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"Who, you h Don’t let Rollo at hi the skull with intense concentration, wet black nostrils flaring with interest

Jahtly

"Are ye sure you’re quite all right, Sassenach?"

"No," I said, though in factback as I woke up all the way "I’ any breakfast, did you?" I asked longingly "I couldroped in his sporran "I hadna tiot soood And then," he added, raising one eyebrow, "you can tell me how the devil ye came to be out in the middle of nowhere, aye?"

I collapsed on a rock and sipped the brandywine gratefully The flask trean to ease as the dark ah the walls of my empty stomach and into my bloodstream

Ja have ye been here, Sassenach?" he asked, his voice gentle

"All night," I said, shivering again "Since just before noon yesterday, when the bloody horse--I think his nae up there"

I nodded at the ledge The ht It could have been any of a thousand anonyht struckbefore, had I not been so chilled and groggy

"How the hell did you find me?" I asked "Did one of the Muellers follow me, or--don’t tell elding, Auntie," Ian put in reprovingly "No a lassie But we havena seen your horse at all No, Rollo led us to ye" He beanified, as though he did this sort of thing all the tian, bewildered, "how did you even know I’d left Muellers’? And how could Rollo--" I broke off, seeing the two htly and nodded, yielding to Ja the he, warm hands

"Your feet are frozen, Sassenach," he said quietly "Where did ye lose your shoes?"

"Back there," I said, with a nod toward the uprooted tree "They must still be there I took them off to cross a stream, then put them down and couldn’t find them in the dark"

"They’re not there, Auntie," said Ian He sounded so queer that I looked up at hierly over in his hands

"No, they’re not" Jamie’s head was bent as he chafed lint copper off his hair, which lay tuh he had just risen froht "When yon beast suddenly wentup "Barking and howling and flingin’ his carcass at the door as though the Devil was outside"

"I shouted at hiet hold of his scruff and shake him quiet," Ian put in, "but he wouldna stop, no matter what I did"

"Aye, he carried on so that the spittle flew froht he’d do us an injury, so I bade Ian unbolt the door and let hione" Jamie sat back on his heels and frowned at my foot, then picked a dead leaf off my instep

"Well, and was the Devil outside?" I asked flippantly

Ja, fro--except these" He reached into his sporran and drew out my shoes He looked up intoon the doorstep, side by side"

Every hair on my body rose I lifted the flask and drained the last of the brandywine

"Rollo tore off, bayin’ like a hound," Ian said, eagerly taking up the story "But then he caan to sniff at your shoes and whinge and cry"

"I felt rather like doing that htly at one corner, but I could see the fear still dark in his eyes

I sed, but my mouth was too dry to talk, despite the brandywine

Jamie slipped one shoe onto my foot, and then the other They were damp, but faintly warm from his body

"I did think ye were maybe dead, Cinderella," he said softly, head bent to hide his face

Ian didn’t notice, caught up in the enthusias off, the saht up our plaids and ca to snatch a brand froood chase, too, did ye no, laddie?" He rubbed Rollo’s ears with affectionate pride "And here ye were!"

The brandyas buzzing inh sense left to tell me that for Rollo to have followed a trail back to me…someone had walked all that way in my shoes

I had recovered soed to talk with only a little hoarseness

"Did you--see anything--along the way?" I asked