“It’s just meat,” he said to her as he continued skinning. “Surely ye do eat meat, dinnae ye?”
Isla shook her head. Her stomach threatened to roll until she emptied her insides on the ground, but she continued gulping in large chunks of air as she found a spot to sit beneath a tree.
“I do eat meat. But not one skinned by my hands. That’s—”
“Normal,” he told her before he finished what he was doing and put the rabbit over the flames. He returned to her side after washing his hands in the loch close by.
Jack sat on the ground and drew his legs up in front of him.
“So, ye never hunt?”
“Never,” she answered.
“Used a bow and arrow? Or perhaps tried to learn to ride a horse?”
She shook her head again, and he chuckled. “What have ye done then?”
“I have traveled, seen numerous circus shows and orchestras. I enjoy attending balls and dinners. I drink wine and read history, then travel with my friends to the places I read about.”
“What about yer family?” he asked.
Isla fell silent after he asked the question. She never talked about herself to anyone because she rarely ever got the chance to. Not even with Ada, Penny, and Katherine. She didn’t even consider herself that close to any of them.
Besides the memorable times they shared traveling and visiting fairs, they never talked about anything else. It was the first time in a long while, but Isla felt a hollow emptiness in her heart as she sat there with Jack.
“I don’t have parents,” Isla answered him after a while. “They died in an accident eight years ago, so I’m all alone.”
“Not anymore,” he said, and surprised her when he put his hand over hers and squeezed gently. “For the time you are here, you have me friendship, and that’s nae goin’ to change.”
Isla angled her head to his side so she could look at him. The intensity of his brown eyes as she stared right back at her tightened her chest and made it difficult for her to breathe properly for a second.
“We are friends?” she whispered, mesmerized by the intensity of his eyes.
“If ye want us to be,” he replied in a low baritone voice, making her insides churn.
A low hum started to warm her blood, and it seemed as if his face drew closer to hers. His nearness made her heart pound harder, and her head swooned.
Jack’s horse suddenly neighed and shied. The sound cut into the moment and made them jerk apart. Jack was on his feet the next instant. He hurried away from her to his horse, and he patted the horse’s big neck to make it settle down.
“It’s all right. Ye’re all right,” Isla heard him say until the horse quieted before he returned to the campfire.
“Are you really going to eat that?” she asked as she got on her feet to walk over to him.
“Aye,” he answered. “We Scots like to kill our own food.”
“That’s gross.”
“There you go again using another strange word,” he commented, and Isla burst into a short laugh. She could hardly ever remember that she was to speak in a certain way to fit in here.
“I am sorry, My Laird, I will dae my best to speak correctly when we meet with the council,” she said mimicking a Scottish accent even though it didn’t sound anything close to his.
“It’s my honor, My Lady,” he said, then took her hand and raised it to his lips for a kiss. “I will call ye Lady Sassenach from now on. The title suits ye.”
Isla grinned wide, and another hearty, genuine chortle burst free from her. “What does it mean?”
“It means a typical English lady,” he told her with a smile.
7