Page 45 of How to Heal a Highland Heart
“Aye. I’ll send men to ye.”
“Hopefully, I’ll nae need them.” But he would not decline William’s offer.
Brodee rose, moving swiftly now in time with his rushing blood and rapid breathing. Somewhere out there was his wife. It was true they were strangers, but she was his responsibility, and he would rather die than see injury come to her. The cool night air swept over him as he stepped outside. He paused and crouched, patting his hands over the forest floor, grazing wet, soft lichen and scratchy, tangled moss. He noted the dips where feet had stepped and followed the clues to a path tangled with roots and brambles and littered with fallen limbs, rocks, and a thousand other things that could trip his wife and give her pursuer time to overtake and kill her. Anger he could no longer contain seared him. He let out a bellow of rage, both for the past and for how it was trying to repeat itself.
“I ken ye’re in here.”
The voice was clear above the hum of the waterfall Patience and Jane stood behind. Spray from water soaked Patience’s clothes and face.
“I’m coming for ye. Both of ye,” Loskie called out.
Patience’s scalp tingled. Loskie was closer. And calm. Too calm. Like someone who was certain they’d be victorious. Patience shuddered as she clutched Jane’s hand and plastered herself against the wet, jagged rock. In front of her, the water came down deafening from the rocks above that rose toward the sky. Patience’s heartbeat thudded in her ears. She curled her left hand tighter around the dagger she’d grabbed from the table in Jane’s cottage as they had raced out.
“We’re going to die!” Jane cried.
“Shh,” Patience said. “I refuse to die today.” She didn’t know where her bravery was coming from. All she knew was that one of them had to be brave, and she was in much better condition to try than Jane, who had been beaten badly.
The images of her battered state flashed behind Patience’s eyelids, awakening her own past. She had to suck in her cheeks and bite the inside of them to keep from screaming her anger. Busted lips. Swollen eyes. Aches that took weeks to subside. Breathing was hard. Movement impossible.
That was then, not now. In this moment, her body was alert and ready. Shadows protected them, but not for long. Soon, he would come upon them, traveling as he was on the same ledge they stood upon. He’d come from her right. She stared hard into the dark, seeing nothing.
All she had to do was plunge the dagger into his chest where his heart was. Nausea roiled in her stomach. She didn’t want to do it, but she would. Her brother had once shown her how to wield a dagger, and she prayed she remembered. Her fingertips pulsed around the hilt of the weapon.
“Which one of ye should I kill first?” Loskie taunted.
Jane whimpered and Patience elbowed her. Jane immediately fell silent. Patience bit her lip against her own desire to whimper until the metallic taste of blood touched her tongue. Was he ten steps away? Nine? Jane suddenly pressed herself even closer to Patience, the violent trembling of her body making Patience’s memories rattle louder. She pushed back against the tide of fear and squeezed Jane’s hand to try to offer reassurance. She wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. There never had been anywhere to go. No home. No safety. Her whole life had been blocked by men and now she was trapped by rock, too. They were the same. Immovable.
No more, no more, no more.
Rock crunched from her right just audible beneath the hum of the waterfall. Turning toward the noise, she released Jane’s hand in the same instant and stepped toward the sound, hoping to block Loskie from reaching Jane.
Almost. Almost.
Blood pumped from her heart, down her arm to her fingers, and a shriek split her ears.
God’s teeth! Had that been her?
A bellow came next. Then a hand grasped her arm. Without thought, she brought the dagger up and thrust it forward into flesh. A grunt resounded, and suddenly, she was jerked off the ledge, falling with Loskie to the dark water below. She hit hard, her breath gushing out as rock met her head and the blackness consumed her.
There was no time for thought or fear, only action and determination. As Patience fell, gripped by Loskie, Brodee dove into the water far below, hoping he ended up close to where the shaft of moonlight they’d fallen through indicated. Rock sliced his shoulder as his body cut through the water, ripping his skin open and leaving a blazing trail of fire. It didn’t even touch the pain in his chest with the thought of Patience dying.
He broke the surface with a roar, dagger in hand. Loskie attacked immediately. Fist flying and landing with a crunch against Brodee’s nose, then his lip. Desperation and rage drove Brodee to fight back like a possessed man. Or maybe he was possessed.
The next punch that came at him did not land. He grabbed Loskie’s fist, both of them going under, and Brodee gripped the hand in his until the man’s bones broke. Even underwater, he thought he heard the howl of pain. He drove the dagger forward into the man’s chest, next to the one he only just realized was already there, protruding and potentially fatal if it had not been just off the mark. His dagger hit its target, and Loskie instantly stilled, all the fight and evil in the man silenced forever.
Brodee kicked him away and swam for the surface. He sucked in air and gulps of water as he broke the surface once more, only to be hit by the sharp sting of the water coming from the rocks above.
Where was she? He swished his hands through the water like blades turning this way and that, the desperation in him coiling tighter and tighter, and then his fingers tangled in something silky. Her hair! He gripped her with one hand and turned her over from where she floated facedown in the water. Sliding his arm across her stomach, he brought her to him as he flipped onto his back and laid her against his chest while he kicked toward what he prayed to God was the jagged embankment.
Sharp rock met his hand in moments, and he gripped the rocks, finding purchase. His bicep burned as he pulled himself up, his skin sliding over the rough edges, protecting her as best he could. With a grunt, he straightened his free arm and pulled her up until she was against his side once more. Her head lolled, and his heart seemed to do the same. Then he was fully on the rocks, scrambling to his knees, and bringing her up to lean her against his chest as he smacked a hand against her back as he’d once seen the healer at his childhood home do when someone had been underwater for too long. When he got no response, he repeated the movement, despair rising, but then she coughed and coughed again. He trembled like a newborn as he drew her away from him just enough to glimpse the outline of her face.
He brought his hands to her face and roamed them over the slope of her silky skin to her lips, and then he pressed his mouth to hers, not in lust but in desperate relief.
Her hands came to his shoulders, and he broke the gentle kiss to cup her face. He could not stop the tremors that coursed through him. He’d almost lost her. He’d almost lost her, and the crazed feeling that brought to him was all too familiar. And unwanted. He should release her, and yet, and yet he could not. Not yet.
“Tomorrow,” he said, hugging her to him, reveling for this moment of allowed weakness in her breath on his cheek, her warm skin against his, her tiny hands clutching him, “I will teach ye how to properly aim a dagger, Wife, so if ye ever have need, ye will kill who ye intend.”
She buried her head in his chest. “I…I stabbed him. I kinnae believe I did such a thing.”
