Page 59 of The Highlander's Auctioned Wife
“Yer future is veiled, lass,” the fortune teller continued. “It’s a forked path, but joy exists down just one road. I cannae tell ye which path to choose but be watchful of those shadows. Stay with the light.”
To his bewilderment, Anna grinned and clasped the fortune teller’s hands in return, thanking her effusively. “I will. I’ll let the light shine through the dark, and I willnae take me eyes off it.”
“See that ye daenae ,” the fortune teller replied, smiling her pearly white smile. The old woman had no smile for Gordon, however, her expression clouding over as she looked at him. “And ye, M’Laird? Will ye have yer fortune told?”
Gordon shook his head. “Nay. I’ll learn me fate as it comes, thank ye, as intended.”
He dropped a coin into the woman’s leathery hand, and swiftly maneuvered Anna away from the stall, onto pleasanter things.
As much as he wanted to look forward to the future, he didn’t want someone telling him what it would look like ahead of time.
It’s nonsense anyway…He would repeat that in his mind until he believed it.
“What do ye think that meant—the shadows and the light?” Anna asked cheerily, casting her gaze across an array of pigments and painting materials at the next stall, her eyes alight with glee.
“I think it means that woman just got a coin for naught,” Gordon replied gruffly. “It doesnae mean a thing.”
CHAPTER 27
What is he thinkin’?
Anna discreetly opened the new book of cut paper that Gordon had bought for her, reveling in the silky feel of the new charcoal that accompanied it.
They’d ridden a few miles from the village to have luncheon with the array of delicious things they’d purchased, ending up beneath a willow tree on the banks of a merrily babbling stream. The sun had come out in force, the sky cloudless, but it was cool and peaceful beneath the willow fronds.
Yet, a storm seemed to be brewing in Gordon.
He sat on the bank with his feet in the water, staring blankly downward, his brow furrowed in deep thought. He looked beautiful, bathed in the hazy sunlight, the wavering reflection of the stream dancing on his face. A perfect muse, though she’dnever been much good at drawing what was actually in front of her.
But I cannaenaecapture this…
Letting her mind go quiet, her charcoal began to sweep across the fresh page.
“What are ye doin’?” Gordon’s rumbling voice asked.
She had no idea how much time had passed, but the detailed figure in the center of the paper, framed by the meadows opposite, the pristine blue sky, and the wildflowers and reeds that bordered his side of the stream, suggested it had been a fair while.
“Thinkin’ about raspberry buns,” she replied, chuckling.
As he got up and walked toward her, her gaze was drawn to those broad shoulders and muscular chest, certain now that he was the most handsome man she had ever beheld. Indeed, she wished she could draw him in that exact moment, but there wasn’t time. Besides, his next step was just as inspiring, striking a spark against her desire for him.
“Nay horns?” he mused, glancing down at the drawing.
“Nay horns.” She smiled. “But now I’ll have to start again—ye moved.”
“I dinnae realize I was bein’ drawn,” he countered. “If ye’d said, I’d have stayed still.”
“Go on, then,” she urged, biting her lip, seeing an opportunity.
The drawing she had hidden from him the night before had been a thing of pure imagination, picturing what the muscles of his broad back would look like, picturing the shape and firmness of his buttocks, picturing how pleasing his bare body would be from behind… as well as from the front.
He frowned. “What?”
“Sit where ye were,” she instructed. “And… take yer shirt off, so I can see what the sunlight looks like against yer skin.”
He crossed his arms, eyeing her. “I told ye once before—I daenae like bein’ told what to do.”
“Consider it yer gift to me on this second engagement,” she urged, her heart quickening, her anticipation rising.
