Page 65 of A Highland Healer Captured
He tried it soft the first time, as if testing the fence. “Da? Will there be a sheaf crown this year?”
“Aye,” Zander said, counting it out without thinking. “And a fool stuffed with straw that looks like me if the women get their way.”
Skylar put her hand over her mouth to hide the grin.
“Could I—” Grayson began, and stopped.
Zander’s ribs went iron. “We’ll see from the window.”
Skylar’s head tipped, not toward him—toward the boy. “What would ye do there if ye went?” she asked Grayson.
“Look,” he said instantly, eyes wide. “At the sheaves. And the women’s hair. And the ravens bein’ bold. And—” He stopped, swallowed. “And hear the pipes. Proper. They didnae sound the same through walls.”
Zander looked away. She made him look back with nothing but quiet.
“Ye could hear them from the edge of the green,” she said, voice thoughtful, as if she were measuring rope and not pleading a cause. “Nae from the crush. A hill up from it. Where the wind can fetch the sound without fetchin’ the fevers.”
“Ye’d set a throne for him?” Zander asked, trying for scorn and hearing how thin it came.
“A blanket, laird,” she said. “And a seat. And a span of time ye pick.”
Grayson breathed like a pup at the scent of the door. “It could be a wee time,” he said quickly. “I’d wear two shawls. I’d nae ask for bannocks. I’d mind if ye said ‘home’.”
Zander scrubbed his beard because it bought him seconds and because if he didn’t do something with his hands he’d grip the world until it cracked. “We’re baiting a trap,” he said, forcing his mind to the work him and his shadows had set. “We keep him close till we ken whose hand?—”
“A trap didnae spring on a green,” Skylar said, gentle. “The snare’s in the cup, Zander. Nae in the wind. Let him hear the world that’s his while ye guard the bit that can harm him.”
He lifted his eyes and found hers steady as a law. She’d put a hand on nothing and then on everything—weighting the right side of the scale with a boy’s small hope. It made him want to curse, then bow, then carry her on his back through a fire for the insolence of being right.
“Mason,” he said, because saying his friend’s name bought him sense. “We’ll need his ghosts.”
“As many as ye like,” Skylar said. “And I’ll sit at his elbow. If he coughs mad, we go. If the pulse runs, we go. If ye look at me and I shake my head, we go.”
Grayson nodded rapid and solemn, as if she’d written a treaty in his hearing. “I’ll go home when Skylar shakes,” he promised, earnest as a vow.
Zander’s mouth tried—fool that it was—to form no. He saw it on the boy’s face like a slap that hadn’t yet landed and stopped himself as if he’d caught his own hand. He exhaled slow.
“Ye’ll wear the shawls,” he said to the lad, pointing a finger like a general. “Two of them. Ye’ll sit the hill, nae the green. Ye’ll eat nae a crumb. Ye’ll drink only what Skylar brings and from her hand. Ye’ll stay within reach of me and within sight of Mason’s scowl. If ye flag?—”
“Home,” Grayson finished, shining.
“Home,” Zander agreed, and let the boy’s joy hit him like sun in the eyes.
The lad tried to clap and made a wheeze of it that had them both leaning forward in the same instinct; Skylar caught herself first, covered it with a tidying of the blanket. “We’ll practice,” she said briskly. “Sittin’ on a stool in the stillroom with two shawls till ye can bear the warmth and nae grumble.”
“I never gr—” Grayson began.
“Ye grumble like a mill,” Zander said, and the lad’s laugh showed how little insult could find him under the happiness.
They set the hour for the practice as if they were planning a raid.
Skylar fetched shawls and tested how best to wrap him for warmth and ease of breath; Zander watched her hands, learned the fold without thinkin’. Grayson pretended the stool were a hill and named everyone who crossed the solar: “There’s a piper witha bent reed… there’s a lass with hair like a fox… there’s a fool throwin’ flour.”
Skylar named birds over the scene he drew. “Curlew on the wall… crow on the gate… little wren hop-hoppin’ near yer foot.”
Grayson fell into slumber the way blissfully unaware children do. Zander sat without moving.
“He should go,” she murmured, finally, so low it might have been the fire. “Nae for long. But heshould.”
