Arran’s arms and legs were beginning to ache from the strain of holding both himself and Jenna up and he knew it would be foolish to strike out for the shore now, when they were both tired. He glanced around, his eyes alighting on the nearest of the rocky islets.
“Can ye swim over there, lass?” he said to Jenna. “It isnae far, and we can take shelter and get our breath back.”
Jenna glanced at the islet and nodded.
“Good. Then let’s go.”
They set off, Arran letting Jenna take the lead and staying close behind her in case she got into difficulty. She didn’t, and it took only a few minutes before Arran felt the seabed under his questing feet. He took Jenna’s arm and together they staggered through the shallows and collapsed onto the sandy beach that ringed the islet.
Arran lay flat on his back and allowed himself a moment to close his eyes and listen to the thundering of his heart. Slowly, his breathing began to slow. He opened his eyes and turned his head. Jenna lay on her back next to him, staring up at the blue sky, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. Her dark hair lay spread out around her head like a halo.
“Are you a gloater?” she said suddenly.
Arran blinked. “A… what?”
“A gloater. Someone who acts all smug when they’re proven right.”
“Nay, lass. I’m not a… gloater.”
“All right then, I admit it. You were right. I was wrong. I should have listened to you.” She spoke in a rush, as though eager to get it off her chest. “There. I’ve said it. Remember, you promised not to gloat.”
Despite himself, his lips quirked in a smile. “Wouldnae dream of it.”
With a groan, he sat up. The beach they were on was not large and hemmed in on all sides by rugged black cliffs too tall to climb. Colonies of guillemots and razorbills filled the cliffs and at this time of year the clifftops would be full of puffins in their burrows.
Arran wondered what they thought of these two strange interlopers to their land. “Dinna worry,” he muttered at the birds. “We’ll be gone soon.”
He climbed to his feet, water dripping from his hair and plaid, and strode down to where the breakers were landing on the shore. The mainland of Skye spread out across the waters, bathed in afternoon sunlight. Arran put his hands on his hips and gazed at it. It wasn’t often that he saw his home from this angle and as always when he did, he was struck by its beauty. A rocky coastline, wooded hills, heath-covered uplands, all rising to the craggy heights of the mountains that formed the island’s spine.
It was his. His home. He would not let Njord take it.
“Should we swim?” Jenna said, coming to stand next to him.
Arran shook his head. “Nay, lass. It’s too far to swim in our present condition.”
“You meanmypresent condition. I’m the coddled, unfit twenty-first century woman. You’re the lean, mean, fifteenth-century Highlander, remember? I suspect you could swim there and back a dozen times if you wanted to.”
“Yer faith in my abilities humbles me,” he replied with a lopsided smile. “Even if it is a little misplaced.”
She turned to gaze over the water. “But if we don’t swim, how are we going to get back?”
“Mal and the others will come looking soon enough. We just have to wait.”
“For how long?”
He shrugged. “Until they find us. Be thankful it’s a sunny day. If it was howling a gale and throwing down with rain, this wouldnotbe fun.”
She kicked at a sea-rounded pebble at her feet. “I really am sorry,” she said, her voice sounding more contrite than he’d ever heard. “I just wanted a swim. I didn’t know about rips and things like that.”
Arran bit his tongue. Shemightknow about rip currents and the other dangers that Skye posed if she stopped to listen to him once in a while. But he didn’t say this out loud as he didn’t fancy another argument.
Her soaked shift was clinging to her body in a way that was wholly indecent, and the way water was dripping down her neck and chest was ridiculously alluring. The memory of her lips on his flashed through his mind, and heat suddenly pooled in his stomach, traveling all the way down to his groin. Why had she kissed him? Didn’t she realize how it tied his tongue in knots and scattered his thoughts like leaves on a breeze? Did she do it just to taunt him?
He cleared his throat. “It might be a warm day, but it will take us hours to dry unless we start a fire. We should gather some driftwood. Ye take that end of the beach, I’ll take this one.”
He strode away from her, glad to put some distance between them. She moved to the other end of the beach and began collecting driftwood that had been washed up on the sand. It didn’t take long before they had a decent pile, which they dumped in the spot where they’d come ashore.
Arran knelt and picked out a relatively dry stick and a small piece of driftwood. He didn’t have his flint and tinder, so he would have to light the fire the old way. Placing the stick upright into a notch on the log, he took it between his palms and began rotating it back and forth as quickly as he could, trying to get the friction to light the wood.
