Harlequin Historical June 2017--Box Set 2 of 2 by Lauri Robinson

Author:Lauri Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781488021480
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2017-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Any attempts to maintain a balance between her curiosity and her chosen path deteriorated in the next days. After that intimacy, Sorcha questioned every decision she’d made and her own integrity. She’d tried to walk away without shaking in reaction to the searing touch of his mouth on her wrist and thought she’d succeeded. Yet, she could not help but turn back to see if he’d been affected as well.

His dark gaze rested on her in spite of the growing distance between them and each time they met or passed one another in the next days, that same intensity filled his. Regardless of what Jamie had said about her not being prey to his hunter, her skin tingled and heat pooled in her belly when he looked at her so.

Even when it happened during innocent encounters.

* * *

Sorcha was walking with the boys back from the well when Alan rode through the village and called out to them. With the bairn on her hip and Wee Jamie running circles around her, she held her hand over her eyes to block the sun and nodded to him, keeping her distance even while taking in his appearance. But the boys both reached out for him and Wee Jamie took off running in his direction.

Something in his gaze and reaction to the child eased her immediate fear and she watched as he controlled his horse while leaning over and scooping the boy up in his arms. Wee Jamie’s happy chortling mixed with the deeper, more masculine laughter of the man and her heart beat faster at the sound.

Then Robbie began crying out and fussing in her arms until Alan walked the horse closer and held out his hand to take him. With the deft movement of past experience, soon both the bairn and the boy sat happily in Alan’s lap, babbling and chattering at him in their obvious joy.

Her own heart filled with a hunger she’d not felt before. A need so deep it took her breath again as she watched this man with these young boys. He needed bairns. He needed family. He needed… His gaze met hers and the hunger for such things intensified until she thought she would burn from it. Wee Jamie’s near escape broke the moment and Alan nodded to her.

‘I will take them to Clara and return for you,’ he said.

Sorcha feared being too close to him right then. If he touched her now, if she sat behind him and wrapped her arms around him, she might never let him go.

‘I will walk.’ It took a long, noticeable pause before she could utter the words, but she did…finally. He nodded and rode off with the wee ones in his arms and Sorcha wanted to weep.

With sadness at what could never be.

With regret over how they’d met.

With emptiness at the needs that swelled now within her for family and a future.

Lucky for her the next time she encountered Alan she witnessed a different side of him, or she swore she’d break down and cry each time she did.

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