Page 5 of The Cruel Highlander's Healer
Marissa will be home soon.
The thought filled her with dread. If these men truly were looking for the Witch of the Woods, the last thing she wanted was for Marissa to come home while they were still here.
“I’ll nae be goin’ anywhere with the likes of ye,” she argued back, desperation filling her as she rushed forward.
She grabbed the healer’s bag from the large hand of the scarred man. Her action must have caught him off guard because she wrenched it out of his grip without much difficulty.
His dark eyes flashed with surprise, and she got the feeling that not many people stood up to him.
Serves him right.
He glanced at the other man, the smaller one. A silent conversation passed between the two of them in a split second before the scarred one nodded his head. Immediately, the smaller man stepped forward, his facial features softening into a mask that was almost kind.
The brute is the leader, then.
“Our bairns are sick,” he explained. “They’ve been sick for weeks. Nay healers will help us. So we came here to find the Witch of the Wood. To findye.”
The man said the last word almost pleadingly, and Eliza’s heart stuttered.
Sick bairns?
The thought wasn’t a comfortable one. Not as images of wee bodies filled her mind, causing her chest to ache. She’d seen enough sick wee ones in her line of work, making the desperation of the two men in front of her make a bit more sense.
People tend not to act rationally when it’s children at stake.
“I already told ye I’m nae the Witch of the Wood,” Eliza said calmly, eyes boring into the men as she stared at them pointedly.
She needed them to believe her, needed them to hear her words and to leave. She did not want to imagine how they would behave if Marissa arrived home in the middle of all this. It wasn’t hard for Eliza to picture the brutishness of these two if they were to actually find the so-called Witch of the Woods.
“The Witch of the Wood is nae here, and I cannae help ye.”
The big one stepped forward. “But ye’re a healer.”
It wasn’t a question, but she responded as if it were one anyway.
“Aye.” Eliza nodded. “But that changes nothin'. I still cannae help ye.”
A growl came from the large man’s chest, and Eliza narrowed her eyes at him. He glared at her, dark eyes narrowing, and her shoulders began to tense.
If it came down to it, she didn’t believe that she could outrun them. But Eliza knew she would try regardless.
I ken this house and these woods better than they do, though. All I need is to get far enough away to lose them and then hide until they leave.
The thought brought her a small bit of comfort as the scarred man continued to glare at her. The smaller, kinder man glanced between the two of them, a nervous expression on his face. He stepped forward, drawing Eliza’s full attention.
“Me name is Eliot,” he said, giving the brutish one a pointed glance. “This is Laird MacKinnon.”
Eliza’s eyebrows ticked up in surprise as she was introduced to the two men before them. She glanced at the large man, eyes widening in recognition.
The Beast of the MacKinnons.
The title fit the man before her. Tales of him ran deep, and she knew that many of them were true. She’d been the one to patch up plenty of men who had come to blows with the man, after all.
Laird MacKinnon glared back at her, not shrinking back behind her scrutiny. Instead, the opposite appeared to happen. As the seconds ticked by and Eliza did not look away, he somehow seemed to make himself even larger.
She watched as his chest expanded, his spine pulling straight. The muscles in his arms bulged, as did the legs that were visible beneath his kilt.
Eliza’s eyes flicked to the man’s hands, finding them balled into fists at his sides. Even at a distance, she could see that they were pockmarked with scars. One of the knuckles was raised and swollen, and all of them were darkened with bruising.
