Lady of Light Read Online Free PDF Page B

don’t know about you, but my belly’s about as empty as a schoolhouse in the middle of summer.”
    “Och, aye,” she said with a laugh, reaching over to grab the girdle. “You aren’t shy, are you, Mr. MacKay, about making your needs known?”
    Evan paused to think on that unexpected observation, then chuckled softly. “No, ma’am, I reckon I’m not.”

3
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
    Hebrews 13:2
    The next morning, as the first fingers of sunlight stroked the land, Claire rose from her own boxbed in the room across the entry hall. She said her morning prayers, then washed, dressed, and after a brief, longing look at the curved wooden clarsach sitting in the corner, left her room.
    The day ahead was already busy enough. Much as Claire wished it otherwise, she didn’t dare squander even a few minutes playing her beloved, bogwood harp. She also didn’t wish to wake their guest prematurely.
    Evan MacKay’s journey to Culdee, which Claire knew had been on one of the old coaches still running to the farthest limits of Scotland, must have been exhausting. The tall American slept on, she noted as she entered the living room, cozily ensconced before the hearth in his snug little nest of blankets and an old quilt. He lay on his side facing her, his dark hair tousled, his expression peaceful.
    Claire tied a long white apron about her waist, then tiptoed over and reached across him to appropriate the teakettle sitting to one side of the hearth. Just then Evan stirred, rolling onto his back and throwing off the blanket that had previously covered him to his neck. With a soft gasp, she jumped back.
    At the very least, he was barechested. Claire didn’t linger to discover anything more. A death grip on the teakettle, she bolted from the room and out the front door.
    Her heart still pounded so hard when she finally reached the farm’s well that it took a minute or two to realize she had carried the teakettle with her. Heat flooded her face. She gave a wry laugh. Her intent had been to leave the kettle on the table, then gently stir the coals and add a few sticks of wood to get the fire going before heading to the well to fill a bucket of fresh water. The sight of Evan MacKay’s impressive chest, however, had dashed all her plans.
    In but a moment of fascinated perusal, Claire had noted the breadth of his shoulders. His arms were strong and well muscled, too, his chest lushly covered with a dark thatch of hair that arrowed down his rippling belly before disappearing beneath the blanket. Gazing at him, a surprising, shameful rush of desire had filled her.
    Claire exhaled an unsteady breath. It wasn’t decent that a man possess such unsettling good looks and such an equally unsettling body. Yet it was even more improper still that the sight of him just then should stir such feelings within her. She hardly knew the man! Not that he’d even stay in Culdee long enough, Claire was quick to remind herself, for anyone to get to know him properly.
    As she grasped the handle of the well windlass and began to turn it, she lifted a fervent prayer of thanks that Evan MacKay would be sleeping in his own house this eve. It would be even better if he didn’t decide to linger overlong in Culdee, once he discovered and met with his kin. Claire didn’t need anyone or anything disrupting the peaceful, settled life she and Ian had finally managed to build here. Especially not some cowboy with the most outlandish outlooks and ideas.
    “Need any help with that, ma’am?”
    Claire’s grip slipped from the windlass handle. The handle spun and, with a groan of metal and wood, the bucketful of water she had nearly cranked to the top of the well plummeted back down, striking the water with a resounding splash. She wheeled about.
    “By mountain and sea! Must you sneak up on a body so?” With a snort of disgust, Claire lifted her fists to rest on her hips. “Do you know you’re one