his head with a grin and then strode back to the hut’s low door, pressing the side of his face to it. “I’m nae going anywhere, lass.”
“Oh, of course not this instant,” Conall heard her say from behind him, a nervous laugh in her voice. “I do not expect you to—”
“Shh!” Conall held up a palm. “Quiet!”
“—to go while the wolves are still about,” she continued in a loud whisper. “Do you hear anything?”
He raised up from the door and sent her an exasperated look.
She winced. “Quiet. Yea, of course.”
Conall shook his head and then turned back to the door, taking hold of the bar that spanned it. Behind him, Alinor gave a low growl. “Take your beast in hand, Eve,” he said over his shoulder. He began to ease the bar from its brackets.
“Why? What are you doing? I thought you said you weren’t leaving?” she demanded in a prissy, anxious tone, although Conall knew she obeyed him by the way her voice now carried from the opposite side of the hut. “Come, lovely,” she crooned to the wolf. “To me, Alinor.”
Conall rolled his eyes at the rough-planed wood in front of his face. “I left me pack beyond the clearing. There’re supplies to be had if the wolves havena ripped it to bits.” He leaned the bar against the wall and then braced his shoulder and hip into the door, taking hold of the pull.
“Oh.” Her voice sounded next to him and he glanced at her. Her arms were folded stingily against her bosom and the black wolf stared at the door, head down, ears back. “Of what sort are the supplies?”
“Nae sense in telling you until I see they’re still there. But we shall be in sore need of them if we are to survive the season,” he answered. Could the gel speak in naught but questions? “And I said to take hold of the animal, lest you wish her to bolt from the house.”
“I can assure you that Alinor has no more desire to be in the company of those savages than I do, sir. She’ll not bolt if they’re still about.”
Conall shrugged and eased open the door but a hand’s breadth, bracing it against his body lest one of the grays lay in wait. He scanned the dooryard beyond.
Empty, except for the body of the slain gray.
Conall slid his foot back half a step, opened the door a bit wider, and poked his head out. It was eerily quiet.
Conall ducked back inside quickly and collided with the woman and her animal, who had both eased closer to him during his perusal.
She squeaked at being jostled and threw him an offended frown when Alinor whined and pulled a paw from beneath Conall’s booted foot.
“A bit of a warning next time, sir, if you don’t mind! Alinor is still recovering and is not yet as nimble as she once was,” she snipped.
“I didna know the pair of you would try to climb me when I turned my back,” Conall growled, and then drew his long sword from his sheath. “I’ll have a look ’round, then fetch the pack if ’tis safe. Stay here.”
The woman nodded eagerly and clasped her hands at her waist.
A bit too eagerly, Conall thought as he made to step through the portal. He turned abruptly, causing another scuffle as the woman retreated farther back into the cottage once more.
“And I’m warnin’ you, Eve,” Conall said sternly. “Should you think to bar the door after me again, I’ll set fire to this hut, you ken? By all that is holy, I’ll burn it to the verra ground.”
Her eyes narrowed, as if debating the sincerity of his threat.
“The verra ground,” he promised, and then stepped though the doorway into the clearing.
Evelyn’s knees were shaking so badly that she sank to her bottom next to Alinor once the door closed after the highlander. Her heart thudded in her chest and she realized she was covered in a thin layer of icy perspiration, although the hut was still quite cold inside.
Her lie about her lineage might very well have saved her and Alinor’s lives—she was no more Buchanan than was the king of England. Thanks be to God Evelyn had known just enough about Minerva’s kin to satisfy the highlander’s inquisition and stay him from throwing them both to the grays.
For now, any matter.
Evelyn knew that either she and Alinor or the highlander would have to go. ’Twas too dangerous by far to risk being found out. Obviously, Conall MacKerrick was on familiar terms with the Buchanan clan by the quick manner in which he’d known Minerva and Angus by name.
And he was Ronan MacKerrick’s very nephew, no less. The man Minerva had called for in the last moments of her life. This was Ronan’s hut.
For all Evelyn knew, the MacKerricks and the Buchanans were great allies, and Angus might appear in the clearing one day, come for a fortnight of hunting sport with his neighbor, Conall.
Evelyn shivered at the imagined repercussions. Every fiber in her being screamed at her to get up and bar the door to the hut, but Evelyn was not at all certain the highlander would not do as he promised and burn the cottage “to the verra ground,” with her and Alinor inside. After all, he would have already sacrificed them to the grays had she not come up with the blatant falsehood to save her own life.
The beast.
Should she and Alinor be found out now, MacKerrick would evict them from their cozy little home—likely without even their few paltry belongings—making them easy prey for the wolves. Nay, if ever they must abandon the hut, ’twas far better they do it of their own accord, with time to prepare.
Alinor sat down beside Evelyn with a breathy whine, the bow of her rose-colored bandage brushing Evelyn’s face. The forgotten sheep bleated from its pen as if in answer and Alinor turned longing yellow eyes to the rear of the hut.
Evelyn patted the wolf absently. “I think not, lovely.”
’Twould be nobler for Conall MacKerrick to take his own leave, although Evelyn doubted by the man’s heretofore incessant rudeness that he had any notion of the word’s meaning. Evelyn’s leg was healing, true, but too slowly to undertake a journey of any length. And her energy seemed to wane only moments after waking in the mornings, likely from lack of adequate food. Alinor was still recuperating from the attack and there was no other shelter for either of them in this deepest part of winter. The towering Scot had to have come from a village of some sort, and he could very well return to it posthaste. Surely, barbarian though he was, he did not expect to cohabitate with an unmarried lady in such intimate quarters.
Evelyn’s eyes instinctively flew to the narrow box bed at the end of the hut and she felt her face warm at the lurid possibilities the piece of furniture now evoked in her imagination. Smiling amber eyes and flashing white teeth caused her to shiver once more.
“Sinful,” she whispered aloud, and then crossed herself—an exercise she hadn’t performed in months—as if she’d come face-to-face with the devil himself.
And then she was decided. One way or another, Evelyn had to get away from Conall MacKerrick.
Conall
