Mary Wine's WICKED HIGHLAND WAYS Excerpt & giveaway

Brenda Grant has no desire to marry. Ever since her first, horrible marriage she's made herself into a hellion of a woman to keep men from wanting her. But the Campbells, her previous husband's family, are determined to find her a new husband.

Highland Chief Bothan Gunn is smitten by the woman who won't be tamed. It takes all Brenda's willpower to resist the brawny Highlander who takes her to safety. But as they spend time together—and grow ever closer—Brenda finally finds the freedom she's been longing for all along.

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Someone pulled her back, encircling her waist with a hard arm and lifting her right off her feet. It happened in an instant, and Addams was knocked in the jaw with a hard fist as a man grabbed a handful of his doublet front to keep Addams from flying into the wall. His head jerked back and his eyes rolled back in his head before the man who’d laid him flat lowered him to the floor in an unconscious heap.

“He needs a wee nap to think about the tone he was using with ye,” Bothan Gunn informed her firmly.

Brenda didn’t care for the way her heart accelerated. Perhaps if she could have attributed it to fear, it might not have mattered, but she knew that wasn’t the cause. Which only alarmed her more.

She knew the danger of emotions. Aye, she knew it well.

“Chief Bothan Gunn,” she muttered as she caught sight of his captain offering a coin to the cook. The man took it in a blink of an eye before settling down and casting his attention toward the hearth. “Ye should not have followed me.”

Bothan Gunn was a huge man. He’d ducked to make it beneath the roofline and had to stay away from the edges of the kitchen because the roof sloped, preventing him from standing upright. They were still close enough to the border that his kilt did not cause too great a disturbance with the men he’d walked past in the yard. But she knew him for what he was: a Highlander. The English around them might make the mistake of believing all Scots the same, but Brenda knew better, and anyone who took the time to look at Bothan Gunn would see he was far harder than any Lowlander.

Bolder too because he was standing there. Somehow, she wasn’t really surprised. Bothan Gunn had always been a man who wasn’t afraid to reach out and grab what he wanted.

“Did ye think I would no’ come for ye, Brenda?” Bothan asked softly, his lips twitching up into a mocking grin.

She’d hoped…

Brenda stiffened, chastising herself for the stray thought. She couldn’t afford such things as personal ideas.

Especially with regard to Chief Bothan Gunn. It wasn’t his clan the King of Scotland would hold accountable if she didn’t go through with her wedding.

Duty. So very sharp-edged. She felt like the very word left open wounds as it crossed her soul. She drew in a deep breath, looking at Bothan and the freedom he represented and knowing she had to deny herself.

Deny yerself…what?

Brenda had refused his suit and ignored the stirrings inside herself.

And she would not be acknowledging any of them now.

Not now, when she had duty weighing her down like a heavy yoke.

“I didn’t realize ye were one to waste yer time,” she muttered as she reached into the barrel and retrieved the pitcher. Water drained down from her hand as she fought to maintain her composure. Her tone wasn’t as bored as she would have liked. And the way his eyes narrowed suggested he saw through her pose.

Bothan always had affected her oddly. Of course, tonight she was certain her heart was beating faster because she longed to be free of her English escort and her date to be wed. The response was only natural after all.

Yes, that was why she felt so very breathless.

“Keeping ye from being forced to wed a black-hearted bastard is no’ what I’d call a waste of me time,” Bothan informed her.

He eased closer to her. She caught a glimpse of his blue eyes in the dim light and realized she was savoring the moment, putting off answering him because he was correct—she had no liking for her circumstances.

Still, duty was duty. Bothan was not just a man. He was chief of the Gunns. It was somewhat more than laird because he’d been elected by his fellow clansmen. He didn’t just have their loyalty; he’d earned it beside them. She drew in a deep breath and stood firmly in place.

“Me cousin will be branded a traitor if I do not wed Galwell Scrope.” Brenda forced the words past her lips. “I will not shirk from my duty to me family and laird. And ye would not have me if I did. Yer clansmen would vote against ye if ye brought home a woman who turned her back on her kin. Ye should go now, for there is no reason for ye to stay.”

***

Excerpted from Wicked Highland Ways by Mary Wine. © 2019 by Mary Wine. Used with permission of the publisher, Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved.