MacKerrick made no response, and so Evelyn turned and stomped back across the floor.
She had barely thrown herself onto the bed before she began to sob.
Chapter Eight
Well, he’d done it now.
Conall threw his quiver and bow to the ground and slumped into a cold, wet seat, his back to the hut. He balled a fist and took a swing at the frigid air, a short bark of frustration released as a fluffy, ineffective cloud of steam.
His da had always criticized Conall as being too impulsive, too like his uncle Ronan, and Conall had to at last admit that Dáire had been right. It had always been Conall’s manner when faced with a problem to heed his first, knee-jerk reaction, rather than step back and think. Thinking an issue to death wasted time, in Conall’s opinion. ’Twas best to take action—any action.
He was no idiot, after all. His instincts were usually spot-on. If an animal attacked you, you killed it.
If an item—particularly an item once belonging to a now-deceased old witch who had condemned your people to the brink of extinction—was cursed, you destroyed it.
If something was afire, you put it out.
If a bullheaded lass would not heed your warning for her own bloody safety—
Well, you shouldna kiss her, obviously.
Conall groaned and dropped his head into his hands.
What had possessed him to heed such a foolish impulse? Had it been the sweet longing in her eyes as she’d clutched the witch’s cloak to her breast? The rosy flush of her cheeks in her otherwise pale face as she’d argued with him? Or had it been but a remainder of Conall’s jangling nerves from his encounter with the gray at Ronan’s tree? He’d needed to distract Eve from the blasted cloak, aye, but surely he could have thought of a way to do it that didn’t involve further stirring his own already strained libido. It was as if he’d been unable to stop himself.
He’d likely frightened her—she’d at one time been committed to a religious life, for Christ’s sake—how much experience with a man could she have? And he knew he’d made her angry, as evidenced by the sound of the mead jug shattering against the door. Conall would likely have to start all over again to regain any semblance of Eve’s trust.
If she ever let him back in the hut.
But hadn’t Eve returned his kiss, there at the end? In fact, hadn’t she been sliding her small, cool hands up the front of his léine, toward his neck?
Conall shook his head in disgust. She’d likely been readying to strangle him, was all.
A sharp crack, like the sound of a branch being stepped on, and the hollow snuffling of a large animal drew Conall’s attention.
He looked at the sky. Evening was fast approaching and the grays would likely win the deer before Conall could stalk it to a kill. ’Twas too late in the day to enter the wood. On the trail of big game, Conall knew how easy it was to lose track of time and distance, making himself a bit of a hunt for the crazed wolves. If he never returned to the hut, Eve would be damned.
Mayhap the deer would step from the tree line, giving Conall a clear shot with his bow. He sighed.
And mayhap Alinor would take up on her hind legs and dance a jig.
It seemed as though he was thwarted at every turn. Conall suspected the best thing to do would be to wait until the weather gentled a bit and deliver Eve to the Buchanans. Mayhap Angus Buchanan would be so pleased at having a member of his clan returned that he would forgive the debt he believed he was owed and the curse would be lifted. Conall could return to the MacKerrick town and never have to mention the days spent with Eve Buchanan. No one would starve, and the tension on all sides—between the clans and also between him and Eve—would at last come to an end.
Conall could forget Eve, her wolf, her ridiculous mouse, had ever existed. The lass had certainly been through enough of a trial, journeying from England to find her ancestral home.
She did not need Conall further mucking up her life.
A flash of gray on the fringe of the wood caught his eye and Conall felt his heart skip, fearing the wicked wolves.
But itwasa deer, now frozen in place, its muzzle raised and sniffing the air. It took a hesitant step into the clearing.
Conall slid his hand to his quiver lying near his hip, never taking his eyes from the scrawny, leggy deer. His fingertips brushed the fletching of an arrow, and he slowly inched it from the quiver along the ground. He slid his bow up flat onto his lap.
The deer started and turned its head, its ears flicking, its tail up. Conall froze, not daring to even breathe.
Please, God…just a moment longer…
After what seemed an eternity, the deer dropped its nose to the snow.
