Evelyn’s grin widened and she stepped from the doorway and crouched down to scoop up a handful of snow. Packing it firmly, she lofted it at Alinor, who caught it expertly and shook it back to powder. The wolf’s muzzle sparkled around her panting mouth and she barked gamely again.
Play! Play!
Evelyn threw snowballs at the wolf while the sheep bleated in merriment until her hands were numb and throbbing and the hem of her kirtle was soaked, flapping wet and cold around her ankles.
“That’s quite enough, Alinor,” she laughed, panting a bit herself. Alinor threw herself onto her side and rolled around in the snow, and Evelyn was pleased she had made the wolf happy.
“Let’s give you a name also, girl,” Evelyn said, pushing sweaty, curling tendrils of hair from her eyes and looking at the little brown sheep waiting patiently in the pen. “Hmm…how do you fancy Bonnie? A fine name for a pretty highland lass,” she said in a mimic of MacKerrick’s brogue.
The sheep bleated in happy agreement.
Evelyn smiled at the animals a final time and had turned to go back into the hut when Alinor sprang onto her feet, facing the wood, the fur on her back raised. A low growl rolled out of her. Evelyn looked to the wall of trees but saw nothing.
Alinor growled again, this time more insistently.
Intruder.
Stranger.
A chill raced over Evelyn’s already cold skin and her thoughts jostled each other for order. If a stranger was coming and MacKerrick was still gone—What…Who…They might try to take the sheep. They might hurt Alinor. They might…
Evelyn struggled in her wet skirts to run in awkward, high-stepping strides though the deep snow to the pen while Alinor kept watch, her growls not ceasing. She jerked open the rickety gate and tangled a hand in the sheep’s long wool, dragging her out of the corral.
“Alinor! Alinor, to me!” Evelyn commanded as loudly as she dared as she pulled Bonnie toward the hut, her heart pounding, galloping. “Alinor, to me!”
The wolf finally turned and raced to the hut just as Evelyn pushed open the door. She herded both animals inside and dropped the bar into place. “Good girl,” she panted.
The sheep went directly to her pen and Alinor followed, standing guard before the opening. Evelyn dropped to her knees to look through the knothole.
Her eyes scanned the clearing slowly, right to left, left to right. And then she saw the figure step from the treeline as if he’d been one with the silent gray trunks.
’Twas a man.
And ’twas not MacKerrick.
Conall slogged through the crusted snow with no little effort after carefully setting both traps with dried bits of carrot and leaving them nestled in locations likely for small game to roam. At the least, he expected to catch a bird, although he pinned his hopes on a hungry highland hare.
’Twas bitter cold and Conall quickened his pace, eager to return to the cozy hut-turned-snow cave and the enigmatic lass it housed. She was a riddle, for certain, with her proper English manner of speaking, her troubled past, and her secret fear. Conall wished to solve her. He was intrigued aleady with how her mind worked and her odd kinship with the great black wolf. It seemed he’d not in the whole of his life had so many questions he wished to ask another living person, but he knew for the sake of his clan that he must bide his time and not press her. Eve had been tempered by her long and dangerous journey to Ronan’s hut, and Conall suspected her newfound strength would only push him back.
And she was Buchanan—a stubborn, vengeful lot if ever one existed.
There would be time aplenty to learn all of Eve’s secrets once she was his wife. All Conall had to do now was figure out how to make that happen.
He was nearing the edge of the wood when he froze and dropped like an anvil to the snow, his heart hammering so loudly that he fancied it could be heard in England. He shimmied soundlessly on his belly through a drift to conceal himself behind a large tree.
There, on the fringe of the clearing, stood a figure staring at the hut, his back to Conall and the wood. Conall squinted through the bright glare of the snow for sign of Eve but thankfully saw none. He knew he must lure the stranger back into the wood and discover his identity before the man decided to try the shelter.
Conall clucked like a chicken, just once and low.
It was the first thing that came to his mind, but he was rather proud of the idea. Who expects to hear a common chicken in the wood in high winter?
The stranger immediately spun around, but Conall could not discern the man’s features, bundled head to toe against the icy cold and misshapen by the large pack he carried. The interloper peered through the trees.
Conall gave another cluck.
It had the desired effect. The unknown traveler turned back into the wood, stepping cautiously, his covered head swiveling, searching for sign of the nonexistent fowl.
Closer,Conall said to himself.Just a bit closer…
