Kresley Cole - If You Dare

She faced him with a frown. "I've heard the rumors. I know she abandoned her family because of…passion."

"You think that's why Mother wasn't here?" he asked, his voice incredulous. "She had an affair with a man—a good man named Nicolás Beltrán—whom she'd been in love with her entire life." When she shook her head in confusion, he continued, "They were caught eloping, and the family sent her away. It would've been as if someone had forced Mariette away from me the night before our wedding to marry an older stranger in exile. Mariette would've wanted me to come for her and nothing would've stopped me."

"But what took him so long?" she asked, becoming completely lost in the story.

"When the family was through with him, he was penniless and in ill health. He had no idea where she'd been taken, and it took him years to find her."

She gave him a bitter smile. "Yes, but when he did, she left me, her own daughter, for him. It didn't affect you as it did me. You were grown, but I was devastated."

"Annalía, she didn't go voluntarily. When Llorente found them together, he disowned her, forbidding her to come near you. Beltrán took her to France, where she wrote daily to Llorente, begging him to let her see you. She journeyed here again and again, but he always intercepted her. She didn't stop trying until she died, a year later."

"B-But I always thought she'd left me for a man. I thought she chose him over her own family. That she'd never looked back and had crushed Father with her indifference."

"At Mother's funeral, I talked to Beltrán. She had been telling him she would never leave her children when Llorente found them together."

Annalía rose to pace. "That bastard! How could Father keep my mother from me? How could he let me think she had many lovers? Aleix, he warned me that I would be like that!"

"Though I make no excuses for him, I know he was devastated because he'd believed she'd grown to love him. Annalía, I never suspected Llorente would poison your thoughts like that or I'd have taken you away myself."

When she paced faster, he said, "We should discuss this later. Once you're feeling better."

"I've waited sixteen years for this! She'd told Beltrán no?" She was still shaking her head, disbelieving that everything she'd known was a lie. "She didn't leave me of her own will?" She took her necklace between her thumb and forefinger and felt the stone.

"I was well old enough then to see that no mother could love a daughter more…."

She sank down and when the tears fell, she did nothing to stop them. "I wasn't at her funeral! I never put flowers on her grave." She leveled a watery glare at him. "Why didn't you tell me all this?"

"I never knew." He appeared dumbfounded. "You were so young when this happened, and since you never asked me about her, I thought you scarcely remembered her."

"I must go to her grave. I must give her the respect I never have."

"You know I can't leave until things settle here. But we'll see how you feel after the baby comes."

She wiped at her eyes. "I'd always thought about going, but I was so angry and so afraid that I would do something like she did. Or what I thought she did."

"Mother was a good woman with a kind heart. And you are just like her. I see it more every day. Tomorrow afternoon, when I get back from the council meeting in the village, I'll tell you everything I know about her, but you need to come in now. You're to be a mother now, too."

She exhaled a faltering breath. "Aleix, what am I going to do?"

"You're going to have a child that will be loved. We take care of our own."

"Then what? Will I grow old here on the mountain waiting for him?"

"Annalía, let's get through one thing at a time. All I know is that these choices are yours. And that I won't repeat history and try to marry you off to someone you don't love."

"Thank you for saying that," she murmured.

"Now you need to concentrate on being healthy. On caring for your new one."

He rose and offered her a hand, but she said, "Just a minute or two longer."

He patted her head, then turned for the house.

When she was alone, and the last light of the day was mirrored in the lake, she rubbed her barely rounding belly, frowning. "My new one," she said aloud. Mine, she thought. And new. She'd been so busy feeling sorry for herself and thinking of her condition as though she were ill, as though it were lamentable.

Now that she knew her mother had loved her, had never wanted to leave her, Annalía saw everything differently, as though she'd been looking through a filmy glass that had just been smashed away. She could be a good mother. She would be a good mother and would love as apparently Elisabet had. "I'm having a baby," she whispered as the full truth struck her for the first time.

