Page 4 of Outlaw Ever After (Highland Handfasts #3)

Peigi could feel the lurker’s eyes upon her.

Alarm, familiar and unwanted—years of reaves had taken their toll—spiked her pulse. Should she run? Keep singing as if nothing was amiss, so as to buy herself a moment to plan her escape?

“Sleeping sweetly in the pine…”

Wariness stiffened her back like a curtain wall, as she kept singing the song from the book of lyrics Seamus had once given her, even as her periphery narrowed on a… man

***

Breathe

, she advised herself, and strummed, glancing to the overlook of the glen for a route to abscond upon since he was blocking the path she’d taken, when his soft movement rustled.

Her lyre clanged as she bolted to her feet to run, head whipping around and her gaze landing on—

Emerald

eyes that twinkled with mystery, cocksure attitude, and secrets.

Tribal hair knotted up and beard braided in bone beads like the worst rogue.

A thousand sheaths strapped upon the craigs and glens of bare muscle rippling over him like sea swells and a band of black tattooed around his bicep, and that scythe…

No smile now.

She froze in mid jump as he held up a placating palm. Him

? The preening warrior? She’d passed him at the spear throw while walking here, cocking a grin that lifted the apples of his cheeks as his crowd had adored him. She’d seen him boasting and pounding his chest. Up close, he was tall,

donning a plain kilt that denoted no clan relations.

A renegade with a…document satchel slung over his arm?

She stared at his chest, littered in nicks, he a magnet and she a helpless speck of ore unable to resist the allure.

And then he smiled. A boyish reverence softening the hard edges of his chiseled cheekbones and warming that green gaze, though there was nothing boyish about his body honed into a weapon.

Awareness skittered through her beneath his roving eyes.

Men didn’t dare look at her with such abandon.

In fact, men rarely looked at all. She made sure of it by keeping out of the public eye, for she hated their appreciative examinations.

He hooked an arm around a bough for leverage to duck into the clearing as if a buccaneer swinging around a ship mast—

“Eh, sorry,” he murmured, as if coming to his senses, and dropped his satchel, stripped off his back sheath, to slip on the tunic that had been slung over his shoulder like a washerwoman’s rag.

It draped off-kilter down his frame, resting on the lip of his belts.

His gaze darted like a hawk to her lyre in the grass then traveled over her face again, washing her in familiarity she couldn’t place, for she’d never met this warrior before.

“Bonny,” he gruffed, a gravelly sound that wasn’t nearly as commanding as the boastful voice he’d employed with his crowd of adoring ladies.

There it was. Her looks. Always a curse to endure.

She wet her lips. Felt his gaze train upon them. “If ye’re going to spout sonnets about the morning dew glistening upon my lips, or the sparkle of the sun in my eyes, I’ve nary an interest in hearing the tired refrains—”

“The song ’twas bonny…play it again,” he rushed out.

As if her remark had bounced off him, he approached her uninvited, dropping to his rear, facing her.

She flinched back in surprise. “Wh-what?”

“Yer voice. The lyre.” He sprawled sideways in the grass, stretching to his satchel, rummaging within, as a parchment with an unmistakable royal insignia tumbled loose. Spiced patchouli wafted to her nose. He withdrew a bone flute with…ink-stained fingers?

Was that the royal treasurer’s

insignia sealed upon that ribbon? But he looked like a warrior, nay a parchment pusher.

Then he brought the flute to his lips. Her brows flew up.

Ink? Royal scrolls? Music? Did this warrior spend much time at a writing desk? Was

he a warrior? He’d competed like one. He was tall and fit. Trained and armed.

“Ye play music?” she said with wonder. “A braw warrior such as yourself—”

She cut herself off, blush singeing her cheeks. His green eyes danced with amusement. That cocksure smirk he’d worn on the contest field pitched up his lips now.

“The wee crone thinks I’m braw, eh?” He waggled his brows. Cocked up his knees to rest his elbows upon them.

“ Crone

.” She gasped at the insult, willing herself to not let her eyes dip to where his kilt slipped down his thighs, pleats piling atop that

part of a man, barely keeping him modest—

Failing miserably, her gaze bounced away.

He laughed. Such a deep, rich sound. “’Tis clear ye nay want a man to think ye bonny if that tongue lashing was any indication.”

Ah, that divot beside his mouth, lips lush behind his beard, those teeth, the way his eyes squinted into happy half-moons— so

strangely familiar.

“Like what ye see, lass?” He was teasing her, she realized. “I’ll nay remark upon yer cronish looks—but ye can remark upon mine all ye like.”

