Suddenly pain burned up his thigh and his muscles locked.

He bit off a curse, loath to break the contact when the feel of her was still so new. But pain flared anew, jolting up his leg. MacLeod knew what came next would be far worse.

"You're sheet-white, MacLeod." Hope laughed unsteadily. "I've never known my kiss to do that before."

How wrong she was. Her kiss could sway kings and topple empires, he thought. She could strike fire and work the grandest miracles.

Maybe she already had. He was not a man who had expected to find tenderness in a woman's touch, yet here he had found tenderness and more.

Miracles and more.

He lifted her chin slowly, surprised at his own gentleness. The King's Wolf was not a gentle man. In truth, he was a killer on three continents.

And yet he touched this one woman as if she were as fragile as the Venetian glass globe on her desk. He found he could do nothing else.

A stab of pain pulled him back to his senses. He gritted his teeth, swaying slightly.

"Are you sure you're okay?" The concern in her eyes was unmistakable.

Struck by fresh waves of pain, he tried to pull away, but Hope slid a hand around his waist.

MacLeod muttered an oath and stepped back, but she was right behind him, her fingers digging into his waist. "What are you doing, woman?"

"I'm helping you."

"I need no help," he said through gritted teeth while claws of fire tore up his leg. But MacLeod refused to heed them. Stiffly he pushed at her hands. "I am simply cold."

"Stop being so damned macho, will you? Anyone can see that you're in real pain. You can barely stand up."

"I can stand. I can also walk unaided."

"Yeah, right. If you ask me, that medieval-knight routine is getting old."

Through his pain, her words struck him dumb.

Was this all his honor amounted to, words tossed casually from her lips and dismissed? Could she not see it was all he knew-his very life?

"I will manage alone, as I have always managed before," he said darkly.

"This time you have someone to help you." She slid her arm farther around his waist. "Anyone who wasn't so busy being an idiot could see that."

"Are you naming me an idiot, madam?"

She smiled faintly. "I expect I am."

In spite of his pain, his mouth took on an answering grin. No other woman would dare say such a thing to the King's Wolf. Hope O'Hara had no idea of her danger.

It pleased MacLeod intensely that she did not.

He eased more of his weight onto her shoulder, expecting a protest, but he heard none. Her hands were warm and surprisingly strong and the warm brush of her hip at his thigh was almost enough to make him forget his pain.

"You don't have to hold back, you know. I can take more of your weight."

"Then we would both be on the ground."

"Are you calling me a weakling?"

"Nothing of the sort. You have an exceptional strength. For a woman, that is."

She rolled her eyes. "Gloria Steinem would have you for breakfast."

He studied her curiously. "What is a Gloriasteinem?"

She shook her head. "Forget it. Just forget it."

"Then tell me what manner of sport you pursue. Hawking? Hunting?"

She strained to hold him upright. "Try jogging. Four miles every day."

"Jogging? What manner of sport is that?"

"Running. You slam one foot ahead of the other and make loud, panting noises."

His brow furrowed. "Running from whom?"

"Oh, you're good, MacLeod. You're very good." She pressed closer, taking more of his weight.

The touch of her made his head spin. "I do not understand you." By honor, he was forgetting everything but the feel of her body sliding against his. How did she rob him of his wits like this?

"I don't understand either," she muttered. "But we have to get back into the house before we're both soaked. Only a complete idiot would go swimming in late November."

His brow rose. "I was wrong before."

They tottered up the bank, shoulder to shoulder. "Wrong about what?"

"You do not argue like a Bedouin with his camel. You are far worse. You would frighten even a Saracen with your tongue."

As she struggled beneath his weight, Hope hid a smile. She realized she enjoyed arguing with Ronan MacLeod. There had been no one to argue with since her uncle had died three years before.

Dermot O'Hara had opened a whole new world to her when she was thirteen. Desperately trying to come to grips with the trauma of losing her parents and the roller-coaster onset of teenage years, she had swung between tears and withdrawal. When all of his other efforts had failed, her uncle had teased her to wrath. They had traded insults and ingenious threats nonstop for nearly an hour and then Hope had collapsed into wild laughter.

