The mother and pup were no longer alone. A man had joined them, and was even now kicking off his boots and wading into the water toward her.
Suddenly her trembling had little to do with the cold.
He waved a hand as he plunged into the tide, his strong legs displacing water much more efficiently than hers. “Whit like, lass?” he called in a friendly voice.
Mena knew she had very few options at this juncture. She couldn’t very well go farther out to sea, she’d drown or freeze before she swam to the island. And now that her skirts were heavy with water, there was no hope of outrunning the man.
Lord, but they did breed a very different kind of male out here in the Highlands, didn’t they?
His kilt of Mackenzie plaid tufted out about him in the water, and then sank as his large body shuddered with cold. He was tall and broad, and built like the strong men working in the barley fields. All slopes and swells of muscle and not an inch of fat to be found, this becoming more apparent as the moisture seeped into his shirt, causing it to cling to his well-sculpted chest.
“I’m quite all right,” she replied as he waded closer.
He ignored her flinch as he swept a brawny arm beneath her elbow and secured another about her waist as he helped her press toward the beach while simultaneously allowing her the hold on the puppy she clung to.
“I’ve got ye,” he rumbled.
Mena was going to remark on the fact that she hadn’t needed to be gotten. Though she had to admit that with the brawny man’s help, she didn’t have to rely so much on the failing strength of her legs straining against the icy pull of the Atlantic.
Once they began to splash into knee-deep water, they were accosted by the distraught mother, and the creature in her arms yipped and wriggled to be let down.
Mena took a few more steps, grateful the man released her to do so, and waited for a light wave to recede before placing the little thing back into its mother’s care. The dogs whined and yelped and tumbled over each other in exuberant reunion, the mother obsessively licking over both her children who romped toward the tall grasses that eventually led to the forest.
“There’s gratitude for ye.” The Highlander chuckled from behind her. Mena turned to stare into the most extraordinary green eyes she’d ever seen. Much darker than her own jade irises, his gaze reminded her of the shady canopy of trees that she’d traversed this very afternoon.
Mena’s thoughts stalled for a moment at the brilliance of his smile and how it illuminated the rest of his handsome face. A face that seemed familiar, somehow, though she was certain she’d never before been introduced to him. Something about the raw shape of the jaw, or the proud, broad planes of his forehead. He had the look and build of a Mackenzie, she realized, though his coloring was more falcon than raven. Hair the shade of the wet sand beneath them glinted with strands of copper and gold when illuminated by the afternoon sun. He wore it short in the London style, though his garb was that of a Highlander.
“Allow me to thank ye on behalf of my ill-mannered mongrels,” he said with a disarming smile. “Trixie is good with the sheep, but has always been a little daft if ye ask me, and shite with swimming.”
“Think nothing of it.” Mena backed toward the grassy knoll, painfully aware of the peril of her situation. “I really must be going, good afternoon, sir.” She wrestled with her water-logged skirts and the give of sand beneath her feet as both impeded a hasty escape.
“Ye’re English,” he observed affably.
“Quite,” she clipped, bending to retrieve her shoes and stockings, grateful that the water had pulled her skirts from where she’d tucked them up before. Mena found herself wondering if the Highlander had spied her when she’d lifted her skirts well above her bare knees earlier.
“I’m Gavin St. James of the clan Mackenzie…” He stopped and offered a hand, which Mena pretended not to see as she climbed the knoll toward the forest. She didn’t have to look behind her to know he followed her. “And ye are?” he prompted, his voice betraying only amusement rather than ire at her discourtesy.
“I am very tardy,” she said over her shoulder. “They were expecting me back at Ravencroft Keep some time ago, and will likely already be looking for me as the hour is late.” She crested the hill quickly and, though she was a bit winded, she hurried toward the deer trail, hoping he took the not-so-subtle hint that she didn’t welcome company.
No such luck. “Would it make ye feel more at ease if I told ye that I’m foreman at the distillery and I ken who ye are, as I was there that day the linchpin gave on the axle.”
Mena paused at the tree line and turned to face him, studying his chiseled features more carefully. “You were?” she queried. “I don’t remember you.” Though she had been focused on none else but the imposing laird.
“I was mostly behind the carriage,” he said sheepishly. “Also, I was wearing a rather dashing hat.”
Searching her memory of that day, Mena found him. “The red hat with the dark coat?”
“That would be I,” he announced. “And it might further please ye to know that it was yer ward Rhianna who named Trixie when she was a wee lass.”
“Oh.” Mena tucked a stray tendril back into her knot as the wind caught it. Somehow she found that it did, indeed, make her feel a bit less anxious about finding herself alone with him. “Forgive me if I was rude, I am not accustomed to walking in the forest with strange men.”
“Think nothing of it.” He repeated her words back to her with the most charming twinkle in his eyes. “Now that we are no longer strangers, would ye allow me to escort ye back to the keep, English? No offense to yer capabilities, but how could I face me own mother knowing I abandoned a half-drowned lass in the woods?”
His eyes were so soulful, his demeanor so earnest, Mena found that she couldn’t at all refuse him. And besides, she was in no hurry to return to the keep.
And to the demons she might find there.
“Am I correct in assuming you live around here?” she queried, stooping to pick at a heather bloom at the edge of the forest.