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It was beautiful country. Crisp and clear.
He straightened his back—attempting to catch his breath from the lunging steps he’d been taking—as he watched a golden eagle frolicking in the winds above the valley before him.
He understood the land now in a way he never had before in his younger years when he had traveled through it—now that he could see it through Torrie’s eyes. How the smell of the dirt, how the rocks under his feet, how the lochs and the fields and undulating earth could get into his bones.
“You’re stalling.” Torrie tightened her red cloak across her chest as she stepped beside him, stopping to watch the bird in the sky.
“I’m enjoying.”
A gust of chilly wind lifted the strands of dark hair about her face, teasing them across her brow. Her hair was down, free, just as he loved it.
She looked at him. “Tell me what Des’s letter said—that’s who the letter was from this morning, correct?”
Roe met her gaze. “He took over theFirehawkin Spain and brought it back to England.”
She nodded. “I guessed as much. We were gone so quickly from port I didn’t have time to talk to him.” Her gaze lifted to him, her gold green eyes curious. “And you still haven’t told me what the Box of Draupnir is. Why it’s so important.”
His bottom lip jutted up in a frown. “That—that I still cannot tell you about.”
“Why not? The danger is passed, is it not?”
“It is. But the story of the box isn’t my tale to tell.”
“Who’s is it?”
“Des’s tale. I don’t know how it ends.”
She sighed. “So when will I hear it?”
Roe shrugged. “The next time we see him, I imagine.”
“Soon, I hope?”
“I believe so, but one can never promise anything on the sea.”
She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, tugging. “Come, you promised me one last round.”
She pointed to the wide flat ground where they had been walking about in circles. Every day, Torrie would do her dipping walk, and every day she would make him stretch and work with lunging strides on his still mending leg. Pain. But pain was healing at this point.
“Or we can call it done for the day.”
She chuckled. “I do love that you grumble so about the exercises but you still do them.”
“I do them for you.”
“I know. That’s why I love them.” The beam of her smile cut through the grey of the day and she hopped away from him, turning around and walking backward as she tried to entice him back to the well-worn figure eight path they’d worked into the ground during the last months at Vinehill. “Plus you need to make sure your legs are working fine for all the chasing about in your future.”
“You’re going to run from me? You know I’ll catch you, crooked bone or not.” He darted forward, grabbing her about the waist.
Squealing, she twisted in his arms to face him, the warmth of their breath turning into puffs of steam in the air between them.
“No, not me.” Her hands came up between them, her fingers gripping onto the lapels of his coat. “Someone much, much smaller than me.”
For a long second, confusion set into his eyes. Confusion that shifted into disbelief. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
