Page 18 of Forbidden Kilted Highlander

Agnes’s breath caught.

She had admired him before, of course she had. Tav was impossible not to notice. He carried himself like a sculpture carved from Highland rock and wind, fierce and unreadable. But it was not only the breadth of his shoulders or the sharp, angular cut of his jaw that tugged at something in her belly.

It was the steadiness of his gaze.

His head turned, eyes catching hers through the dimness. She stepped forward, trying to still the sudden flutter behind her ribs.

"Ye’re early," he said, voice low, rough like gravel and smoke.

"Couldnae sleep," she replied. Her voice felt strange in her throat, uncertain. "And ye?"

"I wanted tae ready him before the day started. Calms me."

She glanced at the stallion, black as night, eyes blinking slow and trusting as Tav continued to run a hand along his mane. The gentleness in the gesture tugged at something deep in her.

Agnes stepped closer, letting the scent of hay and leather ground her. She liked it here. The steadiness of it. The low snorts and soft shuffling hooves. Everything had its place. Everything knew its rhythm.

“I thought we were leaving now,” she said, not quite a question.

“We wait fer the first light.” Tav’s voice was quiet but firm. “Yer faither agreed. The forest’s too dense fer night travel, and the risk’s higher in darkness.”

Agnes shifted her satchel against her shoulder. “So we sit in the open and wait fer the sun tae rise?”

“We wait,” Tav repeated, but gently this time.

She let her shoulders drop, but the tension didn’t ease. “Ye’re certain o’ the path?”

“Aye, I am.”

She studied him a moment. The slight crease in his brow. The way he always stood like he was listening to something far away. She wasn’t sure when she’d begun to trust him. Perhaps it was merely necessity, wearing the face of trust.

“Dae you think we’ll make it?”

His eyes flicked toward her. “Aye.”

Her thoughts drifted back to their return. She remembered the rigid tension in his shoulders, the blood she’d wiped from his ribs, the quiet pain he’d endured to shield her. She was grateful, truly. But beneath that gratitude coiled something deeper that made her hands tremble and her breath catch.

She hesitated before asking, "Did ye go tae the healer, then? Fer yer… wound?"

Tav blinked and looked at her more fully now. A small furrow appeared between his brows as the ice in his eyes cracked for a fleeting moment.

"Aye. I did." He nodded.

She let out a breath. "Good. I was... I was worried. Ye took quite the hit."

"It’s naethin’. Bruisin’, mostly."

"Still. Bruises need care as well."

He said nothing for a moment, merely watched her with that quiet, unreadable gaze. Then, so softly she almost missed it, he said, "Fia used tae say the same."

Agnes tilted her head. "Fia?"

He gave a small nod, shifting his stance, one hand still resting on the horse’s back.

"Me sister, the healer. I met her and brought her home when I was 21 and she was barely fourteen, like me braither. Starving. Nay family tae guard her. Her parents had abandoned her and me and me Bane’s parents had also died. So we formed a family of our own, a family of sorts."

Agnes swallowed, heart pinching.