The Rock Read online

  Breathtakingly so. And heart-stoppingly and head-confusingly so, as well. Good Lord, how had that happened? When had that happened?

  “Grateful to be alive” wasn’t her second thought either. Or her third, for that matter. The thoughts that followed were rather occupied by the awareness of the big, slightly sweaty, half-naked body on top of hers, which looked and felt about as hard and solid as all those rocks that had been about to tumble down on her, and that by all rights due to his size should be crushing her but wasn’t. He actually felt good. Really good. Even though he was heavy and hot. As in standing-too-close-to-the-forge hot. Her fingers were practically burning as they dug in—or tried to dig in—to the steel ball of muscle on his upper arms.

  God almighty, he was strong! She’d known that, of course. How could she not with as many times as she’d watched him work or do his chores? But it was quite a different thing to see it and another to experience it viscerally over every inch of her body.

  Indeed, everything about what she was feeling right now was visceral. Her senses were heightened, her nerve endings prickling, her skin tight and sensitive, and hot. Did she mention hot? All over hot. Drenching hot. Rushing to strange parts of her body hot.

  Good gracious, what was wrong with her?

  It was only when she looked into his eyes that she felt her sense of equilibrium return. The familiar gaze gave her an anchor in a storm of confusion.

  Thommy.

  She sighed with relief and made a jest. A jest that from his expression hadn’t been received very well.

  She was still trying to figure out what she’d said wrong this time, when her brother intruded.

  Thommy was pulled off her, and she was left . . . bereft. Not to mention cold and strangely let down.

  “What the hell do you think you are doing?” Jamie shouted at Thommy.

  There were very few men who could appear completely nonplussed to have the Black Douglas shouting at them, but Thommy was one of them. Even as a youth, he would stand up to Jamie in a way that none of the other village boys dared. He would face him just the way he was right now, with a calm, expressionless look on his face that drove Jamie crazy. Though there was nothing outwardly challenging or defiant, simply by the level of control it was exactly that.

  He was a rock. Solid, steady, and unflappable. No matter how much Jamie egged him on to fight back—no matter how angry Elizabeth could sense Thommy was—he never would. At least that’s the way it had been in Douglas and before the argument that had ended their friendship. But now, she wondered if something had changed.

  This time, Thommy broke his stoic facade with a cocked brow. “What did it look like I was doing?”

  There was a subtle taunt in his voice that Elizabeth didn’t understand. But Jamie did. He made a sound low in his throat like a growl and moved toward Thommy. “I’m going to kill you, I don’t care what Carrick says.”

  After getting herself to her feet—the two men were too busy breathing fire to remember her—Elizabeth stopped him. “Wait, Jamie!” She stepped in front of Thommy, who was still standing there lazily with his arms crossed in front of him, as if he didn’t have a care in the world (especially that he was a moment away from having Jamie’s fist in his jaw). “He was saving my life, that’s what he was doing,” she said. She moved her hand, gesturing to the rocks all strewn around their feet. “Did you happen to miss the wall that just came down? Well, it would have been on my head had Thommy not pushed me out of the way.” She bit her lip, turning around to face Thommy. She had to dip her head back to look up. “Are you hurt?”

  He held her gaze for a long heartbeat. There was an intensity there that she couldn’t decipher. She would have given almost anything at that moment to know his thoughts.

  “No.”

  She wasn’t sure whether to believe him, but he was making her feel kind of funny with the way he was looking at her—her heart was fluttering oddly—so she turned back to Jamie and glared. “You should be thanking him.”

  Unable to deny the evidence around him, Jamie stepped back.

  She waited. Unlike Thommy’s, her brother’s expression hid few of his thoughts, and right now “stubborn” was besting what was “right.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Well?”

  For the first time, Elizabeth was aware that there were other men with Jamie, and that with the men working on the wall, they now had quite an audience. Thus at least a dozen men witnessed the rare sight of James Douglas apologizing. He might be drawn up as tight as a bow, his hands might be curled into fists at his sides, and his mouth might look like he’d just drunk curdled milk, but he said, “It seems I owe you an apology. I didn’t realize—”

  All of a sudden he did realize.

  He spun on her with all the anger that had been directed at Thommy. “You could have been killed! God damn it, Elizabeth, don’t you know how dangerous this is? What the hell are you doing in here?”

  Apology apparently forgotten, he eyed Thommy suspiciously, and she felt him stiffen behind her.

  Elizabeth frowned at her formidable brother. She knew his anger was out of concern, but he was wrong with what he was insinuating. “I was looking for you. I was told you were in the North Tower.”

  “I was. This is the Guard Tower.”

  “Aye, well, I realized that too late. I was leaving when I accidentally knocked down the wall.”

  She decided it was more prudent not to explain she’d grabbed the wall to brace herself from the shock of seeing a half-naked man.

  Not just any half-naked man.

  Her brother’s eyes darted to Thommy, and then back to hers again. “Why are you at Roxburgh at all? As I recall, I told you to stay put, and I would be at Blackhouse to fetch you when I’d finished here. This is no place for a lady.”

  Was it her imagination, or had he emphasized that last word for Thommy’s benefit? The tension between the two men was palpable.

  Jamie was acting like she’d come to Roxburgh to find Thommy. But that didn’t make sense. He should have guessed why she was here. She frowned. “I came after Archie, of course. To bring him back.”

  Jamie wasn’t looking back and forth to Thommy anymore; his gaze was firmly fixed on hers. “What are you talking about?”

  Her heart sank, as the first hint of panic spiked her pulse. “Archie took a horse and rode out yesterday to join you. I followed him to bring him back, but didn’t catch up with him in time. I thought to find him here with you.”

  Jamie shook his head, and she knew from his grim expression what he was going to say. “Archie isn’t here.”

  5

  AFTER JAMIE’S OMINOUS pronouncement, Elizabeth and her brother retired to the king’s solar in the North Tower—the actual North Tower, this time, which was connected to the Guard Tower by the aptly named North Range.

  Jamie had led her away so quickly she hadn’t had a chance to speak with Thommy—not that the blank stare he gave her invited conversation—but she would seek him out later.

  First, she had Archie to worry about. She was trying not to overreact, but she could sense Jamie was anxious as well. He’d called for Richard, and along with Joanna’s other brother, Thomas, they were gathered around the table on benches with a few of Jamie’s other household guardsmen.

  Her brother’s eyes seemed to have turned black as they felt like pinpoints on her. “You rode halfway across Scotland with one guardsman for protection?”

  Truly, he was so predictable. “I’m not the one who matters right now. We need to find Archie. Where else could he have gone?”

  She didn’t doubt there would be hell to pay later, but Jamie’s worry for the sibling who was currently in danger won out. “Are you certain he was making his way here?”

  Elizabeth bit her lip, her hands twisting anxiously. “Nay, but I assumed after our argument”—she’d filled him in on the disagreement she’d had with Archie the night before—“he would come here. It’s what he’d threatened to do.” She looked to Ri