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certain that spilling all of her water was his fault. She tossed him the empty waterskin and he stuffed it back in her satchel.
    “Catch.”
    She jerked her gaze up as he tossed her an apple.
    Heather reached with one hand, catching the fruit easily enough. Thank goodness, her reflexes appeared to be back.
    “Lucky,” he said.
    She smirked. Let him think so. Another thing she’d learn to appreciate with a castle full of men—besting them at their own games.
    “Let us be on our way.”
    Heather climbed atop the horse, and her captor climbed up behind her. Thank goodness, she was no longer on his lap—but even still, his hard body touched hers in a way that made her want to faint.
    “What is your name?” she asked, figuring that with such close proximity, and he knowing her first name, she might as well know his.
    “Priest.” His tone was dull and clipped. He didn’t want her to ask any further questions.
    But she didn’t care. “Ye want me to call ye Priest? I’d rather call ye by your given name.”
    He only grunted and spurred the horse into a gallop—in the direction they’d come.
    “What are ye doing? We’re going the wrong way.”
    He grunted again.
    “Are ye a savage? Speaking only in grunts and hisses?”
    “I’m nay savage, but ye might think so after I gag ye with the hem of your skirt.”
    This time, Heather grunted. She took a bite of the crisp and juicy apple. It’d been hours since she’d woken, and it was the first thing she’d eaten since the day before. The juice of the apple and its sweet meat tantalized her tongue. Could have very well been the best apple she’d ever consumed. She was grateful to have brought them.
    “Do ye want an apple?” she asked, realizing that he’d given her one but not taken one for himself.
    “Nay. Not yet.”
    She tossed the thin core of her apple into the brush as they turned to head straight up the crag. Not exactly the way they’d come.
    “Have ye lost your way?”
    “I never lose my way.”
    “So, ye have a plan, then?”
    “I always have a plan.” The man sounded so sure of himself she was overcome with the need to punch him, or inflict some other sort of violence on him that he couldn’t have possibly planned for. Show him that he wasn’t as in control as he led her—and himself for that matter—to believe. “No more questions.”
    Heather did as he b ade, afraid that, though he’d not done it so far, he’d be compelled to muzzle her.
    The only problem with not thinking up questions to ask him was that she started to think of other things. Like how strong his chest was, and how nice it felt to have his strong arm around her waist. And how with the rhythm of the horse, their hips moved in unison, almost like a dance. How that dance made her body tingle, and she couldn’t stop shifting.
    And then her mind started wondering to other places, like what it would be like to have the priest kiss her, touch her again on her bare thigh, move with her like that when they were both—
    Blasphemy!
    She was doomed to hell for thinking such wicked, sinful thoughts about a man of the cloth.
    Even if he was a fraud, it was unquestionably a sin to even think it. And she already had enough to confess. Adding lustful thoughts to the list was enough to launch Father Hurley over the edge. He might suggest to Magnus that instead of a visit to her aunt Fiona’s—where she was always sent when her older brother thought she was starting to get out of hand—a trip to the nunnery might be better.
    She wouldn’t be able to live if they put her there , though! Sheer boredom and the need to rebel against every rule and structured hour would have the abbess bending Heather over her knee or taking a lash to her back, or whatever it was they did to punish nuns.
    Heather was most certainly not nun material.
    She closed her eyes and began begging forgiveness. Promising that from now on she’d try her best t o be sin-free if only God would forgive her for her wicked