Free Tess and the Highlander by May McGoldrick Page A

with the
broth, and—”
    “Have you eaten?”
    She nodded.
    “You don’t need to serve me, Tess. Why don’t you go
about doing what you usually do at night? I’ll take care of
myself.”
    As he came near the hearth, she moved skittishly
across the chamber. She sat on her bedding and leaned back against
the cold wall. Picking up a small sack of shells from the floor,
she poured them out on her lap. She had already punched a hole in
each carefully selected shell with an awl, and she now began
stringing them onto a strand of leather. She watched him dip a bowl
into the broth.
    Colin had thrown a blanket over his shoulder. But
she still managed to glimpse his bare chest every now and then.
Tess felt delightfully wicked.
    “So what do you do with all of these?”
    She knew he was talking about the shells. “I make
them into…things.”
    “What kinds of things?”
    She shrugged. “Bonny things.”
    “Then why haven’t I seen you wear them?”
    Tess watched him pick up the bowl of broth and a
chunk of dried bread and move back toward his bedding across the
room. The blanket fell off one shoulder, but to her disappointment
he caught it and pulled it back on.
    “Because they are impractical to wear.”
    “If they’re impractical, then why do you make
them?”
    “Because I like to collect them…and look at them.”
She pointed to the strands of shells hanging from the beams
overhead. “And I like to collect them because I walk on the beach
looking for things. And I look for things because you never know
what treasure you might find.”
    “Or what trouble,” he muttered, lowering himself
onto his bed. He nearly sat down on the gift she’d left him. “What
have we here?” He picked up the wooden flute.
    “’Tis a cuisle, of course. I found it years ago
washed up on the rocks.” She saw him manage to juggle everything in
his hand as he sat back and leaned against the wall, facing
her.
    “I can see that. Do you know how to play it?”
    She shook her head. “Whenever I blow in it…there is
this horrible noise that comes out of it. Neither Garth nor
Charlotte could get it to play any music, either.”
    “But you’ve heard other people play it before?”
    She hesitantly nodded. “I have these vague memories
of a child sneaking out of her bedchamber and creeping down some
ancient stairs to listen to traveling musicians. There was singing
and dancing and…” Tess stopped abruptly, shocked that how real the
images suddenly seemed.
    She looked down at the pile of shells in her lap and
tried to blink back the sudden tears that the memory triggered. But
she had no past. For so long she had remembered so little of her
life prior to the day that the sea had tossed her up onto these
rocky shores.
    “Would you like me to play this for you?”
    Tess nodded and quickly dashed away a tear as he
laid the food aside and brought the pipe to his lips.
    After testing it a few times, Colin began to play a
melody so hauntingly lonely and yet so soothing, too. It was a song
that seemed so familiar to Tess, like it was a part of her. A part
of her childhood, she thought. The notes filled the space between
them. The air vibrated with the feeling Colin poured into the
music. Tess saw him close his eyes. His fingers and lips and
breaths seemed to be drawing out the very secrets of his heart.
    She let the string of shells drop into her lap. In
her mind’s eye she could see a solitary tree, stunted and bent,
braced against the wind. Beside it, she saw herself alone on this
isle, trying desperately to remember his face, the feel of his
touch…this melody…for the long time when he would be gone. Then,
Tess also thought of his loneliness in being separated from
the people that he loved.
    When the song was finished, he played another, and
another…and another after that. After playing for a while, he
stopped and laid the instrument down.
    As the notes faded, Tess dashed away a tear. “You
play beautifully.”
    “This is an old and