Page 29 of A Dangerous Highland Affair

“Dinnae be daft, we cannae both get on the poor wee thing!” said Neacal, as Teasag tried to get him to climb beside her on the nut-brown mare.

An hour later, the dark clouds remained overhead, and a full-scale downpour looked imminent.

“But we can cover mair ground if we’re both riding,” reasoned Teasag, tossing her pale locks over the edge of her shoulder.

Neacal was heartened to see that she had given up with the caul. Once or twice, she had attempted to braid her hair beneath the cloth canopy on her head, but without warning, she had suddenly abandoned it and shaken her flaxen locks free.

At that moment, Neacal had almost applauded. He couldn’t stop fantasizing about running his fingers through her long hair. The more he saw of her white-blonde locks, the more he could not steal his eyes away from her.

And if he had sat beside her on the horse, he wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on riding.

“Well, come on, there’s plenty o’ room,” said Teasag, beguilingly. She patted a space behind her on the brown mare, which whinnied a little.

“Or would ye rather I sat behind?” she added, with a twinkly smile which interfered with the workings of his stomach.

“Nae lass, it’s nae the space I’m worried aboot. We don’t want the poor wee thingy collapsing under the strain o’ both of us!” added Neacal, sarcastically.

He didn’t really think that the horse would collapse under the weight of both of them, more that he might implode if he was forced up close against the moreish body of Teasag. Heaven knows what would happen if he had to get so near to her without touching.

“Och, she’s as strong as an ox!” flashed Teasag as her hair blew wildly into his face.

As he pulled the blonde hair away from his face, he couldn’t resist the urge to stroke it softly.

“So smooth,” he murmured as she turned back towards the hill on the horizon, pushing her shining blonde locks away again. “Ye should wear it doon mair often lass…,” he said, but Teasag wasn’t listening.

She had pressed her face against the blustering sky ahead, with a severe look.

“A penny for them,” said Neacal, watching her. The brown mare had slowed in her pace and seemed set to dawdle all the way to Blackness.

Teasag looked down at him as if caught unawares. “Nae, they’re nae even worth a ha’penny, really,” she said, her cheeks coloring red.

Instinctively, Neacal felt his curiosity rousing. “Really? Why would ye say something like that, lass?” he looked at her keenly. The mare came to a standstill, and despite his previous words, Neacal mounted the horse in front of her.

In an instant, he was next to her, her soft hands gliding up the back of him. Neacal turned around to look at the girl properly.

He wondered why he’d been so reticent to get close to her before. Sure, he wanted to kiss her madly on the lips, but the confused look on her face was drawing him in. Every fiber of him ached to caress her.

“What was it ye were hoping to find in Blackness if ye dinnae mind me asking?” he asked gently. It had been the question on his lips ever since finding her at the White Hart Tavern nearly twenty-four hours previously.

But Teasag had been unforthcoming about her business back at the town. Now, she looked at him unsurely, an intensity building in the golden flecked rings around her eyes.

Neacal watched her face closely. He had never seen anyone with such strangely colored eyes before. At a distance, they seemed intensely blue like the forget-me-nots which grew near the brook back home. But dancing around the center was a ring of solid gold. The deeper he stared, the more intense they were. Then, to Neacal’s horror, they began to fill with tears.

“Teasag?” he asked, aghast, as her blue eyes blurred with water. “What is it lass, I didnae mean to upset ye!”

He brought his hand over to hers to stroke it gently. Teasag looked at him, a sad smile playing around the corners of her mouth.

“Nae, ye didnae, it was just my own thoughts, ye see, it was something that the smithy said, ye ken, about my mother,” Teasag added, pushing the tears away from her face.

Neacal watched her entranced; even crying, she looked beautiful. Her face wasn’t red or puffy, just covered in a veil of sadness.

“Yer mam,” said Neacal. “She… died…?” he posited it as a question, but from the conversation he had witnessed, it was pretty clear that she was.

“Aye,” nodded Teasag. “An’ well, at the time, I couldnae get back fast enough. An’ I missed everything, her being ill, an’ then the funeral, Blackness was just too far to get back in time…”

More tears fell as Teasag crumpled behind him on the horse.

“Whoa,” called Neacal. It was an instruction to the mare beneath them, but it had the unintended outcome of making Teasag look at him oddly.