Under the Same Sky by Genevieve Graham Page B

movin’ on.”
    “Oh, aye,” he said. “I expect so.”
    She nodded and her cheeks suddenly flared red.
    “Take me wi’ ye,” she whispered.
    “Eh?” Andrew exclaimed. “I canna do that, Janet. Dinna be daft.”
    “Sure ye can. Please, Andrew. It’s only—I canna stay here. I’ll go mad,” she blurted.
    Andrew looked at her as if she’d just asked him to stand on his head.
    “Why would ye want to leave here?” he asked. “ ’Tis a lovely place, an’ yer family loves ye well.”
    “Oh, I ken that fine,” she said with a sigh. “I love them, too. An’ I like it all right here on the farm, but, well, ’tis only—I need more, aye? I need to see more o’ the world, to do other things beside milk a cow an’ mend torn britches. And I’d like someday to be marrit, wi’ bairns. Most of the men around here died last spring in battle.”
    Andrew softened at the distress in her voice. “But why come to me? Speak wi’ yer parents—did yer father no’ mention ye’ve relatives in Edinburgh? Ye could maybe go there for a visit. Why me?”
    Janet bit her lip and looked away.
    “You are…” She looked back into his eyes and swallowed hard. “I ken I shouldna be so bold, but Andrew, ye’re all a lass could ask for. Ye’re handsome an’ brave an’ funny, an’ ye dinna plan to stay put in one place yer whole life, like everyone else around here.”
    Andrew was taken aback by this. She was by no means a shy woman, but this was unexpected. Her eyes darkened as she spoke, softening into liquid emeralds. She stepped closer and reached up so that one small white hand cupped his chin. He had shaved that morning, but her thumb brushed the new bristles, tickling his cheek.She blinked slowly, staring into his eyes. Without thinking, he bent down and kissed her, and felt her lips move against his own. He wrapped his arms around her waist so the ends of her hair tickled his hands. She wasn’t the first lass he had held in his arms, but it had been a long time since the last one.
    The need for physical contact was overwhelming, and he took what she offered. His fingers combed through her hair and he breathed her in, smelling the hay from Fognan’s stall and a hint of the gravy she had prepared earlier in the day. She pressed her body against his then pulled her mouth away, searching his dark eyes. Her breath tickled his lips, fleeting as the wings of the moth Iain had held the night before, drawing him in like a flame.
    She was tiny in his arms, delicate boned and at least a head shorter than he. He could feel the lines of her ribs through the soft linen of her bodice.
    “Andrew,” she whispered against his lips. “Take me wi’ ye.”
    No, he thought. This could only end badly for both of them. His hands fell from her waist and he took a step backwards, but she held him, wrapping her arms around his neck.
    “Stop, Janet,” he said. “Let me go.”
    “Please take me wi’ ye, Andrew,” she pleaded. “Dinna leave me here. Take me wi’ ye and I’m all yours.”
    He reached behind his neck and gently loosened her hands. He brought them together and held them against his chest, between their bodies, so they could both feel his heartbeat.
    “I’m sorry. No,” he said.
    She suddenly seemed smaller, as if all the hope in her body had abandoned her. He fought the urge to kiss her again. Even in her unhappiness she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. But her expression turned swiftly from distress to animosity. The flush on her neck and cheeks that he had roused now darkened.
    “Why not?” she demanded. “You and I, we could go away, start a life somewhere. I’d be a good wife an’ ye know it. I’d be—”
    He placed one of his fingers against her lips to stop her.
    “Hush, Janet. No. I’m sorry. It’s just that—there’s someone else.”
    He heard a whisper in his mind.
Help me,
she had said, the words escaping through bloodied lips.
    Andrew belonged, body and soul, to the girl