Warrior of the Highlands

Page 18

MacColla had been furious to hear the contents of
Scrymgeour's letter from the king. Haley followed the conversation for awhile, then the truly fucked-upness of her situation hit her. That she was listening hungrily to hot gossip about… King Charles the first!
She looked at the glass in her hand. What the hell? “Slainte,” she said, lifting it in his direction, then tipped it back fast, downing the contents in one burning gulp.
“Aaaaeh?” she exclaimed, and her upper body gave a slow, comical shudder. Haley slammed the glass on the table, slid it toward MacColla and smiled through the tears in her eyes.
She didn't want to consider the strange feeling of satisfaction that warmed her upon hearing his shocked laugh explode in response.
Haley watched him pour more whisky into her glass, vaguely aware of the uncomfortable glances exchanged between the other two at the table. The triumph she felt upon hearing Jean's chair scrape away from the table was one she didn't deny.
“Jean.” Scrymgeour said earnestly. He seemed flustered by his friend's turbulent behavior, and he directed his full attentions to MacColla's sister. “May I… ”
“Aye,” the girl whispered gratefully, and Haley flashed her a broad smile.
“Please, John,” Jean told him nervously.
“If you'll excuse us, Alasdair.” Scrymgeour was on his feet and helping Jean from her chair in an instant. “Mistress Fitzpatrick.” He nodded coolly in Haley's direction.
“Mister Scrym… geour.” It was almost certainly the wrong title for the man, but she doubted he fully understood her anyway. The drink had burned through her like thousandproof spirits, thickening her tongue. To make up for it, she flashed as composed a smile as she could muster, honestly hoping the effects were more drawing room than frat house.
An uncomfortable silence fell between her and MacColla the moment the other two left. She wracked her brain for something to say. Mostly she wasn't ready to head back to her own room for the night. She'd need a tad more anesthetizing before she could ever fall asleep.
Besides, the issue of James Graham's death had become an obsession. And here she was, sitting with likely one of the only living men who knew the true fate of the famous war hero. Maybe if she got MacColla drunk, he'd spill the beans.
“Uh… ” she floundered. “They say it was Saint Patrick who introduced the distilling of whisky to Ireland.” Or so her father had claimed through the years, with a zeal that implied the sipping of his Jameson was just about divinely inspired.
“From the hand of the Almighty Himself, is it?”
It wasn't until she looked up and saw the playfulness in his eyes that she realized he wasn't serious.
“Mhmm.” Unsure of what to say, Haley took another big sip. Her shiver was more subtle this time, but she still had to hiss a breath out through gritted teeth. “All right. That's it.” She slammed her own hand down then. “Do you have a coin or something?”
“A coin?”
“Yes, you know, money. A coin.”
“I… ” He looked hesitant.
“Oh” - she waved a hand dismissively - “my charming company is free. I just need a little help gulping this stuff down. Come on, MacColla.” She acted as if she'd been slighted. “Trust me.”
“Oh, I don't trust you, lass.” His voice was cold and flat, his face unreadable, staring at her. Just when she began to feel nervous that she'd crossed a line, MacColla burst into laughter.
“Don't fash yourself.” He reached across the table and pinched her chin. “Trust you I don't.” He rifled through his sporran and retrieved a silver coin. “But I will listen to you, aye?” He flicked it to Haley and she caught it easily.
She fingered the cool metal between her fingers, contemplating the man before her. MacColla was clearly so much more than the one -dimensional brute history had painted him to be. She studied him. Up to that point, all she'd really registered were his strong, swarthy features, and his intensity. But his face and body were relaxed now. Though his eyes were hooded and his expres sion impossible to read, she imagined his features were as open as he ever let them get.
Mostly she couldn't get over how attractive he was. Big and dark and strong, with flashes of warmth that melted some secret place at her core. Haley didn't want to admit to herself that she increasingly sought those flashes, encouraged them, just to see his features soften and feel the gratifying click of his gaze with hers.
“Okay,” she said quickly and a little breathlessly, “here's the deal. You have to bounce the coin into the cup. If you make it, great. If you don't, you have to drink the contents of the cup.”
He stared incredulously for a moment. “Are you certain, lass?”
