Wishing For a Highlander by Jessi Gage

teaching. Mayhap she had pupils she was fond of. Mayhap the sire of her unborn bairn would be waiting for her. The thought scorched his heart and made his movements so tense Rand bobbed his head uneasily.
    “Is he a good man?” he found himself asking past a throat tight with ire.
    She looked up, startled. “Who?”
    He shook his head at himself. ’Twas none of his concern, not when he was willing to toss aside the vows he’d made like scraps from the dinner table. But he still wished to ken what manner of man would get a woman with child and not marry and keep a close watch on her. “The one you’re so eager to return to,” he bit out.
    She blinked at him. Her hand shifted from her box to her belly. “You mean, the man who got me pregnant?” A flicker of something that wasn’t quite shame flitted through her eyes. “He has some good qualities,” she said with a furrowed brow.
    Anger climbed his neck. She was eager to return, but the man she had waiting for her didn’t inspire her confidence.
    Rand protested his ruthless tightening of the girth with a grunt and a stomp of his hoof.
    “Will he at least provide for you?” he asked, doing his best to keep his temper.
    “No,” she said. “He married another woman. But I don’t need a man to provide for me.” Her chin lifted with pride. “I have a good job and a comfortable apartment. In my homeland I can take care of myself.”
    The wedding vows he’d spoken embedded in his gut like thorns. As he finished with Rand’s bridle, his cut hand stung bitterly. The place where his blood and hers had mixed scorned him for being willing to let her go.
    But he wasn’t willing. ’Twas she who wanted to leave.
    A sudden insight teased him. What if she didn’t want to leave? What if she was just angry with him and acting impulsively?
    He left Rand to kneel at her feet. She eyed him suspiciously. He hated that he’d given her cause to look at him that way.
    “I will ask ye this but once. Do ye wish to forsake our bond and my offered protection? Do ye truly wish to return to your life of providing for yourself and working and raising your bairn alone? I would have ye stay here with me, and I would care for ye your whole life. I would treat your bairn as my own. I have means, and I am a good man, though I ken I havena given ye cause to believe it.
    “Stay with me, Malina. Let me prove to ye the man I am. I wouldna expect your love, and I dinna expect ye to share my bed. But I wish ye to stay and be my wife. I wish to be your husband. Will ye release me from the vow I made to help ye return home?”
    He made himself stop blathering and waited for her answer, drowning in the emerald pools of her eyes. Closing his hands around hers, around the box, he found some solace in the fact that she didn’t pull away.
    She appraised him with liquid eyes. Could that be tenderness he glimpsed? But it was gone too soon, replaced with suspicion. Och, he’d been so dishonest with her she likely would never be able to trust him. Mayhap it was for the best she was leaving. If she couldn’t trust him, he’d nay be able to make her happy.
    At last, she sighed and shook her head. “I suspect you’re a good man, even though you lied to me. I see goodness in you, and honor. Any woman would be lucky to have you as her husband.” His heart lifted with hope. “Any woman from your time,” she added gently. “I don’t belong here. I need to go back to my time. My being here is a mistake. This is all a huge mistake.”
    His heart crumbled as he released her hands and pulled the heavy velvet pouch from his sporran. “Then, take this. ’Tis my wedding gift to you. If I canna be with ye to keep my marriage vows, I pray this will clear my name before the Lord.”
    She took the pouch and looked inside. Her eyes grew wide. “It’s gold. I can’t take this.” She tried to push it back into his hands, but he refused it.
    “You must. ’Tis the best I can do for you, Malina mine. I hope