Read Online Sins of the Highlander by Connie Mason - Free Book Online

in their cups. Sounds of crackling underbrush accompanied the song.
    “Father?” she asked shakily.
    “If ye’re asking whether I’m your sire or a priest, the answer is no to both.”
    The voice was gravelly but it belonged to Rob.
    He finally appeared, working his way through the timber, and burst back onto the game trail.
    “Oh, Rob, ye’re alive!” Elspeth put both arms around his neck and hugged him close. “I was afeard ye were gone, but ye’re alive!”
    “Aye, lass,” he said with a sinful grin. “Completely alive.”
    She was suddenly aware of the hardness of his groin against her belly and pulled back away from him. She noticed then that he was covered with blood, and her alarm must have shown on her face.
    “Dinna fret. It’s not my blood. At least, not mostly.”
    “Ye wicked, wicked man. Why didna ye answer when I called to ye?”
    “Did ye call?”
    “Aye.”
    He put a hand to the back of his head, and it came away with fresh, bright red blood.
    “Seems I took a wee nap after the wolf knocked me into a fallen log. Fortunately, I woke with only a pounding head. He didna wake at all.”
    “How did ye manage that?”
    “My belt knife in his ribs might have had somewhat to do with it.” He stooped to clean the blade on the brown grass before he returned it to the small sheath at his waist. Then he did the same for the claymore and shoved it into his shoulder baldric. “I’ll have my boot knife back, if ye please.”
    She stepped back a pace.
    “I ken where ye stashed it, lass.” His gaze flicked pointedly at her bodice. “Dinna make me go in after it. Unless, o’ course, ye wish me to.”
    She retrieved the small blade and cast it down. It quivered upright between his feet.
    “Ye’ve some skill with a blade.”
    “I’ve three older brothers.”
    “I suppose Falin’s fled,” he said, looking down the path.
    Elspeth nodded.
    “Aye, well, he’s always had a coward’s heart,” Rob said. “The silly beastie.”
    “The rest of the wolves went after him,” Elspeth said, feeling the need to stand up for the stallion. “He was no’ a coward. He bore us in safety a long way. He fought well and hard with ye. But he stood by ye till ye left him ! And now the wolves will…” She swallowed back the lump in her throat. “And ye dinna care.”
    She thumped his chest with her fist once.
    “Ye dinna care at all, ye brute.” Her face crumpled, and tears coursed down her cheeks. The tension of the last few days broke over her like a wave, and she wept without shame for a horse that wouldn’t even let her mount him.
    “Hush, lass. Ye dinna need to cry. The tears will freeze on your cheeks.” Rob grabbed a corner of the cloak and swiped at her face. “Falin will be fine, ye ken. He can run like the wind.”
    “Ye didna see them after him.” She cried harder.
    “He’s probably outrun that mangy pack and is well on his way back to his own stable by now,” Rob said. “Which is more than I can say for us. We need to be gone before the wolves decide we can’t run nearly so fast and turn back.”
    “What about you? Your head is wounded.” She put a hand around his neck and felt a gash beneath blood-matted hair.
    “There’s no time to clean me up and make me pretty. Come, lass. Let’s away.”
    He took her hand and started down the trail. They hadn’t gone ten paces when she cried out.
    “What is it?” he asked.
    “I stepped on something sharp,” she said, balancing on one leg and plucking a thorn from the ball of her bare foot.
    “Where’s your shoe?”
    “I dinna know.”
    A guilty flush washed over her. She knew exactly where she’d abandoned that shoe.
    But why should she feel shamefaced before her abductor? True, he had risked his neck to save hers. That counted for something, but she couldn’t tell him the truth about her missing shoe. If she did, she’d have to admit to leaving a trail of silk all across the valley floor, and there was no telling how a madman