Page 89 of The Highlander Steals a Virgin
“Aye,” he murmured, his voice dipping low. “Let’s see if I can still give ye one worth rememberin’.”
She flushed just enough to satisfy him.
Then with Daisy already trotting ahead and the stable lad stepping back with a bow, Rhys swung into his saddle and nudged his horse forward right beside hers.
“Off we go, then.”
The wind tugged at Daisy’s curls as she urged her pony into a gallop, and the horse started kicking up little puffs of dirt in the narrow trail.
“Steady!” Rhys called, but his daughter just whooped louder and urged the beast faster.
Amara laughed, her own mare trotting alongside his with far more grace. “She’s wild.”
“She’s yers,” Rhys said without thinking, then corrected, “Mine. But aye. Same thing.”
Amara arched a brow but said nothing.
They followed Daisy toward the ridge overlooking the valley, the late afternoon sun slanting across the heather-dotted hills. The scent of gorse and distant smoke filled the air.
It was a good day.
Too good.
Rhys watched Amara from the corner of his eye. Her cloak billowed behind her, the braid at her back bouncing as she rode. She looked more at home on that horse than most of the men he trained. Her confident, quiet, focused look was strikingly beautiful.
So damned beautiful…He could hardly stand it.
She reached out suddenly and caught a low-hanging branch, breaking off a sprig of leaves and sniffing them.
“Thyme,” she said, offering it to him with a smile. “I used to pick this for stew back home.”
Rhys took it, fingers brushing hers. “Ye’ll have to teach Cookie. Might save me from another round of his turnip disaster.”
She laughed. The sound of it traveled down his spine like lightning.
“I dinnae think it was that bad!”
“Och, that’s nae the turnip disaster. He hasnae served it since the first time. I forbade it.”
“I daenae thinkthymewill save it, then,” Amara said playfully.
“Anything, at this point, would.” Rhys grinned and met her smile.
She was looking at him like… like…What is on her mind?
Deciding not to ask, he turned to spot Daisy, who was well ahead of them. They rode in companionable silence for a while, following Daisy’s trail down into a small grove where the treesthinned out and the grass grew high. The sound of the loch beyond whispered on the breeze, hidden just past the bend.
And still… it loomed.
Two more days.
Just two.
That was all the time left in the week she’d asked for. A week to decide whether she’d stay or go. A week that had passed too quickly and too sweetly.
He didn’t want her to go.
But he wouldn’t ask her to stay, either. Not unless she chose it for herself. Not unless she saw this place,hisplace andhim, as something worth staying for.
