Page 99 of A Highland Healer Captured
“Gold shows ye have standards,” Astrid returned, pinning Skylar with that mother-look that had toppled more than one Dunlop sister. “Speaking of standards?—”
“Here it comes,” Skylar murmured to the rowan sprig.
“—we’ve still nae settled the matter of yer disappearing the night ye did,” Astrid sailed on, as if she’d been simply waiting for a conversational gap to shove a cart through. “I maintain I was right.”
“In what universe,” Skylar asked, folding ribbon over ribbon, “doesthatstatement end well for ye?”
“In the one where a maither kens her daughter better than the daughter kens herself,” Astrid fired back. “I said ye were courting disaster, gallivantin’ about with salves and stubbornness. And lo! A disaster. Ye were kidnapped! Heaven graces ye that it was alairdand nae some penniless brigand!”
“A laird who asked for me hand two weeks later,” Skylar said, too warm not to smile. “Which, by the by, is precisely the sort of consequence ye like.”
Astrid sniffed. “Outcome does nae justify method. Ye could’ve been?—”
“Eaten by wolves?” Skylar suggested. “Snatched by sprites? Whisked off by a man with a jaw like a siege wall and a son like a lamb?”
Astrid’s brows knit, but the corner of her mouth twitched. “Ye mock me, Skylar. But ye could have very well been killed. And ye ken it!”
“Aye,” Skylar said. “I mock ye because I love ye.”
Astrid tried to hand her the gold ribbon in a last-ditch stand. Skylar took both. “We’ll braid them,” she said. “Sturdy and consequence. Like ye and yer faither.”
Astrid pursed her lips at the flattery and pretended it had not landed. “And about that night,” she said, recovering. “We were in the middle of areasonablediscussion about yer future. Ye raised yer voice.”
“Yeraisedyer expectations,” Skylar countered, winding the ribbons together. “And I, tragically, stayed myself.”
Astrid crossed her arms. “Ye said a thing I’ve never heard from a child of mine.”
Skylar squinted at the ceiling, recalling. “Was it ‘I’ll nae be bartered like a fine ewe’? Or ‘I’d rather be useful than ornamental’? Or?—”
“‘I’ll choose me life,’” Astrid quoted, a crack of thunder softening even as it sounded. “Ye said it like an oath.”
Skylar’s fingers slowed. She tied off the braid and glanced up. “Aye. And it turns out—rare miracle—I chose rightly.”
Astrid made a face that suggested she was trying not to admit she’d been out-argued. “Still,” she said, too briskly, “ye could’ve wrote to me and told me ye were in love.”
Skylar choked on a laugh. “Maither,Ididnae ken I was in love. I thought I was furious. Then confounded. Then… aye.” Heat rose where she wished it wouldn’t. “The rest sorted itself.”
Astrid’s eyes sharpened, delighted by the hint of blush. “Och-ho. So that’s how it is.”
“Maither,” Skylar warned.
“Fine,” Astrid said, fighting a grin and failing. “Back to ribbons and chairs. These two benches need garlands, and the piper insists he’ll nae sit under a goose-feather wreath because last year he sneezed through the marches.”
“A tragedy,” Skylar deadpanned.
“A public one,” Astrid replied, but she had softened. She lifted a hand, thumb brushing the faint scar at Skylar’s cheekbone. “I was terrified, lass.”
“I ken,” Skylar mumbled. “So was I. Then he kissed me, and I forgot how to breathe.”
Astrid stopped as if the floor had changed angle. “Pardon?”
Skylar bit her lip. “Nothin’.”
“Saints preserve me from daughters,” Astrid muttered, but her eyes shone. “Right. We’re done sparrin’ for now. Go try the wreath with the ivy. If it makes me think of funerals, we’re burning it.”
Skylar was about to obey when the hall doors banged wide and a gust of laughter swept in before the women it belonged to. Scarlett—radiant and quick, tartan pinned like she’d invented the wearing of it—strode forward with Mabel at her side, curls pinned badly and beautifully, cheeks apple-pink from the walk up the lane.
“Ye have the hall lookin’ like a forest,” Scarlett called, arms already open.
