Page 6 of So Close To Heaven
“Dead?” she repeated, the word catching in her throat. “Actually deceased?”
He gave a single, grim nod.
The breath left her in a rush. Her knees softened, the world tilting just slightly as her body sagged.
Incredibly, the brute stepped forward and caught her with one strong hand at her elbow. His grip was solid and steady—hot, even through her jacket—and the unexpectedness of it made her flinch. She jolted back a little, not sure if she were startled more by the contact or the gesture itself.
Her sharp reaction elicited another scowl from the man.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured automatically, holding herself perfectly still now. “Thank you. I’m fine, thank you.”
It was untimely and ridiculous, but she couldn’t help it—she internally dubbed him the Clint Eastwood of Scotland. That narrow-eyed glint he shot her now reminded her so vividly of her childhood evenings with her grandparents, watching old spaghetti westerns where a squint so often replaced words as dialogue.
He stepped back and Ivy straightened herself, closing her eyes briefly to control her mounting anxiety.
“What name do ye go by?”
Ivy opened her eyes and looked at the speaker, the redhead.
“Ivy,” she answered mechanically. “Ivy Mitchell.”
“And ye say ye’re nae English—though ye sound it,” said the kid with blue eyes, “but ye bed down with 'em.” He gestured meaningfully to her belly.
Ivy gasped. So much had happened just in the last thirty seconds: death acknowledged so coolly, the brute’s jarring touch, the dried blood on the hand of the pointing kid, this blatant insinuation that she’d been knocked up by—what? one of the dead men? Histouch! Oh, right, she’d already mentally logged that.
Slapping her hands on her hips, she said indignantly to the kid with the bloody hand, “I don’tbed downwith anyone, thank you very much. I had arelationshipwith a man—a Scottish man, by the way, not that it’s any of your business. And not that he cares about his baby, but I’ll have you know—”
She was interrupted by the brute, though what he said was unclear, since he spoke in Gaelic again. In response, the redhead nodded, the blue-eye youth smirked and scoffed vocally, and the wiry kid frowned and jerked his gaze to Ivy’s face.
“What? What did you say?” she asked him.
He shook his head as if it were of no importance—though clearly the responses of the youths said the opposite was true—and turned around, dismissing Ivy once more as he walked away.
That is, until the redhead called after him.
“What’s to be done with her?”
The question turned him back around, ten feet away, his frown returned. “With her?” He challenged, a bit of heat in the query. “We’ve wounded to see to, and dead to bury. Stores to sort and count, wagons to strip, blades to clean, and loot to move ere the flies settle thick.” His eyes flicked briefly to Ivy. “She’s nae my concern.”
He’d addressed the first part of his answer to the redhead and—rudely— turned his attention to Ivy to deliver the last bit, his cold tone making it perfectly clear he didn’t give a damn what became of her.
Great.
Before he resumed his exit, the brown-haired kid with the kind eyes challenged him.
“We canna just leave her—”
He stopped when the brute’s glare intensified, settling on him with enough force to quiet the kid.
“I only need directions,” Ivy said quietly, almost pleading now. “That’s all I’m asking.” She hadn’t yet begun to fully process the fact that she’d seen actual dead bodies or figure out what in God’s name was going on, but a part of her shuddered at the thought that his answer could have been something far worse.Put her to the blade,or whatever terrifying phrase men like him used.
Men like him?
No. Inconceivable. Ivy had never in her life encountered a man like him.
Five minutes in his company had shown her much, all of it setting him apart from any other man she’d ever met.
Not just for the obvious reasons—the sheer size of him, or the sword strapped across his back, or the way his presence seemed to shift the very air around him—but because everything about him felt carved from another world. But not just foreign, not even something old-world, but something deeper than that. There was no softness to him, no trace of hesitation in the way he looked at her. He was commanding without speaking, dangerous without doing a single thing, and his eyes—those sharp, assessing eyes—held not even a flicker of the usual kindness or curiosity Ivy was used to from strangers. He didn’t gawk or leer, didn’t employ charm or kindness. He studied her the way a general surely studied the enemy, cold and calculating.
