“Evelyn!” Conall’s bellow fairly shook the mighty tree trunks surrounding them. Although the use of her full name did give her cause for a quirked eyebrow, Evelyn had no fear of Conall’s anger.
“I’m here!We’rehere!” she called over her shoulder with a laugh as Alinor licked her neck frantically.
Conall was visible in an instant, stomping through the deep slush in only his tunic and boots. “Eve? Where—?” Then he spied them and rushed to join the pair, going to his knees and throwing his long, strong arms about them both. He was laughing.
“Alinor, you ninny!” he barked in a joyous roar. Then he kissed the wolf’s wide, matted forehead. “Andyou—” He pressed his lips to Evelyn’s and she eagerly returned his smiling kiss. “You promised, Eve.”
“I woke you!” Evelyn laughed and then paused as she heard Bonnie’s panicked cries. “Bonnie, to us. Here, lovely!”
The sheep came skipping awkwardly through the trees, and Evelyn wanted to fall against Conall in hysterical laughter when she spied Sebastian balanced precariously on the sheep’s shaggy shoulders. Alinor broke free from Evelyn and Conall to greet her friends with a playful snap of her jaws, Sebastian squawking and flapping madly for balance.
Conall turned his face to Evelyn’s and gave her a mock frown. “Evelyn Buchanan Godewin MacKerrick—what were you thinking, lass, running in such a fashion? Have you nae care for the bairn you carry, wife?”
Evelyn rolled her eyes. “Conall, I—”
’Twas at that moment that the man Evelyn had completely forgotten about fell out of the tree with a strangled yelp and disappeared into a snowdrift.
“Christ!” Conall shouted and shot to his feet, jumping between the stranger and Evelyn.
“Nae Christ, I’m sorry to say.” A wiry, balding, stick of a man scrambled from the snow and to his feet, still clutching at a bent twig trap containing a tiny, tumbling brown hare. His slim cheeks were high with color, and his clothing was askew and powdered white.
“Duncan?”
“Hallow, Conall,” Duncan said breathlessly. “I didna know the wolf you warned me about was some sort of kin of our’n.” His head turned to Evelyn and he smiled broadly, almost mischievously. “Hallow toyou, missus.” He thrust the trap toward her. “I’ve brung you a rabbit.”
Evelyn’s gaze flew from Duncan to Conall, back to Duncan, her mouth agape until Alinor tackled her again. She grabbed the wolf and dragged the animal half onto her lap when Duncan dropped into a crouch, his arms outstretched defensively.
“Hallow, Duncan,” Evelyn laughed, so giddy with the feel of her beloved animal in her arms that good sense had fled her. “Alinor will not harm you, although sheisa very naughty girl.” She gave Duncan what she hoped was a sincere smile of welcome. “Thank you very much for the rabbit. I shall call him Robert.”
Chapter Fourteen
Evelyn all but skipped back to the cottage, Sebastian under her arm, Robert in his trap in her other fist, and flanked by Bonnie and Alinor. Conall and Duncan followed some paces behind, talking in hushed tones and exchanging halfhearted shoves and punches, a particularly stiff blow from Conall nearly toppling the smaller Duncan.
What a mismatched pair they are, Evelyn thought as she led her menagerie through the open doorway. But Conall had warned her that he and his brother looked nothing alike. Conall had also told Eve that Lana MacKerrick doted on the more frail twin, but it did not seem to bother Conall in the least. He loved his brother and did not begrudge him their mother’s attention. Conall had taken after their father, and Dáire MacKerrick had made Conall his own constant companion. Evelyn thought it quite lovely that each of the MacKerrick parents had a child to lavish their individual affection on.
Evelyn paused for an instant while cleaning out Whiskers’s bowl and scattering a pinch of grain next to the mouse. Could she be carrying twins, as well? She could not discern the rush of emotion she felt as either fear or excitement and so tried to shut the possibility from her mind.
Conall ducked inside the hut for a moment to grab the mead jug with a boyish grin before returning to his brother outside.
Whiskers and then Sebastian tended to, Evelyn provided food and water for the skittish hare and then gathered some supplies in order to examine Alinor more thoroughly.
The wolf’s ear was indeed torn, though not as badly as Evelyn had feared once the sticky blood was meticulously rinsed away. Searching gingerly through Alinor’s thick fur to the skin revealed half a score of puncture marks, blossoming purple bruises on pale skin. Several of her long, black claws were torn and split. Alinor’s sleek underbelly was crisscrossed with scratches and punctuated with small, crackling burrs, as if she had slid, spread-eagle, through brambles. And the stench of her!
The wolf appeared quite content to lie quietly under Evelyn’s ministrations and to enjoy the loving attention being spilled over her. Her yellow eyes flickered closed and before Evelyn was half finished, Alinor was snoring softly.
“What a night you must have had,” she murmured sympathetically as she swirled the rag in the water a final time—she didn’t think Conall would mind that she’d used a drop or two of his precious oil. Alinor deserved a bit of pampering.
When Evelyn rose with her supplies, Bonnie clattered over out of a worried pace and settled on the floor nearly atop Alinor’s rump. The wolf raised her wide head drowsily to look down her length at the sheep and then flopped back onto her side, instantly asleep once again.
Evelyn smiled and took a moment just to revel in the happiness she felt. She held her precious sense of well-being close as she stepped to the doorway to check on her husband and his brother.
They sat facing each other a short distance from the house, Conall making use of a rotted stump while Duncan perched upon an overturned bucket. They passed the jug between them while they talked and although Evelyn couldn’t quite hear them, their gestures and volume hinted that their discussion was a lively one.
She could see a resemblance between them now—in their postures, the way they held out a palm to make a point, the identical angle of their arms when they raised the jug to drink.
Her husband and his brother. Evelyn’s brother-in-law. Her child’s uncle.
She laid a hand on her belly while she called out to the men.
