Page 66 of Here in Your Arms
She opened her mouth, but the words tangled on her tongue, her thoughts too scrambled, too disjointed. “I—we—there was an—” She swallowed, trying to organize the whirlwind in her head. “We were—”
No. Not important. Not now.
She forced herself to meet his gaze. “Tiernan needs help.”
Brody didn’t hesitate. “Where?” he demanded, already striding toward the stables.
Rose stumbled after him, urgency clawing at her ribs. “I—I don’t know exactly, but I can show you. Please, hurry.”
Brody gave a sharp nod and turned to the nearest soldier. “Twenty men, on me. Now.”
“A cart,” Rose suggested, breathless still. “I don’t think he can sit a horse.”
Brody MacIntyre turned a ferocious scowl onto her in the midst of saddling his own horse.
She managed to get out the details between his hurried preparations—the rockslide, an ambush, Tiernan wounded. She had run several miles to Dunmara. This information prompted Brody to call for reserves, another dozen men.
Within minutes, the courtyard had exploded into motion—shouts echoing, weapons readied, horses saddled in a flurry of practiced urgency. Orders flew. Steel rang. And then they were gone.
The ground thundered beneath the hooves of more than thirty mounted men as they pounded across the hills, the rolling landscape trembling beneath their weight. Rose sat in front of Brody, her fingers clenched tight around the saddle horn, her body tense as the wind lashed against her face. The laird’s solid arm was wrapped around her middle, keeping her steady as thegreat warhorse surged forward, its massive strides devouring the distance.
She had thought she would need to lead them back. But as they rode, she noticed the scouts at the front, their sharp eyes scanning the wet ground. They weren’t relying on her. They were following her trail. Her hurried footprints, the bent stalks of grass, the muddied indentations in the earth—she had left a clear path without realizing it. Relief pulsed through her. They didn’t need to rely on her memory alone. Thank God. She wasn’t sure she could have retraced every step with certainty.
The scouts led them across the meadow, over the hills, and toward the dense forest below. As they reached the trees, Brody reined in his mount. The underbrush thickened quickly, and the scouts hesitated, struggling to pick up the trail again.
Rose’s eyes swept the line of trees—then she saw them. “There,” she said quickly, pointing. “Those birches. I came out near them.”
Brody gave a single nod and raised his hand. At once, the company veered toward the birches, horses moving carefully now, weaving through the narrowing paths beneath the canopy.
As they moved deeper into the trees, Rose leaned forward, scanning the forest floor, her voice sharp with purpose.
“There,” she said, pointing off to the left. “That boulder—shaped like a bent knee. I passed it.”
The scouts adjusted course, following her indication. The riders fell quieter now, hooves muffled by the soft forest loam, the air thick with tension.
A few minutes later, she sat straighter, spotting another landmark just ahead.
“The fallen pine—half the trunk’s stripped. I remember that.”
They wound around it carefully, pushing through a narrow path where the underbrush had thinned. The deeper they went, the closer her memory pulled her.
“And there—see the blackened stump?” She pointed again, heart pounding. “It was a burn site. I came from that direction.”
Brody didn’t speak, but she felt his grip tighten around her middle, the horse beneath them shifting pace, almost as if it sensed the urgency now.
Rose pointed once more, her voice barely above a breath. “That’s where I...that’s where I left him.”
The scouts surged forward now, threading between the trunks, eyes scanning every thicket and hollow. Rose’s heart thudded hard in her chest, the ache of the run long forgotten. She twisted again, eyes searching the underbrush.
And then she saw him, Tiernan’s dark shape, slumped near the base of a tree. Still.
Too still.
Her pulse pounded against her ribs.
Tiernan lay motionless on the ground, his body limp, his skin too pale.
Her breath caught, her vision blurred, the world tipping sideways. She barely registered Brody’s sharp intake of breath, barely noticed the men around her moving in reaction.
