In Scot Water - Caroline Lee Page 0,16

Malcolm of himself as a lad.

Or what he might’ve been like, had he been allowed the freedom and joy Liam obviously enjoyed.

After the meal, he helped Evelinde clean up, then went outside with Liam to gather the animals. It had started to rain again, but not badly, and he was careful to hold the blanket out of the mud as he dragged the cow by her halter. Liam was making an adorable chaos as he shooed the chickens toward the stable connected to the small house.

As they entered, Malcolm’s horse whinnied a few times and made space at the hay pile, and the chickens all settled in their roosts. There was a crack of thunder from outside, and the Heavens opened up.

Again.

Malcolm pulled the doors shut, then crossed to lift Liam up over the divider. The lad scrambled down the other side and ran to his mother.

“Mama! It’s raining again!”

She murmured, “So I hear,” and met Malcolm’s eyes apologetically.

He’d intended to stay the night; ‘twas why he’d brought so much food. But now he’d be staying as long as he needed to, at least until the rains cleared enough to get her and her sons back to Oliphant Castle.

Deciding to make the best of his time alone with the small family, he smiled. “Looks as if ye’re stuck with me.”

Evelinde’s expression was somewhere between yearning and sorrow when she swallowed and met his eyes. He saw the need there, the same need he hadn’t realized he’d felt as well until he’d held Evelinde in his arms after pulling her from the burn.

He’d be staying here tonight, with her. And if she needed him, he’d do everything in his power to be the man she needed. No matter what it was.

Evelinde was more aware of him than she’d ever been of any man in her life. She and Robert had shared this home for months before Liam had been born, but as the lad had grown, and they’d truly become a family, she and her husband had drifted apart more than they’d been before.

They’d been partners, naught more. She’d maintained the croft, cooked the meals, and tended Liam—and later Tomas—while Robert had worked alone in the fields or hunted in the wood. Sleeping together had been more about keeping warm, although occasionally they reached for one another in the night. Obviously, considering she had babes to show for it.

But this…this spark she felt whenever she looked at Malcolm—and the way her breath caught and the way her skin tingled—were things she’d never felt with Robert. Her husband had been a good man, no question, but he’d never made her feel this yearning.

She told herself ‘twas just lust. She’d been without a man’s touch for too long, and her own fingers could only take her so far.

But for now, he was staying here with them, with her.

How would he respond if she approached him and requested he—he—he touch her? Would he do it out of obligation? Would he jump at the opportunity?

She’d carried three bairns, two to term, and knew her body wasn’t as firm and slender as it had once been.

Would he want her the way she wanted him?

Or was this desire all one-sided?

Liam used a pot to catch some of the water pouring from the thatch, and she set it to warm over the embers. Now that the rain had begun again in earnest, the roof over the animals’ side of the croft was leaking in numerous places, and she felt sorry for his horse, who kept whinnying and glaring at the growing puddles. Luckily, none of them were in danger of getting their feet wetter than they already were, but the puddle would creep across to the human’s side by morning, she knew.

Hiding her sigh, she forced a smile as she sang a nonsense tune for wee Tomas. He lay on his back on the table and giggled happily as she washed him. Liam was next, although she hurried through his bath, just because she knew he would want to stand there on the table and discuss his “sausage.” More than once he’d yelled, “Look at me, Mama!” as he swung his wee penis around in a circle, doing his impression of a horse’s tail as it swatted flies.

She wasn’t sure if all little boys were so obsessed with their penises, or if it was just her son. But she knew the coming years with two lads would be a joyful, hilarious challenge.

Throughout the bath adventure, Malcolm sat in