A Bride Worth Billions by Tiffany Morgan Page A

needed not just for his body, but for his soul as well. He was my protector and I was his. Several weeks after he was fully recovered, we sat next to our cook fire quietly watching the orange-yellow flames when he reached over and took my hand in his. He kissed the now rough skin of my knuckles and then gently leaned forward and shyly kissed me. When he broke away, he seemed almost embarrassed for being so forward, but then I pulled him hard into my arms slightly giggling at how his cheeks colored. But then his kiss became deeper, and I knew at that moment, no matter what the future held, I would never leave his arms.
     
                                                                                    ***
     
    So I suppose you want to know if we ever found my transponder? The answer is yes, we did, and we found it at almost the exact same spot where we had begun our journey two years earlier in Glasgow. The fact is we had given up on ever finding it and we had returned to Glasgow because the fighting between the English and the forces of Robert The Bruce had become too fierce for us to remain in the highlands and we sought out the safety of the city.
     
    On the very day we arrived, we walked the muddy, crowded streets with all of the other refugees and we passed a wagon which had a large amount of various kinds of jewelry laid out on a blanket. We were so tired from our journey that most likely we would’ve passed right by it. But as we passed, something caught Shaun’s eyes and he pulled me to a stop and pointed at the transponder sitting at the very center of the blanket. We looked at each other, shock and surprise spreading across our faces, and then we both began to laugh. We laughed so hard that tears sprang from our eyes and we had to hold one another up. When we finally calmed down, Shaun kissed me and asked:
     
    “Would you like me to buy it back for you?”
     
    All I did was shake my head and pull him back into the throng of people milling about on the streets and forgot about the past.
     
     
     
    THE END

SWORD
     
    My father always said I was never meant to be a girl. My mother had already given birth to three healthy and happy baby girls when she became pregnant with me, and everyone in our village—including the mid-wife—thought for certain I would come out of my Ma screaming bloody murder with a full set of teeth and a sword and shield in my hand ready to fight the English right alongside my Da. All of the signs were there. Ma barely gained an ounce of weight other than the typical baby bulge and she was never once sick, unlike how she’d been with all my sisters, all of who left her bedridden and constantly throwing up her last meal the second after she finished eating it.
     
    But when I popped out, there was no denying what was between—or what wasn’t—my legs. I was a girl through and through, and I would be Ma’s last child because when she pushed me out, I really didn’t want to come into the world and I grabbed a bunch of her innards to stop myself from sliding out. And it’s not that Da was disappointed that he had another girl, but you know how men are, they get lonely without a little male companionship, particularly in their own house. At the time of my birth, if you didn’t count the dogs, Da was outnumbered 4-to-1; with the dogs it was 8-to-2. So he’d been hoping that with me, I would even the tide a bit, and he could pass down the highlander ways, which none of my sisters had a bit of interest in learning.
     
    And who could really blame them? Ma had convinced all of them that a woman’s place was in the home. That when a highlander returned from the battlefield, he needed to come home to a clean and cozy house and a hot supper. But when she tried passing these things along to me, I was all thumbs. Well, not so much all thumbs, it was more like every time I picked up a plate or a broom, I would want to