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“Don’t even think about it.”
“I wasna.”
“You absolutely were.”
Jamie bit back a smile and glanced toward the road again. The excisemen had slowed, one rider turning his head toward the hillside, which ended the discussion.
He led the mare behind the shelter of the ridge while Olivia followed, still looking around as though expecting someone to jump out at her.
Before they reached the horse, however, she glanced once more toward the carts carrying the casks.
“You still haven’t told me what’s in the casks.”
“A moment ago ye said ye knew.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
“Why?”
She rubbed both hands over her arms as the wind blew through them. “Because I know whisky.”
Jamie stopped. There was a difference in the way she said it, something quieter and more certain than anything else she’d told him since he’d found her on the hill.
Jamie knew that look.
He’d seen Alasdair wear it when a mash behaved differently than expected and watched old Dougal stop in the middle of a conversation because a spirit coming off the still had changed by a fraction only he could taste. Jamie himself had felt it when the burn shifted after the heavy rain or a cask gave back something sweeter than the wood that held it.
“Do ye now?” he said. “How well do ye know spirits?”
Her gaze shifted once more toward the casks below. “Well enough.”
One of the horses on the road whinnied, and Jamie looked toward the sound before deciding that two government men approaching was a poor place to discover exactly what this American woman knew about whisky.
“Then we’ll discuss it somewhere the king’s men canna hear us.”
He helped her mount, then settled into the saddle behind her. The horse shifted her weight beneath him, impatient to be moving.
“Have ye ridden before?”
She frowned at the horse. “No.”
That wasna reassuring, but they no longer had time to discuss it. “Hold on.”
Jamie nudged the mare forward. The path narrowed almost immediately, wet stone falling away into bracken on one side while the mare picked her way down with the confidence of an animal that had traveled it a hundred times.
In front of him, Olivia made a small sound of distress as Jamie guided the mare toward Dunarraidh.
Chapter 7
Olivia
What was that smell?
It wasn’t coming from her room above the pub, with its ever-present faint scent of beer and spirits, and it wasn’t her room at the distillery either.
Olivia sniffed again.
Her shoulder was stiff when she rolled over, and memory returned in pieces. The tunnel, the storm, the old woman, and Calum trying to grab hold of her sleeve.
