Page 57 of Kilty Plea
Epilogue
Laughing,Craig kicked the ball back toward the cluster of children—both lads and lasses—who were teasing him. “Och, ye think ye can gang up on me? Eight against one?”
“Ye can count that high?” taunted one, kicking the ball to a friend, keeping it out of Craig’s reach.
The Hunter growled in mock-warning, spread his arms, and ran at the group. They split apart, squealing in laughter, as he lunged about, grasping with hands the size of their heads.
“Here!” one of them called, lobbing the ball at him. He used his head to bounce it back to the lad, even as he scooped up one lassie.
“A trade!” he bellowed, holding the girl above his head, trying to maintain his good-natured scowl in light of how hard she was laughing and squirming. “Whose is this? I’ll trade ye for the ball!”
“That’s John’s sister!” one boy yelled, laughing. “Ye can keep her!”
The rest mobbed Craig, however, and eventually he lowered the laughing girl to be with her friends. “Me! Me!” another lassie was crying. “Do me next!”
The ball game was forgotten as he lifted each of the children over his head and spun them in a circle, until he was dizzier than they were, and collapsed on the snow-covered ground.
“Get up, get up!” they cried, nudging him with their boots—which some might callkicking—and chortling. “Again!”
Craig was large enough that he barely felt their nudges. “Nay, away with ye!” he growled, swiping his arm back and forth, as if to grab them. “Let me die in peace.”
One young lassie—was it John’s sister?—threw herself across his chest. “I’ll protect ye, Sir Hunter! Leave him alone! Can ye dobbers no’ see he needs his rest?”
Chuckling, Craig pushed himself upright, sitting cross-legged on the cold ground and holding the lassie in his lap. Now she was patting his chest, and he was torn between being offended that she thought he needed protecting, and touched by it.
Actually…there was a strange aching in his chest in the vicinity of his heart.
This perfect, wee creature, with her wild curls and tiny nose, had enough love in her heart to care abouthim?
“Careful, lassie,” he managed past a sudden lump in his throat. “Ye shouldnae be using such nasty language.”
“Why no’?” the cherub asked, tipping her head back to meet his eyes boldly. “My brothers do.”
Craig shrugged, and admitted she was right. “Well, if they use it, then I suppose ye can too.”
“I’m just as good as they are, aye?”
“Aye, princess,” he murmured, rolling to his feet and taking her with him. “Ye can do aught yer brothers do.”
“Except piss standing up,” she explained solemnly.
Craig lifted her under her arms until she was eye-level with him. “Then ye’re no’ trying hard enough.”
The wee one burst into laughter and began squirming. “Put me down, Sir Hunter! I want to practice pissing standing up!”
In fact, turned outallthe girls wanted to try that, and they ran off, laughing and shouting, as the lads returned to their game of kickball. Craig, still chuckling, brushed snow from his shoulders, not realizing he was being watched.
“Ye are good with them.”
The quiet voice startled him; instinctively he flexed his knees and whirled, raising his hands into a defensive gesture. But ‘twas just Daniel, Payton’s aulder brother. The priest stood with his hands tucked into his warm cassock, smiling at the antics of the children.
“The children enjoyed playing with ye,” he explained, his brown gaze flicking to Craig, and away. “Do ye have many of yer own?”
Craig startled again at the thought. “Nay, I—” He’d been about to explain how he’d always been careful to spill across a lass’s stomach, but he remembered who he was speaking to. “I’m no’ married.”
The curl of the priest’s lips told him Daniel guessed what he’d been about to say, but the man merely hummed. “Have ye considered it?”
“Marrying? Or becoming a father?”
