The Highlander. Heather Grothaus

underfoot startled Conall so that he jumped and gave a strangled cry. He swung his sword around in a wide arc and fell into a crouch, but the clearing was still empty. Sweat ran down his back in a slushy river.

      Concentrate, damn you!

      Conall sidestepped to the gentle bank on the edge of the clearing and let his eyes flick over the sloped shoulder. He saw the curve of his bow poking from a drift, and his pack lay where he’d dropped it; both appeared undisturbed save for the rutted paths of tracks circling them. It looked to Conall as if the wolves had indeed sniffed his belongings and perhaps turned them over on the packed snow, but the animals had not destroyed the precious items as Conall had feared.

      He crouched down on the cusp of the bank for several moments, listening intently for any sound that might indicate that the bloodthirsty beasts were near. When all remained still, Conall dropped over the rise and scrambled through the snow to his pack.

      He vowed to kill every last gray wolf in Scotland when he looked down upon the satchel and saw the dark puddle run off one bottom corner into a well of yellow snow.

      Conall jerked the pack up by its strap and held it away from him, looking at it distastefully and biting off whispered curses.

      “Nasty beasts,” he muttered, setting the pack back down in a clean patch of snow. He sheathed his sword and dropped to his haunches over the bag, quickly undoing the ties and peering inside. Satisfied that the contents still seemed wrapped securely in the pieces of oilcloth he’d packed them in, he allowed himself to pause with his thoughts.

      Evelyn Godewin Buchanan—Angus Buchanan’s own…niece? Granddaughter? Conall felt a wave of dizziness come over him so that the snow on the bank seemed to advance and retreat in quick turn. Sweet God in Heaven—’twas rumored that Angus Buchanan’s daughter had fled to England those many years ago with Minerva Buchanan and had born a girl child. Could Evelyn be her? Now alone with Conall in the deepest, most dangerous thickness of the forest in high winter, and the Buchanan had no knowledge of it?

      Conall wanted to shout, to laugh, to vomit on his boots from the nervous excitement that threatened to shake his bones from his flesh.

      Only heartache and toil shall you reap, until a Buchanan bairn is born to rule the MacKerrick clan…

      Conall thought of his crippled and dying town, his people sick and starving from the black curse that had smothered them these nearly two score years. He thought of the seasons of empty animal shelters and the smell of diseased cattle flesh being consumed on the charnel fires; of grain stalks moldering in flooded fields; of the dry, baked riverbeds in summer, where no fish swam to spawn.

      He thought of the haggard faces and thin bodies of the people in his care, a people who had looked faithfully to him for longer than loyalty should have bidden them. He thought of Nonna and the wee girl bairn.

      The weight of it all was crushing.

      And now, the hag who had once damned them all had carried back with her the very cure for this evil fever and delivered it directly into Conall’s trembling hands.

      One of those trembling hands went to the stiff leather knot tied ’round his neck. He gently rolled the small lump against the knuckle of his forefinger with his thumb.

      Conall had lain with no other woman save Nonna the whole of his life, and he’d not lain with even his wife since the night she’d taken his seed which had bravely become their child. He closed his eyes against the pain that welled up inside him, the shame.

      Conall pinched the bridge of his nose and drew a deep, shuddering breath before rising. He slung his bow, quiver, and pack over one shoulder and drew his sword once more. Gaining the crest of the bank in five great strides, he then paused to look at his uncle’s hunting cottage, thinking of the possibilities that rested with the woman beyond its sod walls.

      Evelyn Godewin Buchanan. Eve.

      Conall began the short walk across the trampled clearing, his mouth set.

      The slain gray was gone.

      Conall halted and stared at the shallow depression where the dead wolf had lain only moments ago. There was not a drop of blood to be seen against the flattened snow, although Conall had plunged his sword into the beast’s chest and the red flow had painted the ground. He looked down at his blade: clean and gleaming in the fading daylight.

      No drag marks leading to the forest. Not even a single wiry gray hair.

      A gusting wind barreled through the clearing and the night seemed to lean over the wood suddenly. Conall shivered, and although he was no coward, an awesome feeling of lonely longing wrapped arms about him on the frigid breeze and licked his icy cheek obscenely. Conall had the immediate urge to run to the hut and bolt himself and Eve inside.

      He forced himself to walk calmly, though, backward and facing the rippling darkness of the forest. He felt behind him for the door and was grateful when it pushed open easily.

      Conall stepped inside and quickly shut out the single, mournful, high-pitched howl, calling to him through the twilight.

      The highlander stumbled backward into the hut and slammed the door shut, slinging a bow and a large pack to the floor and leaning against the door while he scrambled to drop the brace in the brackets. When he turned to face her, Evelyn noticed the paleness of his lips, his furrowed brow.

      “Have the grays returned?” she asked, praying silently that they had not—even one night alone in the small hut with this man would be too many. Evelyn felt she should advise him to be on his way quickly. For his own safety, of course.

      And possibly her own, from the haunted look in his eyes.

      He shook his head as if coming out of a daydream. “Nae.” MacKerrick scooped up the pack and walked past Evelyn and Alinor to sit upon the low stool. It piqued Evelyn how the man so quickly made himself at ease in her home. He set the bag between his boots and did not look up at her as he began to rifle through its contents. “Even the one I took is gone.”

      “Gone?” Evelyn frowned as Alinor slid from beneath her hand and ambled cautiously nearer the highlander, circling his stool and sniffing the floor around him.

      “Aye. Gone.” He pulled a small jug from the pack and attacked the cork with his back teeth. He spit the dislodged stopper into one palm and lifted the jug to his mouth, drinking deeply. While he was occupied, Alinor sidled closer and began sniffing the bottom of his pack in earnest.

      “What do you mean, ‘gone’?” Evelyn demanded. “Alinor, to me.”

      MacKerrick lowered the jug and rested it on his knee. “I mean, the gray wolf…I just killed…is…gone.” He looked at her curiously and then at the jug on his leg. He held it out to her abruptly. “Mead?”

      Evelyn nearly refused it. But the opportunity to drink something other than melted snow—anything but melted snow—was too tempting.

      She reached for the jug with both hands. “Thank you.” She paused before drinking, although the sweet, mellow scent coming from the mouth of the vessel was enough to flood her mouth with saliva.

      Alinor was now rudely scratching at the man’s pack.

      “Alinor! To me!” she commanded.

      The highlander glanced down at the wolf, then waved a careless hand at Evelyn. “Drink your mead, Eve. She canna harm it.”

      Evelyn was not at all certain she appreciated being told how to handle her animal, but she raised the jug to her lips and let the mead flood her mouth—explosions of rich, tangy honey—while the highlander addressed the wolf directly in his low brogue.

      “But if you do harm it, wolf piss or nae wolf piss, I’ll have your hide for a new one.”

      The delicious mead in Evelyn’s throat backed up into her nose and she choked. “Sir,” she gasped, coughing and wiping at her mouth. “Language, if you please!”

      “What?” The man looked at her mildly.