Rodland’s gaze was still on her face as he nodded slowly. “I believe you mean it. I’m relieved. You do care about him. I admit I didn’t feel I could entirely accept that you weren’t meeting a lover at Kilgoray. It was the logical conclusion. I wasn’t sure how I was going to have to handle that complication.”

Jane’s jaw dropped. “You weren’t going to handle it at all. I wouldn’t have let you. Not your business.”

“Wrong,” he said quietly. “You became my business the minute I found out Caleb was moving heaven and earth to keep you safe. I owe him my life, and it’s going to be hard as hell to clear that debt. So, this is payback. I just have to make sure that nothing gets in the way of me giving him what he needs.”

“Not even if I’d choose to not go along?” she asked sarcastically.

“A complication.” He smiled. “One I don’t have to face now. You were very eloquent. Whatever you were doing at the village, it didn’t have anything to do with any relationship that would hurt Seth Caleb.”

“And what would you do if it had?”

“Anything I had to do,” he said simply. “But why worry? I would have tried to work it out. And now it’s not necessary. We can start fresh. So just consider me your good angel who’s standing by to sweep all the demons from your path.” He was suddenly beside her at the stable door. “Stay here while I take a look around the courtyard. I’ll have you tucked back in the castle in another ten minutes.”

She watched him move across the courtyard. Good angel? she thought in bewildered frustration. He was more like an Irish leprechaun, and the demons he’d spoken about fighting would have been in service to Caleb.

Well, what was wrong with that? Her annoyance was suddenly gone. Caleb was usually alone in his battles. She liked the idea of someone who cared enough about him to watch his back. As far as being guardian to her, she couldn’t afford to reject that, either. Independence was all very well, but she would take all the help she could get.

Because everything had changed during that hour spent in Kilgoray…

*  *  *

“Kilgoray,” Bohdan repeated when Chiswick called him later that night. “What the hell does this Kilgoray have to do with anything? I thought you were monitoring that earl’s property at MacDuff’s Run. You told me that your team had sighted the woman at the castle earlier today.”

“They did, and it was definitely Jane MacGuire. But somehow she managed to leave the property in a speedboat with one of MacDuff’s men and was taken to a village down the coast.”

“Why?” Bohdan swore viciously. “Did she meet with Caleb there? Did you follow her?”