Neill heard it, too, and held his blade to her throat. “You should not have let yourself care, MacPherson!” he called out into the trees, knowing they were being followed.
“Pity more for ye that I did.” Came a voice, deep and rich—and from above. Not heaven, but the treetops.
Hanging upside down, Tristan appeared, and having just one opportunity to get it right, he snatched the knife from Neill’s fingers and smashed him in the temple with the hard hilt.
Rose’s captor slipped from the saddle.
Rose and Tristan were next, jumping to their feet and leaping into each other’s arms. She let him hold her for a long time, neither one saying a word until Jones, who was the one who provided the bear-like growl, rode toward them from the trees.
Tristan had come for her again. She hadn’t doubted he would.
“All right now, you two,” said Mr. Jones, reaching them.
Rose turned, flushed, and then smiled at him. What was Mr. Jones doing with Tristan? A wave of horror rolled over her when she thought of what Neill had done before he left. Was everything gone? Her heart sank. “Mary?”
“Mary is safe, lass.” Tristan told her, bending to lift the unresponsive Neill over his shoulder. “Come, before he awakens, and I have to kill him.”
Jones dismounted and punched Neill in the face to make certain he didn’t wake up too soon and threw Neill over the saddle before regaining his place.
They agreed that Rose would ride back with Tristan and they would meet up with Jones on the road beyond the bend.
Tristan’s horse was waiting for them deeper in the woods. He had dismounted and climbed the trees in the dark and then traveled through them.
They had never heard him coming in the treetops.
Oh, she thrilled in the scent of him—leather and virility. She wanted to fall into his strong arms and give herself to him. She wanted him to possess her, become one with her.
He was holding her hand and it made her want to possess him, to hold his unbridled heart. She wanted to be the only one who could.
“Thank you for coming for me. When did you know the captain and I were—did you save the captain, Tristan?”
He turned to her as they reached Perceval and helped her mount. “Aye. He is well and tendin’ to his wife. He wished to come fight fer ye, but Jones convinced him that his wife needed to see him and that he could relinquish yer care to me.”
He fit his foot into the stirrup and tossed his leg over the horse then spread his thighs on either side of her.
Her body shook for him. She fought her scandalous desires and tried to focus on what she needed to know. “You said the captain is tending to his wife. Is Mary here? With you?”
“Aye,” he told her, happily at first, and then his smiled faded. “She is all that is left of yer home, I’m afraid.”
She leaned her head on his chest behind her. Poor Alana and Steven, the others who had returned home when she had. She wanted to weep over them.
He held her close to him. She felt his heart beating hard against her ear.
“’Tis good news aboot Mary, but there is even more, my love.” His velvety voice resonated through her.
His love?
“Yer father is also with us.”
She sat up and stared at him, forgetting for a moment what he had just called her. “You met my father?”
Tristan nodded, offering her a reassuring smile.
“And he is well?”
“He is well.”
She couldn’t stop smiling. “You will tell me everything, but first…” she snuggled even deeper against him. When she spoke, her voice sounded like the purr of a satisfied cat. “I want you to know that I have been thinking of ways to thank you for all you have done for me.”
“Ye dinna need to thank me, lass.”
“I think I have come up with something.”
“Oh?” A simple word spoken on a husky whisper. “What have ye come up with?”
Her smile deepened. She doubted he could see it.
“I cannot tell you, as you are not my husband.”
She was certain she heard him growl.
“Do you not wish to wed?” she asked, afraid of his answer.
“Rose.”
“Aye?”
“I want to be wed but only if ye are to be my wife. If we find a priest, we could be married by tomorrow.”
She felt a wave of excitement at the idea of it and nodded her approval. She frowned though a moment later.
“You said you have met my father. What if—”
“I have already told yer father that I intend to wed ye. He has accepted it.”
Rose’s eyes opened wider. “You told him, and he accepted it?”
He nodded. She wouldn’t believe it until she heard her father say it with his own mouth.
“What could you have told him that would change his mind?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Mayhap he changed his mind because of Mary, or because I didna use ye to get to him.”
“What does Mary have to do with anything?
“I saved her.”
“What do you mean you saved her, Tristan?”
He began to tell her how he’d climbed the trees outside the castle, but they met Mr. Jones on the road. Neill was still unresponsive, and it was nice for Rose to see him in the same position she was in earlier.
They continued on with Tristan and Mr. Jones occasionally telling her everything that had happened at the castle.
Tristan reluctantly admitted to being at Callanach, hiding in the trees and watching her.
Rose wished she had known he was there. She found that she liked the idea of him watching her—but only because she loved him. She wanted to tell him. It would have to wait.
“I awoke to everythin’ burnin’. I heard Mary in her cottage. The door had been barred on the outside.”
“I’m so thankful you saved Mary. The captain loves her very much.”
“The captain was grateful,” he let her know. “He and I spoke briefly. But we will speak again.”
“He admires you,” Rose shared.
