Page 22 of Sins of the Highlander

She stepped back a pace.

“I ken where ye stashed it, lass.” His gaze flicked pointedly at her bodice. “Dinna make me go in after it. Unless, o’ course, ye wish me to.”

She retrieved the small blade and cast it down. It quivered upright between his feet.

“Ye’ve some skill with a blade.”

“I’ve three older brothers.”

“I suppose Falin’s fled,” he said, looking down the path.

Elspeth nodded.

“Aye, well, he’s always had a coward’s heart,” Rob said. “The silly beastie.”

“The rest of the wolves went after him,” Elspeth said, feeling the need to stand up for the stallion. “He was no’ a coward. He bore us in safety a long way. He fought well and hard with ye. But he stood by ye till ye left him! And now the wolves will…” She swallowed back the lump in her throat. “And ye dinna care.”

She thumped his chest with her fist once.

“Ye dinna care at all, ye brute.” Her face crumpled, and tears coursed down her cheeks. The tension of the last few days broke over her like a wave, and she wept without shame for a horse that wouldn’t even let her mount him.

“Hush, lass. Ye dinna need to cry. The tears will freeze on your cheeks.” Rob grabbed a corner of the cloak and swiped at her face. “Falin will be fine, ye ken. He can run like the wind.”

“Ye didna see them after him.” She cried harder.

“He’s probably outrun that mangy pack and is well on his way back to his own stable by now,” Rob said. “Which is more than I can say for us. We need to be gone before the wolves decide we can’t run nearly so fast and turn back.”

“What about you? Your head is wounded.” She put a hand around his neck and felt a gash beneath blood-matted hair.

“There’s no time to clean me up and make me pretty. Come, lass. Let’s away.”

He took her hand and started down the trail. They hadn’t gone ten paces when she cried out.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I stepped on something sharp,” she said, balancing on one leg and plucking a thorn from the ball of her bare foot.

“Where’s your shoe?”

“I dinna know.”

A guilty flush washed over her. She knew exactly where she’d abandoned that shoe.

But why should she feel shamefaced before her abductor? True, he had risked his neck to save hers. That counted for something, but she couldn’t tell him the truth about her missing shoe. If she did, she’d have to admit to leaving a trail of silk all across the valley floor, and there was no telling how a madman might take to that news.

She glanced around. “It must be about here someplace.”

“Well, we haven’t time to look for it.” He grabbed up the piece of velvet he’d cut from her skirt and wrapped it around her foot several times. Then he rummaged in his sporran and came up with a length of leather lacing. He bound the velvet to her foot and calf.

“No’ exactly fashionable enough for court, but better than going unshod in this weather.”

Wolf song reached their ears, distant, but close enough to be worrisome.

“Come, lass. And step lively.”

This time he didn’t have to tell her twice.

Chapter 7