Page 63 of The Cruel Highlander's Bride
“And I just hit the ball into the goal?” she asked.
“Ye’ve got to get past me, of course, but aye, that’s the idea.”
He heard her sigh, but the muttering that followed didn’t reach his ears. Wearing a determined expression, she stepped up to the ball and swung the caman over her shoulder before bringing it back down and… missing the ball entirely.
Ciara scoffed, looking so affronted, as if she couldn’t believe the ball had the audacity to not be hit by her caman. Magnus had to cough to muffle his laugh, so as to not be on the receiving end of her ire.
“Keep yer eye on it,” he encouraged.
She shot him a scowl. “I did.”
“Nay, ye looked where ye wanted the ball to go, nae at the thing. Come on, try again,” he urged.
Her grumbling was a little louder, and he swore he could hear her curse at him.
This time, when she swung the stick back down, he could see how closely she watched the ball and?—
“I hit it!” she squealed, watching as the ball rolled right towards the goal… and Magnus’s outstretched caman.
He stopped the ball easily.
“What was that about?” she called to him.
With a laugh, he said, “Did ye want me to just let it in?”
“Ye might have let me get the first one,” she grumbled more to herself than him.
“Where’s the fun in that?” he answered anyway.
Her blue eyes met his again, a determined glint in them. Who knew that his wife was so competitive?
He watched her prepare for her next shot, that hollow look from this morning completely gone.
Magnus smiled. This was exactly what they needed.
24
“Foolish, frivolous game,” Ciara muttered to herself as she got ready for another shot.
What had started as some ridiculous children’s game now consumed her attention. Magnus was standing smugly in their makeshift goal, not even bothering to look like he was trying, and it was riling her up. She wanted one ball to go in,just one.
She hadn’t felt this competitive since she was a child, when she and Lana had played their own games—usually indoor ones. Ciara liked being outside, feeling the sun on her face and the breeze in her hair, but she wasn’t one to commune with nature.
With Lana, there was never any real animosity between them, but they both played to win. She had forgotten what that felt like, the rush of the competition, the excitement in it.
Right now, though, Ciara felt mainly frustration. She wasgoodat things, and she liked it that way. Whether or not she had tried anything new recently was beside the point. When she set her mind to something, she accomplished it, so each missed goal increased her annoyance.
But if children could play this game, so could she.
The children didnae have a mountain of a person blocking the goal.
The Laird’s broad frame took up far more of the goal than a child’s would, which seemed decidedly unfair. He could stretch his arms out along the length of the goal, probably.
She cursed his body for not the first time, even as she found her gaze roaming over it once again.
His posture was relaxed in a way she rarely saw, but with the sun and his so-called “merriment,” his shoulders and face had lost some of their usual tension. It made him look younger and less like the serious Laird.
Standing over there, waving his caman around, he looked like just a man. Still the most handsome man she’d ever met, but he wasn’t carrying the weight of their entire clan on his shoulders at that moment. She turned her back to him for a moment and smiled, enjoying that look on his face.
