Bridget shrugged off the compliment, but a deep pink colored her cheeks as she guided her horse next to his.
“Is it possible we err in following the others toward Dunvegan, do you think?” she asked.
Hall had considered that very question more than once since they’d first found the tracks he was sure had been left behind by the party from Castle MacGahan.
“I only bring it up because it feels fair odd to me that we’ve found no sign of Mathew and his young companion for the past day. After following their tracks to the glen where we met, we’ve since found no sign of them on the trails. No sign of anything but the tracks of our own men.”
“You raise a good point,” he agreed. “Tomorrow we’ll begin again with a fresh eye to refocus our efforts. We’ll scour the area until we find some sign of the ones we need to find.”
Another half hour of travel and Hall located what he sought, a safe place for them to set up their camp for the night.
“If I’m to clean your little beastie here, we’d best make camp now, before it’s too dark for me to deal with him properly.”
“A good spot,” she murmured appreciatively, pulling ahead of him to investigate his choice. “Our backs to the rocks and running water beyond. I approve.”
Just as she had a gift for the bow and arrow, one of his talents lay in his ability to locate a good campsite. After so many years spent living off the land, he’d learned to seek his comfort where he could.
Together they set up camp and tended to their animals, before Hall busied himself with preparing the rabbit.
“While you finish with that, I’m going upstream a bit. I’ll be back shortly.” Bridget pulled a small bundle from her pack and walked toward the water.
“Stay close.” He knew that she didn’t really need his reminder, but he felt compelled to give it anyway. “Within hearing distance of my voice.”
She laughed over her shoulder, a lilting, happy sound that slid under his best defenses.
“And how far might that be, eh? How am I to ken the distance yer voice will reach? Will you sing for me, Hall, that I might know when I’ve gone too far?”
If he hadn’t enjoyed the sound of her laughter so much, he just might have been offended by such an audacious woman.
“O’Donar men do not sing.”
She stopped and turned to look at him, her face clearly showing surprise. “Never? Everyone sings a bit now and then.”
He shook his head in denial. “Not without several tankards of very strong ale, and a crowd to drown out the pitiful noise we make.”
His reward for his honesty was more of her beautiful laughter as she turned and disappeared beyond the bushes.
With the rabbit cleaned at last and threaded upon the spit, he decided to take it down to the water for a quick rinse. He couldn’t abide biting into meat covered with the small hairs left behind by a neglectful cleaning. He might live as a heathen, but that didn’t mean he had to be one.
As he made his way beyond the bushes, he caught the faint sound of something equally as lovely as Bridget’s laughter. Somewhere upstream, just around the curve and hidden from his view, her voice lilted on the air. Not a melody he recognized, but an ancient one, he felt sure, based on the language in which she sang. Perhaps her song, like the markings on her body, originated with her ancestors.
Like a bee to a blooming flower, he found himself drawn toward the source of the enticing sound.
She kneeled at the water’s edge, wearing only her shift in spite of the cold. The last rays of the day glimmered on the fast-flowing water as she dipped her hand down and brought it back up to scrub against her face.
She stood, and sunlight reflecting off the water glowed up around her in shades of pink and silver. Her shift slipped down to reveal the shapely contours of her back, where a blue serpent wound its way around a sword that disappeared below what the shift still covered.
Hall couldn’t have turned away if his life depended upon it. Though the markings on her face had faded a bit, those on her back were a bright vivid blue and he could almost swear the lines glowed with movement as the sunlight shone upon them.
Listening to her voice, seeing her standing there, Hall wanted nothing so much as to toss aside the spit he held and rush forward. To take her in his arms and cover her luscious, full lips with his own. He wanted to lay her down on the furs she’d dropped at her feet and bury himself inside her warmth.
He wanted her, body and soul. He wanted her for his very own.
Fool that he was. She was not meant for the likes of him.
He began to back away as quietly as he’d approached, stopping when her melody abruptly ceased.
“I dinna recall having invited an audience to watch me bathe.”
