by Alisa Adams
Neely sighed. It was a happy ending indeed for Swan. But herself? She wanted nothing more than to go home. Her home.
Back to Brough.
She wanted to find her father, or at the very least to know if he was alive or dead. Was he captured by the soldiers as he ran perhaps?
She did not know the answer to that. But she did know she needed answers, and the comfort of her own place. Her little cottage by the sea.
Neely sat there on the warm stone wall, swinging her legs under her pale blue tartan skirt. She gave a short whistle and watched as her horse, Mentieth, who had been enjoying nibbling on the rain-sweetened grass, ambled slowly over to her, his all-black coat gleaming in the sun.
“Dia dhaoibh ar maidin,” she whispered in the old language as she stroked the elderly, black war horse’s elegantly arching neck, and then she repeated it again. “Good morn to ye.”
She laughed softly as the horse she called Teeth used those very teeth to latch onto her tartan shawl and pull.
Neely grabbed it away from the horse before he could chew and slaver green grass stains all over the soft, pale blue wool. The horse nuzzled at her hair, pulling bits and pieces out of her neat and tidy braid, and yanking her tam off the top of her head.
“Ye are a rude one, ye are Teeth! Such naughty manners, ye auld battle beast!” She laughed as the huge, black horse flipped his head up and down, waving her tam above her head as if to tease her. She reached up and grabbed it out of his mouth, slamming it back down onto her light brown hair as she gave him a mock glare.
“Shame on ye!” she said as she shook her finger in the horse’s face.
Teeth just leaned down and blew softly in her face, nuzzling her cheek gently.
Neely reached up and pulled her fingers through the tangles in his long, black forelock. It was so long it fell to his nose. Then her hands stroked down either side of his face to hold his large head. She looked into his brown eyes. His once noble head now had sprays of greying hairs intermixed with the black. The grey was showing up over his eyes and down his nose. His mane and tail were still as black and long as ever, and his neck still arched like the once magnificent war horse he used to be.
“Sich a sweet horse ye are. Ye just pretend to be a terror,” she whispered. She sighed as she began working her fingers through the mane that fell all the way to the horse’s still-powerful shoulders.
“I cannae believe that old, hateful, teeth-gnashing battle horse is still alive,” came a voice.
Neely looked up, her fingers stilling in Teeth’s mane. Her heart stopped. She blushed hotly.
There stood Lady Swan’s older brother, Lord Greysteil McKinnon.
Her first and only kiss, when she was twelve years old.
Soon after that kiss he had gone away without even a wave goodbye to train with the Black Watch Army. He had only recently returned to Caithness, stopping to rest with some of his men at McKay Castle, and was surprised to find his sister Swan there, married to Wolf McKay, the laird of the McKay clan.
And at the same time, found out that his home and ancestral lands had been attacked and were destroyed.
He was angry and took it out on everyone around him.
Neely found her voice and sat up straighter. “He is not hateful,” she insisted. Then she quickly added rather begrudgingly, “My lord.”
Steil raised his brow and narrowed his light blue eyes at the girl sitting on the stone wall. She was petting the huge, black war horse that he knew to be a cantankerous, hateful horse. A horse that liked nothing better than biting people.
Though at this moment the old horse’s eyes were closed in contentment as the girl worked her fingers gently through the tangles in the horse’s black mane.
Neilina Eunson.
His first kiss, though not his last. He had kissed many braw lassies since Neely.
Though none were as memorable as the kiss he had shared with this girl.
The girl who had followed him around incessantly as they grew up together at Brough. The girl who was always clean and neat and tidy and had lectured him and nagged him about the dirt on his clothing or the bottom of his feet or on his hands or face.
Her lips were still as full, soft, and inviting as he remembered. Her hair was still the same mixture of soft brown and blonde that hung silky and luxurious down past her breasts. Her eyes were still that haunting grey color that pulled one’s soul deep into their depths.
She was a woman now.
When they were young he had kissed her in the middle of one of her tirades just to stop her constant railing at him. It had shocked her, silenced her. And surprised even himself.
And then she had given in and kissed him back with an exuberance and joyfulness, a complete giving of self, and a desire for him and only him that he had never encountered since.
Steil scowled at her. He wanted to kiss her again, right now.
He scowled even more furiously.
Neely scowled back at Steil.
Since he had arrived he had not said two words to her. He scowled any time he saw her, and she scowled right back at him. He infuriated her. The nerve of the man. Not even a goodbye then, and not even a hello now. Or an “I am sorry about that kiss long ago.” Or perhaps “Hello, I am not sorry about that kiss long ago and I would like another please.”
She sighed loudly as she glared right back at him.
He looked wonderful in a kilt. Even better than he did as a younger man. He wore a dark brown jacket over his cream linen shirt, with his tartan pinned at his shoulder. The coat made his shoulders look impossibly broad. His strong, thick, sun-kissed neck was exposed in the V of his open shirt under his jacket. He wore tall boots that encased and showed off his muscular calves. His dark auburn hair hung to his shoulders in waves and curls that made her fingers curl into her fists to stop them from reaching out to run her fingers through his hair.
She knew he would not welcome it. He was different now. Hard, cold, icy. Angry. He had lost his home, his lands. She could read the frustration and bitter disappointment in his face, in those piercing blue eyes that always unsettled her, made her stomach do little flips.
He was no longer the sweet, joyful boy she remembered. The boy she had fallen in love with. It was a man who stood before her now.
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Copyright Alisa Adams Publications © 2019
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This book is a work of fiction. Some of the characters are real historical figures, but the others exist only in the imagination of the author. All events in this book are fictional and for entertainment purposes only.
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