Everything had changed between them after that. Before they were strangers. Afterward they were family.

Her uncle had taught her the value of a good argument and its two unshakable rules: no hitting below the belt and no harboring grudges later.

Too few people knew how to argue properly. It wasn't a matter of temper, after all. Good arguing required wit, patience. Panache.

Hope was starting to think MacLeod just might make a decent sparring partner once he got over this little delusion that he had been shot out of the thirteenth century.

Assuming she could keep her eyes off that gorgeous body of his.

"So, MacLeod, how long have you had this problem?"

"What problem?"

"The problem with your leg, of course."

He shrugged. "Long enough."

"Was it some kind of accident?"

"No."

"Then what did this to you?"

His jaw hardened. "Men did."

"Men. That's all you're going to say?"

He gave another shrug.

"Is getting answers out of you always like pulling teeth? I have news for you, there's nothing shameful about having an old injury."

MacLeod could not agree. Weakness shamed any knight. To discuss such weaknesses was unthinkable, even with a woman.

Especially with a woman.

He drew an irritated breath, looking at the dense woods just below the cliffs. "It happened up there."

Memories flashed in his head: shouting and the glint of metal. Cries of fury that turned to screams.

Dark and heavy, the images churned up inside him.

He did not want to remember. Not any of it.

The wind had risen, sending whitecaps across the water, and thanks to their contact, the woman was nearly as damp as he was. He felt her shiver. They would have to find a way out of the wind soon, assuming he could still walk.

"Talk to me, MacLeod."

He gritted his teeth and forced his legs over the rocky slope. He didn't want to talk. He certainly didn't want to remember. He had been an angry, confused boy when he'd left this glen, and the memories still hurt.

"I'm waiting."

He didn't mean to answer her, but somehow the words slid out. "They came before dawn, and there was no chance for us. Not even time for running, though my father would never have considered such a course."

"You were attacked?" she repeated uncertainly.

"I was twelve that summer." His jaw clenched and he felt the old bleak waves of fury. "Only a few of the MacLeod men were here. The rest had gone north for a wedding, something the cursed Sassenachs seemed to know full well." Suddenly his eyes hardened. "You are English?"

"Not me. I'm American. Yankee born and bred."

"What does this mean?"

"America. You know, that big country across the ocean. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago."

He frowned, waiting for her to say words that made sense.

"The Boston tea party and no taxation without representation?" She sighed. "Let's just say that we're the ones who fought England and won."

"You did?" MacLeod was genuinely impressed. "How?"

"Stop trying to change the subject. What happened to you next?"

He struggled up the rocky slope, each step a torment. "More of the same," he said stonily.

"More of the same what?"

"Fighting. Bleeding. Dying." He took a hard breath. "After their killing was done, they took my sisters." He stared at the mist drifting in a chill plume above the hills. "An English crossbow slit my knee that day."

She gasped. "So English soldiers...did this to you?"

"They enjoyed seeing me hobbled, but not dead. Killing me would have taken away their pleasure."

"But what good were you to them wounded?"

"I was sport. Young prey, better than any stag." He laughed once, a short, flat sound. "Besides, there was no time for healing. We were on the march before dusk, while the village still burned behind us."

"Why didn't you call someone to help?"

Call? No one would have heard. No one was left to hear. Clearly she understood nothing. Perhaps there was no more war in her time. "You are certain you are not English?"

"Absolutely. Now tell me what you did next."

"I could do nothing. It was war, and I was taken for Edward's army."

She came to a dead halt, frowning. "Edward?" she repeated softly. "As in King Edward? But that was...centuries ago."

"So you have told me."

MacLeod's eyes narrowed on the dense trees above the stone fence. Light flickered for a moment, then winked out. A moment later he saw two shapes moving dimly in the shadows.

Not cattle.

Not deer.

For the past five minutes they had moved as he moved, keeping equal distance but never revealing themselves.

Only men did that. And such men were no friends.