Page 19 of Outlaw Ever After

They splashed through the river, and the lass squealed in delight as spray kicked up from Faunus’s fringed hooves.

“I’m all wet, man!” she admonished, bare feet gripping his calves to hold on, like a carefree soul he’d known forever.

Faunus climbed the opposite bank toward the woods and the Kirk of St. Machan nestled into the side of the ridge , then they dashed along a wooded path behind the kirk and down a steep incline, into a celebratory village. Markets thrived. Luhgnasadh drums throbbed. A bonfire burned.

He pulled back Faunus’s mane. Trotted to a stop in front of a row of vendors. He dismounted and glanced up at her, the weather-blackened spire atop St. Machan’s bearing the masoned Celtic cross kissing the sky above her.

Cheeks healthy pink. Smile pure and elated. Her tangled hair and sopping skirts in disarray around bare calves. No longer the cultivated lady hiding from the world. More like a spirit, freed from its cage.

He reached up as she slipped her shoes back on. Her hands braced his shoulders as he lifted her down—energy zipped between them. Pinpricks of premonition, the likes of which kept catching him off guard. Those fickle fae warbled an old woman’s voice in his heart.

She slid down his front as her instrument banged. Christ, so slight. His hands spanned her waist, and he was wont to hold on a moment longer, wont to taste her bonny lips when he hadn’t kissed a lass since—

He let go and tethered Faunus, willing his racing pulse to slow when she pinged a lyre string by accident. She strummed with more purpose now. Out of tune.

She furrowed her brow. “I havena my hammer to tune it.”

The corner of his mouth hitched up as he took a hand and kissed her knuckles.

“Then I think ye’ll like where I’m taking ye.”

Past vending stalls they hurried, when he peeled back a curtain between carts, and revealed…

Chapter Five

Instruments!

Peigi’s eyes widened. Rows of bone flutes and panpipes. Bodhráns and dulcimers. And a Celtic harp! Racks of gitterns and lutes, painted vibrant colors and shielded from the sun by an awning.

“Goodness, I once had one of these…” She strummed her fingers across the harp, admiring its scroll, plucked out a simple melody as the shopkeeper smiled.

“Have ye a tuning hammer and a wrench, good fellow?” her rogue asked, holding up her lyre and strumming the problem string. “C Two has gone flat.”

How did he know the string names? Or how to fix it?

She picked up a panpipe, inspecting it, when moments later, he was twisting the loose pin back into her lyre.

“Try it.” He jutted his chin to the panpipe while tightening the string, plucking repeatedly to test the sound until it was pitch perfect.

She set the panpipe down. “I’ve never tried. Can ye play?”

He set her fixed lyre aside and brought the panpipe to his lower lip, trilling a fast ripple of sounds.

She brought it to her lips now, attempting to blow… Nothing but air.

Her face burned as he chuckled and she cast it down, but he returned it to her hand. He brushed her lower lip, where it edged the skin of her chin. “Place it…here . ’Twas too high on yer lips before.”

She tried again, feeling foolish. But he nodded. And watched her blow. A sound came out! Followed by air. This time she laughed. “I shall stick to my lyre, sir.”

“Nay, ye’re quite good,” he said encouragingly.

She nearly snorted. “On a few instruments, aye, but reaves destroyed our collection long ago. I only managed to save my favorite. I haven’t the experience ye have but I would have loved it if I did. It was my dream.”

He waved her off as if the destruction mattered not. “The inclination is there, lass. A little practice is all ye need… Here…” He thrust a dulcimer at her.

They experimented, harmonizing together, him rhythming on the hand drum and her on the dulcimer. She eased to his nonchalance. Oh, how she loved a fellow musician to make music with. How she wished her fingers could have been used for this over the years—a vain thought. She’d earned her cuts and nicks honestly, by helping sustain her people.

Still, the shopkeeper clapped as they dueled, when she saw something through the crack in the wavering curtain. She stopped and fingered open the fabric.