Page 8 of A Highland Healer Captured
He didn’t answer with words, only a satisfying huff of agreement. The silence that fell between them was thick, broken only by the storm and the thud of hooves.
He dug his heels lightly into his destrier, carrying them deeper into the storm. Skylar Dunlop could curse and scold and vow revenge all she liked. In the end, she was his now.
3
The rain eased to a drizzle by morning, but Skylar’s temper had only grown heavier with each breath.
Pinned across Zander Harrison’s saddle like a prize stag, she’d had every chance to take in the breadth of his shoulders, the unyielding wall of his chest, and the merciless set of his jaw. None of it softened the outrage that scorched her tongue raw.
If he thought dragging her from the road was bold, it was nothing compared to what she wanted to do now which was kick him clean off his monstrous horse and ride Daisy back to MacLennan Keep before her mother’s shrieking reached the rafters.
Instead, she gritted her teeth and waited for her chance.
Suddenly, shadows began to flicker through the trees, first two, then four, then nearly half a dozen. Zander did not so much as lift a hand as the men emerged as though they’d been part of thewoods all along, riders in dark cloaks and muted tartans, every one of them armed.
So, he hadnae come alone. Of course nae.
Skylar’s stomach knotted tight and her thoughts ran wild, turning her outrage cold for one fleeting instant, and she twisted sharply in the saddle.
“What if I hadnae been out on the road?” she demanded, her voice carrying over the patter of rain. “What then? Would ye have taken me whole family hostage? Me father, me mam? Tell me, Laird Strathcairn! What carnage did ye plan for the MacLennans, should yer little kidnapping trick have failed?”
The men glanced at her, then at their laird, but none answered. Zander’s arm cinched tighter around her waist, holding her steady without so much as a grunt.
“Yer tongue runs quicker than yer horse, lass,” he said evenly. “Ye’ll tire it out long before ye tire me.”
Skylar huffed, seizing on his indifference like a gauntlet thrown. “Och, is that so? Well, ye should ken I can talk longer than any priest’s sermon, and louder too. Me cousin, Ariella, the one who’s on her deathbed, says I can out-chatter the hens at the byre when they’re all at once laying eggs. And Scarlett, me eldest sister…LadyCrawford, says me mouth’s me sharpest weapon. I daresay she’s right. I’ve shamed half our cousins into sense with nay more than a sentence. Shall I tell ye about them all?”
Zander exhaled through his nose like a man well used to weathering storms. “Spare me.”
But Skylar did not.
She launched into a relentless litany of Mabel, sweet and steady, with her new husband Campbell. Then, of Scarlett, sharp and shrewd as any man. Her father next, who could silence a hall with a glance but never silenced her, and her mother, who carried more opinions than Shioban had keys at her belt.
When she ran out of family, she turned to distant cousins, then neighbors, then the clan dogs. She told the tale of Fergus MacReady’s gout twice, and Bess’s cough thrice.
The men chuckled quietly into their beards, exchanging glances as if they’d stumbled upon a traveling jester instead of a captive healer. But when they spoke, their words slurred into lilting burrs and clipped vowels she barely caught. It was a different than the inland Highlands where her clan was. Too thick and hard for her ear to follow. They may as well have been muttering spells for all she understood.
Skylar narrowed her eyes, refusing to let the sting of ignorance still her tongue. “What was that? Speak plain if ye dare. Or is that brutish chatter so dull it cannae survive the air up here?”
One of the men grinned, flashing missing teeth, but he said nothing she understood. Another muttered something that drew a ripple of laughter.
Skylar lifted her chin higher. “Och, laugh while ye can. I’ll have me chance, and when I do, ye’ll be sorry ye didnae gag me.”
Zander only squeezed her closer, his voice a growl at her ear. “Let them laugh. They ken who leads, and it’s nae ye, lass.”
Her jaw worked. She’d rather die than sit meek in his arms. So she kept talking. She first started in on herbs, about how she’d cure their ailments if only they’d let her down for a moment, about the right way to steep yarrow tea, about how MacLennan hounds were better hunters than his men. She needled, prodded, scolded, and lectured until her throat ached and her voice rasped.
None of it rattled him. None of it even dented his blasted calm.
It was not until that night, the second night, when they camped just west of Oban by the ruins of an old stone keep, that Skylar’s tongue finally stilled.
She sat by the fire, wrapped in her damp cloak, her jaw sore from talking and her heart aching from silence. Around her, Zander’s men spoke in their strange, thick drawls, the firelight throwing their shadows long against the crumbling walls.
This is me chance.
The stones around them were jagged, half-collapsed, full of dark corners where a lass might slip unseen. The men’s laughter rolled loud enough to cover a footfall. The wind whippedthrough the ruins with a mournful howl, a sound that could swallow a sharp gasp or the scrape of a boot against rock.
She tugged her cloak tighter and glanced at Daisy, tethered a few paces off, her ears flicking at the night air. If Skylar could reach her, if she could mount and slip away before Zander turned his hawk’s gaze back on her…
