Page 40 of A Highland Healer Captured
“Should dothatanyway, huh?” Skylar hummed, and turned toward the door, telling herself for the hundredth time that she could hold two truths at once. She could save a ladandplan to leave him. She could despise a lairdandstill like the way his voice caressed her spine.
She could, and she would.
13
Zander waited in his study with the kind of stillness that made men mistake him for stone.
His eyes burned, unblinkingly staring at the fire that had burned down to a brilliant orange. It’s heat was steady rather than showy, a discipline he envied. The last of the day’s papers lay squared beneath a weight in front of him, their edges nead because he’d straightened them twice.
The permits for stalls, a note from the cooper about a leaky stave, a brief from Fergus on placing the drovers’ pens farther from the west wall lest they foul the yard before the Kirn even began. He’d read each twice and signed once.
He’d told himself this was an ordinary evening. He would just call in the healer, have her write to her family, and keep a hand on the thread of her words so it didn’t run to warning or plea.
But ordinary nights did not sit in his blood like this.
The quiet in the room was too sharp, each tick of the hearth settling like a hammer in his skull.
I’ll nae lose control with her again.
His body betrayed him. He shook his head even before he finished that sentence, knowing it was a long shot. His mouth watered at the very want for her. His neck strained at the memory of how she smelled.
Zander shoved a hand across his face and exhaled heavily through his nose.
He found himself shifting in the chair, flexing his shoulders as though the linen of his shirt were too tight across them. His jaw ached from being held closed too long.
“Ye ken I probably have somethin’ that’ll ease that pain in yer shoulders…” her voice caressed every cell in his body.
She had slipped in without knocking. Suddenly, the room changed—not the air, but the way it sat in his chest. Her hair was braided close to her neck, a few damp strands curling at her temples as if steam had lifted them, and her apron bore the neat, small stains of a woman who worked and did not apologize.
“What’s that?” he asked, setting his palms flat on the desk and pressing until the grain dug into his skin.
“Ye sent for me,” she redirected, and her accent was so incredibly soft with vowels like heather. The way she spoke made him think of quiet hills he’d never had time to cross.
“Ye owe yer family another letter, lass” he said. “Yer faither will expect word. And probably yer maither as well.” He let the corner of his mouth tilt, just enough mockery to see if she would answer it.
She didn’t meet him with teeth for once; she came a step toward the desk and set a scrap of folded paper there. “Cora has a list,” she said.
“Told her that all of them must be of good quality this time, nae the crumble shoved in a bag that’s too small that we got from the first laddie. And all the others on the list are for a specific use. I cannae finish this one without all of them.” Her gaze flicked up. “I gave her the list so she could catch ye this evening while ye still had patience.”
“I ken,” Zander said. “I approved it.”
She blinked. “Already?”
“An hour ago.” He pushed the paper back toward her, unnecessary proof. “The storehouse tally matches what ye asked for. Mason is bartering with a drover from the east for the bark; if the man plays sly, I’ll empty a purse on his boots and be done with it. I willnae have Grayson waiting on a fool’s pride.”
She stood very still. Gratitude didn’t sit easy on her face. It made her eyes brighter, and her mouth soften, and for a breath he had to look past her shoulder at the fire so he could keep his voice level. “Thank ye,” she said finally, and the words were not grudging. “Then we can be in the surgery by morning.”
At the sight of the shadows under her eyes, Zander shrugged, “By tomorrow, should be. Evenin’ at the latest.”
“Aye.” She moved to the chair opposite his desk and set her fingers on its high back, as if she needed something solid close at hand to keep from floating into argument. “I’ll write me letter first, then, as ye asked.”
He laid two sheets of parchment and a quill between them, turning the inkwell so it caught the light. He’d meant to stand over her shoulder and watch every curve of ink to be sure she didn’t weave warning into courtesy, didn’t tuck a blade inside the fold of a phrase.
But when she sat and drew the paper close, he found himself stepping aside, a pace and then another, until the back of his knees touched the bench near the hearth and he leaned there instead, arms folded, watching the line of her neck.
Her hand moved with a calm he respected. She didn’t fuss or blot or lift her head to test him. She wrote as if the words existed in the world and she had only to arrange them, so they’d lie neat on the page.
The memory of her mouth under his came unbidden—the shock of her kissing him back with a fierceness that had nothing of surrender in it—and he bit the inside of his cheek until the thought lost its edge.
