Every few stalls they passed, Freya would look over her shoulder for his approval on whatever it was she was purchasing, but it was very difficult for him to properly pay attention to what she was showing him. He was more than happy to hold the bags, however. Something had shifted inside of him after the beachthe previous day, teaching her how to swim—and all of the rest of it.
They started to move toward the food stalls last, and he hefted her basket further up onto his arm. There, out in the crowd, he finally spotted the small group of people who were setting off his nerves. Out perusing the outskirts of the stalls were three men in clan uniforms. Something started to niggle at the back of his mind. Did he know that clan? The colors and print seemed somewhat familiar, but he couldn’t place them. It was like a dull throbbing in the back of his mind that he didn’t know how to clear.
Nathan’s gaze narrowed, watching as they started to move around, asking people questions. Were they the same people Freya had them running from in the first place? Reluctant to risk it, Nathan grabbed Freya’s arm by the elbow and pulled her sideways into a dark alleyway. He blocked her from view with his own body, keeping his back to the opening so that nobody would be able to recognize them as anything other than a couple taking a quiet moment for themselves.
“What’s happened?” Freya asked, alarm in her voice.
Nathan’s free hand lifted, covering the lower half of her face with his large hand, and Freya’s eyes widened even further. Her hands fisted into his shirt, keeping herself closer to him, pulling slightly. He was flattered that she trusted him enough not to fight him.
After a moment, the sound of boots walking past them registered, the men moving slowly. Freya ducked down just enough to see through the gap between Nathan’s arm and his body to see what it was they were hiding from. Her grip on him tightened but then they started to walk past the alleyway without properly looking in their direction. Neither one of them so much as breathed as the clan soldiers walked away.
As much as he didn’t want to risk them being caught, he also wanted them to move just a little bit slower, so he could linger like this for just a little bit longer.
Every passing moment was another breath shared between them. Freya’s hands were warm and solid against his chest, the curve of her waist small and delicate between his large hands. Nathan imagined pulling her even closer, pressing their bodies together to feel the heat of her on his skin, the curves of her body under his fingers. It would be so easy to kiss her that the temptation was almost overwhelming.
There was something about the way she was holding onto him, her fingers curling securely around the fabric of his shirt, that had his protective feelings flaring up inside him even more. Had he ever felt like this for anyone else in his life, he wondered? Could it be that Freya was the only one who could awaken such feelings within him? Had he ever met another woman who could make his heart flutter in his chest like this whenever she was close to him?
He couldn’t claim to know, but that didn’t change the fact she inspired such feelings within him. With every second, with everymoment they spent stuck in that tiny, cramped space, Nathan’s desire for her grew until it was almost unbearable. He craved to tighten his grip on her, to drag his hands over the swell of her curves, to press his lips against her rosy mouth. Every small, stuttering breath she took, every minuscule movement rippled through him, warmth coiling in his stomach and radiating out to his limbs. He recognized it for what it was—desire, unbridled and unceasing, the kind of passion that he thought he would remember had he experienced it before.
When he glanced at her, he found her looking back up at him, her green eyes with the flecks of gold in them wide and doe-like. There was a beat—a single moment in which Nathan thought Freya would bridge the gap between them, perhaps even chase his lips. Time seemed to stall, coming to a standstill between them. The very air they shared seemed to turn heavy and thick, like honey. Nathan could hear the shudder of each breath, the hitch of it as neither of them looked away.
And then the footsteps fully retreated, the men disappearing down the street. It was something of a miracle that the men hadn’t even glanced down the alleyway, far too deep in their own conversations to bother looking in their direction. It suited them just fine. The farther away they stayed, the safer it was for him and Freya.
Slowly, reluctantly, the pair of them released their holds on each other. Nathan could have sworn she was just as disappointed to part from him, just as reluctant as he was. And yet, neither of them spoke a word of it, the tension between them dissipating until there was nothing left but the memory of the threat they had just encountered.
“Dae they look like the same men?” Nathan asked her, whispering for good measure. Not only was this a safer topic of conversation than confronting the reality of his feelings, but it also had to be asked. If they were the same men, it could only mean that they had somehow tracked him here, all the way to Kinloch.
Freya shrugged. “I didnae get a good enough look at them tae ken fer sure. But it cannae be a coincidence that they are looking here so soon after we’ve arrived, right?”
“I cannae imagine why I would be a wanted man,” he admitted, trying to remember if they had seen anything even close to his likeness posted around, but he couldn’t remember any such thing.
“We should get back to the inn.” Freya suggested, and he couldn’t agree more. The sooner they boarded that ship the following day, the better.
Slowly, carefully, the pair of them made their way back to the inn. Avoiding the main street. At Freya’s insistence, Nathan headed straight upstairs to their room just in case. With the scene he had made the day before at breakfast, it was unlikely anybody would have forgotten what he looked like. It was equally as unlikely they would have any reason to refrain from giving him up should the soldiers come around looking for him again. They would simply have to hope and pray people would not give him away if asked, or that the soldiers simply wouldn’tthink to check the inn. Nathan was almost willing to bribe the innkeeper, though they really had nothing to offer him. He desperately wished he had something more to offer; it would just make things easier. But it was not for himself that Nathan was truly worried. He didn’t want Freya to be put into a position where she would be in trouble. If the soldiers came around looking for them, and thought that she was somehow harboring him, aiding in anything, would she be arrested as well?
He couldn’t allow that. Nathan knew he cared about Freya far too much for that.
No, if those soldiers came looking for him, he was going to have to escape out a window or do anything in his power to ensure nothing happened to her. She was far too stubborn to let him simply face trouble on his own.
Nathan crossed their small room to the window, eyeing it carefully. It wasn’t the drop that worried him so much; it was the fact that he wasn’t entirely certain he was going to be able to twist and pull his body out of the small frame.
Contemplatively, he spun and started to look out around the room, eyeing their meager belongings and tucking them all together in an orderly fashion. It was the least he could do. He finished quickly, letting his boots warm by the fire to ensure they were nice and dry before they left on the ship the following morning.
Freya came up into the room with hot meals for the two of them only a few moments later.
“I think it will be all right.” Freya said unprompted as she passed him a plate. She set her own down on the edge of the bed before pulling her boots off and placing them beside his in front of the fire. She then carried her plate over to the blanket they had laid out the previous night, and settled herself upon it like it was already a domestic routine of theirs.
Nathan’s heart thudded in his chest.
Those were not the sort of thoughts he had no right to be having about her. He hardly knew her at all; he hardly knew himself. He was, apparently, a wanted man. He didn’t even know his own name and yet there he was, falling into this domestic routine with the first woman who had shown him kindness.
Then again, Freya had not simply shown him kindness. She had saved him; she had single-handedly brought him back from the dead.
He bit his bottom lip to keep quiet, and an in effort to use the pain from his rapidly healing split lip to center and ground himself as she started to speak while eating. It was all just so comfortable that he could hardly stand it.
“I wish I kent why those men are looking fer me.” Nathan admitted, watching her eat and fan her skirt around herself as she nodded thoughtfully.
“I agree. I cannae think of anything… and yet, ye are the only visitor tae arrive at our village recently.” Freya said.
