Page 59 of Highland Sword
“Miss Briana. Miss Catriona.” He bowed with a flourish to the children. “How lovely to see you. Is this your first Samhain celebration in the Highlands?”
The girls curtsied and nodded, beaming up at him.
“What have you seen so far?”
“The storytellers. But I didn’t really like that one.” Catriona pointed to the woman from Glen Coe.
“I heard some of what she was saying. I’ll need to bolt my door and shutter my window tonight.” He made a face, and the little girl nodded soberly.
“Morrigan is watching us while our mother walks with Mr. Gordon to get her fortune from a woman teller,” the older child announced.
This was news to the little one.
“Fort… teller?” Catriona asked. “What fort?”
“Not fort,” Briana responded, swinging around the front of Morrigan and looking at her sister as if she were a total embarrassment. She motioned with her arm. “Fortune. Teller. There is a fortune teller over by the kirk.”
“What does he do?” she persisted, craning her neck toward the church.
“He gives her money.” Hand on hip, the seven-year-old leaned into the face of her sister and drawled the word. “Fortune?”
Morrigan cocked an eyebrow at Aidan. These two took what they heard quite literally. The girls tugged on her hand, and the group started walking.
“May I join you?”
Morrigan’s nod was seconded by “Yes!” from each of the girls. Delighted, he fell in beside them. Aidan’s gaze lingered on Morrigan’s face as she laughed at somethingone of them whispered to her. She was happy, serene, obviously at home with these two. All her reserve was gone. She was quite different from the woman he usually saw—tense, alert, constantly on her guard.
Aidan realized this was the first time he was witnessing a maternal side to her.
Images immediately formed in his mind, adding to recent thoughts of what his life might be like with Morrigan beside him. While he was traveling, he’d found himself pondering that topic over and over. One thing he was sure of, whatever he’d imagined before as an ideal wife and partner had changed.
The raised voices of the children snapped his attention back to the present. They were discussing where they should go next. Each of them appeared to be passionate and determined to have their way.
“Bonfire!”
“Apples!”
“Bonfire!” Catriona tugged to the right.
“Apples!” Briana wished to go left.
“We have a man of the law with us,” Morrigan interjected. “Perhaps Mr. Grant can settle this.”
Two bright-eyed lasses were looking up at him expectantly. Equally strong-willed, one of them was bound to be disappointed if she didn’t get her way.
“Very well,” he said sternly. “Present your cases.”
They stared at him as if he were speaking in a foreign tongue.
“You might consider keeping their ages in mind,” Morrigan reminded him gently.
He got down on one knee and addressed Briana first. “Would you like to tell mewhywe should go to apple… apple…”
“Apple dooking,” Morrigan clarified for him.
“Of course. How could I forget? Why should we go there first, rather than second?” he asked.
“Because I’m hungry for an applenow.”
