Jamie frowned at Toran. Until she showed up and beat him at his own game, he’d been fine leading her a merry chase all through these woods.
“I willna be alone,” she argued, her gaze shifting quickly to Toran as she made her point, then back to Jamie. “I’ll be withye.” She held his gaze, challenge and something else sparking from her eyes.
Jamie’s pulse quickened. What was she implying? She’d always seemed to want Toran’s attention, but her gaze stayed locked with his, as if Toran was not with them. Had she finally realized he was more her friend than Toran would ever be?
“Ye canna fight,” Toran insisted. “Ye’ll be a danger to us if we have to protect ye.”
Color bloomed across her cheeks and nose. She narrowed her eyes at Toran’s words, and the flush on her face told Jamie she was still in a mood to fight him. This was getting them nowhere.
“I’ll go back with ye to the keep,” Jamie said. The words were out before he gave them any thought. And the look Toran gave him promised trouble later. But in this, Toran was right. If they were attacked — by wolves or anything else, she’d be a liability. “Toran can carry on. While we go, we may add to yer count, and later, we’ll see if he can match what ye caught.”
Caitrin gave him a grateful look and nodded.
Toran huffed out a breath and aimed a glare at Jamie. “Go on with ye, then. I’ve work to do for both of us now that ye would rather spend time with a lass.”
Jamie met Toran’s glare with a shrug Toran was welcome to interpret any way he liked, then gestured for Caitrin to precede him.
Behind her back, Toran grinned. Jamie turned his, telling Toran he was not pleased with his behavior. Not that Toran would care. He’d gotten his way.
Both Jamie and Caitrin took down two more coneys on the edge of the glen. Inside the Aerie’s gates, they headed for the kitchen and gave Cook the rabbits.
“Thank ye, Jamie,” she told him after a nod to Caitrin.
“Dinna thank me,” he told Cook. “Most of those are Caitrin’s contribution.”
“Well done, lass. Thank ye.”
Caitrin smiled at the praise.
“Do ye ken yer herbs as well as how to catch game?”
“I do,” Caitrin responded. “What do ye need?”
Cook mentioned several herbs. “They grow in the glen and along the woods, nay in the Aerie’s garden. The next time ye venture out of the keep, ye might keep an eye out for them.”
“I’m pleased to be of help to ye,” Caitrin told her. “We can go back down now.”
Jamie kept his groan to himself. What Caitrin proposed was exactly what his sister wanted him to do. But this would be with Caitrin. Alone. “Aye, we can, Cook,” he said, “if ye need these things today.”
“I need them every day to flavor yer food,” she reminded him. “Better fresh, though I dry some to use during the winter. And many are useful in poultices and the like. Ye might ask the healer before ye go.”
Well, that put a point to it. He’d not talk Caitrin out of this errand now. Not when she could contribute to Cookandthe healer.
“Will ye truly go back with me, Jamie? Toran seemed concerned…”
Toran concerned? Well, true, but he had been more concerned with sending her back up the tor and out of his hair than he had been with her safety. “Of course I will.” No one would keep him from the chance to spend time alone with her. Those opportunities were rare, indeed, in a busy keep like the Aerie. And with Toran occupied elsewhere, Jamie might have the time he needed to find out more about Caitrin, and to discern where her affections were directed—at Toran, as he’d always thought, or at him. The looks she’d given him earlier in the woods made him hope for the latter.
After Caitrin collected a basket from Cook for the herbs, they visited the healer to find out what she needed, then went back down the trail to the glen. The day had warmed from the morning chill. Bees and butterflies danced from flower to flower, making the grasses and shrubs filling the glen seem alive with sound and motion.
“’Tis bonnie, aye?” Jamie kept his gaze firmly on the hills in the distance, but what he truly meant was Caitrin. Yet he dared not tell her, not in so many words, and not yet. Not until he knew he’d been right to think she wanted to spend time alone with him, and not with Toran.
“Aye. And look! There are the cowberries both Cook and the healer need.” Caitrin moved quickly to pluck several handfuls while she set Jamie to gathering wild onions for the kitchen.
After an hour of silent toil, broken only by her exclamations when she discovered another plant needed in the keep, Jamie realized he would have to be happy to watch her hair in the light and her shape as she moved and stretched for the plant she intended to pick. She fascinated him—and he wished she felt the same about him, but from the corner of his eye, he hadn’t caught her gaze straying to him. Not even once. She’d ignored him save to ask his help to dig up something she couldn’t pull from the ground. He was beginning to give up hope of having enough of a conversation to understand her feelings.
Finally, they moved under the shade of the forest lining the glen. Jamie hoped Toran was nowhere nearby. Or that he had already gone back up to the keep, taking more coneys to Cook. They hadn’t seen him, but he could have gotten by them easily. Jamie’s attention had been divided by their quest and Caitrin’s nearness. And a general watchful eye for predators, even more acute now that they had ventured under the trees.
Before long, Caitrin’s basket was full enough for Jamie to insist on carrying it for her. He kept watch while she searchedfor more herbs. The Aerie’s tor was out of sight now, behind rows of trees, which meant they were out of sight of the guards on the Aerie’s walls. If trouble found them here, they would have to meet it on the strength of Jamie’s dirk andsgian dubh. He started wishing he had a claymore on his back, then chided himself for being foolishly anxious. He and Toran had explored these woods countless times with no problems. He had no reason to expect any today.
