Page 31 of A Highland Healer Captured
Another:I am sorry.
Sleep came, when it came, like a poorly mixed tincture—too weak to hold, too bitter to soothe. She drifted to the edge and back again, caught between the soft tug of Grayson’s thin laugh in memory and the pull of a road that ran away from this keep, this laird, this vow that had complicated itself into something like love and fear braided together. When at last the candle guttered and died, she lay in the dark with her eyes wide and her heart drumming, as if her body had already begun the flight she had not yet dared to take.
Zander did not avoid Skylar. He told himself that twice before breakfast and a third time as he signed off on the tally for alecasks while Fergus and Tamhas argued in muted tones near the door. He did not avoid her. He had a keep to run and a harvest to plan and a council to keep from flaying one another or him, and all of that would have been true even if he had not kissed the woman who hated him.
The kiss lodged in him like a thorn in his side.
He could ignore it while he was barking at drovers about where to pen the bullocks and nodding at the cooper who swore the largest barrel would not leak, not this year, not after the repair.
He could ignore it while he measured the yard with his eye and imagined the sweep of folk through the gate, the clatter of hooves, the piping, the laughter.
He could not ignore it when he passed the solar and heard a low laugh from within that was not Katie’s.
He did not go in.
He went on, jaw tight.
Later, Mason fell into step beside him as they crossed the yard, both men squinting toward the west wall where scaffolding rose to mend a crack that was above the gate. Strathcairn had seen worse seasons. This was a good year. God had sent rain and sun in right measures; their cattle would show well; the folk had already begun to hum the songs that belonged to harvest and no other time.
“Ye look like a man chewing stones,” Mason said mildly.
“Do I?” Zander did not slow.
“Aye. And I ken which ones,” Mason added, which earned him a sharp look. Mason only lifted a shoulder. “Ye like her.”
Zander stopped. The men on the scaffolding clattered and cursed softly as a plank shifted. “Ye’ve grown bold,” Zander said under his breath.
“I’ve grown tired of watching ye pace the length of yer temper like a beast dragging a chain. Ye like her. Just admit it already.” Mason waited, gaze steady. “Does she mean anything?”
Zander opened his mouth and found that the words inside were a snarl. He swallowed them and tried again. “She’s here to heal Grayson. That’s all. Nothin’ more.”
“That’s one hell of a lie. How exhaustin’.” Mason’s tone said he would accept another if Zander had it.
He didn’t.
He ground a palm along his jaw as if he could scrape away the feeling. “She’s nothin’ I have time for,” he said at last, though the shape of the memory warmed his chest. The way she had kissed him back, not meek, not yielding, but fierce, as if she’d decided if he would take, she would take also. And beneath that, like a river under winter’s ice, the steady, relentless current of theirpurpose: Grayson. Always Grayson. “I need her hands on me son, nae on me.”
Mason huffed something that was not quite a laugh. “Are ye nay longer worried of her tryin’ to escape again? Is that why ye’ve called all of us off?”
“I daenae ken. I just supposed that she wouldnae be able to work with… with so much goin’ on. So, ye’ll continue to keep yer distance and so will Katie and Cora.”
“Right—” Mason said, suddenly distracted.
Zander followed the man’s gaze toward the scaffolding where one of the men had shrugged his way into a precarious perch and needed shouting down. Mason did, his voice ringing to the roofline, and when the man laughed and obeyed he felt a brief, clean satisfaction.
“The council is still restless,” Mason said at last.
“They’ll settle once the pipes play and their bellies are full… and the lass returned home without a war,” Zander replied, rolling his eyes. “Why they even bother?—”
“Mayhap if ye gave them a timeline… or mayhap just let her choose what she would do, ye ken? Stay or go,” Mason offered nonchalantly.
“She’s needed to stay until her work is done and done successfully. Grayson will live by her hand. That’s that.”
Mason’s mouth thinned, briefly, as if to choose the right words to say next, but instead he said nothing.
“If I want advice about how to deal with a healer who plans to run, I’ll ask ye for it,” Zander said firmly, and watched Mason’s brows lift.
“The sooner she heals Grayson, the sooner she can leave,” Mason said with a shrug. “But if ye’re too busy plannin’ the festival… I suppose I could help make sure she has everythin’ she needs?—”
