Page 7 of So Close To Heaven
And still... beneath all that steel, there was something else. She’d felt it when he’d jumped to her side, when he’d steadied her. Not compassion exactly, but the ghost of something, maybe something he’d tried to bury long ago.
“But ye’ve yet to ask the way to any place that exists near here,” the brute pointed out, his voice like gravel and ice.
Ivy blinked. “What? I—of course I have. You must know where a road is—any main road that’ll get me back to Great Trossachs Path or Loch Katrine. Surely that’s not too difficult a task, to point me in the right direction.”
That did something. His jaw tightened, and without warning he closed the space between them in long, heavy steps. He didn’t touch her, didn’t raise a hand, but the sheer size of him, the grim set of his mouth, and the storm brewing in his eyes was enough to make Ivy stumble a step back and suck in a sharp breath.
When he spoke, his voice was low but hammer-hard. “Katrine is forty miles from here. Ye mean to walk it, do ye? In yer state?” His gaze dropped briefly—pointedly—to her belly before rising again with unflinching judgment. “I dinna ken ye will. Or can. I said to ye already—had I nae?—to get moving, follow the trail o’ yer company. They’ll be moving slow, withwounded and broken wagons. If ye make haste, ye should catch them ’fore nightfall. Or nae. Either way, it’s nae my concern.”
He turned from her then, the conversation—if it could be called that—clearly finished.
Rude!she thought, though she was still holding her breath.
Her lungs expanded again only after he’d fully turned away, his heavy steps already crunching across the summer—dry ground. But it was no use pretending her heart had returned to a normal rhythm. Not afterthat—the nearness of him, the cold fire in his eyes, the way his presence seemed to swallow up all the air between them.
God, he wasintense. She hadn’t meant to notice, but in that brief, electric moment—when he’d loomed in front of her like some furious mountain—she had seen him.Reallyseen him. Up close, his eyes weren’t just brown. They were golden and strange, ringed in darker shades that bled into lighter flecks, like whiskey backlit by flame. His lashes were thick and unexpectedly long, almost too pretty for a man like him. His skin, darkened by sun and weather, was rough in places, his stubbled jaw sharp with tension, his cheek marked with what looked like a faint scar just beneath one eye—old, pale, but unmistakable. And somehow, amid the raw terror of being barked at by a very large, very dangerous-looking man, a ridiculous thought crept in:he smells like smoke and pine and leather.
What the hell was wrong with her?
She shook her head hard, willing her brain to reboot. She was lost, maybe concussed—she prayed she had a concussion, it would explainsomuch— probably dehydrated, definitely terrified, and she had no business being distracted by the accidental hotness of some medieval dictator with serious attitude problems.
And yet... even as she watched his broad back retreat, muscles shifting beneath the worn fabric of his tunic andleather straps and sword, a small, maddening part of her brain whispered,Some people don’t just enter your life—they crash into you, like omens or storms. And you know it. Instantly.There was no thunderclap or dramatic swell of music, but something in her gut said:you’ll be remembering this guy.
Ivy was disturbed by the thought that somehow it didn’t feel wrong. Not even a little.
Shaking herself mentally, she blinked and found the three youths staring at her. Before they, too, departed she asked for some guidance. “I was not with those people—that other group. I assume now they’re English, your enemy for some archaic reason. But do you...” she paused and winced a bit, “do you think I might be safer with them? Because I...well, because I sound English, anyway?”
“Ye ken ye’re nae safe with us?” Asked the redhead, mildly affronted.
“No,” she was quick to protest. “No, not at all.” She was, after all, not bleeding, not dead. “I didn’t mean it like that. I should have saidwelcome. Do you think I’d be more welcomed by them?”
They conferred silently with each other, exchanging speaking glances before examining her—specifically her face and pregnant belly—before the wiry one replied.
“Ye approach a ruined army deep in the wilds, with nae man, and lass,” he said, and inclined his chin and eyes, indicating her middle, “there’s nae anything to stop them from taking what they’ll ken ye’re offering.”
“Only one reason a woman seeks out a marching army, ye ken,” added the wiry one.
Ivy tilted her head, confused—until the meaning hit. Her mouth fell open in a silentoh, the implication crawling over her skin like ice water.
Once again, her shoulders sagged under the weight of it all. Tears welled and clung stubbornly to her lashes, blurring the faces before her. Lately, she cried at anything—thank you, pregnancy hormones, or so the internet had warned her. This was different, however. This was earned. She was lost in a place she didn’t recognize, with no understanding of how she’d arrived or how to get back. She’d witnessed what appeared to be an actual battle—real weapons, real blood, real corpses. Not actors, not a reenactment, not pretend, she’d just been told. She was alone, dangerously confused, mildly panicked, and beginning to fear that whatever had happened to her was more than bizarre, but possibly unfixable.
“That’ll nae be a concern with the MacKinlays, lass. Neither Cap’n nae the laird would stand for it, any abuse of a lass.”
It was the brown-haired, kind-eyed kid who spoke, drawing Ivy’s watery gaze to him.
“That,” she asked hesitantly, hitching her thumb over her shoulder toward the retreating brute, “was the captain?”
The redhead frowned as if she’d just asked whether water was dry. “That was the laird. Alaric MacKinlay, lass. Son of Torcull. Laird to all MacKinlay kin. Mormaer of Braalach.”
“Oh.” Actually, that made perfect sense. Of course he was in charge. He didn’t look like a man who took orders from anyone.
Still, Ivy looked back to the kind-eyed boy, uncertain why he’d said what he did. The laird had made it perfectly clear she wasn’t his concern. “I appreciate you saying that about your leaders not tolerating abuse, but I’m afraid it doesn’t help me much if he’s not—”
“We’ll take ye in,” he said evenly, as if it were already settled. “See ye as far as the auld Roman road in the Trossachs area. That should carry ye where ye need.”
She blinked. “But he just said—”
“He said ye were naehisconcern,” the redhead cut in with a shrug. “Dinna want the chore of ye. But he’ll nae stop us taking ye as far as the road, especially in yer condition.”
