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Before the shepherd could finish, Angus was pulling her away again, dragging her toward the weaver’s bench. “Now the ribbons! Ye said ye’d help me pick a dye for me wooden pony!”

“Patience, little beast,” Sheona laughed, breathlessly letting him lead her from stall to stall.

She introduced herself to every shepherd, farmer, and merchant Angus dragged her toward. She spoke to everyone, listening to the blacksmith’s wife complain about the price of iron, admiring the fine silver brooches laid out by a traveling merchant from the coast, and buying a small wooden whistle from a carver, handing it straight to Angus with a quiet wink.

Everywhere she walked, the children around her were drawn by the stories she told and the games she invented. When they reached the shadow of the great oak tree at the center of the green, Sheona sank onto a flat stone, her skirts pooling around her boots.

“Tell us a story, me Lady!” a tiny girl with braided hair begged, clutching a rag doll to her chest. “A story about dragons!”

“Nae dragons,” Angus declared, taking his spot right beside Sheona’s knee like a small bodyguard. “Tell the one about the sea kelpie that stole the blacksmith’s boots!”

Sheona leaned forward, her dark eyes sparkling with mischief as she gathered the six or seven children close. She began to speak, her voice dropping into an animated whisper that had the young ones gasping and leaning in, entirely spellbound by the rhythm of her words. She gestured with her hands, imitating the splash of the water, making Angus burst into a proud, triumphant giggle as he chimed in with the punchlines.

Brodie stood twenty paces back, resting his shoulder against the rough bark of a timber post.

More than once, as she spoke to the children, he caught her glancing toward him over their small heads.

Their gazes locked across the sunlit grass. The laughter died in her throat for a fraction of a second, her lips parting slightly. The air between them felt suddenly thick, charged with the lingering memory of the other night.

Brodie’s blood burned at the recollection. The thought of her flushed skin beneath his fingertips, her lips, her eyes… it had almost kept him from breathing over the last three days. It had kept him awake in his lonely bed, staring up at the stone rafters as his chest tightened.

She knew what she did to him. He could see it in the sudden, rapid pulse fluttering at the base of her pale throat and in the way her fingers clutched the wool of her skirt as she met his stare. Yet she did not look away. She held his gaze with a quiet, burning intensity.

“Father!” Angus’s voice shattered the spell.

The boy was on his feet again, waving his arms frantically toward him. “Father, come here! Sheona is goin’ to show us how to play the ring-and-ribbon game!”

Brodie tore his gaze from hers, forcing his expression back into a cool, impassive mask as he straightened from the timber post. He crossed the green at a slow, deliberate stride, crushing fallen leaves underfoot, and came to stand at the edge of the gathered children.

Sheona did not look up immediately. She was demonstrating the first loop of the ribbon game, her fingers moving with practiced ease, her voice light and unhurried for the children. But she knew he was there. The slight stiffening of her spine told him so.

He said nothing. He crouched down beside Angus, resting his forearms on his knees, and watched.

After a moment, without turning her head, Sheona held out the loose end of the ribbon toward him.

"Hold this," she said.

Brodie looked at the ribbon. Then at her profile.

He took it.

The children burst into delighted argument about the next move, and neither of them spoke again. But his fingers stayed wrapped around the ribbon's end, and she did not take it back.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The sun sank low behind the ragged western peaks, bruising the Highland sky with streaks of deep violet and burnt orange. Brodie pulled his plaid tighter across his chest, watching the light fade over the glens. It was going to be a long, bone-chilling night. As dusk swallowed the valley, the sharp autumn chill settled over the village green, thick and biting.

Torches flamed to life along the timber fence posts, throwing long, dancing shadows across the trampled mud. At the center of the green, the giant pyre was lit—a mountain of dry oak logs and pine brush that erupted into a roaring pillar of golden fire. Bright showers of orange embers swirled upward into the dark velvet sky, carried away on the evening wind.

Brodie felt the sudden, fierce heat wash over his face, but it did little to thaw the quiet tension settled deep in his chest.

Around the blaze, the mood shifted. Families drew together in tight, warm circles, mothers wrapping woolen shawls over the shoulders of tired children, and men sharing clay jugs of dark ale. Two fiddlers took up position on an overturned cart, their bows flying across the strings in a furious, stomping reel that set the younger folk spinning in wild, breathy circles across the trampled grass. Laughter and clapping echoed off the stone walls of the keep above.

Old Jamie stepped up beside Brodie, offering a sloshing clay mug with a gap-toothed grin. “A fine Samhain fire, me Laird! The spirits willnae dare cross the glen with a blaze like this to ward ‘em off.”

“Aye, Jamie,” Brodie replied, taking the mug and eyeing the leaping flames. “Let’s hope the harvest lasts us through the winter it ushers in.”

Jamie barked a laugh, clapping Brodie on the arm before turning back toward the music. “It will, me Laird! Tonight we feast and give thanks; winter can wait until tomorrow.”