A Highlander for Christmas Read Online Free PDF

shoot him.
    “Och, lass.” He shook his head at her and swept his knuckles over her cheek. “I cannot bear the thought of ye in another man’s arms. Don’t go. Ye said ye returned my love.”
    She couldn’t look at him and turned away to sob. “I do.”
    “I’ll go to Dumfries, Leslie. I’ll put an end to this and—”
    Alan would kill him! “No!”She wedged her palms between them and pushed him away. “No, Finn. I don’t…I don’t want you to follow me. Let me go. Forget me, as I will try to forget you. We have no other choice.”
    She broke free of him and ran to her room. She didn’t stop until she bolted her door and fell onto her bed, finally releasing the pain threatening to consume her.

Chapter Five
    FINN DIDN’T HEAR the voices of the men sitting around him in the chief’s private solar. He was barely aware of how he’d arrived in his chair, facing the hearth and the flames that mirrored the blood pulsing through his veins. He sucked in a deep breath of peat- and pine-scented air and did his absolute best to harness the dark, unfamiliar urges coursing through him. Urges to do things he’d never done, or thought of doing in the past. Like picking up a sword and cutting through a man. Mayhap two. And enjoying it. Or storming to Leslie’s room, kicking down the damn door, and taking possession of her, as he should have done months ago.
    Unfortunately, both desires had dire consequences. Whatever Leslie felt for him would die if he killed her brothers, or if he caused a war that her brothers couldn’t win. She was leaving him and he couldn’t do anything to stop it without causing some kind of harm to her kin.
    He didn’t know what to do and it was driving him mad.
    She was going to wed another.
    He ran his hand over his face. He couldn’t breathe. He shifted in his chair and looked toward the window. He needed to get out of the solar, out of the castle, and let the bracing bite of winter cool him. He needed a clear head to figure out how to keep Leslie with him.
    “I’m retiring,” he said, standing and turning for the door.
    “Finn.” Rob’s voice stopped him. “I’d have a word first.”
    Finn gave the door a longing look, then glanced over his shoulder at his chief. “I don’t wish to recall any part of this night by speaking of it.”
    “Brother,” Connor Grant, former captain in the English army, drawled from a heavy, cushioned chair. “Sit down and hear what yer chief has to say, aye? We want to help ye.”
    “Ye can’t.” Finn paused and turned to give Rob the respect due to him. “Fergive me, friend. I just need a bit of fresh air.” He forced what he meant to be a smile, then turned back for the door and walked straight into Tristan.
    “Ye were going to ask fer her hand tonight.”
    Finn shrugged his shoulders and tried to step around him.
    “Don’t be ashamed of falling in love, lad,” Tristan said, coiling his arm around Finn’s neck and leading him back to his chair. “Every man is helpless against it. Look around ye. Is there one among our kin who let anything stand in the way of love? Robbie defied two armies and a king fer Davina. Connor fought and finally tamed the venomous snake who came against him.”
    “I didn’t tame yer sister,” Connor said, swinging his booted foot over the side of his chair. “She likes me to think I did so she can throw me off guard.”
    Sitting beside him, Colin, the youngest of the MacGregor brothers, laughed. “It does my heart good to hear ye admit such a thing.”
    “Aye.” Tristan laughed with him, bending slightly over his chair to touch the child in Colin’s lap. “We all admit that deep doun inside we’re ruled by our women. Some of us just fell a wee bit harder on our arses than others, don’t ye agree, Colin?”
    Aye, Finn thought, looking at his longtime friend. Colin was particularly stony, and harder to break than the rest. When he went, he went down twice as hard as the rest of them. The proof of it lay