Free Highland Song by Tanya Anne Crosby Page A

the longer she sat, the more mischievous she seemed to become.
    Gavin began to wonder if she were the devil himself come to tempt him.
     
    Cat knew full well what she was doing.
    Not that she had ever lain with a man before, but her people were not pietists. They loved where they wished. And right now, though it would surely confuse matters, she wanted Gavin Mac Brodie.
    The sight of him working so furiously down there in his pit—bare backed—made her smile. She had never seen a man work so desperately just to keep from taking his pleasures—and she knew full well that’s what was on his mind. She recognized the sparkle of lust in his dark green eyes and the surreptitious glances he cast between her thighs were hardly lost to her.
    But neither were the glimpses she offered him any accident.
    She had been drawn to him from the instant she had met him. In truth, had she not been she would have been long gone by now, especially knowing they were still searching for her.
    But for some reason she still couldn’t go.
    She had convinced herself that if she fled north, they would surely anticipate that move, and overtake her quickly if she were on foot. And that was probably true, so she had intended to steal herself a horse. But the simple fact was that now she didn’t want to go.
    His pit was growing deeper and deeper and soon she would be out of his reach. She had hoped, desperately, that he would reach out for her—och, but he was nothing like the groping fools she had known.
    He was a sweet, gentle man with the face of an angel and a body that stole her breath.
    “ Don’t ye need a break by now?” she asked.
    “ Nay!” He refused to look up and Cat giggled softly. “I’m not tired,” he persisted.
    She scooted around the lip of the pit so that he had no choice but to acknowledge her, and crossed her legs, knowing full well that his view was quite telling from down there. “Aren’t ye hungry?” she asked him as seductively as she knew how.
    He paused suddenly, leaning on his shovel, and peered up at her, swallowing as his eyes lit upon the moon of her arse… and the other secrets displayed for his eyes alone. He licked his lips and Cat felt like leaping down into the pit and kissing him furiously. Soon, she would have no choice but to leave and she didn’t want to go before thanking Gavin the way she really wanted to.
    “ Och, lass,” he said, and leaned upon the far wall of his pit, as though he were trying to put more distance between himself and the temptation she offered.
    Cat sighed. She knew he was curious about where she was from, but she wasn’t ready to reveal herself yet—perhaps in part because she might then be compelled to actually go home—particularly if he found out who her brother was—Aidan, last of the blood of Giric, grandson of Duncan MacAlpin, brother to Kenneth and the last of the Kings of Dal Riata.
    After Giric’s death, her kinsmen had fled to the Mounth and there they remained. They kept mostly to themselves and had no love for politics, though as a distant claimant to the throne, David apparently perceived Aidan as a threat. He seemed to believe that with Cat in hand, her brother would never challenge him.
    But he didn’t know her brother.
    Aidan wanted no part of Scotia, but provoking him was like poking a sleeping lion.
    If Gavin learned the truth, would he turn her over to the English lackey, or would he take her home himself?
    Cat would rather die than end as the wife of a Sassenach.
    She slid as far to the edge of the pit as was physically possible, peering down into the hole. “Verra nice,” she declared.
    A few loose bits of soil fell from the edge beneath her rear and she suddenly had an idea.
    “ But there’s no water,” he complained.
    She grinned. “Not yet.”
     

Chapter 6
     
     
    Gavin couldn’t even see out of the pit any longer, but it seemed to him that the shores of the loch across the way must surely be higher than he was at this point, and he