Just like that? After what they’d done, what she’d felt? Have a blanket and go to sleep? She swallowed past a lump in her throat. “If you’re angry—”
“I’m not angry,” he said in a gruff voice.
“Well then, if you’re—”
“I’m not.”
The lump turned into one of annoyance. “How can—”
“Let it alone, Evie.”
She blew out an irritated breath. “For a man who speaks little, you interrupt a great deal.”
“For an intelligent woman, you require a great deal of interrupting.”
She gaped at him. “Are you…are you being snippy?”
His only response was a growl before he turned and stalked off into the woods.
It was a simple matter for McAlistair to move through the dark. It was his element, his milieu, and he’d had years to hone his skills. He could move easily and silently through the trees and underbrush without disturbing a single twig.
He just wasn’t doing it right now.
In fact, he was, he could admit, stomping just a little. It couldn’t be helped. Speed was of the essence. There was a stream nearby, and with any luck, it would be frigid. He planned on dunking his head in it.
What the devil was wrong with him? What the hell had he been thinking, kissing Evie Cole again?
That was the crux of the problem, of course—he hadn’t been thinking.
He scowled at his faulty reasoning. No, he had been thinking plenty—of holding her, tasting her, loving her. He’d thought of little else for years. The trouble was, imagining what it would be like to make love to Evie Cole while he’d been in the woods, alone, was very different from imagining what it would be like while they were in the woods, alone together. Now the temptation was very real.
He’d known it would be. The moment he’d led her into the woods without the others, he knew they’d be spending days with only each other for company, but he’d been sure he could resist. He’d had confidence in his self-control.
Bloody fool.
He hadn’t been able to resist her for more than ten seconds the first time she’d been within grabbing distance. What had made him think he could manage it after a full day of trying, and failing, not to look at the pale skin of her bare legs, the way her body moved with the rhythm of her horse, and the way her light brown hair slipped from its pins to be tousled by the breeze? Why the devil had he thought he could resist her while they sat alone under the moonlight, her face kissed by the glow of the fire and her warm laughter floating on the dark air?
It was the laughter that did it. That low, almost husky sound of pleasure had been his initial introduction to Miss Evie Cole. He’d heard it his first week as the Hermit of Haldon Hall, drifting up through the trees from the back lawn. It had had the strangest effect on him. He’d been sitting there, staring at the small stream that ran through the woods, alternating somewhere between blissfully numb and dangerously on edge. Without a mission to accomplish, with nothing else to occupy his mind, his thoughts had turned to the life he’d waited too long to leave behind and the bleak future that lay ahead.
He had felt hollowed out, burned to his very core.
And then he’d heard her.
He would never be able to say why it was her laugh and no one else’s that affected him so strongly. Why her voice had felt like a balm against his wounds, cooling the worst of the burn, softening the hardest edges of his memories. Perhaps because it was such a genuine sound—after years of dealing in lies, in the false, it was the sheer honesty of her delight that had moved him.
There had been nothing artificial in it, nothing that spoke of the phony or the designed.
There was still truth in the world, he’d realized, and it could be found in one woman’s laughter.
He’d fallen in love with her that very day. Without seeing her, without even knowing for certain who she was, he’d fallen in love. It had been an innocent sort of love initially, the sort a lost and hungry man might develop for a woman who takes him in and enchants him with food and kindness.
But it had been love nonetheless.
For a time, he’d been content with that level of affection, to simply listen for and appreciate the sound of her laughter. But he was only a man, and eventually his desire to know more had led him to seek her out. Drawn by the sound of her voice, he’d made his way to the edge of the woods by the lawn one evening and caught his first glimpse of the woman who’d brought him some measure of peace.