Hard-Hearted Highlander. Julia London

task of picking up rocks seemed too complicated and tiring.

      Rabbie sighed, then wondered after the time. It was morning yet, the sun not fully overhead. Catriona would be furious with him if he was late. Not that Rabbie cared. He almost welcomed her fury—it served to test the boundaries of his desolation. He longed for something that would force him to feel anything other than rage, or despair, or the worst—absolutely nothing.

      His only saving grace, he supposed, was that he did not want to find that thing at the expense of his family. He had told himself that his sole task today, the one thing he must accomplish, was to ride with the English lass to Auchenard, a hunting lodge that belonged to Daisy’s young son, Lord Chatwick. It had been entrusted to Rabbie to keep in good repair until Ellis had reached his majority. It was scenic, Catriona said. The girl would like it, Catriona said.

      A wind suddenly gusted up from the cove, pushing him, lifting the hem of his cloak and his hair, which he hadn’t bothered to put in a queue. Rabbie quickly stepped back from the edge, his heart pounding with the abrupt surprise of that gust. And yet, wasn’t that what he’d wanted? For a gust of wind to topple him from this ledge?