The Laird's Willful Lass (The Likely Lairds Book 1) by Anna Campbell

Author:Anna Campbell [Campbell, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-30T18:30:00+00:00

Fergus was checking recent repairs to a small stone bridge when he heard Marina’s shrill cry. Immediate fear froze him on the spot. These hillsides were steep and dangerous, and even folk who knew them came to grief.

He shook himself out of immobility. His heart racing faster than the water rushing down the mountainside, he dashed back to where he’d left Marina. When the dip in the ground proved empty, terror like he’d never known turned his guts to water.

“Marina!” he shouted. “Marina, for God’s sake, lassie, answer!”

The breeze whipped his words away, and for the first time in his life, he felt small and powerless in this rugged landscape he’d always loved. The burns were swollen, and the towering Mare’s Tail waterfall had turned into a torrent. If Marina had slipped into that, they’d be bringing her broken body up from the stony riverbed at the base of the cliff.

Why in Hades had he left her alone? It was agony to be near her, but he’d promised to keep her safe. If he lost her…

“Marina! Devil take ye, answer me!”

In a black fog of fear, he stumbled up the brae. He was the Mackinnon. These glens and hills were his domain. He wouldn’t permit them to steal his woman away.

“Marina!”

Was that a reply? Between the rushing water and the strengthening breeze, he couldn’t be sure. He ran to the brink of the waterfall, his belly clenching at the thought of seeing a crumpled figure hundreds of feet below.

Nothing.

“Marina, darling, talk to me.”

“Fergus, help me. I’m stuck.”

Gratitude made him stagger. She was alive. Hope more intoxicating than Bruce Mackenzie’s best whisky pulsed through him. But when he scanned the bare hillsides in a frantic search, he couldn’t see her.

Puzzled, he struggled to work out where her voice came from. “Where are you?”

“I’m caught on a ledge, but I can’t get up without help.”

He already moved toward the sound. “Are you hurt?”

“Only a few scrapes and bruises.”

He whispered a prayer of gratitude. “Keep talking so I can find ye.”

“I was trying to see the waterfall, and I fell.”

“You’re not safe out on your own,” he said, although he was too relieved to be angry. That moment when he’d peered over the cliff would live in his nightmares. He’d been convinced she’d left him at last, and in the most permanent way imaginable.

Compared to the fact that she was alive, nothing else mattered, not even the purgatory she’d put him through these last days.

“Right now, I might agree with you.”

“Did I hear right?” He was too worried to appreciate that this wry banter echoed the way things used to be between them. “Signorina Marina Lucchetti agrees with one of my conclusions?”

“Yes, it’s a miracle.”

He followed the sound of her voice and realized it rose over the lip of the cliff. Now he was near the place where she’d lost her footing, he saw broken bracken and torn grass that bore witness to how she’d scrabbled to stop her fall.

“I’ll raise a flag to mark the occasion when we get back to the castle.

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