Suspecting that was where she was heading, Cam made his move.
As the woman entered the trees, Cam came up behind her with great stealth and snatched her basket all in one movement.
“Where are ye going,górach?” he said.
The woman gasped in outrage and perhaps even a little fear. As Cam stood there, his eyes glimmering with mirth, the woman turned on him with considerable agility and balled her fists.
“Give me back my pelts,” she snarled.
Cam couldn’t help the smile on his lips now. It was indeed the lass from the Vale of Demons. She’d grown from a skinny, freckled girl into a lush and beautiful woman. She wasquitebeautiful, actually. He found himself staring at her pale skin and rosebud mouth, but that was the last thing he remembered before a fist came flying at his face.
Down he went.
The woman reached down and yanked the basket of pelts from his hands as Cam shook off the stars. He put his hand to his nose, noting a small bit of blood as she turned and continued her trek.
He lumbered to his feet.
“Wait,” he said. “I wasna trying tae rob ye. Dunna ye remember me?”
She came to a halt, turning to him warily. She looked him up and down. “Should I?”
He felt embarrassed that she didn’t recognize him as he’d recognized her. “It has been several years,” he said. “I was just a lad when we first met in the Vale of Morning. Ye called megórachand tried tae steal my birds’ eggs. Ye know…górach? Do ye remember now?”
She stared at him a moment before her eyes widened. “Górach,” she repeated slowly. “Birds’ eggs, ye say?”
“Aye. Ye tried tae take them from me but we made an agreement instead.”
Her mouth popped open as the memory came clear. “Ye promised tae bring me more!”
He nodded, grinning as he realized that she did, indeed, remember him. “I did.”
“Ye never brought them back.”
“But I dinna saywhenI’d bring ye the eggs. There’s still time.”
He’d caught her on a technicality. She eyed him with an appraising expression, as she retraced her steps in his direction.
“’Tis true,” she said reluctantly. “So just when did ye intend tae?”
His smile broadened. “Soon,” he said. “But I’ve been very busy.”
“Doing what? Accosting women and stealing their baskets?”
He laughed softly, flashing big, white teeth. “Ye accosted me, once,” he said. “I was returning the favor.”
It was clear that she was trying very hard not to smile; he was rather witty and charming. “Górach,” she repeated softly when she came to within a foot of him, studying the man who’d grown from the boy she’d once remembered. “So it is yerself. Ye’ve grown up.”
“So have ye.”
“But not so much that ye dinna recognize me.”
He clasped his hands behind his back. “Yer hair,” he said. “I recognized yer hair. I saw it once in the vale and when I saw ye again in town, I knew it right away.”
“Red hair is nothing in the Highlands.”
“But yers looks like molten metal.”
Her brow furrowed as she pulled up a strand, looking at it. “It does?”
