The Highlander's Thief

Chapter Sixteen

"Wait. You believe me?" Rosa blinked up at him.

"Aye, wee lass. I believe ye."

With a crack of lightning and a crash of thunder, the storm finally broke.

A look of confused astonishment crossed her face.

McWilliam let out a shaky laugh, and pulled Rosa against his chest. She didn't hesitate to wrap an arm around his waist or to bury her other hand in his bloodied shirt.

Duncan's blood. The old man had died moments after being attacked. He hadn't even had time to scramble from bed. If only McWilliam had managed to stop Rodd before it had been too late. When he'd rushed into Duncan's house, the physician had already been mortally injured. And then Rodd had escaped while McWilliam was trying to save Duncan. A futile effort. The physician had died in his arms, in pain and completely disoriented. It had not been a good way to go.

A shiver raced down his spine, and he rested his cheek on the top of Rosa's head, breathing in her scent—sweetness and spice with a hint of lavender. She calmed him down like nothing else. If he could lock them both in this room and have the rest of the world fade away...

It was the first time he'd been allowed to touch Rosa without thinking that she'd stolen from him, killed one of his friends or been responsible for the death of his father. Now, at this very moment, she wasn't Rosa the Thief, she was just Rosa.

He felt... relief. Dammit. He was so unbelievably relieved that Rosa hadn't stolen from him and brought his father to an early grave that it felt as if a mountain had just fallen from his shoulders. He could finally, at long last, touch her without feeling guilty about it.

She was not a murderer. She was not a thief. She was just Rosa Blair.

He wanted whisk her off her feet and toss her onto the bed. He wanted to explore every inch of her beautiful body and then he wanted her to scream his name until she couldn't bear it any more.

But he had to hold back for a while longer. After everything, he owed her an explanation of what had happened last night. She deserved better than anyone to hear what Rodd had done. And he was supposed to be supervising a manhunt after all.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, pressing a feather-light kiss her hairline. "I forgot about the blood."

It near killed him, but he dropped his arms to his sides, letting her go.

She murmured incoherently, tightening her own hold before releasing him. Moving to the bedside table, she washed her hands in the basin of cold water. "What exactly did Rodd do?" she asked, exactly as he'd expected.

He told her about Cameron's death and how after Rodd escaped, he'd searched Rodd's cottage and found the damming money. She listened without speaking, the frown lines around her mouth deepening with each passing moment.

When he finished, she asked, "Why did Rodd kill the physician? I mean, it doesn't make any sense. And why did he yell at me yesterday if he was the thief all along?"

McWilliam sat on the corner of her bed, unbuttoning his spoilt shirt. "Cameron has been berating me for the last few days because he thought I was being too lenient with you. Maybe Rodd thought so too. He might have panicked that I was beginning to believe that you were innocent so he decided to stage that attack on you."

"But what about his arm?" she returned.

"Something must have gone wrong." Rodd had obviously killed Murray himself, perhaps he'd even stabbed his own arm to make his story more believable, or maybe Murray had injured Rodd in the fight. Only then the wound had become infected. "Maybe that's why he killed Duncan. He must have blamed him for amputating his arm." He pulled off his shirt, and scrunched it into a ball, making sure to keep it away from her blankets. Though he should probably have Fenella change the bed clothes just encase.