Page 95 of A Highland Healer Captured
He stood alone.
Broad and unyielding.
Watching her go.
Skylar’s breath hitched hard enough to sting.
Relief made her lightheaded.
Love made her reckless.
Before her father could shape her name into warning, she shoved the carriage door wide and jumped.
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Skylar’s skirts swiped at her shins, boots hitting hard.
“Skylar!” her father roared behind her. It was the old thunder that once stopped a whole brood of daughters at the stair.
But she didn’t stop.
Her satchel slipped from her shoulder and thumped into the dust, forgotten.
She ran.
Legs burning. Tears stinging her eyes.
Zander moved the instant she did, as if his body had been strung to the same wire as hers. He left the shadow of the gate—broad,blood-banded, unyielding—and came at her at a long, ground-eating stride.
They met where the divots from carriage wheels crossed the flat of the yard, and he caught her up without a word, arms banding tight around her waist, lifting her clean off her feet. Her hands went to his shoulders; her brow met his; the world steadied.
“I couldnae—” she gasped, breathless with the run and the rightness, “I couldnae go. Nae like that. Nae?—”
“What changed?” His voice was rough as new-cut timber, but there was hope in it, fierce and terrified.
“Ariella,” she said, breath hitching into laughter that was near a sob. “She’s well. She healed. I swore I’d go for her, but she doesnae need me now. And I—Zander, I was comin’ back anyway. I was. I swear it. I left the letter because I had to, but I meant to return. I—” She swallowed, pulled back enough to see him. “I love ye.”
The words shocked them both with how clean they rang. She felt the tremor rip through him as if it were her own.
His hands framed her face, thumbs rough on her cheeks, eyes searching as if the right answer could be found among freckles and windburn. “Say it again,” he demanded softly, and she did, first on a breath, then on a fuller voice that didn’t shake: “I love ye.”
“I love ye,” he answered, no hesitation, no guard, nothing left to hide behind. “God keep me, I do. I tried nae—” He swallowed, jaw working. “I failed.”
She laughed, water bright. “Good. Then we’ll both be failures.”
Hamish’s boots hit the dirt behind her; Skylar turned, breath still fast. Her father stood five paces off, hands on hips, eyes hot beneath the iron-gray thatched over his brow.
But his mouth twitched, and that was all the permission she needed. “Ye done?” he asked, gruff and fond and ready to swing if needed.
“Nay,” Zander said, not looking away from Skylar, “but we’ll sayfor now.”
Hamish snorted. “Ye’ll nae ruin me daughter’s reputation in this yard. Ye hear? We’ll discuss this, as men do—” his eyes landed on his daughter, then. “And we will exchange words as well, lass.”
He lifted a hand in a short salute at Zander—respect offered without ceremony—and turned to bellow orders at the MacLennans and the Strathcairn men alike.
In the space of a few breaths, the yard shifted from spectacle to work: horses watered, barrels rolled, benches dragged back from the press of bodies.
Within the hour, Zander had sent for water and bread and made a place of honor for Hamish at the long board. There was no lavish Kirn cheer yet—just the grateful, weary food of survivors—but Skylar watched the set of Zander’s shoulders ease at the sight of her father eating in his hall. She slipped a hand under the table to squeeze his knee; he covered her fingers with his big palm and left them there.
