Page 10 of Highlander Redeemed
“When are you going to let the rest of the clan know who you are becoming?” he asked.
“Not until I can kick their arses when they treat me like a child.”
“If you stopped acting like a child around them, you would not need to kick anyone’s arse.” He knew he should have kept his mouth shut even as the words spilled out of it.
She handed him the waterskin, her eyes gone hard and her pink lips tightened over what he knew were clenched teeth. “You have worked me so hard I cannot go back to the caves like this lest someone ask me why I am such a mess. I am going to the lochan to wash up, and you have my word I shall return directly to camp. You may not follow me.” She wagged her finger at him. “Do you understand?”
“You ken I cannot leave you alone away from the caves, aye? I will give you privacy, but I will await you near the lochan—” She started to interrupt, but he kept going. “I promise to keep my distance so you can bathe in private.”
“I will not—”
“’Tis the only deal I can make, Scotia. You have done an admirable job in gaining my trust, though my trust is not unshakeable yet. The rest of the clan, though? They do not trust you at all, which is why I was tasked to keep an eye on you in the first place. I will not break my word to the Guardians. ’Twould be a terribly unwarriorlike thing to do, and it would shame me greatly. Would you break your word to me: me with you at all times in exchange for training you to be a warrior?”
He knew how to get her attention when he had to.
“I—”
He looked at her, his own eyebrows raised in question as he watched her start to argue, then stop herself one, two, three times.
“I do not have a say in this, do I?” she finally said.
“Nay, lass, you do not.” He looped the waterskin over his shoulder and picked up a small sack that held their midday meal. “Let us put your weapons away ... unless you’d like to run the obstacles again?”
She scowled at him and turned to make her way back to her cache. He smiled as he followed her. ’Twas good to see Scotia finally growing up, but ’twas also good to see she hadn’t lost the spark of the troublesome lass she’d been.
SCOTIA’S HEART WASbeating hard and fast as she laid her targe, dagger, and the stick that had become her practice sword inside a hollow tree. She kept her back to Duncan as she strode off toward the lochan she had shown him a few days ago. She dared not look at him lest he see how he had unsettled her.
She had put her hand in his without thinking. Shivers ran over her skin again, just at the brief memory of the touch of his strong hand clasped in hers. There should have been nothing unusual in his gesture. Despite what she had said, she’d seen him help up lads and grown men alike in the training yard, but something about it was different.
There was no teasing of besting and beating an opponent as she often saw amongst the warriors as they trained. A sudden, inexplicable tightness in her chest and an inability to look away from him had caught her off guard.
She had always taken Duncan for granted. He was simply always there with his dark hair, and deep brown scowling eyes.At least they were scowling whenever he looked at her these last few years, as if she were a great disappointment to him.
But today there had been something different. He had touched her, held her hand in his. His eyes had been soft, happy, smiling even, and she could swear she saw pride, too. He had transformed right before her eyes, as if she had never seen him before.
When had he gone from the gangly lad she had trailed around after when she was small to the handsome, assured man he was now? How had she not noticed?
And now that she had noticed, did that change anything? Did it change her feelings about him? Did it change her training?
Nay. It changed nothing. Her training was the most important thing. If she lost her focus on that, she would not be prepared for battle when the time came, and she knew that time was coming quickly.
Nothing would change between them. He had said he liked her new purpose, her focus, her passion for her training, as did she. She would stay firmly fixed on that.
Nothing would change.
DUNCAN KEPT HISword, settling in at the base of an oak tree. He was close enough to the lochan to hear the splash of the small waterfall as it tumbled over the stony face of the ben, but he could not hear Scotia. Part of him wished to make sure she was still there, but she had given her word that she would bathe and then join him, and he had to admit that he found both her word, and the lass herself, surprisingly trustworthy over the last few days. He smiled, pleased with his plan and with himself. He had tamed the headstrong lass. Well, he had worn her out at least.
Perhaps they had all had it wrong when it came to Scotia. Thelass seemed to need a purpose, and the more physically taxing the purpose, the better. If she had been a lad they would have seen that, but ’twas not the normal way of a lassie.
Of course, Scotia was not a normal lass, so he really should not be surprised. Willful, stubborn, angry more often than not did not hold up well against the gentle, quiet intelligence of Jeanette, or against the cheery good nature and industriousness of Rowan.
Scotia had always gotten herself in trouble, and it was only now that he could see ’twas because she needed activity in order to stave off boredom. He chuckled. He’d certainly found the answer to that in the last few days. A whisper of a thought of other ways to keep a lass physically active had him leaping to his feet and pacing away from the lochan as if he could leave it behind.
But he couldn’t.
His whole idea of who Scotia was had changed in the last few days. She wasn’t a child anymore, at least not when she was with him, but she was still Scotia, and he was still in charge of her. He’d always known she was a beauty—the dark hair and green eyes had marked her as one from birth.
But he’d thought himself immune from the effect she had on lads ... until today. He had not been able to keep himself from holding her hand, from enjoying the warmth of her skin against his. The tenderness that had drifted over him had been as much a surprise to him as it appeared to be to her.