“What?” She looked up and saw the bemused glint in his eye. “Ohhh, I get it. You think you might beat me.”
He laughed and reached for the coin, flicking it onto the table in a single motion. It clanked hard against the wood, flew up, and clattered onto the floor.
“Are you certain, MacColla?” She smiled and nodded at his glass for him to drink.
She reached her leg out and pinning the coin with her foot, dragged it toward her, and then picked it up from the floor. Huffing on the silver, she made as if to polish it, holding his gaze to hers all the while.
Haley leaned over and eyeing low along the surface of the table, shifted the glass as if she were making minute and critical calibrations.
Her preternatural skill at the drinking game Quarters had been legend around her twin brothers' Boston College dorm. She thought she might as well get something out of it. “If I make it, you have to answer a question.”
“A question?” His eyes watched her hand bob up and down, warming up to her toss. “What manner of question?”
“Just” - she gently let go of the coin, which bounced back up to plunk easily into her glass - “a regular old question.”
His laughter exploded through the room and he startled them both when he reached over to clap her on the shoulder. “You're a wily one.”
“Thanks.” Smiling at his approving nod, she slid the glass in his direction, “I'm a woman of many talents.”
“Aye?” He raised his brows in question.
The double entendre made her blush. “Aye… what?”
“What's your question, lass?”
“Oh that. Of course.” Haley wondered what she should ask. She couldn't just up and broach the topic of James Graham right away.
While she considered, again he tried to get the coin in his glass, and failed.
Before she could think too much about it, she heard herself ask, “So what drives you, MacColla?”
“Drives me?” he asked, and downed the whisky.
“You know, what compels you?”
He shrugged as if addressing the simplest question in the world. He refilled the glass and slid it back to her. “To kill Campbell, of course.”
She dropped the coin onto the table and bounced it neatly back into the cup.
Sliding it back his way, she asked, “So that's the most important thing to you? More than family even?”
He tried again and missed. He drank then gave his head a quick shake. Haley made a mental note to slow it down. She wanted to get the man drunk enough to talk about James Graham, not put him under the table.
“You misunderstand,” he told her. He refilled the cup and eyed it in relation to the coin in his fingers. “My fight with the Campbell is about family. Clan is the most important thing to me.”
“No, I mean… Here,” she said impatiently, and scooted her chair nearer to his. Haley took MacColla's hand and bent his wrist slightly. “I mean a family like, you know, a wife.
Are you betrothed?” She tried to ignore the warmth of his hand in hers, the broad knuckles and the thick knots of muscle at his forearm. Haley guided his arm slowly up and down, demonstrating the proper move. “Try like that.”
He slammed the coin down and it popped up and hit him in the forehead. She burst out laughing, and he looked at her accusingly.
“No.”
“I'm sorry,” she giggled.
“I meant, no, I'm not betrothed.”
“Oh.” Suddenly the air felt too hot. Haley had to concentrate on keeping her tone nonchalant. “Why not?”
“It's never struck me.”
“Struck you?”
“Aye.” He chuckled and rubbed his thigh, evoking the place where she'd kicked him. “I can say truthfully that you're the first lass ever to strike me.”
Haley knew she was supposed to laugh then, but somehow it didn't come.
A charged silence hung once more between them. She refilled the glass, trying to think of something to say.
He took the coin from the table and stared at it, disgruntled.
“You need to be gentler.” she said finally. She took his hand in hers, adjusting his wrist even more. “You're, you're… ” A nervous laugh escaped her. She gathered herself then added as seriously as she could, “It's like you're trying to drive the thing clear through the table. Just” - she guided his hand, and the coin bounced down and into the cup - “release it.”
He drank and refilled his glass. She was acutely aware of his eyes on her as she took aim for her own turn.
Just as she dropped the coin, he said, “A simple release, eh?” The unexpected huskiness of his voice made her hand slip, and the coin clattered to the floor.
“Now your turn to drink, Fitzpatrick.” He nudged the glass toward her, the devil in his eyes. “And it seems fair that I can now ask something of you.”
“Fitzpatrick, huh?” A small, sad smile crooked her mouth. Her house had always been filled with a parade of her brothers' friends, all of whom had, at one point or another, called her brothers just that.
“Aye, that is your name, is it not?”