blue she’d thought. Much as some described the mixed colour of hers, too. Taking his hand, he guided her to step on his foot as he lifted her up and guided her behind him. He gave her a moment to settle and then touched his legs to the horse’s sides. Unused to riding this way, she grabbed at his plaid to keep from swaying too much and unbalancing both of them.
Still, this close, she was overwhelmed by him. His size. His nearness. His scent. Him.
‘You made only one bad turn,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘If not for going in the wrong direction right there...’ he pointed off to his left ‘...you would have circled right back around.’ When she leaned over to look past him, she began to slide off the horse. ‘Hold tight now.’ Without thinking, she reached around his waist and held on.
Because of his size, her hands barely made it around him. And the action forced her to rest her face against his back. His muscles rippled under her cheek as he controlled the horse. His long hair, pulled back and tied with a strip of leather, tickled her nose as she rested there. When she realised what she was doing, she eased her grip on him, sliding her hands back to rest on his hips.
‘I am sorry to take you from your own tasks,’ she said.
‘Since my destination is yours, you are not.’
Sorcha remembered his offer of help last night to James. What was the nephew of the Cameron chieftain doing working with the Mackintosh’s village blacksmith?
‘Have you known James a long time?’ she asked, trying to understand his connections to this place and these people.
From his place at the chieftain’s table and the call for him to speak with those closest to Brodie—a call delivered by the man known for his loyalty to the laird—he was well known and well regarded here. Was he to the Lady Arabella as Padruig was to her mother? One of her kin who stayed on for years as a faithful friend?
‘Aye, for years.’
Uncertain if his curt reply was due to the riding or not, she held any other questions she would have asked back. But her curiosity got the better of her as they rode through the centre of the village and many called out greetings to him. Especially the women.
‘Are you a blacksmith then?’ she asked when they slowed and he would be able to hear her words. The question she truly wanted answered involved personal details she would ask of Clara and not dare to speak to the man directly.
‘Och, nay!’ He laughed and it made her blood heat. The deep tones of his voice echoed through her. Again. ‘I am a tracker.’
‘Tracker?’ Her blood, heated just a moment before, ran cold then at the reminder of his skills. ‘What do you seek?’ How could she have forgotten such a critical part of him? His answer chilled her even more.
* * *
‘Whoever or whatever is lost.’
They arrived at Clara’s cottage and, just as he’d predicted, Wee Jamie and Wee Clara were there waiting. Relief poured through her as they discovered the children were well and not lost.
‘Your bairns gave Mistress MacPherson quite a scare, Clara,’ he called out as he reached back to help her down. With a strong grip on her arm, she slid over the side of the horse and stood as Clara came out, carrying the youngest one. Sorcha noticed the loss of the warmth of his body as soon as her feet landed on the ground there. ‘I found her over near the stream on the other side of the village.’
‘I lost them and feared they would find harm,’ she said. ‘One moment we were all enjoying a bit of warm bread and then next, they were gone.’
Clara laughed as she approached Sorcha. Throwing her arm around her shoulders, her cousin pulled her close. Alan climbed from his horse then and stood watching.
‘They are fast ones,’ Clara agreed. The woman released her when her husband came around the side of the cottage from the building where he worked. ‘Jamie, the wee uns gave Saraid quite a scare.’
James smiled at her and nodded. ‘You are not the first one to find them gone.’ He walked over and extended his arm to Alan in greeting. ‘But I see the Cameron tracker found you right quick. He is skilled at finding things and people, too.’
A wave of warning unlike anything she’d ever felt passed through her at those words. Another reminder that she could not let this attraction to him go any further than it had since she doubted she could stop the physical reaction of her body to his strength and his heat. But she needed to be circumspect and not give someone like Alan Cameron a reason to look more closely at her. She swallowed the ever-present fear and nodded at James.
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