He smiled at her. “I stink, too, wife,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “And I like this swimming hole,” he added, unbuckling his belt and pushing his pants down to his ankles.

His wide-eyed wife suddenly squeaked and turned to face the stream. “It’s broad daylight, Morgan. You can’t… we can’t just… ”

Morgan ignored her flustered sputtering and stripped naked, setting the rest of his clothes neatly beside his shirt. He hesitated, then took the cherrywood burl from around his neck and set it on top of his pile.

He didn’t need its help today to froth up the water. He and Mercedes could do that all by themselves.

Stretching his muscles against the cool autumn air, Morgan strode past his speechless wife and waded into the stream. He slipped under the water and kicked his way to the center of the pool before he turned and resurfaced. He let his feet sink to the bottom and stood facing Mercedes, the water only as deep as his chest. He brushed back the hair from his face and smiled at his still gaping wife.

“Hide in the trees to change,” he told her. “And wear only your shirt if you feel you must hold on to your modesty.”

He sent a splash of water toward her. “It’s not cold, Mercedes. Hurry up and join me.”

He bobbed his eyebrows and spider-walked his fingers through the air. “I’ll wash that beautiful hair of yours if you want.”

She darted a nervous look up and down the length of the stream, then suddenly jumped up and ran for the forest. Morgan lay back in the water and floated, smiling up at the deep blue sky. For all of her shyness, Mercedes seemed to be a willing wife, playful and energetic and eager.

And so comfortable here in these woods.

Now, if he could only get her comfortable with him.

Morgan watched from the corner of his eye as Mercedes silently tried to sneak into the water. The littlegràineag had emerged from the forest a good fifty paces from where she’

d entered. Now she was tiptoeing up the stream toward him, trying not to make any noise or ripple the water.

Morgan closed his eyes, smiled, and waited.

Strong feminine hands—both of which were naked, he was pleased to feel—landed on his shoulders with surprising force and drove him under the water. Morgan twisted and reached for the tails of Mercedes’ shirt, pulling her down with him.

His mouth captured her squeal under the water as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled their bodies together, snaking her legs around his waist and trapping him tightly. Morgan shouted, still underwater, the moment his groin came into contact with the naked, delicate, down-covered folds at the juncture of her thighs.

He ravaged her mouth while she stole the breath out of his body. Her hands tugged at his hair and dug into his shoulders. She wiggled her hips, further arousing him, setting him on fire as he hardened to stone.

They needed air.

Not that he cared at the moment. But Morgan had a thought that Mercedes’ eagerness might drown them both.

He planted his feet and stood, keeping his very passionate wife firmly locked against him. They both tossed their heads back the minute they surfaced, taking in large gulps of air. But before he could catch his breath, the littlegràineag’s mouth was covering his.

Morgan fell forward, sinking them both to the bottom, placing Mercedes between the gravel and his now rock-solid manhood.

And that was when Morgan suddenly remembered the foil packet that was still in his pants. On the beach. Much too far away right now. But Morgan simply didn’t care at that moment. This woman was his. He was hers.

He kicked his feet just enough to bring them to the edge of the pool, lifting Mercedes’

head above water and resting it on the shore. Still covering her, still locked in the embrace of her legs, he slid down just enough that he could touch the tip of his manhood to her feminine center.

Her eyes opened, blinking the cascading water away, and Mercedes smiled in anticipation of the passion he offered. Her hands dug marks into his shoulders as she used the heels of her feet to lift her hips against him, opening herself to receive him inside.

But he hesitated and pulled back.

“We don’t have protection, wife,” he said, closing his eyes against the urge to drive forward. “I need to go to my pants.”

“I don’t care,” she whispered, lifting her hips again and trying to pull his mouth back down to hers.

Morgan held fast. “Well, I do,gràineag. I will not have you crying foul in two months.

You’ll say the words in front of a priest before I put a babe in your belly.”

She gave him a fierce shove. And before he could right himself, Mercedes was up and running toward his clothes. Morgan didn’t know if she was going for his pants or his sword.

“Why didn’t you bring it into the water?” she growled as she knelt down and rummaged around in his pockets, making a mess of his neatly stacked clothes.

Morgan stood up and backed deeper into the pool while he appreciated the view of her beautiful backside. Soon she had the foil packet in her hand and was running back to the stream, her wet flannel shirt clinging to every delectable curve of her body, her long legs making short work of the distance between them.

Morgan heard the rifle shot the instant Mercedes lunged into his arms. When she landed against his chest, she was dead weight. He dove them both into the water, holding on to her with desperation. He covered her back with his hand and sank to the bottom of the pool, feeling the warmth of her blood against his palm as she lay limp and unmoving against him.

Morgan rose to the surface and frantically waded to the sandbar, turning to shield Mercedes from the direction of the sniper. He crossed the sandbar in less than three strides and ducked into the forest just as another shot cracked through the air, hitting the dirt at his feet.

Morgan kept running deeper into the woods, heading downstream toward the sniper, hoping the villain wouldn’t expect him to move in that direction. Morgan ran a few hundred yards, then finally stopped and set Mercedes gently on the ground.

She was a bloody mess, nearly all of her flannel shirt soaked red, both front and back.

The bullet had gone straight through her body.

With shaking hands, Morgan popped all the buttons on the shirt and spread it open, revealing a small wound just below Mercedes’ right breast. Her breathing was labored.

She was unconscious, her face as pale as a winter’s moon, her eyes already sunken beneath eyelids that were blue with the promise of death.

Morgan forced his hands to remain steady as he worked the shirt off her shoulders and held her in a sitting position. He wrapped the blood-soaked flannel around her back and over her breasts and the wound, using the sleeves to tie it as tightly as he dared.

Swiping his forehead with a trembling and bloody hand, Morgan looked up and cocked his head, listening for sounds of the sniper moving in for the kill.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart. They were miles from nowhere, and Mercedes would bleed to death before he could get her to civilization. He had to get to Daar’s magic burl and the stream to heal her before it was too late.

He heard a sound then, on the other side of the valley, the distinct shout of a man being surprised. A wolf’s growl was followed by another shot, but this time the muzzle was pointed in another direction.

Confident that the sniper was now occupied elsewhere, Morgan gently picked up Mercedes and ran through the forest again, back upstream. He kept to the woods and passed the sandbar, running until a bend in the stream concealed him from the other side of the valley. He set his wife down gently on the gravel and then ran back to the sandbar.

With only a negligent look across the valley, Morgan stepped onto the sand and gathered up his clothes and his sword, quickly draping the cherrywood burl around his neck as he ran back to Mercedes.