I shift. “What about your family? Clan Black?”
“Black?” He gives me the strangest look—amused and sad at the same time. Then his expression brightens, and it’s almost too bright. A brittle sort of upbeat. “We’re trifling, we are. Few, but wily. Perhaps we’ll rise someday to the fight.” With a shake of his head, he says, “Enough of that.”
He pulls his scrap of metal from the oil and holds it out. “A rose for Rosie.”
I gasp.
The tiny bit of iron has become a delicate flower. All his twisting and twirling stretched it into ribbons, creating layered petals—a half-opened bud, shimmering and raw.
“It’s beautiful.”
I look up at him. The gray of his eyes is silver in the morning light. The moment holds for so long, it feels like I’ve time-traveled again.
I break it. “You made that for me?” I reach for it.
“Ah! Too hot yet.” He pulls it back, looking away.
The flush from the hot forge has spread, darkening his cheeks into a color that has nothing to do with heat.
Is he blushing?
“Heating up the lassies, are ye?”
I jump.
A new voice. Mocking.
I whirl just as an arm drapes over my shoulders. A stranger, smirking at Callum. “Who’s this you’ve been hiding?”
I angle away, sizing the man up.
He’s cute, in a stocky lacrosse-bro way. Sandy blond hair. Eyes almost too pale a blue. Older than me, but his cheeks still have that young, fleshy look. Mid-twenties, max.
Callum is weighing a reply, but his teeth seem too gritted to speak.
The new guy laughs. “I believe the stable boy thought he could keep you for himself. But you can’t hide from me, lass.” He winks.
I know his type. The guys with rich dads, early admission to Princeton, and BMWs for graduation. The thought spikes defiance through my veins. I didn’t cave to them then, and I won’t now.
“I’m not hiding.” I slip out from under his arm. “Just working.”
“Mmm-hm.” He watches me like a cat eyeing a sparrow. “My father told me about you. Said you were a firebrand. I had to see for myself.”
He reaches for me again, fingertips brushing my shoulder. “Hot to the touch?”
I edge away, and he laughs. “My Da also calls you a wee fool. Are you then?”
I look to Callum. “What’s he talking about?”
Callum stands stiff as steel, his face blank. But his eyes burn.
“His father,” Callum says tightly, “thelaird. He thinks you’re daft.”
His gaze locks onto mine, heavy with warning.Take this seriously.
His father is the Campbell laird? I fight the urge to recoil, but I push through it, shooting this guy my best glare. He only explodes into laughter.
“You’re a tonic,” he says, looking genuinely amused. Between the good looks and fine clothes, I bet serving girls usually fawn over him.
