Page 63 of Highlander’s Burning Touch

And when he got there, the sight that greeted him made it all worthwhile. Almost immediately, he had seen them, Niven with Deva, tight in each other’s arms.

There was no denying it, no doubt about what he saw. And yet, when the moment came for him to confront them, Fingal pulled away.

“Och, lass, there’s no-one out here… come an’ see,” Niven’s voice boomed, echoing across the hillside from out of the opened window.

Fingal ducked down, his back up against the crumbling stone of the cottage. He was so near he could hear Niven’s breathing going down his spine.

For a moment or two, he really thought he had seen him. And just when he thought he could relax, she came – bringing her head halfway out of the opened frame and almost jabbing him with her hands.

When he finally dared to look, he got an unexpected blast of Deva, half-dressed, in nothing but her stays, hanging out of the opened window. Her body was so close that he could almost feel the sensual outline of her curves.

Uncomfortably, Fingal pressed back against the wall of the cottage even tighter, praying for her to leave. His heart almost burst out of his chest cavity by the time she finally disappeared back inside, and it was some time before he could allow himself to breathe again.

Squeals came, from inside the lodge, as Fingal pushed himself away from the house and attempted to go. His heart beating fast, he allowed himself one glance back at the cottage before turning back down the snowy hillside.

Fingal’s hands were freezing, but inside he was burning up. As he clawed his way down the hill, he felt his heart accelerate.

Getting down was harder than getting up, with a fresh layer of ice forming over his well-trodden tracks. From down below in the valley, he could make them out – four frozen shapes, shivering over a meager fire.

“Well?” Rory’s voice called from across the glen side. It echoed and bounced off the snow-covered hills.

“Nae,” said Fingal, scrambling his way down. He had given up trying not to fall and was simply skidding down the white mountainside.

The gleaming snow reflected just enough light to see, but it wasn’t easy, and more than once, Fingal had gone flying in the dark. At least sliding through the snow, he managed to come down the hill faster than he had gone up it.

Eventually, he reached the little party, huddled closely into the edge of the hill. There was just enough shelter for a small fire to burn, protected by the winds by a shallow ledge.

Morosely, the laird and his men looked on as Fingal pushed himself into the center of the fire, warming his iced hands against the crackling flames.

“Nae,” he said again, the blood just beginning to flow in his hands again. “I couldnae pass at all. Like I said, we have to turn back…”

The laird gave a shrug but didn’t bother arguing. Half an hour in the arctic glen side had put paid to any ideas he might have had about continuing on for the night.

Reluctantly, he sighed. “Come, we ride back to the keep… maybe we will find Niven already there!”

Fingal looked up, trying to contain the smirk which was unfolding around his face. An image of Deva holding Niven came to him. It was too perfect. So much that it was hard for him not to laugh out loud.

All the same, the weight of what he had seen bothered him. It had been so tempting to act on what he had seen and tell his uncle.

He had come so close to confronting them but then, at the last minute, decided against it.

There were so many more possibilities.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Niven! I was starting to think ye were avoiding me!”

It was a couple of days later. The laird placed his heavy hands on Niven’s back, almost pulling him around. For a moment, Niven sighed, wondering if there was any way out of this – the conversation he had wanted to avoid, but then he relaxed, giving into it.

“Uncle,” he said, turning to greet his uncle with a wide smile. There was no use. He couldn’t hide from Rory forever, but he sure wished he could do.

“Come, we should ride together,” Rory said immediately. And Niven felt his heart sink. This was the last thing he had wanted.

“Nae, uncle, I,” he began, trying his hardest to invent some mission or other to get him out of it.

The last few days had been torture – and bliss. Stolen moments spent with Deva had made life worth living, but then the constant guilt stalked him, getting into his dreams at night.

Niven was so wound up, he barely trusted himself to say good day to the laird, let alone a full-on conversation. And especially not alone.