Page 24 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

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The first shepherd they met was approximately eighty years old.

He was mending a split-rail gate latch at the edge of the upper pasture when they came over the ridge. He looked up at the great horse.

“Me Laird.” His milky eyes flicked to her. “Me Lady.”

Magnus cleared his throat. “This is Lady Elspeth. She’ll be… staying.”

Dougal’s eyebrows rose slowly toward his cap. He looked at Elspeth, then back at Magnus, then at Elspeth again, clearly recalculating several things at once. “Staying,” he repeated.

“Aye.”

“Well.” Dougal touched the brim of his hat, a smile spreading across his weathered face. “Welcome, me Lady. Been a long while since this land had one. I’m Dougal.”

Elspeth turned to Magnus to see his reaction, but his eyes were fixed ahead, scanning the sea of grey wool with rhythmic precision.

He’s counting. He is counting them one by one.

His gaze shifted to the fence line along the northern edge, then up to the sky. “How’s the flock?”

“Well enough. The ewe with the bad ear’s settled. The twins from September are gaining.”

“And the south pen?”

“Three shy.” Dougal’s weathered face did not change. “Found two at the Brennan boundary Wednesday. Third’s somewhere.” He pointed a gnarled, dirt-caked finger vaguely toward a thick cluster of gorse. “Thinks I cannae see her.”

Magnus looked at the gorse. A small woolly shape was visible, technically stationary, betrayed by its curved outline against the yellow needles.

“Aye,” he said, his chest rumbling against her back. “I see her.”

“She kens I see her. She doesnae care.”

Magnus dismounted. Elspeth watched him cross the field.

Over the course of this morning, watching him move had become its own problem. He had a long, unhurried stride, covering uneven ground without once looking down at it.

He reached the dense gorse, crouched low, and said something to the ewe that Elspeth could not hear over the wind. The animal looked at him and then calmly walked out of the gorse toward the pen.

He came back, his heavy boot catching the stirrup, and remounted behind her. The return of his body heat was a sharp shock on her spine.

“How’s yer roof holding?” he asked Dougal, his arm settling back across her waist.

“Same as it was. North corner.”

“I’ll send someone before the week’s out.”

Dougal nodded, already turning back to the iron latch.

Elspeth looked at the old man’s hands, the cracked skin, the practiced movement of fingers that had done this exact job maybe ten thousand times. She looked past him to the low stone cottage. On the north corner of the roof, a section of thatch had been replaced recently, but the straw was loose and poorly bound.

“The Brennan boundary,” she said, her voice clear in the crisp air. “Is it far?”

Both men looked at her instantly.

“Half a mile south,” Dougal answered, squinting up. “Why?”

“Yer sheep go there.” She looked across the pasture, keeping her tone strictly analytical. “Three times that ye’ve noticed. If the fence were sound, they’d likely find the boundary anyway, but if there’s something drawing them specifically to that corner, it might be worth checking whether Brennan’s pasture has better grazing on that edge. Then ye’d ken if it’s a fence problem or a feed problem.”