Page 67 of A Highland Healer Captured
“Ye’ll do nae such thing,” Skylar said, horrified and secretly pleased in the same breath. “I’ll nae have ye fussin’ with me while yer hands are already full.”
“Fuss is joy on Kirn,” Mairead said stoutly. “Let me have it, hen.”
Zander watched them with a warmth he didn’t invite and couldn’t quite banish. He liked the way Skylar’s voice softened when she saidnayto kindness.
He liked that a woman who could cut a man from death’s hand still flustered at being fussed over.Saints—he liked too many things he had no right to like.
They moved on. At the far edge, a weaver from the parish beyond the ridge spread bright shawls over a rope, each a little sunrise. Skylar slowed, fingers hovering but not touching, eyes greedy as a child’s.
“Ye can in fact touch cloth,” Zander said dryly.
She glanced at him. “Ye’ll think it nonsense, but I can tell how a shawl was washed by the feel. Vinegar, lye, or stream. Lye makes the skin on a tired neck itch.”
“Then pick one that will nae itch,” he said before sense could catch his tongue. “I’ll see it paid.”
Her brows jumped. “I didnae ask?—”
“Ye did with yer eyes,” he said, surprising them both. “Take it, Skylar.”
She looked back to the line, fingers finally daring a brush. She didn’t choose a flaunting color, not the type of red that would shout “I’m here!”from the wall-walk. She chose a deep barley-gold with a thin strip of river-blue.
When she turned, the stripe made her eyes look greener. He filed that treacherous thought away and paid the weaver with a nod.
“Thank ye,” she said, voice small. Then, as though remembering herself, she added briskly, “It’ll do for early mornings with the lad. The solar gets a chill at times.”
“The shutters stick,” he said. “I’ll set oil to the hinges.”And yer neck will nae itch, he didn’t say.
They passed a cooper’s apprentice lining up small casks like fat soldiers. The boy saw Zander and nearly dropped a hoop. Skylar crouched beside him without ceremony.
“Mind the angle of yer stave when ye fit it,” she said, tapping an edge. “Else the seelin’ wax will weep.”
The boy blinked, puzzled. “How’d ye?—”
“She sees what her trade is nae, and mends it anyway,” Zander said, only half in jest. “Do as the lady says.”
They walked on, Skylar quiet now, the shawl folded over her arm. Quiet, for her, wasn’t silence. He could feel the questions stacking behind her teeth like kindling until finally, she lit one.
“If a body had to move quickly from the east row o the north hedge,” she said—a throwaway tone, too casual by half— “would they be hindered by carts or pens at dusk?”
“Hindered,” he said, not slowing. “The cattle’ll bottle the track.”
She made a soft noise he didn’t like. He pretended he hadn’t heard it. She tried again, light as thistledown.
“And if a person needed to fetch water in a hurry for scalding or burns, where would the nearest bucket line be?”
“By the river bend and the pump by the mill,” he said. “And another—” he pointed— “there, where the ditch meets the hedge.”
“Good,” she murmured. “For burns.”
“Mmph.” He let the sound rumble in his chest and kept his face carved. She was mapping. Every line of her was mapping. Hetold himself healers did such things. He told himself she was thinking of scalds and cider, not of gates and shadows.
He told himself many things because the other thought—that she meant to slit herself through his watch like a fish through a net—put a cold in him he refused.
They looped the outer hedge. Two crofter wives argued about whose pies would go closer to the dancers’ square as if space itself were a husband to be stolen. Zander put them two stalls apart and ordered a wreath of barley to mark each, so neither could claim pride or slight. Skylar watched him settle it with three words and a grin, and something hot and domestic punched him under the ribs.
“Wipe that look,” he muttered under his breath.
“What look?” she said, feigning innocence so badly it drew a laugh from him, low and unguarded.
