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to meet up with her on the ’morrow at Aberfoyle, one day’s ride from Stirling and The Duke of Argyll. Her champion had expressed his concern with his usual economy of words about leaving her alone with the MacLean. Bess assured him that the MacLean would arrive in Stirling at the end of his tether.
    “What’s for supper?” Ian asked.
    Bess took one of the hares she had snared and removed her dirk from the top of the wool wrapped about her leg over her leather brogues.
    “Hare,” she said, and began skinning it.
    “Oh, God,” the MacLean moaned from behind her. “Are you seriously going to eat that? The only meat I want to eat is usually laid out on a styrofoam tray, under plastic, with a bar code sticker on it.”
    Bess shook her head. Was there no end to his strange words? Was there no end to the questions that piled up inside her mind? Before he could say anything else to confuse her, she decided to ask him some questions while she prepared their supper.
    “What were ye doing swimming in the Firth of Lorn, in all yer clothes?”
    “I wasn’t swimming in the Firth of Lorn,” he replied. “I’m pretty sure I drove into Lake Tahoe, the swimming came after, and before I saved your life.” He spoke defensively as if he was trying to convince himself he was not mad.
    “Lake Tahoe? Is that what ye call the water between Mull and the mainland?”
    “Let’s not get into semantics here, Blaze?” he snapped. “What I want to know is what the hell where you doing chained to a rock? That is pretty intense even for whatever Dungeons and Dragons group you are mixed up with.”
    “Speak not to me of mythical beasts when I wish to talk seriously with you.”
    She speared the cleaned meat onto a sharpened stick and set it over the fire, leaning it on the warmed stones that circled the flames.
    “But seriously,” he said, “why were you chained to a rock in the middle of Lake Tahoe?”
    “’Twas in the Firth of Lorn, and ye should ken why. One of your own put me there to die.”
    “One of my own?” he asked, brows raised, pointing to his chest with both of his bound hands.
    Bess twirled the meat on the stick. She reached for the other hare and skinned it. This act solicited yet another groan from the MacLean.
    “Your chief, Lachlan MacLean. My husband. He chained me to that rock.”
    “Don’t know the guy, Blaze. But he does sound like a bastard. Any normal bloke would have taken himself to Mexico and gotten a divorce. But this is California. Is that some cult way to divorce? Are you in a cult?”
    “California? Cult? Ye speak words I dinnae ken. I am Chief of Clan Campbell of Argyll.”
    “So, you’ve said,” he sighed.
    “And ye are my enemy.”
    “I am? How?”
    Bess skewered the other hare and placed it over the flames. “Dinnae sound so glib, MacLean. I know this to be true. I will take ye to Stirling, and ye will confess that ye saved my life—”
    “Not a difficult thing to confess,” he said with a smirk that taunted her. “Because it’s true.”
    “And ye will tell the queen regent’s man, The Duke of Argyll, that your chief, Lachlan MacLean, did murder my brother and attempted to murder me.”
    “Is that your invitation for me to join this freaky little group of yours?”
    As she turned the meat over the flames, she shot him a penetrating stare. “’Tis no’ an invitation. Ye will do this.”
    “If I do this confessing thing, and I’m no actor but I’ll try, then will you release me?”
    Bess paused. She had not thought about that before. What would she do with the MacLean if he favored her will over his own death by doing her bidding? Let him go? Keep him prisoner?
    She reached to her side and took some dried vegetables from the provisions sack Alasdair had packed for her. She placed them on the heated stones, puckered orbs of carrot and turnip.
    “Blaze?” Ian MacLean asked. “Are ye prepared to give me an answer?”
    She did not lie to him. “I am not.”
    “Don’t