Page 61 of Keeping Kate
Sweet apology indeed, he thought. He very much doubted he would get one.
Moments later, he saw Kate just as she topped a low hill. He followed at an easy pace. The sun spilled the last of its glorious color over the mountain ridges beneath the indigo bowl of the sky. In that glow, Kate’s hair, loose of its knots, shone like bronze.
Jean’s red gown was as bright as a flag. Bless Jean and providence, he thought, for making the chase a bit easier. Kate now walked along where the moorland stretched over gentle swells toward the rim of another low hill. She glanced back.
Seeing him, she broke into a run.
Riding steadily after her, Alec pulled nearer, but she ran faster, hair and skirts whipping like banners. He leaned low and hard from the stirrups, reached out an arm, and scooped her around the middle to pull her up, though she flailed like an albatross. Dragging her up, he dumped her across his lap and clamped an arm around her.
“Oh, no, you lass,” he said as she tried to twist free. He tightened an arm around her, trapping her, managing the reins in one hand while she writhed. “Enough,” he growled as she twisted. “By God, we are done with this. Next time you try to run away, I shall let you go.”
“Fine!”
“And then I can follow you to that nest of Jacobites you insist on protecting to get my blasted questions answered directly.”
“They would not like that—neither would I.”
“Then behave, Kate MacCarran,” he said, “and let me help you.”
“Help me?” She turned to stare up at him in surprise. She straightened, sitting in front of him, perched awkwardly with skirts over his legs, as he rode for the inn. “Why would you want to do that?”
“I am undecided at the moment,” he said. The girl made him furious and frustrated. The most vigorous challenge was her sheer mule-headed stubbornness, equal or superior to his own. He admired her spirit. He had lost some of that spark along the way, having imposed restraints over his nature. But he understood her spitfire character and her need for freedom better than she could know.
Other feelings tumbled inside him, unnamed, new aspects of himself emerging like sprouts and tendrils. The girl had him spinning about like a whirligig. He did not much like this new lack of equilibrium. He felt like a man waking from a long, dreamless sleep to find himself in a strange and vivid world that was foreign in some ways, and yet felt familiar and welcome in other ways.
No time for reflection—the girl pushed against his arm, huffing, making her frustration known. He slowed the horse, let it walk while he held Kate steady. He leaned down to catch her eye, but she twisted her head to avoid his gaze.
“Kate, here we are again. I cannot allow you to run off. You know that.”
She blew out a sigh. He felt strangely caught, like a man in some ancient tale, restraining one of the wild fairy-folk in a mythic conflict. Whatever this was, he sensed it had the power to remake and reshape them both. He wished he could trust her, for he wanted, more and more, to tell her the truth: that he, too, fought covertly for the Jacobites. If she knew they had that bond, she might cooperate. Perhaps then he could indeed help her. But the time was not right as yet.
“Calm yourself. I am no threat to you,” he said.
She lifted her chin. “You told the soldiers you lost me out here. Tell the court the same, and let me go my way. You need never bother with me again.”
“I will always bother with you.” His words lingered in the air.Always.
Her expression changed to surprise, to wonder. Alec leaned down, touched his lips to her brow, could not help it. She turned, angled to meet his mouth with hers, sighing and returning the kiss. That surprised him. Then she pulled sharply back, which did not surprise him.
“You muddle my head, Captain Fraser. I hoped you might let me go, after what we—what happened between us.”
“Tell me what I need to know, and I might consider it, if I thought you would be safe. Why would your kinsmen put you up to going into military camps alone? What do you know about those damnable Spanish weapons? And so on.”
She scowled, shook her head. “I cannot—I do not know. Surely, I am too much trouble to keep. I might be even more trouble. You will not take me so easily to prison.”
“I am learning that. But for now, you must stay with me. For better or worse, we are in this together.”
“Better or worse?”
“Make of it what you will,” he said, guiding the horse through gathering darkness.
