Page 28 of Highlander’s Protector

“Aye,” she said.

“Let’s make camp here. You need to eat and rest. You look a little pale.”

She sighed. “I admit, the thought of a rest sounds good. But I want to make haste to Ayr and arrive there as soon as possible.”

“We will. Now that they’ve passed, I don’t think they’ll return here soon, so we’re probably safe for the moment. I hear a stream. Maybe there’s fish. I’ll roast it, and it’ll do you good.”

They climbed out of the ditch and found a good place for a camp. While Anna was making a fire, David brought her a trout that he’d already gutted and cleaned. The sharp scent of fresh fish hit her nostrils, and even though it was raw, her stomach growled. While he put it onto a stick to cook over the fire, she drank from a vessel made of a ram’s horn. He had pushed his sleeves up, and the muscles on his strong forearms moved as he worked. She had an odd urge to run her fingers lightly over them.

“Trout,” she said and closed the cap of the drinking horn. “’Tis a verra nice one. On Islay, my uncle Aulay took me fishing on Loch Gorm with Colum and my cousin Seoras. That was before I ever met my father.” She chuckled. “My other cousin Laoghaire, always a noble lady, stayed with my aunt Leitis and sewed dresses from silks that had just arrived from the Mediterranean.”

Worry about Colum was a constant tightness in her shoulders. Was he injured? Captured once again? Was he still alive? Were he and Iàcob trying to track her down? She admitted, David’s presence brought her reassurance. He said her uncle Aulay was alive and with the Bruce, waiting for word from Colum about his secret rescue mission, ready to storm Carlisle if needed to free her.

David was struggling to put the stick through the fish’s mouth and she came closer to him. “Ye’re nae doing it right. Allow me.” She reached for the fish.

“You want to smell like fish after all that effort you put into washing the dress?”

She chuckled. “Nothing will save the dress. And I’m hungry.”

He shrugged and handed her the stick and the fish. Carefully, she navigated the sharp end through the trout’s cold, slippery body.

“Please.” She slid the stick through the side of the fish tail and handed it to him with a triumphant smile.

He cocked his head with respect and put the fish over the fire to cook. “Well done. So you weren’t raised by Bruce?”

“Nae,” she said. “My mother and Bruce were engaged, but she died not long after I was born, still unmarrit… I suppose he got caught in all the warfare… William Wallace. Then John Balliol. It was the year he became king that he came to Islay. And it wasn’t even to see me. It was because he was running from the English and my uncle was hiding him. So I was raised by my uncle Aulay and my aunt Leitis. My cousins are more like siblings to me. Except Laoghaire.” She chuckled, looking at her hands. “Laoghaire never liked me.”

He chuckled, too. “I have a cousin like that, too. Liam. He always found some excuse to fight with me.”

She pushed the fire around with a stick. “Aye. I ken what ’tis like. Are ye close with yer parents?”

“My parents died when I was five.”

Anna watched him with different eyes now. She hadn’t thought this handsome warrior could have a tragedy of his own. “I am sorry they’re with God already, David.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he said. Picking up a twig, he started digging a hole in the ground. “I was raised by my aunt and uncle, too. My mom’s sister. But they had four kids of their own, plus my sister, Rogene, and I. It was always so passive-aggressive. The sighs. The heavy looks. The implications that if it wasn’t for us, their kids could have had new things instead of secondhand clothes.”

Anna frowned. “What are secondhand clothes?”

He muttered something under his breath—she thought he cursed himself. “Just…um…things someone already wore.”

“Oh. Aye, ’tis nae so good for nobles, but regular folks often get ‘secondhand’ clothes. I got many from Laoghaire. She’s the legitimate daughter of my uncle Èoin.”

He nodded. “They should have treated you like a legitimate daughter, too. It’s not your fault your parents weren’t there.”

“And ’twasna yer fault, either,” she said.

He looked at her for a long time, then grinned. “I didn’t have the best of childhoods with them. I don’t know why I’m in such a hurry to get back to them. It’s not like they’ll be missing me. One less mouth to feed. And my mouth ate a lot. I burned a lot of fuel playing football.”

“Football?” She frowned.

He cursed again and shook his head. “What is it with me today? Loading you with all kinds of new words I shouldn’t. Um. Football is just a game people like to play where I’m from. I was good at it, but it always left me even hungrier, so my aunt and uncle weren’t thrilled about it.”

“Well, Uncle Aulay and Aunt Leitis loved me,” she said. “But still, they wanted bairns of their own. And I wanted my own ma and da. When Aunt Leitis got with child, they tended to forget about me. I dinna blame them. Everyone wants their own flesh and blood. A child that is part them and part the person they love. But it didna make it easy for me, to be wanted and loved at one moment and forgotten the next.”

He nodded and gave her a sad smile. “I know, princess. I know.”

Warmth spread through her chest as he looked at her with kindness, and she knew he understood her pain. The rest of the day passed by quickly as they kept talking about their cousins. David told her stories about how his cousins made jests and even humiliated him and his sister. She told him how Laoghaire made fun of her simple dresses, of her being friends with the children of shepherds and farmers, of her going to bed with dirt under her nails.