“Would you mind turning around while I get out?” she called to him.
He didn’t want to, but he did. He gathered his weapons and walked back to the horses. He waited—thinking about what she was doing. How she looked doing it, bare of any clothes—
“Tristan?”
He turned at the sound of her voice.
“It fits.” She beamed and twirled around in her place.
“Perfectly,” he told her, unable to keep from smiling, from staring at her, arrested by the sight of her. He shouldn’t let this be happening. It put her at risk to love someone like him. But he was selfish and allowed himself this time to admire her.
Her gaze dipped to the rest of him and a rosy flush swept across her cheeks. “Your garments fit perfectly, as well.”
Shockingly—alarmingly, he let out a throaty chuckle! Was it too late to turn back?
“You have been so kind to me, Tristan, even staying at an inn for me. I know you did not want to.”
Sometimes he didn’t know what to say to her. She was too generous with her compliments and kind words to him. He didn’t want them. They weakened his resolve, as did everything else about her.
“’Twas a simple request ye made, lass,” he told her in a low voice. “’Twas easy to see it fulfilled.”
“I’m sure ’twas more than that,” she said playfully, dipping her dripping head and slanting her gaze and her smile at him.
“Oh?” Hell, but she smelled good, slightly floral and fresh.
“Aye. Admit it.”
With her full locks wet and slicked back, she intoxicated him. He shouldn’t play these games with her. He would lose. He wanted to kiss her. He could almost taste her teasing mouth. But what would it mean to her? To him? He couldn’t. He murdered men in their beds, inside their well-guarded fortresses, sometimes in front of their families. He wasn’t all the things she thought. He was far from them.
“I admit that ye can be hard to resist. That is all, Rose.”
Now it was her turn to laugh as she turned and went to her horse. “Very well, Tristan. But I know you like me.”
He drew in a long breath then smiled. She was tearing through his defenses like a battering ram. He wasn’t sure he wanted her to stop.
They set out toward Thornhill, riding slowly alongside each other on the way. He didn’t deny her charge. He did like her. What was he to do about it?
“I will need to keep ye someplace safe until I’m done killin’ Walters,” he told her. “Mayhap tonight we will get another bed somewhere.”
“That would be nice. I enjoyed our last night together.”
As did he. He wanted to tell her but doing so drove him deeper into the chasm. What would he do if he fell in love with her?
“Do you think you can control yourself again and not kiss me?”
Was she teasing, or serious? What did it matter when he was choking on his own breath? “I…” he shook his head and began again. “Aye. I do.”
Her smile faded just the tiniest bit. “Why?” she asked. “Why do you not find me pleasing? Because I was sick? Because I—”
“Lass,” he silenced her softly. “I do find ye pleasin’. Trust me, that isna what keeps me from ye.”
“Then what is it?”
Gah! Her and her questions!
“Have you kissed women before?” she went on before he could answer her first question. She stared at him with wide, dark eyes as she rode. “Touched them?”
He sighed and nodded his head.
“How come you could with them and not with me?”
He raked his fingers through his curls, pulling them away from his face. She wasn’t going to let up. He had to give her an answer. It would mean something.
“Because I—I didna care aboot them, Rose.”
“Oh,” she let out on a soft breath.
It was hard not to think about kissing her right now with her mouth all pursed and ready to kiss—and kissed thoroughly. But, no. “There is no place fer love in me. What I do is hard to live with—even fer me sometimes. It takes its toll, and I am unpleasant.” There. He breathed. He almost hated himself for going down on one knee so easily.
“Then stop doing it.”
He flashed her a scowl because she made it sound so easy. “After I fought England and Scotland’s wars, I realized I was killin’ the wrong people. Most of the men I killed were innocent, caught up in the deceits of kings.” He paused, not knowing how to explain to her the anger in his heart for men. He’d killed too many, had grown too hard. Why was he so intent on explaining it to her? “I am good at killin’, Rose. In fact, ’tis what I am best at.”
She moved her horse closer to his and shook her head. “What you are best at is saving people. My, but look at all you have done for me! You are hurrying to go save a woman from a man who killed her husband and took her captive. You save good people from the bad.”
He stared at her, marveling at the way she looked at things from such a different standpoint. A lighter, better standpoint.
She smiled, lifting her hand to her mouth when he kept staring at her.
“Ye are good fer my soul, lass,” he told her, lifting his fingers to the strands of her hair over her eye. Part of him cringed at telling her so much. The other part liked how it felt to tell her all, to have her understand who he was. And to have her shine a light on a part of himself he thought long gone.
“And you,” she told him, closing her eyes at his touch, “are good for mine.”
Thornhill wasn’t as busy as Rose thought it would be. Part of the reason
