“What are ye doing up there?”

Moira glared down at Fergus from her perch in the pine tree, pressing her finger to her lips.

Staying away from you, she wanted to say, but knew better. He would wish for an explanation when there was none to offer.

None that would not leave her sounding silly and weak.

They did not need more venison; the doe she’d felled the previous evening was more than enough to feed them handsomely for two days.

He knew it, too. “We do not need more meat,” he hissed. “And we can hardly ask the horses to haul half a deer carcass each. Do ye truly wish to skin another one tonight, after doing so last night?”

“I thought you might perform the honors tonight,” she hissed back, delighting in the way his face darkened in indignation.

“I’ll have no part of it. If ye wish to break your neck, go ahead.” He muttered something to himself as he moved about the place they’d chosen to camp for the evening. She heard the words “stubborn” and “reckless.”

“If you will not be silent, there is no chance for anything to come our way,” she informed him, raising her voice slightly as he’d moved away from the tree.

The fact was, it mattered not. She had no desire to hunt.

She desired an escape.

He asked too many questions.

He stirred too many feelings.

He reminded her how she missed her lads.

He made her stomach tighten, her knees weaken, when he came too close.

If she had to spend the entire night in a pine tree, she would do it. Anything to keep him away from her.

She might escape him. She could easily do so; it would be a matter of mounting the mare and riding away. She’d done it before with great success.

He had no reason to pursue her, unlike her Reid escorts, which would make it a matter of no difficulty whatsoever.

Why did she linger, then?

Damn her weakness! Damn her for being a fool!

“Do ye expect to stay up there all evening, then?” Fergus whispered, having returned to the base of the tree.

“If need be,” she retorted.

“Don’t be daft, lass. Come down and share the rest of this meat with me. The night air grows chill.”

He was correct in that, and her position along a strong limb roughly twenty feet in the air exposed her to more of the breeze which had picked up since the day began to dwindle into evening.

“Why do you care?” she demanded, raising her voice as there was no longer reason to keep up the pretense of hunting.

“I do not.”

Would that she could see his eyes, but he was too far away and cast in shadow.

“Then it should not be a challenge to leave me be and allow me to do as I wish.”

“Nay, the challenge is to be kind to a stubborn jackass of a lass who refuses to behave sensibly. Perhaps I ought to ask ye to fall from the tree and break yer neck, and then ye might climb down and behave as a civilized person would.”

“A stubborn jackass?” She slid the bolt into her quiver and slung the bow over her shoulder before beginning her descent. “You ought to know about such creatures, since you behave as one yourself.”

“I would not perch in a tree to prove a point,” he called up.

“I would not attempt to frighten a lass half out of her wits in order to prove a point, either.” She lowered herself bit by bit, her bare feet feeling around for the next sturdy branch.

“Are ye still on about that?”

She was about to inform him that yes, she was still on about it, when the rough limb her feet had only just made contact with snapped beneath her.

There was no time to scream.

One moment, she’d had a strong grip.

The next, she clawed at the air, her feet kicking, thin branches and their needles scratching and scraping at her.

Damn him. She was about to break her neck, after all. The one and only time she’d fallen from such a height, and it had to be in front of him.

She landed on something firm.

No. Not on something. Into something.

Into a pair of arms.

Against a chest.

“Oof!” he grunted when she landed, but he did not let go. In fact, his arms tightened about her body, pulling her closer.

For a moment, she relished the unyielding strength of his body. Everything hit her senses at once—his chest, the heart beneath the muscle beating hard and strong. His scent, masculine and earthy, with a trace of leather and horse. The harsh sound of his breathing, the way he made her feel as delicate as a baby bird in his arms.

“Are ye all right, lass?” His mouth, so close to her face, his breath so hot.

It would be so easy to let her head drop to his shoulder and bask in him.

Instead, she wriggled like a fish on a line. “I’m well. Thank you. I would not be well had you not caught me.”

