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He unbuckled his broadsword belt, resting the leather sheath against the high back of his carved oak chair at the head of the table.

Before Brodie could sit, Angus darted across the floorboards, carrying his heavy wooden stool by its legs. He hauled it up to the side of Sheona’s chair, scraping its legs across the stone flagstones with a harsh screech.

“Angus,” Brodie said, his low rasp cutting through the noise of the hall. He pointed a thick, leather-calloused finger toward the empty place at his own right hand. “Take yer usual seat.”

Angus planted his stool firmly beside Sheona’s skirt, hoisting himself up onto the cushion without missing a beat. He looked his father dead in the eye. “I need to sit here, Father. I still have far too many questions left unanswered from the trail.”

Brodie’s jaw tightened. “The lass has barely sat down to her meal. Stop tormentin’ Lady Sheona and take yer place.”

Sheona turned her head, a warm, genuine smile lighting her features as she looked down at the boy. The tension in her shoulders melted away.

“He is nae tormentin’ me, Laird MacKinley,” Sheona said softly, her blue eyes meeting Brodie’s stern gaze across the timber board. “I daenae mind in the slightest. I am more than happy to answer every single question he has.”

Brodie stared at her for a long, unblinking moment before slowly sinking into his high-backed chair. He reached for his iron goblet, taking a deep draft of bitter ale as Angus leaned over his wooden plate, his dark eyes sparkling with unbridled eagerness.

“Lady Sheona,” Angus began, his small hands clutching his pewter spoon. “When ye dry the wild thyme, do ye hang it upside down in the shade, or do ye lay it on warm slate near the chimney?”

“Always in the shade, Angus,” Sheona explained gently, breaking off a piece of roasted turnip with her fork. “If the sun touches the leaves while they dry, it cooks the oil out of them. Then they’re useless when ye need to brew a tea for a cough.”

“And what about the mountain ash?” Angus pressed forward, leaning so far that his woolen sleeve brushed her gravy bowl. “The old songs say a branch of rowan over the stable door keeps the cattle safe from the mountain spirit. Is that true, or is it just somethin’ the herdsmen tell the children so they daenae wander into the crags after dark?”

Sheona let out a soft, melodic laugh that carried over the clatter of wooden trenchers. “Well, me grandmother always kept a knot of red thread tied around the rowan twig above her hearth. She said whether it kept spirits away or nae, it certainly kept the herdsmen from complainin’ about bad luck.”

Angus beamed, hanging on every single word that left her lips. “Tell me about the battle at Black Tor! The story about the three brothers who held the ford against fifty men!”

“Ah, the McLarens,” Sheona said, leaning back in her chair, her blue eyes bright as she spun the tale. “They didnae hold the ford with broadswords alone, Angus. They kent the riverbed better than any man in the glen. They rolled heavy granite boulders into the deep current at midnight, so when the enemy horses charged across in the mornin’ light, the beasts lost their footin’ in the hidden traps…”

Brodie watched the exchange from three feet away, his heavy hand resting flat against the scarred oak table.

A strange, prickly sensation tightened beneath his ribs, an uncomfortable, nagging knot he tried to dismiss as simple unease. Was it unease? He could not quite name what irritated him, but something undoubtedly did.

He had spent nine years trying to get his son to sit quietly at this very table, trying to teach him the stern, stoic dignity befitting a future laird. Yet here was this woman, the daughter of his bitter enemy, doing effortlessly in three days what he had failed to do in nearly a decade. The boy did not look to Brodie for approval. He did not ask Brodie about the patrol. His entire world had shrunk to the blue-eyed woman sitting on his left.

Brodie set his goblet down with a heavy, metallic clack against the oak.

Sheona reached across the center of the wooden trenchers, her slender fingers aiming for the basket of warm, crusty rye bread sitting between them. At the same second, Brodie reached forward to claim the loaf.

Her soft, warm fingers brushed against the back of his calloused, weather-worn hand. The contact lasted a second.

Sheona jerked her hand back as if she had touched a red-hot iron. A bright, burning crimson flared across her cheekbones, and her eyes dropped instantly to her plate.

“Forgive me,” she murmured quickly, her voice tight and barely audible over the chatter of the hall. “I didnae see…”

Brodie didn’t pull his hand away. He calmly wrapped his thick fingers around the warm loaf of bread, picked it up, and placed it directly onto the clean edge of her wooden platter.

Only then did he reach into the basket to take a slice for himself.

Sheona slowly lifted her head. Her clear blue eyes met his dark, unblinking gaze across the small gap between their chairs. Neither of them said a word. The loud chatter of the great hall, the clatter of iron spoons, and Angus’s chatter seemed to mute into background noise.

The heavy, suffocating weight of the unsaid—the contract, the four weeks, the lingering memory of his arms wrapped tight around her in the gorge—hung suspended between them, speaking louder and clearer than any words spoken in the hall.

Angus, entirely oblivious to the thick tension hanging between them, glanced from his father to Sheona before letting out a loud, dramatic sigh that carried across the high table.

“Ye’re doin’ courtin’ all wrong.”

The sudden, sharp drop in volume swept outward like a ripple in a pond. The clatter of wooden spoons ceased. The men sitting at the nearest trestle tables fell silent, two of Brodie’s senior guards pausing mid-swallow with their ale horns resting halfway to their mouths.

Sheona broke the quiet first, a small, teasing smile playing at the edge of her lips as she leaned toward the child. “And what does that mean, young sir?”