‘Och, nay!’ He laughed and it made her blood heat. The deep tones of his voice echoed through her. Again. ‘I am a tracker.’
‘Tracker?’ Her blood, heated just a moment before, ran cold then at the reminder of his skills. ‘What do you seek?’ How could she have forgotten such a critical part of him? His answer chilled her even more.
* * *
‘Whoever or whatever is lost.’
They arrived at Clara’s cottage and, just as he’d predicted, Wee Jamie and Wee Clara were there waiting. Relief poured through her as they discovered the children were well and not lost.
‘Your bairns gave Mistress MacPherson quite a scare, Clara,’ he called out as he reached back to help her down. With a strong grip on her arm, she slid over the side of the horse and stood as Clara came out, carrying the youngest one. Sorcha noticed the loss of the warmth of his body as soon as her feet landed on the ground there. ‘I found her over near the stream on the other side of the village.’
‘I lost them and feared they would find harm,’ she said. ‘One moment we were all enjoying a bit of warm bread and then next, they were gone.’
Clara laughed as she approached Sorcha. Throwing her arm around her shoulders, her cousin pulled her close. Alan climbed from his horse then and stood watching.
‘They are fast ones,’ Clara agreed. The woman released her when her husband came around the side of the cottage from the building where he worked. ‘Jamie, the wee uns gave Saraid quite a scare.’
James smiled at her and nodded. ‘You are not the first one to find them gone.’ He walked over and extended his arm to Alan in greeting. ‘But I see the Cameron tracker found you right quick. He is skilled at finding things and people, too.’
A wave of warning unlike anything she’d ever felt passed through her at those words. Another reminder that she could not let this attraction to him go any further than it had since she doubted she could stop the physical reaction of her body to his strength and his heat. But she needed to be circumspect and not give someone like Alan Cameron a reason to look more closely at her. She swallowed the ever-present fear and nodded at James.
‘Aye, I was lucky that he was travelling past when I found myself running in circles with no idea of how to get here.’ Sorcha smiled then as the others chuckled at her words. ‘Better for me was that he knew the children well enough to assure me that they would be safe.’
Alan took the sacks from where he’d tied them and held them out to her. Retrieving them, she walked to the cottage doorway. Clara guided the children to her and, as they went inside, Sorcha fought the urge to stand and gawp as he followed James back to the smithy. She did take one last look and was startled when that blue-green-grey gaze stared back at her.
* * *
Alan could not help staring back at Saraid.
He’d known he’d see her here, for she was living with Jamie and his wife now and he would be spending time here working with his friend. Seeing the panic and fear in her gaze when she ran out on the road tore him apart. Then, the hope in her voice when he spoke of the bairns’ habit of doing this gave him ease. He’d met her once and yet found himself with some sort of connection or affinity to her. Strange that.
The feel of her body leaning against him during the ride here had been a pleasurable torment. Her soft curves pressed against his back and her hands around his waist made him wish she would move just a bit closer. Tempted to grab her hands and guide them down, he fought the need and allowed her to find purchase by grabbing his plaid instead.
The purely physical reaction surprised him because he knew about her plans.
A convent. A nun. She was so full of life that he could not imagine her shut away from the world to face a future of sacrifice and prayer. He hoped the Almighty was not offended by his thought that the religious life would be a terrible waste. Or that the way his body reacted to her nearness and innocent touches counted as a sin against his soul.
Following Jamie past the cottage and to the smithy, Alan hoped that some hard work would drive this unusual fascination and fleshly need from him. And take his mind off the concerns over his uncle’s possible machinations.
When her laughter first drifted from the cottage’s open windows across to where they plied the fire and iron tools, he lost the battle. He forced his attention on the tasks he carried out once, then twice and then again before Jamie laughed aloud.
‘A bit distracted, are you then, Alan?’ Jamie said. He put down the plough blade he was cleaning and sharpening and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his arm. ‘She is a fair one.’ Alan put down the large hammer he was using to pound out a new horseshoe and nodded.
‘Aye. What do you know of her, Jamie?’ he asked. ‘How long will she be visiting?’
‘Are you planning to be here more often or avoid us depending on the answer to that question?’
Alan answered with a rude gesture and shook his head.
‘Nay, neither. I am just curious.’ He wiped his own brow and shrugged. ‘There is something different about her. Something...interesting.’
‘You mean other than her beauty and her kindness to my wife and bairns?’ Jamie offered. ‘And that I never knew my wife had a widowed cousin?’
‘You did not know?’ At Jamie’s shake of his head, Alan continued, ‘When did you know she was coming to stay?’
‘When I returned to the cottage from working up at the keep with Dougal and found her here. But, she’s kin, aye? So she’s welcome here as long as she needs to be.’
‘That’s what kin does,’ he agreed as he picked up the hammer and turned back to his work.