“I would not have had to catch ye if ye didna insist on proving yourself.” He set her on her feet, his hands lingering on her shoulders as though he wished to steady her.

She did not brush them away, as she was in fact quite dizzy. Though whether it was the fall or the landing which caused her to be so, she could not say.

The distinct stinging in her hands, on her legs, caused her to look down and take stock of the damage she’d done. Her legs were scraped in a dozen places. Her hands and arms as well. She let out a frustrated groan.

“Ye ought to wash,” he advised.

“Oh, do you believe so?” She shook his hands away, coming to her senses once again.

He had a way of lulling her into softness she did not wish to feel. Into weakness she had never known.

She turned and marched to the river, a thin line of shrubs separating it from their camp. He seemed willing to let her go without argument.

Pine needles stuck to her kirtle, her hair, and her arms were sticky with sap.

“I need to wash fully,” she informed him, calling out over her shoulder that he might hear and not come marching through the shrubs, demanding to know what took so long.

The thought of him finding her in such a vulnerable state sent a flush to her cheeks and a tight warmth throughout.

“Aye.” He tossed her pack over the shrubs, already knowing which one held her garments. She pulled her clean kirtle from inside and set to the task of washing what sap she could from the one she’d just taken off.

She’d torn one of the elbows.

“Drat!” she hissed, ashamed at her clumsiness. She owned all of two kirtles, and now one of them had been ruined.

“Do you know of somewhere along the road that I might have my kirtle repaired?” she called out while scrubbing out the sap.

“Nay, though I’m sure you could find someone in the village.”

“How much longer will it be?” She chose not to argue the point, even though she had never agreed to make the entire journey with him.

“Three days, perhaps.”

Three days. She grunted with frustration at herself, wringing the water from the soaked garment and stripping off her chemise when she was certain he could not see.

The water was cold, refreshing, but it did little to cool her overheated skin. All he’d need do was to break through the shrubs. There would be nothing she could do to stop him, unarmed and naked as the day she was born.

She dunked her head, running her fingers through her hair to loosen the needles stuck therein. If he were only less… everything he was. Less strong, less handsome, less alluring.

The way he’d held her…

She could still feel his arms around her shoulders, beneath her knees. The rapid beating of his heart. His hot breath…

When she emerged, sputtering and blinded by the hair which stuck to her face, she knew she had to get away from him. Their time together had been a diversion which was beginning to turn far more serious.

“Well, well. It looks as though we found ye at last.”

She gasped, sinking to her knees so the water might cover everything below her shoulders.

And found herself staring at one of her four clansmen, watching from the bank with a triumphant smile.

“Avert your eyes,” she hissed, wrapping her arms about herself.

“Och, I dinna think so.” He crouched, his smile turned predatory. “I willna be taking an eye off ye from now until we reach Ben Macdui, lass. I’ve learned my lesson.”

What could she do? He had her trapped. There would be no running, no screaming for help, for what could Fergus do?

The water’s cold seemed to seep inside her bones.

He would know who she was.

“Where are the others?” she whispered, shaking until her teeth chattered.

“Up and down the bank, searching for ye. We shall meet to make camp, and they shall see how fortunate it was for me to choose this place.”

“No, they shall not.” Fergus bolted from the darkness, slamming into the redhaired stranger, knocking them both to the ground.

He got the upper hand, pinning the Reid man on his back. With one hand around the man’s throat, Fergus snarled, “Who are ye? What business have ye here?”

The man’s eyes met Moira’s for an instant before he choked out, “She ran from us. We were taking her to Ben Macdui, to see Luthais Campbell!”

Moira wished the river would take her away.

She ought to have left him. She ought to have ridden north, away from him and from the clansmen still searching the woods for her.

She would never get another chance.

Fergus released the man’s throat, backing away before turning to her.

She wished the moon would not shine so brightly, casting his distraught expression.

“Moira Reid?”