Page 40 of Highland Spy

She stood on the gate to the stall, getting atop her horse and leaving the stables riding bareback. Emotions overtook her. She needed to ride with the wind in her hair to try to blow away her worries and to regain her composure. This wasn’t like her to cry too easily. But lately, her worries were growing and she was becoming frightened of the future.

Not exactly sure what was happening to her father, Bridget had no idea how to care for him or if she really could. All she’d known for most of her life was being with her father and helping him as the king’s chronicler. Without that job, or if her father were to be imprisoned, killed, or just die for some reason, she’d be lost.

Caleb reprimanding her was more than she could endure. She had feelings for him and truly saw him the way that she’d written about him in the book. Why didn’t he understand that she was only trying to express her feelings the only way she knew how?

Instead of sticking to the road, she headed to the river where Caleb had taken her the day before. She needed to be alone to think. Lately, life was becoming more and more challenging, and she seemed to be making the wrong decisions.

When she approached the water, she tethered her horse to a bush and sat down on a rock and cried. Holding her face in her hands, she let out all her emotions that she’d been keeping inside ever since she was a child.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there before she heard the sound of hoofbeats approaching. Sniffling, she wiped her eyes, turning around to see Caleb dismounting his horse and heading toward her.

“Go away,” she told him, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from crying in front of him.

“Bridget, we need to talk.” He walked up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder.

“I have nothin’ to say to ye, now leave me alone.” She pushed his hand off of her, and headed down closer to the water, not turning to look at him again.

“Stop it, Bridget,” he told her. “I came here to talk to ye, now quit pushin’ me away.”

“Ye came here to accuse me of hurtin’ ye again, and I dinna want to hear it.”

“Nay,” he said softly, gently reaching out to touch her on the arm. “Lass, that is no’ why I’m here. I followed ye to apologize, because I’m the one who hurt ye and I’m sorry.”

“Really?” she asked, sniffling again, turning slightly to peer at him out of the corners of her eyes.

“Really,” he answered, no longer sounding angry. “Bridget, look at me. Please. I need ye to see my face when I talk to ye because I want ye to ken that I mean what I say.”

Slowly, she turned, peering up into the sincere eyes of a man she admired more than anyone she’d ever met.

“That’s better,” he said, grinning slightly, reaching out and wiping a tear from her cheek. “I understand that ye thought ye were helpin’ me and didna mean anythin’ bad by what ye wrote in the book.”

“I meant those things about ye, Caleb. Every single one of them is how ye look to me.”

“But those things are no’ true.”

“That’s the way I see ye. And it’s the only way I kent how to show ye what ye mean to me. I’m a chronicler. I’ve been writin’ in the book for my faither for years now. I dinna ken how to say things to people, so I say them through my writin’ instead. If I hurt ye in any way, I didna mean to. I only wanted ye to ken how much ye really mean to me.”

“Blethers, Bridget,” he said, with a puff of air from his mouth. “Then I wish ye would have written it down just for me and no’ in the king’s book for everyone in Scotland to hear him read aloud.”

“He read it aloud?”

Caleb nodded.

Now she felt really bad. “Och, I see why ye’re mad now. I guess I made a mistake.”

“Dinna fret about it, lass. What’s done is done and we will need to learn to live with it.”

“But what will everyone think now?”

“It doesna matter.” Caleb chuckled a little and one side of his mouth raised.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“Ye should have seen Storm’s face when he was the one readin’ about me aloud.”

“Oh, nay.”

“Oh, aye. With that man’s pride, he’ll be out tossin’ cabers and practicin’ shootin’ arrows from mornin’ until night, just because he thinks someone is outdoin’ him.”