Niall stood eye to eye with him.
“Surely, this cannot be my baby brother.” Ian locked his arm around Niall’s neck and rubbed his head with his knuckles, then passed him to Alex, who did the same.
“Look at ye,” Alex said. “I’d wager all the lasses on the island have been after ye, since I wasn’t here to divert them.”
Niall and Alex exchanged a couple of good-natured punches, then Niall caught Ian’s eye and cocked his head. Ian had forgotten all about the couple on the bench, but at his brother’s signal, he turned around to greet them.
The room fell away as Ian stared at the young woman who now stood in the glow of the firelight with her eyes fixed on the floor and her hands clenched before her. Her hair was the most beautiful shade of red he had ever seen. It fell in gleaming waves over her shoulders and breasts and framed a face so lovely it squeezed his heart to look at her.
When she lifted her gaze and met his, the air went out of him. Her eyes were a bright emerald, and they seemed to be asking a question as if her very life depended upon it.
Whatever this lass’s question was, his answer was aye.
CHAPTER 4
There was something very familiar about this lovely, green-eyed lass, but Ian could not place her.
“Ian.” Alex jabbed him in the ribs.
Ian knew he should stop staring at her, but he couldn’t help himself. And why should he, when the lass was staring right back at him? He wondered vaguely if the man at her side was her husband—and hoped he wasn’t.
“Hmmph,” Alex grunted, as he pushed past Ian. He strode across the room and greeted the young woman with a kiss on her cheek, as if he knew her well.
“Ach, you are a sight to behold,” Alex said, standing back and holding her hands. “If I were your husband, Sileas, ye can be sure I wouldn’t have kept ye waiting a single day.”
Sileas? Ian shook his head. Nay, this could not be…
The young woman was nothing like the scrawny thirteen-year-old he remembered. Instead of gawky limbs and pointed elbows, she had graceful lines and rounded curves that made his throat go dry.
And yet… that was Sileas’s upturned nose. And he supposed that glorious mass of curling red hair could be hers, if it were brushed and combed—a state he’d never seen it in before.
“Welcome home,” the young woman said to Alex in the kind of throaty voice a man wanted to hear in the dark.
Sileas never had one of those high-pitched little girl voices… but this beauty could not truly be her.
“Ye two must be hungry after your travels. Come, Sileas, let us get these men fed,” his mother said, taking the lass by the arm. His mother gave him a wide-eyed look over her shoulder, the kind she used to give him when he was a lad and had committed some grievous error in front of company.
When he started to follow the two women to the table, Alex hauled him back. “Are ye an idiot?” Alex hissed in his face. “Ye didn’t even greet Sileas. What’s the matter with ye?”
“Are ye sure that’s Sileas?” Ian said, leaning to the side so he could see past Alex to the red-haired lass.
“Of course it is, ye fool,” Alex said. “Did ye no hear your mam just say her name?”
Ian had to tear his gaze away from her when Niall and the other man joined them. Now that he took a good look at the man, he saw it was their neighbor, Gordan Graumach MacDonald.
“Ian, Alex,” Gordan said, giving them each a curt nod.
Ian met the man’s stubborn hazel eyes. “Gordan.”
“You’ve been gone a long time,” Gordan said, sounding as though Ian could not be gone long enough to make him happy. “A good deal has changed here in your absence.”
“Has it now?” Ian said, knowing a challenge when he heard one. “Well, ye can expect it all to change again, now that I’m back.”
Gordan scowled at him before turning on his heel to join the women, who were busy setting food on the table on the other side of the room.
“Thank ye kindly for supper,” Gordan said to them.
“Ye are always welcome to join us. ’Tis small thanks for all you’ve done for us,” his mother said, beaming at Gordan. “ ’Twas kind of ye to take Sileas out for a stroll today.”
What in the name of all the saints was his mother doing, thanking that conniving Gordan?
“If ye need me for… for anything at all,” Gordan said to Sileas in a low voice, “ye know where to find me.” Gordan touched her arm as he spoke to her, and an unaccountable surge of anger rose in Ian’s chest, choking him.
