“Blazing heather!” Ronan’s brows shot upward; his jaw dropped.
He swung down from his saddle, starting forward in disbelief.
But there could be no mistake.
The great tongue-lolling, tail-wagging beast sitting before him wasn’t some mysterious denizen from hell.
It was Buckie.
Chapter Ten
By all the Powers!” Ronan stared at his dog, eyes wide. Disbelief and amazement buzzed in his head. “What mummery is this?”
A familiar bark tried to explain.
But Ronan only shook his head and ran an agitated hand through his hair.
The beastcouldn’tbe here.
Yet there he sat, head cocked and eyes bright. His bony haunches rested almost smack in the middle of a slimy red-green patch of sphagnum moss and his swish-swishing tail was more than a little mud-grimed, as were his legs.
Sticky bits of bracken clung to his shaggy, gray- tufted coat.
He smelled abominably.
Ronan hadn’t seen the dog look happier in years.
But he’d kill the miscreant who had set him loose.
Fury tightened his chest. His golden torque seemed to squeeze his neck, making it difficult to breathe. He started forward, hands clenched at his sides, the dog’s obvious joy at being out only flaming his anger.
After this, Buckie’s confinement to the keep would prove even more difficult than before.
And that was a crime beyond payment.
Ronan’s mood darkened and he stepped wrongly, his foot sliding on the slick dead leaves matting the narrow little deer track.
“God’s curse!” he roared, his arms flailing before he righted himself.
When he did, he scowled all the blacker, tried not to be moved by Buckie’s panting, tongue-lolling excitement.
Whether the foray pleased the old dog or not, he could have done irreparable damage to his hips.
Creag na Gaoith was a goodly distance from Dare Castle. The terrain between was rough and challenging. A man riding a sure-footed, stout-hearted garron required all his skill and several hours to reach the Rock of the Wind and its little boulder-rimmed lochan.
That Buckie had made it so far was nothing less than a wonder.
And — as Ronan had already decided — the sure death of whoe’er proved responsible.
Spurts of anger shooting all through him, he bent to scoop Buckie into his arms. If need be — and it appeared such was the case — he’d hold the aged dog clamped across his lap for the ride back to Dare.
It was then that he caught the scent of cookfires.
The mouthwatering aroma of choice sides of beef roasting slowly on carefully tended spits.
A faint tinge of Norse ale, and if his senses weren’t lying, a distinct whiff of fiery Highlanduisge beatha.
Water-of-life, and every Highlander’s cure-all, the much-prized spirits had naught to do in this benighted place, the devil’s own playing ground.