She shook her head and couldn’t contain her giggle this time. “Remark upon yer

cronish looks?”

He barked an easy laugh, studying her, until his laughter died. “Ye nay like a man to compliment ye?”

“Does that waggle work on other women?” She ignored his question, though she didn’t miss his scrutiny.

“Apparently it nay worked on ye, songbird.”

Songbird… Her skin tingled with premonition at the sweet endearment.

“And that bothered ye?” She arched a brow.

“Of course no’.”

She smirked at his defensive harrumph. “Clearly. How did ye even notice me here in the shadows?”

“I always listen to the shadows,” he replied, cocking a playful brow, even though she suspected his words were truthful. “That’s where the danger lurks.”

Another laugh welled in her throat. “Am I dangerous?”

“The worst sort of danger.” He studied her lips a heartbeat too long, then his cheek divoted as he brought his gaze back up to hers. “Something tells me ye might be able to bring me to my knees, for I heard yer siren’s call across the festival.”

He pointed toward the din of the castle as if cocking a wheel lock pistol.

How is that possible?

She opened her mouth to form a retort—

He plucked her lyre from her lap, strummed clashing strings.

Her jaw dropped. “Do ye mind

—”

“Nay one bit. Play. The. Song. Again

,” he enunciated as if speaking to a stubborn bairn. She snatched it back, eliciting another smolder from him. “On those fine ”

—his eyes dipped to her lips—“morning dew–covered”—his tongue traced boldly over his lower lip as if anticipating a feast—“ lyre

strings

of yers.”

Her cheeks burned! Ah, a prime jester, he was.

Different. Suitors never asked about her skills, let alone begged to hear them, and they’d never dare flirt with her.

They wanted to know how plump her dowry was—and if her parents giving birth to six bairns, three of which had survived, meant she, too, would be good at producing offspring.

She studied him a moment longer, but slowly did as he bade.

He wasn’t a suitor.

She strummed the dulcet sounds nervously. Hit a clashing note as she willed her fingers to steady. Then she sang a soft verse wavering with more nerves, easing into comfort as she closed her eyes to steady her raging heartbeat…when his flute joined.

Soft, airy harmonies, perfectly on pitch, she could envision his lips pursed over the mouthpiece, kissing the instrument— sakes, kissing it?

Her eyes flickered open to see for herself and instead, noticed that emerald gaze hard upon her as if starving for every lyric that trickled off her tongue.

Those lips hovered in a perfect purse of promises and pleasure over the tiny mouth of the flute, and she realized, as that gaze of his lifted to her eyes again, that it was striated with flecks of olive and jade.

And my, his talent! He knew this song as if he’d heard it his whole life and before she knew it… it was over.

Silence hung. The nearby burn gurgled.

Their eyes held. His dipped once more to her lips with a look of such longing, she couldn’t be angry at him this time, for his chest rose and fell as if he’d just sprinted across the glen, as if he were as affected as she. Those lips were parted with something akin to heartache.

“That was beautiful,” she whispered.

“My mither

used to sing it to me. Where did ye learn it, songbird?” he croaked.

“A book that was given to me. I thought it was lovely. Full of yearning and adoration.”

His brow furrowed. “A book? From where?”

She shrugged. “I nay ken. I was wee.”

She picked at the grass, laying down the lyre and twining a blade about her finger.

“I’ve nay thought of that song in some time,” he admitted. “My sire crafted my maw any instrument she desired. Fell in love with her song before he’d even seen her face.”

Spoken as if he was so afflicted, too.

“Yer sire must be a wonderful man to treat her so fondly.”

“He… was

.”

And right then, she sensed tragedy. That familiarity she had no word for overwhelmed her with tingling, but she couldn’t look away from him. No wonder he’d followed her, if this was a song sung by a doting mother.

“Ye’re lucky, to have had a sire to be so proud of.”

She knew the pain of losing parents, a cycle that no child escaped, as the old passed on and the new proceeded to make worse their parents’ problems.

“How did he die?” she added carefully.

He shrugged uncomfortably. Uncomfortable? He exuded confidence. It oozed from his pores like sap from a maple. He looked perpetually windswept with his braided beard. As if he gave not one shite about tomorrow and was happy to let the breeze carry him on a whirlwind journey through life.

“Reave,” he bit out. “Interlopers who fought back when he tried to run them off.”

Her heart lurched into her throat at his face having gone stony, and she rested her hand upon his forearm. His sharp gaze dipped to her touch.

“I ken such devastation.”