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“Keep my sister’s name from your filthy mouth, whoreson,” MacKinlay spat.

“Perhaps ask your sister if I should keep her name from my mouth. Or do her thoughts on the matter mean so little to you?”

“That’s enough, Niall,” Kieran tried to warn him.

“You dare lecture my chief about his sister?” Fergus was as angry as Niall had ever seen him, including when they were near-attacked on the road.

“I lecture no one,” Niall said. “I simply—”

“Shall we not be on the road?” Lina cut in. “To get to the cattle by sundown? Or do we relish finding shelter together again for the evening?”

Such a prospect was not one he relished at all. Her brother mumbled something as he and Fergus seemed to agree, for now, not to attack Niall. Once again, Avelina was the one to see them through the disagreement.

“Aye,” Kieran said. “We shall.”

Reluctantly agreeing with Lina, Niall turned away one final time and stalked toward the horses. He did not look back until well and truly mounted, with he and his brother riding ahead of the others.

So rarely riled the way he just had been, Niall was further convinced there was something special about Lina. His only regret over the incident?

He’d not been able to kiss her.

Chapter Ten

“Nay, I will not discuss it further.”

Avelina and her brother had been arguing since he attacked Niall. And aye, she agreed Niall may have deserved it for provoking Ewan, but if her brother had not approached them as if she’d done something wrong, perhaps Niall would not have found it necessary to come to her defense.

And he had done so, the thought of which Avelina could not get from her head. As they passed the verdant green mountains—unfamiliar territory she had never thought to ride on as they’d crossed the border onto Duncraig land earlier—she watched him ride. Waiting for those times, he turned back to look at her. They were few, but when he did, Avelina’s heart leapt. As it did when she thought of what he’d said.

If I had the opportunity, there is naught I’d wish for more than to kiss you, Lina.

She’d thought of nothing else. Well, perhaps except her brother’s reaction. Her clan’s reaction to what they would see as a betrayal. Except, Avelina had begun to think beyond a kiss. To the ramifications of falling for the son of the man who’d killed her father in battle. Yet, Niall had not said he wished to marry her, for goodness sakes. Nor would she ever consider such a thing.

’Twas but a simple kiss. If there was a way for it to happen, would she do it?

Aye, she would.

“There.” Niall turned his mount back toward them. His attention was on the dots that Avelina could see now in the distance. Her brother and Fergus sat up straighter in their saddles, as did she. “Come,” her brother said, spurring his mount forward.

Their two riding parties sped toward the hill where, as they approached, the cattle were easy enough to see. As Niall had said, there were more than twenty, though Avelina could not discern to whom they belonged. Sure enough, however, as the others dismounted, with the cattle quite alone grazing in the fields before them, it did not take long for confirmation.

Her brother inspected just two of the cattle before turning to Fergus and speaking rapidly to him. Avelina couldn’t hear what they spoke of from this distance, but she could imagine.

She’d been about to dismount when Niall appeared out of nowhere below her. Though she did not need his assistance, Avelina accepted it for the simple fact that she wished to touch his hand. Whether he aided her for that reason, or simply to be courteous, she neither knew nor cared.

The touch was precisely as she imagined it would be. His hand, as firm as anyone’s. But it was the way he looked at her that made the moment so much more than simply a gallant knight assisting a lady from her mount.

“My brother will not be pleased,” she said as her feet touched the ground. “Added to the fact that the cattle are clearly ours.”

Unfortunately, he dropped her hand as they walked slowly toward the others. Ewan and Fergus were arguing. Niall’s brother stood off to the side, his arms crossed, his lips tugged upward in the slightest of smiles.

“I dinnae think Fergus believed you.”

“Nay,” Niall said, her brother and Fergus’s conversation now clear. “He did not.”

“Never on their own,” Ewan was saying now. “Who or why?”

It was the question she’d been pondering as well. Who would have led cattle to this spot? To Avelina, the answer as to “why” was an obvious one.