Kresley Cole - If You Dare

He glanced back at the house, saw the curtains flickering in and out of her window as though beckoning. Remember how you felt when you saw her crying, he told himself. Gritting his teeth, Court put a boot in the stirrup and stepped up.

The black dots returned and exploded.

Chiron, the ranch's primary stud, was missing. After several hours and to Annalía's horror, they'd found the horse, still saddled, merrily impregnating a mare that had not been in the ranch's schedule.

Now, armed with the knowledge of an attempted horse theft—of a stallion worth his weight in gold—she followed a thick trail of hardened mud directly up to the Highlander's room. Her outrage escalated with each step.

Of course, the door was unlocked. She marched in, fury making a door slamming seem a worthy gesture.

At the sound, he cracked open bloodshot eyes. "What?" he grumbled as he turned on his back.

Mud everywhere. The lace coverlet ruined. "Rolling in the mud, MacCarrick? What a fitting recreation."

He put his good hand behind his head, insolently leaning up on the pillow and peering at her with a too-sly expression, a far too…familiar expression. As if he knew a secret she didn't. Was he staring at her breasts? "You were just going to steal away in the night? And I do mean 'steal,' since we can add horse thievery to your extensive list of shortcomings."

He waved her statement away with his cast, which was also streaked with mud. "I was going to send it back."

"Is that why, of all the horses in the stable, our ranch's stud was found saddled and with a-a…he was saddled and wandering?"

"No, I took him because—" He broke off. "Just forget it."

"I want to know why!" Why that and why he would just leave. Without a word of thanks. And why should that nettle her so much? She wanted him gone.

"And I said"—he leveled a forbidding glare at her—"to forget it."

Obstinate man! "I want you out of my house today."

"And how should I accomplish that, since I could no' sit a horse last night and barely got back inside?"

"I don't care if you have to roll down the mountain. Pascal's men will come for you, and when they do, we will all pay for your selfishness."

"Unlike you people, I canna run up and down sheer mountains all day—like bloody mountain goats—when I am strong. Much less with bashed ribs and a stone of muscle lost."

"If you could make it outside last night, you're well enough to leave a place that holds no welcome for you."

He crossed his arms, his eyes growing darker.

"So, MacCarrick, if you have no other objections—"

"No."

"Good."

"No. I meant no, I'm no' leaving."

Remain calm! Ignore the increasingly familiar urge to close in on his face and screech at him. "You will, because this is my home."

"Who's going to throw me out? The old man? The bairn? No' a single man in sight who can do it."

Mare de Déu, she wished he'd stop saying that. Because he was right. He could stay for as long as he pleased. Wrestling with her temper, she forced herself to say in a soft voice, "I saved your life, and I'm asking you to leave my home. If you are a gentleman that must count for something."

"If I honor your wishes, you'd have saved my life in vain. So it's bloody convenient that I'm no' a gentleman."

If Pascal's first letter had been the judgment, his second had been the sentence. Annalía stood dazed at the oak desk, the paper in her hand crumpled and damp from her palm.

She'd waited for his instructions, more nervous than she'd ever been. The last four days had been more nerve-wracking even than when a coach-and-six unexpectedly crunched into the white gravel drive of her school. If a carriage came, no one raised an eyebrow. A carriage meant a day trip. But a coach-and-six struck fear into the hearts of the girls, and they would all tear across the schoolroom to look out from the balcony, praying their family's crest wouldn't be emblazoned on the door.

A surprise coach-and-six meant some girl's life was about to drastically change.

As drastically as Annalía's was.

Pascal had called for her. The hours had dragged by as she'd awaited his summons, hours made more miserable by hearing the Highlander restlessly stomping all over her home. He'd been like a loosed bull in the manor, which necessitated her behaving like a frightened hare to avoid him. Their game would end tomorrow. The general expected her to join him then and marry him by the week's end.

She wasn't even near Pascal, and yet already his hand stretched far to control her.

