Page 17 of The Highlander's Illicit Bride
But there is something about Isolde that makes me trust her…
It went against his every instinct. And yet, there was that small piece inside of him that wanted to share with her. It was confounding and Struan didn’t understand it.
He cleared his throat. “Aye. Sometimes,” he admitted quietly. “But nobody has ever been there when I have. Nobody’s ever woken me from one and taken care of me the way ye did. So… thank ye. I… I appreciate ye fer that.”
“Ye’re welcome,” she replied, just as quietly.
Their eyes met and Struan felt a surge of lightning course through his body that jolted his heart, then spread outward like ripples on the surface of a pond. He licked his suddenly dry lips and tried to swallow down the lump in his throat.
The moment lingered between them, charging the air with a powerful electricity that crackled, raising goosebumps on his arms and he had the crazy notion to lean forward and kiss her. But she lowered her gaze and the moment popped like a bubble. Struan felt his body sag and he sat back, trying to clear his mind.
“What did ye dream about?” she asked gently. “What had ye in such a state?”
He shook his head. “Just bad memories. A battle.” His answer was deliberately vague and noncommittal.
Isolde seemed to pick up on that because she scrunched up her face, curiosity gleaming in her eyes. “Ye talked while ye slept. Yelled, more accurately,” she said.
“Did I?”
“Aye,” she replied. “May I ask ye a question?”
“Ye can ask.”
“Who is Rhona?”
His sister’s name spilling from her lips sent a lance of pain straight through his heart, grounding him. He gritted his teeth, and his hands balled into fists, the memory of his sister’s murder still fresh in his mind. The memory was as indelible a stain in his mind as the shadow that had cast over his heart with her death.
“Rhona was me older sister,” he said.
“I see,” she replied. “And… why is she in yer nightmares?”
That dagger of ice in his heart felt like it was twisting, sending white-hot pain coursing through his veins. Images from his dream—from his memory—flashed through his mind, making that pain in his heart ever sharper. He swallowed it down.
“She… she was killed,” he said.
“I’m so sorry.”
The irony of Isolde apologizing for her father’s actions without even knowing about them wasn’t lost on Struan. Still, telling her more of how Rhona died was the last thing he wanted to do.
Struan got to his feet and stretched his back. He looked to the windows and saw the sky in the east beginning to lighten behind the bank of thick, dark clouds.
“’Tis daybreak,” he changed the conversation. “We should be on the road if we hope tae reach Achnacarry at some point in this life.”
Isolde gave him a disappointed yet sympathetic look. She seemed curious about Rhona but she picked up it was a memory that caused him tremendous pain, so she did not press. Struan was grateful for that.
Instead, they both ate from their meager rations of food and washed it all down with some water. After that, Struan refilled their skins with water from the creek behind the hut, then made sure the horse, which had been grazing all night, got one of the apples Isolde had filched.
Once they were ready, he helped her to mount the horse then jumped up behind her and they started off. They still had quite a way to go to get to Achnacarry—a normally arduous journey made even longer by the necessity of sticking to the back roads and hunting trails to avoid being spotted by either her father’s soldiers, or bandits roaming the countryside looking for victims.
Though a long and grueling ride, Struan could not deny, even to himself, that he was enjoying being in Isolde’s company. It was yet another confounding thought on a list that was growing ever longer because of her.
Dae I count her as a friend or foe? Or perhaps, just a temporary ally?
He reminded himself, not for the first time, that none of what he thought or felt mattered. She was a means to an end and once she revealed where Finlay was being held captive, their arrangement would expire, and he would be free of her.
Or rather, she would be free of him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
