Page 58 of A Highland Healer Captured
Just us?
“Aye?” she managed, standing up from the hearth and smoothing her apron. “Katie’ll manage Grayson?” she managed to say, though her pulse misbehaved.
“Katie, Mason, the men, and probably half of the saints,” he said. “We’re nae goin’ far. A mile and a bit to Balmachrie—market’s up, pies hot, gossip hotter.”
“Ye’re tempting me with pies now?”
“I’m led by strategy,” he said solemnly, though his eyes warmed. “Bring yer cloak.”
They walked by the inner gate, past the Grayson’s elm — At least that’s what Skylar has taken to calling it.
The morning was sharp enough to pink her cheeks; the road took them along a low stone dyke where sheep wandered blissfully unaware of their surroundings. Zander kept his stride easy for her sake. It should have irritated her, but it steadied her instead.
“Ye’re nae taking a guard?” she asked, glancing back once.
“The guard’s in front,” he said, pointing ahead of them. Skylar saw nothing and no one so she eyes him skeptically, lifting an eyebrow. Zander sighed and touched his chest, “Honest, ye’ll probably see them when we get to the market… And ye bite hard enough for three men anyway. I daenae ken why ye’re suddenly so worried about it.”
She snorted, unwilling to let the laugh escape. “ThatI do.”
Balmachrie came into view ahead of them. There were whitewashed cottages, between them stood proud stalls full of goods and ready for sales, and the aroma of fresh baked bread wafted in the low, thin smoke that hoovered along the stone walkways.
Zander kept his shoulders loose, his mouth easy. Folk bowed, nodded, pretended not to stare. Skylar felt their eyes follow her, and she stood proudly anyway.
“Me Laird,” someone called, and Cora appeared from a crofter’s kiln, skirts tucked, hands flour-dusted, cheeks bright. “I’ve been gatherin’ the supplies —”
“I can see that, well enough, Cora,” Zander said, gentler than the words, extending his hand toward her silently. “We’re taking air. If ye’ll let us take our leave from ye, we’ll finish the list from here.”
Cora’s gaze flicked to Skylar’s face, quick and clever. “Mistress. Me Laird,” the lass said, quickly handing the list to him with a slight bow, and then vanishing.
Zander moved with Skylar between stalls wordlessly as he reviewed the list from Cora. He navigated them almost expertly through the throngs until they reached their first stall, where he bought a meat pie from a woman who addressed him as if he were a truant son.
With a boyish smile on his face, Skylar observed as he tore the steaming pastry in two, and handed her the half with the visibly crispier edge.
“Hot,” he said, eyes connecting with hers, before she brought the half to her lips. As her lips parted, she watched in amazement as Zander shoved the entire half into his mouth, and unflinchingly devoured it.
“I’ll take yer word for it,” she returned, nibbling the corner, ears burning.
He reached behind him and picked up another pie, lifting it to offer her another half and Skylar shook her head incredulously.
Wha —Are ye mad?She lifted her barely touched, still steaming half of the first pastry.
Zander shrugged and took another massive bite out of the new pie before gesturing the uneaten part ahead of them in an obvious direction for her to follow.
They ate and walked; walked and ate. He bartered with a drover for honey dark as a sermon, tasted it on the flat of his thumb and lifted the jar toward her with a look that said for the boy more clearly than his mouth. She nodded, throat tight. She peered at dried apples, pressed the seam of a jar with a healer’s squint, chose nothing because everything felt like too much and too little.
At a small cloth stall, she paused. A length of undyed linen lay folded, fine and even. She ran two fingers across it and felt the right softness for bandages and the right strength for washing. Zander saw the feel in her hand and spoke to the stallholder before she could stop him.
“That length,” he said. “And the narrow tape.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it because the cloth in her fingers felt like a prayer answered. “I could have?—”
“Aye,” he said. “But now ye daenae have to.”
He paid. The stallholder wrapped the cloth in brown paper, tied it with string, and Skylar took it.
“Ye’re outrageous,” she muttered as they left the row. “I’ll nae be in debt to ye.”
“Good,” he said. “I like lists. I can pretend they’re orders.”
