hot off up the trail, loose reins dangling. Gideon made a deep rumbling noise of satisfaction and started off afterher, only to be jerked unceremoniously to a halt.Claire had whirled round at the noise, eyes wide. She looked up at Jamie, up the trail after her vanished horse, then back athim. She shrugged apologetically, hands full of tattered leaves and mangy roots."Sorry," she said, but he saw the corner of her mouth tuck in and the flush rise in her skin, the smile glimmering in her eyes likemorning light on trout-water. Quite against his will, he felt the tension in his shoulders ease. He had had it in mind to rebuke her;in fact, he still did, but the words wouldn't quite come to his tongue."Get up then, woman," he said instead, gruffly, with a nod behind him. "I want my supper."She scrambled up, kilting her skirts out of the way, and Gideon, irascible at this additional nuisance, whipped round to take anip of the roundly tempting target offered by her arse. Jamie was ready for that; he snapped the end of the rein sharply off thestallion's nose, making him jerk back and snort in surprise."That'll teach ye, ye bastard," Jamie said, with a small sense of satisfaction. He pulled his hat over his brow and settled hiserrant wife securely, fluttering skirts tucked in beneath her thighs. She rode without shoes or stockings, and her long calveswere white and bare against the dark bay hide. He gathered up the reins and kicked the horse, a trifle harder than strictlynecessary.Gideon promptly reared, backed, twisted, and tried to scrape them both off under a hanging poplar bough. The kitten, rudelyroused from its nap, sank all its claws into Jamie's midsection and yowled in alarm, though its noise was quite lost in Jamie'smuch louder screech. He yanked the horse's head halfway round, swearing, and shoved at the hindquarters with his left leg.No easy conquest, Gideon executed a hop like a corkscrew. There was a small "eek!" and a sudden feeling...
