When Highland Lightning Strikes by Willa Blair

everyone said. Toran took her with him when he escaped. But no’ even she could save my brother.” Angus clenched his teeth. “At the time, I was grateful Toran agreed to risk the trip to bring her to the caves where we hid, and for her efforts. But in the months since, my hopes for a miracle and how those hopes turned to…dust…have chafed.” He blinked away the sudden dampness in his eyes.
    “Oh, Angus, I’m so sorry,” Shona said.
    Her hands were trembling, and he wondered if she’d heard tales of such talents and feared them.
    “She could no’ do what her reputation promised,” he continued, both to reassure Shona and because it was the truth. “If she had such an ability, yet failed like that…let my brother die, then…” He couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t admit he could not count on anyone or anything ever again. Not Aileana. Not his clan who, after he’d worked so hard to lead them through the winter, voted another in his place to be chief.
    He hated feeling resentful. Yet resentment had ruled his heart since the election. It was not like him. He only felt like himself when he looked at Shona. Somehow, she provided the only relief from his torment of the past—and the present. He hoped she would not also disappoint him.
    The feather-soft brush of her fingertips on his face startled him.
    “We have been through so much, ye and I.”
    He covered her hand with his, turned it, and placed a kiss in the center of her palm. “We are due for better times.” Despite her uncle’s plans, and despite Colin’s threats, he wondered if they could make a future together. She seemed to be fitting in well in all facets of clan life. She worked side-by-side with the other lasses, and more than once he’d noticed her laughing with them. It warmed his heart to see her growing comfort. He smiled at the memory and pulled her to him. She felt so warm and sweet, he could only give in to the urge to kiss her again. Her lips met his softly. When she did not pull away, Angus deepened the kiss, knowing he should not, but his eagerness to taste her, to know if she might truly welcome his affection, spurred him on. As she clutched his shoulders, she moaned, nearly making him lay her on the newly grown grass at their feet. Bright green, soft and fragrant, it would make a pleasant bed for…nay, he could not think it. Her breath quickened under his kisses while his heart beat faster and stronger in his chest.
    But sense prevailed and, reluctantly, he lifted his mouth from her lips.
    “Lass, we should head back, before…”
    She nodded but didn’t move. He took her hands, thinking to pull her to her feet.
    “Come lass, I’m sorry to have brought back sad memories. Let us speak of happier things, shall we? While we walk back to the village?”
    “Nay, please. I’m…I dinna want anyone to see me like this.” Her eyes, big, brown, and glistening with unshed tears, held him in check.
    “Verra well. We can stay for a few minutes more.”
    She nodded. “Thank ye.” She scrubbed at her face. “I’m no’ ready to return.”
    “Do ye think ye can be happy here, Shona?”
    She hesitated, and Angus steeled himself for her answer. So much depended on it.
    “I hope so…but no’ with Colin.”
    Shona’s sad smile put Angus on alert, and he cringed at the thought suddenly crowding between them. Had she come here alone with him and now refused to leave, deliberately trying to trap him into marriage? It was one thing for her to warn him about her uncle’s suggestion to Colin, and to seek some small measure of comfort from him. But quite another to arrange to be discovered alone in the woods with him. The possibility angered him. The MacDonald lass had tried the same. Was he only a means to an end, or did Shona truly care for him?
    He reached for her, and she leaned into his touch. So he wrapped his hand behind her head and pulled her into his kiss. He wasn’t gentle this time. He plundered, putting his anger into