The Arrow: A Highland Guard Novel (The Highland Guard) by Monica McCarty Page A

the Hall and slip into the darkness beyond the partition. The Hall seemed suddenly … less.
    John was watching him. “The lass has grown up.”
    Sensing there was more to the statement than there appeared, Gregor gave an inconsequential, “Aye.”
    “I didn’t think you noticed.”
    He shot his brother a withering glare. “I noticed.” When she’d stuck out her chest earlier, he’d nearly swallowed his tongue.
    “Then why didn’t you say anything about the gown? It isn’t like you to be so ungallant around a lady.”
    “What gown?”
    John’s face darkened. “Don’t be an arse, Gregor. I saw your reaction, even if she didn’t. You noticed. The question is, what the hell are you going to do about it?”
    “Find her a husband.”
    The blunt response took his brother aback. John thought for a moment, and then shook his head. “She’ll never agree. She loves it here and belongs here, maybe even more than you or I. This is her home. You can’t send her away.”
    Gregor steeled himself against the guilt, but it came anyway. “What would you have me do? With Mother gone, she can’t stay here. She’s not our sister.”
    “No,” John said evenly. “No, she’s not.”
    There was something in John’s voice that set Gregor’s already frayed nerve endings on edge. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
    John returned the hard stare. “I don’t know. Maybe I should ask you?”
    The two brothers gazed at one another in the firelight in some kind of challenge neither one of them wanted to acknowledge. But feeling as if he were wading damned close to something he didn’t want to step in—a mess he’d been in before—Gregor was the one to look away.
    “What about the children?” John asked.
    “They aren’t mine.”
    “You are certain?”
    “Aye.” Their ages had left no doubt.
    John nodded. “I suspected as much.”
    “Then why the hell did you let her take them in?”
    “I wasn’t sure, and …” John looked up at him, and then gave a helpless shrug. “She wanted them.”
    Gregor understood more than he wanted to. Cate was making the foundlings her family—
their
family. But he couldn’t let her do that.
    God, he hated this. Hated feeling responsible for someone else’s happiness. He assuaged his guilt with the knowledge that she would likely have her own family soon enough. And he would get back to doing what he did best: fighting. Without anything—or anyone—else to weigh on him. John could handle the clan and act as chieftain. The position should never have been Gregor’s anyway.
    “I’ll see you in the morning. Right now all I want to do is sleep.”
    John’s mouth curved on one side. “Then you might want to find another bed.”
    “What?”
    John shook his head and smirked. “You’ll see.”

Five
 
    Gregor was too tired to pay his brother’s vague comments any mind. He fell asleep as soon as his head landed on the pillow.
    But instead of relaxed and sated (as he surely would have been had Màiri shown up in the barn), his sleep was restless and definitely
un
-sated. He dreamed of dancing golden-brown eyes, delicate dark brows, a turned-up nose, and a naughty mouth. A naughty mouth with soft, dark red lips that were wrapped around him, sucking—
    A scream tore through the night, piercing like icy nails driven through his ears. He shot awake, the lustful dreams that had gripped his body instantly cooled by shock.
    His first thought was that Cate was having another nightmare. The first couple of years at Dunlyon she’d been plagued by them, but they’d grown less frequent as the years went on. But Cate’s screams were of terror—they weren’t the shrill, high-pitched wail of the banshee that went on and on until his skull felt like it was going to explode.
    Not Cate
, he realized. Then what the hell was it?
    By the time the second scream came hard on the heels of the first, this one longer and—if possible—shriller, he was already out of bed, pulling on his