Claiming the Highlander by Kinley MacGregor Page B

of childhood when she would go fishing or swimming with Braden and her brothers.
    How she wished she could go back for just a moment to when her life was simple.
    “Are you ready, then?”
    Maggie jumped at Braden’s voice behind her. She’d been so lost in thought that she hadn’t even heard his approach.
    She pushed her reminiscing to the back of her mind as she turned to face him. “I was but waiting on you.”
    Standing beside the dark kirk with a pack thrown over his shoulder, he was incredibly handsome. The fading light played across his face, which made the angles of his cheeks even more pronounced than normal. Even so, it in no way detracted from the perfection of his tanned face.
    At that moment, she wished she were his feminineequal. That she was as perfectly formed as he, with long ebony tresses and creamy skin unblemished by freckles.
    If she were, then perhaps …
    Maggie pushed the thought aside. She was what she was and there was no help for it.
    Banishing her wishful thinking, she picked her own pack up from the ground at her feet and went to stand beside him.
    Braden assessed her as she drew near. Never before, in deference to his friendship with Anghus, had he paid her much notice. But tonight, he saw her in a way he’d never seen her before. As a woman.
    With her breasts flattened down to make her look more mannish, she reminded him of some fey creature caught between childhood and womanhood. She’d even added girth to her waist.
    Even so, he vividly recalled the luscious curves of her body.
    Her breasts were just the perfect size to fit into a man’s hand, and though her waist wasn’t fashionably narrow, it was thin enough to be pleasing, and shapely enough to be all woman.
    A tiny smile hovered at the edges of his lips as he dipped his gaze down the red and black plaid she wore draped over her. Like his, it stopped just above her knees and showed her legs off quite nicely.
    And what attractive legs she had. Strong andcurvy. He could just imagine running his hand down over the smooth skin, tasting the strength of those legs with his tongue as he trailed it along the curve of her calf, to the back of her thighs, and then higher, to her …
    He paused at the thought.
    With a curse, Braden realized no one could ever mistake
those
legs for a man’s.
    “What is it?” she asked.
    Braden gestured toward her. “Your legs.”
    Her eyes narrowed in warning an instant before she matched his curse with one of her own. “I am not a chicken!” she snapped with such rancor that it took him aback.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    She dropped her pack to the ground, bent over to where she could look at her knees, then she started pulling the hem of her plaid lower.
    “You know, I had six brothers, which means I don’t need the likes of you telling me everything that is wrong with my body. And in spite of what Ian, Jamie and Duncan always said while we were growing up, I do not have the legs of a scrawny, half-dead chicken.”
    Braden tried not to laugh, but for his life he couldn’t help himself. The image of her plucking at the plaid and gesturing in sharp, stiff movements reminded him quite a bit of poultry. Even the manner of her speech in short, angry bursts reminded him of a chicken clucking.
    However, the heated glare she shot him when she straightened up succeeded in checking his humor.
    At least until he made the fatal mistake of looking at her boots. Enos’s words rang in his ears as he tried not to notice that the frayed brown boots really were ugly.
    Burn the witch and her ugly shoes too.
    Braden held his breath, but still the laughter bubbled up until he had no choice but to laugh or choke. Throwing his head back, he gave rein to his humor.
    Maggie balled her fists at her side as she glared at him. “You better be glad I’m a woman, Braden MacAllister, or I’d be taking a sword to you right now.”
    And she probably could best him too, especially in those ugly shoes.
    The thought made him laugh