Harlequin Historical September 2020--Box Set 2 of 2 by Lara Temple

Author:Lara Temple
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Amazingly, he hadn’t asked where they were going. Even more amazingly, he’d barely spoken at all since she’d roused him at dawn with a shake of his good arm and a bowl of porridge, before handing over a pack of supplies and leading the way east. At this time of year they needed to start early if they were going to reach their destination and return again in daylight.

The previous night’s storm had cleared the air, leaving blue sky and a smattering of wispy clouds in its wake for their journey through the forest and up into the hills. They made good time, stopping after a couple of hours to eat some of the dried meat the villagers had given her. Danr nodded his thanks though he still didn’t speak. It was unnerving. A few days ago, she would have been glad of his silence, but now it felt wrong—too unlike him. Was it because of what had happened between them? She’d been trying and failing all morning not to remember the hard feel of his body—such a contrast to the soft touch of his hands—hoping they could just put it behind them and pretend that nothing had happened, but to her dismay there was a new atmosphere of tension between them, one which made silence even worse. She missed her old talkative companion—and when had she started to think of him as a companion?

‘We need to go along that ridge and then down the mountainside,’ she announced finally, pointing towards a jagged stretch of rock between two towering peaks looming above them. ‘It would be quicker to go through the valley, but we’re more likely to bump into Gaels there. They’re used to seeing me, but they’re still suspicious of Norsemen.’

‘The ridge it is, then.’

She nodded and looked quickly away. On a bright day like this, his eyes seemed to match the blue sky behind him. It was strange, but they looked different now—brighter, in some way, than when she’d first found him. Which made sense since he’d been bleeding to death at the time, but they seemed deeper somehow, too. More soulful and intelligent than she’d first given them, or him, credit for.

‘Here.’ She passed him a skin filled with water. ‘If we keep up this pace, we’ll reach our destination before noon.’

‘Good.’

They carried on, climbing up on to the ridge and then walking along in single file, high enough up to see the eastern coast of the island, beyond which lay the sea and beyond that, the coast of Alba itself. The terrain underfoot was less stable than she remembered, however, uneven and covered in scree.

‘Maybe we should consider the valley after all,’ Danr called out after a few minutes, pointing ahead to where the ridge tapered so narrowly that one misstep could lead to a potentially deadly fall. ‘I don’t like the look of that, especially after so much rain.’

‘I’ve walked this way lots of times. We’ll go slowly.’

Although, perhaps he had a point, she

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