The Reluctant Highland Groom Read Online Free PDF

doubt she would have done some damage out of sheer desperation.
     
    Even her will could not carry her into the hallway, though, and Alec was there to catch her when her legs finally gave out. “Sabrina!” he called, and his brother’s wife hurried down the corridor. “She’ll need another draught, I believe, lest she run out on us.”
     
    “ Poor child,” she murmured, helping Alec tuck Cara back into bed.
     
    Cara tried to push Sabrina’s hand aside. “Let me go. I need to go home—need to...need to...”
     
    “ In time, sweetling,” Alec said, smoothing a hand over her forehead. “Rest. I beg you.”
     
    “ You know what you can do with your begging, Alec?”
     
    He waited for her to tell him exactly what he could do with his begging. Cara, no doubt, would not mince words. Her body, however, did not back her threats, and succumbed to exhaustion and the herbs quickly.
     
    Sabrina let out a sigh. “We’ll have to keep dosing her, if she’s to be like this. Stubborn as a mule, this one.”
     
    “ She’s right to worry, though. We must see to the McHugh lands, and sooner, rather than later. The people there...” Alec pursed his lips. And Ramsey sent men south to help his wife’s uncle. They could scarcely spare to send someone else to oversee the McHugh land. They hadn’t the time, nor the men.
     
    Surely the Gunns knew that.
     
    He looked down at Cara, her face so peaceful in sleep. When did she become so strong? She was a wee little lass, irritating at that, and now...
     
    Now she was something else entirely.
     
    Alec was beginning to wonder if denying a marriage with her was all that good of an idea. Surely he could have done far worse, and besides, if he’d said yes, Connor would not have ridden off in a huff, would not have led them back to the McHugh lands...
     
    Alec shook his head. There was no sense in troubling himself over this now, not with all that went on.
     
    ***
     
    Nearly a sennight had passed with little improvement in her condition.
     
    “ Her body won’t heal,” Sabrina said one afternoon, closing the door behind her. She’d been in to check on Cara and try to force broth on the girl. Cara was wasting away from her inability to hold any sort of food down. “She’s dying of a broken heart.”
     
    Alec went inside and sat down next to Cara’s bed. Her eyes were closed and her breathing shallow. He watched the short, quick breaths she took. After the weeks caring for her, he’d memorized the planes of her face. He knew the delicate tilt of her chin and her pouty lips. He gingerly stroked her cheek with the back of his hand and was surprised when her face turned toward the caress.
     
    “ He’s dead because of me,” she whispered. Her eyes were closed, but Alec did not miss the single tear that slid down her cheek and landed on his knuckle. “Had I not lost my temper, he would not have ridden off in anger. I caused this, Alec. I deserve to die. Why do you keep fighting this fever?”
     
    His throat constricted at her words and he grasped her face in his hands. She opened her eyes and looked at him when he spoke.
     
    “ The Gunns killed yer brother, Cara McHugh,” he said, leaning close to her. “Don’t ye ever, ever forget that. If revenge is what will break this fever for ye, then I promise ye will have yer revenge. I will see to it myself. But don’t give up on me, lass. I saw the fight in ye, and yer people need to see ye fight for them, not give up and die. Doona abandon them now.”
     
    Cara closed her eyes. “He ate the apples,” she said. “He ate them, and I didn’t know it.”
     
    Alec had no bloody clue what she was on about, but felt he ought to nod. “So he did.”
     
    “ He was a good man, my brother...and I...if I hadn’t...”
     
    “ Stop, Cara.” She didn’t open her eyes, but he sensed she was listening. “If ye must place blame, consider my part in it. I could have insisted ye wed me, at least demanded we speak of it,