She was mildly stunned to discover that autumn had painted the hills with the inspiration of a master; leaves in brilliant shades of pumpkin, bloodwine, and buttery amber rustled crisply beneath the horse’s hooves as they rode beneath boughs of harvest gold. Squirrels chirped and skittered through the trees with gravity-defying leaps. Scotland in all her majestic glory, airbrushed by love, colored the simple gifts of nature into a tapestry of miracles. Adrienne had never realized the world was such a wonderful place.

She would remember the leisurely return journey to Dalkeith as her honeymoon; a time of phenomenal passion and tender romancing. A time of blissful healing and loving. Quite simply, the happiest days of her life.

Late on the second day, as they lay on a Douglas tartan of blues and grays, an unaddressed hurt surfaced to poke at Adrienne and she couldn’t stay her tongue. Gripping the Hawk’s face between her hands, she kissed him hard, hot, and tempting, then pulled back and said, “If you ever forbid me from you again, my husband, I will tear down the walls of Dalkeith, stone by stone, to get to you.”

The Hawk shook his head, his thoughts completely muddled by the tantalizing kiss and further bewildered by her words. He claimed her lips in a long, equally fierce kiss, and when she lay panting softly beneath him, he said, “If you ever fail to see how I am faring after being wounded, I will add a stone tower onto Dalkeith and lock you in there, my captive love-slave, never to refuse me anything again.”

It was her turn to study him with a bewildered expression, her lips full and rosy from the heat of his kiss. “If you mean after you were injured by the arrow, I tried to see you. Grimm wouldn’t let me.”

Hawk’s gaze battled with hers. “Grimm said you never came. He said you were sleeping soundly in the Peacock Room with naught a worry in your mind, save how soon I would die and leave you free.”

Adrienne gasped. “Never! I was right outside your door. Arguing and fighting with him. Still, he swore you refused me entrance!”

“I have never refused you entrance. Nay, I opened my very soul and bade you enter. Now you’re telling me that you came to see me that night, and Grimm told you I had given orders that you were to be refused?”

Adrienne nodded, wide-eyed.

Dark fury flitted across the Hawk’s face as he recalled the agony he’d endured, believing she’d not cared enough to see if he still lived and breathed. Suddenly he understood his friend’s stiff behavior that night. The way Grimm’s gaze had not seemed quite steady. The nervous way he’d built up the already blazing fire and had poked aimlessly at the crackling logs. “Grimm, what mischief do you play?” he murmured. Could Grimm wish Adrienne ill? Or had Grimm only been trying to protect him, his friend and brother-in-arms, from further harm?

Regardless, his actions were unacceptable. No matter how long-standing their friendship, lies were never tolerable. And Grimm’s lies had driven a wedge between him and his wife, a wedge that had sent the Hawk rushing off to Uster. What if he hadn’t returned for Adrienne? How far might Grimm’s lies have taken them apart from each other? What might Adam have done to his wife if he hadn’t returned for her?

The Hawk’s mouth tightened. Adrienne laid her palm against his cheek and said softly, “Hawk, I don’t think he meant any harm. He seemed to be trying to protect you. He said I had brought you nothing but pain, and that it was all his fault.”

“His fault?”

“For wishing on a star.”

The Hawk snorted. “Wishes on stars don’t come true, lass. Any addlebrained bairn knows that.”

Adrienne cocked a mischievous brow at him. “But he did say he wished for the perfect woman.” She preened. “And I do fit the bill,” she teased.

“Aye, that you do,” the Hawk growled. With a wicked smile, he cupped one of her perfect breasts in his hand and pushed her back upon the tartan as their passion began once again. His last coherent thought before he lost himself in the beauty and wonder that was his wife, was that Grimm owed him some answers and his wife an apology. And, if he had to admit it, that for all he knew maybe wishes on falling stars did come true. Stranger things had happened of late.

On the last day, Hawk rode as if hell-bent. Stole three days, he mused darkly, holding his wife to his chest in his possessive embrace, his cheek brushing her silky hair.

In the woods he had felt safe, that whatever enemy threatened her didn’t know where she was at that moment. So he’d prolonged it and spun it out to make it last, keeping his worries away from his wife, wanting nothing to spoil her pleasure.