Page 74 of Highlander’s Captive

Craig fingered an empty cup standing in front of him.

“What I dinna understand,” Owen said, “is what Lachlan was doing in yer bedchamber.”

“He was there because I sent him there.”

“You sent him there? Why?”

Craig shifted on the bench. “Because I wanted some damned time alone with my wife.”

He glanced across the room to where Amy was serving stew and bread to the villagers and the warriors. Her hair glowed in the light of the fireplace, her face soft and friendly.

His wife…

His bed…

He imagined for a moment Lachlan with the red-haired woman in Craig and Amy’s bed. Tall, dark-haired Lachlan, the woman with her long red hair spread over the pillows. Exactly as he had imagined himself and Amy in that bed so many times.

He was missing something…an important detail.

Realization stabbed him in the gut. His blood chilled.

Of course. Lachlan looked like Craig.

And the woman had hair like Amy’s.

How could he not have seen it before? The killer had come to murder Craig. The same person who sent the note.

Craig looked around the room. One of his men was a traitor, able to slit the throat of a clansman or at least an ally.

The MacDougalls were behind that, no doubt. Clearly, they’d hired someone who had infiltrated the castle, and Craig needed to find that person. He needed to rethink every single man’s behavior, question his own judgment, which was much too clouded by his new wife.

Aye, backstabbing and betrayal were the MacDougall signature.

But were they Amy’s?

Chapter 26

Three days later…

During the days that had passed since Lachlan’s murder, Amy could sense Craig watching her more intently than ever before. He was also attentive and gentle with her. But the lightness of their mountain date had disappeared. His eyes were dark and intense whenever he looked at her.

And wherever she went, someone went with her.

If it wasn’t Craig, it was one of his men.

Her uneasiness spiked, small tremors going through her legs, her airways tightening, her pulse skyrocketing.

She wasn’t imprisoned, she reminded herself. She wasn’t locked up. Craig still didn’t know about the time travel. He obviously cared about her. There was something between them. The way he’d made love to her in the stables—and every night since then—that wasn’t just lust.

Every glide of skin against skin was connecting them deeply, beyond the physical.

Every whisper filled her soul with longing.

Every time she looked at him, naked and glorious and sweating, her heart sang.

She shouldn’t let him get so close. Clearly, he still suspected her. Despite what he’d said about wanting to trust her, he couldn’t forget she was a MacDougall.

And Amy doubted he ever would.