Dykar shook his head. “Why did you have to fall in love with a man who swore to see you dead?”
“I don’t know, Dykar. What I do know is that I can’t stop myself from loving him. It’s like it was meant to be, and no matter what I do, or he does, I continue to love him.”
“Even if he hates you?” he asked incredulously.
“He doesn’t hate me. I know he doesn’t.”
“Do you know how foolish you sound?” he asked.
“For once,” Carissa pleaded, “let me be foolish.”
“It could cost you dearly,” he warned.
“What hasn’t cost me dearly? Nothing has ever come easy for me except this love for this man. I don’t know where it will take me. I don’t know if I will suffer more for loving him, but I want to find out.”
“I’ll be here for you either way, though if he breaks your heart, you know I’ll want to kill him,” Dykar said, though he did so with a smile.
Carissa laughed softly. “You’re the only one I could ever count on in my life.”
“I wouldn’t have a life if it weren’t for you.”
“But you do now, and soon, when this is all finished, there’ll be no more worry about hiding me,” she said.
“And what if the laird decides that it is your life you must forfeit to satisfy him?”
“Then you will have to rescue me, and I will have no choice but to leave Scotland, leave you, leave everything I’ve ever known.” Carissa shook her head when Dykar went to protest. “Let it be for now. There’s no sense in worrying until we need to.”
“I will stay right here with you until a decision is made, but in the meantime, I will make plans for a hasty escape.”
She nodded. “Where are the men?”
“Far enough away not to be detected, but close enough if we should need them.”
“You’ve done well, Dykar.”
“No, you are the one who has saved all these men and given them hope. And when the news spreads to the rest of the troop, they will feel the same and pledge their allegiance to you.”
“That’s not necessary,” she insisted.
“It is to them.”
Carissa didn’t argue. She much preferred to use the time so Dykar could familiarize her with the lay of the land so that when she sneaked out at night, she knew places to meet him. Even though Dykar told her that the laird had made a cottage available for his use, she didn’t want them to think she was meeting with him. Some things were better kept private.
After she was done, she hurried inside and, with quiet steps, headed for the stairs.
“What takes you outside in the dead of night, Carissa?”
She stopped and turned with a defiant tilt of her chin to face the laird of the clan Sinclare.
Chapter 26
“My men,” Carissa answered, walking over to him with a confident stride, though her innards trembled with concern.
“Join me,” Cavan said, pointing to the bench opposite from him at the table.
It wasn’t a request, and while she would have preferred to retire upstairs and snuggle next to the laird’s brother and talk with Cavan another day, she knew that, out of respect, she could not deny him.
“You’ve satisfied your concern?” he asked once she sat.
“I spoke with Dykar, and he assures me that all is well.” She didn’t intend to lie. There was no point to it. If he had guards lurking in the shadows, they would tell him what they had seen, and he would trust her even less than he did, which at the moment was almost not at all. “What has you up so late?”
“You.”
“Why is that?”
“You’ve presented me with a very difficult situation,” he admitted.
“You and Ronan have talked,” she said.
Cavan nodded. “Unlike my brother, who wishes to give you a chance, I believe you are who you are, and that cannot be changed.”
“You believe you know me.”
“I saw who you are with my very own eyes,” he said.
The hatred flared like flames in his eyes, and he fought to control the anger in his voice. Would anything she could say make a difference?
“It would seem that you have already condemned me, and nothing I could say would change your decision.”
“At the moment, your life is in my brother’s hands, and I wait for him to come to his senses.”
“I understand,” she said. There was no way this man would ever accept her, and she had been a fool to think any Sinclare would, not that she could blame them, but she had hoped.
“You are not only a skilled warrior for a woman, but an impressive leader, and believe me when I tell you that I don’t and never will underestimate your abilities or your talents.”