Page 15

“Whoa!” Angus shrieked, his arms windmilling wildly as his feet slipped out from under him. He dropped straight down, landing ankle-deep in the thick, squelching mud.

Sheona stopped mid-step on the log, bursting into a round of bright, musical laughter that echoed off the high stone walls. “Oh, Angus! The fallen warrior loses his honor!”

“Help me!” Angus yelled, giggling so hard he could barely stand as the cool, thick mud sucked at his leather boots.

Sheona crouched low on the log, reaching her hand out to grasp his small wrist. “Grab hold, I’ll pull ye up onto the wood.”

In his sheer panic and wild amusement, Angus didn’t just take her hand; he grabbed her entire forearm with both hands and threw his weight backward to free his trapped foot.

“Angus, wait!” Sheona gasped.

Her footing gave way instantly. Sheona gasped as her shoes slid off the wet bark, her hands flying out as gravity claimed them both.

With a spectacular, roaring splash, Sheona fell sideways off the log, tumbling headlong into the center of the muddy hollow right beside Angus.

Cold, thick, dark mud erupted into the air, coating them both from head to toe. Sheona hit the soft mire on her hip, and her slate-gray gown instantly turned black and heavy, splatter marks dotting her forehead and nose, matting into her dark, loose curls.

For two agonizing seconds, complete silence hung over the yard.

Brodie took two furious strides forward, his boots crunching on the gravel, his hands reaching out to haul them out of the ditch. “Sheona! Angus!”

Sheona sat up in the sludge, wiping a heavy blob of mud off her chin. She looked at Angus, who was sitting opposite her, his face completely covered in brown spots, looking like a wet, drowned owl.

Sheona let out a snort. Angus let out a squeak. And then, both of them completely dissolved into helpless, howling laughter.

Sheona threw her head back, her clear blue eyes shining like jewels amidst her mud-stained face, laughing so hard her ribs ached. She reached out to pull Angus upright, but her muddy fingers slipped off his wet woolen sleeve, sending her sliding right back into the sludge on her side. Angus tried to haul her up, only to lose his footing and splash down right beside her, spraying another wave of muddy water over her lap.

“Ye pulled me down on purpose!” Sheona laughed, catching a handful of wet silt and wiping it playfully across Angus’s left cheek.

“I didnae!” Angus gasped through his laughter, clutching his belly. “The log betrayed us both!”

Brodie stopped dead at the edge of the puddle, his massive hands hovering mid-air.

He stood above them, towering, dry, and clean, watching Duncan MacFaris’s daughter sit in a pit of filth, her fine clothes ruined, her hair wild, laughing with pure, unadulterated joy alongside his son. The bright, musical sound of her laughter filled the gray courtyard, completely washing away the gloomy, haunted ghost of the woman who had entered his solar a week ago.

Brodie’s jaw worked slowly. He wanted to be angry. He wanted to lecture her on dignity, on safety, on the proper decorum of a future laird’s wife.

Yet as she wiped a streak of brown earth from her brow, her bright blue eyes suddenly met his stern gaze from down in the mud, her sweet, breathless smile lingering just for him. And for the first time since he had brought her to MacKinley land, Brodie felt the rigid, icy shield around his heart crack just a little further.

Still laughing, Sheona turned to Brodie, his heavy iron gorget glinting in the pale afternoon sun.

Beside her in the mire, Angus began waving both muddy arms wildly above his head, spraying brown water in every direction. “Father!” Angus shouted, his voice ringing across the cobblestones. “Father! We need rescuin’!”

Brodie looked at the mud pit with a weary, long-suffering expression etched into his harsh features. He stopped at the edge of the puddle, looking down at the two mud-covered conspirators before slowly folding his massive arms across his chest.

“Ye look perfectly capable of rescuin’ yerselves,” Brodie grunted, his voice a low, gravelly rasp.

“That is nae true!” Angus protested, wiping a streak of black silt across his forehead as he tried and failed to pull his foot free. “Every great laird must save captured prisoners! It is the law of the Highlands!”

Sheona, biting back a bright, irrepressible smile, extended an equally muddy hand toward the giant standing on the dry bank.

“Does the mighty Laird MacKinley truly intend to abandon a lady in distress to the depths of a bog?” Sheona asked, looking up through her dark, damp lashes with mischief gleaming in her blue eyes as she forced a solemn tone.

Brodie stared at her outstretched, mud-caked hand for a long, silent heartbeat. With a deep, heavy sigh, he finally stepped down onto the slippery, waterlogged ground, reaching out with his broad, calloused hand to grasp her wrist.

At that exact moment, Angus decided to “help.” The boy scrambled up behind his father and threw his small weight against Brodie’s back, shoving him forward with a triumphant yell.

Sheona instinctively gasped and grabbed Brodie’s heavy leather forearm to steady herself against his weight. Instead of holding them upright, the sudden momentum on the slick mud tore everyone’s footing away at once.