Page 32 of A Highland Healer Captured
“Nay,” Zaden said quickly, cutting him off. “I’ll manage.”
Zander did not ask what the hell that was supposed to mean. He didn’t even want to think about it.
Thankfully, Mason turned from him to fully face the scaffolding. The man’s next words were a slew of Hebridean curses at the men, which were answered with nervous laughter and louder clanking.
Zander walked on alone, to distract him from the wild, brown-haired lass in the solar, he let the chaos of his never-ending list of to-do items run through his mind.
I’ll go look at the south fence, now. Then to the kitchens to sign on the orders for barley flour. Should check in on Tamas in the butcher’s yard before I do that, actually?—
Then, suddenly, Skylar’s accusation burned again in his mind—He needs ye to be with him… ye are failing him.
The memory nearly knocked the wind from Zander’s lungs. He stopped briefly, on the edge of the tree line, his grip impossibly tight around a low branch. He had hated her for saying it and hated himself more because it struck true.
This can all wait. I should go be with Grayson.
He looked briefly up at the keep, then back toward the fencing, and then back up at the keep again. Torn.
Zander grumbled roughly, and then turned away from the keep, wholly dissatisfied. He would finishallof the items on his list, andthenvisit his son so that they are not interrupted.
It was nearly sunset when he finally turned toward the keep’s inner stair. He decided to find a book with pictures of birds, and that he would read to Grayson and let the rest of the world wait.
And if Skylar Dunlop troubled his thoughts while he sat there, if the scent of rosemary and smoke lifted in memory as he turned a page and misread a line and heard a sleepy, amused correction from the bed, then well—He would own that weakness.
He had razed a clan to protect what was his. Stolen a lass from her father’s keep! Surely he could survive the nearness of a woman who both goaded and steadied him.
Just have to keep me eyes on Grayson and nae on the healer’s mouth. Easy.
Zander exhaled sharply as he took the stairs two at a time and went to find a book with birds in it.
11
The yard had emptied to the quiet that came after fires were banked and songs gave up. Zander liked the keep best in that hour. No petitions. No clatter. Just the honest sounds of the early evening. A horse coughing in the stable, a guardsman shifting weight on the wall-walk, the lazy creak of the elm as the wind worried at its higher limbs.
Mason circled him in the torchlit ring of the practice yard, blunt sword up, weight forward. “Ye’re thinkin’ again,” Mason said. “Dangerous habit to partake in after dark.”
“I’m stoppin’,” Zander answered, steel kissing steel as he met the man’s strike and rolled it off. “On the next hour.”
Mason snorted, swung again. “The next hour can kiss me arse. Ye’ve never met one ye didnae drag into the next three after it. Ye’ll be brooding still when the cocks crow.”
They worked a long pass in silence, blades clapping like hard applause, until Zander cut left and drove Mason back three steps. Their old rhythm came easy.
It would have soothed him if not for the way his thoughts kept sliding to the solar.
Mason dropped his blade point and cocked his head. “Ye’re quieter than usual… and that’s sayin’ somethin’, considerin’ it’syeI’m talkin’ about.”
Zander glanced toward the open arch that looked into the inner court. Beyond it, the shadow of the stair curled up into the keep’s belly. “I’m countin’ what has to be done before Kirn.”
“Oh sure?”
“Aye,” Zander said, and didn’t finish.
He lifted the practice blade again. “Ye have one more in ye?”
Mason answered with steel.
They traded strokes until sweat slicked his back under the linen shirt and the torch threw wavering shadows of two large men trying not to think. Mason finally dropped out of range and rolled his shoulder. “Ye want straight talk yet?”
As if anticipating the question, Zander quickly replied, “The straight talk, then.”
