Chapter Fourteen
The next day, when the gloaming hour was upon them, it was Catarina who struck the steel and flint onto the awaiting tinder. She pursed her lips and blew a slight stream of air on the orange embers until flames licked the dried bracken. She smiled with satisfaction as Quinn added dry wood.
“Now for the bannock,” she said. With confidence, she reached for the sack of flour and scooped a heaping handful into Freya’s wooden bowl. Then she shaped her hand into a ladle and scooped fresh water on top.
She smiled up at Quinn. “Now, I shall work the flour and water together with my fingers.”
“Precisely,” he said. “Yer doing very well.”
She stuck her fingertips into the mix and began to poke it around.
Quinn’s soft chuckle made her look up. “At that pace, we won’t have bannock until tomorrow’s supper. Ye can’t be afraid to get yer hands dirty.”
Catarina narrowed her eyes on the mixture like an enemy she was riding out to meet in battle. Her hands plunged into the bowl. Working her fingertips into a frenzy, she made a simple dough in no time at all. With a pleased smile, she showed Quinn her achievement.
“Well done,” he said, smiling.
“I hope they taste alright,” she said.
“Let’s see.” He reached out, taking hold of her sticky hand.
A nervous laugh escaped her lips. “I am a mess.”
“Ye’re perfect,” he said before drawing one of her fingers into his mouth. Her breath hitched. Heat shot through her as he sucked the mixture away.
“Tastes good,” he said softly. Leaning back against the cave wall, he continued to stare at her.
Her mouth was too dry to speak, not that she knew what to say. She had no words for the feelings he stirred within her. She looked away and finished cooking the bannock all the while aware of his watchful eyes.
Later, when their bellies were sated, they moved to the rear of the cave and laid down on their respective blankets, which she had intentionally set more than an arm’s length apart.
“Ye’ve done well today, my lady,” Quinn said.
She smiled her thanks, again too nervous to speak. She longed to be closer to him.
“Tell me more about your family,” she said when the silence became more nerve wracking than anything else.
“What would ye like to know?”
She wanted to know what his skin tasted of, how his lips would feel pressed hard against hers. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force her thoughts in a new direction. “Tell me about Alec, and why he is so...so...”
“So distant?” he volunteered.
She nodded. “Yes.” Although, she thought ‘troubled’ to be a more apt description.
He pressed his lips together and laid on his back, looking up at the cave ceiling. A slow breath fled her throat as she tried to invite her racing heart to calm now that his black eyes were not fixed on her. She too laid back and closed her eyes, letting his deep voice move through her.
“Ye might not believe me when I tell ye that Alec has dreams which show him things.”
Her interest piqued, she turned on her side and looked at him. “How?”
Quinn shrugged. “He has never spoken about what actually goes on in his dreams only what they’ve revealed.”
“And what do they reveal?”
“Truth,” Quinn said. “Answers to troubling questions. His dreams have even revealed that which has yet to be told. A dream showed him the destruction of Berwick before Edward had arrived with his legions outside the city limits.”
Her eyes widened. “He foresaw the massacre?”
“In a manner of speaking. His dream did not reveal Edward’s attack, only the aftermath, the slaughter and wreckage.”
She shivered, and her heart softened toward Alec. It must be a great burden to carry so much weight within one’s soul. It was no wonder Alec seemed so cold, especially when compared to Rory.
“Is Rory as rakish as I imagine him to be?” she said.
Quinn shook his head. “I ken he looks part, and women do find him hard to resist, but Rory is reckless more than anything.”
“Was he a sailor like you?”
Quinn shook his head. “Nay, he worked on the docks alongside my father. He had no wish to be trapped, as he saw it, at sea. He seldom strayed far from the city, from his friends and lovers.”
She blushed. “Did he take many lovers.”
Quinn turned his head and looked at her. “A few,” he said.
“What about you?” she asked.
He smiled. “What about me?”
She held her breath, fighting for the courage to speak her mind. “Have you loved someone before,” she blurted at last.
“I have cared for women,” he said. “But I was a sailor and never in one place long enough for love.”
She rolled onto her back to hide the smile his answer fixed to her lips. “Were you lonely?”
Again, his deep voice flowed through her.
“I missed my family, but I loved being at sea. It gets into yer soul—the power of the ocean and exploring marvelous new places. People always looked and sounded so different everywhere we went. And yet whenever we would dock for a stretch, I would see that people everywhere were actually all the same. People working, caring for their families, moving from one day to the next with mostly the same concerns, same worries, same joys. I would love for ye to see for yerself,” he said.
“Me on a ship?” she scoffed.
“What would ye say, if I asked ye to set sail with me for distant shores?”
She turned and looked at him. “Several days ago, I would have been scandalized and terrified—shamefully in that order.”
“And now?” he asked softly, reaching his hand across the great divide.
A flutter of wistful excitement coursed through her. She stretched out her arm, her fingertips grazing his. “Now, I wish I could have been with you.”
THEY REMAINED IN CATARINA’S decorated cave for nearly three weeks.
Quinn relished watching her increased satisfaction as her command of humble tasks grew.
More than that, he enjoyed the ease of her bearing.
There was a sudden lightness about her, and he knew much of her changed demeanor was because of their tranquil Eden.
They had made a flower-scented hideaway, but he knew they could not stay in that place for much longer.
Just that morning, he had found horse tracks in the woods where he hunted.
“Riders passed nearby during the night,” he said before biting a bannock hot off the fire.
Her shoulders tensed but only for a moment. “So, we push on,” she said.
“Ye’re not upset?” he asked.
She shrugged, a sad smile curving her lips. “I know we cannot stay here forever, nor would I wish it so. Nicholas is not here. There is no true haven without him.”
Quinn dusted the crumbs off his fingers. “That settles it then. We set sail in the morning for Caithness.”
After they had settled on their separate blankets for the night, Catarina laid with her elbows beneath her head. “Tell me a story,” she whispered in the darkness. Several moments passed, and then his voice, deep but soft, reached her ears.
“When my older sister, Rose, was a lass, she used to stand on the tweed dock where the river met the tide and watch the ships come in and out of port—or so that was what she told my mum and da. But I knew the truth. She used to take me with her so that she did not feel so alone, I just five and she no older than ten. She’d let me skip rocks, though I could not roam far, mind.
” He laughed softly. “I suppose my love for ships started in this way, but, as I’ve said, it was not the merchant vessels that drew my sister’s tireless gaze. ”
“What did?” Catarina said.
“Love,” Quinn said simply.
Catarina’s eyes widened. She sat up to look at him, though his features were obscured by shadow. “But you said she was only ten.”
“At the time, she had no one in particular in mind,” he said, laughing again. “But one day she did confide in me. She had dreamt that love would come to her from the sea.”
Catarina lay back down and smiled at the image of a young girl staring wistfully out to sea. “What does Rose look like? Is she dark haired like you?”
“Nay, she and my youngest brother, Ian, have fiery red hair and blue eyes and both with tempers to match.”
“And is that how Rose met her husband? Did he wash up on the banks of the River Tweed?”
He did not answer straightaway, and Catarina remembered that Rose’s husband and her three daughters were all slain during the massacre.
“Her husband was a carpenter and did not like the sea at all,” he said.
“’Tis no surprise though. Rose does not share Alec’s queer gift of sight.
Her dream was likely just that—a dream.”
Catarina smiled, her eyes feeling heavy. “Mayhap the tide will bring Rose new love.” And she drifted off to sleep lulled by the steady refrain of the North Sea.