Page 20 of Outlaw Ever After

“What is that? Up there beside the kirk?”

He arched a brow. “Wish to explore and find out?”

He took her hand, dropping a coin on the shopkeeper’s cart for his trouble. The folk, kindly, bobbed curtsies or waved, or beckoned them to dance about the fire. Oh, to be this happy and at peace!

Boulders jutted out of the glenside, half buried in trees. Her limbs ached as they climbed the ascent.

He guided her over roots, through slants of sunlight, past bells of twinflowers hanging among the brambles until they came to…a ruin? She smiled wondrously. Felt his gaze trace her face and jaw while he ushered her beneath the broken lintel, his other hand guiding her lower back.

’Twas a cottage, she realized. Perhaps an old parsonage accompanying St. Machan’s looming over the village? She scanned the crumbled foundation. Partial window frames protruded like jagged teeth as saplings twisted their roots about the stones.

She slipped free of his touch and walked the perimeter. She sifted her fingers through the saplings to trace the wall, to touch a shard of metal. A remnant of some farming tool or another. Rubble in the far corner turned out to be an old, rotting shutter, and the remains of…a cradle?

Nay a parsonage. Crofters had lived here if they’d had bairns.

What babes had once rocked in this vestige of the past? She smiled back at…what was his name? Eyes of deepest greenwood… He stood within the doorway, watching her caress the cradle as if in awe of some otherworldly creature. Renegades lurked in greenwoods, like the fabled Robin of the Hood. This one seemed to understand her.

“Ye’re humming,” he noted.

Was she? For a short time, this man had made her forget her marriage problem. “A cradle. I’ve always wanted a large brood.”

“Marry yer widower and ye’ll inherit one,” he jested, arms folded upon each fist so that his biceps bulged, a tight tick to his jaw.

She shook her head, glancing heavenward. Did that tick mean her marrying another…bothered him?

“If there were a contest for the number of headshakes a man could suffer from a lass, ye might be the winner.”

He flashed his dazzling grin and hitched his chin. “I’m always glad to be a champion.”

“Ye’re pathetic. Ridiculous and cocksure and—”

“Ye insult me again.” He held out his hand and waited again when she suspected he typically enjoyed taking what he wished. She came to him, their fingers lacing comfortably.

“Now I’m just getting started titling ye with insults.” She poked his chest.

Their hand hold tightened.

“A man should be so lucky to be decorated by yer attention. I’m Sir Desperate, Laird of Cocksure, if it means ye’ll keep singing for me.” His gaze twinkled without a drop of remorse as he tugged her gently, urging her close.

“Ye still have nay told me what ye do want,” he said.

“Hmm?”

“In a man.”

“Nay a roving warrior who waggles his brows and expects a lass to fall at his feet, for certain,” she breathed.

“What do ye want?” he repeated, voice gruff as his expression fell an inch, but this time, she wasn’t sure he was asking quite the same question, and her entire body tingled with anticipation.

As if he could sense her wavering on that precipice, he moved around her again, letting go of her hand. His fingertips skimmed her arm, her shoulders, down her other arm. When he came around her other side, his fingers laced with hers again. He was chewing his cheek, evading her eyes, when until now, he hadn’t seemed to be short on words.

Sheepish? This braw man laden with a deadly scythe that he’d wielded with precision yesterday?

“A man who wants me. For me,” she said before she could think better of it. “Nay wants me for my status. Or my dowry.” Freuchie Castle.

That cursed place where that boy from so long ago had lived and suffered. She blocked out the injustices she’d seen on a swallow, wishing that to this day, she could escape them.

He stepped close, his belly to her back, patchouli and warmth a comfortable mantle as his lips came down to her ear and he said, “A man who labors each day, and comes home to his woman and hearth, each eve?”