She squeezed her eyes shut at the sharp pains in her fingers as the stone tore her skin. Just when she thought she couldn’t take another step down, she found an ivy-covered trestle leading to the ground.
She hurried down it.
When her tattered slippers hit the ground, she took off running.
She wasn’t running away. She wasn’t fool enough to think she could make it out of the great glen on her two feet.
She was simply going where the greatest view awaited her.
Reaching the ridge of a small hill about a mile from him, she sat, watching him try to raise his left arm and hold his weapon. He didn’t give up despite the pain on his face.
He fought his own body and won.
What did she think of such a man? She scoffed. What should she think? Was she supposed to hail him as heroic? She scoffed again, this time louder. Never!
Three hours later, after she woke from a nap atop the hill, she pried herself off a hard boulder and waited for her body to crack into place before she groaned and sat up.
He was still there, his mount barreling over the terrain. Now, his right arm swung a Claymore and fought a battle from where he sat bareback on his horse.
She wasn’t sure why she couldn’t look away from him. When he came around close, she watched his facial expressions. The way he lifted one eyebrow in doubt, the handsome grin he tossed around freely to his kin, but not her.
So, he was strikingly handsome. She’d seen such men before—
That wasn’t true. She hadn’t seen many young, handsome men in her lifetime.
Logan Cameron was one of them. She felt her forehead to see how feverish she was. “Stop this, Elspeth!” she admonished herself. “What has come upon ye? So what if he worked all day to use his arm again? He shouldna have been watching me that terrible day without my father’s consent.”
She wanted to curse him for causing so much trouble just to steal a look at her, but he had turned his horse and was galloping toward her.
Did she have time to make a run for it? Where would she go? How in blazes would she get out of here?
“Miss,” he said, catching up to where she stood still as death.
Miss. He proved he’d always remembered who she was.
“What are ye doin’ oot of the house?”
She blinked out of some cursed reverie she’d fallen into and tightened her lips. What was she to tell him? That she climbed out of her window to see him better? She almost laughed out loud.
When he dismounted and held the giant steed by its mane and started toward her, she spun on her heel. “How did ye escape?” he demanded with a bit more authority.
“Escape? Ah, then Iamyer prisoner,” she said, turning to glare at him.
He came closer, unfazed by her ire. When he reached her, he bent to look her straight in the eye. “As long as ye wish to see me dead, aye, I will have ye kept under lock and key.”
“Well, as ye can see,” she countered, doing her best not to clench her jaw. “I willna bekept.”
His taunting smirk provoked her to react.
“I assure ye, Mr. Cameron, I can find my way out of any cage I’m forced to endure.”
His expression eased into something more compassionate, even more deadly. “I didna mean fer ye to feel caged. But ’tis safer this way.”
“Safer fer who? Ye or me?”
“Me,” he replied honestly. “And ye as well, in truth. If ye were to succeed in harmin’ me, my kin would never let ye live.”
“Aye,” she drawled, trying to sound unaffected by his concern for her if she managed to kill him. “Ewen mentioned it.”
