Page 28 of Highlander’s Mercenary Lass

"Well, I think we should bed down for the night." His eyes met hers suggestively. Grace blinked. She wasn't imagining it. He really was looking at her with the intensity of a thousand suns. At least, that's what it felt like.

Grace felt his eyes bore through her and was forced to turn away before she gave her answer.

"Where?" she said bluntly. They walked on in silence, both horses trotting together neck and neck. After a short while, Andrew stopped.

"Here," he said, indicating a patch of grass by a small glade of Scots pine trees. "It's flat, an' dry, an' well protected. Well, as much as anywhere in Scotland."

Grace followed on, pretending to inspect the patch of land studiously. "Aye," she said slowly. "It'll do."

Silently, they set up camp. Well, Andrew did most of the setting up. Grace’s only role was to stand by. Amused, Grace watched.

Let him do all the graft, she thought.

It wasn't as if she hadn't done it herself at least two thousand times over the last couple of years. Did Andrew really think that as a warrior-for-hire, she had never camped out overnight?

Grace shrugged. That was his outlook if he did. In the meantime, she got to feast her eyes on his firmed muscular thighs, peeking beneath his woolen plaid. Every time he bent his knees, her eyes were trained on him. She had never seen such toned calves; they were rigid and perfect in their dimensions. Slowly, she followed the slope of his curves up until his perfect rump was covered by his clan plaid.

She watched as Andrew toiled, unpacking the tenting from the knapsack and nailing in the tent plugs. Every stroke of the hammer made his torso ripple, and she was unable to rip her eyes away from his rugged frame.

Eventually, he finished the makeshift tent and beckoned to Grace to inspect it. Smiling, she came over to look at it, inspecting its fittings and fabrics carefully.

"Aye, it'll do," said Grace wryly. Then she grabbed a slightly loose segment of tenting. "But I usually stake it in a wee bit more tightly."

The tent plug came out in Grace's hand, leaving a gaping hole in the side.

"Och! There's nothing wrong with it!" Andrew cried, instantly jumping up.

"Nothing wrong wi' it? It's collapsing in, lad!" tutted Grace. "Look!"

She jabbed the side of the tenting with her finger, and immediately, the whole thing collapsed inwards. Andrew was not amused.

Grace, on the other hand, could hardly stop laughing.

"Looks like ye could do wi' a wee lesson in how tae put up a tent," she observed wryly. Andrew looked around.

"It was perfect afore ye interfered wi' it," he said but had softened. Joining him, Grace helped him redo the tent until this time, all the pegs were tightly in the ground.

Then, when they were done, she lay down, gazing up at the woolen covering. Outside, the stars twinkled, and a pale moonlight told her they had gotten settled just in time.

Grace shivered beneath her light shawl and wished she had brought something warmer with her.

Seeing her shiver, Andrew produced a thick shawl and wrapped her shoulders in it.

"Thank ye," she murmured, feeling strange, as the pair of them laid together beneath the tenting.

There was a pause, Andrew helped her tuck up tight, and for the first time in years, she felt swaddled, like a baby.

Grace's mind turned to thoughts of childhood. Out of the blue, she turned to Andrew.

"Do I look like him?" she asked, suddenly serious.

Baffled, Andrew looked at her. "Look like him?" he asked, lost. His wide green eyes looked adrift, as if he had no idea at all what she was talking about.

"My father," she said, the words sounding strange out loud. She still could not think of the distant laird as her father.

There was another pause as Andrew struggled to process the words.

"The laird," Grace prompted.