“Explain everything it is you want of me in exchange for my son.”
Breath finally rushed from her chest, near choking her. This Scotsman was not a man to cross, and for that she was grateful. He would stand well against her father, guaranteeing her freedom.
“Bed me on the way to my home, meet my father, see that he believes us wed, and you shall be reunited with your son.”
“I want to be reunited with my son before I see that your father believes us solidly wed.”
Sara understood he needed guarantees, but she also needed to be sure he would honor their agreement. “I’ll have your word that you will not desert me as soon as you have your son?”
“I will honor our agreement once I have my son.”
“I need you to bed me before we reach—”
“I will bed you,” he snapped, and stepped away, turning his back on her.
Why did she let his reluctance disturb her? It was an arrangement that would serve both their needs—no more, no less. Whether he desired her didn’t matter. Perhaps she was disturbed because once, just once, she’d like a man to desire her. But then, no one truly knew her. She had made certain of that, shielding herself behind her sharp tongue so she could not be hurt.
“We leave immediately. Gather your things,” Cullen ordered.
Sara nodded and rushed past him, anxious for a few moments to herself and eager to leave the abbey. She had little to take with her. Two wool skirts, two linen blouses, boots, the shawl she wore, a dark blue wool cloak, and a linen shift. With the last chill of winter still upon them, she choose to don her wool cloak, and used her shawl to bundle her clothes in, tying a secure knot that would serve well as a handle she could slip over her arm. She also added the two carved bone combs that had belonged to her mother, gone since she was twelve and still sorely missed.
She glanced around the small room, a single bed and small chest the only furnishings, and of course a lone cross, so solemn against the white wall. She wouldn’t miss this place or the people. It was a lonely, empty life of drudgery and duty, not at all for her. She ached to taste all of life, the good and the bad, the smiles and the tears, the happiness and the sorrow, otherwise she wouldn’t feel as if she had lived.
Today, she would begin to live, would taste all she could and relish every morsel. With a brief nod of good-bye to her old life, she quietly shut the door behind her and without regret walked off to meet her destiny.
Cullen paid the Abbess handsomely to replenish his dwindling food supply and for an extra blanket for his wife.
Wife.
The word stabbed at his heart. Alaina was meant to be his one and only wife. He loved her beyond all reason, and all love died with her the day she died in his arms. He’d never love again. He had no love left in him, except of course for his son. Alexander was all that mattered to him, nothing else except finding him and getting them both to safety.
He planned to give his son a good life in America. His half brother Burke had told him of the plentiful land that was his in the Dakota Territory. He and Alexander would live well, get to know his brother, and learn more about his father, whom he’d never gotten to know.
That was why it was so important for him to find his son. Cullen didn’t want what happened to him to happen to Alexander. He had been relieved to learn that his father hadn’t deserted him, but rather had gone off to America after his wife had died, to build a future for him and his son. His father had left him when he was just a babe, and put him in the care of his sister-in-law. Unfortunately, his father, upon his return, learned that the sister-in-law had died and no one knew where Cullen had been sent. Burke told him that their father had never given up in his search for his son and, upon his deathbed made Burke promise to find Cullen. Burke gave his word, not just to please his father, but because he too wanted to find his half brother. They were, after all, family.
Cullen and Burke had but a short time together before Burke had to set sail, but Cullen looked forward to learning more about his brother and of his new home in America.
All he had to do was honor his agreement with Sara.
He shook his head, tying the rolled bundle after adding the extra blanket and dropping it to the ground. He hadn’t bed another woman since Alaina. He hadn’t wanted to think of bedding another woman. The hurt was still too new, too raw, to even consider touching another woman.
And yet…
His body ached for release. Part of him was grateful for a chance to bed a woman, no strings attached, and another part warned him that he would find no satisfaction in it. He would only feel emptier, more alone, missing Alaina even more.
However, he realized he had no choice, and if he were to bed a woman, at least he did so for a good reason. And at least he didn’t find Sara repugnant. He actually admired her courage and bravado, especially when it had come to protecting his son. For that reason alone he knew Alaina would forgive him for bedding her.