AN IRRESISTIBLE SCOUNDREL
Highlander Patrick MacGregor likes his life just the way it is. Fighting for his coin, enjoying a woman’s charms, and bearing no responsibility at all? Aye, that’s the life for him. That is, until Patrick sees her-a raven-haired beauty with eyes as dark as midnight. Patrick swore never to fall in love. Not even with a lass as wild as he…especially when she’s from a rival clan.
AN UNDENIABLE DESIRE
Charlotte Cunningham knows Patrick is trouble the moment she sets eyes on him. Her only goal is to escape the possibility of marriage. Any marriage. But as the summer days turn into sultry nights, enticing her beyond reason, Charlie is forced to choose between the freedom she craves and the reckless rogue she can’t forget.
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Charlie caught the subtle shift of his gaze toward her when she glared at him, doing her best to keep her eyes above his chin and ignoring his long, sculpted physique and broad shoulders. Was he speaking to her or her captor?
Dunbar laughed at his offer. “You don’t even carry a sword.” He looked him over. “Or even a place to hide one.”
It was true. Charlie hadn’t noticed it before. Patrick Campbell spoke like a Highlander and had dressed like one when she’d first seen him at Blind Jack’s yet he carried no obvious weapons.
“I dinna’ need one,” he claimed, his amiable smile changing slightly into something more ominous.
Charlie knew it was true. He had fought Hamish with no weapons other than his fists. What kind of Highlander didn’t carry a sword? The kind who doesn’t need one.
Campbell moved closer to her and the eight men behind her. His gait was wrought with ease and confidence while her brothers and her father remained still.
“I’ll kill you for this, Campbell,” Duff swore.
“That’s doubtful,” Campbell tossed back without turning around. Instead, he looked at Charlie, now only a few inches away, standing between him and her captor.
If there wasn’t a blade to her throat, she would have taken a moment to admire him and all his hard angles.
“Untie me,” he said to Dunbar, “and I’ll fight them all with no help or risk of injury to ye or yer men.” He lifted his bound wrists up, close to Charlie’s face and the dagger at her throat. “The Duke of Argyll will hear of how ye aided his nephew.”
Dunbar seemed to think it over for a moment and then moved the dagger away from her neck to possibly cut Campbell loose. But instead of waiting to be free, the Highlander moved in a blur of speed snatching the dagger from Dunbar’s hand. In one fluid movement that Charlie almost missed by blinking, Campbell, still bound and clutching the hilt in his fingers, lifted his arms and then brought them back down to capture Dunbar’s head between his forearms, and Charlie’s head between his thick upperarms.
An instant turned into an eternity while he pulled Dunbar closer, wedging Charlie up against his chest. Time slowed as she looked up and he tiled his head to meet her gaze. She stared into his summer-glade eyes—ringed by lashes that were that long—and the evidence of Hamish’s wrath on his lip. His current wounds and an older one which had broken his nose saved him from being pretty. His mouth crooked ever so slightly—just enough to flash his dimple and completely befuddle her. A rascal. That’s what he was. He was helping her. But why? Before she had to ponder it further, the instant was over.
He hauled Archie Dunbar an inch closer and knocked him out with a clean blow, forehead to forehead. He moved quickly and lifted his arms to release Dunbar from his hold then gave him a powerful kick in the guts to topple him over.
“Run!” He pushed Charlie behind him and faced the rest of the Dunbars alone.
Duff reached them at the same time and an instant before the stunned expressions on the faces of Dunbar’s men wore off and they rushed forward.
“Give me your hands!” Charlie commanded, tugging on Campbell’s sleeve. When he obeyed, she cut him loose using her black blade.
The fool took a moment to smile at her before she tucked the dagger back under her skirts.
Hendry finally joined the fight but Charlie couldn’t take her eyes off Mr. Campbell in the melee.
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Amazon Series Link
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New York Times bestselling author Paula Quinn lives in New York with her three beautiful children, three over-protective chihuahuas, and a loud umbrella cockatoo. She loves to read romance and science fiction and has been writing since she was eleven. She loves all things medieval, but it is her love for Scotland that pulls at her heartstrings.
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