If the Highlander couldn't take part in this because he was off warring for years, or if his mistaken beliefs were so strong that he ignored what was in his heart, then so be it.

He wouldn't be in their lives. And it would be his loss.

Because she and her baby were going to have a glorious time of it.

As Annalía set out for her meadow, she passed Vitale with his friends playing dice and wished him snake eyes.

"You look different," he remarked as he squinted at her.

"Do I?" When she'd told Vitale she was carrying, he'd been delighted that another child would be running about the mountain, but he'd also confessed that he was pleased it didn't work out with MacCarrick. "I love you like a daughter," he'd said. "But following you to Andorra was one thing. There was no way I'd follow you to Scotland."

Now Vitale studied her. "You look…determined."

"I am." She patted her book on the Gaelic language. "Determined to learn Gaelic by next spring."

"Ach, lassíe," Vitale quipped, still sounding terribly French. His friends laughed uproariously. She even chuckled as she continued on.

When she'd found out she was pregnant, she'd asked Lady Fiona for an instruction book. The woman had given her tomes, so delighted that Annalía was interested in their culture and language, so proud that Court had found her. Even as Fiona regretted the past.

Annalía was starting slowly. Luckily, she'd only just been digging into Greek when MacCarrick came into her life. She believed her capacity for languages had a ceiling of five.

Although she'd been making steady progress, she couldn't seem to focus today. The flowers in her meadow smelled too wonderful, and the sun teased her face until she wanted to remove her hat.

And she kept returning to the book to trace her finger over the definition she'd found of "Mo cridhe." My heart. That's what he'd called her.

"Neach-dìolain." That's what she would call him. Bastard.

She resolved to take off her hat, and was just shaking her hair loose when she saw something that could not be right. She leapt to her feet, heart thudding, her hat falling from her limp hand. She'd just gotten to where she wasn't crying herself to sleep each night!

MacCarrick spotted her and rode toward her. He looked tired and worn. And resolute?

Wait! She was furious with him. She didn't even know if he was here for her. He probably left a belt or his favorite pistol or a lucky machete he needed to retrieve before he went back to work.

She knew that must be why he was returning—any man who could wish her well after what they'd had…Yet she was still dizzy. She inhaled deeply and rocked on her heels. Her brows drew together, and as she saw the sun straight ahead, she muttered, "Merda."

She just collapsed? Court felt like he'd had his breath punched from him even as he spurred his horse. He didn't wait for it to stop before he swung off and rushed to her, scarcely noting the pain from his leg. She never got sick. She must be injured. He'd kill Llorente. What good were the bloody guards down there when she was outside and alone up here?

Fortunately, she'd fallen into thick flowers. He grabbed her shoulders and drew her up to him. "Anna!"

Cradling her head, he frowned. She didn't look injured or ill at all. He ran the backs of his fingers over her cheek. Warm, golden skin. "Anna?" When she blinked open her eyes they were clear and bright and focused on his.

"What's happened tae you, mo cridhe?" His voice was hoarse.

Now she rolled her eyes in irritation and stiffened in his arms. "I'm fine, thank you." She pulled away from him and sat up.

He reluctantly let her go. "Why'd you faint?"

She hesitated, then said, "My dress was laced too tightly."

He swept a glance over her dress and found it was snug across the bodice. Finally, she'd put on some of the weight she'd lost. His gaze flickered over her neck, and he saw with pride that she wore the necklace.

"Women faint all the time," she added.

They did. Yet he could name ten instances when she surely should have fainted and hadn't.

"Did you forget something?" she asked crisply.

His brows drew together. "No. I wanted tae check on you."

"I appreciate your checking on me, but I'm doing fine."

"Aye, you are." She looked amazing, more beautiful than he had ever seen her. Had he hoped to find her miserable? Bloody hell, yes, he'd hoped that. Because he was a selfish bastard, and he wanted her to miss him as fiercely as he did her. She never could eat when she was anxious or unhappy, and yet without him she'd put on flesh, making her body softer and rounder. She'd been content. Why was he still here, then? Why wasn't he turning away?