“We most certainly will not be eatingher, sir,” Evelyn proclaimed. “Alinor lovesher!”
“And Alinor will loveherroasted, with a bit o’ sage.”
Evelyn shrieked and crossed to the sheep. Dropping to her knees, she wrapped her arms around Bonnie’s short neck. “Shh, don’t listen, lovely. I’ll not let him eat you,” she said, glaring at MacKerrick.
“You will, if the food we have runs out.”
“Iwon’t, so you’d better well be as skilled a hunter as you claim, sir.”
Alinor whined.
To Evelyn’s surprise, MacKerrick actually laughed out loud, and the deep sound of his voice raised in mirth sent gooseflesh over her clammy skin. “We shall see, Eve. We shall see.”
The highlander’s moods seemed to change like the flicker of a flame.
Seeing no point in arguing with the maddening man over an issue Evelyn felt had been resolved, she let her eyes tick curiously across the line of objects MacKerrick had removed from the pack.
“Why was your brother about?” she asked, releasing Bonnie when the sheep strained toward Alinor. “Is there trouble at your village?”
“Town,” MacKerrick corrected. “Nae trouble, save nae enough food, as it was when I left. Duncan was bringing me more supplies.”
“He thinks you incapable of caring for yourself?”
MacKerrick shook his head and set the bundled plaid—not quite empty, Evelyn noted—slightly behind him. “I departed suddenly and, in truth, without much thought for what I’d need. Duncan thought I might be in want of some company by now, so he raided the house for anything I had lying about.”
“Why did you leave suddenly?”
MacKerrick eyed her in exasperation. “You’re full o’ questions, are you nae?”
“I answered yours last night,” Evelyn parried, undaunted. “Were you running away?”
“O’ course nae.”
“Were you banished?”
“You canna banish a clan chief from his own town, Eve.” He frowned then, as if the idea made him thoughtful.
“What then?” Evelyn’s curiosity goaded her on. It made no sense to her that a man such as MacKerrick would suddenly abandon his home in high winter, with inadequate supplies to maintain himself.
MacKerrick was silent for a long time before he sighed. “As I told you, my wife…died.” He rose, taking hold of a small sack of mysterious content, and crossed to the shelf. “I didna tell you, though, that ’twas quite recent.”
“Oh,” Evelyn said quietly, rebuking herself now for her refusal to drop the subject. For some reason, she was unsure she wanted reminding that MacKerrick had once been a married man. And now Evelyn knew that his wife had not faded comfortably into the highlander’s distant past, as Evelyn had been content to think.
“You’re in mourning, then.” It was not a question.
“Aye. I mourn,” MacKerrick answered in a low voice, fiddling with the sack.
“I’m sorry, MacKerrick,” Evelyn said, and realized it was the second time that day she’d felt the need to apologize to the man.
“You didna know,” he replied, his back still to her. “I—aaghh!”
Evelyn bolted to her feet at the highlander’s shout of surprise and his jump backward. “My God, what is it?”
Then he was chuckling and drawing his dagger from his belt. “Naught but a wee mouse, likely closed up with the barley when Duncan packed it. I’ll get rid of it.”
“Nay!” Evelyn cried and rushed forward, grabbing MacKerrick’s arm when he readied his dagger.
“Turn me loose, lass, else it’ll escape and be into our supplies.” The highlander tried to shake her off, but Evelyn clung to him like seaweed.