She burned the letter in the study's fireplace then paced until her legs ached and the sun had set, uncaring as to what her father would have thought. Apparently, she couldn't help it. She remembered another time when she'd been home briefly from school and he'd caught her at it. She'd been sixteen. That time his hard, weathered face had looked grave, his eyes full of pain. "Elisabet used to do that."

Of course, she would have. Everyone always said Annalía was just like her mother.

When Annalía had first arrived at The Vines, one of the older girls had whispered, "Watch out for that one with the gardener. She's Castilian." They'd regarded her and determined things about her that she hadn't recognized at that young age, and they hadn't even known that Annalía's mother had been caught making love to her family's former stable master. Before and after her marriage to Llorente.

She ran her fingertips over the choker at her neck. The stone attached was a reminder she was never without—

"Why are you pacing?" The Highlander. His voice was a rumble she felt.

She exhaled in irritation, then faced him. Her first impulse was to leave the room, but she'd tired of running in her own home, tired of him taking over everything that was hers, and instead she sat behind the desk. She ignored his question and asked, "Why are you here?"

"I want whisky. Occurred to me that even you people might have some."

She closed her eyes to get her temper under control. When she opened them, he was at the liquor cabinet, noisily opening the crystal decanters, smelling their aromas, then setting them down. The silver tags on each decanter clacked against the glass.

"You can read the labels rather than smelling each one. That is, if you can read."

"Canna read them in this light."

He was right. She'd bought them in Paris for Aleix, delighted with the flourishing engravings, but soon realized they were difficult to decipher even in daylight. Pretty but serving little use. No wonder she'd bought them. She almost laughed.

"By all the saints…" he said, finally finding one that kept his interest. He poured a generous draught into a crystal glass. And placed it directly in front of her. She stared at it as if he'd just positioned some dead thing there, something foul like what the barn cats insisted on gifting her doorstep, and vaguely heard him pouring one for himself.

Drink in hand, he sank into the spacious chair across from the desk. Llorente had always wanted whoever was on the other side to feel small and insignificant. She rolled her eyes. Of course, the deep chair fit the Highlander perfectly, and he leaned back, seeming surprised that it suited him so well.

Wait. He'd shaved. How had he…? He'd pilfered her brother's belongings! And his cast was gone? She'd probably find the remains of it chewed off beside his bed. Brainless man….

Yet after Pascal's letter, she just didn't have the energy to vent her annoyance. Instead, she stared while he swirled the whisky as if with reverence. His hands were large and callused, but he held the glass gently, his dark gaze fixed on its flickering colors by the candle's light. When he finally took a drink, he exhaled with pleasure.

The scene was like watching someone relish a meringue. Soon all you could think about was eating meringue. She looked on in horror as her hand shook its way to her glass. Brows drawn, she lifted it. She glanced at him; he smirked at her—the horse-thieving Scot—expecting her to back out.

Why not drink it? It was imperative to wipe that look from his face.

She'd never touched spirits, never overimbibed rare tastes of table wine. She'd never done anything she shouldn't have. And look where her life was culminating.

As Pascal's bride.

The glass shot up to meet her lips, her hand and head tilting far back. Fire rushed down her throat in a long continuous stream. Propriety demanded that she stop. Alas, she and propriety were losing touch. She continued until the glass was drained.

Refusing to gasp, she stared at him defiantly through watering eyes, then choked back a cough until she could reduce it to a gentle clearing of her throat behind her hand.

"A woman who likes her whisky," he said while refilling her glass. "Careful that you doona steal my heart, Annalía."

"It figures that the one requirement you'd have for your woman is 'whisky drinker.'"

"Aye, but that's only after 'walks upright.'"

He'd said the words in his customary low and threatening voice, making it sound cutting, but she felt warm, and her lips slowly tugged into a smile.

He stared at her lips, at her smile, and strangely his jaw tensed, bulging at the sides. He had such a squared jaw. Far too masculine.

"Opposable thumbs rate high as well," he said, shooting her a significant glance, but she didn't know why. Opposable thumbs? She wasn't familiar with the phrase in English. Her English was flawless, as was her French, Catalan, and Spanish, her vocabulary in each language stellar. For this brute to know something she didn't rankled.